Mary Anerley by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (new ebook reader .TXT) 📕

would only deal with kegs in-doors. The coast-guard, being for the most part southerns, splashed about as usual--a far more heinous sin against the Word of God than smuggling. It is the manner of Yorkshiremen to think for themselves, with boldness, in the way they are brought up to: and they made it a point of serious doubt whether the orders of the king himself could set aside the Fourth Commandment, though his arms were over it.

Dr. Upround's daughter, as she watched the sea, felt sure that, even if the goods were ready, no attempt at landing would be made that night, though something might be done in the morning. But even that was not very likely, because (as seemed to be widely known) the venture was a very large one, and the landers would require a whole night's work to get entirely through with it.

"I wish it was over, one way or the other," she kept on saying to herself, as she gazed at the dark, weary lifting of the sea; "it keeps one unsettled as the waves themselves. Sunday always makes me feel restless, because there is so little to do. It is wicked, I suppose; but how can I help it? Why, there is a boat, I do declare! Well, even a boat is welcome, just to break this gray monotony. What boat can it be? None of ours, of course. And what can they want with our Church Cave? I hope they understand its dangers."

Although the wind was not upon the shore, and no long rollers were setting in, short, uncomfortable, clumsy waves were lolloping under the steep gray cliffs, and casting up splashes of white here and there. To enter that cave is a risky thing, except at very favorable times, and even then some experience is needed, for the rocks around it are like knives, and the boat must generally be backed in, with more use of fender and hook than of oars. But the people in the boat seemed to understand all that. There were two men rowing, and one steering with an oar, and a fourth standing up, as if to give directions; though in truth he knew nothing about it, but hated even to seem to play second fiddle.

"What a strange thing!" Janetta thought, as she drew behind a rock, that they might not see her, "I could almost declare that the man standing up is that most extraordinary gentleman papa preached quite the wrong sermon at. Truly he deserves the Ahab one, for spying our caves out on a Sunday. He must be a smuggler, after all, or a very crafty agent of the Revenue. Well, I never! That old man steering, as sure as I live, is Robin Cockscroft, by the scarlet handkerchief round his head. Oh, Robin! Robin! could I ever have believed that you would break the Sabbath so? But the boat is not Robin's. What boat can it be? I have not staid away from church for nothing. One of the men rowing has got no legs, when the boat goes up and down. It must be that villain of a tipsy Joe, who used to keep the 'Monument.' I heard that he was come back again, to stump for his beer as usual: and his son, that sings like the big church bell, and has such a very fine face and one leg--why, he is the man that pulls the other oar. Was there ever such a boat-load? But they know what they are doing."

Truly it was, as the young lady said, an extraordinary boat's crew. Old Robin Cockscroft, with a fringe of silver hair escaping from the crimson silk, which he valued so much more than it, and his face still grand (in spite of wrinkles and some weakness of the eyes), keenly understanding every wave, its character, temper, and complexity of influence, as only a man can understand who has for his life stood over them. Then tugging at the oars, or rather dipping them with a short well-practiced plunge, and very little toil of body, two ancient sailors, one considerably older than the other, inasmuch as he was his father, yet chips alike from a sturdy block, and fitted up with jury-stumps. Old Joe pulled rather the better oar, and called his son "a one-legged fiddler" when he missed the dip of wave; while Mordacks stood with his leg's apart, and playing the easy part of critic, had his sneers at both of them. But they let him gibe to his liking; because they knew their work, and he did not. And, upon the whole, they went merrily.

The only one with any doubt concerning the issue of the job was the one who knew most about it, and that was Robin Cockscroft. He doubted not about want of strength, or skill, or discipline of his oars, but because the boat was not Flamburian, but borrowed from a collier round the Head. No Flamborough boat would ever think of putting to sea on a Sunday, unless it were to save human life; and it seemed to him that no strange boat could find her way into the native caves. He doubted also whether, even with the pressure of strong motive put upon him, which was not of money, it was a godly thing on his part to be steering in his Sunday clothes; and he feared to hear of it thereafter. But being in for it, he must do his utmost.

With genuine skill and solid patience, the entrance of the cave was made, and the boat was lost to Janetta's view. She as well was lost in the deeper cavern of great wonder, and waited long, and much desired to wait even longer, to see them issue forth again, and learn what they could have been after. But the mist out of which they had come, and inside of which they would rather have remained perhaps, now thickened over land and sea, and groping dreamily for something to lay hold of, found a solid stay and rest-hold in the jagged headlands here. Here, accordingly, the coilings of the wandering forms began to slide into strait layers, and soft settlement of vapor. Loops of hanging moisture marked the hollows of the land-front, or the alleys of the waning light; and then the mass abandoned outline, fused its shades to pulp, and melted into one great blur of rain. Janetta thought of her Sunday frock, forgot the boat, and sped away for home.


CHAPTER XXXI


TACTICS OF ATTACK

"I am sorry to be troublesome, Mynheer Van Dunck, but I can not say good-by without having your receipt in full for the old bilander."

"Goot, it is vere good, Meester Lyth; you are te goot man for te pisness."

With these words the wealthy merchant of the Zuyder-Zee drew forth his ancient inkhorn, smeared with the dirt of countless contracts, and signed an acquittance which the smuggler had prepared. But he signed it with a sigh, as a man declares that a favorite horse must go at last; sighing, not for the money, but the memories that go with it. Then, as the wind began to pipe, and the roll of the sea grew heavier, the solid Dutchman was lowered carefully into his shore boat, and drew the apron over his great and gouty legs.

"I vos married in dat zhips," he shouted back, with his ponderous fist wagging up at Robin Lyth, "Dis taime you will have de bad luck, sir."

"Well, mynheer, you have only to pay the difference, and the ketch will do; the bilander sails almost as fast."

But Master Van Dunck only heaved another sigh, and felt that his leather bag was safe and full in his breeches pocket. Then he turned his eyes away, and relieved his mind by swearing at his men.

Now this was off the Isle of Texel, and the time was Sunday morning, the very same morning which saw the general factor sitting to be preached at. The flotilla of free trade was putting forth upon its great emprise, and Van Dunck (who had been ship's husband) came to speed them from their moorings.

He took no risk, and to him it mattered little, except as a question of commission; but still he enjoyed the relish of breaking English law most heartily. He hated England, as a loyal Dutchman, for generations, was compelled to do; and he held that a Dutchman was a better sailor, a better ship-builder, and a better fighter than the very best Englishman ever born. However, his opinions mattered little, being (as we must feel) absurd. Therefore let him go his way, and grumble, and reckon his guilders. It was generally known that he could sink a ship with money; and when such a man is insolent, who dares to contradict him?

The flotilla in the offing soon ploughed hissing furrows through the misty waves. There were three craft, all of different rig--a schooner, a ketch, and the said bilander. All were laden as heavily as speed and safety would allow, and all were thoroughly well manned. They laid their course for the Dogger Bank, where they would receive the latest news of the disposition of the enemy. Robin Lyth, high admiral of smugglers, kept to his favorite schooner, the Glimpse, which had often shown a fading wake to fastest cutters. His squadron was made up by the ketch, Good Hope, and the old Dutch coaster, Crown of Gold. This vessel, though built for peaceful navigation and inland waters, had proved herself so thoroughly at home in the roughest situations, and so swift of foot, though round of cheek, that the smugglers gloried in her and the good luck which sat upon her prow. They called her "the lugger," though her rig was widely different from that, and her due title was "bilander." She was very deeply laden now, and, having great capacity, appeared an unusually tempting prize.

This grand armada of invasion made its way quite leisurely. Off the Dogger Bank they waited for the last news, and received it, and the whole of it was to their liking, though the fisherman who brought it strongly advised them to put back again. But Captain Lyth had no such thought, for the weather was most suitable for the bold scheme he had hit upon. "This is my last run," he said, "and I mean to make it a good one." Then he dressed himself as smartly as if he were going to meet Mary Anerley, and sent a boat for the skippers of the Good Hope, and the Crown of Gold, who came very promptly and held counsel in his cabin.

"I'm thinking that your notion is a very good one, captain," said the master of the bilander, Brown, a dry old hand from Grimsby.

"Capital, capital; there never was a better," the master of the ketch chimed in, "Nettlebones and Carroway--they will knock their heads together!"

"The plan is clever enough," replied Robin, who was free from all mock-modesty, "But you heard what that old Van Dunck said. I wish he had not said it."

"Ten tousan' tuyfels--as the stingy old thief himself says--he might have held his infernal croak. I hate to make sail with a croak astern; 'tis as bad as a crow on forestay-sail."

"All very fine for you to talk," grumbled the man of the bilander to the master of the ketch; "but the bad luck is saddled upon me this voyage. You two get the gilgoes, and I the bilboes!"

"Brown, none of that!" Captain Lyth said, quietly, but with a look which the other understood; "you are not such a fool as you pretend to be. You may get a