Where the Atlantic meets the land

by H. Caldwell Lipsett

A NIGHTMARE CLIMB

'No, I like you very much, but there can never be anything of that kind between us.'

'I expected this. But I think you are very foolish,' replied the young man slowly, twisting his moustache.

The girl was too astonished at this superior way of taking a rejection to say anything. It was beyond her experience entirely.

'Of course,' he continued, 'Elsie—Miss Derwent, I have seen that you do not love me as I love you, I have only opened the subject to set my case before you. You know me very well, and you say that you like me. You are quite aware that I have been in love with you for the last five years, though I have not spoken until I had a position to offer you. That position I have made for myself. You were my guiding star. All the hours that I have labored, till my work tasted bitter in my mouth, it was for the hope of you I persevered. And now I am not to be lightly cheated of my reward. It is best that most of the love should be on the man's side, and I am content to wait for your love till after marriage. I know that I can win it. You are a woman and no longer a girl, so you should be above romantic notions on the subject.'

She flushed, and he saw immediately that he had made a false move. By those last few words he had lost all the ground that he had won. So he began over again.

'You know my family, too, and like them. And you must see, though I say it, who shouldn't, that my two sisters idolize me. The man who makes a good brother or son is likely to make a good husband. I would make you a good husband, the best you are ever likely to get. You will never find any one who will understand you so thoroughly as I do after all these years, any one with so many tastes in common, or who will love you so entirely for your real self, and not for any impossible ideal of womanhood you may represent to the imagination.'

'You can blow your own trumpet well, at any rate,' she said with a smile.

'Why not? If I don't blow it myself nobody else is likely to do so for me. Shakespeare says something somewhere to the effect that a man is a poor creature who can't persuade a woman to love him. I think it runs:

"That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman."

And I quite agree with him. I am not going to risk my life's happiness now for the sake of a few scruples of delicacy. I am no braggart. Ask any of my men friends, and they will tell you, that they have never known me to boast. But I will boast now—I am not a coward, and I tell you I would lay down my life for your sake. I only wish the occasion might occur, that I might prove my words.'

'The occasion never does occur nowadays. The age of knight-errantry is past. And in any case it is a very poor thing to do. To die only requires a moment's resolution after all. What we women want is, not a man who will die for us, but one who will live for us.'

'Well, there too I am ready to fulfil your wants. You have lived for the last month in the same house with me, and tell me if I have ever been anything but charming. The man whose temper can stand the ordeal of continual companionship for a month in a country-house in this God-forsaken place, can stand anything. Therefore marry me. Is not that common-sense?'

'Yes,' she said with a little spite, feeling that she was illogical. 'That is just what I object to. You are so sensible, so horridly, vulgarly successful, self-confident, good-natured, and altogether admirable. You are too perfect. If I ought not to admire you so much, I might perhaps—like you more.'

'You are frank at any rate,' said he ruefully.

'Yes. It will do you good to hear for once in a way, that you are too conceited and philosophical. You have too much common-sense. What business has a lover to talk common-sense, I should like to know. Any one can do that. However it is useless to argue any further, Mr. Travers. My mind is made up. I will never marry a man I do not love. And I do not—care for you, as you would have me.'

'But will you not try and love me?'

'Love does not come by trying,' quoth the maiden sententiously.

'Nevertheless I will not despair. But meanwhile I hope you will not let this interfere with our arrangements for this last day, or with your stay here. I cannot get a telegram summoning me on urgent business till the morning. But I will go then. This afternoon you know you promised to come on an expedition to see our Donegal cliffs, and the Pigeons' Cave especially; while I am to get you those cormorant's eggs you wished for.'

'Very well, I will go.'

At the appointed time they set out on an Irish car. In the well Travers, who was driving, took a stake with a pulley at the end and a coil of rope, a relic of his boyhood's days, when he used to be great at bird's-nesting. The party consisted to all intents and purposes of himself and Miss Derwent. The other three, two men and a girl, were mere nonentities, who had been invited as make-weights. Travers, with still unsubdued pride of intellect, had christened them in his own mind as the Fool, the Idiot, and the Inane Girl.

When they arrived at Kilcross, the other four went down a winding path on the side of the cliff, and proceeded along the shore in the direction of the Pigeons' Cave. Travers went across the headlands to the same spot, and fixed his stake in the turf above some crevices in the rock, where he knew of old he would find the cormorant's eggs he was in search of. He would first join the rest of the party, he thought, in their sight-seeing. Afterwards they would all come up to the top and lower him down in search of his prey.

By the time he had finished arranging the stake, the others were underneath him. So he shouted to them he would come the shortest way down. Lowering the rope until the bight at the end touched the rocks below, he fastened the upper end by twisting it a couple of times round the stake, and thrusting the slack carelessly, as he afterwards remembered, under the part of the rope between the top round and the pulley. There would only be a very slight strain for a few moments in sliding down, and he had often before descended a rope fastened like that.

He lowered himself gently over the edge of the cliff, and this time, as usual, slid safely down, landing at the feet of the four below.

'How quickly you came down, Mr. Travers,' simpered the Inane Girl.

'Oh! I'm used to climbing, and it comes as naturally to me as sliding down the banisters did to you, when you were a small girl.'

'I never slid down banisters,' she replied austerely.

'The Queen of Spain has no legs,' quoted Travers to himself.

Then they went on to the Pigeons' Cave, which was close at hand. As they reached the entrance, Travers said:

'Take care you don't fall into that pool, ladies, this green seaweed is very slippery.'

Once inside they found themselves in a huge rock cavern of a hard yellow stone, which was formed by petrifaction, and which was still in process of growth around them. The sides were covered with moisture which was gradually turning into stone. From the roof depended clusters of giant stalactites, formed by the ceaseless drip of ages, giving the cave the appearance of the fretted aisles of some huge cathedral. From these festooned arches there flew forth at the clapping of their hands a blue cloud of rock-pigeons, flitting like shadows, or like 'squealing bats,' in the dusky twilight of the cavern, till for a moment they obscured the daylight at the entrance. These made their nests in the lofty roof, and gave the cave its name.

Travers, laughing, regretted he could not get some of their eggs too. But that could not be done by any means short of bringing a fire-escape upon the scene.

'But come along to the inner end of the cave, girls, and I'll give you a drink from the Wishing Well,' he said. 'As its name implies, it has power to ensure you anything you may desire as you drink its waters, from your lover's fidelity to the quenching of your thirst.'

So saying he got the other two men to hoist him up to a ledge which he could just reach with his hands; then drawing himself up onto it, he filled the silver cup of his flask from a recess at the back, and handed it down to the ladies.

'It's very nice and cool,' said the Inane Girl, 'but how does it come up there?'

'I believe it is merely the drippings from the rock collected in a small hollow. It is to be hoped it won't petrify inside you.'

'Oh! yes,' said she, 'I hear it dripping, now you mention it. Why, it's trickling quite fast.'

'Trickling! Good heavens! We must get out of this at once. Quick! Help me down.'

'Why, what's the matter? Anything wrong?' they all chorussed.

'Yes, everything. That trickling is the tide coming into the pool at the mouth of the cave, and it will soon be too late for us to escape, if it is not already.'

When they reached the mouth of the cave, one glance was sufficient. The breakers were already beating against the rocks at the extremity of either horn of the bay. No one would round those corners until the next tide.

The others wished to run and see if escape was hopeless. But Travers prevented them. It would only be waste of time and energy.

'Then I suppose we must just wait in the cave till the tide goes down again,' said Miss Derwent, while the Inane Girl bleated, 'Oh! we'll all be drowned, I'm sure we will.'

'No,' said Travers sternly; 'we cannot remain in the cave. The tide washes right up to the end of it. I have got you into this scrape, and I'm bound to get you out of it.' He spoke to the other girl but he looked at Miss Derwent.

'The ledge,' he continued, 'where the Wishing Well is situated is above high-water mark, but I doubt whether you could get up to it, and in any case it would only hold one. Then it is a mile and a half to swim round those rocks to any landing-place, and by the time I could return with a boat, you would be past praying for. No! I see nothing for it but the rope.'

'The rope? What do you mean?'

'The rope here that I came down by. I will climb up it, and then haul you up after me one by one. Fortunately it swings clear of the cliff the whole way up.'

'Isn't it very dangerous?' said the Inane Girl.

'Oh! not at all. It's only a hundred feet or so. I'm used to gymnastics, and have always been fond of climbing. So it will be all right.'

'Oh! I wasn't thinking of you,' she replied. 'I was thinking I shouldn't like to be pulled up all that way by a rope.'

'You'll be lucky if you get the chance,' growled Travers grimly to himself. 'And now girls, I must trouble you to go into the cave again for a minute, as I have to take off some of my clothes. Keep them there as long as you can', he whispered to one of the men. 'I don't want to have them underneath when I'm going up.'

'Do you think you can do it?' said the other man, who remained behind with him.

'I'm sure I don't know. It's a good two hundred feet, and I have never done so much before. Then this rope is very thin for climbing. But what troubles me most—but there, it's no good talking about it. I must do it. Say good-bye to them for me if I don't come back—or rather, if I do, as I suppose you can hardly spread a blanket to catch me by yourself. In that case the only thing to do is to go back into the cave as far as possible, and pray that it may not be a high tide.'

He stripped to his knickerbockers and stockings, for every ounce would tell against him in the struggle before him, tied a handkerchief round his waist and began the ascent slowly, hand over hand, the muscles standing out like cords on his uncovered arms and chest.

When half the distance was done, he stopped for a rest. Half the remainder, and once again he paused. Soon after the terrible doubt, that he had hinted at, recurred to his mind with fresh force. He was not progressing as fast as he ought. The rope must be slipping off the stake. He stopped again, and watched the cliff opposite him. No, it was only his imagination. He was quite steady. The last few yards were a terrible struggle, but he managed them somehow, and, reaching the top, dropped upon the turf, his head swimming, his limbs trembling, and his muscles twitching with the prolonged tension they had undergone.

After a time he rose and went to the stake, when he received a shock which made him feel sick and faint with fear, unnerving him even more than his climb itself. A cold sweat broke out all over him. His throat grew dry and parched, and a scum gathered on his lips and the roof of his mouth. When he tied the rope originally there were several yards over. Now there was only a single foot left protruding. As he had thought at the time, the rope had been gradually unreeling itself from the stake, all the while he was ascending. When he remained still, the steady strain did not affect it. But the post being of polished wood, the movement he made in climbing caused the rope to slip round its smooth surface in jerks. Another dozen jerks and he would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

He nearly fainted at the thought. But the recollection of those below came to him and revived him. He could not afford to give way just yet. But when he had hauled one of the other men up and asked him to do the same by the rest, he lay down again on the grass, and when Miss Derwent came up, she found that the strong man had swooned away.

When Travers regained consciousness his head was lying on her lap, and she was forcing some brandy between his teeth.

'You are safe, then,' he said, 'so I did not fall after all.'

When he had dressed himself they all went back to the car. But Travers said he was too unnerved to drive, and asked the Idiot, though he called him so no longer even in his own mind, to take the reins and his seat in the middle. The other man and the girl had already taken their places on one side. So that left the remaining side to him and Miss Derwent.

She will never forget that drive to her dying day.

She had him practically to herself, for the others' backs were all turned upon them. For a good opportunity for love-making commend me to an Irish outside car. It is solitude in the midst of a crowd.

But they were not thinking of love-making now. At first Travers made a few disjointed remarks, but gradually he became silent. She saw the white dazed look stealing over his face, which she had first noticed at the top of the cliff. He began muttering to himself. Then suddenly he burst out:—

'That's half-way, only a hundred feet more.' It was evident that he was living over again that terrible climb of his. But this time he was conscious of his danger. She listened spellbound.

'I wonder if I can last it out. I must. Those rocks looked very hard. Fifty feet more. My God! The rope is slipping. No, it is only my imagination. The cliff opposite me is quite still. Twenty feet more. I must pass that tuft of grass. I didn't reach it as quick as I ought. The rope is slipping. Every jerk brings me nearer to destruction. It is cutting into my hands. My arms are coming out of their sockets. My legs are numbed. I must let go. Only two yards more. For her sake! I wonder if she is watching me. I must look down and see. Oh! it has come away in my hand. I am falling, falling through the air. There is nothing to catch hold of. G—r—r—r! Keep her away, you fool. Why did you let her see such a mess as that?'

As in a nightmare she listened to the slow progress of that horrible struggle. The sentences were jerked one by one from his tongue, as from the tongue of the mesmerized dead man in Poe's terrible story. There was a pause between each. He drew his breath in gasps, as though in mortal conflict. His face became more and more drawn and ghastly, and drooped till it was completely hidden from her sight. His body grew limp. At every jolt of the car it sagged further downwards, as though about to dive into the road at their feet.

Terrified, she shook him, screamed 'Percy' in his ear; but he did not hear. Then in desperation she softly nipped the fleshy part of his arm. The pain brought him to himself. He sat bolt upright with a start, like one that has been nodding, and is suddenly awakened.

'Have I been saying anything?' he inquired, anxiously.

'Ah! I am glad. I thought perhaps I might have been talking nonsense.' They did not speak again for the remainder of the drive. The others had noticed nothing,—all their attention was taken up with the perennial Irish rain, which was driving in their faces.

The next morning he was ill, and unable to leave his room. But when they met in the afternoon, he said with a wan smile, 'I am sorry to have broken my promise. And I am afraid I must ask you to excuse my presence here this evening as well. I have lost my nerve. I daren't travel in a train. I am afraid.' He made the confession with a burst, as though it were wrung from him.

'If you like, I will go away instead,' she replied slowly, drooping her head.

'No, please don't,' he said imploringly. 'I feel safer when you are near me.'

The boyish pathos and abandonment of his tone joined to his utter weakness and prostration did for him what his previous confident strength, and even the fact of his having risked his life for hers, had failed to effect. Her experience of the day before upon the car had shown her what he had gone through to thus jangle his nerves. It was in her service this stroke had come upon him. She could not blame him for it, nor to her could it bear the aspect of cowardice. For no woman can forgive that. Her woman's heart was melted. The requisite touch of tenderness was added to her feeling for him. The tears gushed to her eyes.

'You know I said yesterday, you were too perfect,' she murmured.

'Yes, well?'

'I don't think you so perfect now.'

'My darling.'

They kissed each other passionately.

Under her care Travers' nerves soon recovered their normal tone. But since that day he has never boasted again of his courage. His wife says, that the next lover she has shall be philosophical too. For that kind make the best husbands after all.