Springhaven - R. D. Blackmore
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"There is no time for this nonsense, Polly. He is a wonderful baby,
I dare say; and so is every baby, till he gets too old. You must obey
orders, and be off with him."
"Oh no! You are come to take us with you. There, I have covered his face
up, that he may not suppose you look cross at me. Oh, Caryl, you would
never leave him behind, even if you could do that to me. We are not
grand people, and you can put us anywhere, and now I am nearly as well
as ever. I have put up all his little things; it does not matter about
my own. I was never brought up to be idle, and I can earn my own living
anywhere; and it might be a real comfort for you, with the great people
going against you, to have somebody, not very grand, of course, but as
true to you as yourself, and belonging altogether to you. I know many
people who would give their eyes for such a baby."
"There is no time for this," Carne answered, sternly; "my arrangements
are made, and I cannot take you. I have no fault to find with you, but
argument is useless."
"Yes, I know that, Caryl; and I am sure that I never would attempt to
argue with you. You should have everything your own way, and I could
attend to so many things that no man ever does properly. I will be a
slave to you, and this little darling love you, and then you will feel
that you have two to love you, wherever you go, and whatever you do.
And if I spoke crossly when first I found out that--that I went away for
nothing with you, you must have forgiven me by this time, and I never
will remind you again of it; if I do, send me back to the place I belong
to. I belong to you now, Caryl, and so does he; and when we are away
from the people who know me, I shall be pleasant and cheerful again. I
was only two-and-twenty the day the boats came home last week, and they
used to say the young men jumped into the water as soon as they caught
sight of me. Try to be kind to me, and I shall be so happy that I shall
look almost as I used to do, when you said that the great ladies might
be grander, but none of them fit to look into my looking-glass. Dear
Caryl, I am ready; I don't care where it is, or what I may have to put
up with, so long as you will make room for your Polly, and your baby."
"I am not at all a hard man," said Carne, retreating as the impulsive
Polly offered him the baby, "but once for all, no more of this. I have
quite forgiven any strong expressions you may have made use of when your
head was light; and if all goes well, I shall provide for you and the
child, according to your rank in life. But now you must run down the
hill, if you wish to save your life and his."
"I have run down the hill already. I care not a pin for my own life;
and hard as you are you would never have the heart to destroy your
own little Caryl. He may be called Caryl--you will not deny him that,
although he has no right to be called Carne. Oh, Caryl, Caryl, you can
be so good, when you think there is something to gain by it. Only be
good to us now, and God will bless you for it, darling. I have given up
all the world for you, and you cannot have the heart to cast me off."
"What a fool the woman is! Have you ever known me change my mind? If
you scorn your own life, through your own folly, you must care for the
brat's. If you stop here ten minutes, you will both be blown to pieces."
"Through my own folly! Oh, God in heaven, that you should speak so of my
love for you! Squire Carne, you are the worst man that ever lived; and
it serves me right for trusting you. But where am I to go? Who will take
me and support me, and my poor abandoned child?"
"Your parents, of course, are your natural supporters. You are hurting
your child by this low abuse of me. Now put aside excitement, and run
home, like a sensible woman, before your good father goes to bed."
She had watched his face all the time, as if she could scarcely believe
that he was in earnest, but he proved it by leaving her with a wave of
his hat, and hastening back to his lantern. Then taking up that, and the
coil of tow, but leaving his package against the wall, he disappeared
in the narrow passage leading to the powder vaults. Polly stood still
by the broken dial, with her eyes upon the moon, and her arms around
the baby, and a pang in her heart which prevented her from speaking, or
moving, or even knowing where she was.
Then Carne, stepping warily, unlocked the heavy oak door at the entrance
of the cellarage, held down his lantern, and fixed with a wedge the top
step of the ladder, which had been made to revolve with a pin and collar
at either end, as before described. After trying the step with his hand,
to be sure that it was now wedged safely, he flung his coil into the
vault and followed. Some recollection made him smile as he was going
down the steps: it was that of a stout man lying at the bottom, shaken
in every bone, yet sound as a grape ensconced in jelly. As he touched
the bottom he heard a little noise as of some small substance falling,
but seeing a piece of old mortar dislodged, he did not turn round to
examine the place. If he had done so he would have found behind the
ladder the wedge he had just inserted to secure the level of the
"Inspector's step."
Unwinding his coil of tow, which had been steeped in saltpetre to make
a long fuse, with a toss of his long legs he crossed the barricade of
solid oak rails about six feet high securely fastened across the vault,
for the enclosure of the dangerous storage. Inside it was a passage,
between chests of arms, dismounted cannon, and cases from every
department of supply, to the explosive part of the magazine,
the devourer of the human race, the pulp of the marrow of the
Furies--gunpowder.
Of this there was now collected here, and stored in tiers that reached
the roof, enough to blow up half the people of England, or lay them
all low with a bullet before it; yet not enough, not a millionth part
enough, to move for the breadth of a hair the barrier betwixt right
and wrong, which a very few barrels are enough to do with a man who has
sapped the foundations. Treading softly for fear of a spark from his
boots, and guarding the lantern well, Carne approached one of the casks
in the lower tier, and lifted the tarpaulin. Then he slipped the wooden
slide in the groove, and allowed some five or six pounds to run out upon
the floor, from which the cask was raised by timber baulks. Leaving the
slide partly open, he spread one end of his coil like a broad lamp-wick
in the pile of powder which had run out, and put a brick upon the tow
to keep it from shifting. Then he paid out the rest of the coil on the
floor like a snake some thirty feet long, with the tail about a yard
inside the barricade. With a very steady hand he took the candle from
inside the horn, and kindled that tail of the fuse; and then replacing
his light, he recrossed the open timber-work, and swiftly remounted the
ladder of escape. "Twenty minutes' or half an hour's grace," he thought,
"and long before that I shall be at the yew-tree."
But, as he planted his right foot sharply upon the top step of the
ladder, that step swung back, and cast him heavily backwards to the
bottom. The wedge had dropped out, and the step revolved like the
treadle of a fox-trap.
For a minute or two he lay stunned and senseless, with the lantern
before him on its side, and the candle burning a hole in the bubbly
horn. Slowly recovering his wits, he strove to rise, as the deadly peril
was borne in upon him. But instead of rising, he fell back again with a
curse, and then a long-drawn groan; for pain (like the thrills of a man
on the rack) had got hold of him and meant to keep him. His right arm
was snapped at the elbow, and his left leg just above the knee, and the
jar of his spine made him feel as if his core had been split out of him.
He had no fat, like Shargeloes, to protect him, and no sheath of hair
like Twemlow's.
Writhing with anguish, he heard a sound which did not improve his
condition. It was the spluttering of the fuse, eating its merry way
towards the five hundred casks of gunpowder. In the fury of peril he
contrived to rise, and stood on his right foot with the other hanging
limp, while he stayed himself with his left hand upon the ladder. Even
if he could crawl up this, it would benefit him nothing. Before he
could drag himself ten yards, the explosion would overtake him. His only
chance was to quench the fuse, or draw it away from the priming. With
a hobble of agony he reached the barricade, and strove to lift his
crippled frame over it. It was hopeless; the power of his back was gone,
and his limbs were unable to obey his brain. Then he tried to crawl
through at the bottom, but the opening of the rails would not admit his
body, and the train of ductile fire had left only ash for him to grasp
at.
Quivering with terror, and mad with pain, he returned to the foot of the
steps, and clung till a gasp of breath came back. Then he shouted, with
all his remaining power, "Polly, oh, Polly, my own Polly!"
Polly had been standing, like a statue of despair, beside the broken
dial. To her it mattered little whether earth should open and swallow
her, or fire cast her up to heaven. But his shout aroused her from
this trance, and her heart leaped up with the fond belief that he had
relented, and was calling her and the child to share his fortunes. There
she stood in the archway and looked down, and the terror of the scene
overwhelmed her. Through a broken arch beyond the barricade pale
moonbeams crossed the darkness, like the bars of some soft melody; in
the middle the serpent coil was hissing with the deadly nitre; at
the foot of the steps was her false lover--husband he had called
himself--with his hat off, and his white face turned in the last
supplication towards her, as hers had been turned towards him just now.
Should a woman be as pitiless as a man?
"Come down, for God's sake, and climb that cursed wood, and pull back
the fuse, pull it back from the powder. Oh, Polly! and then we will go
away together."
"It is too late. I will not risk my baby. You have made me so weak that
I could never climb that fence. You are blowing up the castle which you
promised to my baby; but you shall not blow up him. You told me to run
away, and run I must. Good-bye; I am going to my natural supporters."
Carne heard her steps as she fled, and he fancied that he heard
therewith a mocking laugh, but it was a sob, a hysterical sob. She would
have helped him, if she dared; but her wits were gone in panic. She knew
not of his shattered limbs and horrible plight; and it flashed across
her that this was another trick of his--to destroy her and the baby,
while he fled. She had proved that all his vows were lies.
Then Carne made his mind up to die like a man, for he saw that escape
was impossible. Limping back to the fatal barrier, he raised himself
to his full height, and stood proudly to see, as he put it, the last
of himself. Not a quiver of his haughty features showed the bodily pain
that racked him, nor a flinch of his deep eyes confessed the tumult
moving in his mind and soul. He pulled out his watch and laid it on the
top rail of the old oak fence: there was not enough light to read the
time, but he could count the ticks he had to live. Suddenly hope flashed
through his heart, like the crack of a gun, like a lightning fork--a big
rat was biting an elbow of the yarn where some tallow had fallen upon
it. Would he cut it, would he drag it away to his hole? would he pull it
a little from its fatal end? He was strong enough to do it, if he only
understood. The fizz of saltpetre disturbed the rat, and he hoisted his
tail and skipped back to his home.
The last thoughts of this unhappy man went back upon his early days; and
things, which he had passed without thinking of, stood before him like
his tombstone. None of his recent crimes came now to his memory to
disturb it--there was time enough after the body for them--but trifles
which had first depraved the mind, and slips whose repetition had made
slippery the soul, like the alphabet of death, grew plain to him. Then
he thought of his mother, and crossed himself, and said a little prayer
to the Virgin.
* * * * *
Charron was waiting by the old yew-tree, and Jerry sat trembling, with
his eyes upon the castle, while the black horse, roped to a branch, was
mourning the scarcity of oats and the abundance of gnats.
"Pest and the devil, but the coast is all alive!" cried the Frenchman,
soothing anxiety with solid and liquid comforts. "Something has gone
wrong behind the tail of everything. And there goes that big Stoobar,
blazing with his sordid battery! Arouse thee, old Cheray! The time too
late is over. Those lights thrice accursed will display our little boat,
and John Bull is rushing with a thousand sails. The Commander is mad.
They will have him, and us too. Shall I dance by a rope? It is the only
dancing probable for me in England."
"I have never expected any good to come," the old man answered, without
moving. "The curse of the house is upon the young Squire. I saw it in
his eyes this morning, the same as I saw in his father's eyes, when the
sun was going down the very night he died. I shall never see him more,
sir, nor you either, nor any other man that bides to the right side of
his coffin."
"Bah! what a set you are of funerals, you Englishmen! But if I thought
he was in risk, I would stay to see the end of it."
"Here comes the end of it!" the old man cried, leaping up and catching
at a rugged cord of trunk, with his other hand pointing up the hill.
From the base of the castle a broad blaze rushed, showing window and
battlement, arch and tower, as in a flicker of the Northern lights. Then
up went all the length of fabric, as a wanton child tosses his Noah's
ark. Keep and buttress, tower and arch, mullioned window and battlement,
in a fiery furnace leaped on high, like the outburst of a volcano. Then,
with a roar that rocked the earth, they broke into a storm of ruin,
sweeping the heavens with a flood of fire, and spreading the sea with
a mantle of blood. Following slowly in stately spires, and calmly
swallowing everything, a fountain of dun smoke arose, and solemn silence
filled the night.
"All over now, thank the angels and the saints! My faith, but I made up
my mind to join them," cried Charron, who had fallen, or been felled by
the concussion. "Cheray, art thou still alive? The smoke is in my neck.
I cannot liberate my words, but the lumps must be all come down by this
time, without adding to the weight of our poor brains. Something fell in
this old tree, a long way up, as high as where the crows build. It
was like a long body, with one leg and one arm. I hope it was not the
Commander; but one thing is certain--he is gone to heaven. Let us pray
that he may stop there, if St. Peter admits a man who was selling the
keys of his country to the enemy. But we must do duty to ourselves, my
Cheray. Let us hasten to the sea, and give the signal for the boat. La
Torche will be a weak light after this."
"I will not go. I will abide my time." The old man staggered to a broken
column of the ancient gateway which had fallen near them, and flung his
arms around it. "I remember this since I first could toddle. The ways of
the Lord are wonderful."
"Come away, you old fool," cried the Frenchman; "I hear the tramp of
soldiers in the valley. If they catch you here, it will be drum-head
work, and you will swing before morning in the ruins."
"I am very old. My time is short. I would liefer hang from an English
beam than deal any more with your outlandish lot."
"Farewell to thee, then! Thou art a faithful clod. Here are five guineas
for thee, of English stamp. I doubt if napoleons shall ever be coined in
England."
He was off while he might--a gallant Frenchman, and an honest enemy;
such as our country has respected always, and often endeavoured to turn
into fast friends. But the old man stood and watched the long gap, where
for centuries the castle of the Carnes had towered. And his sturdy faith
was rewarded.
"I am starving"--these words came feebly from a gaunt, ragged figure
that approached him. "For three days my food has been forgotten; and
bad as it was, I missed it. There came a great rumble, and my walls fell
down. Ancient Jerry, I can go no further. I am empty as a shank bone
when the marrow-toast is serving. Your duty was to feed me, with
inferior stuff at any rate."
"No, sir, no;" the old servitor was roused by the charge of neglected
duty. "Sir Parsley, it was no fault of mine whatever. Squire undertook
to see to all of it himself. Don't blame me, sir; don't blame me."
"Never mind the blame, but make it good," Mr. Shargeloes answered,
meagrely, for he felt as if he could never be fat again. "What do I see
there? It is like a crust of bread, but I am too weak to stoop for it."
"Come inside the tree, sir." The old man led him, as a grandsire leads a
famished child. "What a shame to starve you, and you so hearty! But the
Squire clean forgotten it, I doubt, with his foreign tricks coming to
this great blow-up. Here, sir, here; please to sit down a moment, while
I light a candle. They French chaps are so wasteful always, and always
grumbling at good English victual. Here's enough to feed a family
Captain Charron has throwed by--bread, and good mutton, and pretty near
half a ham, and a bottle or so of thin nasty foreign wine. Eat away, Sir
Parsley; why, it does me good to see you. You feeds something like an
Englishman. But you know, sir, it were all your own fault at bottom, for
coming among them foreigners a-meddling."
"You are a fine fellow. You shall be my head butler," Percival
Shargeloes replied, while he made such a meal as he never made
before, and never should make again, even when he came to be the Right
Honourable the Lord Mayor of London.
CHAPTER LXIV
WRATH AND SORROW
The two most conspicuous men of the age were saddened and cast down
just now--one by the natural kindly sorrow into which all men live for
others, till others live into it for them; and one by the petulant
turns of fortune, twisting and breaking his best-woven web. Lord Nelson
arrived at Springhaven on Monday, to show his affection for his dear
old friend; and the Emperor Napoleon, at the same time, was pacing the
opposite cliffs in grief and dudgeon.
He had taken his post on some high white land, about a league southward
of Boulogne, and with strong field-glasses, which he pettishly exchanged
in doubt of their power and truth, he was scanning all the roadways of
the shore and the trackless breadths of sea. His quick brain was burning
for despatches overland--whether from the coast road past Etaples, or
further inland by the great route from Paris, or away to the southeast
by special courier from the Austrian frontier--as well as for signals
out at sea, and the movements of the British ships, to show that his own
were coming. He had treated with disdain the suggestions of his faithful
Admiral Decres, who had feared to put the truth too plainly, that the
fleet ordered up from the west had failed, and with it the Master's
mighty scheme. Having yet to learn the lesson that his best plans might
be foiled, he was furious when doubt was cast upon this pet design. Like
a giant of a spider at the nucleus of his web, he watched the broad fan
of radiant threads, and the hovering of filmy woof, but without the mild
philosophy of that spider, who is versed in the very sad capriciousness
of flies.
Just within hearing (and fain to be further, in his present state of
mind) were several young officers of the staff, making little mouths at
one another, for want of better pastime, but looking as grave, when the
mighty man glanced round, as schoolboys do under the master's eye.
"Send Admiral Decres to me," the Emperor shouted, as he laid down his
telescope and returned to his petulant to-and-fro.
In a few minutes Admiral Decres arrived, and after a salute which was
not acknowledged, walked in silence at his master's side. The great man,
talking to himself aloud, and reviling almost every one except himself,
took no more notice of his comrade for some minutes than if he had been
a poodle keeping pace with him. Then he turned upon him fiercely, with
one hand thrown out, as if he would have liked to strike him.
"What then is the meaning of all this?" He spoke too fast for the other
to catch all his words. "You have lost me three days of it. How much
longer will you conceal your knowledge? Carne's scheme has failed,
through treachery--probably his own. I never liked the man. He wanted to
be the master of me--of me! I can do without him; it is all the better,
if my fleet will come. I have three fleets, besides these. Any one of
them would do. They would do, if even half their crews were dead, so
long as they disturbed the enemy. You know where Villeneuve is, but you
will not tell me."
"I told your Majesty what I thought," M. Decres replied, with dignity,
"but it did not please you to listen to me. Shall I now tell your
Majesty what I know?"
"Ha! You have dared to have secret despatches! You know more of the
movements of my fleets than I do! You have been screening him all along.
Which of you is the worse traitor?"
"Your Majesty will regret these words. Villeneuve and myself are devoted
to you. I have not heard from him. I have received no despatches. But in
a private letter just received, which is here at your Majesty's service,
I find these words, which your Majesty can see. 'From my brother on
the Spanish coast I have just heard. Admiral Villeneuve has sailed for
Cadiz, believing Nelson to be in chase of him. My brother saw the whole
fleet crowding sail southward. No doubt it is the best thing they could
do. If they came across Nelson, they would be knocked to pieces.'
Your Majesty, that is an opinion only; but it seems to be shared by M.
Villeneuve."
Napoleon's wrath was never speechless--except upon one great
occasion--and its outburst put every other in the wrong, even while he
knew that he was in the right. Regarding Decres with a glare of fury,
such as no other eyes could pour, or meet--a glare as of burnished steel
fired from a cannon--he drove him out of every self-defence or shelter,
and shattered him in the dust of his own principles. It was not the
difference of rank between them, but the difference in the power of
their minds, that chased like a straw before the wind the very stable
senses of the man who understood things. He knew that he was right, but
the right was routed, and away with it flew all capacity of reason in
the pitiless torrent of passion, like a man in a barrel, and the barrel
in Niagara.
M. Decres knew not head from tail, in the rush of invective poured upon
him; but he took off his hat in soft search for his head, and to let in
the compliments rained upon it.
"It is good," replied the Emperor, replying to himself, as the foam
of his fury began to pass; "you will understand, Decres, that I am not
angry, but only lament that I have such a set of fools. You are not the
worst. I have bigger fools than you. Alas that I should confess it!"
Admiral Decres put his hat upon his head, for the purpose of taking it
off, to acknowledge the kindness of this compliment. It was the first
polite expression he had received for half an hour. And it would have
been the last, if he had dared to answer.
"Villeneuve cannot help it that he is a fool," continued Napoleon, in
a milder strain; "but he owes it to his rank that he should not be a
coward. Nelson is his black beast. Nelson has reduced him to a condition
of wet pulp. I shall send a braver man to supersede him. Are French
fleets forever to turn tail to an inferior force of stupid English? If
I were on the seas, I would sweep Nelson from them. Our men are far
braver, when they learn to spread their legs. As soon as I have finished
with those filthy Germans, I will take the command of the fleets myself.
It will be a bad day for that bragging Nelson. Give me pen and paper,
and send Daru to me. I must conquer the Continent once more, I suppose;
and then I will return and deal with England."
In a couple of hours he had shaped and finished the plan of a campaign
the most triumphant that even he ever planned and accomplished. Then his
mind became satisfied with good work, and he mounted his horse, and
for the last time rode through the grandest encampment the sun has ever
seen, distributing his calm smile, as if his nature were too large for
tempests.
* * * * *
On the sacred white coast, which the greatest of Frenchmen should only
approach as a prisoner, stood a man of less imperious mould, and of
sweet and gentle presence--a man who was able to command himself in the
keenest disappointment, because he combined a quick sense of humour with
the power of prompt action, and was able to appreciate his own great
qualities without concluding that there were no other. His face, at all
times except those of hot battle, was filled with quiet sadness, as if
he were sent into the world for some great purpose beyond his knowledge,
yet surely not above his aim. Years of deep anxiety and ever urgent duty
had made him look old before his time, but in no wise abated his natural
force. He knew that he had duty before him still, and he felt that the
only discharge was death.