Mary Anerley by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (fun to read .txt) 📖

of the bargain, this fellow came to church, and behaved as well as could be hoped of a man who had received his money. He sat by a pillar, and no more than crossed his legs at the worst thing that disagreed with him. And it might have done him good, and made a decent cobbler of him, if the parson had only held him when he got him on the hook. But this is the very thing which all great preachers are too benevolent to do. Dr. Upround looked at this sinner, who was getting into a fright upon his own account, though not a bad preacher when he could afford it; and the cobbler could no more look up to the doctor than when he charged him a full crown beyond the contract. In his kindness for all who seemed convinced of sin, the good preacher halted, and looked at Mr. Jobbins with a soft, relaxing gaze. Jobbins appeared as if he would come to church forever, and never cheat any sound clergyman again; whereupon the generous divine omitted a whole page of menaces prepared for him, and passed prematurely to the tender strain which always winds up a good sermon.

Now what did Jobbins do in return for all this magnanimous mercy? Invited to dine with the senior church-warden upon the strength of having been at church, and to encourage him for another visit, and being asked, as soon as ever decency permitted, what he thought of Parson Upround's doctrine, between two crackles of young griskin (come straight from the rectory pig-sty), he was grieved to express a stern opinion long remembered at Flamborough:

"Ca' yo yon mon 'Dr. Uproond?' I ca' un 'Dr. Upandoon.'"

From that day forth the rector of the parish was known far and wide as "Dr. Upandown," even among those who loved him best. For the name well described his benevolent practice of undoing any harsh thing he might have said, sometimes by a smile, and very often with a shilling, or a basket of spring cabbages. So that Mrs. Upround, when buttoning up his coat--which he always forgot to do for himself--did it with the words, "My dear, now scold no one; really it is becoming too expensive." "Shall I abandon duty," he would answer, with some dignity, "while a shilling is sufficient to enforce it?"

Dr. Upround's people had now found out that their minister and magistrate discharged his duty toward his pillow, no less than to his pulpit. His parish had acquired, through the work of generations, a habit of getting up at night, and being all alive at cock-crow; and the rector (while very new amongst them) tried to bow--or rather rise--to night-watch. But a little of that exercise lasted him for long; and he liked to talk of it afterward, but for the present was obliged to drop it. For he found himself pale, when his wife made him see himself; and his hours of shaving were so dreadful; and scarcely a bit of fair dinner could be got, with the whole of the day thrown out so. In short, he settled it wisely that the fishers of fish must yield to the habits of fish, which can not be corrected; but the fishers of men (who can live without catching them) need not be up to all their hours, but may take them reasonably.

His parishioners--who could do very well without him, as far as that goes, all the week, and by no means wanted him among their boats--joyfully left him to his own time of day, and no more worried him out of season than he worried them so. It became a matter of right feeling with them not to ring a big bell, which the rector had put up to challenge everybody's spiritual need, until the stable clock behind the bell had struck ten and finished gurgling.

For this reason, on St. Swithin's morn, in the said year 1782, the grannies, wives, and babes of Flamborough, who had been to help the launch, but could not pull the laboring oar, nor even hold the tiller, spent the time till ten o'clock in seeing to their own affairs--the most laudable of all pursuits for almost any woman. And then, with some little dispute among them (the offspring of the merest accident), they arrived in some force at the gate of Dr. Upround, and no woman liked to pull the bell, and still less to let another woman do it for her. But an old man came up who was quite deaf, and every one asked him to do it.

In spite of the scarcity of all good things, Mrs. Cockscroft had thoroughly fed the little stranger, and washed him, and undressed him, and set him up in her own bed, and wrapped him in her woollen shawl, because he shivered sadly; and there he stared about with wondering eyes, and gave great orders--so far as his new nurse could make out--but speaking gibberish, as she said, and flying into a rage because it was out of Christian knowledge. But he seemed to understand some English, although he could only pronounce two words, both short, and in such conjunction quite unlawful for any except the highest Spiritual Power. Mrs. Cockscroft, being a pious woman, hoped that her ears were wrong, or else that the words were foreign and meant no harm, though the child seemed to take in much of what was said, and when asked his name, answered, wrathfully, and as if everybody was bound to know, "Izunsabe! Izunsabe!"

But now, when brought before Dr. Upround, no child of the very best English stock could look more calm and peaceful. He could walk well enough, but liked better to be carried; and the kind woman who had so taken him up was only too proud to carry him. Whatever the rector and magistrate might say, her meaning was to keep this little one, with her husband's good consent, which she was sure of getting.

"Set him down, ma'am," the doctor said, when he had heard from half a dozen good women all about him; "Mistress Cockscroft, put him on his legs, and let me question him."

But the child resisted this proceeding. With nature's inborn and just loathing of examination, he spun upon his little heels, and swore with all his might, at the same time throwing up his hands and twirling his thumbs in a very odd and foreign way.

"What a shocking child!" cried Mrs. Upround, who was come to know all about it. "Jane, run away with Miss Janetta."

"The child is not to blame," said the rector, "but only the people who have brought him up. A prettier or more clever little head I have never seen in all my life; and we studied such things at Cambridge. My fine little fellow, shake hands with me."

The boy broke off his vicious little dance, and looked up at this tall gentleman with great surprise. His dark eyes dwelt upon the parson's kindly face, with that power of inquiry which the very young possess, and then he put both little hands into the gentleman's, and burst into a torrent of the most heart-broken tears.

"Poor little man!" said the rector, very gently, taking him up in his arms and patting the silky black curls, while great drops fell, and a nose was rubbed on his shoulder; "it is early for you to begin bad times. Why, how old are you, if you please?"

The little boy sat up on the kind man's arm, and poked a small investigating finger into the ear that was next to him, and the locks just beginning to be marked with gray; and then he said, "Sore," and tossed his chin up, evidently meaning, "Make your best of that." And the women drew a long breath, and nudged at one another.

"Well done! Four years old, my dear. You see that he understands English well enough," said the parson to his parishioners: "he will tell us all about himself by-and-by, if we do not hurry him. You think him a French child. I do not, though the name which he gives himself, 'Izunsabe,' has a French aspect about it. Let me think. I will try him with a French interrogation: 'Parlez-vous Francais, mon enfan?'"

Dr. Upround watched the effect of his words with outward calm, but an inward flutter. For if this clever child should reply in French, the doctor could never go on with it, but must stand there before his congregation in a worse position than when he lost his place, as sometimes happened, in a sermon. With wild temerity he had given vent to the only French words within his knowledge; and he determined to follow them up with Latin if the worst came to the worst.

But luckily no harm came of this, but, contrariwise, a lasting good. For the child looked none the wiser, while the doctor's influence was increased.

"Aha!" the good parson cried. "I was sure that he was no Frenchman. But we must hear something about him very soon, for what you tell me is impossible. If he had come from the sea, he must have been wet; it could never be otherwise. Whereas, his linen clothes are dry, and even quite lately fullered--ironed you might call it."

"Please your worship," cried Mrs. Cockscroft, who was growing wild with jealousy, "I did up all his little things, hours and hours ere your hoose was up."

"Ah, you had night-work! To be sure! Were his clothes dry or wet when you took them off?"

"Not to say dry, your worship; and yet not to say very wet. Betwixt and between, like my good master's, when he cometh from a pour of rain, or a heavy spray. And the color of the land was upon them here and there. And the gold tags were sewn with something wonderful. My best pair of scissors would not touch it. I was frightened to put them to the tub, your worship; but they up and shone lovely like a tailor's buttons. My master hath found him, Sir; and it lies with him to keep him. And the Lord hath taken away our Bob."

"It is true," said Dr. Upround, gently, and placing the child in her arms again, "the Almighty has chastened you very sadly. This child is not mine to dispose of, nor yours; but if he will comfort you, keep him till we hear of him. I will take down in writing the particulars of the case, when Captain Robin has come home and had his rest--say, at this time to-morrow, or later; and then you will sign them, and they shall be published. For you know, Mrs. Cockscroft, however much you may be taken with him, you must not turn kidnapper. Moreover, it is needful, as there may have been some wreck (though none of you seem to have heard of any), that this strange occurrence should be made known. Then, if nothing is heard of it, you can keep him, and may the Lord bless him to you!"

Without any more ado, she kissed the child, and wanted to carry him straight away, after courtesying to his worship; but all the other women insisted on a smack of him, for pity's sake, and the pleasure of the gold, and to confirm the settlement. And a settlement it was, for nothing came of any publication of the case, such as in those days could be made without great expense and exertion.

So the boy grew up, tall, brave, and comely, and full of the spirit of adventure, as behooved a boy cast on the winds. So far as that goes, his foster-parents would rather have found