Mary Anerley - Richard Doddridge Blackmore (famous ebook reader .txt) 📗

that. You may come to this address, if you have anything important. Otherwise you shall soon hear of me again. Good-by."


CHAPTER XVIII


GOYLE BAY

While all the world was at cross-purposes thus--Mr. Jellicorse uneasy at some rumors he had heard; Captain Carroway splitting his poor heel with indignation at the craftiness of free-traders; Farmer Anerley vexed at being put upon by people, without any daughter to console him, or catch shrimps; Master Mordacks pursuing a noble game, strictly above-board, as usual; Robin Lyth troubled in his largest principles of revolt against revenue by a nasty little pain that kept going to his heart, with an emptiness there, as for another heart; and last, and perhaps of all most important, the rector perpetually pining for his game of chess, and utterly discontented with the frigid embraces of analysis--where was the best, and most simple, and least selfish of the whole lot, Mary Anerley?

Mary was in as good a place as even she was worthy of. A place not by any means so snug and favored by nature as Anerley Farm, but pretty well sheltered by large trees of a strong and hardy order. And the comfortable ways of good old folk, who needed no labor to live by spread a happy leisure and a gentle ease upon everything under their roof-tree. Here was no necessity for getting up until the sun encouraged it; and the time for going to bed depended upon the time of sleepiness. Old Johnny Popplewell, as everybody called him, without any protest on his part, had made a good pocket by the tanning business, and having no children to bring up to it, and only his wife to depend upon him, had sold the good-will, the yard, and the stock as soon as he had turned his sixtieth year. "I have worked hard all my life," he said, "and I mean to rest for the rest of it."

At first he was heartily miserable, and wandered about with a vacant look, having only himself to look after. And he tried to find a hole in his bargain with the man who enjoyed all the smells he was accustomed to, and might even be heard through a gap in the fence rating the men as old Johnny used to do, at the same time of day, and for the same neglect, and almost in the self-same words which the old owner used, but stronger. Instead of being happy, Master Popplewell lost more flesh in a month than he used to lay on in the most prosperous year; and he owed it to his wife, no doubt, as generally happens, that he was not speedily gathered to the bosom of the hospitable Simon of Joppa. For Mrs. Popplewell said, "Go away; Johnny, go away from this village; smell new smells, and never see a hide without a walking thing inside of it. Sea-weed smells almost as nice as tan; though of course it is not so wholesome." The tanner obeyed, and bought a snug little place about ten miles from the old premises, which he called, at the suggestion of the parson, "Byrsa Cottage."

Here was Mary, as blithe as a lark, and as petted as a robin-redbreast, by no means pining, or even hankering, for any other robin. She was not the girl to give her heart before it was even asked for; and hitherto she had regarded the smuggler with pity more than admiration. For in many points she was like her father, whom she loved foremost of the world; and Master Anerley was a law-abiding man, like every other true Englishman. Her uncle Popplewell was also such, but exerted his principles less strictly. Moreover, he was greatly under influence of wife, which happens more freely to a man without children, the which are a source of contradiction. And Mistress Popplewell was a most thorough and conscientious free-trader.

Now Mary was from childhood so accustomed to the sea, and the relish of salt breezes, and the racy dance of little waves that crowd on one another, and the tidal delivery of delightful rubbish, that to fail of seeing the many works and plays and constant variance of her never wearying or weary friend was more than she could long put up with. She called upon Lord Keppel almost every day, having brought him from home for the good of his health, to gird up his loins, or rather get his belly girths on, and come along the sands with her, and dig into new places. But he, though delighted for a while with Byrsa stable, and the social charms of Master Popplewell's old cob, and a rick of fine tan-colored clover hay and bean haulm, when the novelty of these delights was passed, he pined for his home, and the split in his crib, and the knot of hard wood he had polished with his neck, and even the little dog that snapped at him. He did not care for retired people--as he said to the cob every evening--he liked to see farm-work going on, or at any rate to hear all about it, and to listen to horses who had worked hard, and could scarcely speak, for chewing, about the great quantity they had turned of earth, and how they had answered very bad words with a bow. In short, to put it in the mildest terms, Lord Keppel was giving himself great airs, unworthy of his age, ungrateful to a degree, and ungraceful, as the cob said repeatedly; considering how he was fed, and bedded, and not a thing left undone for him. But his arrogance soon had to pay its own costs.

For, away to the right of Byrsa Cottage, as you look down the hollow of the ground toward the sea, a ridge of high scrubby land runs up to a forefront of bold cliff, indented with a dark and narrow bay. "Goyle Bay," as it is called, or sometimes "Basin Bay," is a lonely and rugged place, and even dangerous for unwary visitors. For at low spring tides a deep hollow is left dry, rather more than a quarter of a mile across, strewn with kelp and oozy stones, among which may often be found pretty shells, weeds richly tinted and of subtle workmanship, stars, and flowers, and love-knots of the sea, and sometimes carnelians and crystals. But anybody making a collection here should be able to keep one eye upward and one down, or else in his pocket to have two things--a good watch and a trusty tide-table.

John and Deborah Popplewell were accustomed to water in small supplies, such as that of a well, or a road-side pond, or their own old noble tan-pits; but to understand the sea it was too late in life, though it pleased them, and gave them fine appetites now to go down when it was perfectly calm, and a sailor assured them that the tide was mild. But even at such seasons they preferred to keep their distance, and called out frequently to one another. They looked upon their niece, from all she told them, as a creature almost amphibious; but still they were often uneasy about her, and would gladly have kept her well inland. She, however, laughed at any such idea; and their discipline was to let her have her own way. But now a thing happened which proved forever how much better old heads are than young ones.

For Mary, being tired of the quiet places, and the strands where she knew every pebble, resolved to explore Goyle Bay at last, and she chose the worst possible time for it. The weather had been very fine and gentle, and the sea delightfully plausible, without a wave--tide after tide--bigger than the furrow of a two-horse plough; and the maid began to believe at last that there never were any storms just here. She had heard of the pretty things in Goyle Bay, which was difficult of access from the land, but she resolved to take opportunity of tide, and thus circumvent the position; she would rather have done it afoot, but her uncle and aunt made a point of her riding to the shore, regarding the pony as a safe companion, and sure refuge from the waves. And so, upon the morning of St. Michael, she compelled Lord Keppel, with an adverse mind, to turn a headland they had never turned before.

The tide was far out and ebbing still, but the wind had shifted, and was blowing from the east rather stiffly, and with increasing force. Mary knew that the strong equinoctial tides were running at their height; but she had timed her visit carefully, as she thought, with no less than an hour and a half to spare. And even without any thought of tide, she was bound to be back in less time than that, for her uncle had been most particular to warn her to be home without fail at one o'clock, when the sacred goose, to which he always paid his duties, would be on the table. And if anything marred his serenity of mind, it was to have dinner kept waiting.

Without any misgivings, she rode into Basin Bay, keeping within the black barrier of rocks, outside of which wet sands were shining. She saw that these rocks, like the bar of a river, crossed the inlet of the cove; but she had not been told of their peculiar frame and upshot, which made them so treacherous a rampart. At the mouth of the bay they formed a level crescent, as even as a set of good teeth, against the sea, with a slope of sand running up to their outer front, but a deep and long pit inside of them. This pit drained itself very nearly dry when the sea went away from it, through some stony tubes which only worked one way, by the closure of their mouths when the tide returned; so that the volume of the deep sometimes, with tide and wind behind it, leaped over the brim into the pit, with tenfold the roar, a thousandfold the power, and scarcely less than the speed, of a lion.

Mary Anerley thought what a lovely place it was, so deep and secluded from anybody's sight, and full of bright wet colors. Her pony refused, with his usual wisdom, to be dragged to the bottom of the hole, but she made him come further down than he thought just, and pegged him by the bridle there. He looked at her sadly, and with half a mind to expostulate more forcibly, but getting no glimpse of the sea where he stood, he thought it as well to put up with it; and presently he snorted out a tribe of little creatures, which puzzled him and took up his attention.

Meanwhile Mary was not only puzzled, but delighted beyond description. She never yet had come upon such treasures of the sea, and she scarcely knew what to lay hands upon first. She wanted the weeds of such wonderful forms, and colors yet more exquisite, and she wanted the shells of such delicate fabric that fairies must have made them, and a thousand other little things that had no names; and then she seemed most of all to want the pebbles. For the light came through them in stripes and patterns, and many of them looked like downright jewels. She had brought a great bag of strong canvas, luckily, and with both hands she set to to fill it.

So busy was the girl with the vast delight of sanguine acquisition--this for her father, and that for her mother, and so much for everybody she could think of--that time had no time to be counted at all, but flew by with feathers unheeded. The mutter of the