Richard Carvel — Complete

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER XXI. THE GARDENER'S COTTAGE

  So we walked out of the village, with many a head craned after us andmany an eye peeping from behind a shutter, and on into the open highway.The day was heavenly bright, the wind humming around us and playing madpranks with the white cotton clouds, and I forgot awhile the pity withinme to wonder at the orderly look of the country, the hedges with never astone out of place, and the bars always up. The ground was parcelled offin such bits as to make me smile when I remembered our own wide tractsin the New World. Here waste was sin: with us part and parcel of acreed. I marvelled, too, at the primness and solidity of the housesalong the road, and remarked how their lines belonged rather to thelandscape than to themselves. But I was conscious ever of a strange wishto expand, for I felt as tho' I were in the land of the Liliputians,and the thought of a gallop of forty miles or so over these honeycombedfields brought me to a laugh. But I was yet to see some estates of thegentry.

  I had it on my tongue's tip to ask the captain whither he was takingme, yet dared not intrude on the sorrow that still gripped him. Timeand time we met people plodding along, some of them nodding uncertainly,others abruptly taking the far side of the pike, and every encounterdrove the poison deeper into his soul. But after we had travelled someway, up hill and down dale, he vouchsafed the intelligence that we weremaking for Arbigland, Mr. Craik's seat near Dumfries, which lies on theNith twenty miles or so up the Solway from Kirkcudbright. On that estatestood the cottage where John Paul was born, and where his mother andsisters still dwelt.

  "I'll juist be saying guidbye, Richard," he said; "and leave them abit siller I hae saved, an' syne we'll be aff to London thegither, forScotland's no but a cauld kintra."

  "You are going to London with me?" I cried.

  "Ay," answered he; "this is hame nae mair for John Paul."

  I made bold to ask how the John's owners had treated him.

  "I have naught to complain of, laddie," he answered; "both Mr. Beck andMr. Currie bore the matter of the admiralty court and the delay like thegentlemen they are. They well know that I am hard driven when I resortto the lash. They were both sore at losing me, and says Mr. Beck: IWe'll not soon get another to keep the brigantine like a man-o'-war, asdid you, John Paul.' I thanked him, and told him I had sworn never totake another merchantman out of the Solway. And I will keep that oath."

  He sighed, and added that he never hoped for better owners. In tokenof which he drew a certificate of service from his pocket, signed byMessrs. Currie and Beck, proclaiming him the best master and supercargothey had ever had in their service. I perceived that talk lightened him,and led him on. I inquired how he had got the 'John'.

  "I took passage on her from Kingston, laddie. On the trip both CaptainMacadam and the chief mate died of the fever. And it was I, thepassenger, who sailed her into Kirkcudbright, tho' I had never been morethan a chief mate before. That is scarce three years gone, when I wasjust turned one and twenty. And old Mr. Currie, who had known my father,was so pleased that he gave me the ship. I had been chief mate of the'Two Friends', a slaver out of Kingston."

  "And so you were in that trade!" I exclaimed.

  He seemed to hesitate.

  "Yes," he replied, "and sorry I am to say it. But a man must live. Itwas no place for a gentleman, and I left of my own accord. Before that,I was on a slaver out of Whitehaven."

  "You must know Whitehaven, then."

  I said it only to keep the talk going, but I remembered the remark longafter.

  "I do," said he. "'Tis a fair sample of an English coast town. And Ihave often thought, in the event of war with France, how easy 'twouldbe for Louis's cruisers to harry the place, and an hundred like it, andraise such a terror as to keep the British navy at home."

  I did not know at the time that this was the inspiration of an admiraland of a genius. The subject waned. And as familiar scenes jogged hismemory, he launched into Scotch and reminiscence. Every barn he knew,and cairn and croft and steeple recalled stories of his boyhood.

  We had long been in sight of Criffel, towering ahead of us, whose summithad beckoned for cycles to Helvellyn and Saddleback looming up to thesouthward, marking the wonderland of the English lakes. And at length,after some five hours of stiff walking, we saw the brown Nith belowus going down to meet the Solway, and so came to the entrance of Mr.Craik's place. The old porter recognized Paul by a mere shake of thehead and the words, "Yere back, are ye?" and a lowering of his bushywhite eyebrows. We took a by-way to avoid the manor-house, which stoodon the rising ground twixt us and the mountain, I walking close to JohnPaul's shoulder and feeling for him at every step. Presently, at a turnof the path, we were brought face to face with an elderly gentleman inblack, and John Paul stopped.

  "Mr. Craik!" he said, removing his hat.

  But the gentleman only whistled to his dogs and went on.

  "My God, even he!" exclaimed the captain, bitterly; "even he, whothought so highly of my father!"

  A hundred yards more and we came to the little cottage nigh hid amongthe trees. John Paul paused a moment, his hand upon the latch of thegate, his eyes drinking in the familiar picture. The light of day wasdying behind Criffel, and the tiny panes of the cottage windows pulsedwith the rosy flame on the hearth within, now flaring, and againdeepening. He sighed. He walked with unsteady step to the door andpushed it open. I followed, scarce knowing what I did, halted at thethreshold and drew back, for I had been upon holy ground.

  John Paul was kneeling upon the flags by the ingleside, his face buriedon the open Bible in his mother's lap. Her snowy-white head was bentupon his, her tears running fast, and her lips moving in silent prayerto Him who giveth and taketh away. Verily, here in this humble placedwelt a love that defied the hard usage of a hard world!

  After a space he came to the door and called, and took me by the hand,and I went in with him. Though his eyes were wet, he bore himself like acavalier.

  "Mother, this is Mr. Richard Carvell heir to Carvel Hall in Maryland,--ayoung gentleman whom I have had the honour to rescue from a slaver."

  I bowed low, such was my respect for Dame Paul, and she rose andcurtseyed. She wore a widow's cap and a black gown, and I saw in herdeep-lined face a resemblance to her son.

  "Madam," I said, the title coming naturally, "I owe Captain Paul a debtI can never repay."

  "An' him but a laddie!" she cried. "I'm thankful, John, I'm thankful forhis mither that ye saved him."

  "I have no mother, Madam Paul," said I, "and my father was killed in theFrench war. But I have a grandfather who loves me dearly as I love him."

  Some impulse brought her forward, and she took both my hands in her own.

  "Ye'll forgive an auld woman, sir," she said, with a dignity thatmatched her son's, "but ye're sae young, an' ye hae sic a leuk in yerebonny gray e'e that I ken yell aye be a true friend o' John's. He's beena guid sin to me, an' ye maunna reek what they say o' him."

  When now I think of the triumph John Paul has achieved, of the scoffingworld he has brought to his feet, I cannot but recall that sorrowfulevening in the gardener's cottage, when a son was restored but tobe torn away. The sisters came in from their day's work,--bothwell-favoured lasses, with John's eyes and hair,--and cooked the simplemeal of broth and porridge, and the fowl they had kept so long againstthe captain's home-coming. He carved with many a light word that costhim dear. Did Janet reca' the simmer nights they had supped here, wi'the bumclocks bizzin' ower the candles? And was Nancy, the cow, stilli' the byre? And did the bees still give the same bonnie hiney, and werethe red apples still in the far orchard? Ay, Meg had thocht o' him thatautumn, and ran to fetch them with her apron to her face, to come backsmiling through her tears. So it went; and often a lump would rise inmy throat that I could not eat, famished as I was, and the mother andsisters scarce touched a morsel of the feast.

  The one never failing test of a son, my dears, lies in his treatment ofhis mother, and from that hour forth I had not a doubt of John Paul. Hewas a man who had seen the world a
nd become, in more than one meaning ofthe word, a gentleman. Whatever foibles he may have had, he brought noconscious airs and graces to this lowly place, but was again the humblegardener's boy.

  But time pressed, as it ever does. The hour came for us to leave, JohnPaul firmly refusing to remain the night in a house that belonged to Mr.Craik. Of the tenderness, nay, of the pity and cruelty of that parting,I have no power to write. We knelt with bowed heads while the motherprayed for the son, expatriated, whom she never hoped to see again onthis earth. She gave us bannocks of her own baking, and her last wordswere to implore me always to be a friend to John Paul.

  Then we went out into the night and walked all the way to Dumfries insilence.

  We lay that night at the sign of the "Twa Naigs," where Bonnie PrinceCharlie had rested in the Mars year(1715). Before I went to bed I calledfor pen and paper, and by the light of a tallow dip sat down to composea letter to my grandfather, telling him that I was alive and well, andrecounting as much of my adventures as I could. I said that I was goingto London, where I would see Mr. Dix, and would take passage thence forAmerica. I prayed that he had been able to bear up against the ordeal ofmy disappearance. I dwelt upon the obligations I was under to JohnPaul, relating the misfortunes of that worthy seaman (which he so littledeserved!). And said that it was my purpose to bring him to Marylandwith me, where I knew Mr. Carvel would reward him with one of his ships,explaining that he would accept no money. But when it came to accusingGrafton and the rector, I thought twice, and bit the end of the feather.The chances were so great that my grandfather would be in bed and underthe guardianship of my uncle that I forbore, and resolved instead towrite it to Captain Daniel at my first opportunity.

  I arose early to discover a morning gray and drear, with a mist fallingto chill the bones. News travels apace the world over, and that of JohnPaul's home-coming and of his public renunciation of Scotland at the"Hurcheon" had reached Dumfries in good time, substantiated by thearrival of the teamster with the chests the night before. I descendedinto the courtyard in time to catch the captain in his watchet-bluefrock haggling with the landlord for a chaise, the two of themsurrounded by a muttering crowd anxious for a glimpse of Mr. Craik'sgardener's son, for he had become a nine-day sensation to the countryround about. But John Paul minded them not so much as a swarm of flies,and the teamster's account of the happenings at Kirkcudbright had giventhem so wholesome a fear of his speech and presence as to cause them tomisdoubt their own wit, which is saying a deal of Scotchmen. But whenthe bargain had been struck and John Paul gone with the 'ostler to seeto his chests, mine host thought it a pity not to have a fall out of me.

  "So ye be the Buckskin laud," he said, with a wink at a leering group offarmers; "ye hae braw gentles in America."

  He was a man of sixty or thereabout, with a shrewd but not unkindly facethat had something familiar in it.

  "You have discernment indeed to recognize a gentleman in Scotchclothes," I replied, turning the laugh on him.

  "Dinna raise ae Buckskin, Mr. Rawlinson," said a man in corduroy.

  "Rawlinson!" I exclaimed at random, "there is one of your name in thecolonies who knows his station better."

  "Trowkt!" cried mine host, "ye ken Ivie o' Maryland, Ivie my brither?"

  "He is my grandfather's miller at Carvel Hall," I said.

  "Syne ye maun be nane ither than Mr. Richard Carvel. Yere servan', Mr.Carvel," and he made me a low bow, to the great dropping of jaws roundabout, and led me into the inn. With trembling hands he took a packetfrom his cabinet and showed me the letters, twenty-three in all, whichIvie had written home since he had gone out as the King's passenger in'45. The sight of them brought tears to my eyes and carried me outof the Scotch mist back to dear old Maryland. I had no trouble inconvincing mine host that I was the lad eulogized in the scrawls, andhe put hand on the very sheet which announced my birth, nineteen yearssince,--the fourth generation of Carvels Ivie had known.

  So it came that the captain and I got the best chaise and pair in placeof the worst, and sat down to a breakfast such as was prepared only formy Lord Selkirk when he passed that way, while I told the landlord ofhis brother; and as I talked I remembered the day I had caught the armof the mill and gone the round, to find that Ivie had written of that,too!

  After that our landlord would not hear of a reckoning. I might stay amonth, a year, at the "Twa Naigs" if I wished. As for John Paul, whoseemed my friend, he would say nothing, only to advise me privately thatthe man was queer company, shaking his head when I defended him. He cameto me with ten guineas, which he pressed me to take for Ivies sake, andrepay when occasion offered. I thanked him, but was of no mind to acceptmoney from one who thought ill of my benefactor.

  The refusal of these recalled the chaise, and I took the trouble toexpostulate with the captain on that score, pointing out as delicatelyas I might that, as he had brought me to Scotland, I held it within myright to incur the expense of the trip to London, and that I intendedto reimburse him when I saw Mr. Dix. For I knew that his wallet was notover full, since he had left the half of his savings with his mother.Much to my secret delight, he agreed to this as within the compass of agentleman's acceptance. Had he not, I had the full intention of leavinghim to post it alone, and of offering myself to the master of the firstschooner.

  Despite the rain, and the painful scenes gone through but yesterday, andthe sour-looking ring of men and women gathered to see the start, Iwas in high spirits as we went spinning down the Carlisle road, with myheart leaping to the crack of the postilion's whip.

  I was going to London and to Dorothy!