'I will make out a list of dishes now,' said the captain.
Mrs. Davis fetched a pencil and slate, and Captain Jackman, in the time that the well-known poet, Smithson, takes to turn out a sonnet, safe in the applause of fifty other Smithsons, had made out a really handsome dinner for those days of plaindishes. He then left the inn, and walked slowly up the High Street, looking into the shops on either hand, until he came to a jeweller's shop, at which he made a stand.
After inspecting the furnished window, he entered, and said to a bald-headed man behind the counter—
'This is a little place for a big order.'
'I hope not, sir. There may be larger shops, but there are not a better class of goods.'
'I want the very best,' said Captain Jackman, looking darkly at the bald head. 'Show me the best bracelets in your possession.'
'At what price?' stammered the old fool.
'I said the best,' thundered Captain Jackman, 'and I want one without delay.'
The man with the bald head produced a number of bracelets. They were not very good. He knew it, and did not make much of them. The captain pish'd and tossed them, and was going, when the bald-headed man cried out suddenly, as to an inspiration—
'I beg your pardon, sir. Six monthsago, a family in this neighbourhood failed, and amongst the stuff sold was their jewellery. Some of it came into my hands. I can let you have the most magnificent bracelet you ever saw, providing that you don't care that it is second-hand, and I will give you a guarantee that I will return the money should the lady find out that it was ever worn.'
'Right,' said the captain.
The man disappeared, and the captain stood in the shop door looking at the town; then returned on the jeweller re-entering. The man, with a proud eye, placed on the counter a very beautiful bracelet, of old pattern, sparkling with diamonds and precious stones, massive, and wrought into some device of serpent.
'London shall not beat this, sir,' said the shopkeeper.
'This suits me,' answered Captain Jackman. 'How much?'
The shopkeeper had clearly just made up his mind.
'It is a second-hand article, sir. I'll not charge you more than forty-five guineas.'
The captain carefully examined the thing. He admired it hugely; it was probably a hundred years old, and was, perhaps, cheap at a hundred guineas. It was a beautiful gift for a beautiful woman, and the captain, putting it down, pulled out a handful of gold. The bald-headed jeweller stared at the sight of so much money. He was to stare at another handful before forty-five guineas could be told.
'Pack it,' said Captain Jackman, in the abrupt commanding manner of the sea; 'and give me a pen and ink and paper, that I may send a letter with it.'
The jeweller cleared a little table for him, and set a chair at it, and the captain began to write. It was a fine, dashing hand, a gentleman's hand.
'I have respectfully to entreat Miss Conway's acceptance of the accompanying trifling memorial of an incident which must have turned out a terrible tragedy to me, but for her noble bravery. So poor a jewel cannot possibly express the sensations which accompany it.
'Walter Jackman.'
By the time this letter was written, the jeweller had packed the bracelet.
'Address it,' said the captain, and he gave the address. This done, he exclaimed, 'Have you got a messenger you can trust?'
'I have my son, sir.'
The son was working upstairs. In a few minutes he was on his way to the home of the Conways, with the beautiful gift and letter in his pocket, whilst Captain Jackman, bestowing a farewell nod on the jeweller, stepped forth to take a view of the town, and to see what the little harbour was like.
Captain Jackman walked down the steep street watched by the jeweller and a hairdresser who had stepped from opposite when the captain marched off.
'A few of him would open these cliffs and let in more houses and people. God bless me! I never thought to sell it, andyethe's got a bargain.'
'What's the article?' inquired the hairdresser.
'A bracelet. It's cost him forty-five guineas. I believe he'd have given a hundred for it.'
'What is he, do you think?'
'A sailor, I should say.'
'Did he pay cash?'
'Bright cash.' And the jeweller, half-closing one eye, pulled out a handful ofglittering sovereigns, at which the hairdresser gazed with admiration.
'Perhaps he's the gent that got himself lost in the Devil's Walk,' said the hairdresser.
The jeweller smote his thigh and cried, 'That's it! And the bracelet's gone to Miss Conway.'
Captain Jackman disappeared from their gaze. He turned the corner of the long gap, which was scarcely made a street of by the row of houses on top, and found on the right a short wooden wharf about whose piles the seas were toiling. A number of fine fishing-boats lay off this wharf, and rode the rolling comber with perfect grace to their anchors. Westward, beyond this wharf, was a sort of natural harbour; but it was evident that the place was only used by the men for convenience, and that they landed their catches in other harbours.
'Well, what's doing here?' said Captain Jackman to a tall, powerfully built seaman in the rough dress, heavy boots, belt, and hanging cap of those times.
'There we are,' said the man, pointing to the smacks rolling broadside on to the wharf.
'But do you fish in this part?' said the captain.
The strong man, with a face put together in pieces like masses of putty, answered—
'We fish where we think there is anything to be caught.'
'What's the smuggler doing down here now?'
'Oh, they're all gone away to the east'ard!' answered the man, with a note of indifference.
'But they thought well of this place once upon a time. Men must live to learn that they're fools. Who would sail a hundred and fifty miles to run a cargo when he may set it ashore on this coast with only the danger of a third of the distance? Were you ever at sea as a sailor?' said the captain.
The man smiled, and showed his immense yellow teeth, and, pulling off his cap, combed down his grisly hair.
'I've served at sea on blue water thirty years. I've come to this because I can earnmore money by it. I've served in men-o'war and merchantmen, and was second mate of the West IndiamanSirius.'
'What's your name?' said the captain.
'Bill Hoey,' answered the man.
'Where do you live?'
The man gave his address, which Captain Jackman entered, along with the name, in a pocket-book.
'Have you got any family?' said the captain.
'An old mother turned of ninety. I buried my sunshine twenty year ago.'
'How would you like to take a voyage with me in a fine brig?'
'On what errand?'
'Simply a voyage of discovery. We would discourse that matter on board, when all hands were assembled.'
'How would you rate me?'
'Can you take the altitude of the sun?'
'Yes, sir.'
'You shall be my chief mate. I like your looks.'
The man grinned and said, 'How about the money, sir?'
'I am my own owner. There will be no difficulty about wages. Here's my name and address.'
He scribbled them on a fly-leaf of his note-book, tore the leaf out, and the man, after reading it, put it into his breast.
'If you know of other likely lads who have a fancy for a brisk and merry voyage from London town to the Land of Romance, and who are willing to count their pay in sovereigns instead of shillings, I shall feel obliged to you,' said the captain.
Bill Hoey touched his cap. He was beginning to regard this gentleman with admiration.
The captain stood bending his brows in a searching glance along the ten or dozen men who were hanging about the wooden wharf, leaning against the timber heads smoking and talking in growling notes; then with a sharp 'Good day,' he whipped round and walked up the gap.
When he arrived on top of the cliffs, he turned to his left and walked a couple of miles along the edge, pausing where a curve gave him a view of the coast. He soughtalso with keen eyes inland. It was clear from his looks, after he had turned on his heel and struck for the town, that this place, or its vicinity, was not to his taste. He pulled out his pipe and lighted it; but the brave wind, gushing in a blue fountain over the edge of the cliff, made but a short smoke of it for him.
He amused himself in various ways that day, chiefly in asking questions about the practices of the smugglers when they used these parts. He gained a great deal of information from the bald-headed jeweller, whom he saw leaning in his shop-door. He asked him if the bracelet had been delivered, and they fell into conversation, watched by the hairdresser opposite, who wished his father had bred him a jeweller.
This jeweller had much to tell of midnight affairs down on the wharf, and landings contrived on the beach amidst a crackling of blunderbuss and pistol. The revenue people, he said, had always been, as they still were, as determined and heroic as their foemen.
'But,' said Captain Jackman, 'I am told that you have no revenue people left here.'
The jeweller answered—
'There is one, I believe, paces the cliff side 'twixt——' And he named two little places on the coast.
'That's to the east'ard,' said the captain.
'Yes, sir. For some unnameable reason, considering they had taken so much trouble in the Devil's Walk, the whole body of the men sailed east.'
'So that further west, and further west still,' said Captain Jackman, 'you'll scarcely find a look-out.'
'I doubt if you'd find one.'
'Why don't they run their goods west, then?' said the captain. 'No look-out is what they want, isn't it?'
'They'd be watched and followed, sir. It is a difficult calling, full of blood and murder. It don't seem worth while, for my part. Some comes off with profits worth naming; but the gains on the whole are poor, and the gibbet's rope is dangling over their heads all the time they're earning their desperate living.'
'So it is,' said the captain, and he strolled across to his little inn.
At six o'clock the table was prepared, and Captain Jackman was awaiting the arrival of his guests, who appeared on foot as the church clock struck the hour. Miss Conway was rosy red; her first words were—
'Captain Jackman, I have not words to thank you. This is indeed a glorious gift.' And throwing aside her mantle, she showed that she wore the jewel on her left arm.
'I know not what the value of my life expresses, madam,' said Captain Jackman, smiling as he perceived the bracelet. 'But if I had fifty lives to save, each one, to put it prosaically, worth a thousand, that trinket could not seem more shabby as an illustration of its worth than it now is.'
'I did not think that our little town could have turned out so splendid a piece of jewellery,' said the commander, looking around him, particularly at the old prints of sea-fights. 'It is the handsomest thing of the sort I ever saw, and my daughter should be obliged to ye.'
'She is, I assure you,' she exclaimed. 'On such charming conditions who wouldobject to release strangers from smugglers' tunnels?'
The landlady conducted Miss Conway upstairs, and she came down in a few minutes, delightful in colour, stature, demeanour, and dress. She wore her hair so that it fell thick and low on one side; the other side was balanced by a handsome comb. A quantity of frills sat upon her neck and shoulders, leaving exposed a portion of her white bosom, which was further sweetened by the late beauty of an autumn flower.
They took their seats. A man waited. It was to be a good dinner, the commander saw.
'I've been taking a look about your neighbourhood,' said Captain Jackman. 'Very pretty, and the sea view spacious, but rather tame, I fear.'
'Yes,' clipped in Miss Conway. 'Those who praise this place when the summer is glowing with roses forget the seven months of winter, the roaring chimneys, the eternal crash of sea, so cold that your marrow hardens to it! You can't leave your house for the snow, nobody can come to see you,and this is the life my father dedicates his only daughter to!'
But she did not speak in temper. No swell of bosom or sparkle of eye accompanied her words. It seemed indeed as if she merely coquetted with the point, and Captain Jackman noticed it.
'The fact is,' said the commander, fastening his eye on Captain Jackman, 'I am too poor to live anywhere else.'
'I hate poverty,' exclaimed the captain, with a scowl; 'it is the most detestable of human misfortunes. What is meant by being poor? To possess all the desire without the capacity of enjoyment. Fortunately there is no poverty at sea; money is not wanted. There is nothing to buy.'
'You shall not call yourself a poor man here, Captain Jackman,' said Miss Conway, flashing an arch look at him.
'How is a man to make his fortune in this age,' continued the captain, 'now that the wars are ended, and there is nothing to be done in buccaneering and the loose trades? What use, for example, can I put my brig to?'
'You see,' said the commander, 'being a naval man I have very little knowledge of the merchant side of the ocean life.'
'I shall sell her, she is of no use to me,' said the captain, looking at Miss Conway.
'Is she fit to go to sea?' asked the girl.
'She wants about three hundred pounds spent upon her, and where am I to get it?'
The young lady looked down with a face of remorse at the beautiful bracelet upon her wrist. It was a speech in bad taste, yet it did not lessen the beauty of his face nor the agreeable mystery he seemed to carry with him.
'I doubt if you will stop here long,' said the commander. 'Any sea-faring business brought you here, may I venture to ask?'
'None. Nothing but a wish to see if the smugglers had left some booty behind them; and to lounge about this part of the land until my finances advised me to arrive at a decision.'
'You should always be able to get command of a ship, Captain Jackman,' said the girl.
'Not so easy now I have been dismissed for theft.'
'Oh no!' muttered the commander, 'dismissed for a misadventure. Had it been theft, sir, you would not have been here, nor should we be enjoying the splendid dinner you are giving us.'
He tippled down another glass of champagne. Very good champagne it was; his eyes beamed with it and the port, and the hardness had dissolved from his looks, and his face expressed the smiling side of him.
'They'll all understand what my discharge means,' said the captain. 'I had served the owners with heroic honesty, having brought off their lumbering merchantman from a very heavy ugly pirate, right amidships of the Atlantic. We made a running fight of it, and I brought the rogue's foretopgallant mast down. The villain rounded to, and my good friends' bales and tea were saved.'
'They choose to forget that,' said Miss Conway warmly.
'A shipowner,' said the captain, in a soft voice, addressing himself to the girl, 'is by birth a scoundrel, who will not forgive youone error—one oversight'—his forefinger flew up in seeming passion—'be your record the most dutiful, honourable, and lucrative of them all.'
'I can believe it,' said the commander, with a loud laugh; 'and yet you are for choosing the red flag instead of my own glorious colour.'
'How long were you at sea last voyage?' asked Miss Conway, whilst the captain gloomily gazed at the commander.
'Twenty-four months.'
'And you have had command in other ships?' she said.
'In several,' he answered.
'You are a young man,' she exclaimed, whilst her eyes lingered upon his face with evident delight, 'to have been in command so long.'
'Shall I tell you a secret, madam?' said he, smiling. 'In fact, shall I tell you my age? Then learn it by this, that I was twenty when I first took charge of a ship.'
'Very young and very creditable. It works you out at about thirty,' said the commander.
The captain bowed as if to a sentence of kindness.
He dined them as sumptuously as the shops of that place could provide: and after dinner they went upstairs to a spinet, where Miss Conway gave them some music. She played very prettily, and sang also. But her singing was not of the fine quality you would have expected in a girl who possessed a voice. Captain Jackman's eyes were riveted to her all the while she sat at the spinet; and he declined to give heed when the sturdy old commander slung a question across the room to him in the midst of his daughter's performance. A strange old room in a vanished inn! You can dine on the site, but not in the house. It was probably then a hundred years old, was low pitched, wainscot bright with time, ceiling covered with carvings of flying Cupids and fruits, and the furniture was in keeping, dull, dim, and dusty.
Thus they amused themselves till about half-past eight, during which time the commander and Captain Jackman drank some hot whisky-and-water. They then lightedtheir pipes and sallied forth, the commander pausing in the bar to sing out in a deep bass voice—
'A very good dinner, Mrs. Davis. I would never wish to sit down to a better.'
The good woman, who had really done her best, dropped curtseys in the fine old English style, coming round out of the bar that she might continue to curtsey, until the lady and gentlemen were in the street.
Commander Conway was by no means anxious that Captain Jackman should see them home; he felt sure he must be tired; he had been on his legs all day; it was a long walk, and then there was the walk back. The captain said he would accompany them part of the way only, and strode on the young lady's left, where the beautiful bracelet was. They talked together, and the commander did not seem to greatly heed; in truth the coming out into this strong fresh air had a little staggered his senses.
'Ours, Captain Jackman, has been a strange meeting,' said the girl. 'I shall never cease praising my judgment for taking a walk on the sands that morning.'
'I owe my life to you,' said he, in a low, somewhat impassioned voice, 'and mean to keep it for you. Let you marry whom you will, I marry no one but you.'
At this extraordinary speech she walked a little fast, so as to carry her ahead; but she fell back easily into her place, whilst her father on the other side of the captain was singing, 'The Bowline's Hauled.'
'I would rather not talk of anything of this sort at present,' said the girl, after a prolonged pause. 'You are not, I hope, returningverysoon?'
'Not too soon,' he answered.
'What's that light out there?' shouted the commander, pointing to the dark and troubled slope of sea.
'A flare of distress,' answered the captain.
They stood looking, talking about the light, which presently disappeared, and when they walked on all three chatted. The conversation was general until Captain Jackman bade farewell to them about half a mile distant from the commander's house.
'I don't like him. I can't make up my mind to like him,' said the commander, ashe trudged with a roll forward towards the square shadow where his own square shadow lived. 'He is liberal with his gifts, and gives a good dinner.'
'And for that he is to be abused!' exclaimed the girl. 'Considering he is a sailor, he is the most perfect gentleman I ever met; much more so than the rough and cursing creatures you meet with in the navy. He has a beautiful face, and his attention to me that night in the tunnel never shall I forget while my heart beats. You don't seem either to much value the life of your child in your abuse of the man.'
The commander trudged on more rapidly. He was sleepy, and besides, Miss Conway, imperious, sarcastic, overbearing, always conquered the square little fellow, whatever might prove the discussion.
Now for the next two days nothing was seen of Captain Jackman. Miss Conway was mortified and astonished. Could it be possible that the giver of the magnificent bracelet, the partner in their tragic experience under earth, the man who had cleverly run acquaintance into friendship in a single daythrough a hospitable and sparkling occasion; could this man, after what he had said to her last night, have slunk away on the coach for a fresh destination, contenting himself with having made a fool of another girl and paid a fair price for his valuable life?
She walked down the one street, and in and out of it. She walked on to the wharf. She strolled where she thought she would meet him.
If it is false that a girl cannot fall in love at sight with a handsome man, then this tale is a lie, for assuredly Miss Conway could not have been more in love with Captain Jackman had they been betrothed a year. On the third day, however, she was standing at her bedroom window, which gave a clear view of the reach to the crazy rail of the smugglers' hole, when she saw a figure wrapped in a cloak pass the house within gunshot. He did not seem to notice the house, but walked straight on, making apparently for the Devil's Walk. Her heart beat a little fast. She knew him. Should she go out and meet him, and challenge his reason for not calling andproving himself as friendly as he was on the first day?
She was a young woman with a character as hard as the rock she dwelt on, and she was perfectly fearless in the execution of her ideas. She had been pining for this man. He was out yonder walking. She wanted him; so she put on her hat, left the house, and followed him.
As she stepped into the road Mrs. Porter came along. Mrs. Porter was a tall, stately, stout lady, the widow of an admiral. She was the very last person that Ada could have wished to see just then.
'Ah, my dear Miss Conway,' she cried, 'I have been on the look-out for you, and meant to have called this very afternoon. What can you tell me about your wonderful night in the Devil's Walk? And what has become of the beautiful young man you were locked up with? Oh, fie!'
She shook her head with a succession of odd smirks, and continued—
'They're all saying, if he is a gentleman and can support you, you must marry him.'
'If you knew how I detest the opinionsof people you would not force them upon me,' said Ada Conway, looking very darkly at stout Mrs. Porter, and then casting a glance of blazing impatience in the direction of the cloaked figure that seemed to be making for the smugglers' trap.
'But wasn't it shocking?' continued Mrs. Porter, 'without a light, alone with a man whom you had not seen!'
'But you know the story,' said Ada, with a trifle of arch sarcasm in her tone; 'why do you want it over again, good Mrs. Porter?'
'We love to drink from the original spring, that was the admiral's favourite saying. Never trust a story or a report, he would say; go and talk to the man who figured in it.'
'Well, I shall be seeing you this afternoon perhaps, Mrs. Porter; meanwhile I'm off for a walk, far beyond your ambling paces; so farewell.'
She blew the old lady a kiss in the most gracious style of that age, then swept away without another word.
The commander, standing in his window,caught sight of her, and rushed round out of doors slap into the arms of Mrs. Porter.
'Why, commander,' began the lady, 'this is an unexpected pleasure indeed.'
'Hi! Ada, where are you going?' shouted the old seaman, in his roughest voice.
Ada half turned her face and made an ironic flourish of farewell, but spoke no word.
'She's after that man,' said the commander, with a black look in the direction of the becloaked figure. 'She's fallen head over heels in love with him, and he must either be forced out of the place or——'
'What, Captain Conway—do say what?' cried Mrs. Porter.
'Or battened down in the Devil's Walk to cry again from help for another pretty woman.'
'Give that out, and the sands will not want paraders,' said humorous Mrs. Porter.
They stood conversing. The commander was detained by the lady who would have hindered Ada. So even Mrs. Porters have their uses. Meanwhile the girl, whose heart her father knew, rough old seamanas he was, was stepping out briskly, literally in chase of the man she was determined to have a meeting with. She was only slightly vexed that her father had seen him pass; she would rather her father had been asleep in an armchair, or shaving himself in his bedroom, which did not overlook Captain Jackman. Jackman took the ground with an actor's tread; her pursuit carried the sound of her footsteps to his ears; he turned, looked, started with pleasure and astonishment, and ran forward to meet the young lady.
'I am surprised,' she cried, with her face red as fire, 'that you should think it friendly to stay away from our house for two days, never to inquire how I was after that barbarous night underground, and now to give the go-by to our home.'
He held her hand whilst she spoke, and answered, 'I was away yesterday, madam; but in any case I should not have called. I saw dislike in your father's face.'
'My father dislikes everything that is not aged and rotten. He buys old books, and if they're printed in characters he can't read,so much the better. He believes in the ships of a hundred years ago, and laughs with a sneer at the line-of-battle ships of to-day. He has lived for years a stagnant life; it is a pond on which all sorts of ugly weeds grow and blow. Do not concern yourself with his dislike. Where are you going?'
'I was going merely for a stroll as far as the entrance to the Devil's Walk. Frankly, in expectation of meeting you,' he answered, with his eyes filled with active love fastened upon hers.
The colour sank out of her face when she noticed that look. She was loved, and the truth went to her heart.
'We will walk as far as the smugglers' hole and then return,' said she, taking possession of him with an easy spirit that made him adore her grace, and wonder where she had learnt her engaging airs.
'Where did you go yesterday?'
'To a little village ten miles down the coast,' he answered. 'Did you notice the other night as we walked home the light of a flare upon the sea?'
'Yes.'
'Well, it proved, as I suspected, a distress signal. It was burnt on a roughly constructed raft which managed, by dint of boards and other contrivances, to strand itself in safety. They were eight men. I heard the tale in your town. They were smugglers who had lost their vessel by a butt-end starting. They trudged to the little village and were put up there, and are still there.'
'Are you a smuggler?' she exclaimed, looking with vivid keenness into his face.
'I am Captain Jackman,' he answered, bowing and laughing. 'No smuggler, but no scorner of the trade. I went yesterday to see those men, and think that I have secured the services of five of the stoutest of them.'
'What! for smuggling, Captain Jackman?'
'No, for a sweeter, swifter, and richer pursuit, madam, which I would whisper in your ear with feverish delight, sure of your sympathy and approval, if this hand'—he took it—'were mine.'
She began to tremble. She was beingmade love to in reality. She was a little frightened. Greatly she enjoyed the situation she had placed herself in, and said, with her head hanging down—
'My father must know what we do.'
'You want me to consult with him about our marriage?'
'Oh, not so fast, Captain Jackman,' she exclaimed, colouring with delight at his impetuosity.
'He will never give his consent,' he said. 'He doesn't like merchantmen. He hates poor men, and so I do. He'll talk of our three or four days of acquaintanceship, and heap every objection he can find and create.'
'And then,' said the girl, speaking firmly, with her face of beauty improved with an expression of decision almost feverish in its impulse, 'there is a second road.' She looked at him boldly.
'Why not take that second road at once?' he exclaimed softly, passing his arm through hers; and the love-sick girl let it lie there, and cherished it.
'No, Captain Jackman——'
'Walter.'
'Walter, then, we will be truthful and above-board; you shall go and ask my father's consent and answer his questions. He may not refuse. That would be so much better. For him now, and for memory for us in after years.'
'I would do whatever you wish. I have no queen but you,' answered Captain Jackman, who certainly was as much in love with the girl as she with him.
'How long are you stopping in this place?' she asked.
'I am at your service,' he replied.
'Well,' said she, speaking rapidly, 'we must be seen together for some days. You must call upon the commander and talk of anything but me. Then come when I am in the house by pre-arrangement, and the matter can be dealt with. Meanwhile I should like to know your reason for picking up sailors.'
'I have a scheme in my head,' he answered.
'So I suppose,' she replied; 'and I engage that it concerns your brig.'
'You are a witch, miss,' he exclaimed,smiling at her. 'Of course, the knowing that I am here seeking sailors did not put that into your head.'
'I knew nothing about that until just now,' she answered; 'but fancies rose in my head when you talked of the brig whilst we were together.'
They approached, and stood at the broken rail that fenced the stone.
'I hope you are not going below!' cried Miss Conway, flashing her eyes with command upon him. 'If you do, I protest I will bolt you down and leave another to release you. How many candles have you got?'
'I am not going to enter those caverns, believe me,' he answered. 'At the same time, I am wondering whether I could find an abandoned cave along this cliff with an outlet to the sea. There should be plenty. I do not want to go east; I mean to give the Downs, with the shipping and the men-of-war, a wide berth. Have you ever heard of such a cave?'
'Never. It may be found,' she answered. 'So you are going to turn smuggler? Icould not marry a man whose body might be hanging in air within a month of the wedding.'
'I vow I am not going to turn smuggler. I purpose something infinitely more noble and more shining. I am a decayed gentleman, and a decayed gentleman must live. They won't find me a berth ashore, so I must go to sea, where I intend, in my brig, in a week or ten days, or say three weeks, to make a fortune.'
'Father can never object to that scheme,' exclaimed the girl; 'he admires commercial adventures, and would greatly respect you for loading your ship and sailing in search of fortune.'
They continued to converse as they walked in the direction of the commander's house. Captain Jackman was mysterious, but his looks were eloquent. Ada's eyes dredged the captain's face for a hint, but got no idea. Suddenly he paused, and said—
'Here we must part.'
'In view of my father's house! Certainly not. You will step in, Walter, and dine with us.'
He seemed to shrink, with smiles full of courtesy.
'Oh,' said she, lightly catching hold of his cloak and bearing him towards the cottage, 'you are refusing a lady. I know you have no other engagement. Pray step in, and dine with us.'
Almost unconsciously the stouthearted, manly, handsome Captain Jackman found himself in the commander's garden, walking towards the commander's house; and now there was the commander himself approaching them from his back garden, wearing carpet slippers and holding a broom, with which he had been attending to his fowls.
'Oh, good morning, Captain Jackman,' he shouted, as if he were hailing the mast-head of a ship. 'Those Devil's Walks of ours seem to have exercised a pleasant fascination over your mind.'
'What do you think, father? Captain Jackman was actually passing this house not long ago without intending to call.'
'Captain Jackman's ideas of reserve may be different from yours,' said the commander.
'Yes,' she cried quickly; 'and afterluncheon I am going to show him about the place.'
'The place' was to be viewed, every street and alley, in an hour, and Captain Jackman had now been some three or four days in these parts exploring. The commander stared at the cool turn his daughter gave to things, and muttering, 'Oh yes, sir; you'll stop to lunch, I hope, you'll stop to lunch,' he shuffled out on his slippered feet to put away his broom.
One afternoon, a week after Captain Jackman had lunched at Battle Lodge, as the commander had tremendously named his trifling villa, Miss Conway was pacing her bedroom with impatient feet, slanting an eye, eloquent of purpose that had waxed almost into temper, over the old-fashioned, puckered blinds which concealed the interior of the room from the roadway leading to the town.
At this same hour, the commander, who was red in the face from having sat beside the fire, was musing over a letter in his hand.
'What can he want?' he thought, as he strutted from the table to the window to and fro. 'Does he hope to borrow money? I have not a farthing to lend him, and shouldat once insist upon returning his bracelet. Is he seeking some situation here? There is nothing vacant down at the wharf, or upon the coast, anyway, that I have heard of, though I should be glad to oblige a man who acted as he did towards my daughter in a delicate and difficult situation. I would oblige him, certainly, I have thanked him merely. He, on the other hand, has given us a noble bracelet and a magnificent dinner.'
The letter sank in his hand. The bigoted old fool stared hard into the fire. These wonderful old people, who believe in nothing but the dead thing in the ships they've sailed in, in the pap-bottle they sucked at, do not seem able to see round the corner, where the live thing absolute, and no nonsense about it, is always coming.
The hall bell clanked, and presently the servant admitted Captain Jackman. There were the usual salutations.
'So you are still amusing yourself in these parts,' said the commander. 'Pray be seated, captain.'
'It answers my purpose to linger,' answered Captain Jackman coolly.
And the commander had to own that the fellow looked uncommonly handsome, with a gentleman-like character about his beauty, which was promise of a good record.
'I thought,' said the commander, with a harsh, uneasy laugh, 'that you were here only to inspect the Devil's Walk.'
'Surely, sir, my reasons for remaining here need be known to myself only, I hope.'
'Quite so,' said the commander largely.
'But I intend,' continued Captain Jackman, 'to make you a sharer in the business of my detention, by telling you that the letter you hold is to ask you for the hand of your daughter Ada.'
'No, sir, never!' shouted the commander.
'Softly, commander. You do not seem to consider that we are truly in love, that she is over age, and——'
'And what, sir?' bawled Commander Conway.
The captain smiled.
'Keep seated,' said the commander.
He seated himself by the fire, and now the talk flowed.
'This is my only daughter, do you see,'said the silver-headed old man. 'I hope you do not mean to take her from me.'
'Every girl needs a father at the start, and a husband afterwards,' said Captain Jackman. 'This girl is too beautiful and noble in spirit to be allowed to languish on top of a cliff within sight of a single scene of the sea. Young women like pleasures—music, the dance, the theatre, the opera—they do not care for nothing but windmills and fishing-boats——' He was proceeding.
'Hold, sir!' shouted the commander. 'What portion of all this glory could you display to my daughter?'
'I will take her off a cliff to start with, commander, and anchor her close to the sights which are worth seeing.'
'What are your means? Can you support my daughter without obliging me to put my hand in my pocket?'
'I shall not call upon you for a bad sixpence,' answered Captain Jackman, with a lofty toss of his head.
The commander stared hard at him, and breathed short, then burst forth—
'But how do I know who you are? Youget locked up in a cave with my daughter, fall in love with her inside of a fortnight, and propose for her hand. I am thunderstruck. Marriage is a slow and solemn thing—a contract that is not to be thundered through as though a hurricane of need blew astern of it. You have told us your parents are dead, and I have no doubt, sir, from the sample they have left in their offspring, that they were in the highest degree respectable; but they were strangers. I never contemplated a marriage of this sort. You may have relations my daughter may find extremely degrading to her.'
'You should not talk thus without knowing,' said Captain Jackman, starting on his chair, and looking very fiery and disdainful. 'It is not customary, I think, to sweep the circle of the relations of a lady whose hand we propose for, otherwise——' He coughed.
'What does that cough signify, sir?'
'Mr. Fortt!'
The commander coloured, and looked viciously at the captain, but made no reply; in fact, he had no reply to make; for Captain Jackman, in probing and prowlingabout and asking questions, had got to hear that Fortt, who was a retired dairyman and a good-looking man with strong whiskers, had married Conway's sister, and was living with her in a handsome villa. The commander was not, by this marriage, to be driven from his guns. He stuck to his home, but he never approached the Fortts' house, nor had a word or a look for his sister and her man if he met them. On the other hand, Miss Conway regularly visited her uncle and aunt, and occasionally made excursions with them to a considerable distance, such as Canterbury and London.
At this instant she entered. She leapt in a graceful bound from the bottom step of the short flight into the room, giving her body as many swings, though always of a stately sort, as you would expect to see in some lively princess on her entrance.
'Why, Captain Jackman!' she cried with well-assumed amazement at his presence, as if she had not watched him coming, as if she had not seen him turn the corner to ring the hall bell, as if she had not heard, at the head of the short staircase, the loudconversation that had followed on his admission. 'This, our sailors here would say, is a sight for sore eyes. We are bears in a cage to you; and you do not love bears.'
'I have come, madam,' said Captain Jackman, 'to speak to the commander on a subject which must needs be of deep interest to us both.'
'What is it?' she cried, beginning to heave her breast, and looking at her father.
'Captain Jackman's called to ask for your hand in marriage,' said the commander.
'Well?' said the girl.
'I cannot give my consent.'
'Why not? Captain Jackman is a man of as good degree as you. He is a gentleman to the very heels of him, don't you know. I love him; and youmustconsent!'
'There is a mystery,' said Commander Conway, clasping his gouty hands upon his portly waistcoat, 'that troubles me, and excites dislike. What was he doing in the Devil's Walk?'
'Curiosity, sir. I have answered that. Curiosity took me there.'
'It is not satisfactory to me that the captain should have been dismissed his ship for having been innocently robbed of fifteen hundred pounds.'
'I would advise you to say no more in respect of that,' said the captain, stepping so as to confront Commander Conway. 'I am a man to force you to apologise for your infamous insinuation by carrying you to London, and compelling you to face the owners themselves.'
'I wish you to say nothing more about it,' exclaimed the commander, with an angry motion of his arm, the fist of which looked to be locked. 'What I want you both to understand is, I cannot approve of, and therefore cannot sanction, the marriage of my daughter to a stranger who had no existence to us a few days ago; who has not explained how he is to support his wife when he marries her—whether he intends to go to sea and carry his wife with him, or leave her ashore. If ashore, what sort of home can his means afford her? For, sir,' he said, looking up at the captain, who still stood in front of him, 'we know that amaster in the merchant service is not paid wages which a wise sailor would dream of getting married on. And at present you have no ship, no employ, no more probabilities of work than other people walking about the docks—all excepting a brig, upon which heirloom I make you my compliments.' And he bowed with a sarcastic air.
'There is not the slightest use,' Captain Jackman replied, 'in answering your questions, unless you intend to give us your sanction.'
Ada, fast breathing, eyes glittering, nostrils swelling, stepped round and stood beside her man—a handsome pair.
'You may depend upon it,' continued the captain, 'that if I marry this lady, I shall not trouble you; on the contrary, I think it more likely that you will trouble me.'
'What do you mean, sir?' shouted the commander.
'I have a golden scheme, and it will come off,' said Captain Jackman, with a singular smile lighting up his face.
The commander was silent for at least aminute. A minute is a long time of silence on an occasion of this sort. During the pause he eyed Jackman with a gaze of corkscrews and screwdrivers.
'I see how it is, father,' said Miss Conway, in a voice of bitter contempt, and with a manner daringly defiant. 'You mean to keep me at home all my life—or your life, which may be long, for you take good care of yourself. You mean that I should become a wrinkled old maid, without hopes of a husband, without a chance of getting away from this sickeningly dull hole, merely because it suits you, and it is convenient to you to keep me at home as a companion. You do not love to be alone. I would bear you company willingly,' she cried, with enlarged nostril, 'to your grave, though it should make me sixty years of age, if it were not for your selfishness.'
'Sir,' said the commander, 'you perceive what sort of a young lady you wish to clasp to your heart as a life partner.'
'Have I your consent to our marriage,' answered the tall, handsome Jackman, looking down at Commander Conway with abarely visible curve of contempt at either corner of his mouth.
'He would deny me a sight of life,' shrieked the girl almost hysterically. 'I am to gaze, by his command, on nothing but the ocean. We go nowhere. I take lonely walks. You saw me on one of those lonely walks, Captain Jackman, and I am thankful to remember that I saved your life. My father is selfish, and does not enter into the feelings of the young.Hehas lived, and we too must live and see life. This gentleman loves me,' she said, laying her hand with fine grace upon the captain's shoulder, and looking at her father with an expression of desperation in her beauty, 'and I love him, and we shall be married.'
The commander, not perhaps relishing the being seated whilst these two continued to tower over him, sprang up and stepped across to the other side of the table.
'You'll not marry with my consent,' he exclaimed, 'until I learn more of this gentleman's antecedents, connections, career. I don't want certificates of conduct,' he added with an arch sneer. 'I want toknow is this man who has made a bid for my family a gentleman? Next let me be satisfied as to the ways and means of this business. He is flinging his money generously about down here; he should have plenty. Will you not tell me how much you have?'
'I have told you that I'm a poor man; but that I have an occupation, and meanwhile a brilliant scheme.'
'Submit it,' shouted the commander.
Captain Jackman shook his head slowly.
'And you think I'm going to sanction your marrying my daughter—to such a man as you? What is your mystery? You shall hire the Devil's Walk, and spend a little money on decorating it, and support my daughter on the sixpences you take.' The commander laughed harshly. 'There is no room in this house, I beg to assure you, for two families; and that being so, and as you decline to give me any satisfaction as to your antecedents, and your capability of supporting a wife, I absolutely decline to sanction your marriage.'
Saying which he gave Captain Jackman astiff bow, left the room, and marched very creakily upstairs. The lovers looked at each other in silence, and then the captain kissed the girl's forehead. Tears were in her eyes.
'There is the other way,' said he, in a soft voice. 'Unnatural thoughts should be opposed by unnatural deeds. I am a gentleman—as much so as he. He knows it. He is prejudiced. He does not like my being fallen in with in that cave. He does not like the idea of having a master in the merchant service for a son-in-law. Ada,' he whispered, 'he will never consent, but there is the other way.' He made a movement so as to leave the house.
'You have said nothing about our future arrangements,' she cried.
'Everything now depends upon you,' he answered, very softly. 'There is the other way, my dearest, 'he again whispered with great significance, and a look that beamed with love.
'Stay, I will put on my hat and walk into the town with you. We can arrange at our hearts' will as we go.'
Commander Conway stood at his window overlooking the road, and witnessed this couple's departure. He was deeply incensed. But, like all fathers thus placed with an active, determined daughter who would marry a bagman sooner than remain unwedded, all that he could do was to gesticulate, and all that he could say was,no, with the emphasis of the rolling sea, and then sit down upon that 'no' and await the consequences of his heart-breaking command.
He saw old Mr. Leaddropper, a retired pilot of the Trinity House, a man with very arched legs, and a full August moon of face, and long shoes with buckles. This man pulled off his round hat to Miss Conway as they passed, and called out—
'Is father at home, missie?'
'Ay, you'll find him at home,' answered the girl.
Old Leaddropper made several turns with his head after he had got the couple astern, in order to view Captain Jackman. He had heard of this gentleman from his great friend Captain Burgoyne, an old East Indiaman, but had not seen him. MeanwhileCommander Conway at his bedroom window saw Leaddropper coming, and watched with mingled emotions the frequent looks the bow-legged pilot cast behind him.
'How do you do, Conway?' said Leaddropper, entering the house, as the commander descended the stairs. 'Fine gal that of yours!'
He walked into the dining-room. The commander followed him.
'Oh, that I was the man I looked, and felt, when the last century was eighty!' He seated himself.
'You were not just hatched even at that,' said the commander, walking up and down the little room. 'What's the news?'
'For my part I've got not a stroke,' said the old pilot, blandly following with motions of his blood-stained eyes the movements of the commander, as he placed a decanter of rum upon the table, together with a jug of water and tumblers taken from the sideboard.
'Help yourself,' said the commander.
The pilot did so. The commander took a drop, lighted his pipe, and the pilot drank his health.
'Not a stroke of news,' continued old Leaddropper. 'But stay! Blamed if there isn't a talk of some one going about working up a crew out of our little town.'
'That'll be Jackman,' said the commander. 'Certain. What can he want a crew for, and why is he found in the Devil's Walk?'
'Was that the man that I saw your daughter walking with just now?' inquired the pilot.
The commander let fall a surly nod.
'If so, he's a precious good-looking young man, with that sort of eye which tells of a right heart, so I think. His behaviour to your daughter in them vaults that night was that of a gentleman.'
'Have you come up at anybody's urgent request to do a bit of special pleading with me, Leaddropper?' exclaimed the commander, looking a little darkly upon his friend.
'What do you mean?'
'I suppose you know,' said the commander, 'that that gentleman, who styles himself Captain Jackman, wants to obtainmy sanction to his marriage to my daughter?'
'How should I know?' said the pilot, draining his glass, and looking at the decanter. 'But if it be as you say, where's the harm? What's the objection? If your gal were mine I should reckon her lucky to get into tow with one of the handsomest gentlemen I ever clapped my eyes on.'
'Blast the handsomest gentleman! How can a man support a wife on his looks? This handsome gentleman has nothing saving apparently some loose gold'—and here he spoke with a curious intonation—'which he is glad to sling about him in this quiet spot, at the rate of forty-five pounds a go. Stay!' he added, confused by his own meanness. 'He has a brig, but without capital, without a crew, without evidently any disposition to make use of the brig. How shall she count in his list of effects?'
'Young people must have a chance,' said the pilot. 'Parents are always for opposing astheywere opposed; but the fakes come out of the coil all the same, and there's no singing out of "avast!" to the sculler whoseboat has got the end of the rope. How's your gal, your very fine gal, going to get married down here? Who's to admire her? Who's to see her? Naturally, when one comes along who has eyes, he desires her, Conway; and so should I, my friend, if I could slide my life back thirty year.'
'What have you heard about this collecting of men for a crew?' asked the commander. 'Is there some reference to his brig in this job? But why should he come down all these leagues from London for men? What's being said about my daughter?'
'Nothing that's reached my ears. Nothing that could annoy ye, anyway,' said the old pilot. 'I did hear that they were likely to be engaged because of their being locked up all night under the earth alone. Some fathers would feel a little sensitive on this matter. You don't seem to have taken it to heart, commander;' and the pilot flourished his glass at his mouth, and put it down with a gesture eloquent of 'no more.'
'Am I to be told,' cried the commander, whisking round upon the pilot, and taking aim at him with the stem of his pipe, 'thatevery one who saves the life of another must marry 'em? Why, the penalty might be regarded as so violent there'd be no life-saving at all. A young man on the sea-shore would say, "I see a girl drowning; never do to save her; most indelicate for her to be seen lying in my arms in her bathing-gown!" Nothing but marriage could rescue the lady from the very compromising situation the gentleman, by saving her life, had placed her in.'
Leaddropper sniggered.
Whilst these two old sailors were conversing in the little square cottage on the top of the tall cliffs, Captain Jackman and Ada Conway were slowly making their way towards the town. The flash of the sea far down, the guns of the sea low down, the white lightning of the gulls' flight went with them; and with them rode a pleasant panorama of shipping; a line-of-battle ship was making her way up Channel; she hung sullen, and tossed with massive plunge, heaving about her the foam of a dozen breaking seas; a smart little schooner, with masts like fishing-rods, sitting low and almostlevel, save where her bow struck for domination in an abrupt leap of sheer, was cutting through her own yeast; others were glorious with the light and the life, and all that the ocean has of beauty to confer upon the fabrics which sail upon it and trust it; but none of these things did the lovers take heed of.
Probably Jackman had had enough of the sea and its pictures, and nothing short of a whirlpool or a lightning-clothed disaster, full of foam and rolling peals, was likely to court Miss Conway's eye to that wide blue flashing breast.
'Ada,' said Jackman, 'your father will not give his consent. That's as certain to me as that it is I that am talking to you.'
'Why will not he give me my way?' she cried. 'It's hard to have to take it—to leave an old father. Yet he binds me to him by nothing; we see little or nothing of each other. I am a convenience as mistress of his house. But I am not mistress, and every day makes me feel the want of independence.'
'Will you trust yourself with me in the little parlour of the "Faithful Heart"?' said the captain, after a short pause. 'I have a project I want to talk to you about.'
'After the Devil's Walk!' she cried, with spirit. 'After that, Walter, I think I should be able to trust you anywhere.'
'Come to the little inn!'
They walked down the broad, steep street, speaking little. Those who knew Miss Conway bowed with arch looks. Not often was a marriage celebrated in that steep little town. A good-looking young man straying into the place was viewed rather with astonishment than with desire. And if ever the desire came it was promptly ended by the good-looking young man's disappearance.
Here now was undoubtedly a good-looking couple, unquestionably engaged to be married; and friends bowed archly, and others stared. They arrived at the 'Faithful Heart' and entered. Captain Jackman conducted the young lady upstairs to the little parlour in which she had played thespinet that night the three had dined together. The captain was advancing to grasp the bell-rope.
'What do you want?' said Ada.
'Some refreshments for you.'
'Nothing, absolutely. Leave that bell alone, be as swift as possible, come and sit here on this sofa beside me, and tell me your secret—the secret, I presume, on which we are to get married—that is to say, on which we are to run away, as I too certainly feel it must come to.'
She spoke in hard words, but in a love-sweetened voice, and extended her hand to bring him to her. He kissed her brow as though she was a saint and he adored her.
'To start with, Ada, I am going to tell you what I never intended to hint at until we were man and wife, when our lives and interests should be identical. But your father's stubbornness must determine us, we must elope. Now, before we do that, it is my duty to reveal myself in full. I have called myself a gentleman, Ada; to you I shall endeavour to prove myself one.'
'I need no further proofs,' she answered, looking at him with a smile. 'What is this scheme, dear, which is to prove so golden, and which is to win my father's congratulations?'
The captain laughed.
'I doubt,' he answered, 'if he is of theso sweet, so delighted, I am sure, type of men.'
'The scheme!' said the girl earnestly.
'Ada, I must tell you here now what I have sometimes told you before. I am poor—a poor sailor, a stone-broke seaman with a hatred of his calling. I have been dismissed from my ship for a theft, and I look upon myself as lost. No firms owning such vessels as my dignity would suffer me to command would employ me. I am utterly poor—and thirty, and must make my fortune by acoupor end my existence.'
'You need not talk like that.'
'The comfortable grave is better than destitution, better than the cold winter's night and the thrust of the night-watch.'
'Your scheme, dear!'
'You have heard me speak of the littlevessel that is lying in the East India Docks. You also know that I have been engaged whilst here in adding to the crew I desire to collect for her.'
'You mean to go to sea in that ship?' she asked eagerly.
'Certainly, and shortly, and on what errand do you suppose, Ada? I mean to be a gentleman,' he continued, smiling with a rather hard expression, 'and I am determined to carry that calling handsomely. Now, listen, my love. Frequently from Lisbon and Cadiz the Spanish and Portuguese merchants are shipping heavy consignments in gold to the Spice and other Islands. I can ascertain the sailing of those ships, and gather their lading.'
The girl began to eye him with a crooked brow, yet with sparkling eyes.
'There is a fortune floating for a man in any one of those craft, and it is my idea, nay, it is my intention, to gut some stately galloon of her precious metal, and retire ashore upon it, living as a fine gentleman with you, Ada.'
'If they catch you, you'll be hanged,' saidthe girl, bending her dark brows at him. 'For what you propose to attempt is piracy, and the pirate is one of those dangling figures which revolve in irons, and strike horror into the wayfarer.'
'I am aware that they hang pirates. I am also aware,' said Captain Jackman, 'that I must either make my fortune or end my life. I choose the former. It can be done, and easily done, in spite, dearest, of your beautiful staring face of wonder. I intend to equip my brig with certain artillery, which shall lie hidden until we get to sea. We bend sail and reeve all gear in dock, and blow out quietly with a few of the hands. As we sail down the Channel, we touch and pick up portions of the crew which I have engaged or which remain to be engaged. I am now in possession of one of the smartest and fastest brigs afloat, newly coppered to the bends, liberally armed, with boats at her davits and the spare rig of a brigantine upon the booms, which I have contrived by an arrangement of the maintop.'
'And you mean to go to sea in this vessel to plunder ships?' said Ada.
'Yes. Are you shocked?' he exclaimed tenderly.
'Not even if you had resolved to become a smuggler—something surely lower than a pirate.'
'I shall be a pirate for a few days only,' said he, laughing. 'Gentlemen have taken to the road and lived very handsomely upon the purses they have collected. Why should not a gentleman take to the sea, gather together by a like sort of collection from various trading ships such a sum as he might suppose would suffice his wants, and sail away—either home or abroad, according to the needs of his safety?'
'It is quite true,' said the girl, whose surprise was fast fading out of her striking face, and who looked with the eyes of love at the captain as he talked, 'that gentlemen have taken to the road for a living. One got hanged. He had been a squire in Warwickshire. I have heard my father speak of a man who lived as a gentleman—who, indeed, was so; he was discovered to have supported his family of a wife and one or two children by going out upon thehighway with a brace of pistols and a mask. He would have been taken; but whilst they were thundering at his door he fell dead of heart disease, through excitement, grief, and shame.'
She allowed her eyes to linger upon his whilst she pronounced these closing words.
'All the chances will be upon our side,' said he, speaking with boyish delight, since he seemed to find a sympathy kindling in the girl with his scheme. 'The only risks I run will be from my own men. I believe I shall be easily able to overcome that difficulty.'
'You will have to confess your business to them,' she said.
'Certainly,' he answered. 'But none yet suspect it. A tall merchant ship unarmed, well laden with goods of which I shall have received notice, sails very stately out of the port, say, of Lisbon. She has a barrel or two of money in her lazarette for the planters of the Portuguese settlements. She has forty men before the mast, and twenty in officers and idlers abaft it. Presently a white gleam is seen by the light of the moon. No noticeis taken. Why should notice be taken? There are no pirates in those western seas so close aboard the coast. I wear, or tack ship, run my brig alongside, and board her, whilst half her people are asleep below.'
Ada smiled whilst she listened to her lover's repetition of the fantastic sketch she herself had drawn at her father's breakfast-table.