Erema; Or, My Father's Sin Part 45

"Don't you be put out, mate," cried another. "Never came sea as could top that bar, and never will in our time. Go and calk your old leaky craft, Master Banks."

"We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from Newport--a place never heerd on when this old town was made."

"Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks. You must want it, after that long pipe."

"'Hockin Arms,' indeed!" the pilot answered, turning away in a rage from them. "What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow? Hockin legs wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings. And you poor grinning ninnies, as ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that ye had them to-morrow.

However, ye've had warning, and ye can't blame me. The power of the Lord is in the air and sea. Is this the sort of stuff ye trust in?"

He set one foot against our Major's wall--an action scarcely honest while it was so green--and, coming from a hale and very thickset man, the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward. Rattle, rattle went the new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated fellows down below.

"You'll try the walls of a jail," cried one. "You go to Noah's Ark,"

shouted another. The rest bade him go to a place much worse; but he b.u.t.toned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without spoiling the effect by any more weak words.

"Right you are," cried my flyman--"right you are, Master Banks. Them lubbers will sing another song to-morrow. Gee up, old hoss, then!"

All this, and the ominous scowl of the sky and menacing roar of the sea (already crowding with black rollers), disturbed me so that I could say nothing, until, at the corner of the grand new hotel, we met Major Hockin himself, attired in a workman's loose jacket, and carrying a shovel. He was covered with mud and dried flakes of froth, and even his short white whiskers were incrusted with sparkles of brine; but his face was ruddy and smiling, and his manner as hearty as ever.

"You here, Erema! Oh, I beg pardon--Baroness Castlewood, if you please.

My dear, again I congratulate you."

"You have as little cause to do that as I fear I can find in your case.

You have no news for me from America? How sad! But what a poor plight you yourself are in!"

"Not a bit of it. At first sight you might think so; and we certainly have had a very busy time. Send back the fly. Leave your bag at our hotel. Porter, be quick with Lady Castlewood's luggage. One piece of luck befalls me--to receive so often this beautiful hand. What a lot of young fellows now would die of envy--"

"I am glad that you still can talk nonsense," I said; "for I truly was frightened at this great lake, and so many of your houses even standing in the water."

"It will do them good. It will settle the foundations and crystallize the mortar. They will look twice as well when they come out again, and never have rats or black beetles. We were foolish enough to be frightened at first; and there may have been danger a fortnight ago. But since that tide we have worked day and night, and every thing is now so stable that fear is simply ridiculous. On the whole, it has been a most excellent thing--quite the making, in fact, of Bruntsea."

"Then Bruntsea must be made of water," I replied, gazing sadly at the gulf which parted us from the Sea Parade, the Lyceum, and Baths, the Bastion Promenade, and so on; beyond all which the streaky turmoil and misty scud of the waves were seen.

"Made of beer, more likely," he retorted, with a laugh. "If my fellows worked like horses--which they did--they also drank like fishes. Their mouths were so dry with the pickle, they said. But the total abstainers were the worst, being out of practice with the can. However, let us make no complaints. We ought to be truly thankful; and I shall miss the exercise. That is why you have heard so little from me. You see the position at a glance. I have never been to Paris at all, Erema. I have not rubbed up my parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows. I was stopped by a telegram about this job--acrior illum. I had some Latin once, quite enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my elbows; and to ladies (by some superst.i.tion) it is rude--though they treat us to bad French enough. Never mind. What I want to say is this, that I have done nothing, but respected your sad trouble; for you took a wild fancy to that poor bedridden, who never did you a stroke of good except about Cosmopolitan Jack, and whose removal has come at the very nick of time.

For what could you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each other's throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the very best, squared up in greenbacks?"

"You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin. If all your plans were not under water, I should be quite put out with you. My cousin was not bedridden; neither was he at all incapable, as you have called him once or twice. He was an infinitely superior man to--to what one generally sees; and when you have heard what I have to tell, in his place you would have done just as he did. And as for money, and 'happy release'--as the people who never want it for themselves express it--such words simply sicken me; at great times they are so sordid."

"What is there in this world that is not sordid--to the young in one sense, and to the old in another?"

Major Hockin so seldom spoke in this didactic way, and I was so unable to make it out, that, having expected some tiff on his part at my juvenile arrogance, I was just in the mould for a deep impression from sudden stamp of philosophy. I had nothing to say in reply, and he went up in my opinion greatly.

He knew it; and he said, with touching kindness, "Erema, come and see your dear aunt Mary. She has had an attack of rheumatic gout in her thimble-finger, and her maids have worried her out of her life, and by far the most brilliant of her c.o.c.ks (worth 20 pounds they tell me) breathed his last on Sunday night, with gapes, or croup, or something.

This is why you have not heard again from her. I have been in the trenches day and night, stoning out the sea with his own stones, by a new form of concrete discovered by myself. And unless I am very much mistaken--in fact, I do not hesitate to say--But such things are not in your line at all. Let us go up to the house. Our job is done, and I think Master Neptune may pound away in vain. I have got a new range in the kitchen now, partly of my own invention; you can roast, or bake, or steam, or stew, or frizzle kabobs--all by turning a screw. And not only that, but you can keep things hot, piping hot, and ripening, as it were, better than when they first were done. Instead of any burned iron taste, or sc.u.m on the gravy, or clottiness, they mellow by waiting, and make their own sauce. If I ever have time I shall patent this invention; why, you may burn brick-dust in it, Bath-brick, hearth-stone, or potsherds!

At any hour of the day or night, while the sea is in this condition, I may want my dinner; and there we have it. We say grace immediately, and down we sit. Let us take it by surprise, if it can be taken so. Up through my chief drive, instanter! I think that I scarcely ever felt more hungry. The thought of that range always sets me off. And one of its countless beauties is the n.o.ble juicy fragrance."

Major Hockin certainly possessed the art--so meritorious in a host--of making people hungry; and we mounted the hill with alacrity, after pa.s.sing his letter-box, which reminded me of the mysterious lady. He pointed to "Desolate Hole," as he called it, and said that he believed she was there still, though she never came out now to watch their house.

And a man of dark and repelling aspect had been seen once or twice by his workmen, during the time of their night relays, rapidly walking toward Desolate Hole. How any one could live in such a place, with the roar and the spray of the sea, as it had been, at the very door, and through the windows, some people might understand, but not the Major.

Good Mrs. Hockin received me with her usual warmth and kindness, and scolded me for having failed to write more to her, as all people seem to do when conscious of having neglected that duty themselves. Then she showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly was a little swollen; and then she poured forth her grat.i.tude for her many blessings, as she always did after any little piece of grumbling. And I told her that if at her age I were only a quarter as pleasant and sweet of temper, I should consider myself a blessing to any man.

After dinner my host produced the locket, which he had kept for the purpose of showing it to the artist's son in Paris, and which he admired so intensely that I wished it were mine to bestow on him. Then I told him that, through a thing wholly unexpected--the confession of the criminal himself--no journey to Paris was needful now. I repeated that strange and gloomy tale, to the loud accompaniment of a rising wind and roaring sea, while both my friends listened intently.

"Now what can have led him so to come to you?" they asked; "and what do you mean to do about it?"

"He came to me, no doubt, to propose some bargain, which could not be made in my cousin's lifetime. But the telling of his tale made him feel so strange that he really could not remember what it was. As to what I am to do, I must beg for your opinion; such a case is beyond my decision." Mrs. Hockin began to reply, but stopped, looking dutifully at her lord.

"There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way," the Major said. "You are a British subject, I suppose, and you must obey the laws of the country. A man has confessed to you a murder--no matter whether it was committed twenty years ago or two minutes; no matter whether it was a savage, cold-blooded, premeditated crime, or whether there were things to palliate it. Your course is the same; you must hand him over. In fact, you ought never to have let him go."

"How could I help it?" I pleaded, with surprise. "It was impossible for me to hold him."

"Then you should have shot him with his own pistol. He offered it to you. You should have grasped it, pointed it at his heart, and told him that he was a dead man if he stirred."

"Aunt Mary, would you have done that?" I asked. "It is so easy to talk of fine things! But in the first place, I had no wish to stop him; and in the next, I could not if I had."

"My dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, perceiving my distress at this view of the subject, "I should have done exactly what you did. If the laws of this country ordain that women are to carry them out against great strong men, who, after all, have been sadly injured, why, it proves that women ought to make the laws, which to my mind is simply ridiculous."

CHAPTER LIV

BRUNTSEA DEFEATED

Little sleep had I that night. Such conflict was in my mind about the proper thing to be done next, and such a war of the wind outside, above and between the distant uproar of the long tumultuous sea. Of that sound much was intercepted by the dead bulk of the cliff, but the wind swung fiercely over this, and rattled through all shelter. In the morning the storm was furious; but the Major declared that his weather-gla.s.s had turned, which proved that the gale was breaking. The top of the tide would be at one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he was rather proud of--the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against his patent concrete.

"My dear, I scarcely like such talk," Mrs. Hockin gently interposed.

"To me it seems almost defiant of the power of the Lord. Remember what happened to poor Smeaton--at least I think his name was Smeaton, or Stanley, was it? But I dare say you know best. He defied the strength of the Lord, like the people at the mouth of their tent, and he was swallowed up."

"Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book. Rasper's fly is waiting for us, and the parson has no manners. When he drops off, I present to the living; and I am not at all sure that I shall let George have it. He is fond of processions, and all that stuff. The only procession in the Church of England is that of the lord of the manor to his pew. I will be the master in my own church."

"Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be. It always was so in my father's parish. But you must not speak so of our poor George. He may be 'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows what is due to his family, and he has a large one coming."

We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and buffets of wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the seaward window was white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth, and the drift of sea-scud. I tried to look out, but the blur and the dash obscured the sight of every thing. And though in this lower road we were partly sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver was several times obliged to pull his poor horse up and face the wind, for fear of our being blown over.

That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in the good old town, at the head of a street whose princ.i.p.al object now certainly is to lead to it. Three hundred years ago that street had business of its own to think of, and was brave perhaps with fine men and maids at the time of the Spanish Armada. Its only bravery now was the good old church, and some queer gables, and a crypt (which was true to itself by being buried up to the spandrels), and one or two corners where saints used to stand, until they were pelted out of them, and where fisher-like men, in the lodging season, stand selling fish caught at Billingsgate. But to Bruntsea itself the great glory of that street was rather of hope than of memory. Bailiff Hopkins had taken out three latticed windows, and put in one grand one of plate-gla.s.s, with "finis.h.i.+ng" blinds all varnished. And even on a Sunday morning Bruntsea wanted to know what ever the bailiff was at behind them. Some said that he did all his pickling on a Sunday; and by putting up "spectacle gla.s.s"

he had challenged the oldest inhabitant to come and try his focus.

Despite all the rattle and roar of the wind, we went on in church as usual. The vicar had a stout young curate from Durham, who could outshout any tempest, with a good stone wall between them; and the Bruntsea folk were of thicker const.i.tution than to care an old hat for the weather. Whatever was "sent by the Lord" they took with a grumble, but no excitement. The clock in front of the gallery told the time of the day as five minutes to twelve, when the vicar, a pleasant old-fas.h.i.+oned man, p.r.o.nounced his text, which he always did thrice over to make us sure of it. And then he hitched up his old black gown, and directed his gaze at the lord of the manor, to impress the whole church with authority. Major Hockin acknowledged in a proper manner this courtesy of the minister by rubbing up his crest, and looking even more wide-awake than usual; whereas Aunt Mary, whose kind heart longed to see her own son in that pulpit, calmly settled back her shoulders, and arranged her head and eyes so well as to seem at a distance in rapt attention, while having a nice little dream of her own. But suddenly all was broken up. The s.e.xton (whose license as warden of the church, and even whose duty it was to hear the sermon only fitfully, from the tower arch, where he watched the boys, and sniffed the bakehouse of his own dinner)--to the consternation of every body, this faithful man ran up the nave, with his hands above his head, and shouted,

"All Brownzee be awash, awash"--sounding it so as to rhyme with "lash"--"the zea, the zea be all over us!"

The clergyman in the pulpit turned and looked through a window behind him, while all the congregation rose.

"It is too true," the preacher cried; "the sea is in over the bank, my friends. Every man must rush to his own home. The blessing of the Lord be on you through His fearful visitation!"

He had no time to say more; and we thought it very brave of him to say that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he had a wife and children sick. In half a minute the church was empty, and the street below it full of people, striving and struggling against the blast, and breasting it at an incline like swimmers, but beaten back ever and anon and hurled against one another, with tattered umbrellas, hats gone, and bonnets hanging. And among them, like gulls before the wind, blew dollops of spray and chunks of froth, with every now and then a slate or pantile.

All this was so bad that scarcely any body found power to speak, or think, or see. The Major did his very best to lead us, but could by no means manage it. And I screamed into his soundest ear to pull Aunt Mary into some dry house--for she could not face such buffeting--and to let me fare for myself as I might. So we left Mrs. Hockin in the bailiff's house, though she wanted sadly to come with us, and on we went to behold the worst. And thus, by running the byes of the wind, and craftily hugging the corners, we got to the foot of the street at last, and then could go no further.

For here was the very sea itself, with furious billows panting. Before us rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness, torn by the screeching squalls, and tossed in clas.h.i.+ng tufts and pinnacles. And into these came, sweeping over the shattered chine of s.h.i.+ngle, gigantic surges from the outer deep, towering as they crossed the bar, and combing against the sky-line, then rus.h.i.+ng onward, and driving the huddle of the ponded waves before them.