providence, i cannot but believe, had all this time humoured us along a seeming “road of casualty,” which was, in truth, the direct path to its own wonderful ends. we talk of luck and accident and coincidence. they are, i am certain, but the veils with which it blinds us to its inexorable conclusions. my chance selection of our destination, my uncle’s mishap—what were these but second and third acts in the strange drama which had begun in the law courts of ipswich, where my father had given his life for a truth, which was to be here, thirty miles away, proven and consummated. the dénouement was distant yet, to be sure, for providence, having all eternity to plot in, works deliberately. nevertheless, it never loses sight, i think, of what we call the unities of art.
i awoke from a dreamless sleep, a restored and avid little giant. it was bright morning. a clock on the stairs cleared its throat and sang out six times. the house was still, save for a shuffling of drowsy maids at their dusting below. i lay quiet, conscious of the most unfamiliar atmosphere all about me—of whitewashed walls; of a smell between wood-smoke and seaweed and the faint sourness of beer; of cold boarded floors gritty with sand; of utter remoteness from the noise of traffic habitual to a young denizen of towns. this little gap of time had lifted me clean out of my accustomed conditions, and dumped me in an outpost of civilization, amongst uncouth allies, friendlies in name, but as foreign as foes to my experience.
i got up soon very softly, and washed and dressed and went out. i had to pass, on my way, through my uncle’s room; and it relieved me to see him slumbering peacefully on his pillow, though the white bandage across his forehead gave me a momentary shock.
i emerged upon a landing, on a wall of which, papered with varnished marble, hung a smoke-stained print of a hunt, with a case of stuffed water-birds on a table beneath. no one accosted me as i descended the little creaking flight of stairs. i passed out by the unlatched private door of the tavern, and found myself at the sea-end of the village street. it was a glowing morning. not a soul appeared abroad, and i turned to the path by which we had come the night before, thrilling to possess the sea.
the ground went gently up by the way of a track that soon lost itself in the thin grass of the cliffs. not till i reached the verge did i pause to reconnoitre, and then at once all was displayed about me. i drew one deep delighted breath, and turned as my foremost duty to examine the way i had come. the village, yawning from its chimneys little early draughts of smoke, ran straight from the sea, perhaps for a quarter of a mile, under the shelter of a low, long hill on which a few sheep were folded. beyond this hill, southwards, and divided from it by a deepish gorge, whose end i could see like a cut trough in the cliff edge, bulged another, the abbot’s, the contour which gave it its name but roughly distinguishable at these closer quarters. the ruins we had passed overnight crowned this second slope near its marge; and inland both hills dropped into pastures, whence the ground rose again towards a rampart of thick woods which screened all dunberry from the world beyond.
it looked so endearing, such a happy valley of peace, one would scarcely have credited the picture with a single evil significance; yet—but i am not going to anticipate. tingling with pleasure, i faced round to the sea.
it was withdrawn a distance away, creaming at the ebb. all beyond was a sheet of golden lustre fading into the bright mists of dawn. right under the rising sun, like a bar beneath a crest, stretched the line of the weary sands, a perilous bank situate some five miles from shore; and between bank and coast rode a solitary little two-masted lugger, with shrouds of gossamer and hull of purple velvet, it seemed, in the soft glow. even while i looked, this shook out sails like beetles’ wings, and, drawing away, revealed a tiny boat speeding shorewards. i bent and peered over. ten fathoms beneath me the gully we had climbed in the dark discharged itself, a river of sand, upon the beach; and tumbled at its mouth, as it might be débris, lay a dozen pot-bellied fishing boats. right and left the cliffs rose and dropped in fantastic conformations, until they sank either way into the horizon. it was a wonderful scene to the little town-bred boy.
presently i looked for the rowing-boat again, and saw it close in shore. in a minute it grated on the shingle, and there heaved himself out of it the tall fisherman who had escorted us last night. i was sure of him, and he also, it appeared, of me; for after staring up some time, shading his eyes with his hand, he turned, as if convinced, to haul his craft into safety. i watched him awhile, and was then once more absorbed in the little vessel drawing seawards, when i started to hear his voice suddenly address me close by. he must have come up the gully as soft-footed as a cat.
his eyes were less like a marmoset’s by daylight; but they were still a strange feature in his gaunt forbidding face. i felt friendly towards every one; yet somehow this man’s expression chilled me, as he stood smiling down ingratiatory without another word.
“is that your little ship out there?” i asked, for lack of anything better.
“lor’ bless ’ee, no, sir,” he answered, heartily, but in a sort of breathless way. “what makes ’ee think so?”
“weren’t you coming from it?”
“me!” he protested, with a panting chuckle. “jole rampick own that there little tender beauty! i’d skipped out fur my morning dip, sir—if you must know. a wonderful bracing water this—if folks would only credit it.”
his unshorn dusky face was not, i could not help thinking, the best testimony to its cleansing properties. but i kept my wisdom to myself, and turned to go back to the inn. mr. rampick volunteered his company, and on the way some instructive information.
“aye,” he panted huskily; “man and boy fur nigh on fifty year have i known this here abbot’s dunberry, but never—till three months ago—the healing vartues of its brine.”
“who told you of them?” i asked.
“the lord,” he answered, showing the under-whites of his eyes a moment. “the lord, sir, through his minister the parson—that’s mr. sant. benighted we were—and ignorant—till the light was vouchsafed us; and parson he revealed the bethesda lying at our very doors.”
“what’s bethesda?” i had, i am sorry to say, to ask.
“a blessed watering-place,” he said—“i’m humbly surprised, sir; like as parson calc’lates to make of this here, if the almighty will condescend to convart our former wickedness to our profit.”
“were you wicked?”
“bad, bad!” he answered, setting his lips, and shaking his head. “a nest of smugglers and forswearers, till he set his hand on us.”
“mr. rampick! how?”
“it tuk the form of an ’arthquake,” he said, with a little cough.
i jumped, and ejaculated: “o! where?”
“yonder, in the mitre,” he said, waving his hand towards the hidden bluff. “it’ll be fower months ago, won’t it, as they run their last contraband to ground in the belly of that there hill. a cave, it was supposed, sir; but few knew for sarten, and none will ever know now till the day when the lord ‘shall judge the secrets of men.’ there was a way in, as believed, known only to the few; and one night, as believed, them few entered by it, each man with his brace o’ runlets—and they never come out agen!”
i gasped and knotted my fingers together. it did not occur to my innocence to question the source of his knowledge, or conjecture.
“why?” i whispered.
“why?” he echoed in a sort of asthmatic fury. “why, sir, because it was a full cargo, and their iniquity according; and so the lord he spoke, and the hill it closed upon ’em. in the dark, when we was all abed, there come a roaring wind from underground what turned our hearts to water; and in the morning when we gathered to look, there was the hill twisted like a dead face out of knowledge, and the abbey—two-thirds of what was left—scrattled abroad.”
i could only stare up at him, breathing quick in face of this wonderful romance. it had, i knew, been a year strangely prolific in earth-shocks.
“yes, sir,” he said soberly; “if all what’s believed is gospel true, there at this moment lays those poor sinners, bedded like flints in chalk—and the hill fair reeking with nantes brandy.”
he groaned hoarsely.
“hallerloojer! it was a sign and a warning. the shock of it carried off th’ old vicar, and in a week or two arter mr. sant he come to take his place. he found us a sober’d people, hallerloojer! and soil meet fur the lord’s planting. you be the fust fruits, sir; and we favourably hope as when you go away you’ll recommend us.”
perhaps i vaguely understood by this something of the nature of our welcome. given an isolated fishing village skipped by tourists because of its remoteness; given the sudden withdrawal from that village of its natural advantages for an illicit trade; given a clerical enthusiast, introduced at the right moment, to point out to a depressed population it’s locality’s potentialities as a watering-place, and to show the way for them to win an honest prosperity out of the ruins of evil; given, to top all, a dressing of local superstition, and the position was clear. such deduction, no doubt, was for the adult rather than the child; but though i could not draw it at the time, it was there to be drawn, i am sure.
as we talked we had reached the inn, and my companion, touching his cap, passed on. but he came back before i had time to enter, and addressed me breathlessly, as if on an after-thought.
“begging your pardon, sir—but you makes me laugh, you reely does—about that there lugger belonging to poor jole rampick.” and he went off chuckling, and looking, with his little head and slouching shoulders and stilts of legs, like the hind-quarters of a pantomime elephant.
i found my uncle sitting up in preparation to breakfast in bed. he was very genial and happy; but, so it seemed to me, extraordinarily vague. i told him about my adventure and the story of the earthquake, which he seemed somehow unable to dissociate from his own accident.
“i knew it, richard,” he said; “but it was taking rather a mean advantage of a lame man, eh? there’s no security against it but balloons—that i’ve often thought. you see, when the ground itself gives underneath you, where are you to go? if one could only pump oxygen into one’s own head, you know. i’ll think about it in the course of the morning. i don’t fancy i shall get up just at present. that despatch-box, now—it was a drastic way of impressing its claims upon me, eh? well, well!”
he laughed, rather wildly i thought.
“uncle,” i said, “you’ve never told me—how did you get lame?”
“how did i get lame?” he murmured, pressing the bandage on his forehead. “why, to be sure, it was a parachute, richard—a really capital thing i invented. but the wires got involved—the merest accident—and i came to the ground.”
he was interrupted by two young ladies, daughters of the inn, who came themselves—out of curiosity, i think—to serve us breakfast. they were over-dressed, all but for their trodden slippers, with large bows of hair on their heads, and they giggled a good deal and answered questions pertly.
“well, my dears,” said uncle jenico, “how about the earthquake?”
they stared at him, and then at one another, and burst out laughing.
“o, there now!” said one; “earthquake yourself, old gentleman! go along with you!” and they ran out, and we heard them tittering all down the stairs.
uncle jenico got clearer after his meal, though he was still disinclined to move. i sat with him all the morning, while he showed and explained to me more of the contents of his box; and about midday a visitor, the reverend mr. sant, was announced. i stood up expectant, and saw a thin, dark young man, in clerical dress, enter the room at a stride. he had the colourless face, large-boned nose, and burning eyes of a zealot, and not an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere about him. much athletic temperance had trimmed him down to frame and muscle, but had not parched the sources of a very sweet smile, which was the only emotional weakness he retained. he came up to the bed, took my uncle’s hand, and introduced himself in a word.
“permit me,” he said; “i heard of your accident. i know a trifle of surgery, and our apothecary visits us but twice in the month. may i look?”
he examined the hurt, and, saying he would send a salve for it, settled down to talk.
now, i could not follow the persuasive process; but all i know is that within a quarter of an hour he had learned all my uncle’s and my history, and the reason for our coming to dunberry, and that, having once mastered the details, he very ingeniously set himself to appropriating them to the schemes of providence.
“it is clear,” he said, “that you, free-lances of destiny, were inspired to select this, out of all the world, for your operations. we looked for visitors to report for us upon the attractions of the place; you for a quiet and healthful spot in which to develop your schemes.”
“very true,” said uncle jenico. “i’ve long had an idea for extracting gold from sea-water.”
“you see?” cried mr. sant, greatly pleased. “it’s a clear interposition of providence. this coast is, i am sure, peculiarly adapted, from the accessibility of its waters, to gold-seeking.”
i could not restrain my excitement.
“please,” i said, “did-d-d the smugglers hide it there?”
mr. sant glanced at me sharply.
“who told you about smugglers?” he demanded.
“mr. rampick,” i whispered, hanging my head.
“ah!” he exclaimed, and turned to my uncle. “old joel rampick, was it? one of the most cherished of my converts, sir; a deeply religious man at bottom, though circumstances long obscured the light in him. old rampick, now! and talked about smuggling, did he? he’ll have drawn the moral of it from his own experience, i don’t doubt. dunberry, there’s no use concealing, has been a long thorn in the side of the revenue, though happily the earthquake has changed all that.”
“ah, to be sure!” said my uncle; “the earthquake.”
“it was without question a divine visitation,” said mr. sant, resolutely.
“do you think so?” said my uncle, his face falling. “my purpose in coming here was really most harmless, sir.”
mr. sant looked puzzled; then went on, with a dry smack of his lips:
“i am afraid that my predecessor lacked a little the apostolic fervour. he was old, and liked his ease, good man. perhaps long association with the place had blunted his prejudices. i must not play the pharisee to him, however. no doubt so circumstanced i should have failed no less to sow the seed. heaven sent me at a fruitful moment: to heaven be the credit and the glory! this little boy now—nephew dicky? he knows his catechism?”
“ah!” said uncle jenico, with a cunning look; “does he?”
“chit-chit!” protested the clergyman. “i hope not altogether ignorant of it?”
he was decently shocked, and won an easy promise from my uncle that i should come up to him for an hour’s instruction every day. then he rose to go.
“you’ll excuse me,” he said, bending his brows, “but i trust you are satisfied with your quarters?”
“well, yes,” answered my uncle, hesitating; “but—an inn, you see. it’s a little more than we can—than we ought to—eh?”
mr. sant brightened immediately. we came to know afterwards that he strongly disapproved of these flashy miss flemings, and had once expressed in public some surprise that they had not been impounded as skittish animals not under proper control.
“there’s the widow puddephatt, ripe and ready for visitors,” he said, “and perfectly reasonable, i am sure. may i give you her address? it’s no. 3, the playstow.”
my uncle thanked him warmly; and, smitten with a sudden idea, caught at his coat as he was leaving.
“o, by the way!” he said, “these coins to be picked up on the beach, now. there are enough left to make it profitable, i suppose?”
mr. sant stared at him.
“the coins, roman and other,” persisted uncle jenico, anxiously scanning the clergyman’s face; “the antiques, which morant tells us litter the beach like shells after storms?”
mr. sant shook his head.
“i have heard nothing of them during my time,” he said; “but i should hardly think smuggling would have got such a hold here if it were the tom tiddler’s ground your friend supposes it to be.”
directly he was gone, uncle jenico turned to me, rubbing his hands, with a most roguish smile puckering his mouth.
“richard,” he said, “we are in plenty of time. the obtuseness of the rustic is a thing astonishing beyond words! here, with all pactolus at his feet, he needs a stranger to come and show him his opportunities. but, mum, boy, mum! we’ll keep this little matter to ourselves.”
