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

a thing. To come up like a keg! Captain Lyth, you must know that I never would be so disgraced."

"Well, I was afraid that you might take it so, though I can not see why it should be any harm. We often hoist the last man so."

"It is different with me," said Mary. "It may be no harm; but I could not have it."

The free-trader looked at her bright eyes and color, and admired her spirit, which his words had roused.

"I pray your forgiveness, Miss Anerley," he said; "I meant no harm. I was thinking of your life. But you look now as if you could do anything almost."

"Yes, I am warm again. I have no fear. I will not go up like a keg, but like myself. I can do it without help from anybody."

"Only please to take care not to cut your little hands," said Robin, as he began the climb; for he saw that her spirit was up to do it.

"My hands are not little; and I will cut them if I choose. Please not even to look back at me. I am not in the least afraid of anything."

The cliff was not of the soft and friable stuff to be found at Bridlington, but of hard and slippery sandstone, with bulky ribs oversaling here and there, and threatening to cast the climber back. At such spots nicks for the feet had been cut, or broken with a hammer, but scarcely wider than a stirrup-iron, and far less inviting. To surmount these was quite impossible except by a process of crawling; and Mary, with her heart in her mouth, repented of her rash contempt for the crane sling. Luckily the height was not very great, or, tired as she was, she must have given way; for her bodily warmth had waned again in the strong wind buffeting the cliff. Otherwise the wind had helped her greatly by keeping her from swaying outward; but her courage began to fail at last, and very near the top she called for help. A short piece of lanyard was thrown to her at once, and Robin Lyth landed her on the bluff, panting, breathless, and blushing again.

"Well done!" he cried, gazing as she turned her face away. "Young ladies may teach even sailors to climb. Not every sailor could get up this cliff. Now back to Master Popplewell's as fast as you can run, and your aunt will know what to do with you."

"You seem well acquainted with my family affairs," said Mary, who could not help smiling. "Pray how did you even know where I am staying?"

"Little birds tell me everything, especially about the best, and most gentle, and beautiful of all birds."

The maiden was inclined to be vexed; but remembering how much he had done, and how little gratitude she had shown, she forgave him, and asked him to come to the cottage.

"I will bring up the little horse. Have no fear," he replied. "I will not come up at all unless I bring him. But it may take two or three hours."

With no more than a wave of his hat, he set off, as if the coast-riders were after him, by the path along the cliffs toward Filey, for he knew that Lord Keppel must be hoisted by the crane, and he could not manage it without another man, and the tide would wait for none of them. Upon the next headland he found one of his men, for the smugglers maintained a much sharper look-out than did the forces of his Majesty, because they were paid much better; and returning, they managed to strap Lord Keppel, and hoist him like a big bale of contraband goods. For their crane had been left in a brambled hole, and they very soon rigged it out again. The little horse kicked pretty freely in the air, not perceiving his own welfare; but a cross-beam and pulley kept him well out from the cliff, and they swung him in over handsomely, and landed him well up on the sward within the brink. Then they gave him three cheers for his great adventure, which he scarcely seemed to appreciate.


CHAPTER XIX


A FARM TO LET

That storm on the festival of St. Michael broke up the short summer weather of the north. A wet and tempestuous month set in, and the harvest, in all but the very best places, lay flat on the ground, without scythe or sickle. The men of the Riding were not disturbed by this, as farmers would have been in Suffolk; for these were quite used to walk over their crops, without much occasion to lift their feet. They always expected their corn to be laid, and would have been afraid of it if it stood upright. Even at Anerley Farm this salam of the wheat was expected in bad seasons; and it suited the reapers of the neighborhood, who scarcely knew what to make of knees unbent, and upright discipline of stiff-cravated ranks.

In the northwest corner of the county, where the rocky land was mantled so frequently with cloud, and the prevalence of western winds bore sway, an upright harvest was a thing to talk of, as the legend of a century, credible because it scarcely could have been imagined. And this year it would have been hard to imagine any more prostrate and lowly position than that of every kind of crop. The bright weather of August and attentions of the sun, and gentle surprise of rich dews in the morning, together with abundance of moisture underneath, had made things look as they scarcely ever looked--clean, and straight, and elegant. But none of them had found time to form the dry and solid substance, without which neither man nor his staff of life can stand against adversity.

"My Lady Philippa," as the tenants called her, came out one day to see how things looked, and whether the tenants were likely to pay their Michaelmas rents at Christmas. Her sister, Mrs. Carnaby, felt like interest in the question, but hated long walks, being weaker and less active, and therefore rode a quiet pony. Very little wheat was grown on their estates, both soil and climate declining it; but the barley crop was of more importance, and flourished pretty well upon the southern slopes. The land, as a rule, was poor and shallow, and nourished more grouse than partridges; but here and there valleys of soft shelter and fair soil relieved the eye and comforted the pocket of the owner. These little bits of Goshen formed the heart of every farm; though oftentimes the homestead was, as if by some perversity, set up in bleak and barren spots, outside of comfort's elbow.

The ladies marched on, without much heed of any other point than one--would the barley crop do well? They had many tenants who trusted chiefly to that, and to the rough hill oats, and wool, to make up in coin what part of their rent they were not allowed to pay in kind. For as yet machinery and reeking factories had not besmirched the country-side.

"How much further do you mean to go, Philippa?" asked Mrs. Carnaby, although she was not travelling by virtue of her own legs. "For my part, I think we have gone too far already."

"Your ambition is always to turn back. You may turn back now if you like. I shall go on." Miss Yordas knew that her sister would fail of the courage to ride home all alone.

Mrs. Carnaby never would ride without Jordas or some other serving-man behind her, as was right and usual for a lady of her position; but "Lady Philippa" was of bolder strain, and cared for nobody's thoughts, words, or deeds. And she had ordered her sister's servant back for certain reasons of her own.

"Very well, very well. You always will go on, and always on the road you choose yourself. Although it requires a vast deal of knowledge to know that there is any road here at all."

The widow, who looked very comely for her age, and sat her pony prettily, gave way (as usual) to the stronger will; though she always liked to enter protest, which the elder scarcely ever deigned to notice. But hearing that Eliza had a little cough at night, and knowing that her appetite had not been as it ought to be, Philippa (who really was wrapped up in her sister, but never or seldom let her dream of such a fact) turned round graciously and said:

"I have ordered the carriage here for half past three o'clock. We will go back by the Scarbend road, and Heartsease can trot behind us."

"Heartsease, uneasy you have kept my heart by your shufflings and trippings perpetual. Philippa, I want a better-stepping pony. Pet has ruined Heartsease."

"Pet ruins everything and everybody; and you are ruining him, Eliza. I am the only one who has the smallest power over him. And he is beginning to cast off that. If it comes to open war between us, I shall be sorry for Lancelot."

"And I shall be sorry for you, Philippa. In a few years Pet will be a man. And a man is always stronger than a woman; at any rate in our family."

"Stronger than such as you, Eliza. But let him only rebel against me, and he will find himself an outcast. And to prove that, I have brought you here."

Mistress Yordas turned round, and looked in a well-known manner at her sister, whose beautiful eyes filled with tears, and fell.

"Philippa," she said, with a breath like a sob, "sometimes you look harder than poor dear papa, in his very worst moments, used to look. I am sure that I do not at all deserve it. All that I pray for is peace and comfort; and little do I get of either."

"And you will get less, as long as you pray for them, instead of doing something better. The only way to get such things is to make them."

"Then I think that you might make enough for us both, if you had any regard for them, or for me, Philippa."

Mistress Yordas smiled, as she often did, at her sister's style of reasoning. And she cared not a jot for the last word, so long as the will and the way were left to her. And in this frame of mind she turned a corner from the open moor track into a little lane, or rather the expiring delivery of a lane, which was leading a better existence further on.

Mrs. Carnaby followed dutifully, and Heartsease began to pick up his feet, which he scorned to do upon the negligence of sward. And following this good lane, they came to a gate, corded to an ancient tree, and showing up its foot, as a dog does when he has a thorn in it. This gate seemed to stand for an ornament, or perhaps a landmark; for the lane, instead of submitting to it, passed by upon either side, and plunged into a dingle, where a gray old house was sheltering. The lonely moorside farm--if such a wild and desolate spot could be a farm--was known as "Wallhead," from the relics of some ancient wall; and the folk who lived there, or tried to live, although they possessed a surname--which is not a necessary consequence of life--very seldom used it, and more rarely still had it used for them. For the ancient fashion still held ground of attaching the idea of a man to that of things more extensive