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“You are a little heroine,” said Mordacks, looking at her—the pinched face, and the hollow eyes, and the tottering blue legs of her. “You are greater than a queen. No queen forgets herself in that way.”
“Please, sir, no; I ate almost a box of rush-lights, and they were only done last night. Oh, if baby would have took to them!”
“Hot bread and milk in this bottle; pour it out; feed her first, Molly,” Mr. Mordacks ordered. “The world can’t spare such girls as this. Oh, you won’t eat first! Very well; then the others shall not have a morsel till your mouth is full. And they seem to want it bad enough. Where is the dead baby?”
In the kitchen, where now they stood, not a spark of fire was lingering, but some wood-ash still retained a feeble memory of warmth; and three little children (blest with small advance from babyhood) were huddling around, with hands, and faces, and sharp grimy knees poking in for lukewarm corners; while two rather senior young Carroways were lying fast asleep, with a jack-towel over them. But Tommy was not there; that gallant Tommy, who had ridden all the way to Filey after dark, and brought his poor father to the fatal place.
Mordacks, with his short, bitter-sweet smile, considered all these little ones. They were not beautiful, nor even pretty; one of them was too literally a chip of the old block, for he had reproduced his dear father’s scar; and every one of them wanted a “wash and brush up,” as well as a warming and sound victualling. Corruptio optimi pessima. These children had always been so highly scrubbed, that the great molecular author of existence, dirt, resumed parental sway, with tenfold power of attachment and protection, the moment soap and flannel ceased their wicked usurpation.
“Please, sir, I couldn’t keep them clean, I couldn’t,” cried Geraldine, choking, both with bread and milk, and tears. “I had Tommy to feed through the coal-cellar door; and all the bits of victuals in the house to hunt up; and it did get so dark, and it was so cold. I am frightened to think of what mother will say for my burning up all of her brushes, and the baskets. But please, sir, little Cissy was a-freezing at the nose.”
The three little children at the grate were peeping back over the pits in their shoulders, half frightened at the tall, strange man, and half ready to toddle to him for protection; while the two on the floor sat up and stared, and opened their mouths for their sister’s bread and milk. Then Jerry flew to them, and squatted on the stones, and very nearly choked them with her spoon and basin.
“Molly, take two in your apron, and be off,” said the factor to the stout fish-woman—who was simply full of staring, and of crying out “Oh lor!”—“pop them into the hot bed at once; they want warmth first, and victuals by-and-by. Our wonderful little maid wants food most. I will come after you with the other three. But I must see my little queen fill her own stomach first.”
“But, please, sir, won’t you let our Tommy out first?” cried Jerry, as the strong woman lapped up the two youngest in her woolsey apron and ran off with them. “He has been so good, and he was too proud to cry so soon as ever he found out that mother couldn’t hear him. And I gave him the most to eat of anybody else, because of him being the biggest, sir. It was all as black as ink, going under the door; but Tommy never minded.”
“Wonderful merit! While you were eating tallow! Show me the coal-cellar, and out he comes. But why don’t you speak of your poor mother, child?”
The child, who had been so brave, and clever, self-denying, laborious, and noble, avoided his eyes, and began to lick her spoon, as if she had had enough, starving though she was. She glanced up at the ceiling, and then suddenly withdrew her eyes, and the blue lids trembled over them. Mordacks saw that it was childhood’s dread of death. “Show me where little Tommy is,” he said; “we must not be too hard upon you, my dear. But what made your mother lock you up, and carry on so?”
“I don’t know at all, sir,” said Geraldine.
“Now don’t tell a story,” answered Mr. Mordacks. “You were not meant for lies; and you know all about it. I shall just go away if you tell stories.”
“Then all I know is this,” cried Jerry, running up to him, and desperately clutching at his riding coat; “the very night dear father was put into the pit-hole—oh, hoo, oh, hoo, oh, hoo!”
“Now we can’t stop for that,” said the general factor, as he took her up and kissed her, and the tears, which had vainly tried to stop, ran out of young eyes upon well-seasoned cheeks; “you have been a wonder; I am like a father to you. You must tell me quickly, or else how can I cure it? We will let Tommy out then, and try to save your mother.”
“Mother was sitting in the window, sir,” said the child, trying strongly to command herself, “and I was to one side of her, and Tommy to the other, and none of us was saying anything. And then there came a bad, wicked face against the window, and the man said, ‘What was it you said to-day, ma’am?’ And mother stood up—she was quite right then—and she opened the window, and she looked right at him, and she said, ‘I spoke the truth, John Cadman. Between you and your God it rests.’ And the man said, ‘You shut your black mouth up, or you and your brats shall all go the same way. Mind one thing—you’ve had your warning.’ Then mother fell away, for she was just worn out; and she lay upon the floor, and she kept on moaning, ‘There is no God! there is no God!’ after all she have taught us to say our prayers to. And there was nothing for baby to draw ever since.”
For once in his life Mr. Mordacks held his tongue; and his face, which was generally fiercer than his mind, was now far behind it in ferocity. He thought within himself, “Well, I am come to something, to have let such things be going on in a matter which pertains to my office—pigeon-hole 100! This comes of false delicacy, my stumbling-block perpetually! No more of that. Now for action.”
Geraldine looked up at him, and said, “Oh, please, sir.” And then she ran off, to show the way toward little Tommy.
The coal-cellar flew open before the foot of Mordacks; but no Tommy appeared, till his sister ran in. The poor little fellow was quite dazzled with the light; and the grime on his cheeks made the inrush of fresh air come like wasps to him. “Now, Tommy, you be good,” said Geraldine; “trouble enough has been made about you.”
The boy put out his under lip, and blinked with great amazement. After such a quantity of darkness and starvation, to be told to be good was a little too bad. His sense of right and wrong became fluid with confusion; he saw no sign of anything to eat; and the loud howl of an injured heart began to issue from the coaly rampart of neglected teeth.
“Quite right, my boy,” Mr. Mordacks said. “You have had a bad time, and are entitled to lament. Wipe your nose on your sleeve, and have at it again.”
“Dirty, dirty things I hear. Who is come into my house like this? My house and my baby belong to me. Go away all of you. How can I bear this noise?”
Mrs. Carroway stood in the passage behind them, looking only fit to die. One of her husband’s watch-coats hung around her, falling nearly to her feet; and the long clothes of her dead baby, which she carried, hung over it, shaking like a white dog’s tail. She was standing with her bare feet well apart, and that swing of hip and heel alternate which mothers for a thousand generations have supposed to lull their babies into sweet sleep.
For once in his life the general factor had not the least idea of the proper thing to do. Not only did he not find it, but he did not even seek for it, standing aside rather out of the way, and trying to look like a calm spectator. But this availed him to no account whatever. He was the only man there, and the woman naturally fixed upon him.
“You are the man,” she said, in a quiet and reasonable voice, and coming up to Mordacks with the manner of a lady; “you are the gentleman, I mean, who promised to bring back my husband. Where is he? Have you fulfilled your promise?”
“My dear madam, my dear madam, consider your children, and how cold you are. Allow me to conduct you to a warmer place. You scarcely seem to enter into the situation.”
“Oh yes, I do, sir; thoroughly, thoroughly. My husband is in his grave; my children are going after him; and the best place for them. But they shall not be murdered. I will lock them up, so that they never shall be murdered.”
“My dear lady, I agree with you entirely. You do the very wisest thing in these bad times. But you know me well. I have had the honor of making your acquaintance in a pleasant manner. I feel for your children, quite as if I was—I mean, ma’am, a very fine old gentleman’s affection. Geraldine, come and kiss me, my darling. Tommy, you may have the other side; never mind the coal, my boy; there is a coal-wharf quite close to my windows at home.”
These children, who had been hiding behind Mr. Mordacks and Molly (who was now come back), immediately did as he ordered them; or rather Jerry led the way, and made Tommy come as well, by a signal which he never durst gainsay. But while they saluted the general factor (who sat down upon a box to accommodate them), from the corners of their eyes they kept a timid, trembling, melancholy watch upon their own mother.
Poor Mrs. Carroway was capable of wondering. Her power of judgment was not so far lost as it is in a dream—where we wonder at nothing, but cast off skeptic misery—and for the moment she seemed to be brought home from the distance of roving delusion, by looking at two of her children kissing a man who was hunting in his pocket for his card.
“Circumstances, madam,” said Mr. Mordacks, “have deprived me of the pleasure of producing my address. It should be in two of my pockets; but it seems to have strangely escaped from both of them. However, I will write it down, if required. Geraldine dear, where is your school slate? Go and look for it, and take Tommy with you.”
This surprised Mrs. Carroway, and began to make her think. These were her children—she was nearly sure of that—her own poor children, who were threatened from all sides with the likelihood of being done away with. Yet here was a man who made much of them, and kissed them; and they kissed him without asking her permission!
“I scarcely know what it is about,” she said; “and my husband is not here to help me.”
“You have hit the very point, ma’am. You must take it on yourself. How wonderfully clever the ladies always are! Your family is waiting for a government supply; everybody knows that everybody in the world may starve before government thinks of supplying supply. I do not belong to the government—although if I had my deserts I should have done so—but fully understanding them, I step in to anticipate their action. I see that the children of a very noble officer, and his admirable wife, have been neglected, through the rigor of the weather and condition of the roads. I am a very large factor in the neighborhood, who make a good thing out of all such cases. I step in; circumstances favor me; I discover a good stroke of business; my very high character, though much obscured by diffidence, secures me universal confidence. The little dears take to me, and I to them. They feel themselves safe under my protection from their most villainous enemies. They are pleased to kiss a man of strength and spirit, who represents the government.”
Mrs. Carroway scarcely understood a jot of this. Such a rush of words made her weak brain go round, and she looked about vainly for her children, who had gladly escaped upon the chance afforded. But she came to the conclusion she was meant to come to—that this gentleman before her was the government.
“I will do whatever I am told,” she said, looking miserably round, as if for anything to care about; “only I must count my children first, or the government might say there was not the proper number.”
“Of all points that is the very one that I would urge,” Mordacks answered, without dismay. “Molly, conduct this good lady to her room. Light a good fire, as the Commissioners have ordered; warm the soup sent from the arsenal last night, but be sure that you put no pepper in it. The lady will go with you, and follow our directions. She sees the importance of having all her faculties perfectly clear when we make our schedule, as we shall do in a few hours’ time, of all the children; every one, with the date of their birth, and their Christian names, which nobody knows so well as their own dear mother. Ah, how very sweet it is to have so many of them; and to know the pride, the pleasure, the delight, which the nation feels in providing for the welfare of every little darling!”
CHAPTER XLV
THE THING IS JUST
“Was there ever such a man?” said Mr. Mordacks to himself, as he rode back to Flamborough against the bitter wind, after “fettling” the affairs of the poor Carroways, as well as might be for the present. “As if I had not got my hands too full already, now I am in for another plaguesome business, which will cost a lot of money, instead of bringing money in. How many people have I now to look after? In the first place, two vile wretches—Rickon Goold, the ship-scuttler, and John Cadman, the murderer—supposing that Dr. Upandown and Mrs. Carroway are right. Then two drunken tars, with one leg between them, who may get scared of the law, and cut and run. Then an outlawed smuggler, who has cut and run already; and a gentleman from India, who will be wild with disappointment through the things that have happened since I saw him last. After that a lawyer, who will fight tooth and nail of course, because it brings grist to his mill. That makes seven; and now to all these I have added number eight, and that the worst of all—not only a woman, but a downright mad one, as well as seven starving children. Charity is a thing that pays so slowly! That this poor creature should lose her head just now is most unfortunate. I have nothing whatever to lay before Sir Duncan, when I tell him of this vile catastrophe, except the boy’s own assertion, and the opinion of Dr. Upandown. Well, well, ‘faint heart,’ etc. I must nurse the people round; without me they would all have been dead. Virtue is its own reward. I hope the old lady has not burned my hare to death.”
The factor might well say that without his aid that large family must have perished. Their neighbors were not to be blamed for this, being locked out of the house, and having no knowledge of the frost and famine that prevailed within. Perhaps, when the little ones began to die, Geraldine might heave escaped from a window, and got help in time to save some of them, if she herself had any strength remaining; but as it was, she preferred to sacrifice herself, and obey her mother. “Father always told me,” she had said to Mr. Mordacks, when he asked her how so sharp a child could let things come to such a pitch, “that when he was out of the way, the first thing I was to mind always was to do what mother told me; and now he can’t come back no more, to let me off from doing it.”
By this time the “Cod with the Hook in his Gills” was as much at the mercy of Mr. Mordacks as if he had landed and were crimping him. Widow Precious was a very tough lady to get over, and she liked to think the worst she could of everybody—which proves in the end the most charitable course, because of the good-will produced by explanation—and for some time she had stood in the Flamburian attitude of doubt toward the factor. But even a Flamburian may at last be pierced; and then (as with other pachydermatous animals) the hole, once made, is almost certain to grow larger. So by dint of good offices here and there, kind interest, and great industry among a very simple and grateful race, he became the St. Oswald of that ancient shrine (as already has been hinted), and might do as he liked, even on the Sabbath-day. And as one of the first things he always liked to do was to enter into everybody’s business, he got into an intricacy of little knowledge too manifold even for his many-fibred brain. But some of this ran into and strengthened his main clew, leading into the story he was laboring to explore, and laying before him, as bright as a diamond, even the mystery of ear-rings.
“My highly valued hostess and admirable cook,” he said to Widow Precious, after making noble dinner, which his long snowy ride and work at Bridlington had earned, “in your knowledge of the annals of this interesting town, happen you to be able to recall the name of a certain man, John Cadman?”
“Ah, that ah deah,” Widow Tapsy answered, with a heavy sigh, which rattled all the dishes on the waiter; “and sma’ gude o’ un, sma’ gude, whativer. Geroot wi’ un!”
The landlady shut her firm lips with a smack, which Mordacks well knew by this time though seldom foreclosed by it now, as he had been before he became a Danish citizen. He was sure that she had some good reason for her silence; and the next day he found that the girl who had left her home, through Cadman’s villainy, was akin by her mother’s side to Mistress Precious. But he had another matter to discuss with her now, which caused him some misgivings, yet had better be faced manfully. In the safe philosophical distance of York from this strong landlady he had (for good reasons of his own) appointed the place of meeting with Sir Duncan Yordas at the rival hostelry, the inn of Thornwick. Widow Precious had a mind of uncommonly large type, so lofty and pure of all petty emotions, that if any one spoke of the Thornwick Inn, even upon her back premises, her dignity stepped in and said, “I can’t abide the stinkin’ naam o’ un.”
Of this persistently noble regard of a lower institution Mr. Mordacks was well aware; and it gave him pause, in his deep anxiety to spare a tender heart, and maintain the high standard of his breakfast kidneys. “Madam,” he began, and then he rubbed his mouth with the cross-cut out of the jack-towel by the sink, newly set on table, to satisfy him for a dinner napkin—“madam, will you listen, while I make an explanation?”
The landlady looked at him with dark suspicions gathering.
“Joost spak’ oot,” she said, “whativer’s woorkin’ i’ thah mahnd.”
“I am bound to meet a gentleman near Flamborough to-morrow,” Mr. Mordacks continued, with the effrontery of guilt, “who will come from the sea. And as it would not suit him to walk far inland, he has arranged for the interview at a poor little place called the Thorny Wick, or the Stubby Wick, or something of that sort. I thought it was due to you, madam, to explain the reason of my entering, even for a moment—”
“Ah dawn’t care. Sitha—they mah fettle thee there, if thow’s fondhead enew.”
Without another word she left the room, clattering her heavy shoes at the door; and Mordacks foresaw a sad encounter on the morrow, without a good breakfast to “fettle” him for it. It was not in his nature to dread anything much, and he could not see where he had been at all to blame; but gladly would he have taken ten per cent off his old contract, than meet Sir Duncan Yordas with the news he had to tell him.
One cause of the righteous indignation felt by the good mother Tapsy, was her knowledge that nobody could land just now in any cove under the Thornwick Hotel. With the turbulent snow-wind bringing in the sea, as now it had been doing for several days, even the fishermen’s cobles could not take the beach, much less any stranger craft. Mr. Mordacks was sharp; but an inland factor is apt to overlook such little facts marine.
Upon the following day he stood in the best room of the Thornwick Inn—which even then was a very decent place to any eyes uncast with envy—and he saw the long billows of the ocean rolling before the steady blowing of the salt-tongued wind, and the broad white valleys that between them lay, and the vaporous generation of great waves. They seemed to have little gift of power for themselves, and no sign of any heed of purport; only to keep at proper distance from each other, and threaten to break over long before they meant to do it. But to see what they did at the first opposition of reef, or crag, or headland bluff, was a cure for any delusion about them, or faith in their liquid benevolence. For spouts of wild fury dashed up into the clouds; and the shore, wherever any sight of it was left, weltered in a sadly frothsome state, like the chin of a Titan with a lather-brush at work.
“Why, bless my heart!” cried the keen-eyed Mordacks; “this is a check I never thought of. Nobody could land in such a surf as that, even if he had conquered all India. Landlord, do you mean to tell me any one could land? And if not, what’s the use of your inn standing here?”
“Naw, sir, nawbody cud laun’ joost neaw. Lee-ast waas, nut to ca’ fur naw yell to dry hissen.”
The landlord was pleased with his own wit—perhaps by reason of its scarcity—and went out to tell it in the tap-room while fresh; and Mordacks had made up his mind to call for something—for the good of the house and himself—and return with a sense of escape to his own inn, when the rough frozen road rang with vehement iron, and a horse was pulled up, and a man strode in. The landlord having told his own joke three times, came out with the taste of it upon his lips; but the stern dark eyes looking down into his turned his smile into a frightened stare. He had so much to think of that he could not speak—which happens not only at Flamborough—but his visitor did not wait for the solution of his mental stutter. Without any rudeness he passed the mooning host, and walked into the parlor, where he hoped to find two persons.
Instead of two, he found one only, and that one standing with his back to the door, and by the snow-flecked window, intent upon the drizzly distance of the wind-struck sea. The attitude and fixed regard were so unlike the usual vivacity of Mordacks, that the visitor thought there must be some mistake, till the other turned round and looked at him.
“You see a defeated but not a beaten man,” said the factor, to get through the worst of it. “Thank you, Sir Duncan, I will not shake hands. My ambition was to do so, and to put into yours another hand, more near and dear to it. Sir, I have failed. It is open to you to call me by any hard name that may occur to you. That will do you good, be a hearty relief, and restore me rapidly to self-respect, by arousing my anxiety to vindicate myself.”
“It is no time for joking; I came here to meet my son. Have you found him, or have you not?”
Sir Duncan sat down and gazed steadfastly at Mordacks. His self-command had borne many hard trials; but the prime of his life was over now; and strong as he looked, and thought himself, the searching wind had sought and found weak places in a sun-beaten frame. But no man would be of noble aspect by dwelling at all upon himself.
The quick intelligence of Mordacks—who was of smaller though admirable type—entered into these things at a flash. And throughout their interview he thought less of himself and more of another than was at all habitual with him, or conducive to good work.
“You must bear with a very heavy blow,” he said; “and it goes to my heart to have to deal it.”
Sir Duncan Yordas bowed, and said, “The sooner the better, my good friend.”
“I have found your son, as I promised you I would,” replied Mordacks, speaking rapidly; “healthy, active, uncommonly clever; a very fine sailor, and as brave as Nelson; of gallant appearance—as might be expected; enterprising, steadfast, respected, and admired; benevolent in private life, and a public benefactor. A youth of whom the most distinguished father might be proud. But—but—”
“Will you never finish?”
“But by the force of circumstances, over which he had no control, he became in early days a smuggler, and rose to an eminent rank in that profession.”
“I do not care two pice for that; though I should have been sorry if he had not risen.”
“He rose to such eminence as to become the High Admiral of smugglers on this coast, and attain the honors of outlawry.”
“I look upon that as a pity. But still we may be able to rescind it. Is there anything more against my son?”
“Unluckily there is. A commander of the Coastguard has been killed in discharge of his duty; and Robin Lyth has left the country to escape a warrant.”
“What have we to do with Robin Lyth? I have heard of him everywhere—a villain and a murderer.”
“God forbid that you should say so! Robin Lyth is your only son.”
The man whose word was law to myriads rose without a word for his own case; he looked at his agent with a stern, calm gaze, and not a sign of trembling in his lull broad frame, unless, perhaps, his under lip gave a little soft vibration to the grizzled beard grown to meet the change of climate.