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

power to aid was restricted by a double turn of rope around him; but a kind hand had given him a pipe, and his manner was to take things easily. "Commander, or captain, or whatever you be, with your king's clothes, constructing a hole in they flints, never you fear, sir. 'Tis medical water, and your own wife wouldn't know you to-morrow. Your complexion will be like a hangel's."

"You d----d rogue," cried Nettlebones, striding up, with his sword flashing in the link-lights, "if ever I had a mind to cut any man down--"

"Well, sir, do it, then, upon a roped man, if the honor of the British navy calleth for it. My will is made, and my widow will have action; and the executioner of my will is a Grimsby man, with a pile of money made in the line of salt fish, and such like."

"Brown, you are a brave man. I would scorn to harm you. Now, upon your honor, are all your puncheons filled with that stuff, and nothing else?"

"Upon my word of honor, sir, they are. Some a little weaker, some with more bilge-water in it, or a trifle of a dash from the midden. The main of it, however, in the very same condition as a' bubbleth out of what they call the spawses. Why, captain, you must 'a lived long enough to know, partiklar if gifted with a family, that no sort of spirit as were ever stilled will fetch so much money by the gallon, duty paid, as the doctor's stuff doth by the phial-bottle."

"That is true enough; but no lies, Brown, particularly when upon your honor! If you were importing doctor's stuff, why did you lead us such a dance, and stand fire?"

"Well, your honor, you must promise not to be offended, if I tell you of a little mistake we made. We heared a sight of talk about some pirate craft as hoisteth his Majesty's flag upon their villainy. And when first you come up, in the dusk of the night--"

"You are the most impudent rogue I ever saw. Show your bills of lading, sir. You know his Majesty's revenue cruisers as well as I know your smuggling tub."

"Ship's papers are aboard of her, all correct, sir. Keys at your service, if you please to feel my pocket, objecting to let my hands loose."

"Very well, I must go on board of her, and test a few of your puncheons and bales, Master Brown. Locker in the master's own cabin, I suppose?"

"Yes, sir, plain as can be, on the starboard side, just behind the cabin door. Only your honor must be smart about it; the time-fuse can't 'a got three inches left."

"Time-fuse? What do you mean, you Grimsby villain?"

"Nothing, commander, but to keep you out of mischief. When we were compelled to beach the old craft, for fear of them scoundrelly pirates, it came into my head what a pity it would be to have her used illegal; for she do outsail a'most everything, as your honor can bear witness. So I just laid a half-hour fuse to three big-powder barrels as is down there in the hold; and I expect to see a blow-up almost every moment. But your honor might be in time yet, with a run, and good luck to your foot, you might--"

"Back, lads! back every one of you this moment!" The first concern of Nettlebones was rightly for his men. "Under the cliff here. Keep well back. Push out those smuggler fellows into the middle. Let them have the benefit of their own inventions, and this impudent Brown the foremost. They have laid a train to their powder barrels, and the lugger will blow up any moment."

"No fear for me, commander," James Brown shouted through the hurry and jostle of a hundred runaways. "More fear for that poor man as lieth there a-lurching. She won't hit me when she bloweth up, no more than your honor could. But surely your duty demandeth of you to board the old bilander, and take samples."

"Sample enough of you, my friend. But I haven't quite done with you yet. Simpson, here, bear a hand with poor Lieutenant Donovan."

Nettlebones set a good example by lifting the prostrate Irishman; and they bore him into safety, and drew up there; while the beachmen, forbidden the shelter at point of cutlass, made off right and left; and then, with a crash that shook the strand and drove back the water in a white turmoil, the Crown of Gold flew into a fount of timbers, splinters, shreds, smoke, fire, and dust.

"Gentlemen, you may come out of your holes," the Grimsby man shouted from his mooring-post, as the echoes ran along the cliffs, and rolled to and fro in the distance. "My old woman will miss a piece of my pigtail, but she hathn't hurt her old skipper else. She blowed up handsome, and no mistake! No more danger, gentlemen, and plenty of stuff to pick up afore next pay-day."

"What shall we do with that insolent hound?" Nettlebones asked poor Donovan, who was groaning in slow convalescence. "We have caught him in nothing. We can not commit him; we can not even duck him legally."

"Be jabers, let him drink his health in his own potheen."

"Capital! Bravo for old Ireland, my friend! You shall see it done, and handsomely. Brown, you recommend these waters, so you shall have a dose of them."

A piece of old truncate kelp was found, as good a drinking horn as need be; and with this Captain Brown was forced to swallow half a bucketful of his own "medical water"; and they left him fast at his moorings, to reflect upon this form of importation.


CHAPTER XXXIII


BEARDED IN HIS DEN

"What do you think of it by this time, Bowler?" Commander Nettlebones asked his second, who had been left in command afloat, and to whom they rowed back in a wrathful mood, with a good deal of impression that the fault was his, "You have been taking it easily out here. What do you think of the whole of it?"

"I have simply obeyed your orders, sir; and if I am to be blamed for that, I had better offer no opinion."

"No, no, I am finding no fault with you. Don't be so tetchy, Bowler. I seek your opinion, and you are bound to give it."

"Well, then, sir, my opinion is that they have made fools of the lot of us, excepting, of course, my superior officer."

"You think so, Bowler? Well, and so do I--and myself the biggest fool of any. They have charged our centre with a dummy cargo, while they run the real stuff far on either flank. Is that your opinion?"

"To a nicety, that is my opinion, now that you put it so clearly, sir."

"The trick is a clumsy one, and never should succeed. Carroway ought to catch one lot, if he has a haporth of sense in him. What is the time now; and how is the wind?"

"I hear a church clock striking twelve; and by the moon it must be that. The wind is still from the shore, but veering, and I felt a flaw from the east just now."

"If the wind works round, our turn will come. Is Donovan fit for duty yet?"

"Ten times fit, sir--to use his own expression. He is burning to have at somebody. His eyes work about like the binnacle's card."

"Then board him, and order him to make all sail for Burlington, and see what old Carroway is up to. You be off for Whitby, and as far as Teesmouth, looking into every cove you pass. I shall stand off and on from this to Scarborough, and as far as Filey. Short measures, mind, if you come across them. If I nab that fellow Lyth, I shall go near to hanging him as a felon outlaw. His trick is a little too outrageous."

"No fear, commander. If it is as we suppose, it is high time to make a strong example."

Hours had been lost, as the captains of the cruisers knew too well by this time. Robin Lyth's stratagem had duped them all, while the contraband cargoes might be landed safely, at either extremity of their heat. By the aid of the fishing-boats, he had learned their manoeuvres clearly, and outmanoeuvred them.

Now it would have been better for him, perhaps, to have been content with a lesser triumph, and to run his own schooner, the Glimpse, further south, toward Hornsea, or even Aldbrough. Nothing, however, would satisfy him but to land his fine cargo at Carroway's own door--a piece of downright insolence, for which he paid out most bitterly. A man of his courage and lofty fame should have been above such vindictive feelings. But, as it was, he cherished and, alas! indulged a certain small grudge against the bold lieutenant, scarcely so much for endeavoring to shoot him, as for entrapping him at Byrsa Cottage, during the very sweetest moment of his life. "You broke in disgracefully," said the smuggler to himself, "upon my privacy when it should have been most sacred. The least thing I can do is to return your visit, and pay my respects to Mrs. Carroway and your interesting family."

Little expecting such a courtesy as this, the vigilant officer was hurrying about, here, there, and almost everywhere (except in the right direction), at one time by pinnace, at another upon horseback, or on his unwearied though unequal feet. He carried his sword in one hand, and his spy-glass in the other, and at every fog he swore so hard that he seemed to turn it yellow. With his heart worn almost into holes, as an overmangled quilt is, by burdensome roll of perpetual lies, he condemned, with a round mouth, smugglers, cutters, the coast-guard and the coast itself, the weather, and, with a deeper depth of condemnation, the farmers, landladies, and fishermen. For all of these verily seemed to be in league to play him the game which school-boys play with a gentle-faced new-comer--the game of "send the fool further."

John Gristhorp, of the "Ship Inn," at Filey, had turned out his visitors, barred his door, and was counting his money by the fireside, with his wife grumbling at him for such late hours as half past ten of the clock in the bar, that night when the poor bilander ended her long career as aforesaid. Then a thundering knock at the door just fastened made him upset a little pyramid of pence, and catch up the iron candlestick.

"None of your roistering here!" cried the lady. "John, you know better than to let them in, I hope."

"Copper coomth by daa, goold coomth t'naight-time," the sturdy publican answered, though resolved to learn who it was before unbarring.

"In the name of the King, undo this door," a deep stern voice resounded, "or by royal command we make splinters of it."

"It is that horrible Carroway again," whispered Mrs. Gristhorp. "Much gold comes of him, I doubt. Let him in if you dare, John."

"'Keep ma oot, if ye de-arr,' saith he. Ah'll awand here's the tail o' it."

While Gristhorp, in wholesome fealty to his wife, was doubting, the door flew open, and in marched Carroway and all his men, or at least all save one of his present following. He had ordered his pinnace to meet him here, himself having ridden from Scarborough, and the pinnace had brought the jolly-boat in tow, according to his directions.