Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale Part 6

The farmer was so pleased that he whispered something; but Carroway put his hand before his mouth, and said, "Never, no, never in the morning!"

But in spite of that, Master Anerley felt in his pocket for a key, and departed.

"Wicked, wicked, is the word I use," protested Mrs. Anerley, "for all this fribble about rooks and looks, and holding of candles, and curling of hair. When I was Mary's age--oh dear! It may not be so for your daughters, captain; but evil for mine was the day that invented those proud swinging-gla.s.ses."

"That you may p.r.o.nounce, ma'am, and I will say Amen. Why, my eldest daughter, in her tenth year now--"

"Come, Captain Carroway," broke in the farmer, returning softly with a square old bottle, "how goes the fighting with the c.r.a.ppos now? Put your legs up, and light your pipe, and tell us all the news."

"Cadman, and Ellis, and d.i.c.k Hackerbody," the lieutenant of the coast-guard shouted, "you have fed well. Be off, men; no more neglect of duty! Place an outpost at fork of the Sewerby road, and strictly observe the enemy, while I hold a council of war with my brother officer, Captain Anerley. Half a crown for you, if you catch the rogue, half a crown each, and promotion of twopence. Attention, eyes right, make yourselves scarce! Well, now the rogues are gone, let us make ourselves at home. Anerley, your question is a dry one. A dry one; but this is uncommonly fine stuff! How the devil has it slipped through our fingers?

Never mind that, inter amicos--Sir, I was at school at Shrewsbury--but as to the war, Sir, the service is going to the devil, for the want of pure principle."

The farmer nodded; and his looks declared that to some extent he felt it. He had got the worst side of some bargains that week; but his wife had another way of thinking.

"Why, Captain Carroway, whatever could be purer? When you were at sea, had you ever a man of the downright principles of Nelson?"

"Nelson has done very well in his way; but he is a man who has risen too fast, as other men rise too slowly. Nothing in him; no substance, madam; I knew him as a youngster, and I could have tossed him on a marling-spike. And instead of feeding well, Sir, he quite wore himself away. To my firm knowledge, he would scarcely turn the scale upon a good Frenchman of half of the peas. Every man should work his own way up, unless his father did it for him. In my time we had fifty men as good, and made no fuss about them."

"And you not the last of them, captain, I dare say. Though I do love to hear of the Lord's Lord Nelson, as the people call him. If ever a man fought his own way up--"

"Madam, I know him, and respect him well. He would walk up to the devil, with a sword between his teeth, and a boarder's pistol in each hand.

Madam, I leaped, in that condition, a depth of six fathoms and a half into the starboard mizzen-chains of the French line-of-battle ship Peace and Thunder."

"Oh, Captain Carroway, how dreadful! What had you to lay hold with?"

"At such times a man must not lay hold. My business was to lay about; and I did it to some purpose. This little slash, across my eyes struck fire, and it does the same now by moonlight."

One of the last men in the world to brag was Lieutenant Carroway.

Nothing but the great thirst of this morning, and strong necessity of quenching it, could ever have led him to speak about himself, and remember his own little exploits. But the farmer was pleased, and said, "Tell us some more, Sir."

"Mistress Anerley," the captain answered, shutting up the scar, which he was able to expand by means of a muscle of excitement, "you know that a man should drop these subjects when he has got a large family. I have been in the Army and the Navy, madam, and now I am in the Revenue; but my duty is first to my own house."

"Do take care, Sir; I beg you to be careful. Those free-traders now are come to such a pitch that any day or night they may shoot you."

"Not they, madam. No, they are not murderers. In a hand-to-hand conflict they might do it, as I might do the same to them. This very morning my men shot at the captain of all smugglers, Robin Lyth, of Flamborough, with a hundred guineas upon his head. It was no wish of mine; but my breath was short to stop them, and a man with a family like mine can never despise a hundred guineas."

"Why, Sophy," said the farmer, thinking slowly, with a frown, "that must have been the noise come in at window, when I were getting up this morning. I said, 'Why, there's some poacher fellow popping at the conies!' and out I went straight to the warren to see. Three gun-shots, or might 'a been four. How many men was you shooting at?"

"The force under my command was in pursuit of one notorious criminal--that well-known villain, Robin Lyth."

"Captain, your duty is to do your duty. But without your own word for it, I never would believe that you brought four gun muzzles down upon one man."

"The force under my command carried three guns only. It was not in their power to shoot off four."

"Captain, I never would have done it in your place. I call it no better than unmanly. Now go you not for to stir yourself amiss. To look thunder at me is what I laugh at. But many things are done in a hurry, Captain Carroway, and I take it that this was one of them."

"As to that, no! I will not have it. All was in thorough good order.

I was never so much as a cable's length behind, though the devil, some years ago, split my heel up, like his own, Sir."

"Captain, I see it, and I ask your pardon. Your men were out of reach of hollering. At our time of life the wind dies quick, from want of blowing oftener."

"Stuff!" cried the captain. "Who was the freshest that came to your hospitable door, Sir? I will foot it with any man for six leagues, but not for half a mile, ma'am. I depart from nothing. I said, 'Fire!' and fire they did, and they shall again. What do Volunteers know of the service?"

"Stephen, you shall not say a single other word;" Mistress Anerley stopped her husband thus; "these matters are out of your line altogether; because you have never taken any body's blood. The captain here is used to it, like all the sons of Belial, brought up in the early portions of the Holy Writ."

Lieutenant Carroway's acquaintance with the Bible was not more extensive than that of other officers, and comprised little more than the story of Joseph, and that of David and Goliath; so he bowed to his hostess for her comparison, while his gaunt and bristly countenance gave way to a pleasant smile. For this officer of the British Crown had a face of strong features, and upon it whatever he thought was told as plainly as the time of day is told by the clock in the kitchen. At the same time, Master Anerley was thinking that he might have said more than a host should say concerning a matter which, after all, was no particular concern of his; whereas it was his special place to be kind to any visitor. All this he considered with a sound grave mind, and then stretched forth his right hand to the officer.

Carroway, being a generous man, would not be outdone in apologies. So these two strengthened their mutual esteem, without any fighting--which generally is the quickest way of renewing respect--and Mistress Anerley, having been a little frightened, took credit to herself for the good words she had used. Then the farmer, who never drank cordials, although he liked to see other people do it, set forth to see a man who was come about a rick, and sundry other business. But Carroway, in spite of all his boasts, was stiff, though he bravely denied that he could be; and when the good housewife insisted on his stopping to listen to something that was much upon her mind, and of great importance to the revenue, he could not help owning that duty compelled him to smoke another pipe, and hearken.

CHAPTER IX

ROBIN c.o.c.kSCROFT

Nothing ever was allowed to stop Mrs. Anerley from seeing to the bedrooms. She kept them airing for about three hours at this time of the sun-st.i.tch--as she called all the doings of the sun upon the sky--and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire) every well-belabored tick was left to yeast itself a while. Winnie, the maid, was as strong as a post, and wore them all out in bed-making. Carroway heard the beginning of this noise, but none of it meddled at all with his comfort; he lay back nicely in a happy fit of chair, stretched his legs well upon a bench, and nodded, keeping slow time with the breathings of his pipe, and drawing a vapory dream of ease. He had fared many stony miles afoot that morning; and feet, legs, and body were now less young than they used to be once upon a time. Looking up sleepily, the captain had idea of a pretty young face hanging over him, and a soft voice saying, "It was me who did it all," which was very good grammar in those days; "will you forgive me? But I could not help it, and you must have been sorry to shoot him."

"Shoot every body who attempts to land," the weary man ordered, drowsily. "Mattie, once more, you are not to dust my pistols."

"I could not be happy without telling you the truth," the soft voice continued, "because I told you such a dreadful story. And now--Oh! here comes mother!"

"What has come over you this morning, child? You do the most extraordinary things, and now you can not let the captain rest. Go round and look for eggs this very moment. You will want to be playing fine music next. Now, captain, I am at your service, if you please, unless you feel too sleepy."

"Mistress Anerley, I never felt more wide-awake in all my life. We of the service must s.n.a.t.c.h a wink whenever we can, but with one eye open; and it is not often that we see such charming sights."

The farmer's wife having set the beds to "plump," had stolen a look at the gla.s.s, and put on her second-best Sunday cap, in honor of a real officer; and she looked very nice indeed, especially when she received a compliment. But she had seen too much of life to be disturbed thereby.

"Ah, Captain Carroway, what ways you have of getting on with simple people, while you are laughing all the time at them! It comes of the foreign war experience, going on so long that in the end we shall all be foreigners. But one place there is that you never can conquer, nor Boneypart himself, to my belief."

"Ah, you mean Flamborough--Flamborough, yes! It is a nest of c.o.c.katrices."

"Captain, it is nothing of the sort. It is the most honest place in all the world. A man may throw a guinea on the crossroads in the night, and have it back from Dr. Upandown any time within seven years. You ought to know by this time what they are, hard as it is to get among them."

"I only know that they can shut their mouths; and the devil himself--I beg your pardon, madam--Old Nick himself never could unscrew them."

"You are right, Sir. I know their manner well. They are open as the sky with one another, but close as the grave to all the world outside them, and most of all to people of authority like you."

"Mistress Anerley, you have just hit it. Not a word can I get out of them. The name of the king--G.o.d bless him!--seems to have no weight among them."

"And you can not get at them, Sir, by any dint of money, or even by living in the midst of them. The only way to do it is by kin of blood, or marriage. And that is how I come to know more about them than almost any body else outside. My master can scarcely win a word of them even, kind as he is, and well-spoken; and neither might I, though my tongue was tenfold, if it were not for Joan c.o.c.kscroft. But being Joan's cousin, I am like one of themselves."

"c.o.c.kscroft! c.o.c.kscroft? I have heard that name. Do they keep the public-house there?"

The lieutenant was now on the scent of duty, and a.s.sumed his most knowing air, the sole effect of which was to put every body upon guard against him. For this was a man of no subtlety, but straightforward, downright, and ready to believe; and his cleverest device was to seem to disbelieve.

"The c.o.c.kscrofts keep no public-house," Mrs. Anerley answered, with a little flush of pride. "Why, she was half-niece to my own grandmother, and never was beer in the family. Not that it would have been wrong, if it was. Captain, you are thinking of Widow Precious, licensed to the Cod with the hook in his gills. I should have thought, Sir, that you might have known a little more of your neighbors having fallen below the path of life by reason of bad bank-tokens. Banking came up in her parts like dog-madness, as it might have done here, if our farmers were the fools to handle their cash with gloves on. And Joan became robbed by the fault of her trustees, the very best bakers in Scarborough, though Robin never married her for it, thank G.o.d! Still it was very sad, and scarcely bears describing of, and pulled them in the crook of this world's swing to a lower pitch than if they had robbed the folk that robbed and ruined them. And Robin so was driven to the fish again, which he always had hankered after. It must have been before you heard of this coast, captain, and before the long war was so hard on us, that every body about these parts was to double his bags by banking, and no man was right to pocket his own guineas, for fear of his own wife feeling them.

And bitterly such were paid out for their cowardice and swindling of their own bosoms."

"I have heard of it often, and it served them right. Master Anerley knew where his money was safe, ma'am!"