Erema; Or, My Father's Sin

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XXX

  COCKS AND COXCOMBS

  Major Hockin brought the only fly as yet to be found in Bruntsea, tomeet me at Newport, where the railway ended at present, for want offurther encouragement.

  "Very soon you go," he cried out to the bulkheads, or buffers, orwhatever are the things that close the career of a land-engine."Station-master, you are very wise in putting in your very best cabbageplants there. You understand your own company. Well done! If I were tooffer you a shilling apiece for those young early Yorks, what would yousay, now?"

  "Weel, a think I should say nah, Sir," the Scotch station-master madeanswer, with a grin, while he pulled off his cap of office and put on adissolute Glengary. "They are a veery fine young kail, that always paysfor planting."

  "The villain!" said the Major, as I jumped into the fly. "However, Isuppose he does quite right. Set a thief to watch a thief. The companyare big rogues, and he tries to be a bigger. We shall cut through hisgarden in about three months, just when his cabbages are getting firm,and their value will exceed that of pine-apples. The surveyor willcome down and certify, and the 'damage to crops' will be at least fivepounds, when they have no right to sow even mustard and cress, and asaucepan would hold all the victuals on the land."

  From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculativeschemes as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly turnaside from the unfenced road and take the turf. "Coachman," he cried,"just drive along the railway; you won't have the chance much longer."

  There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver seemed toknow what was meant, and took us over the springy turf where once hadrun the river. And the salt breath of the sea came over the pebbleridge, full of appetite and briskness, after so much London.

  "It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of," Major Hockin beganto say to me. "Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin! A man of large capital--thevery thing we want. It might have been the making of this place. I havevery little doubt that I must have brought him to see our great naturaladvantages--the beauty of the situation, the salubrity of the air, theabsence of all clay, or marsh, or noxious deposit, the bright crispturf, and the noble underlay of chalk, which (if you perceive mymeaning) can not retain any damp, but transmits it into sweet naturalwells. Why, driver, where the devil are you driving us?"

  "No fear, your honor. I know every trick of it. It won't come overthe wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the world to hissand-cracks. Whoa-ho, my boy, then! And the young lady's feet mightgo up upon the cushion, if her boots is thin, Sir; and Mr. Rasper willexcuse of it."

  "What the"--something hot--"do you mean, Sir?" the Major roared overthe water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on. "Pull out thisinstant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three months' hardlabor. May I be d----d now--my dear, I beg your pardon for speaking withsuch sincerity--I simply mean, may I go straightway to the devil, if Idon't put this fellow on the tread-mill. Oh, you can pull out now, then,can you?"

  "If your honor pleases, I never did pull in," the poor driver answered,being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the manor. "My orderswas, miss, to drive along the line coming on now just to Bruntsea, andkeep in the middle of that same I did, and this here little wet is ahaxident--a haxident of the full moon, I do assure you, and the windcoming over the sea, as you might say. These pebbles is too round, miss,to stick to one another; you couldn't expect it of them; and sometimesthe water here and there comes a-leaking like through the bottom. I haveseed it so, ever since I can remember."

  "I don't believe a word of it," the Major said, as we waited a littlefor the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright seaflowers. "Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West Bruntseyans, andyou have driven us into a vile bog to scare me. They have bribed you.I see the whole of it. Tell me the truth, and you shall have fiveshillings."

  The driver looked over the marshes as if he had never received suchan offer before. Five shillings for a falsehood would have seemed theproper thing, and have called for a balance of considerations, and madea demand upon his energies. But to earn five shillings by the truth hadnever fallen to his luck before; and he turned to me, because I smiled,and he said, "Will you taste the water, miss?"

  "Bless me!" cried the Major, "now I never thought of that. Common peoplehave such ways about things they are used to! I might have stoodhere for a month, and never have thought of that way to settle it.Ridiculously simple. Give me a taste, Erema. Ah, that is the real beautyof our coast, my dear! The strongest proportion of the saline element--Ishould know the taste of it any where. No sea-weed, no fishy particles,no sludge, no beards of oysters. The pure, uncontaminated, perfectbrine, that sets every male and female on his legs, varicose,orthopedic--I forget their scientifics, but I know the smack of it."

  "Certainly," I said, "it is beautifully salt. It will give you anappetite for dinner, Major Hockin. I could drink a pint of it, after allthat smoke. But don't you think it is a serious thing for the sea itselfto come pouring through the bottom of this pebble bank in this way?"

  "Not at all. No, I rather like it. It opens up many strictly practicalideas. It adds very much to the value of the land. For instance, a'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it--and set up an infirmary forfoot and mouth disease. And better still, the baths, the baths, my dear.No expense for piping, or pumping, or any thing. Only place your marbleat the proper level, and twice a day you have the grand salubrioussparkling influx of ocean's self, self-filtered, and by its ownoperation permeated with a fine siliceous element. What foreign mudcould compete with such a bath?"

  "But supposing there should come too much of it," I said, "and wash boththe baths and the bathers away?"

  "Such an idea is ridiculous. It can be adjusted to a nicety. I am veryglad I happened to observe this thing, this--this noble phenomenon.I shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I am half an hourolder. My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite forgot to tell you;but never mind that for the present. Driver, here is half a crown foryou. Your master will put down the fly to my account. He owes me aheriot. I shall claim his best beast, the moment he gets one without abroken wind."

  As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wontedalacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had donein London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw) thatsomebody else might come down for me. And this was Sir Montague Hockin,as I feared was only too likely from what had been said. If I had evensuspected that this gentleman was at Bruntlands, I would have done myutmost to stay where I was, in spite of all absence of money. Betsywould gladly have allowed me to remain, without paying even a farthing,until it should become convenient. Pride had forbidden me to speak ofthis; but I would have got over that pride much rather than meet thisSir Montague Hockin thus. Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether;and having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps,foolish importance to that.

  However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one throughinstinct; and I knew already that in England young women are not quitesuch masters of their own behavior as in the far West they are allowedto be. And so I did my best that, even in my eyes, he should not seehow vexed I was at meeting him. And soon it appeared that this behavior,however painful to me, was no less wise than good, because both with myhost and hostess this new visitor was already at the summit of all goodgraces. He had conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemesand upshots, and even offering glimmers of the needful money in thedistance; and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he hadopened a hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures ofan extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, withevery feather sticking inside out. When I saw them, I tried for my lifenot to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded, until thecock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb and very sadinversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife (who stood beneathhim, even more turned inside out), capered with his twig
gy legs, andgave a long, sad crow. Mrs. Hockin looked at him with intense delight.

  "Erema, is it possible that you laugh? I thought that you never laughed,Erema. At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might choose afitter opportunity, I think. You have spoiled his demonstrationaltogether--see, he does not understand such unkindness--and it is thevery first he has uttered since he came. Oh, poor Fluffsky!"

  "I am very, very sorry. But how was I to help it? I would not, on anyaccount, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive. Fluffsky,do please to begin again."

  "These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you," said Sir Montague,coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers for one morecrow. "Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have a fowl that evenLady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have it in a week, or afortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can manage it. They are notto be had except through certain channels, and the fellows who write thepoultry books have never even heard of them."

  "Oh, how delighted I shall be! Lady Clara despises all her neighbors so.But do they lay eggs? Half the use of keeping poultry, when you neverkill them, is to get an egg for breakfast; and Major Hockin looks roundand says, 'Now is this our own?' and I can not say that it is; and I amvexed with the books, and he begins to laugh at me. People said it wasfor want of chalk, but they walk upon nothing but chalk, as you cansee."

  "And their food, Mrs. Hockin. They are walking upon that. Starvethem for a week, and forty eggs at least will reward you for sterndiscipline."

  But all this little talk I only tell to show how good and soft Mrs.Hockin was; and her husband, in spite of all his self-opinion, andresolute talk about money and manorial dues, in his way, perhaps, waseven less to be trusted to get his cash out of any poor and honest man.

  On the very day after my return from London I received a letter from"Colonel Gundry" (as we always called the Sawyer now, through hiskinship to the Major), and, as it can not easily be put into lesscompass, I may as well give his very words:

  "DEAR MISS REMA,--Your last favor to hand, with thanks. Every thing isgoing on all right with us. The mill is built up, and goes better thanever; more orders on hand than we can get through. We have not crackedthe big nugget yet. Expect the government to take him at a trifle belowvalue, for Washington Museum. Must have your consent; but, for my part,would rather let him go there than break him. Am ready to lose a fewdollars upon him, particularly as he might crack up all quartzy in themiddle. They offer to take him by weight at three dollars and a half perpound below standard. Please say if agreeable.

  "I fear, my dear, that there are bad times coming for all of us herein this part. Not about money, but a long sight worse; bad will, andcontention, and rebellion, perhaps. What we hear concerning it is notmuch here; but even here thoughts are very much divided. Ephraim takesa different view from mine; which is not a right thing for a grandsonto do; and neighbor Sylvester goes with him. The Lord send agreement andconcord among us; but, if He doeth so, He must change his mind first,for every man is borrowing his neighbor's gun.

  "If there is any thing that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his duty,my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it. If Firm wasto run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of slavery, I nevershould care more for naught upon this side of Jordan; and the new millmight go to Jericho; though it does look uncommon handsome now, I canassure you, and tears through its work like a tiger.

  "Noting symptoms in your last of the price of things in England, andhaving carried over some to your account, inclosed please to find a billfor five hundred dollars, though not likely to be wanted yet. Save acare of your money, my dear; but pay your way handsome, as a Castlewoodshould do. Jowler goes his rounds twice a day looking for you; andsomebody else never hangs his hat up without casting one eye at thecorner you know. Sylvester's girl was over here last week, dashing aboutas usual. If Firm goes South, he may have her, for aught I care, andnever see saw-mill again. But I hope that the Lord will spare my olddays such disgrace and tribulation.

  "About you know what, my dear, be not overanxious. I have been young,and now am old, as the holy Psalmist says; and the more I see of theways of men, the less I verily think of them. Their good esteem, theircap in hand, their fair fame, as they call it, goes by accident, andfortune, the whim of the moment, and the way the clever ones have oftickling them. A great man laughs at the flimsy of it, and a good onegoes to his conscience. Your father saw these things at their value.I have often grieved that you can not see them so; but perhaps I haveliked you none the worse, my dear.

  "Don't forget about going South. A word from you may stop him. It isalmost the only hope I have, and even that may be too late. Suan Iscoand Martin send messages. The flowers are on your father's grave. I havegot a large order for pine cradles in great haste, but have time to be,

  "Truly yours,

  "SAMPSON GUNDRY."

  That letter, while it relieved me in one way, from the want of money,cost me more than ten times five hundred dollars' worth of anxiety. TheSawyer had written to me twice ere this--kind, simple letters, but ofno importance, except for their goodness and affection. But now it wasclear that when he wrote this letter he must have been sadly put out andupset. His advice to me was beyond all value; but he seemed to have keptnone at home for himself. He was carried quite out of his large, staidways when he wrote those bitter words about poor Firm--the very apple ofhis eye, as the holy Psalmist says. And, knowing the obstinacy of themboth, I dreaded clash between them.