The Salamanca Corpus: Wandering Heath (1896)
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[176] and that'll fetch her down, wind of no wind. Halloa!—Lad, lad! 'tis all right! See there, that bit o' red ensign run up to the gaff! " “Why should that mean aught?" asked I. “Would he trouble to hoist bunting if he had no news? Would it be there, close under the peak, if the news was bad?—and she his own daughter, his only flesh! ": It may have been twenty minutes later that Old John felt the Gunnel current, and, staying the cutter round, came down fast on us. with the wind behind his beam. My father hailed to him once and twice, and the second time he must have heard. But, without answering, he ran forward and took in his foresail. And then I saw an arm and a little hand reached up to take hold of the tiller, and my heart gave a great jump. It was she, my wife Bathsheba, laid there by the stern-sheets on a spare sail, with a bundle of oilskins to cushion her. With one hand she steered the boat up into the wind as Old John lowered sail and they drifted alongside; and with the other she held a small bundle close against her breast. "Such a whackin' boy I never see in my life! "—these were Old John's first words, [177]
and he shouted them. "Born only yestiddy week, an' she ought to be abed; an' so I've been tellin' her ever since she dragged me out 'pon this wildygo errand! " But Bathsheba, as I. lifted her over the light-ship's side, said no more than "Oh, Tom!''—and let me hold her, with her forehead pressed close against me. And the others kept very quiet, and everything was quiet about us, until she jumped back on a sudden and found all her speech in a flood. “Tom," she said," you're crushin' him, you great awkward man!" And she turned back the shawl and snatched the handkerchief off the baby's face—a queer-looking face it was, too. "Be all babies as queer as that?" thought I. Lucky I didn't say it, though. "There, my blessed, my handsome! Look, my tender. Eh, Tom, but he kicks my side all to bruises; my merryun, my giant! Look up at your father, and you his very image!'' That was pretty stiff. "I declare," she says, "he's lookin' about an' takin' stock of everything"—and that was pretty stiff, too. "So like a man; all for the sea and the boats! Tom, dear, father will tell you that all the way on the water he was as good as gold; and, on [178]
shore before that, kicking and fisting—all for the sea and the boats; the man of him! Hold him, dear, but be careful! A Sunday's child, too— ' Sunday's child is full of grace.' And—the awkward you are! Here, give him back to me; but feel how far down in his clothes the feet of him reach. Extraordinar'! Aim' Hessy mounted a chair and climbed 'pon the chest o' drawers with him before takin' him downstairs, so that he'll go up in the world, an', not down." “If he wants to try both," said I, "he'd best follow his father and grandfathers, and live 'pon a light-ship." “So this is how you live, Tom; and you, father; and you, father-in-law!" She moved about, examining everything—the lantern, the fog signals, and life buoys, the cooking-stove, bunks, and store-cupboards. "To think that here you live, all the menkind be-longin' to me, and I never to have seen it! All the menkind did I say, my rogue! And was I forgettin' you—you—you?'' Kisses here, of course; and then she held the youngster up to look at his face in the light. "Ah, heart of me, will you grow up too to [179]
live in a light-ship and leave a poor woman at home to weary for you in her trouble? Rogue, rogue, what poor woman have I done this to, bringing you into the world to be her torture and her joy? '' “Dear," says I, "you're weak yet. Sit down by me and rest awhile before the time comes to go back." "But I'm not going back yet awhile. Your son, sir, and I are goin' to spend the night aboard." '' Halloa!" I said, and looked toward Old John, who had made fast astern of us and run a line out to one of the anchor-buoys. “'Tisn't allowed, o' course," he muttered, looking in turn and rather sheepishly toward my father. "But once in a way— 'tis all Bathsheba's notion, and you mustn' ask me,'' he wound up. “‘Once in a way!'" cried Bathsheba. ''And is it twice in a way that a woman comes to a man and lays his first child in his arms?'' My father had been studying the sunset and the sky to windward; and now he answered Old John: '' ' Tis once in a way, sure enough, that a [180] boat can lay. alongside the Gunnel. But the wind's falling, and the night'll be warm. I reckon if you stay in the boat, Old John, she'll ride pretty comfortable; and I'll give the word to cast off at the leastest sign.'' “Once in a way "—ah, sirs, it isn't twice in a way there comes such a night as that was! We lit the light at sunset, and hoisted it, and made tea, talking like children all the while; and my father the biggest child of all. Old John had his share passed out to him, and ate it alone out therein the boat; and, there being a lack of cups, Bathsheba and I drank out of the same, and scalded our lips, and must kiss to make them well. Foolishness? Dear, dear, I suppose so. And the jokes we had, calling out to Old John as the darkness fell, and wishing him "Goodnight!" "Ou, aye; I hear 'ee," was all he answered. After we'd eaten our tea and washed up, I showed Bathsheba how to crawl into her bunk, and passed in the baby and •laid it in her arms, and so left her, telling her to rest and sleep. But by and by, as I was keeping watch, she came out, declaring the place stifled her. So I pulled out a mattress and blankets and strewed a bed for her out under the sky, and sat down beside her, [181]
watching while she suckled the child. She had him wrapped, up so that the two dark eves of him only could be seen, staring up from the breast to the great bright lantern above him. The moon was in her last quarter, and would not rise till close upon dawn, and the night pitchy dark around us, with a very few stars. In less than a minute Bathsheba gave a start and laid a hand on my arm. “Oh, Tom, what was that? " "Look up," said I. "'Tis the birds flying about the light." For, of course, our light always drew the sea-birds, especially on dark, dull nights, and 'twas long since we had grown used to the sound of their beating and flapping, and took no notice of it. A moment after I spoke one came dashing against the rigging, and we heard him tumble into the sea; and then one broke his neck against the cage overhead and tumbled dead at our feet. Bathsheba shivered as I tossed him overboard. "Is it always like this?" she whispered. "I thought 'twas only at the cost of a silly woman's fears that you saved men's lives out here." [182]
"Well," said I, "this is something more than usual, to be sure." For, looking up into the circle of light, we could see now at least a hundred birds flying round and round, and in half an hour's time there must have been many hundreds. Their white breasts were like a snowstorm; and soon they began to fall thick upon deck. They were not all sea-birds, either. "Halloa!" said I, "what's the day of the month? " “The nineteenth of March." “Here's a wheat-ear, then," I said. "In a couple of weeks we shall have the swallows; and, a couple of weeks after, a cuckoo, maybe. So you see that even out here by the Gunnel we know when spring comes along.'' And I began to hum the old song that children sang in the Islands: '' The cuckoo is a pretty bird,
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Bathsheba's eyes were wet for the poor birds, but she took up the song, crooning it soft-like, and persuading the child to sleep: “O, meeting is a pleasure, But parting is grief; An inconstant lover Is worse than a thief; For a-thief at the worst Will take all that I have; But an inconstant lover Sends me to my grave" Her hand stole into mine as the boy's, eyes closed, and clasped my fingers, entreating me in silence to look and admire him. Our own eyes met over him, and I saw by the lantern-light the happy blush rise and spread over neck and chin and forehead. The flapping of the birds overhead had almost died away, and we lay still, watching the lighthouse flash, far down in the empty darkness. By and by the clasp of her hand slackened. A star shot down the sky, and I turned. Her eyelids, too, had drooped, and her breath came and went as softly and regularly as the Atlantic swell around us. And my child slept in her arms.
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awoke her. My father had the breakfast ready, and Old John sang out to hurry. A fair wind went with them to the Islands—a light southwester. As the boat dropped out of sight, I turned and drew a deep breath of it. It was full of the taste of flowers, and I knew that spring was already at hand, and coming up that way. [184]
LETTERS FROM TROY ADDRESSED TO RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA [186] I
Troy Town, December 5th, 1894. My Dear Prince,—I feel sure that you, as a sympathetic student of western politics and manners, must be impatient to hear about our first Parish Meeting in Troy; and so I am catching the earliest post to inform you that from a convivial point of view the whole proceedings were in the highest degree successful. And if Self-Government by the People can provide a success of the kind in that dull season when people as a rule are saving up for Christmas, I hardly think our Chairman stretched a point last night when he said, "This evening will leave its mark on the history of England." Indeed, some inkling of this must have guided us when we met, a few days before, and agreed to postpone our usual Tuesday [188]
evening Carol-practice in order to give the New Era a fair start. And I am told this morning that the near approach of the sacred season had a sensibly pacific influence upon the counsels of our neighbours at Treneglos. The parishioners there are mostly dairy-farmers, and party feeling runs high. But while eggs fetch 2d. apiece (as they do, towards Christmas) there will always be a disposition to give even the most unmarketable specimens the benefit of any doubt. We were at first a good deal annoyed on finding that the Act allowed Troy but eleven Parish Councillors. We have never had less than sixty-five on our Regatta Committee, and we had believed Local Self-Government to be at least as important as a Regatta. We argued this out at some length last night, and the Chairman—Lawyer Thorns—admitted that we had reason on our side. But his instructions were definite, and he could not (as he vivaciously put it) fly in the face of the Queen and two Houses of Parliament. We saw that his regret was sincere, and so contented ourselves with handing in seventy-two nomination papers for the eleven places, just to mark our sense of the iniquity of the thing. [189] In another matter we worked round the intention of the Act more successfully. We have never been able to understand why the Liberal party in the House of Commons should object to Local Self-Government taking place in public-houses. The objection implies a distrust of the people. And it so happens that down here we always take a glass of grog before inaugurating an era; we would as soon think of praetermitting this as of launching a ship without cracking a bottle on her stem. So we asked the Chairman, and finding there was no law to prevent' us, we ordered in half-a-dozen trays from the "King of Prussia," across the way. The Vicar, who is a particular man about his food and drink, pulled out a pocket Vesuvius and a bottle of methylated spirit, and boiled his kettle in the anteroom. Well, there we were sitting in the Town Hall, as merry as grigs, each man with his pipe and glass, and ready for any amount of Self-Government. And the Chairman stood up and briefly explained the business of the meeting. He said the Parish Councils Act was the logical result of Magna Charta, and would have the effect of making us all citizens of [190]
our own parish; and that as the expense of this would come upon the rates, we should endeavour to use our hardly-won enfranchisement with moderation. "We had met to choose eleven good men and true to administer the parish business for the coming year, or to nominate as many good men and true as we pleased. If more than eleven were nominated"—this was foolishness, for he could see there was hardly a man in the room that hadn't a nomination paper in his hand—'' he would ask for a show of hands, and any candidate defeated upon this might -demand a poll. He hoped we would vote in no spirit of sectarian or partisan bitterness, but as impartial citizens jealous only for the common weal; at the same time he was not in favour of letting down the Squire, Sir Felix Felix-Williams, too easily." So we handed up our nomination papers, and while the Chairman and overseers were checking them off by the register, Old Pilot James got upon his legs. He said that as long as he could remember—man and boy—he had always practised carols in that very Town Hall upon the first Tuesday in December. The Vicar—as soon as he had done boiling the kettle in the [191]
next room—would come in and confirm his words. The practices were held on the first Tuesday in December, and on each successive Tuesday until St. Thomas's Day, when they had one extra. If St. Thomas's Day fell on a Tuesday, then the extra practice would be on Wednesday. He had received no notice of the change. Thomas Rabling rose and explained that at a meeting held last Saturday, the singers had agreed to postpone the first practice in view of Local Self-Government. Mr. James had been present and had not objected. George William Oke—a blockmaker, who had never sung a carol or attended a practice in his life — stood up and said, rather unnecessarily, that this was the first he'd heard of it. Old Pilot James, answering Mr. Rabling, admitted that he might have been present at the meeting on Saturday. But he was deaf, as everybody knew—and Mr. Rabling no less than the rest—and hadn't heard a word of what was said. If he had, he should have objected. But, deaf or not deaf, he still took a delight in singing; and, if only as a matter o f principle, he was going to sing, "God rest you, merry gentlemen," then and [192] there. He was an old man, and they might turn Him out if they liked; but he warned them it would be brutal, and might lead to a summons. Well, the Chairman was making a long business of the nomination papers, so just to pass the time we let the old man sing. It seemed churlish, too, not to join in the chorus; and by and by the whole meeting was singing with a will. We sang "Tidings of Comfort and Joy''1 and "I saw Three Ships,'' and the Cherry - tree Carol, and "Dives and Lazarus." We had come to that verse where Dives is carried off to sit on the serpent's knee, when the Chairman rose and said that only five of the nomination papers were spoilt, and he declared sixty-seven ladies and gentlemen to be duly nominated. We all pricked up our ears at the word "ladies." However, there turned out to be one lady only; and when the Chairman read out her name, her husband—a naval pensioner, William Carclew—stood up and explained that he had only meant it for a joke upon the old woman, just to give her a start, and he hoped it would go no further. This seemed fair and natural enough; but the [193] Chairman said if Mrs. Carclew wished to withdraw her name she had better do so at once by word of mouth. So Carclew had to run home and fetch her. While he was gone we finished "Dives and Lazarus." In five minutes' time back came Carclew, followed by Mrs. Carclew, who announced —in a rich brogue—that since her man had conspired to put this fool's trick upon her, why now she would stand, begob! "Ar-rah now, people, people, and a gay man he'll look houlding the babby, while I'm afther superinthendin' the Parush!" So the Chairman declared her duly nominated. It will surprise me if she does not head the poll on the 17th. The Chairman now invited us to interrogate the candidates, if we wished. By this time we were getting pretty well into the way of self-government, and all enjoying it amazingly. Of course our lady candidate, Mrs. Carclew, had the first few questions; but these were mostly jocular and domestic, and I am bound to say the lady gave as good as was brought. The only sensible question came from Old Pilot James, who asked if she believed in the ballot. For his part he had never given a vote for anybody since [194] Forster brought in the ballot in 'seventy-one. He favoured peace and quiet; and he liked to walk up to the hustings and give his vote, and hear 'em say, "Well done!" or "You —:— old scoundrel!" as the case might be. He didn't mind being called "a -------old scoundrel," provided it was said to him by a gentleman who weighed his words. Since Forster brought in ballot he had always gone to the poll regular. He always took his paper and wrote opposite, the names: "Shan't say a word. Got my living to get. Yours obediently, Matthias James '' —and would advise everybody else to do the same. After him, Renatus Hansombody, carpenter, rose at the back of the hall and announced that he had a question to put to the Doctor. The Doctor, by the way, is one of the most popular of the candidates. “I should like," said Mr. Hansombody, “to ask the Doctor if he will kindly explain to the company Clauses 5, 6, and 13 of the new Act? '' The Chairman protested that this would occupy more time than the meeting had to spare. "In that case," said Mr. Hansombody, [195] "I will confine myself to a test question. The Act provides that the Chairman of a Parish Meeting is to be elected by the Meeting. Now suppose the votes for two gentlemen are equal. In such a case what would the Doctor advise? For until you have a Chairman elected, there is no Chairman to give a casting vote.'' The Doctor thought that, since we had long ago elected a Chairman by acclamation, the question was superfluous. "And you call him a straightforward man!'' Mr. Hansombody exclaimed, turning round on the Meeting. "What I say is, are we to have pusillanimity in our first Parish Council? What I say is, that a gentleman who gives a working man such an answer to such a question-------'' At this point the door opened and a shrill voice asked," Is Hansombody here? " "I am here," said Hansombody, "to expose impostors! '' “Because if so, he must please come home at once. Mrs. Hansombody's cryin'-out!" "I always said," remarked Old Pilot James, "that this cussed Act would scare half the women in the" Parish before their time.'' [196] “Beggin' your pard'n, Doctor," began his denouncer lamely. “Not at all, not at all," said the Doctor. '”We must keep these matters altogether outside the sphere of party politics.'' (Loud cheering.") “Then I'll have to ask you to step along with me." The two political opponents picked up their hats, and left the room together. The Chairman rose as the door closed behind them. "I think," he said, "this should be a lesson to us to accept the Act in the spirit in which it was given. If nobody else wishes to ask a question, I will now take a show of hands: but I warn you all it'll be a dreary business." At this, the first hint of tedium, the company rose, drained their glasses, and made for the door, leaving the sixty-six remaining candidates to vote for themselves. "Well," Mr. Rabling said to me, as we stood in the street; "so far, this here Parish Meeting might be like any other Parish Meeting in the Kingdom! '' I doubted, but did not contradict him. "There's one thing," he added; "Iron- [197]
monger Loveday has laid in a whole stock of sixpenny fire-balloons for to-night: and there isn't a breath of wind. His boy's very clever with the scissors and paste: and he've a-stuck a tissue-paper text on each— 'Success to the Charter of our Liberties/ and < Rule Britannia ' and ' God Speed the Plough '; and nothing more than the sixpence charged.'' Simple, egregious, delectable town! As I leaned out last night, watching the young moon and smoking the last pipe before bedtime, a dozen of these gay balloons rose from the waterside and drifted on the faint north wind, seaward, past my window. Another dozen followed, and another, until from one point and another of the dark shore a hundred balloons soared over the water, challenging the stars. [199] II
Troy Town, Jan. 29th, 1895. “And then, as he set the bowl of goat's milk on the board, that simple Tyrolean turned to me with a magnificent sweep of the hand, and exclaimed-------" Ah, my dear Prince, if you could only tell me what he exclaimed, you would restore a whole parish to its natural slumbers. For indeed he is playing the deuce with our nights, here in Troy, that guileless Tyrolean. How trivial are the immediate causes of great events! On New Year's Day our excellent Vicar, having bought himself a Whitaker's Almanack for 1895, presented his last year's, copy to the Working Men's Reading Room. In itself you would have thought this action of the Vicar's signified [200] no more than a generous desire to keep his parishioners abreast of the times. In effect it inaugurated the Great Temperance Movement in Troy—a social revolution of which we are only now, after four long weeks, beginning to see the end. You must not, of course, suppose that we had never heard of temperance before. No, Prince, we do not live so far from Abyssinia as all that. In a general way we understood it to be a good thing, and upon that ground (optimists that we are) believed its ultimate success to be but a question of time. But I think I may say we never regarded it as a pressing question—such as the reform of the House of Lords, for instance. The general impression (I call it no more) was that we should all be temperate sooner or later; possibly as the next step after espousing our Deceased Wife's Sister. Well, our Vicar laid his copy of the 1894 almanack on the reading-room table at 11.30 am, or thereabouts, looked over the local papers for a few minutes, and left the building at ten minutes to noon. I get this information from Matthias James, our respected pilot, who happened to be in the room, reading the Shipping Gazette. It is con- [201] firmed by Mr. Hansombody and four or five other members. At noon precisely, Mr. Rabling (our gasman and an earnest Methodist) came in. His eye, as it wandered round in search of an unoccupied newspaper, was arrested by the scarlet and green binding of Whitaker. He picked the book up, opened it casually, and read— “The proof gallons of spirits distilled during the year ending March. 31st, 1893, were 10,691,576 in England, 20,107,077 in Scotland, and 13,615,668 in Ireland...." He tells me he was on the point of closing the book as a voluptuous work of fiction, when a second and even more dazzling paragraph took his eye. "The beer charged with duty in the United Kingdom was 32,104,320 barrels, 532,047 barrels of which were exported on drawback, leaving 31,572,283 barrels for home consumption. There were also 38,-580 barrels of beer, and 1,653 barrels of spruce imported from abroad." |