Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE SEA SIDE.

over, I feared that you had grown well-nigh sick of sadness, of which these same fugitive sketches have been for the most part compounded; and so, knowing that ill health was not likely to produce anything more lively, I intended to have deferred writing till I felt in better spirits. But that good intention, like many better, is frustrated. I am still alone-still sad-and still, as a respected brother contributor would phrase it, "morally and physically seedy." I have no books here-and I am too far from the town to care to scramble over rock and shingle for the sake of an hour's perusal of the Times; so I must write if only for pastime. Having no companion, you must not wonder if I take you once more into my confidence and prattle to you, even as though we were both located in a little lonely cottage hanging over a moaning sea. All lonely men are, perforce, egotists; the inference is as obvious as the excuse thereby sought. Pardon me, therefore, if I seek to relieve the dullness of a lonely hour by enlisting your attention to aught I may have to say.

619

easy gentlemen of dishonest and nautical notoriety, are now nothing more than jolly, mahogany-faced fellows, who spend half their time in smoking black pipes upon the grimy decks of colliers, and the remainder in beershops ashore. "Tis we-tis ours that change, not they," said Shelley-not of the aforesaid sailors, but of the more delicate "Sensitive Plant" and its congeners. But this is not a pleasant train of thoughts, and is base ingratitude to the noble old sea which is just now flashing merrily in the sunlight, as though to chide the grumbling of discontent and dyspepsia. For, after all, in spite of the hollowness which we find in everything of this world; in spite of one's glorious young feelings fading away like spring flowers, almost ere we have time to analyse their beauties; in spite of the wide, brain-bewildering gulf which in this life of ours is fixed irrevocably between to be and to seem, the sea is still one grand reality. If everything else be a lie, as cynics, bilious money-spinners, and discarded Lotharios will have you to believe, my dear young-lady-reader; if everything else alters, till the thinker of to-day can find no reliable bridge of thought to connect himself with his double of yesterday, still the broad, blue-I had well nigh said eternal-sea mocks mutability-though it has been held by some ordinary people, and more crack-brained poets, who don't know anything about it, and are distressed for a simile, to be a fit emblem of inconstancy.

Some people in my situation would waste much time in describing the marine scenery hereabouts; it were a vain labour, methinks. Not but that the sea, though written upon usque ad nauseam, is worthy of a better pen than mine. What can I say of it worth reading? Alas, as year by year passes away, every time I walk para thina polufloisboto thalasses, (pardon this profanation of Homer's sonorous Greek by English type,) I find Yonder cliffs, as geologists with their hammers the sea is not the same to me as it was the time and strange jargon of "Silurian sandstone," "blue before. The world, that mighty Iconoclast, has lias," Oxford or Cambridge "clay formations," robbed me of much of that mysterious, childlike would tell you, have shrunk immeasurably, as years delight wherewith in boyhood we gaze on Father rolled by from their ancient altitudes; yonder Neptune-spending long hours on the brow of a castle on the hill, on whose battered battlements cliff, gazing on the blue waters, in a frame of mind a solitary cormorant sits all day, the incarnation of which were as hard to analyse as to control. As desolation, has crumbled away long ago beneath one who, after a long separation from an old and Time's hand, or a more merciless conqueror's; the dear friend, sees with sadness, on again meeting portcullis is choked with weeds-birds build in the him, many and many a change in the well-remem- port-holes, and children play in the ruined hall, bered dear old face of "lang syne"-many a kind where once stalwart retainers and mail-clad barons old expression lost or marred-many a hard new caroused around their blazing log-fires; many and one written there in its stead by the false world's many a goodly vessel, which had borne on its decks fingers-little thinking all the while how far such stout hands and lion-hearts to plant the flag of observations may be in great measure the result of England where roamed men of strange tongue and his own changed feelings, so it is with me once outworn half-forgotten creeds, has sunk down more, gazing out of my open window on yonder beneath the booming waves flashing in the sun by The romance of the thing is gone-who yonder breakwater; many a note-worthy captain shall give back to me, what Longfellow calls "the has sailed from this harbour to take a now forgotten secret of the sea," its vague, weird charm? The part in the privateering cruises of Drake and white-sailed ships, which at one time called up Hawkins on the far Spanish Main, and has returned such strange fancies, (such pleasing associations hither to die and leave no memorial behind him, with olden argosies, adventurous buccaneers, and save a grey stone or two in the old churchyarddistant regions where the sun shines through a but this blue sea is the same to-day, save for its cloudless blue sky the livelong day on feathery alternations of storm and calm, as it was when the palm trees and rivers yellow with sands of gold, Baleares, who dwelt hard by, painted their bodies pardon this long parenthesis)-seem now but blue, and slung stones at the haughty legions of the what they really are-mere trading-vessels-mere Cæsars. Aye, the grand old sea is Time's great "Mary Anne's" of Bristol and "Rosa Matilda's" reality-a mockery of man's vain-glorious dreams of Carnarvon, and the like-their captains and and petty sway-and the most comprehensive crews, who were at one time such capital represen- emblem of Eternity on which man can look and see tatives of the "Red Rover" and other free and therein reflected his own littleness and his Maker's

sea.

[blocks in formation]

-

might together. And now the sea is calm as glass the clear blue waves come splashing in over the dark rocks; and from the place where I sit, I can see down many feet below me, so clear is the sea hereabouts, the purple and green sea-weeds swaying to and fro with the tide on the bottom. This is a glorious September day, warm enough to render a stretch of an hour or more upon the short turf of the cliff yonder a safe possibility, and cool enough to dispel any feeling of languor which seaside places on this coast too often tend to increase rather than remove. And yet I feel sad, hardiy knowing why. It may be that I remember bygone days spent on another shore-it may be for "happiness," as Byron truly says, "was born a twin" that, remembering in my loneliness a longlost companion of olden sea-side rambles I need such an one now to complete, by sharing, my en joyment of the fresh air and the thoughts that arise in localities like this. It seems to-day such a weary while since I sat on a coast, bleaker far than this, with one whom on earth I shall see no more yet it is but a very few years ago-I remember then thinking Earth held no fairer spot than that barren corner of Great Britain, with its miles of arid rock and foaming sea on either side. I am now amidst scenes far more favoured by nature than those so dear to my recollections-I have and yet, forsooth, I am sad at heart. found that writing poetry-or what with me passes for such-relieves thoughts like these. There is little wonder then if I should occasionally run up lines like the following:

The plashing waves come moaning in beneath the rocks hereby;

Among the wild flowers on the cliff the restless wind doth sigh;

The sheep-bells tinkle on the hills-sweet music to mine

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

THE SMUGGLER'S REVENGE: A SEA-SIDE YARN. Come list awhile unto a greybeard's story. - Old Play, A fearful tale-the truth were worse.-P. B. Sheiley. In the year 179-, some five miles from the place where I am now writing, lived John Brown, the son of a substantial yeoman-farmer, and the hero of the tale I am now about to tell-a tine, jovial, open-hearted young fellow was he in those days, handsome enough to turn the heads of half the girls within an afternoon's ride of his father's homestead, where, but for his restless dislike of any settled mode of life, he might perhaps have been now leading a tranquil old age. But the life of a farmer had no charms for him. "A life of excitement for me!" said the wilful young man to his father's remonstrance, "none of your humdrum, stay-at-home, fireside happinesss for Jack Brown." And, so thinking, he soon joined a band of smugglers, who at that time infested this coast. In those days smuggling was not only more common but less disreputable than now. France being almost closed to fair traders by war, those who required such fripperies as muslins and the like, or such creature comforts as Cognac, were obliged

if they studied economy-to buy them in the cheapest market; and this was in the hands of the smugglers, who at that time formed no inconsiderable proportion of England's maritime population. Young Brown, who from his childhood had been used to the sea, in a short time from the opening of this narrative had, by his energy and aptness for command, elicited warm praises from his brother smugglers, and was speedily elected captain of as "rakish a looking lugger, called

[ocr errors]

A SEA-SIDE YARN.

'the Petrel," as ever baffled a King's cruiser. Once in every week or two the Petrel brought in the much coveted muslins and silks for the ladies, and the Cognac, &c., for their liege lords, who, however much they might reprobate smugglers and smug. gling in public, had not the least objection to become purchasers in private of the smugglers' wares, at far lower rates than they could have purchased them of the fair traders as by law protected and recognised.

Among Brown's intimate companions, was an old schoolfellow, who had joined him in his contraband cruises, a man of two or three-and-twenty, by name George Gilbert, the son of a gentleman in reduced circumstances, and who, having been wild at college, to which by his father, at great personal inconvenience, he had been sent, for he was a youth of promise, in expectation of then doing something good for himself, had some months returned home, and growing tired of family reproaches, and having too much spirit to wish to live as a pensioner on paternal good nature, had joined the Petrel's adventurers. Brown and he were friends, yet never were two men more utterly dissimilar in mind and body. By the side of the genial Jack Brown, the quiet, saturnine George Gilbert made a poor figure-yet there was more in him than a stranger would have supposed -as the smugglers soon discovered. Stern in feature, with a face whereon a smile seldom beamed -and then it was a smile more unpleasant than any frown-with nothing genial about it-cold as moonlight-a smile of mingled bitterness and contempt, George Gilbert, nevertheless, was emphatically the brain of the Petrel's crew. He it was who planned, for others to execute. Whenever a cool, calculating spirit, a keen eye and indomitable perseverance were required, Gilbert was the man who furnished them; whenever a dashing enterprise was to be carried out by a strong nerve, a reckless heart, and an iron hand, then Jack Brown was truly "Jack at a pinch." Little wonder then if, with two such men banded together in one cause, the Petrel soon became famous for successful cruises, and hair-breadth escapes or that her crew, who were all joined together in a kind of partnership, soon were in a good way to realise a handsome livelihood by their nefarious practices, in spite of the revenue.

Now, although it is by no means my intention to dose my readers with too much sentimentality in these veritable chronicles, still I suppose I should be lessening whatever interest my story may possess, by omitting such love matters as are necessary to that story's development.

Let me be brief, however.

Jack Brown wooed and won as pretty a girl as ever wore a contraband silk dress, or kissed a handsome young smuggler,-Kate Furness. It was likewise surmised at the time that George Gilbert-though he had never shown any feeling of interest when Brown announced his engagement to his lady love-had at one time been a suitor

[ocr errors]

621

for Kate's hand. Scandal said that she had not treated the young man quite fairly—that, though she had up to a certain period encouraged his addresses, the moment Brown appeared on the field she had slighted Gilbert in a manner undeserved-for, however harsh and unamiable in other respects might have been the character of George Gilbert, he loved her with all that deep-I had well nigh said—stern attachment of which such natures-and such only-are capable. Just before she formally declined his suit, he had led a steadier life, and had promised, if she would only offer him an object in view, that he would go to London and there make use of his talents to retrieve the past, and brighten the future. But, no -Brown was a handsome, dashing, young sailor, and poor George was a man destitute of such advantages, and consequently, was, like many a better man by many a more foolish girl, jilted. And so, like a sensible man, for a time he bore the blow in silence, and endeavoured to make the best of it. True, she had deceived him, and then as coldly undeceived him, and then given him for his pains a sneer and his congée. No matter; pride would enable him to bear it, and for a while pride did.

One evening, as he was strolling homewards along the cliff, he saw the two lovers, Brown and his affianced, sitting among the bushes in a loving téte-à-téte. Having no wish to play the part of a listener, he was turning away, when he heard his name mentioned. He had been more than man if he had not paused awhile then. Involuntarily he listened and soon verified in his own person, the old proverb, that "listeners hear no good of themselves;" for Kate was just then telling Brown the issue of poor Gilbert's unsuccessful suit, adding thereto sundry facetious comments of her own, which went like swords through the heart of the proud man who heard every word then spoken, and never forgot or forgave one-and Jack Brown, with a horse-laugh, said, "Poor devil!" till he roared again. Little thought fickle Kate Furness, that pleasant evening, of the fearful consequences that would ensue from those foolish words of hers, spoken, after all, in merry jest, but taken by one of the listeners in fierce revengeful earnest-little thought she how a moment had alienated from her the faithful heart that had loved her for years. Little thought Brown how his coarse laugh, in which there was not the least particle of ill nature, had severed a friendship that had existed from childhood between himself and his old schoolfellow, Gilbert, turning the friend into a deadly enemy henceforward. But it was so. From that hour Gilbert hated Kate and Brown with all that intensity which belongs to temperaments like his.

Still, Gilbert and Brown sailed together as heretofore, till one day as they were cruising off Jersey, a few hasty words between the two led to a quarrel-blows were exchanged, and the combatants were separated by their crew. Directly they landed, Gilbert demanded satisfaction on the spot, and Brown, after a few well meant but vain

[blocks in formation]

attempts at reconciliation, took his ground and shot his quondam friend through the arm. At his own request Gilbert was left behind in St. Heliers, and the Petrel sailed home. His wound, which was a simple flesh wound, rapidly healed, and from that time his connexion with the Petrel ceased. But he had formed his plan already to crush his hated rival.

In a few months Brown was married to Kate Furness, and for a year all went on happily. Gilbert, by exerting what little interest his father possessed with the county members, procured an appointment in the coast-guard, and from that day it was remarked that more seizures were made along the shore, and the Petrel went more rarely to the coast of France. Knowing well the character of the man they had lost as a friend, the Petrel's crew became dispirited, and Brown speedily found that the worst day's work he ever did was his quarrel with George Gilbert.

One dark night, however, after they had ascertained that Gilbert was on the sick list, the smugglers had arranged to effect a landing of several tubs of spirits, and this was to be brought about as follows::-

About a mile from their usual landing-place, where the shore was less rocky than nearer home, to a stile, on the summit of the cliff, was attached a strong block and pulley, with one man to work it, a second as a general assistant in case of need, and a third some quarter of a mile off on the look out. Then the lugger ran in shore as close as possible, and the tubs were floated off and conveyed by the smugglers to a snug cranny, there affixed to the pulley, and then wound up to the brow of the cliff, when they were conveyed by the second man to the third, who soon disposed of them in a convenient stackyard, to wait till called for. But the smugglers had "reckoned without their host," as the saying is. The sick-list was merely a sham, and in less time than served to convey four tubs up to the stile from the beach, a shrill whistle from the smuggler's outpost, an. nounced that danger was abroad. The smugglers on the beach regained their lugger and awaited the safe advent of the rest to sheer off. But it was too late. George Gilbert, with four or five men, was running to the scene of action, the smugglers on the high-ground were intercepted, and after a short conflict were worsted, and by Brown's order retired, leaving one of their number shot through the body on the grass, and Brown hinself a prisoner, though not before he had sent a bullet through the hat of one and the leg of another of his assailants.

He was dragged off to the Freventive station, and there detained in safe custody till morning when he could be taken before a magistrate. During that night he bitterly reproached Gilbert with his treachery in turning his hand against his former shipmates, and taking advantage of the knowledge he had acquired on board the Petrel, to capture her captain. He then went on to ask his

old schoolfellow if he thought that a mere foolish quarrel justified such hatred as his. For a few minutes Gilbert looked at him with a smile of hate, blended strangely with contempt, ere he replied:

"Think you, Brown, that a petty squabble like that would have really turned the old friend of twenty years standing into a life-long foe, or that a few blackguard words, followed by a well-directed bullet from a wrong-headed idiot like you, could have made me what I am? No-it needed something more to do that."

"And that something was ?" asked Brown, eagerly, in spite of himself—

"Listen, and you shall know a secret," said the other.

"A year or two ago I loved deeply, purely and truly, a village-girl. Aye-you may smile, smile-but men like me can love as well-or far better than people of your kind-your love may have been a plaything for your vanity-mine was the one hope of life. I loved-was rejected, after having been coldly deceived-and loved on still. I could have borne that. Aye-I loved and was a fool for my pains. She I loved might have been a girl with no more heart than head—a jilt-but though thus driven from the only hope whereby my soul then seemed to anchor-my trusting love flung in my face-I forgave that, and would have carried my secret forgivingly to my grave. She loved another; and I was to furnish mirth for my rival. Well-one evening I was walking out over yonder cliff-I saw her sitting by the side of him she loved-who could not love her with half the intensity I had done-I heard words of endearment-words I shall never more hear or speak in this world now-then I heard my name mentioned with many a heartless jest by her, for whom I had suffered so much unrepiningly. I heard enough to tell me that in their eyes I was fit to be mocked and sneered at by a false coquetteto be the topic of the coarse jests of an emptyheaded boor. My blood was turned to gall-that night I swore a bitter oath-I have kept the first part of it already-for that girl was Kate Furness, and that man was-yourself; aye-you-John Brown-the prisoner of the Coast Guard to-night -the committed for trial to-morrow-the transported-if there be justice in the land—at the next assizes. And I will keep that oath still further.'"

So saying, he walked out and left his prisoner to his reflections-which which were not of a very pleasant nature. Not that the stout heart of Brown feared for himself-but for his wife who was hourly expecting her confinement. He knew that, if he was transported, she could be at the mercy of Gilbert in some measure; and he knew enough of the ingenuity of his captor to feel sure that he would allow nothing to baulk him of his revenge.

Scoundrel!" shouted he in his despair, "if I ever hear that my wife and the child yet unbora

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

These words were heard-not by the ear for which they were intended-but by one of the coast guard outside the prisoner's door, who remembered them long after the prisoner was wearing his heart out in a foreign land.

Brown was tried-found guilty of smuggling and firing, with intent to kill, at two of His Majesty's revenue officers, &c., and sentenced to death-which was commuted to " transportation beyond the seas for the term of his natural life." There was what the local newspapers of the day called "an affecting scene in court," when his grey-headed father entreated the mercy of the stern Judge on the prisoner for the sake of his poor wife and his unborn child. There was a yell of execration from the assembled mob outside the Sessions-House as Gilbert passed out-to which that amiable personage vouchsafed a contemptuous sneer as sole reply. And in a few months the capture of the Petrel by the ever vigilant Gilbert broke up Brown's gang, and the s ory of the trial and the sentence were speedily forgotten, save by the convict's wife and a few sympathisers, smugglers, who, over their pipes and grog, would often avouch their opinion that Brown would yet come back again to keep his oath, of which-thanks to that loquacious member of the coast guard who originally overheard it-they were aware. With one of these men Brown kept up a correspondence and thus knew everything that took place in his absence. But Gilbert appeared to have forgotten. his old grudge against Kate, and so Brown's heart grew light on that score. The revenue officer only bided his time till he could wreak his vengeance more terribly through her son.

Twenty years had passed away from the night when Jack Brown was taken by the Coast Guard, and Mrs. Brown, who had been established by her relatives in a shop in the town adjoining her girlhood's home, was, with a few friends celebrating the birthday of her son Harry, fine young man who had inherited from his father a handsome face, an athletic frame, and as adventurous a spirit as his who was far away. His mother was calling to mind her long-lost husband, and instituting fond comparisons between him and her wild boy, regretting that both would follow a lawless course of life, when a tap came at the door, it was opened, and in walked Gilbert and two of his followers. The poor mother saw all at a glance. Rushing to the side window, she threw it up, and screaming, "Fly-dearest Harry-fly!" endeavoured to impede the further advance of the officers. The effort was useless; in a moment they had dragged him from the window, and had led him away a prisoner to the door, where he stood breathless with impotent rage and astonishment at the sud

66

623

denness of his capture. Poor Mrs. Brown rushed to the door, and then stood wringing her hands in all the helplessness of despair, till she saw the men preparing to march Harry off, when she said; George Gilbert, I did not think two and twenty years ago, when you and I stood together in my father's garden, that you would ever bring me sorrow like this-that you could ever ruin the husband and child of one who never sought to injure you or yours."

[ocr errors]

Softly, my dear madam," sneered Gilbert, in a fierce whisper, which, though unheard by his men, was perfectly audible to the wretched mother. "Do you remember sitting on the cliff twenty-one years ago, and giggling with John Brown, at tha 'poor simpleton, George Gilbert,' as you then phrased it, as though a proud man's love were worthy of nothing more than a weak girl's heartless laughter ?" Then, motioning her a few steps further off his men and their prisoner, he continued, "if you have forgotten that, I have not— do you remember it, Mrs. Brown, now ?”

[ocr errors]

She did, indeed, remember all too well. George," gasped she, mercy-mercy for the sake of my boy who never harmed you. I was but a silly girl in those days-you will not-you cannot seek to crush my home for such a girlish folly as that. George-if you ever loved me, pity me now. I have been punished already too far by the loss of poor John. Is there no mercy, George;" asked she, looking up imploringly into the Revenue officer's stern face, which for an instant worked convulsively, and then subsided into its wonted passionless expression.

After a while he answered in a husky voice, "Kate Brown! think of what I might have been; for, though the son of a ruined father, I had, some fools said, talent, and I would, for your sake, have yet made for us a place in the worldand then think of all I have suffered-think of what I am the detested Revenue spy. Think of the struggle that must have been here, where a heart once was, ere love was turned to undying hate like mine, and then ask yourself if there can be any mercy for you, at the hands of a man like me?"

She answered not a word, but gazed at him like one distraught, as he said to his men,

"Now, my lads, away with him," and turning to the weeping mother, added, "To share, I hope, if not at present, his father's fate," and the young man was dragged off. But the party had not advanced many yards when, with an effort of desperate strength, he wrested his arm from one of his captors, knocked him down, and snatching the cutlass from the other's grasp, struck him a fearful blow across the head. The man fell bleeding at his feet, as Harry, waving his weapon, shouted to Gilbert to come on. In an instant Gilbert. who was some yards in the rear, stood before him, and pointing a pistol at the young man's breast, said, in a voice of quiet determination,—

« PreviousContinue »