The Maid of Sker

"Nare it is. Gardy là! nare poor Bardie knock herself."

And she held up her short white smock, and showed me the bend of her delicate round knee as simply and kindly as could be.

"I 'ont ky; no, I 'ont," she went on, with her pretty lips screwed up. "Little brother ky, 'e know; but Bardie a gate big gal, savvy voo? Bardie too big enough to ky."

However, all this greatness vanished when a drop of blood came oozing from the long black bruise, and still more when I tried to express my deep compassion. The sense of bad-luck was too strong for the courage of even two years' growth, and little Bardie proved herself of just the right age for crying. I had observed how clear and bright and musical her voice was for such a tiny creature; and now the sound of her great woe, and scene of her poor helpless plight, was enough to move the rocks into a sense of pity for her.

However, while she had her cry out (as the tide would never wait), I took the liberty of stowing all my fish and fishing-tackle on board of that handy little boat, which I began to admire and long for more and more every time I jumped from the rock into her foresheets. And finding how tight and crank she was, and full of spring at every step and with a pair of good ash sculls, and, most of all, discovering the snuggest of snug lockers, my conscience (always a foremost feature) showed me in the strongest light that it would be a deeply ungracious, ungrateful, and even sinful thing, if I failed to thank an ever wise and overruling Providence for sending me this useful gift in so express a manner.

And taking this pious and humble view of the night's occurrence, I soon perceived a special fitness in the time of its ordering. For it happened to be the very night when Evan Thomas was out of the way, as I had been told at Nottage, and the steward of the manor safe to be as drunk as a fiddler at Bridgend; and it was not more than a few months since that envious Scotchman, Sandy Macraw (a scurvy limb of the coastguards, who lived by poaching on my born rights), had set himself up with a boat, forsooth, on purpose to rogue me and rob me the better. No doubt he had stolen it somewhere, for he first appeared at night with it; and now here was a boat, in all honesty mine, which would travel two feet for each one of his tub!

By the time I had finished these grateful reflections, and resolved to contribute any unsold crabs to the Dissenting minister's salary (in recognition of the hand of Providence, and what he had taught me concerning it no longer ago than last Sabbath-day, when he said that the Lord would make up to me for the loss of my poor wife, though never dreaming, I must confess, of anything half so good as a boat), and by the time that I had moored this special mercy snugly, and hidden the oars, so that no vile wrecker could make off with her feloniously, that dear little child was grown quiet again, being unable to cry any more, and now beginning to watch my doings as much as I could wish, or more.

She never seemed tired of watching me, having slept out all her sleep for the moment; and as I piled up fish on fish, and they came sliding, slippery, she came shyly, eyeing them with a desire to see each one, pushing her mites of fingers out, and then drawing back in a hurry as their bellies shone in the moonlight. Some of the congers could wriggle still, and they made her scream when they did it; but the lobsters were her chief delight, being all alive and kicking. She came and touched them reverently, and ready to run if they took it amiss; and then she stroked their whiskers, crying, "Pitty, pitty! jolly, jolly!" till one great fellow, who knew no better, would have nipped her wrist asunder if I had not ricked his claw.

"Now, deary," said I, as I drew her away, "you have brought poor old Davy a beautiful boat, and the least that he can do for you is to get you a good supper." For since her tumble the little soul had seemed neither hungry nor thirsty.

"Pease, old Davy," she answered, "I 'ants to go to mama and papa, and ickle bother and Susan."

"The devil you do!" thought I, in a whistle, not seeing my way to a fib as yet.

"Does 'ee know mama and papa, and ickle bother, old Davy?"

"To be sure I do, my deary – better than I know you, almost."

"'Et me go to them, 'et me go to them. Hot ma say about my poor leggy peggy?"

This was more than I could tell; believing her mother to be, no doubt, some thirty fathoms under water, and her father and little brother in about the same predicament.

"Come along, my little dear, and I'll take you to your mother." This was what I said, not being ready, as yet, with a corker.

"I'se yeady, old Davy," she answered; "I'se kite yeady. 'Hen 'll 'e be yeady? Peshy voo."

"Ready and steady: word of command! march!" said I, looking up at the moon, to try to help me out of it. But the only thing that I could find to help me in this trouble was to push about and stir, and keep her looking at me. She was never tired of looking at things with life or motion in them; and this I found the special business of her nature afterwards.

Now, being sure of my boat, I began to think what to do with Bardie. And many foolish ideas came, but I saw no way to a wise one, or at least I thought so then, and unhappily looked to prudence more than to gracious Providence, for which I have often grieved bitterly, ever since it turned out who Bardie was.

For the present, however (though strongly smitten with her manners, appearance, and state of shipwreck, as well as impressed with a general sense of her being meant for good-luck to me), I could not see my way to take her to my home and support her. Many and many times over I said to myself, in my doubt and uneasiness, and perhaps more times than need have been if my conscience had joined me, that it was no good to be a fool, to give way (as a woman might do) to the sudden affair of the moment, and a hot-hearted mode of regarding it. And the harder I worked at the stowing of fish, the clearer my duty appeared to me.

So by the time that all was ready for starting with this boat of mine, the sea being all the while as pretty as a pond by candle-light, it was settled in my mind what to do with Bardie. She must go to the old Sker-house. And having taken a special liking (through the goodness of my nature and the late distress upon me) to this little helpless thing, most sincerely I prayed to God that all might be ordered for the best; as indeed it always is, if we leave it to Him.

Nevertheless I ought never to have left it to Him, as every one now acknowledges. But how could I tell?

By this time she began to be overcome with circumstances, as might happen naturally to a child but two years old, after long exposure without any food or management. Scared, and strange, and tired out, she fell down anyhow in the boat, and lay like a log, and frightened me. Many men would have cared no more, but, taking the baby for dead, have dropped her into the grave of the waters. I, however, have always been of a very different stamp from these; and all the wars, and discipline, and doctrine I have encountered, never could imbue me with the cruelty of my betters. Therefore I was shocked at thinking that the little dear was dead.

CHAPTER VI.

FINDS A HOME OF SOME SORT

However, it was high time now, if we had any hope at all of getting into Sker-house that night, to be up and moving. For though Evan Thomas might be late, Moxy, his wife, would be early; and the door would open to none but the master after the boys were gone to bed. For the house is very lonely; and people no longer innocent as they used to be in that neighbourhood.

I found the child quite warm and nice, though overwhelmed with weight of sleep; and setting her crosswise on my shoulders, whence she slid down into my bosom, over the rocks I picked my way, by the light of the full clear moon, towards the old Sker-Grange, which stands a little back from the ridge of beach, and on the edge of the sandhills.

This always was, and always must be, a very sad and lonesome place, close to a desolate waste of sand, and the continual roaring of the sea upon black rocks. A great grey house, with many chimneys, many gables, and many windows, yet not a neighbour to look out on, not a tree to feed its chimneys, scarce a firelight in its gables in the very depth of winter. Of course, it is said to be haunted; and though I believe not altogether in any stories of that kind – despite some very strange things indeed which I have beheld at sea – at any rate, I would rather not hear any yarns on that matter just before bedtime in that house; and most people would agree with me, unless I am much mistaken.

For the whole neighbourhood – if so you may call it, where there are no neighbours – is a very queer one – stormy, wild, and desolate, with little more than rocks and sand and sea to make one's choice among. As to the sea, not only dull, and void it is of any haven, or of proper traffic, but as dangerous as need be, even in good weather, being full of draughts and currents, with a tide like a mill-race, suffering also the ups and downs which must be where the Atlantic Ocean jostles with blind narrowings: it offers, moreover, a special peril (a treacherous and a shifty one) in the shape of some horrible quicksands, known as the "Sker-Weathers: " these at the will of storm and current change about from place to place, but are, for the most part, some two miles from shore, and from two to four miles long, according to circumstances; sometimes almost bare at half-tide, and sometimes covered at low water. If any ship falls into them, the bravest skipper that ever stood upon a quarter-deck can do no more than pipe to prayers, though one or two craft have escaped when the tide was rising rapidly.

As for the shore, it is no better (when once you get beyond the rocks) than a stretch of sandhills, with a breadth of flaggy marsh behind them all the way to the mouth of Neath river, some three leagues to the westward. Eastward, the scene is fairer inland, but the coast itself more rugged and steep, and scarcely more inhabited, having no house nearer than Rhwychyns, which is only a small farm, nearly two miles from Sker-Grange, and a mile from any other house. And if you strike inland from Sker – that is to say, to the northward – there is nothing to see but sand, warren, and furze, and great fields marked with rubble, even as far as Kenfig.

Looking at that vast lonely house, there were two things I never could make out. The first was, who could ever have been mad enough to build it there? – for it must have cost a mint of money, being all of quarried and carried stone, and with no rich farm to require it. And the second thing was still worse a puzzle: how could any one ever live there?

As to the first point, the story is, that the house was built by abbots of Neath, when owners of Sker-manor, adding to it, very likely, as they followed one another; and then it was used as their manor-court, and for purposes more important, as a place of refection, being near good fisheries, and especially Kenfig Pool, stocked with all fresh-water fish, and every kind of wild-fowl.

But upon the other question all that I can say is this: I have knocked about the world a good bit, and have suffered many trials, by the which I am, no doubt, chastened and highly rectified; nevertheless, I would rather end my life among the tomb-stones, if only allowed three farthings' worth of tobacco every day, than live with all those abbots' luxuries in that old grey house.

However, there were no abbots now, nor any sort of luxury, only a rough unpleasant farmer, a kind but slovenly wife of his, and five great lads, notorious for pleasing no one except themselves; also a boy of a different order, as you soon shall see.

Thinking of all this, I looked with tenderness at the little dear, fallen back so fast asleep, innocent, and trustful, with her head upon my shoulder, and her breathing in my beard. Turning away at view of the house, I brought the moonlight on her face, and this appeared so pure, and calm, and fit for better company, that a pain went to my heart, as in Welsh we speak of it.

Because she was so fast asleep, and that alone is something holy in a very little child; so much it seems to be the shadow of the death itself, in their pausing fluttering lives, in their want of wit for dreaming, and their fitness for a world of which they must know more than this; also to a man who feels the loss of much believing, and what grievous gain it is to make doubt of everything, such a simple trust in Him, than whom we find no better father, such a confidence of safety at the very outset seems a happy art unknown, and tempts him back to ignorance. Well aware what years must bring, from all the ill they have brought to us, we cannot watch this simple sort without a sadness on our side, a pity, and a longing, as for something lost and gone.

In the scoop between two sandhills such a power of moonlight fell upon the face of this baby, that it only wanted the accident of her lifting bright eyes to me to make me cast away all prudence, and even the dread of Bunny. But a man at my time of life must really look to the main chance first, and scout all romantic visions; and another face means another mouth, however pretty it may be. Moreover, I had no wife now, nor woman to look after us; and what can even a man-child do, without their apparatus? While on the other hand I knew that (however dreary Sker might be) there was one motherly heart inside it. Therefore it came to pass that soon the shadow of that dark house fell upon the little one in my arms, while with a rotten piece of timber, which was lying handy, I thumped and thumped at the old oak door, but nobody came to answer me; nobody even seemed to hear, though every knock went further and further into the emptiness of the place.

But just as I had made up my mind to lift the latch, and to walk in freely, as I would have done in most other houses, but stood upon scruple with Evan Thomas, I heard a slow step in the distance, and Moxy Thomas appeared at last – a kindly-hearted and pleasant woman, but apt to be low-spirited (as was natural for Evan's wife), and not very much of a manager. And yet it seems hard to blame her there, when I come to think of it, for most of the women are but so, round about our neighbourhood – sanding up of room and passage, and forming patterns on the floor every other Saturday, and yet the roof all frayed with cobwebs, and the corners such as, in the navy, we should have been rope-ended for.

By means of nature, Moxy was shaped for a thoroughly good and lively woman; and such no doubt she would have been, if she had had the luck to marry me, as at one time was our signification. God, however, ordered things in a different manner, and no doubt He was considering what might be most for my benefit. Nevertheless, in the ancient days, when I was a fine young tar on leave, and all Sunday-school set caps at me (perhaps I was two-and-twenty then), the only girl I would allow to sit on the crossing of my legs, upon a well-dusted tombstone, and suck the things I carried for them (all being fond of peppermint), was this little Moxy Stradling, of good Newton family, and twelve years old at that time. She made me swear on the blade of my knife never to have any one but her; and really I looked forward to it as almost beyond a joke; and her father had some money.

"Who's there at this time of night?" cried Moxy Thomas, sharply, and in Welsh of course, although she had some English; "pull the latch, if you be honest. Evan Black is in the house."

By the tone of her voice I knew that this last was a fib of fright, and glad I was to know it so. Much the better chance was left me of disposing Bardie somewhere, where she might be comfortable.

Soon as Mrs Thomas saw us by the light of a home-made dip, she scarcely stopped to stare before she wanted the child out of my arms, and was ready to devour it, guessing that it came from sea, and talking all the while, full gallop, as women find the way to do. I was expecting fifty questions, and, no doubt, she asked them, yet seemed to answer them all herself, and be vexed with me for talking, yet to want me to go on.

"Moxy, now be quick," I said; "this little thing from out the sea – "

"Quick is it? Quick indeed! Much quick you are, old Dyo!" she replied in English. "The darling dear, the pretty love!" for the child had spread its hands to her, being taken with a woman's dress. "Give her to me, clumsy Davy. Is it that way you do carry her?"

"Old Davy tarry me aye nicely, I tell 'a. Old Davy good and kind; and I 'ont have him called kumsy."

So spake up my two-year-old, astonishing me (as she always has done) by her wonderful cleverness, and surprising Moxy Thomas that such clear good words should come from so small a creature.

"My goodness me! you little vixen! wherever did you come from? Bring her in yourself, then, Dyo, if she thinks so much of you. Let me feel her. Not wet she is. Where-ever did you get her? Put her on this little stool, and let her warm them mites of feet till I go for bread and butter."

Although the weather was so hot, a fire of coal and driftwood was burning in the great chimney-place, for cooking of black Evan's supper; because he was an outrageous man to eat, whenever he was drunk, which (as a doctor told me once) shows the finest of all constitutions.

But truly there was nothing else of life, or cheer, or comfort, in the great sad stony room. A floor of stone, six gloomy doorways, and a black-beamed ceiling – no wonder that my little darling cowered back into my arms, and put both hands before her eyes.

"No, no, no!" she said. "Bardie doesn't 'ike it. When mama come, she be very angy with 'a, old Davy."