The Maid of Sker

CHAPTER LXVIII.

THE OLD PITCHER AT THE WELL AGAIN

It helps a thoughtless man on his road towards a better kingdom, to get a glimpse, every now and then, of such visitations of the Lord. When I was a little boy, nothing did me so much good in almost all the Bible, as to hear my father read the way in which Herod was eaten of worms. And now in mature years, I received quite a serious turn by the death of this Parson Chowne of ignominious canine madness. And still more, when I came to know by what condign parental justice this visitation smote him.

For while the women were busy up-stairs by candle-light, and with some weeping, it fell to Parson Rambone's lot to lay the truth before us. This great man took at once to Captain Rodney Bluett, as if he had known him for years; nor did he fail to remember me, and in his distress to seek some comfort from my simple wisdom. So having packed all the country boobies, constables, doctors, and so on, out of the house, we barred the door, made a bright fire in the kitchen, and sat down in front of it, while a nice cook began to toss up some sweetbreads, and eggs and ham-collops, and so on, for our really now highly necessary sustenance.

You may remember the time I met with a very nice fellow (then Chowne's head-groom), who gave me a capital supper of tripe elegantly stewed by a young cook-maid, himself lamenting the stress (laid upon him by circumstances) not to make his wife of her. He told me then with a sigh of affection between his knife and fork, that social duties compelled him instead to marry a publican's daughter, with fifty pounds down on the nail, he believed, if it was a penny. Nevertheless he felt confident that all would be ordered aright in the end. Now Providence had not allowed such a case of faith to pass unrewarded. He married the publican's daughter, got her money, and paid the last sad duties to her, out of the pocket of his father-in-law, in a Christian-minded manner. And then back he came to Nympton Rectory, and wedded that same cook-maid, who now was turning our ham so cleverly with the egg-slice. Thus we could speak before them both, without the least constraint; and indeed he helped us much by his knowledge of the affairs of the family. Also two Justices of the Peace, who had signed the warrant for poor Chowne's end, upon the report of the doctors, but could find no one of strength and courage to carry it out, except Parson Jack; these sate with us to get their supper, before the long cold ride over the moors. And there sate Parson Jack himself, with his thick hands trembling, hopeless of eating a morsel, but dreading to be left alone for a moment.

"What a difference it will make in all this neighbourhood, to be sure!" So said one of their worships.

"Ay, that it will," answered his brother magistrate. "Since Tom Faggus died, there has not been such a man to be found, nowhere round these here parts."

"No, nor Tom Faggus himself," said the other: "a noble highwayman he were; but for mind, not fit to hold a candle to our lamented friend now lying up there in the counterpane."

Parson Jack shuddered, and shook his great limbs, and feigned to have done so on purpose; and then in defiance collected himself, and laid his iron hand on the table, watching every great muscle, to see how long he could keep it from trembling. Then I arose and grasped his hand – for nobody else understood him at all – and he let me take it with reluctance, wonder, and then deep gratitude. He had been saying to himself – as I knew, though his lips never moved; and his face was set, in scorn of all our moralising – within himself he had been thinking, "I am Jack Ketch; I am worse; I am Cain. I have murdered my own dear brother."

And I, who had seen him brand his bitten arm with the red hot poker, laying the glowing iron on, until the blood hissed out at it, I alone could gage the strength of heart that now enabled him to answer my grasp with his poor scorched arm, and to show his great tears, and check them.

Enough of this, I cannot stand these melancholy subjects. A man of irreproachable life, with a tendency towards gaiety, never must allow his feelings to play ducks and drakes with him. If the justice of the Almighty fell upon Chowne – as I said it would – let Chowne die, and let us hope that his soul was not past praying for. It is not my place to be wretched, because the biggest villain I ever knew showed his wit by dying of a disease which gave him power to snap at the very devil, when in the fulness of time he should come thirsting to lay hold of him. And but for my purpose of proving how purely justice does come home to us, well contented would I be to say no more about him. Why had he been such a villain through life? Because he was an impostor. Why did he die of rabid madness, under the clutch of his own best friend? Because he lashed his favourite hound to fly at the throat of his own grandfather.

Not only does it confirm one's faith in the honesty of breeding, but it enables me to acquit all the Chownes of Devonshire – and a fine and wholesome race they are – of ever having produced such a scamp, in true course of legitimacy; also enables me not to point out, so much as to leave all my readers to think of, the humble yet undeniable traces of old Davy's sagacity.

What had I said to Mrs Steelyard, when she overbore me so, upon an empty stomach? "Madam," I said, "your son, you mean!" And it proved to be one of my famous hits, at a range beyond that of other men. When great stirs happen, truth comes out; as an earthquake starts the weasels.

Everybody knows what fine old age those wandering gypsies come to. The two most killing cares we have, are money, and reputation. Here behold gypsy wisdom! The disregard of the latter of the two does away with the plague of the former. They take what they want; while we clumsy fellows toil for the cash as the only way to get the good estimation. Hence it was that Chowne's grandfather came about stealing as lively as ever, at the age of ninety. A wiry and leathery man he was, and had once been a famous conjurer. And now in his old age he came to sleep in his grandson's barn, and to live on his grandson's ducks, potatoes, and pigeons. This was last harvest-time, just as Chowne was enjoying his bit of cub-hunting.

Turning in from his sport one day, in a very sulky humour, with the hounds he was educating, the Parson caught his grandfather withdrawing in a quiet manner from a snug little hen-roost. Not knowing who it was (for his mother had never explained a thing to him, not even that she was his mother), he thought it below his dignity to ride after this old fellow. But at his heels stalked a tall young hound, who had vexed him all day by surliness, and was now whipped in for punishment.

"At him – 'loo boy!" he called out; "Hike forrard, catch him by the leg, boy!" But the hound only showed his teeth and snarled; so that Chowne let out his long lash at him. In a moment the dog sprang at his master who was riding a low cob-horse, and bit him in the thigh and the horse in the shoulder, and then skulked off to his kennel. The hound was shot, and the horse shared his fate in less than six weeks afterwards; and as for the Parson, we know too well what they were forced to do with him.

In her first horror, that stony woman, even Mrs Steelyard, when her son came ravening at her, could not keep her secret. "It is the judgment of God," she cried; "after all there is a God. He set the dogs at his grandfather, and now he would bite his own mother!"

How she had managed to place him in the stead of the real Chowne heir, I never heard, or at least no clear account of it; for she was not (as we know already) one who would answer questions. Let him rest, whoever he was. His end was bad enough, even for him.

Enough of this fright – for it was a fright even to me, I assure you – let us come back to the innocent people injured so long by his villany.

To begin with Parson Jack. Never in all his life had he taken a stroke towards his own salvation, until by that horrible job he earned repentance, fear, and conscience. And not only this (for none of these would have stood him in any service, with Chowne still at his elbow), but that the face, – which had drawn him for years, like a loadstone of hell, to destruction, – now ever present in its terror, till his prayers got rid of it, shone in the dark like the face of a scarecrow, if ever he durst think of wickedness. His wife found the benefit of this change, and so did his growing family, and so did the people who flocked to his church, in the pleasure of being afraid of him. In the roads, he might bite; but in his surplice, he was bound to behave himself, or at least, he must bite the churchwarden first. Yet no one would have him to sprinkle a child, until a whole year was over. And then he restored himself, under a hint from a man beyond him in intellect; he made everybody allow that the poker had entirely cured him, by preaching from the bottom of his chest, with a glass of water upon the cushion, a sermon that stirred every heart, with the text, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?"

I quit him with sorrow; because I found him a man of true feeling, and good tobacco. We got on together so warmly that expense alone divided us. He would have had me for parish-clerk, if I could have seen my way to it.

What prevails with a man like me, foremost first of everything? Why, love of the blessed native land – which every good Welshman will love me for. I may have done a thing, now and then, below our native dignity, except to those who can enter into all the things we look at. It is not our nature altogether, to go for less than our value. We know that we are of the oldest blood to be found in this ancient island, and we ask nothing more than to be treated as the superior race should be.

In the presence of such great ideas, who cares what becomes of me? I really feel that my marriage to Polly, and prolongation of a fine old breed, scarcely ought to be spoken of. A man who has described the battle of the Nile need not dwell on matrimony.

Hurried speech does not become me on any other subject. Everybody has the right to know, and everybody does know, how the whole of North Devon was filled with joy, talk, and disputation, as to Commodore Bampfylde and the brightness of his acquittal. They drew him from Barnstaple in a chaise, with only two springs broken, men having taken the horses out, and done their best at collar-work. He would have gladly jumped out and kicked them, but for the feeling of their goodwill.

Nothing would have detracted from this, and the feasts that were felt to be due upon it, if Squire Philip had only known how not to die at a time when nobody was seasonably called on to think of death. But when he learned the shame inflicted by himself on his ancient race, through trusting Chowne, and misbelieving his brother out of the self-same womb; and, above all, when he learned that Chowne was the bastard of a gypsy, he cast himself into his brother's arms, fetched one long sigh, and departed to a better world with his hat on.

This was the best thing that he could do, if he had chosen the time aright; and it saved a world of trouble. Sir Philip felt it a good bit, of course; and so did Sir Drake Bampfylde. Nevertheless, if a living man withdraws into a shell so calmly, what can he expect more lively than his undertakers?

This was good, and left room for Harry, or rather young Philip Bampfylde, to step into the proper shoes, and have practice how to walk in them. Yet he was so caught with love of service, and of the Navy, and so mad about Nelson, that the General could not help himself; but let him go to sea again.

Nelson is afloat just now. The Crappos and the Dons appear to have made up their minds against us; and the former have the insolence to threaten a great invasion. If I only had two arms, I would leave my Polly to howl about me. As it is, they have turned me into a herring! Colonel Lougher has raised a regiment, and I am first drill-sergeant!

Our dear Maid of Sker would also give her beautiful son, only six months old, Bampfylde Lougher Bluett, to go to the wars, and to fight the French; if any one could only show her the way to do without him. He cocks up his toes, in a manner which proves that his feet are meant for ratlines.

How the war is raging! I run to and fro, upon hearing of Felix Farley's Journal, and am only fit to talk of it. Sir Philip comes down, with his best tobacco, whenever he stops at Candleston. And a craft has been built for me on purpose, by the old fellow at Appledore, and her name it is the "Maid of Sker" – to dance across the Channel, whenever a one-armed man can navigate. Colonel Lougher, and even Lady Bluett, have such trust in me, that they cross if their dear Delushy seems to pine too much for her husband. And the Maid herself has brought her son, as proud as if he came out of a wreck, to exhibit him to Moxy, and Roger, and Bunny, and Stradling the clerk – in a word, to all the parish, and the extra-parochial district.

Now I hope that nobody will ask me any more questions concerning any one, male or female. If I cannot speak well of a person – my rule is to be silent.

Hezekiah found his knavery altogether useless. He scraped himself home at last; and built a bellows-organ at Bridgend, with a 74-gun crash to it. His reputation is therefore up – especially since he rejoined the Church – in all churches that can afford him. Yet he will not always own that I was his salvation. Hepzibah prophesies nothing, except that Polly's little son, "David Llewellyn," will do something wonderful, to keep the ancient name up.