Walladmor, Vol. I (of 2)

CHAPTER II

The knocking grew louder and louder; but the old woman answered not a word; on the contrary she seemed only the more earnestly intent on her spinning. At length a little rustling was heard; by some artifice the door was unbolted from the outside; and somebody stepped in. Even then the old woman did not stir from her seat; and the man who had entered, flinging down a heap of old drift wood, opened the conversation himself:

"What's the matter now, mother, that you keep me so long waiting?"

"Waiting!" retorted the old woman without raising her eyes from her wheel, "you waiting! – Humph! A pretty waiting I should have, if I were to wait on every idle fellow that knocks."

"Aye, mother; but think of the weather and the frost that-"

"The frost? I tell thee what-a bonnier lad than thou, and one that I loved better far, lies frozen in his grave."

"Well, here's a brave load of wood! I gathered it on the beach."

"Wood! aye, ragged fragments! There's many such drifting about in this world."

"Like enough, mother: and, ragged as they are, there's many a bold fellow with rags on his back that would be glad to warm his hands over them."

"There's one in his grave will never warm himself again." And here the old woman began to mutter her unintelligible songs.

"So! – the old crooning!" said the young man to himself: and, going up to the fire, he said-"Mother, you mind nothing: you've no thought for any of us; and one of these days you'll be doing something or other that will bring the police rats upon us: and then all's up; and we shall all go to the old tree."

"To the tree? go, and welcome! And I'll go with you. All the tribe of you is not worth a hair of him that I knew once. And when the day comes that some are outside and knocking at the door that shall knock (well I wot) one of these days, – and all you are hushed and trembling within, and the proudest of you shaking at the knees, – then comes my time for laughing: and I will open the door, and cry-Here they are!"

The young man muttered something to himself, pushed aside the cauldron, and laid on some faggots and dry wood, – so that the rude hovel was suddenly illuminated with splendour.

"Aye!" said the old woman, "best make a beacon-fire, and light all the constables up hither!"

"Well, better be hanged than freeze! – But, mother-mother, where's the warm broth for the poor perishing soul when he wakes?"

"What!" said the old woman angrily, "shall I go down on my knees, and tend him like a son of my own? Well I remember the day (woe is me!) that they all scoffed at me when I moaned for one that was not a stranger: as God's my help, I'll be no laughing-stock again: it's my turn to laugh next."

"But Nicholas, mother-it's Nicholas that bids us tend him; and our souls are pledged for the stranger's."

"Nicholas! eh? Oh! yes, bonny Nicholas! And his soul is in pledge too. The old one has had him once by the head: and for that time he let him go: but he has him for all that: the noose is fast; and there's no sheers will ever cut that noose."

Without paying any further regard to her words, the young man filled a kettle with water and placed it on the fire: then, shaking the old woman's arm-as if to rouse her (like a child) into some attention to his words-he said to her earnestly:

"Mother Gillie, now boil the sea-man's drink of thyme, ground-ivy, pepper, ginger, honey, brandy, and all that belongs to it-you know how: make it, as you make it for ship-wrecked folk; and give it every hour to the poor soul there: and remember this-mother Gillie's life answers for his."

Like a child that has been told to do something under pain of punishment, the old woman answered-"Aye, aye; thyme, ground-ivy, pepper, ginger" – and went about her work. The young man then came up to the bed; and, laying his hands on Bertram, said-

"Ah, poor soul! he'll never be warm again: the sea has broke over him too roughly: but no matter: mother Gillie must brew the drink, if the man were a corpse; for Nicholas has said it. – Well, mother, God bless you! and another time when a Christian and one of us knocks at the door on a winter's night, sing out-Come in! and, if he should chance to be cold and thirsty, give him a glass of brandy; and think now and then that a living man is made of flesh as well as bones."

"Whither away then, Tom? To Grace, I'll warrant-the wench that has snared thee, and carries thee away from all thy kinsfolk."

"No: I must be gone to the castle; for Sir Morgan hunts in the morning."

"Ah! that Sir Morgan! that Sir Morgan! He wheedles thee, Tom; and to serve him thou leavest thy old mother. He and the young lady, and that lass Grace build houses for thee; but a mother's curse will pull them down."

"Mother, the baronet is my good friend: his father gave mine the oat-field by the shore: his grandfather saved mine from death in Canada: and the Walladmors have still been good masters; and we have still been faithful servants: and, let the white hats say what they will, – them that the quality calls radicals, – my notion is that people should stick to their old masters, and be true to them; and that's best for both sides."

"Go, get thee gone to thy boat, – falsehearted lad; snakes will rear their heads out of the water, and seize on him that honoureth not his parents and that forgetteth his brother!"

Without shewing the least displeasure at these angry words, Tom took his leave; and the old woman now addressed herself in good earnest to the task of preparing the cordial for the young stranger. He meantime had gradually recovered his entire self-possession; and from the conversation between mother and son, most of which he understood, he had drawn conclusions which tended more and more to alarm him at his total loss of power over his limbs. From the expressions of the old woman, which marked an entire indifference about him, he anticipated that she would be apt to mistake his apparent want of animation for a real one; and busied himself with all the horrors which such an error might occasion. But he was mistaken. The old woman followed the directions of her son to the letter. When her preparations were finished, a pleasant odour began to diffuse itself over the house; she drew near to the sick stranger; and rubbed his breast with a handful of the liquor. Almost immediately he felt the genial effects: the muscles of his face relaxed; he breathed more freely; his lips opened; and she poured a few spoonfuls of the cordial down his throat. Then wrapping him up in blankets, she raised him with a strength like that of a stout man rather than of an aged woman, and laid him down by the fire-side. Here the cordial, combined with previous exhaustion and agitation, and the genial warmth of the fire, soon threw him into a profound sleep. He slept as powerless as a child that is rocked by its nurse, lulled by the unintelligible songs which the old woman continued to murmur to her spinning-wheel-and which still echoed through his dreams, though they had lost their power to alarm him.

Some hours he had slumbered, when he suddenly awoke to perfect consciousness and (what gave him still greater satisfaction) to the entire command of his limbs. He unswathed himself from his blankets; stood upright on his feet; and felt a lively sense of power and freedom as he was once more able to stretch out his arms and legs. In the house all was silent. The fire upon the hearth was glimmering with a sullen glow of red light; and it appeared to be about day-break; window there was none; but through a sort of narrow loop-hole penetrated a grey beam of early light. This however lent no aspect of cheerfulness to the hut. On the contrary, the ruddy blaze of a fire had given a more human and habitable (though at the same time more picturesque) air to a dwelling which seemed expressly contrived to shut out the sun and the revelations of day light. – Looking round, he observed that the old woman was asleep: he drew near and touched her: she did not however awaken under the firmest pressure of his hand; but still in dreams continued at intervals to mutter, and to croon snatches of old songs.

An instinctive feeling convinced Bertram that he was a prisoner, and that it would be advisable for him to quit the hut clandestinely: this purpose he prepared to execute as speedily as possible. Without delay he caught up his portmanteau and advanced to the door. It cost him no great trouble to find the bolts, and to draw them without noise. But, on opening the door and shutting it behind him, he found himself in fresh perplexity; for on all sides he was surrounded by precipitous banks of earth, and the faint light of early dawn descended as into a vault through a perforated ceiling. However he discovered in one corner a rude ladder, by means of which he mounted aloft, and now found that the roof of this vault consisted of overarching eglantine, thorn bushes, furze, and a thick growth of weeds and tangled underwood. From this he soon disengaged himself: turning round and finding that the hut had totally disappeared from sight, he now perceived that the main body of the building was concealed in a sort of cleft or small deserted quarry, whilst its roof, irregularly covered over with mosses and wild plants, was sufficiently harmonized with the surrounding brakes, and in some places actually interlaced with them, effectually to prevent all suspicion of human neighbourhood. At this moment a slight covering of snow assisted the disguise: and in summer time a thicket of wild cherry trees, woven into a sort of fortification by an undergrowth of nettles, brambles, and thorns, sufficiently protected the spot from the scrutiny of the curious.

Having wound his way through these perplexities, he found his labour rewarded; for at a little distance before him lay the main ocean. He stood upon the summit of a shingly declivity which was slippery from the recent storm, and intersected by numerous channels; so that he was obliged in his descent to catch hold of the bushes to save himself from falling. The sea was still agitated; the sky was covered with scattered clouds; and in the eastern quarter the sun was just in the act of rising, – not however in majestic serenity, but blood-red and invested with a pomp of clouds, which reflected from their iron-grey the dull ruddy colors of the sun.

"When the sun rises red," said Bertram, "it foreshows stormy weather. Have I then not had storms enough in this life?" – He looked down upon the sea, and saw the waves as they rolled to shore bringing with them spars, sails, cordage, &c., which either dashed to pieces against the rocks, or by the reflux of the waves were carried back into the sea.

"Strange!" said he, "what has with difficulty escaped the sea-after struggling fruitlessly for preservation-is destroyed in a moment or carried back into the scene of its conflicts. Is not this the image of my own lot? With what mysterious yearning did I long for England! All the difficulties which threatened me on the Continent I surmounted-only to struggle for my life as I came within view of the English shores, to witness the barbarizing effects upon human kindness of death approaching in its terrors, and at last perhaps to find myself a helpless outcast summoned again to face some new perils."

He still felt the effects of his late exhaustion; and, sitting down upon a large stone, he threw his eyes over the steely surface of the sea. Looking upwards again, – he was shocked at beholding a few paces from him the tall erect person of his hostess. She stood upon a point of rock with her back to the sun, and intercepting his orb from Bertram, so that her grey hair streaming upon the wind, her red cloak which seemed to be set as it were in the solar radiance, and the lower part of her figure, which was strongly relieved upon the tremulous surface of the sea, gave to her a more than usually wild and unearthly appearance. Bertram shuddered as before a fiend; whilst the old woman, by whose side crept a large wolf-dog, said with an air of authority:

"So then I see the old proverb is true-Save a drowning man, and beware of an adders sting. But I have power: and can punish the thankless heart. So rise, traitor, and back to the house."

Bertram felt himself too much reduced in spirits, and too little acquainted with the neighbourhood, to contest the point at present: he considered besides that he was really indebted to her for attentions and hospitality; and was unwilling to appear in the light of a thankless guest. In this feeling he surrendered himself to her guidance; but to gratify his curiosity he said-

"Good mother, I owe you much for my recovery: but who is it that I must thank for my deliverance from the water? I was lying upon a barrel, at the mercy of the waves. I lost my senses; and on recovering I find myself with you, and know not how, or by whose compassion."

"What then? You'll never be a hair the drier for knowing that."

"But, mother, I had a companion in my misfortunes; was he saved along with me; or have the waves parted us for ever?"

"Never trouble yourself about that: you are saved; that's news enough for one day: – if the other fellow is drowned all the better for him; he'll not need hanging." Here the old woman laughed scornfully, and sang a song of which the burthen was

Bertram now descended again into the hovel: and, finding that the old woman would answer no more questions, he stretched himself upon his bed; and throughout the day resigned himself to the rest which his late exhaustion had rendered necessary.