"For a quarter of an hour after this I carried on fine, and was delighted to spy the auld earl's looks, of approval with the corner of my ee, the joy whereof drave me off my guard; for at a well-turned period, when I intended to bring my right hand down thump on the open Bible, I missed it, and smote the new elastic pulpit cushion instead, with such vehemence, that the old brazen-clasped Psalm-book spanged up, and out over into the air. 'Kep!' cried I; whereupon auld Durie Squake, the precentor, upturned his face, and thereby caught such a bash on the nose, that baith the lozens were dang out of his barnacles. 'Oh Lord, my sair nose!' (it had not recovered the blow against the door, as already related), 'oh Lord! my sair nose is clean demolished now—I maun get legs to my specs—for the brig's brak, and flattened in on my face like a pancake!' I tried to get back into my discourse, but I was awfully flurried, and as, not knowing what I did, I let fly another whack on the desk, his lordship, who, I could observe, even in the swelter of my confusion, was laughing to himsell, turned up his gaisened pheesiognomy, andgirnedout—'I say, my lad, if ye break it, ye'll pay for't.' This put me daft—clean wud a'thegether—and I drave along at so furious a rate, and stamped with my stick-leg on the stool that I stood on with such vehemence, that in my confusion down I slipped; and the bottom of the pulpit being auld and frush, the wooden tram flew crash through, and I vanished, the iron-shod end striking Durie Squake, the devoted precentor, such a crack on the tap of the head, that I thought I had felled him clean. 'Oh dear! oh dear!' roared Squake; 'the callant has first bashed my neb as saft as pap' (he was a wabster to his trade), 'and broken my spectacles, and noo he has fractured my skull with his d—d stick-leg.' I struggled to extricate the tram, but it stuck fast, until Tam Clink, the blacksmith, gave the end of it, as it protruded into Durie Squake's desk, such a bang with his great heavy hand, as if it had been his forehammer, that he shot me up with a jerk like a 'Jack in the box,' into the sight of the astonished congregation again.
"I sat down utterly discomfited, and, covering my face with my hands, wept bitterly.
"A murmur ran through the kirk, and I could hear whispers of 'Puir callant, gie him time to collect his thochts—gie him time—he's a clever lad Saunders—he'll be a' richt presently.' I took heart of grace at this demonstration of good and kindly feeling amongst my fellow-parishioners, and making a strong effort, yet with a face like crimson—my lugs were burning like red-hot iron—I finished my discourse, and dismissed the congregation. As I passed out of the churchyard gate, I found the old lord there; it was a warm day, and he was sitting on a tombstone under the shade of the auld elm-tree, with his hat off, and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, apparently waiting for his carriage to drive up. 'Ca' canny, man,' said he, as I approached—'Ca' canny, Saunders—dinnarivefolk alang the road to heaven at that rate, man.'
"'My lord, I was seduced intil that exuberance to-day against my better judgment. It was the vanity of making an appearance before you, my lord, when I ought to have been thinking only of my Maker and the Gospel, and I have determined to humble my pride by making this acknowledgment; but I have had a sair downcome, my lord, as you saw this morning, and I deserved it.'
"'Well, well, Saunders; but Durie Squake had the worst of thedowncome, I'm thinking. However, let it be a lesson to you never to prostrate yourself so abjectly before a fellow-creature again, even if he should be a lord, Saunders; but as you are a lad of talent, and I have a regard for you, you must get over this mortification speedily, lest it rankle and spoil your usefulness, for I see you are a sensitive creature. So I'll gang down to the manse and rest my sell, and come back in the afternoon, when I will ask Mr Bland to let you preach again. So awa' wi' ye, Saunders; ca' in yere scattered thochts, Saunders—and tell Moses, as you pass Lucky Mutchkin's public, to put up the horses again. Awa' wi' ye, Saunders Skelp.'
"'Na, na, my lord—you are very kind, and I am greatly beholden to your lordship; but I canna—I canna hand up my head in the poopit again, so soon after my signal dis'——
"'Haud yere tongue, Saunders—ye're a fule. Gang till your room and cogitate, for preach you must and shall, this very day, and be d—d till ye. The dominie's gane mad a'thegither, I declare.'
"I took my excellent patron's advice, and although unco blate at first, I gained courage as I warmed with my subject, so that by the time I cam till the blessing, I was myself again; and having thus got over my mortification, I never afterwards sae far forgot myself as I had done that blessed morning."
But the humour of the following extract, which explains itself, surpasses either of the former in my estimation:—
"Next morning was the annual examination of my school, at which three ministers, one of them the celebrated Dr Soorock, were to be present, and the same passed over creditably to myself and scholars; and the doctor was very kind and condescending to the whole of us. He was the means of my being invited this day to dinner by Mr Bland. After the examination, we had walked a mile into the country together, enjoying the delight of the schoolboys, who had gotten a half holiday on the occasion, and were now rampaging about, like young colts broke loose, some jumping, some playing at football, others at shinty, while several were fishing in the burn, that twinkled past as clear as crystal; and we were returning home to the manse, when Earl M——'s equipage appeared, coming along the small bridge that crossed a bend of the stream beyond the village. Presently it was hid by the trees round the manse, and then glanced on this side of them, until the houses again concealed it. In another moment it rattled sharply round the corner, when the old earl desired his postilions to walk their horses until he met us. The moment Doctor Soorock saw the carriage go slow, he acceleratedhismotion, and stepped out and away before Mr Bland and Mr Clour, salaaming with his hat in one hand, and his gold-headed cane in the other, in rather too abject a style, in my estimation, forone who had a kirk already. His lordship was still at pistol-shot distance, and the doctor was striding on, uncovered, with his eyes riveted on the carriage, when his foot caught on the projecting steps of the schoolhouse door, and away he went, his stick flying through the window, smashing the glass down in a tinkling shower—his hat into the neighbouring pigsty, and his wig into the burn that ran by the road-side.
"'Run, boys, run,' said I, as I helped him up,—'run and catch the doctor's wig,' as it floated away down the stream, like a hedgehog covered with meal.
"'Geordie,' cried one little fellow, 'hook the wig with your fly, man—hook the wig with your fly.'
"'Allan is fishing with bait, his hooks are bigger,' quoth Geordie.
"'Fling, Allan, man, fling—one gude cast, and you have it.'
"They both missed, and the wig continued floating down until it swam amongst a flock of village ducks, who instantly squattered away from it, as if it had been an otter.
"'Cast a stane intil't, or it will soom to Berwick before nicht,' said wee Tam.
"'Cast a stane intil't, Allan, man; you mark weel,' roared Geordie again.
"Flash—one stone pitched into the burn, close to it, and half filled the wig with water. It was pretty well saturated before, so that when another flew with better aim right into it, it instantly sank, and disappeared in the Dominie's Hole, as the pool was called. What was to be done? There was a spate had suddenly come down the water, and there was no seeing into the bottom of the pool; besides, there was not a creepy in the village, so the doctor gave his wig up for lost, as well he might, and had to cover the nakedness of the land for that day with one of Mr Eland's Kilmarnock nightcaps. He bore his misfortune, I will say, with great equanimity; and in the evening we all once more resorted to the schoolhouse, to hear the boys sing, led by auld Durie Squake.
"We had taken our seats, a number of the villagers in their best; auld Durie had sounded his pitch-pipe, and the bits of callants were watching him with open mouth, all ready to open in full cry, like a pack of young hounds waiting for old Jowler's deep tongue, when the candle at his desk was suddenly blown out, and I called out in Latin, seeing that some of the bigger boys were close to it, 'Quid hac rei?' Wee Tam Stump at this louped off his seat with great energy, fearing he was about to be blamed: 'Ventus played puff, Dominie, ex that broken window, et extinxit the candle.' We had all a good laugh at this, and nothing more happened to disturb the harmony of the evening, until Allan Harden came running up the stairs, with a salmon lister in one hand, and a great dripping divot-looking thing on the top of it.
"'What kept ye so late?' said I; 'you are seldom late, Allan.'
"'I hae been dabbing with the lister the haill evening for Doctor Soorock's wig, sir; but I have speared it at last—ecce signum! Dominie.'
"A tiny buzz ran amongst the boys; auld Clour keckled audibly, and Mr Bland could scarcely keep his gravity, as Dr Soorock stirred the soaked mass that Allan had cast on the floor with the end of his cane, exclaiming—'My wig—my wig, did the callant say? It canna be my wig.'
"'Indeed it is yours, sir; there's nae wale o' wigs here,' said the handsome boy, blushing deeply—'if you but try it on, sir, ye'll find it sae.'
"The wig was finally turned over to the auld barber at the village, who dried it, but the doctor had to go home in the Kilmarnock on the following day, as the scratch was ruined for ever."
Now, a small touch at the Dominie in the "melting mood," and we bear up again on our cruise. He had returned to the parish, after having completed his education, such as it was.
"Months passed away without any thing worth notice occurring. I met Jessy often, and although some doubts and misgivings as to the state of her heart did come over me, and shake mine sometimes, still my anxiety to acquire the plighted hundred pounds diverted my mind from allowing the doubt to fester, by confining my attention chiefly to the school. Besides, the young laird, who was now studying the law in Edinburgh, came seldomer down to the auld castle than was his wont; so that altogether I began to attribute any little apparent coldness in Jessy's demeanour, either to my own fancy, or to being piqued by the unjustness of my former suspicions. Thus I struggled on, in the hope that the sum might be made up during the next summer at latest, until which time my pride counselled me to be silent.
"The long dreary winter drew on apace. The leaves became sere, and fell, and were whirled in rustling eddies along the hollows of the small woodland paths about the village,—and the bleak north howled on the hill-side, and moaned and soughed through the trees, and round the house,—and the herds began to fold their flocks in the evenings. One night, in particular, was marked in my memory indelibly by what occurred the morning after it. It was late in November, and the weather for several days previous had been rough and boisterous, but on this particular evening it had cleared. The full moon shone brightly as I returned from the county town, with a wallet of wee books for my youngest class, which I had bought there that afternoon. It was eleven at night as I got to the bridge across the stream which ran past the village; I was glouring down over the little parapet wall into the glancing water, that rushed and murmured through below the arch, and listening to the melancholy bleating of the sheep on the hill above me, and to the low bark of the colleys, and the distant shout of the herds, as the last of the stragglers were got within the circular folds, far up on the moor. Again I would look towards the village, where scarce a light twinkled, except in Tam Clink the blacksmith's shop, where every now and then a primrose-coloured jet of flame puffed up, and flashed on the blacksmith's begrimed face and hairy chest, and naked arms, and on wee Pate Clink's bit dirty face and curly pow, as the callant worked at the bellows; but the fire suddenly gaed out, and the sparks flew from a red-hot bar in all directions, under the powerful stroke of the blacksmith himsell, until the hissing iron became of a dull red, and gradually disappeared from my eye altogether. Presently the strokes ceased—the groaning and asthmatic wheezing of the bellows subsided—and the noise of the man locking the door of his small shop showed that the last of the villagers had finished the labours of the day; and I had time to notice that snow was beginning to fall.
"I got home, and let myself in without disturbing my auld father, and slept soundly till daylight next morning.
"There was none of the villagers asteer when I got up. A sprinkling of snow, as already mentioned, had fallen during the night, which had been so calm, that the white veil which covered the dying face of nature was unsoiled and without a rent, over all the level country; and the road through the village was one unbroken sheet of the purest white, unpolluted as yet by a single footstep—what do I say? there wasonefootprint there, the recollection of which is indelible from my brain, as the mark on Cain's forehead.
"As I opened the door to step forth, I noticed the mark of a man's foot, as if some one had come down the small lane, that ran at right angles with the road, and past the end of the house, towards the little projecting steps in front of the door. 'Well,' thought I—'well—it may have been my father's, or some one of the villagers may have been earlier up than I apprehended;' and I stepped on, wondering in my own mind what made me notice the steps at all. 'But I am a fool, for one does notice the footprints after the first fall of snow of the season with an interest that we cannot always account for,' said I to myself, as I stepped into the path that led to the school, where I was going to light the fire. I again started as I looked down, for I now noticed, to my surprise, that the footprints exactly resembled my own, with the round mark of the ring at the end of my stick-leg distinct in the snow. 'Why, I did not come this way home, did I?' again communed I with myself; 'certainly I did not; and there was no snow when I came from the school, before I set out for the town. How came these footprints here?—what can it mean?' and mechanically I traced them as far as I could, until the mark of the wooden leg suddenly vanished, and was replaced by the print of a boot or shoe, for a few paces farther; when the marks disappeared altogether, as if the person had turned off suddenly through a gap in the hedge. I was a good deal startled at all this—Could I have been walking in my sleep?—This was scarcely credible; I had never done so, and if I had, which I could not believe, how came my shrunk leg to be miraculously straightened on the instant? For whatever it was, man or spirit, it must have stumped along for fifty yards on a leg of flesh, and a tram of wood, and then suddenly have dropped the agency of the latter, and turned sharp into the fields on two feet, such us everyday men wear; besides, the person, whoever he was, wore iron-heeled square-toed boots or shoes; and I saw no mark of my own tackets, or roundbrogue-like toes.
"I walked on until I came to the steps of the schoolroom, in a brown study, with the crisp new-fallen snow crunching beneath my tread, and I had nearly given a second edition of Doctor Soorock's downfall before I fairly awoke to the routine of this sublunary world, and betook myself to the unromantic occupation of lighting the fire. I sat down and took up the bellows, but it seemed I had forgotten to make use of them; for there I had been cowering by the ingle-cheek near an hour, pondering in my own mind what the footprints could mean, and quite unconscious all this time that the morning, in place of getting lighter, had settled down very dark. The wind had also suddenly risen, and the branches of the auld elm that overshadowed the schoolhouse were groaning and rasping on the ridge of the roof; and Betty Mutchkin's sign, that hung on the opposite side of the road from a long projecting beam, as if it had been a flag, was swinging and creaking on its rusty hinges before the angry gusts, as they tore down the small valley. At length I was startled by the fury with which a hail shower dashed against the window at my lug, utterly demolishing in a minute the sheet of brown paper with which, until the village glazier sobered, and got a pane from Edinburgh, I hadbatteredup the fracture occasioned by Dr Soorock's cane, when he was humbling himself, and bowing down before the golden coronet on auld Earl M——'s carriage.
"'Dear me,' said I, 'what a day! It's but gloomy without, and I'm no sure that it's very cheery within; for there's a weight that has been lang accumulating at my heart, and now it has grown heavy, heavy. The lift will clear, and the spring will come again, and all nature, as if risen from the grave, as we puir deevils hope to do, will resume its primeval beauty; but a seared heart, a blighted soul,'—and I gave a heavy sigh, while the very bellows on my knees seemed suddenly to collapse of themselves, as if in sympathy, and to puff out an echo to my groan.
"I felt a rough shake on the shoulder. 'Whatareyou sitting groaning at there, Dominie?' said my father, who had entered unseen and unheard—'what are you grunting and graning at the fireside on such a morning as this for, Saunders, when you should have had a bit cheery fire in the ingle for the drookit school-callants to dry themselves at, instead of dreaming with the bellows on your knee, and the fire black out?'
"I looked, and it was even so. 'I dinna ken, father, I am ill at ease; but if I am spared'——
"'Nonsense!' quoth the hasty old sutor; 'get up, Saunders, and clap a fresh spunk to the fire, whether you're spared or no, or I'll tak ye siccan a clamhewit with my stick,'——The good old man the next moment, however, saw how it was with me, and relenting said—'but come awa hame like a decent callant, and tak yere breakfast, man; and you will have scrimp time to eat it, let me tell you, for see,'—pulling out an old turnip-shaped horologe, with great steel hands—'it is within the twenty minutes of school-time already.'
"I made an effort, lighted the fire again, and rousing myself, went forth with him towards our dwelling. The snow was fast disappearing under the pelting of a heavy shower of sleet, that had succeeded the hailstorm, and a loud clap of thunder shook the firmament as we arrived at home. I started—'It's no common to hear thunder at this time o' year, father.'
"'Come in and tak your breakfast, sir—the deevil's in the gaumerell, that I should say sae.' I did so in silence, and returned to the school, where I found myself without my hat, my hair wet and dripping, and the back of my neck chilled, from the lodging of the hail within the cape of my coat.
"One of my dreamy fits had again come over me, which, however, I struggled hard to overcome; so I sat down at my small desk, and unlocked my drawer, from whence I took out the tawse and laid them on the closed Bible, as a terror to evil-doers; and placing my watch beside them, I waited the entry of my scholars. First one wee drooked chiel came in, and syne another, but most of them were beyond the time, for the day was bad, and after they had all taken their places, there was a perfect volley of hoasting. I could not skelp any of them for being late that morning.—About half an hour had elapsed, and I had set the boys to some task; there was a loud hum in the school, from their murmuring voices, and I was looking out towards the road, at the swollen stream, that I saw but last night sparkling and tinkling over its more than half-dry channel, in a tiny stream that I could have stepped across, but that now surged along brimful, in a red discoloured torrent, tearing the trees and pailings, and whatever else it could reach on its banks away, and rolling them down with such fury, that I expected to see the arch of the small bridge sink and disappear, like a wall going down before the strokes of a battering-ram. A group of the villagers on the opposite side from where I stood were fishing out the floating timber for firewood; but my attention was soon attracted to the carrier's cart from town, that was coming along the road, with auld Hempy himself—that was the man's name that had succeeded poor Jemmy Miller in his vocation—and his wee son Andrew, cocked up in the front of the cart. The river continued to rise, and covered a bend of the road, which the cart was now approaching; it entered the water, which the horse was making flash up in all directions, until it reached the axle, but it gradually shoaled again, and the vehicle was on the point of reaching the dry part of the road, when, like a shot, man and boy, and horse and cart, disappeared amidst the roaring eddies.
"I ran out; the villagers had noticed the accident also; we all hurried to the spot. The horse was struggling and snorting, and standing on his hind legs, between the trams, in a vain attempt to get free from the cart that was dragging him down the stream, but auld Hempy had disappeared.
"'What's that? There's the callant, there's the callant—see his bit head sooming down the stream like an otter'——
"I saw it, threw off my coat, and plunged in; but the upshot was, that although Tam Clink the blacksmith saved thechild, thedominiewas near drowned; for I found to my cost that a stick-leg wasna canny to soom with, the buoyancy thereof producing a corresponding and very dangerous depression of the caput.
"We saved the boy; but the horse and cart, and Hempy himsell, were all drowned; it was the first time, I mind, that I had ever seen a dead corpse. The puir auld chiel was a stout buirdly man—he might have weighed sixteen stone; but when we gat him that forenoon, after the river had cast him ashore, stark and stiff, and carried him, and laid him out in the kirk aisle, it was fearful to observe how he had shrunk in bulk after the water had ran oot o' him; it wasna aften he took muckle o' that same in, so it was a sure sign he was dead; his stomach having fallen, had left the arch of his deep chest in fearful relief, and then the pinching of his blue features and the death-girn on his upper lip, that showed his twa buck teeth as if in anger—It was a maist awfu' sicht.
"'What! are you frichtened, Saunders?' said a voice close to me—'are you frichtened to look on a dead man, dominie? If you had been in Paris with me last summer, man, you would have seen a dozen lying every morning in the Morgue—ay, as nice and caller as if they had been haddies in a fishmonger's shop.'
"I looked up at the heartless creature. 'He was the father of a family, Mr Adderfang, and that drooked and shivering callant, that's greeting there at the head of the corp, is his son; and mair forby, he was a tenant o' yeer ain, sir, and'——
"He turned fiercely—'Keep your sentimentality for your next sermon, sir;' and he looked at me with a withering scowl that sent a chill to my heart. I felt a blighting of the soul that I would not willingly have acknowledged—a sort of crushing consciousness, that the person before me was in very deed my evil genius; but theconsciousnessof such a feeling drove me in the present instance to return his savage look as haughtily as it was given; and I made a sudden motion with my hand, which made him start back, and grasp the sma' end of his long hammer-headed hunting whip.—'I say, dominie, I do notquiteunderstand you this morning; but, by G—, sir, if you give me an opportunity I will read you a lesson that is not in your primer.'—And he raised his whip threateningly. He was, as I have before mentioned, a tall well-put-together man, as we say in Lincumdodie, and far more than a match for me, at my best, when I had twa legs, and therefore incomparably my superior in bodily strength and activity, maimed as I now was. However, I took no time to consider of all this, but making a sudden spring, I wrenched his whip from him, and as he swerved from me, he fell over the trestle whereon the body of the carrier lay, and upset it, to the great horror of the bystanders; and there lay, side by side, the living scoffer and the dead corpse. A murmur of something that hovered between applause and disapprobation buzzed amongst the group of villagers; and the wee callant cried loud and bitterly, when, as the laird was in the act of gathering himself up, Mr Bland himsell entered the kirk, and with more sternness in his countenance than I had ever seen there before.
"'Mr Adderfang,' said he to the young man, 'what is the meaning of all this?—Is it becoming in a gentleman of your rank to desecrate the House of God by heartless and ill-timed levity, first of all; for I have heard the story from one of my elders; and then to threaten an unoffending schoolmaster—ay, sir,'—for here Adderfang seemed on the point of contradicting the minister—'ay, sir, and, to the credit of your discretion be it said, a maimed man, too? Was this decent? was it gentlemanly?'
"Here the poor wife of the carrier, with her clothes dripping with water, and splashed with red clay stains from the miry road, without her mutch, her grey haffits clotted with rain and perspiration over her blue and shrunken features, and with her lip quivering, rushed into the church.
"'Whar is he—whar is he—whar is my Willie?' The instant her eye rested on the body she gave a long loud shriek, that echoed along the roof, and fell down on it senseless. We had the poor woman removed, and by that time Mr Adderfang had disappeared."
*****
But the plot was fast thickening both with the dominie and poor Jessy Miller.
Widow Miller's humble domicile was divided from the house where our friend the dominie reposed, by a narrow lane. It stood three or four yards back from the frontage of the neighbouring cottages, which afforded space for a small parterre of flowers, at one time the pride of poor Jessy's heart, and watered with her own hands; but many a hot tear had lately trickled on their leaves, down the poor girl's pale and faded countenance, and strange rumours had become rife in the secluded village of the flower of the whole strath having been tainted by the blight of some scoundrel. Her anxious and altered appearance, and the evident misery of the poor widow her mother, were melancholy proofs of the correctness of the surmise.
Gradually the sough settled down on Saunders Skelp—for who so likely to be the cause as the avowed lover of the girl, and, as people thought, her betrothed husband?
The report of Jessy's misfortune soon reached the person whom it most concerned. At first it fairly stunned him, and then such crushing misery overwhelmed the poor fellow's whole soul, when he became convinced of its truth, that it nearly drove him mad altogether.
The morning after he had been made acquainted with the heart-breaking fact, the dominie was sitting dejectedly at the breakfast-table (with his elbow planted quite unconcernedly in the very middle of the plateamong the het parritch), opposite the auldbetherel,[3] who was munching his food in silence, and eyeing his son every now and then with a most vinegar aspect. At length he broke out—"Braw wark, dominie—braw wark ye have made o't atween ye." (The poor fellow raised his disconsolate visage, and looked innocently in his parent's face.) "Ay, you may look surprised Saunders, but that sham sheep face will no deceive me; for—God forgie me, but I wonder the sicht did not turn me intil stane—I marked you come out o' Jessy Miller's window this blessed morning at grey daylicht, stick-leg and grey coat, just as you sit there, as plain as I see ye the noo."
[3] Betherel, or minister's man.Anglice, beadle.
The poor fellow was roused almost to madness at this unjust and most cruel aspersion, and denied most vehemently that he had been out of the house that morning at all. But the old manthreepedthat he saw him bodily stump through the wee garden, and disappear round the corner, where he had no doubt he had stolen in by the window of his room that fronted that way, but which he could not see from where he stood.
"It couldna be me, father; as I sall answer to God it wasna me. My wraith it may have been."
"If it wasyourwraith, Saunders, it wasna the wraith o' atimmer-leg? for there are the prints of ane to be seen till this blessed moment, amang the flowers o' the garden and the glawr of the lane. Tam Clink will vouch for this as well as me, for he saw you too."
Saunders, half crazy at this damning tissue of circumstantial, although false, evidence, rose and went out to satisfy himself. After inspecting the foot-marks, for there they were, sure enough, he returned to the house, and the first thing he did now was to gobble up his food, scalding hot as it was, as if he had been perishing of hunger. He then rose, and was rushing down stairs distractedly—when lo! who should enter but Mr Bland the minister?
Here there was a new scene of crimination; and the poor creature was like to have made an end of himself in his despair, for when he seized the big "ha' Bible," and was about making oath upon it to his innocence, the minister took it forcibly from him.
"Not in my presence, young man—not before me shall you imprecate the curse of the Almighty on the head of a perjurer."
"Minister, minister, wad you hae my death—the death maybe of sowl and body—lie at your door? Send for Jessy Miller—lost creature as she is—send for her. She will not—she cannot condemn me."
"Jessy Miller, sir!—the oath of a limmer like her is no worth a wunnlestrae."
At this he sprang forth like a wild-beast when the goad is struck into him, and out to the hill-side, nor did he venture home that night.
Listen.
"The snow had fallen about the dawning, and, benumbed with cold, I was returning from my night-lair on the damp hill-side towards the village, with a determination to flee the bounds thereof, after once more trying to undeceive my auld father; for it was a dreary thocht to travel forth burdened with my ain misery, and the heavy load of a father's curse forby. As I came down the small lane, and got my first glimpse of Widow Miller's house, I stopped to take a last look at the bit bourock that sheltered her for whom, only twa days gane, I would have shed my reddest heart's-blood rather than sin or sorrow should have scathed her, or come near her dwelling. It was as yet scrimp daylight, naebody was stirring. The only indication of life (barring the twittering of the birdies in the trees, and the crowing of the cocks) was a thread of blue peat smoke rising from a cottage in the village, here and there; but the east was fast reddening, when lo! I saw the window of Jessy's room open gently, and,what shall I say—what did I see—but a wooden-leg, so sure as I was a sinful man, protrude therefrom! I went blin'—I went blin';—as I saw mysell, grey frock, timmer-tram and all, jump into the wee garden, open the small wicker-gate, and stump away in the direction of the manse.
"I was petrified with astonishment, frozen to the spot, until my wraith, for assuredly I considered it nothing else, arrived at the gate leading into the minister's garden, when it turned; and then, as if in great alarm, suddenly rushed through the small gate and disappeared. I was roused, and now started off in pursuit at the very top of my speed, but reached the gate only in time to see the figure clear the holly hedge that screened the front of the manse, at a bound, with the wooden-leg unstrapped and flourishing in its hand, and vanish beyond it. I had then to make a small detour to get through the wicket in the fence; but before I got round, whatever it might have been, it was nowhere to be seen.
"I ran up to the door in breathless haste, and, early as it was, began to knock furiously for admittance, without well thinking what I was about. No one answered, and an open window on the ground-floor now attracted my attention. I looked in—and who should I see snoring on 'the bred of his back,' in his wee fold-down pallet, but young Moses Bland, the helper, with—I went frantic at the sight—the ghost of my ain wooden leg lying across the body!
"'Now I have run the fox to earth,' said I.
"'And wha makes such an indecent uproar at the door, at such an untimeous season?' quoth theauld minister, from an upper window.
"'It is me, sir—I Saunders Skelp, wha ye hae sae unjustly maligned, minister. Gude forgie me that I should say so.'
"'Off with you, ye scoonrel,' quoth the usually mild minister—'off with you, sir, or I'll make you repent it.'
"'Na, minister, when you are cool, you will yoursell repent your conduct to me. Here, sir, tak your cloak about you, and come downhere—you'll soon see that the evildoer is nearer a-kin to you than Saunders Skelp.'"
The minister came down, and now there was the devil to pay between him and his helper; but the latter protested his innocence so vehemently, that at length the dominie was unceremoniously ejected, with the additional accusation sticking to him, of having in cold blood, and for purposes of deceit, actually made a duplicate of his wooden-leg, in order to cast the blame on young Mr Bland. He was thus on the eve of getting set deeper and faster in the mire than ever, when in came the betherel and Tam Clink, who, being on the watch, had seen Saunders pursue his owndoubletowards the manse, so that Moses Bland once more became the subject of suspicion.
The affair was largely canvassed that forenoon at a meeting of the elders, and the injurious surmises were gaining strength against poor Moses, notwithstanding: his frantic protestations that he "kenn'd na whether Jessy Miller was man or woman." But Saunders, when he brought his sober judgment to bear on the matter, was the first to acquit him, for his kind heart would not allow him to believe that his tried friend and old schoolfellow, the helper, could be guilty of such atrocious conduct; while something whispered him that his evil genius, William Adderfang, was the villain; however little appearances in the mean time might tend to such a conclusion.
During that day, the mysterious transaction of thedoublegot wind in the village, and every ingle cheek was filled with the sound of keen disputation. The fact of the apparition was unquestionably proved by Tam Clink and the betherel, putting Saunders' own evidence out of the question; but whether it was the deil himsell, or a dweller on this earth, afforded large scope for doubt and argument. Tam Clink was inclined to believe in the mortality of the duplicate Saunders, "as he had weel examined the counterfeit tram, and it was sound maple, with nae smell of fire ava, let abee brimstane," and Tam was a judge. It happened to be a holiday at the small school, so the poor fellow again stole away to commune with himself on the hill-side, and to escape the gaze of his humble acquaintances.
It was a most beautiful breezy forenoon, and from the spot where he had planted himself, he had a bird's-eye view of theduke'shounds, on the opposite swell of the river-divided valley, and the whole field of gallant sportsmen. It was the last day of the season, and in the cover they were drawing, that was alive with red coats and white hounds (the latter diminished by distance to a handful of hailstones pattering and glancing among the dark bushes), the whips, and threescoonrel chieldswere busy digging out a litter of cub foxes from one of the earths, amidst a chorus of merry voices and loud laughter. Presently the old bitch broke cover from another mouth, when the whole pack opened most musically, and away went the jovial party as hard as they could split, their tallyho's making the whole strath ring again.
At first, the fresh air and quiet loveliness of nature had gradually stolen over his soul in spite of himself, and stilled its troubled heavings, like oil calming the stormy waters of the sea; and now the exhilaration of the scene, like the flowing tide lifting a stranded vessel off the rocks, was imperceptibly lightening that more perilous stuff, the duller load of misery that pressed closer and more suffocatingly on the poor fellow's heart—when lo! just as the foxhounds disappeared from the river, the wasted form of poor Jessy Miller was seen slowly and painfully crawling up the hill towards where the dominie sat, leaning on her staff, and feeble as an infant.
He saw her from the first, but could not move—something nailed him to the spot. She approached, but for a minute was so breathless and exhausted, that she could not speak—"Saunders Skelp!"—at length moaned the poor broken-hearted girl—"Saunders!—ye are going to tak the sacrament the morn," she paused, and leant, "pechingon her staff," as the MS. hath it—"Ay, Saunders, ye are going to commemorate our Saviour's death, and—and—I am gaun to dee, Saunders."
"The tears ran down her cheeks, and I was like to be worried mysell, for greet I couldna.
"'Saunders. Is it no written, that if thou hast ought against thy brother, thou shalt leave thy gift before the altar, and first go and be reconciled unto thy brother?'
"'Even sae—sae is it even written, Jessy.'
"'Timehasbeen when you aften said I was dearer till you than mony sisters—but that's past and gane—gane like the last winter's snaw; yet is Saunders Skelp's hate sae deadly that he refuses to tak off Jessy Miller's parting and sin-clogged soul, the grievous weight of his own bitter, bitter curse.' She waited lang for an answer, but I gied her nane—'I cam to ask yere forgiveness, Saunders—and I hae asked it'—here she grat as if her heart was bursting—'and—and—oh God, whom I have offended, cast me not off in this my utmost need—and I have been refused—one struggle more, and my task is ended, Saunders'—and she caught my hand in baith of hers whether I would or no—they were cauld, cauld as lead—'I hae deserved this; but hand my heart,I didna expect it—Saunders, I have only now to say God bless you, and to bid you fareweel for ever.' She sank down on the whin-stane at my feet—the fiend had seared my heart harder than it, and I never even offered to help her up.
"I thought she wasawaawthegither; at last, gathering strength, she spak the last words I ever heard her utter.
"'I am come to clear Moses Bland, and to richt you, Saunders.'
"Oh, the sweet low music of that mournful voice!
"'The young laird—Mr Adderfang'—shegasped, it could nae langer be called speaking—'thatserpent, William Adderfang, has been the ruin o' me—ruin here, and—and—condemnation in the world to come.'
"She bent her head, and hid her face with her wasted fingers, through which the hot tears fell fast as the rain-drops in the breeze from the shower-bedashed tree above us—when the sound of hound and horn once more swelled in the gale; and first the fox came over the wall above us, then the whole pack, tumbling tumultuously one over another down the face of the rocky precipice, twinkling hither and thither, and dropping from stone to cliff like the breeze-scattered foam of a cataract,then one solitary cavalier, who was dashed, horse and man, to the ground, close to us where we sat, the rider falling senseless, and the blood flowing from his mouth and ears. The gallant horse, however, struggled to get on his legs again, until he reached the brink of the old quarry close beneath us, over which he rolled, dragging the wounded man along with him by the stirrup, and disappeared, rattling and rasping among the loose stones and bushes. Jessy was roused in an instant; she had caught a glimpse of the wounded man's face as he was dragged past her, and giving a loud shriek, as if her heart had split in twain, dashed herself down the precipice after him, and vanished for ever from my eyes amongst the furze—it was William Adderfang!"
The issue of all this complicated misery was the unfortunate girl being carried home, and that night prematurely confined of a dead child—she never saw the sun rise again.
As for the poor Dominie, although his character was cleared both by Jessy Miller on her death-bed, and ultimately by Adderfang himself, his heart was nearly broken; indeed, the blow was heavy enough to "drive his wits a wee bit ajee," as he phrased it, ever after. In this half crazy, half desperate condition, he suddenly left friends, and house, and home, and wandered about the country, until his means of subsistence failing, he enlisted into the militia; and afterwards, as related by Serjeant Lorimer, into the marines, on the reduction of the former.
Enough and to spare of the Sorrows of Dominie Skelp; those who desire more must wait until he publishes them: but the Midge is but a little vessel, and a heavy episode would swamp her. So—
"Here, Mr Peak," struck in Dick Lanyard, who was standing close beside the small open skylight,—"clap on that purchase, and take a small pull of the main-halyards, before we keep away, do you hear? Belay all that. Now, Dogvane, put the helm up—so. Let draw the foresheet there."
"Ay, ay, sir."
And once more the wicked little Midge buzzes along free.
The day wore on without any thing worth relating. At length I was disturbed by a loud burst of laughter on deck, and adjourned to the open air. The first thing that struck me was poor little Dicky Phantom, a close prisoner in a turkey basket—a large wicker cage-looking affair, that we had originally brought from the frigate with poultry. He was crying bitterly.
"Dogvane, what has the child been doing that you have imprisoned him in this way?"
"Why, sir," said Mr Weevil, the purser, "it is a vagary of Lennox's. The child was certainly nearly overboard to-day, so, for fear of accidents, he has chosen to coop him up in this fantastical manner, as if he had been a turkey."
"Poo, poo—release him. Here, Dicky, come out, will you?"
I undid the latch, and the little fellow crept out on all-fours. As soon as he was at large, he laid hold of the cage, and would have thrown it overboard, if I had not prevented him.
"No, no, Master Dicky, it is a good idea of Lennox's; and mind, whenever you are a bad boy, in you go again."
"I was not bad boy," said the urchin; "Lennox' big mens were bad boy."
"How, Dicky, how?"
"Oh, dem shame poor Quacco—see, see, dere."
I looked forward, and noticed Quacco coming on deck through the fore-hatchway, a very extraordinary-looking figure certainly. It seemed that our sable friend had missed muster twice running; so the men thought they would fall on a method of curing him; but before they could put it in force, they had to imprison poor little Dicky, who was much attached to the negro, and evinced great grief when they commenced operations.
Their plan was this. They got some molasses, and anointed his woolly pate as he slept, and then, with the cook's dredging-box, they plastered the same over with flour, and left him in his hammock, in place of rousing him out to take his morning watch. They thus converted his pate into a regular cockroach trap, for those horrible beetles crowded from all corners of the 'tween-decks, and settling down on the molasses and flour, soon got their feet entangled and their wings besmeared in such a way that they could not start either tack or sheet, but were glued in a living web of abomination to the poor devil's head. I took Dicky in my arms, and Quacco toddled aft. Although I was angry, I could not help laughing at the figure he cut, with his white head, like a large cauliflower, bespangled, not with bees, but with large brown beetles, who were fluttering with their wings, and shaking their long feelers or antennae, and struggling to get their legs out of the bog of treacle and flour; while the poor fellow, half asleep, was as yet in a great measure unconscious of his situation. At this nick, Old Lanyard came on deck.
"Who has done this? I say, men, if you make a beast of the poor devil in this way again, mind your hands—that's all. Here, cook, take Quacco into the bows, and let your mate scrub him clean."
"Why, we shall have to cut his wool out, sir."
"Hair, if you please, Massa Draining," interjected the culprit himself; "sheep hab wool—black gentleman wear hair."
"Yes, and he should pay the powder tax," said I, laughing against my will.
"Well, well, Drainings," continued the lieutenant, "do as you please, but have him cleaned instantly; his appearance, with those crawling insects amongst the wool—hair, I beg pardon—is shocking; so forward, Master Quacco, and be scrubbed."
"Ay," quoth little Dicky, "forward Massa Quacco, and be scrub;" and great was the laughter and shouting at the shearing of Serjeant Quacco.
********
"What is that flying on board the Gazelle, Mr Peak?" said Lanyard.
"The signal to chase in the north-west, sir."
"Mast-head there," the lookout-man answered; "do you see any thing in the north-west quarter?'
"No, sir," replied the man.
"Very well. Turn the hands up, Mr Peak, and make sail."
This was accordingly done; and, after having hauled our wind about an hour, we saw the vessel, which the frigate had seen so much sooner than us in consequence of the greater height of her masts. We chased the whole forenoon; and, as we rose her, made her out to be a large merchant-ship under all sail, evidently desirous of avoiding the pleasure of our society if she could; for, verily, like the ugly face of many an honest man, our appearance was far from being the best of us, our rig being deucedly roguish.
By five o'clock in the afternoon we were within half a mile, when we hoisted our colours and pennant, and fired a gun to make our friend heave to; but this she declined to do, and we now guessed that she was one of the large London traders. There were, we could see, a number of people on deck, some of them apparently passengers.
"Why, Mr Wadding," said Mr Lanyard to the gunner, "he seems determined to lead us a dance; we must send the next shot nearer him."
The old man was looking through the glass at her. "If I don't mistake, they are training two guns aft, sir, there, through the stern-ports; and she must have a crew of some forty hands, I think, from those I see on deck. There are a number of amphiberous-looking people besides on the poop—passengers, I suppose—busy with muskets, sir. If he persists in refusing to let us board him, he will bother us a little."
"That is his look out," said Dick. "Set every rag that will draw; pack on her, Mr Marline, and clear away both guns. Pipe away the cutter's crew, boatswain, and see they are properly armed." Then to me—"I say, Benjie, any objections to a lark—Mr Marline is going in the boat, eh?"
"None in the world—so here's with you, Master Marline, my boy."
I went below to dress myself, and as I was putting on my jacket, bang, I heard a gun fired at us.
"Call Mr Brail, Lennox," said Mr Lanyard. "Tell him the chase has run out two stern chase-guns, and has just fired at us."
I came on deck as he spoke.
"Did the shot come near you, Mr Marline?" continued Lanyard.
"It whistled right over our masthead, sir—it was very well aimed."
"Never mind, haul as close by the wind as you can, and gain the weather gage if possible. I want to creep alongside on his weather quarter."
This was done; and seeing that we sailed so much faster than he did, and that, as we hauled up across his stern within musket-shot, with both guns pointed at him, we could rake him if we chose, he did not venture to fire again. Presently we were within hail, and found that it was the Roger Beresford, or some such name, from London, bound to Antigua.
"Heave-to, and I will send a boat on board of you."
But although his fight had considerably evaporated, yet he seemed noways inclined to do this thing, even after he had been told who we were, and that the vessel astern was his Majesty's frigate the Gazelle. He kept his people all at quarters, and I noticed that his broadside consisted of six twelve-pound carronades, and a long gun amidships; rather too many pills for a comfortable dose to so small a hooker as the Midge, if he should prove obstinate, besides the absurdity of the thing in being peppered by one of our own merchant craft, through a vagary of the master's.
As we approached, one of the muskets of the motley group that were clustered on the poop went off, apparently from awkwardness or accident, which the others took for a signal, and four or five were let drive, but fortunately mighty wide of their mark.
"Mr Peak, fire that musket close over the heads of these heroes."
Crack—the whole bunch bobbed, as if they had seen the bullet coming; and immediately the gallant band tumbled down, one over another, on the quarterdeck, in much admired disorder. We ranged close alongside, with the boat towing astern, ready manned and armed, and all hands at quarters. This formidable manoeuvre seemed to quail the courage of the chase a little.
"I shall board you, whether you will or not, my fine fellow; so round to this instant, or I fire into you."
Seeing Lanyard was angry and in earnest, he now did as desired. So we were presently on his deck, when we found he was a running ship, who, not liking our appearance, had very properly tried to escape in the first instance, and, finding that impossible, to fight, if need were, in the second. All his papers were right, and I had time to take a squint at the passengers. There were several ladies on board—three, I think—an elderly one, and two very handsome girls. They were now all on deck, surrounded by the male passengers, the Spartan band who had made such a hostile demonstration on the poop, some of whom cut rather conspicuous figures, in their shooting jackets, with bran-new red turkey leather pocketbooks peeping out of the numberless pockets, and gay seal-skin caps, and natty waistcoats, with lots of chains and seals—every thing, in fact, of the newest and gaudiest—and oh for the murder and piracy of his Majesty's English amongst the Cockney crew! One spruce young fellow—the youth whose musket had gone off by mistake—had chosen to equip himself, sailor fashion, jacket, trowsers, and white vest, with a straw hat and black ribbon, and lots of bright brass buttons, all astonishingly fine. He kept swaggering about the deck, on which, by the way, he could hardly stand, and twice, rather unceremoniously, thrust himself between me and one of the young ladies, to whom I happened to be speaking. I determined to give him a fright. So I tipped the wink to Marline.
"Dogvane, order the boat's crew on deck."
"Ay, ay, sir."
"Now, captain, have the kindness to muster your people, if you please."
The man remonstrated, but the midshipman insisted; and presently the poor fellows were ranged on the lee-side of the quarterdeck, each in momentary dread of being selected as pressed men.
"Why, sir," persisted the captain, "I solemnly protest against this; we carry a letter of marque, sir; and it is more than your rating is worth to take any of my hands. I solemnly protest against such conduct."
Marline apparently gave in.
"Very well, sir; but we must be manned by hook or crook, you know, however unwilling to distress running ships. Oh, I see—thereis a smart hand, in the gay jacket there, who does not seem to belong to your crew—a good seaman, evidently, by the cut of his jib."
This last part of his speech was intended to be overheard by the fresh-water sailor with the brass buttons, who now toddled up—the vessel was rolling a good deal—smirking and smiling—"Why, captain, I have paid great attention since we embarked, and really I have become a very capital sailor, sir. Do you know I have been twice through the lubber's hole?"
"Really! I knew you were a thorough good bit of stuff;" and then in a gruff voice, "so hand up your bag, sir, and step into the boat."
"Hand up my bag, and step into the boat!" said the poor fellow, all abroad; "my bag! la, sir, my clothes a'n't packed, and why should I go into your boat?"
"Simply," said Marline, slapping him on the shoulder with force to make him wince again, "that you are the very man I want. Your nautical air and speech have betrayed you, sir; and I can see with half an eye that you are second-mate of some vessel; I therefore press you into the service, to serve his Majesty on board of his gallant frigate the Gazelle there"—pointing to her, as she was fast coming up astern.
He shrank back in great alarm.
"Lack-a-daisy, sir, it's all a mistake—I am no sailor, sir—I am Joe Wilkins the draper, son of old Joe Wilkins, number so-and-so, Coleman Street. Me a sailor! my wig!"
I laughed.
"Well, well, Mr Joseph Wilkins, I begin to think I may be wrong; but never pass yourself off for a sailor again, lest worse come of it; and never take firearms into your hands until you learn how to manage them. Why, sir," continued Marline sternly, "you were the cause of five musket shots being fired at us, and the blood of men who were doing no more than their duty, sir, might have been spilt by your swaggering."
As he spoke, Joey had gradually crept away towards the companion, and by this time nothing but his head was above deck. I made a sudden spring at him, when he vanished in a moment, amid a volley of laughter from all hands. We now made our bows to the ladies, apologizing for any little alarm we might have caused, and bidding the captain good-by, were speedily at home again.
The period was now approaching when we were to part company, the Gazelle for Jamaica, and the Midge for Havanna; and on such a day, Lanyard having received his orders, we altered our course a point or two to the northward, and lost sight of the commodore before the night fell.
Nothing particular occurred until we arrived within a couple of days' run of Havanna, when we made out a sail lying becalmed right a-head. We carried the breeze up to within half a mile of her, when it failed us also; and there we both lay rolling on the glass-like swell of the great Bahama Channel, one of the hottest quarters of the globe in a calm that ever I was in. The heat was absolutely roasting. The vessel we had seen was a brig with bright sides, which, as we approached, had hoisted a signal of distress at the mizen peak, the American ensign, with the stars down, and the stripes uppermost. A boat was immediately manned, and pulled towards her, for apparently she had none of her own. I went in her—any thing to break the tedium of a sea life. As we neared her, the crew, some six or eight hands, were seen running about the deck, and holding out their hands imploringly towards us, in a way that I could not account for. As we came closer, the master hailed in a low husky voice, "For Heaven's sake send us some water, sir, we are perishing of thirst—water, sir, water, for the love of God!" We were now alongside, when three men absolutelytumbledover the brig's side into the boat, and began, before we could recover our surprise, to struggle who should first get his lips into the small puddle of dirty water in the bottom of it. Brackish as it must have been, it was drank up in a moment. The extremity of the poor fellows was evidently great, so I jumped on deck, and the boat was immediately sent back for a breaker of water.
Sailors have their virtues and vices like other men, but I am not arrogating for them when I say, that a scene like this, in all its appalling bearings; that misery, such as we saw before us, so peculiarly incidental to his own condition, would, were it from this cause alone, thrill to a sailor's heart, with a force unknown and undreamt of by any other human being. Dogvane, the old quartermaster, had steered us on board. He now jumped up in the stern sheets, and cast off his jacket—"You, Jabos, you limber villain," said he to a slight boy who pulled the foremost oar, "come out of the bow, and take the tiller, will ye? and mind you steer steady. Shift forward, my hearties, and give me the stroke oar." The boat's crew at this hint tore their hats off, with a chance of a stroke of the sun before their eyes, and dashed them to the bottom of the boat, stripped up their frock sleeves to their armpits, undid the ribbons that fastened their frock collars, new-fitted their stretchers, and wetting the palms of their hands, feathered their oars, and waited for the word. "Now mind your strain, my lads," again sung out old Dogvane, "until the boat gathers way—no springing of the ash staves, do you hear? Give way now." The boat started off like an arrow—the oars groaned and cheeped, the water buzzed away into a long snow-white frothy wake, and inno timeshe was alongside the felucca, on whose deck, in his red-hot haste, the quartermaster first toppled down on his nose, and then, scarcely taking time to touch his hat to Mr Lanyard, we saw him bundle down the main hatchway; in another moment a small cask, ready slung, slowly ascended, and was rolled across the deck into the boat. But this was not all; the Midges on board the felucca were instantly all astir, and buzzing about at a devil of a rate—out sweeps was the word, and there was the black hull of the little vessel torn along the shining surface of the calm sea, right in the wake of the boat, by twelve long dark sweeps, looking for all the world, in the distance, like a beetle chasing a common fly across a polished mirror blazing with intolerable radiance under the noon-dav sun.
It appeared that, first of all, the brig had been a long time baffled in the Horse latitudes, which ran their supply of water short; and, latterly, they had lain a whole week becalmed where we found them. Several days before we fell in with them, they had sent away the boat with three hands to try and reach the shore, and bring back a supply, but they had never returned, having in all likelihood either perished from thirst before they got to land, or missed the brig on their way back. No soul on board, neither captain nor crew, had cooled his parched tongue for eight-and-forty hours before we boarded them—this in such a climate!
There was not only no water, but not a drop of liquid unconsumed of any kind or description whatever, saving and excepting some new rum, which the men had freely made use of at first, until two of them died raving mad in consequence. When I got on board, the cask was lying open on the tap, and, perishing as they were, not one of them could swallow a drop of it if they had tried; they said it was like taking aquafortis or melted lead into their mouths, when at any time they were driven, by the fierceness of their sufferings, to attempt assuaging their thirst with it. I had not been five minutes on board, when the captain seemed to go mad altogether.
"My poor wife, sir—oh, God, she is dying in the cabin, sir—she may be dead—she must be dead—but I dare not go below to look at her.—Oh, as you hope for mercy at your dying day, hail your people to make haste, sir—half an hour may be too late"—and the poor fellow dashed himself down on the deck, writhing about, like a crushed reptile, in a paroxysm of the most intense agony; while the men, who were all clustered half-naked in the bows, with wet blankets on their shoulders, in the hope that nature would in this way absorb some moisture, and thus alleviate their sufferings, were peering out with their feverish and blood-shot eyes, and wan faces, at the felucca; watching every motion on board with the most breathless anxiety.
"There, there—there is the cask on deck—they are lowering it into the boat—they have shoved off—oh, great God in Heaven, we shall be saved after all!"—and the poor fellows raised a faint hurrah, and closed in on me, some shaking my hands, others dropping on their knees to bless me; while one poor creature lay choking on the hard deck in a fit of hysterical laughter, as if he had been a weakly woman.
The boat could not possibly be back under ten minutes; so I went below into the cabin, and never did I behold such a heart-rending sight. The small table that had stood in the centre had been removed; and there, stretched on a coarse wet blanket, lay a half-naked female—pale and emaciated—her long hair dishevelled, and hanging over her face, and down her back, in wet clotted strands, with a poor miserable infant puling and nuzzling at her wasted breast; while a black woman, herself evidently deep sunk in the same suffering, was sprinkling salt water from a pail on the unhappy creature and her child.
"Oh, massa," cried the faithful negress—"oh, massa, give missis some water, or him dead—I strong, can last some time yet—but poor missis"—and here she sobbed, as if her heart would have burst; but the fountains of her tears were dried up. The white female was unable to raise her head—she lay moaning on the deck, and mumbling audibly with her dry and shrunken lips, as if they had been ossified; but she could not speak.
"Keep a good heart, madam," said I—"we have sent on board for water—it will be here in a minute." She looked doubtingly at me, clasped her hands together above her child's head, and seemed to pray. I ran on deck—the boat, in an incredibly short time, was alongside again, with the perspiration pouring down the flushed faces and muscular necks of the kind-hearted fellows in her—their duck-clothing as wet and dank as a boat-sail in a race.
"Now, Dogvane—hand up the breaker—quick, man, quick." My request was unnecessary; it was on deck in an instant; but before I could turn round, the men of the brig made a rush aft, and seized the cask, making a vain attempt to carry it forward; alas! poor fellows, they had not the strength of children. We easily shoved them aside, as it was necessary they should not get water-logged by too free a use of it at first.—"Now, Dogvane, mind what I tell you—make that small tub there full of five-water grog—no stronger, mind—and serve out a pint to each of these poor fellows, and not a drop more at present." I seized a glass of the first of it, and ran below. "Here," said I, to the black servant—"here, take a mouthful yourself, and then give some to your mistress." She shook her head, and made as if she would have helped her mistress first; but the selfishness of her own grinding misery conquered the poor creature's resolution; and dashing, rather than carrying the glass to her mouth, she ravenously swallowed the whole contents in a second, and then fell flat on the deck with a wild laugh.
"Oh, massa, I can't help it—nobody love missis like Juba; but once I taste him, I could not help it for de life-blood of me, massa. Oh, my eye, my eye like cinder—like red-hot bullet dem is, massa—oh, for one tear, one leetle tear—oh, dere come one tear; but God, God, him is hot more as boiling rum, and salt—ah, ah, ah"—and the poor creature rolled about the deck in the uttermost distress.
The master of the vessel had by this time entered, and lifted up his wife into a sitting position; and there she sat, with her parched mouth all agape, the black fur on her tongue, and with glazed and half-shut eyes; her pinched features, and death-like complexion evincing tearfully the strength of her sufferings.
He poured some water into her mouth, but she could not swallow it; he tried again, and from the gurgling noise in her throat, I thought she was suffocating, especially as I noticed, as if conscious that she was departing, she now clutched her poor wasted baby to her shrunk bosom with all the little strength she possessed. But shehadswallowed a little, and this revived her; and after several other trials, the poor fellow had the happiness to see his wife snatched from the jaws of death, and able to sit up by herself with her back against the locker. She now began to moan heavily, and to rock herself to and fro over her helpless, all but dead infant, as it lay, struggling faintly, and crying with its small imploring voice, on her knee; at length she acquired sufficient strength to gasp out, "God bless you, sir—God bless you—you have saved my child, and all of us—God bless you,"—and then resumed her moaning, as if she was suffering something that she herself could not describe. I sent on board for more water, and some tea and other small luxuries from my private stock; and that same evening, as the sun was setting, under a canopy of glorious clouds, beneath which the calm sea glowed like molten gold, gradually melting into gorgeous purple, I saw a small dark ripple ruffling its mirror-like surface in the east, and gradually steal down towards where we lay. The next moment I felt a light zephyr-like air on the palm of my wet hand as I held it up. Presently, as the grey cat's-paws became darker, and fluttered down stronger and nearer to us, and were again withdrawn, and shifted about, shooting out and shortening like streamers, Mr Peak sung out, "There, there's the breeze at last, sir, there;" and the smooth shining canals that divided the blue shreds of ripples gradually narrowed, while the latter increased and came down stronger, until the whole sea to windward was roughened into small dark waves, that increased as the night fell, and both the Midge and brig were buzzing along on their course to Havanna before a six-knot breeze.
The next evening we were under the Moro Castle, where we anchored. At daylight on the following morning we ran in through the narrow entrance, under the tremendous forts that crown its high banks on each side, and anchored before this most magnificent city, this West Indian Liverpool; while its batteries and bastions, with the grinning cannon peering through numberless embrasures, the tall spires and towers, the highest of the houses, the masts and drying sails of numberless vessels, with their gay flags, British, American, French, Spanish, and of almost every country in the world, were glancing bright and fresh in the early sunbeams, under a floating canopy of thin blue smoke from the charcoal fires. All which magnificent description goes for this much: the unsentimental Dons were doffing their nightcaps, and donning their breeches, while the fires were lighting to prepare their coffee and chocolate.
That forenoon I went on shore, and delivered my letters to Mr M——, one of the most extensive English merchants in the place, a kind and most hospitable man. He invited me to dine with him, and to accept of a bed at his house in the evening, both of which were too good offers to be sneezed at. We had a very large party at dinner, composed of a lot of Mr M——'s clerks, several masters of merchantmen, and the captain and two lieutenants of an American frigate lying there, all three of the latter, by the way, extremely pleasant men.
There was one of Mr M——'s adherents present, a very odd creature, and rather a wildish one, an Irishman; what his real name was I forget now, but he was generally called Listado. His prime object during dinner was to quiz the Americans, but they took it very good-naturedly. He then tried his hand on me, in what I believe is vulgarly called trotting, which is to get one on his hobby, and appear to listen most anxiously all the while, although every one but yourself sees you are made to show your paces more for the amusement of the company than their information. At length I saw through the rogue, and dismounted, laughing heartily at the cleverness with which he had paraded me.
In the evening, the mercantile members of our party retired to the counting-house, the Americans returned to their ship, and I strolled about the town until the night fell, when I returned by appointment for Listado, with whom I went to the opera, which far surpassed any thing I expected to see or hear in that quarter of the world. After it was over, we adjourned to some lodging-house or tavern in the neighbourhood, and perpetrated the heinous sin of eating a heavy supper, for which I paid afterwards, as will be seen.
It so happened that the aforesaid Monsieur Listado had given up his bed to me, and slept himself on a small pallet beside the wall in the same room. At the right hand of the head of my bed, a lofty door opened into an adjoining room, a large dreary unfurnished apartment, with several packages of goods scattered about on the floor. On examination, I found there was no window in it, nor any light admitted except through the door into our room, which was the only opening into it. It was a regularcul de sac.
We must have been some hours asleep when I awoke, or thought I did, pretty much the same thing so far as my feelings at the moment went, lying on my back, with my hands crossed on my breast, like the statue of a knight templar. These said paws of mine seemed by the way to be of an inconceivable weight, as if they had actually been petrified, and to press so heavily on my chest as to impede my breathing. Suddenly one of my little fingers grew, like Jonah's gourd, to a devil of a size; and next moment the thumb of the other hand, as if determined not to be outdone by the minikin on the left, became a facsimile of a Bologna sausage; so there I lay like a large lobster, with two tremendous claws. My nose then took its turn, and straightway was converted into one of Mr M——'s cotton bags, that lay in the store below, containing three hundred-weight, more or less.
"Oh!" said I now to myself, "what a fool I have been! Nightmare—nightmare."
"Hookey, but it isn't though," said Listado.
"Hillo," said I to myself again—for I was quite certain I had not spoken—"how the deuce can Listado answer mythoughts, which I have never uttered?"—And I tried to ask him, but my nose, or the cotton bag, would not let me speak. "Why, it must be nightmare," again thought I to myself.
"The devil a nightmare is it," again said Listado.
And I now began to take fright in earnest; when, on the opposite wall, for I could only see in the direction of the foot of my bed, a gradually increasing gleam of pale glow-worm-coloured light fell; streaming apparently through the door that opened at my shoulder into the large lumber-room already described.
The light seemed to proceed from the further end of this apartment, because the shadow of one of the boxes of goods that lay scattered about the floor was cast strongly against the wall of my room at the foot of the bed.
"What can this mean?" for I knew from actual survey the geography of the apartment from whence the glare proceeded; "what can this mean? Some trick of Listado's. Snapdragon, snapdragon."
"Snapdragon be d—d simply," quoth Listado's voice once more.
"Heyday," quoth I.
But there he lay, full in the stream of light, apparently sound asleep; and so transmogrified under its baleful influence, that he looked more like a corpse than a living man.
"Murder! what comes next?" groaned I—for I could now speak—as the shadow of the figure of the poor woman rescued from perishing with thirst on board of the American brig glided along the wall with her infant in her arms and her clothes in disorder, the wet blanket which the poor negro had been moistening, when I first saw her, hanging from her shoulders, and her hair dishevelled; her figure, in fact, in every point precisely as I had seen her in the cabin. The apparition seemed to pause for a moment, and then stepped towards the box of dry goods, and setting itself down, began to rock itself and moan; and the poor picaniny began to struggle and pule at its mother's bosom for all the world as naturally as it had done in the brig.
"There's a phantasmagoria for you, Master Benjie;—free gratis for nothing, Master Benjie," said I to myself; whereupon my thumb, of the size of the Bologna sausage, took my nose, of the size of the cotton bag, such a crack! I thought it was knocked off. Presently I felt as if the latter had been set a-bleeding so furiously as to float the bed off the floor, and me in it. By and by the room became filled with blood; and there I lay, cruising about in the floating bed, until the door gave way, when the crimson torrent rushed down stairs like the rapids of Niagara, bursting into the other sleeping apartments in its descent—I could hear the suffocating coughs of the inmates as they were drowning. At length, the blood having had vent, the bed once more subsided, and took the ground on the very spot from whence it had originally been floated. The light on the wall, however, was still as strong as ever, but had changed from the moonlight tinge to a hot, deep red glare, such as the devils break out of rocks with in theatres.