Two Years Ago, Volume II. - Charles Kingsley
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TWO YEARS AGO
[Illustration]
TWO YEARS AGO
BY
CHARLES KINGSLEY
IN TWO VOLS.--VOL. II
1901
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAP
XV THE CRUISE OF THE WATERWITCH
XVI COME AT LAST
XVII BAALZEBUB'S BANQUET
XVIII THE BLACK HOUND
XIX BEDDGELERT
XX BOTH SIDES OF THE MOON AT ONCE
XXI NATURE'S MELODRAMA
XXII FOND, YET NOT FOOLISH
XXIII THE BROAD STONE OF HONOUR
XXIV THE THIRTIETH OF SEPTEMBER
XXV THE BANKER AND HIS DAUGHTER
XXVI TOO LATE
XXVII A RECENT EXPLOSION IN AN ANCIENT CRATER
XXVIII LAST CHRISTMAS EVE
TWO YEARS AGO.
CHAPTER XV.
THE CRUISE OF THE WATERWITCH.
The middle of August is come at last; and with it the solemn day on
which Frederick Viscount Scoutbush may be expected to revisit the home
of his ancestors. Elsley has gradually made up his mind to the
inevitable, with a stately sulkiness: and comforts himself, as the time
draws near, with the thought that, after all, his brother-in-law is not
a very formidable personage.
But to the population of Aberalva in general, the coming event is one of
awful jubilation. The shipping is all decked with flags; all the Sunday
clothes have been looked out, and many a yard of new ribbon and pound of
bad powder bought; there have been arrangements for a procession, which
could not be got up; for a speech which nobody would undertake to
pronounce; and, lastly, for a dinner, about which last there was no
hanging back. Yea, also, they have hired from Carcarrow Church-town,
sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music; for Frank has put
down the old choir band at Aberalva,--another of his mistakes,--and
there is but one fiddle and a clarionet now left in all the town. So the
said town waits all the day on tiptoe, ready to worship, till out of the
soft brown haze the stately Waterwitch comes sliding in, like a white
ghost, to fold her wings in Aberalva bay.
And at that sight the town is all astir. Fishermen shake themselves up
out of their mid-day snooze, to admire the beauty, as she slips on and
on through water smooth as glass, her hull hidden by the vast curve of
the balloon-jib, and her broad wings boomed out alow and aloft, till it
seems marvellous how that vast screen does not topple headlong, instead
of floating (as it seems) self-supporting above its image in the mirror.
Women hurry to put on their best bonnets; the sexton toddles up with the
church key in his hand, and the ringers at his heels; the Coastguard
Lieutenant bustles down to the Manby's mortar, which he has hauled out
in readiness on the pebbles. Old Willis hoists a flag before his house,
and half-a-dozen merchant skippers do the same. Bang goes the harmless
mortar, burning the British nation's powder without leave or licence;
and all the rocks and woods catch up the echo, and kick it from cliff to
cliff, playing at football with it till its breath is beaten out; a
rolling fire of old muskets and bird-pieces crackles along the shore,
and in five minutes a poor lad has blown a ramrod through his hand.
Never mind, lords do not visit Penalva every day. Out burst the bells
above with merry peal; Lord Scoutbush and the Waterwitch are duly "rung
in" to the home of his lordship's ancestors; and he is received, as he
scrambles up the pier steps from his boat, by the curate, the
churchwardens, the Lieutenant, and old Tardrew, backed by half-a-dozen
ancient sons of Anak, lineal descendants of the free fishermen to whom
six hundred years before, St. Just of Penalva did grant privileges hard
to spell, and harder to understand, on the condition of receiving,
whensoever he should land at the quay head, three brass farthings from
the "free fishermen of Aberalva."
Scoutbush shakes hands with curate, Lieutenant, Tardrew, churchwardens;
and then come forward the three farthings, in an ancient leather purse.
"Hope your lordship will do us the honour to shake hands with us too; we
are your lordship's free fishermen, as we have been your forefathers',"
says a magnificent old man, gracefully acknowledging the feudal tie,
while he claims the exemption.
Little Scoutbush, who is the kindest-hearted of men, clasps the great
brown fist in his little white one, and shakes hands heartily with every
one of them, saying,--"If your forefathers were as much taller than
mine, as you are than me, gentlemen, I shouldn't wonder if they took
their own freedom, without asking his leave for it!"
A lord who begins his progress with a jest! That is the sort of
aristocrat to rule in Aberalva! And all agree that evening, at the
Mariners' Rest, that his lordship is as nice a young gentleman as ever
trod deal board, and deserves such a yacht as he's got, and long may he
sail her!
How easy it is to buy the love of men! Gold will not do it: but there is
a little angel, may be, in the corner of every man's eye, who is worth
more than gold, and can do it free of all charges: unless a man drives
him out, and "hates his brother; and so walks in darkness; not knowing
whither he goeth," but running full butt against men's prejudices, and
treading on their corns, till they knock him down in despair--and all
just because he will not open his eyes, and use the light which comes by
common human good-nature!
Presently Tom hurries up, having been originally one of the deputation,
but kept by the necessity of binding up the three fingers which the
ramrod had spared to poor Jem Burman's hand. He bows, and the
Lieutenant--who (Frank being a little shy) acts as her Majesty's
representative--introduces him as "deputy medical man to our district of
the union, sir: Mr. Thurnall."
"Dr. Heale was to have been hero, by the by. Where is Dr. Heale?" says
some one.
"Very sorry, my lord; I can answer for him--professional calls, I don't
doubt--nobody more devoted to your lordship."
One need not inquire where Dr. Heale was: but if elderly men will drink
much brandy-and-water in hot summer days, after a heavy early dinner,
then will those men be too late for deputations and for more important
employments.
"Never mind the doctor, daresay he's asleep after dinner: do him good!"
says the Viscount, hitting the mark with a random shot; and thereby
raising his repute for sagacity immensely with his audience, who laugh
outright.
"Ah! Is it so, then? But--Mr. Thurnall, I think you said?--I am glad to
make your acquaintance, sir. I have heard your name often: you are my
friend Mellot's old friend, are you not?"
"I am a very old friend of Claude Mellot's."
"Well, and there he is on board, and will be delighted to do the honours
of my yacht to you whenever you like to visit her. You and I must know
each other better, sir."
Tom bows low--his lordship does him too much honour: the cunning fellow
knows that his fortune is made in Aberalva, if he chooses to work it
out: but he humbly slips into the rear, for Frank has to be supported,
not being over popular; and the Lieutenant may "turn crusty," unless he
has his lordship to himself, before the gaze of assembled Aberalva.
Scoutbush progresses up the street, bowing right and left, and stopped
half-a-dozen times by red-cloaked old women, who curtsey under his nose,
and will needs inform him how they knew his grandfather, or nursed his
uncle, or how his "dear mother, God rest her soul, gave me this very
cloak as I have on," and so forth; till Scoutbush comes to the
conclusion that they are a very loving and lovable set of people--as
indeed they are--and his heart smites him somewhat for not having seen
more of them in past years.
No sooner is Thurnall released, than he is off to the yacht as fast as
oars can take him, and in Claude's arms.
"Now!" (after all salutations and inquiries have been gone through),
"let me introduce you to Major Campbell." And Tom was presented to a
tall and thin personage, who sat at the cabin table, bending over a
microscope.
"Excuse my rising," said he, holding out a left hand, for the right was
busy. "A single jar will give me ten minutes' work to do again. I am
delighted to meet you: Mellot has often spoken to me of you as a man who
has seen more, and faced death more carelessly, than most men."
"Mellot flatters, sir. Whatsoever I have done, I have given up being
careless about death; for I have some one beside myself to live for."
"Married at last? has Diogenes found his Aspasia?" cried Claude.
Tom did not laugh.
"Since my brothers died, Claude, the old gentleman has only me to look
to. You seem to be a naturalist, sir."
"A dabbler," said the major, with eye and hand still busy.
"I ought not to begin our acquaintance by doubting your word: but these
things are no dabbler's work;" and Tom pointed to some exquisite
photographs of minute corallines, evidently taken under the microscope.
"They are Mellot's."
"Mellot turned man of science? Impossible!"
"No; only photographer. I am tired of painting nature clumsily, and then
seeing a sun-picture out-do all my efforts--so I am turned photographer,
and have made a vow against painting for three years and a day."
"Why, the photographs only give you light and shade."
"They will give you colour, too, before seven years are over--and that
is more than I can do, or any one else. No; I yield to the new dynasty.
The artist's occupation is gone henceforth, and the painter's studio,
like 'all charms, must fly, at the mere touch of cold philosophy.' So
Major Campbell prepares the charming little cockyoly birds, and I call
in the sun to immortalise them."
"And perfectly you are succeeding! They are quite new to me, recollect.
When I left Melbourne, the art had hardly risen there above guinea
portraits of bearded desperadoes, a nugget in one hand and a L50 note in
the other: but this is a new, and what a forward step for science!"
"You are a naturalist, then?" said Campbell, looking up with interest.
"All my profession are, more or less," said Tom, carelessly; "and I have
been lucky enough here to fall on untrodden ground, and have hunted up a
few sea-monsters this summer."
"Really? You can tell one where to search then, and where to dredge, I
hope. I have set my heart on a fortnight's work here, and have been
dreaming at night, like a child before a Twelfth-night party, of all
sorts of impossible hydras, gorgons and chimaeras dire, fished up from
your western deeps."
"I have none of them; but I can give you Turbinolia Milletiana and
Zoanthus Couchii. I have a party of the last gentlemen alive on shore."
The major's face worked with almost childish delight.
"But I shall be robbing you."
"They cost me nothing, my dear sir. I did very well, moreover, without
them, for five-and-thirty years; and I may do equally well for
five-and-thirty more."
"I ought to be able to say the same, surely," answered the Major,
composing his face again, and rising carefully. "I have to thank you,
exceedingly, my dear sir, for your prompt generosity: but it is better
discipline for a man, in many ways, to find things for himself than to
have them put into his hands. So, with a thousand thanks, you shall let
me see if I can dredge a Turbinolia for myself."
This was spoken with so sweet and polished a modulation, and yet so
sadly and severely withal, that Tom looked at the speaker with interest.
He was a very tall and powerful man, and would have been a very handsome
man, both in face and figure, but for the high cheekbone, long neck, and
narrow shoulders, so often seen north of Tweed. His brow was very high
and full; his eyes--grave, but very gentle, with large drooping eyelids
--were buried under shaggy grey eyebrows. His mouth was gentle as his
eyes; but compressed, perhaps by the habit of command, perhaps by secret
sorrow; for of that, too, as well as of intellect and magnanimity,
Thurnall thought he could discern the traces. His face was bronzed by
long exposure to the sun; his close-cut curls, which had once been
auburn, were fast turning white, though his features looked those of a
man under five-and-forty; his cheeks were as smooth shaven as his chin.
A right, self-possessed, valiant soldier he looked; one who could be
very loving to little innocents, and very terrible to full-grown knaves.
"You are practising at self-denial, as usual," said Claude.
"Because I may, at any moment, have to exercise it in earnest. Mr.
Thurnall, can you tell me the name of this little glass arrow, which I
just found shooting about in the sweeping net?"
Tom did know the wonderful little link between the fish and the insect;
and the two chatted over its strange form, till the boat returned to
take them ashore.
"Do you make any stay here?"
"I purpose to spend a fortnight here in my favourite pursuit. I must
draw on your kindness and knowledge of the place to point me out
lodgings."
Lodgings, as it befell, were to be found, and good ones, close to the
beach, and away from the noise of the harbour, on Mrs. Harvey's first
floor; for the local preacher, who generally occupied them, was away.
"But Major Campbell might dislike the noise of the school?"
"The school? What better music for a lonely old bachelor than children's
voices?"
So, by sunset the major was fairly established over Mrs. Harvey's shop.
It was not the place which Tom would have chosen; he was afraid of
"running over" poor Grace, if he came in and out as often as he could
have wished. Nevertheless, he accepted the major's invitation to visit
him that very evening.
"I cannot ask you to dinner yet, sir; for my menage will be hardly
settled: but a cup of coffee, and an exceedingly good cigar, I think my
establishment may furnish you by seven o'clock to-night;--if you think
them worth walking down for."
Tom, of course, said something civil, and made his appearance in due
time. He found the coffee ready, and the cigars also; but the Major was
busy, in his shirt sleeves, unpacking and arranging jars, nets,
microscopes, and what not of scientific lumber; and Tom proffered his
help.
"I am ashamed to make use of you the first moment that you become my
guest."
"I shall enjoy the mere handling of your tackle," said Tom; and began
breaking the tenth commandment over almost every article he touched; for
everything was first-rate of its kind.
"You seem to have devoted money, as well as thought, plentifully to the
pursuit."
"I have little else to which to devote either; and more of both than is,
perhaps, safe for me."
"I should hardly complain of a superfluity of thought, if superfluity of
money was the condition of it."
"Pray understand me. I am no Dives; but I have learned to want so
little, that I hardly know how to spend the little which I have."
"I should hardly have called that an unsafe state."
"The penniless Faquir who lives on chance handfuls of rice has his
dangers, as well as the rich Parsee who has his ventures out from
Madagascar to Canton. Yes, I have often envied the schemer, the man of
business, almost the man of pleasure; their many wants at least absorb
them in outward objects, instead of leaving them too easily satisfied,
to sink in upon themselves, and waste away in useless dreams."
"You found out the best cure for that malady when you took up the
microscope and the collecting-box."
"So I fancied once. I took up natural history in India years ago to
drive away thought, as other men might take to opium, or to
brandy-pawnee: but, like them, it has become a passion now and a tyranny;
and I go on hunting, discovering, wondering, craving for more knowledge;
and--_cui bono_? I sometimes ask--"
"Why, this at least, sir; that, without such men as you, who work for
mere love, science would be now fifty years behind her present
standing-point; and we doctors should not know a thousand important facts,
which you have been kind enough to tell us, while we have not time to find
them out for ourselves."
"_Sic vos non vobis_--"
"Yes, you have the work, and we have the pay; which is a very fair
division of labour, considering the world we live in."
"And have you been skilful enough to make science pay you here, in such
an out-of-the-way little world as that of Aberalva must be?"
"She is a good stalking-horse anywhere;" and Tom detailed, with plenty
of humour, the effect of his microscope and his lecture on the drops of
water. But his wit seemed so much lost on Campbell, that he at last
stopped almost short, not quite sure that he had not taken a liberty.
"No; go on, I beg you; and do not fancy that I am not interested and
amused too, because my laughing muscles are a little stiff from want of
use. Perhaps, too, I am apt to take things too much _au grand serieux;_
but I could not help thinking, while you were speaking, how sad it was
that people were utterly ignorant of matters so vitally necessary to
health."
"And I, perhaps, ought not to jest over the subject: but, indeed, with
cholera staring us in the face here, I must indulge in some emotion; and
as it is unprofessional to weep, I must laugh as long as I dare."
The Major dropped his coffee-cup upon the floor, and looked at Thurnall
with so horrified a gaze, that Tom could hardly believe him to be the
same man. Then recollecting himself, he darted down upon the remains of
his cup: and looking up again--"A thousand pardons; but--did I hear you
aright? cholera staring us in the face?"
"How can it be otherwise? It is drawing steadily on from the eastward
week by week; and, in the present state of the town, nothing but some
miraculous caprice of Dame Fortune's can deliver us."
"Don't talk of Fortune, sir! at such a moment. Talk of God!" said the
Major, rising from his chair, and pacing the room. "It is too horrible!
Intolerable! When do you expect it here?"
"Within the month, perhaps,--hardly before. I should have warned you of
the danger, I assure you, had I not understood from you that you were
only going to stay a fortnight."
The Major made an impatient gesture.
"Do you fancy that I am afraid for myself? No; but the thought of its
coming to--to the poor people in the town, you know. It is too dreadful.
I have seen it in India--among my own men--among the natives. Good
heavens, I never shall forget--and to meet the fiend again here, of all
places in the world! I fancied it so clean and healthy, swept by fresh
sea-breezes."
"And by nothing else. A half-hour's walk round would convince you, sir;
I only wish that you could persuade his lordship to accompany you."
"Scoutbush? Of course he will,--he shall,--he must. Good heavens! whose
concern is it more than his? You think, then, that there is a chance of
staving it off--by cleansing, I mean?"
"If we have heavy rains during the next week or two, yes. If this
drought last, better leave ill alone; we shall only provoke the devil by
stirring him up."
"You speak confidently," said the Major, gradually regaining his own
self-possession, as he saw Tom so self-possessed. "Have you--allow me to
ask so important a question--have you seen much of cholera?"
"I have worked through three. At Paris, at St. Petersburgh, and in the
West Indies: and I have been thinking up my old experience for the last
six weeks, foreseeing what would come."
"I am satisfied, sir; perhaps I ought to ask your pardon for the
question."
"Not at all. How can you trust a man, unless you know him?" "And you
expect it within the month? You shall go with me to Lord Scoutbush
to-morrow, and--and now we will talk of something more pleasant." And he
began again upon the zoophites.
Tom, as they chatted on, could not help wondering at the Major's
unexpected passion; and could not help remarking, also, that in spite of
his desire to be agreeable, and to interest his guest in his scientific
discoveries, he was yet distraught, and full of other thoughts. What
could be the meaning of it? Was it mere excess of human sympathy? The
countenance hardly betokened that: but still, who can trust altogether
the expression of a weather-hardened visage of forty-five? So the Doctor
set it down to tenderness of heart, till a fresh vista opened on him.
Major Campbell, he soon found, was as fond of insects as of
sea-monsters: and he began inquiring about the woods, the heaths, the
climate; which seemed to the Doctor, for a long time, to mean nothing
more than the question which he put plainly, "Where have I a chance of
rare insects?" But he seemed, after a while, to be trying to learn the
geography of the parish in detail, and especially of the ground round
Vavasour's house. "However it's no business of mine," thought Thurnall,
and told him all he wanted, till--
"Then the house lies quite in the bottom of the glen? Is there a good
fall to the stream--for a stream I suppose there is?"
Thurnall shook his head. "Cold boggy stewponds in the garden, such as
our ancestors loved, damming up the stream. They must needs have fish in
Lent, we know; and paid the penalty of it by ague and fever."
"Stewponds damming up the stream? Scoutbush ought to drain them
instantly!" said the Major, half to himself. "But still the house lies
high--with regard to the town, I mean. No chance of malaria coming up?"
"Upon my word, sir, as a professional man, that is a thing that I dare
not say. The chances are not great--the house is two hundred yards from
the nearest cottage: but if there be an east wind--"
"I cannot bear this any longer. It is perfect madness!"
"I trust, sir, that you do not think that I have neglected the matter. I
have pointed it all out, I assure you, to Mr. Vavasour."
"And it is not altered?"
"I believe it is to be altered--that is--the truth is, sir, that Mr.
Vavasour shrinks so much from the very notion of cholera, that--"
"That he does not like to do anything which may look like believing in
its possibility?"
"He says," quoth Tom, parrying the question, but in a somewhat dry tone,
"that he is afraid of alarming Mrs. Vavasour and the servants."
The Major said something under his breath, which Tom did not catch, and
then, in an appeased tone of voice--
"Well, that is at least a fault on the right side. Mrs. Vavasour's
brother, as owner of the place, is of course the proper person to make
the house fit for habitation." And he relapsed into silence, while
Thurnall, who suspected more than met the ear, rose to depart.
"Are you going? It is not late; not ten o'clock yet."
"A medical man, who may be called up at any moment, must make sure of
his 'beauty sleep,'"
"I will walk with you, and smoke my last cigar." So they went out, and
up to Heale's. Tom went in: but he observed that his companion, after
standing awhile in the street irresolutely, went on up the hill, and, as
far as he could see, turned up the lane to Vavasour's.
"A mystery here," thought he, as he put matters to rights in the surgery
ere going upstairs. "A mystery which I may as well fathom. It may be of
use to poor Tom, as most other mysteries are. That is, though, if I can
do it honourably; for the man is a gallant gentleman. I like him, and I
am inclined to trust him. Whatsoever his secret is, I don't think that
it is one which he need be ashamed of. Still, 'there's a deal of human
natur' in man,' and there may be in him:--and what matter if there is?"
Half an hour afterwards the Major returned, took the candle from Grace,
who was sitting up for him, and went upstairs with a gentle "good
night," but without looking at her.
He sat down at the open window, and looked out leaning on the sill.
"Well, I was too late: I daresay there was some purpose in it. When
shall I learn to believe that God takes better care of His own than I
can do? I was faithless and impatient to-night. I am afraid I betrayed
myself before that man. He looks like one, certainly, who could be
trusted with a secret: yet I had rather that he had not mine. It is my
own fault, like everything else! Foolish old fellow that you are,
fretting and fussing to the end! Is not that scene a message from above,
saying, 'Be still, and know that I am God'?"
And the Major looked out upon the summer sea, lit by a million globes of
living fire, and then upon the waves which broke in flame upon the
beach, and then up to the spangled stars above.
"What do I know of these, with all my knowing? Not even a twentieth part
of those medusae, or one in each thousand of those sparks among the
foam. Perhaps I need not know. And yet why was the thirst awakened in
me, save to be satisfied at last? Perhaps to become more intense, with
every fresh delicious draught of knowledge.... Death, beautiful, wise,
kind death; when will you come and tell me what I want to know? I
courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, only to give rest to
the weary. That was a coward's wish, and so you would not come. I ran
you close in Afghanistan, old Death, and at Sobraon too, I was not far
behind you; and I thought I had you safe among that jungle grass at
Aliwal; but you slipped through my hand--I was not worthy of you. And
now I will not hunt you any more, old Death: do you bide your time, and
I mine; though who knows if I may not meet you here? Only when you come
give me not rest, but work. Give work to the idle, freedom to the
chained, sight to the blind!--Tell me a little about finer things than
zoophytes--perhaps about the zoophytes as well--and you shall still be
brave old Death, my good camp-comrade now for many a year."