PART II.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.
It was about this time, or some three or four days after Kingston's arrival, that Mistress Dinnage was sitting—languidly for her—at the door of the lodge. Mistress Dinnage lived a life of constant energy; she did not sit and lament; she had her sorrows; but they were closed within the proudest heart that ever beat, and no man knew of them. But all the more dangerous is the stern sorrow that feeds upon itself, the aching, ever-present grief, so stoically disregarded. Mistress Dinnage indulged in neither tears nor regrets; bravely she did her duty day by day, and never would sit down to court a sweet and fancied dream. But when evening came, what had she to do? Father was not home; the tall clock in the corner went tick, tick, tick! Lady Deb was busied with her kinsman Kingston Fleming; old Marjory was no companion to Mistress Dinnage. Lives are so different. In some more genial lives, in some gay changeful or adventurous life, sorrow and despair are kept at bay. In contrast to this life of Margaret's, there was May Warriston far away, dreaming through courtly galleries, gazing on splendid pictures, listening to ravishing music, kneeling before gorgeous shrines. Amid such scenes as these, the heart-strings may be tuned to never a discordant note. But in eternal calm, in depressing sickness, in dreary hours of solitude, then the grim spectre looks on us face to face. We may work; ay, but when we pause to rest? Work, everlasting work, gives a stern sense of satisfaction and the comfort of 'something done;' but unlightened by sweeter moments, neither softens the heart nor strengthens the mind. Under that stern government, imagination sleeps, thought grows torpid, the poor wounded soul is grasped within the iron hand it defies, Nature herself lies bruised and bleeding.
In the hours of hard work and daylight, sorrow was to Margaret Dinnage unheeded, unheard, uncared for; but when forced inaction came, when the little room darkened slowly, and the lightest whisper of the breeze began to be heard above the hushed tumult of the world, then the tall clock told a monotonous tale moment by moment to the proud still heart—a tale of solitude and hopeless calm. She would go to the porch not to hear it; but to go out and roam about the happy fields she could not, for there she had played when a child. No; better stand at the door and watch; father would be coming soon.
One evening as Mistress Dinnage thus watched, the gate swung to; not the stooping form of old Jordan Dinnage, but a tall and tower-like figure loomed through the gloaming and darkened the doorway. Loud and full beat the heart of Mistress Dinnage; she could not speak. For the first time for years, she and Charles Fleming were alone.
'Who is at Enderby?' he asked, in a short stern voice.
'Mistress Deborah,' she answered, with hurried breathless utterance, 'an' Master Kingston Fleming.'
'Not my father?'
'No.'
'Has Master Sinclair been here lately?'
'Yes; he was over yesterday morning.'
Then the gloaming parted as it were to admit of a blink of sunshine, and the dark eyes that were gazing up sought the haggard eyes that were gazing down upon them, and all in a flash. Twilight and the wild sweet solitude around them drew those proud hearts together with a power that yearning nature could not resist. The spell of Love was woven around them. Not one word was uttered: stern silence, weary endless longing, pride, grief, trouble, despair, all were now hushed in one long embrace. Long and wordless as had been estrangement, so swift and wordless the wooing; no syllable was needed to tell what the soul had known.
What mattered it in that supreme moment that he was a hunted ruined fugitive—that she was a poor and penniless girl—that they met but to part again? The sweet summer breeze was blowing round them; the trees trembled with gladness overhead; they were young; the world was wide and free. The solemn warning voice of the old clock, for them spoke in vain.
When Mistress Dinnage could speak, she whispered on his breast: 'Thou'rt in trouble.'
'In trouble? Yes.' Then, with a reckless laugh, he took her face between his hands, and answered by wild and passionate kisses.
'Nay; thou must speak,' she went on earnestly, and holding back his head with her little hands. 'Kisses will not aid thee, or I would kiss thee till I died. Speak, Master Fleming! Art thou ruined?'
'Ay; stick and stone.'
'I saw it in thy face, only now the love-light covers it. Oh, how canst thou look so glad for my poor love, when thou'rt ruined and disgraced? Bethink thee, Master Fleming. Thine old home will go to strangers. Thy sister will share in thy disgrace. Thy father will go in sorrow to the grave. Thou'rt ruined, disgraced, dishonoured!'
He caught her to his heart, and then held her wildly from him, regarding her with infinite pathos. 'And wilt thou throw me over, Meg?'
Then spoke she anxiously: 'What is it thou mean'st? Speak out to me. Let there be no secrets and no riddling. Dost thou love me truly?'
Then answered the proud liquid glance of those dark eyes; and whispered the youth low in her ear: 'I would like to kill thee for this questioning! Truly, love? Dost thou know Charles Fleming so little, that thou'rt in doubt? that thou canst believe he could wrong the only girl he ever loved? Ruffian, gamester, roysterer though I be, I would keep thee pure as snow—snowdrift. Thou shalt make me a better man, who knows? For thy love I thirst, Meg, and have thirsted long. Now—ruined, an outcast, a fugitive, is the moment I choose to seek thee! Wilt have me, Meg, for better, for worse? Wilt share the fortunes of a sinner? Perilous, comfortless, will be thy lot, love. Wilt thou be my wife?'
She could not speak; she answered by a low cry of love and joy. What recked Mistress Dinnage of the proud grand home and the heir of the Flemings, all passed away! She loved—with all the pure abandonment of a woman's love—this houseless wanderer.
So came Charlie Fleming, and went, and haunted in the twilight round Enderby, and no one knew of it save Mistress Dinnage. She was put about, dismayed, torn by anxiety by all she heard; and the two loves of her life, the loves of father and lover, were wrestling wildly in her soul. Though fearing for her lover, yet, strange inconsistency, her step was light as air, her heart was filled with a new joy, and her eyes with happy tears.
'I must go,' thought Kingston Fleming desperately to himself, the morning after the above scene. 'The old fellow won't turn up, neither does Charlie. I mustn't compromise her. But she must not be alone. I doubt—I doubt sorely about the future. Poor sweet child! I will speak to old Marjory; she must hold that flighty Mistress Dinnage in the house. And I will get Deb to send for May Warriston.' So thinking, Kingston went into the garden, where he saw Deborah at her flowers, and abruptly he began: 'I am come to say farewell, Deb. Don't look scared, little coz; you shall not be left alone.'
'Then whom shall I have, King?' she asked, clinging suddenly to his arm. 'Father is away; Charlie is away; and I am in hourly fear of evil tidings. You say, not alone! O King, I shall be alone indeed!'
'Little one, I am going to write to May Warriston, to beg her to come and bear you company. Meantime, I am going to see your father. I know his whereabouts, love; I will send him home to-night. And have ye not Marjory, Jordan, and your beloved Mistress Dinnage?'
'Ay, I have them all. But what are weak women and a poor old man compared to your size and strength? With you, King, I am safe. In your presence I can be thoughtless and glad again. In your presence—I am happy.'
'O Deb, Deb! Don't persuade me. I mustn't stay with you. Ill tongues will be talking of you and me.'
'What! of brother and sister? Of kinsfolk? It cannot, cannot be. But let the world talk! What matters it? Will you, for paltry slander, forsake me at this strait?'
'Not forsake you, but consider you. Let go my hand, Deb! I am easily unmanned nowadays. I must go.'
'Well, go, go!'—and she pushed him from her. 'And indeed I would have you seek my father, King, for I am very sad at heart. Cheer him up; comfort him; wean him from his temptation if you can. It is that terrible gambling that is the ruin of the Flemings. Oh, tell him so! But above all things, send him home, for I have a dark, dark foreboding on me; and this night alone at Enderby would drive me mad.'
'He shall come.'
'Then go, King, quickly.'
'You are in a hurry to be rid o' me, now. Good-bye, sweet Deb; good-bye. You will not come and see me off?'
'Nay; I cannot.'
'Well, good-bye, Enderby.' Kingston Fleming bared his head and gazed round, strangely moved, at the old familiar scene. His keen blue eyes grew dim. It did not shame his manhood that tears were drawn like life-blood from his heart, as he nobly renounced a sore temptation. 'Good-bye, Enderby; good-bye.'
He was gone. But still Deborah Fleming, amid her gay and dazzling flowers, seemed to see him standing there, a tall graceful figure, a face full of sadness and regret, a bared head that reverently bowed its adieus; and the words still rang in her ears: 'Good-bye, Enderby; good-bye.' Ten short minutes and all life had changed for her; only when he was gone, she waked to her despair. The sun had ceased to shine, the birds had ceased to sing, the flowers to bloom. She left her gathered flowers to die, and went home like one stunned.
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.
Sir Vincent did return that night; he had seen Kingston, he said. He was very late, and he was tired. He asked Deborah if Mistress Dinnage were with her.
'Yes, dear father. But you are going to sleep at home?'
'Ay; but I may be off early—too early for even thee, my bird of dawn.'
'Nay, father; I will be up, not to see thee off, but to hold thee here. Thou shalt not go tomorrow!'
He smiled. He looked pale. He kissed her fondly.
'Lady Wilful, I must. I want to see my boy. He is ever in trouble.'
'Nay; think not about it to-night, father. King has promised to find him out.'
And so they parted. Weary-hearted, with all the brightness called up for her father laid aside, Deborah sought her chamber, weeping. She recalled, the night when her father had told her Kingston Fleming was betrothed, her wild despair. But she was a child, and the bright morrow had then brought hope and healing. Now she was a woman, and a woman's sorrow lay deep within her breast. Tired out, Deborah undressed and lay down on her bed, not to wake and weep, but to sink into a deep dreamless slumber....
With a start she awoke. A start often wakes us from the soundest sleep, as if some spirit spoke. Deborah Fleming was so wide awake in a moment that she saw through her open window the little pale ghost of the waning moon, the drifting clouds flitting by. A strange feeling was on Deborah. Had she been dreaming that she had seen a light shining under her father's door? Dream or vision, she seemed to see it still, and was irresistibly drawn thither by a mysterious inner sense of alarm. She must go to her father's room, to see that all was well. With a wildly beating heart, she threw on her dressing-gown and went swiftly out. Gray dawn filled all the passages, a gray cold dawn, and the little birds were beginning to twitter. But yes—oh, strange and true, a light was glimmering under her father's door!
Deborah heard him moving; she knocked. 'Father!'—No answer.—'Father!'
'Who is there?'
'Deborah! Father, open your door; I must speak with you at once.'
She tried the door: it gave way; and Deborah saw a room scattered over with papers, in the wildest confusion. The window stood open, and Sir Vincent, looking gray and haggard in the uncertain light, stood against the table in the middle of the room. He was dressed; his long white hair was ruffled; his face was gray, pale; his eyes gleamed strangely on Deborah from under their lowering brows.
'Father!' said Deborah, 'my father!' A great trembling was on her, he looked at her so strangely; but she kept outwardly calm. She laid her hands upon his arm, and then her eyes fell from his troubled face to his trembling hand, which was striving vainly to hide something amongst the papers on the table. Deborah saw the handle of a pistol; she drew it out, and regarded him steadfastly. 'Father, father! what is this?'
He turned from her; his white head was bowed with shame in his hands, and she heard a bitter sob.
'I know it now,' said Deborah, with terrible calmness. 'God called me here. O dear father, what have you thought on? To get free of ruin, you would kill your soul. Kind heaven have mercy on thee! You would leave me, father; you would leave me and Charlie.' She flung the pistol out of the room; she threw her arms round him. Sobs were shaking the strong man's frame.
'O never think to leave me alone, father dear. It was sinful of you not to call me; you might have known your little daughter would sooner share your death, than wake to find you dead.'
'God forgive me, Deb; God forgive me;' and he sank into his chair faint, trembling, shuddering. Deborah, on her knees beside him, scarcely knew her proud father, he was so unmanned. She waited in silence, with her head laid down on his knee. When he could speak, he said: 'I see God's hand in this; I believe in Him as I never believed before. Child! nothing less than a miracle brought thee here, as heaven is my witness; in another moment, Deb, I should have been a dead man. I had the pistol in my hand; may He forgive me, Deb!'
Then Deborah looked up white and calm: 'What could have induced you, father? What ruin could be great enow to justify so great a sin? The loss of house and lands? Let them go. You and I had better live in some poor honest way, than keep at Enderby. Let it go. It is no great matter, so long as you have your children's love.'
He groaned. 'It isn't all, Deb; ruin isn't all. We have that, and enow. But ye know the old saying, "Death before dishonour."—Charlie, Charlie!' and the father's tremulous lips struggled piteously to utter more.
'Has Charlie disgraced us then? How, father?'
'God forbid that I tell thee how. My boy has killed me.'
'Will money save him, father?' The stern low voice scarcely seemed Deborah Fleming's.
'Money, ay; but we are beggars.'
Deborah started to her feet. 'Well, think of it no more; you are wearied to death, my father. Thinking won't right you nor save Charlie. Sleep in peace, father, for I will save ye both this day.'
He stared in her face. 'Heaven bless thee, Deb. I know not what thou say'st. I think my brain is shaken, Deb. But thou'rt my only stay.' With that, the heart-broken old man, fallen so lowly from his high estate, lay down, and fell into a deep sleep. Not so Deborah.
Late in the morning, Sir Vincent awaked, and called for his daughter. It seemed that she was near, for he had scarcely called before she stood beside his bed. His strength was recruited; the strong and nervous spirit had regained its power, and lived again in torture. He gazed up at Deborah, piteous in his grim sorrow; still, in all his strength, he turned to her: 'Deborah, my child, what is to be done?'
'I am decided, father. I will be Adam Sinclair's wife. He has money enow to buy Enderby. Look you, you have nothing more to say; only see that he knows he may marry me.'
'Thou'lt marry Adam Sinclair! Deb, art in earnest? Can ye do this? But does it vex ye, love? Does it grieve ye too much?'
She looked so calm, he could not believe this sacrifice, but half believed her indifferent; he was sorely trembling.
'Nay, father. How vexed? how grieved? Ask me no questions. You know, father, I was always "Lady Wilful," and very firm. Here now is a note writ by mine own hand to him. I am decided.'
Sir Vincent rose up; he knew not if he were most glad or grieved or scared, as he took her in his arms and blessed her. Never had Deborah received love or blessing so passively. She put the note in his hands, and looking at him with her great gray earnest eyes: 'Sweet father,' she said, 'it must needs be soon; and that he may know that I am in earnest, I have left that "soon" to him. I am sincere with him, father, and I tell him I have no love to give; but I would fain save Enderby; and so I ask him if he will save Enderby for love of me, and yet leave me free. There is a loophole, father, for I have no wish to wed. But if he must wed Deborah Fleming, and only this will move him, I am ready. But as he will choose the wedding-day, I stipulate for freedom till that day, never to write nor meet till the bells ring for the wedding. Let me be Deborah Fleming till then, and forget Adam Sinclair! Lovers and wooing I cannot abide. And life is long enow from the wedding to the grave!'
Sir Vincent stood with the letter in his hand. 'Deborah, ye speak strangely; yet you are smiling, and your eyes and cheeks are bright. Little one, tell thy wretched father if thou'rt unhappy over this? Speak, Deb, darling; and if it grieves thee, I will see myself in jail, and Charlie on the gallows, ere thou shalt sacrifice thy life. Deborah, be honest with me.'
'Why, I am honest always. It will not hurt me. I will be a good wife to him till the day I die, if it must needs be so. But would you have me say I love him, reverence him? This cannot be. But if he will not save Enderby otherwise, I will be his wife. Of the rest—I will not ask you—I dare not. But Charlie shall be saved.'
At these words Sir Vincent fell on his knees, and kissed his child's dress like one beside himself, and then pale and wordless, rushed away.... Then Deborah was left alone. The gay sun was shining in, and the birds were singing from far and near; away up, Deborah's pet bird the skylark was pouring out his supreme song of freedom in the blue fields of space. She heard the trilling cadence from the wild bird's throat. It drew her to the window, where she leaned out, and drank in those delirious strains of joy, and stretched out her arms to the blue sky, and thought of the little nest where the bird would drop, when tired with wandering and with song. Could she be Deborah Fleming? Would the messenger now speeding to Lincoln Castle bring her back freedom, or death in life? She must wait, she must wait! Meantime, the o'ercome was ringing in her ears of an old song that Kingston Fleming whistled when a boy, and the sweet warm sun was shining on her, and Deborah laid her aching head and her arms down on the window-sill and fell fast asleep. It was then that Mistress Dinnage stole in; her face too was pale and grave, but not so pale as the sleeping one over which she leaned. With her hands clasped, she stood regarding it till her lips quivered, and tears of troubled anxiety started to her eyes. 'Ay,' she said with stern tenderness, 'you will die for him yet; but I would die for him and you.' Then softly and in tender care, young Mistress Dinnage passed a soft cushion under the little head, and laid a light shawl over Deborah to shield her from the sun, and stole away.
[MARKET-GARDEN WOMEN.]
While the fruit-harvest is in progress, travellers through the western outskirts of London will doubtless have noticed the numerous gangs of women employed in gathering and packing fruit and vegetables for market; the railway in that district running for several miles through market-gardens and orchards. The peculiar dress of these women—consisting of a large calico sun-bonnet, brightly coloured neckerchief, short skirts reaching scarcely below the knee, and large holland aprons—is alone sufficient to attract attention, even in the momentary glimpse one obtains of them as the train sweeps past. Daily, in sunshine and rain, these women are busy collecting the fruit and vegetables which are nightly conveyed to the London markets; and as some knowledge of their manner of life and the amount of their earnings may prove interesting, we offer to our readers the substance of a conversation held with a member of one of the gangs during the earlier part of the season.
'Do we get pretty good wages? Well, you see, sir, it all depends on the season. Just now, when strawberries are in and peas, we can earn as much as thirty shillings a week—some weeks more. Raspberries and beans we do pretty well with, but gooseberries and currants ain't so good: eight-and-twenty shillings a week is as much as we can make at those, working hard and long for that. Of course we have to work long hours, beginning at four or five o'clock in the morning, and keeping at it till eight and sometimes later at night, generally taking about an hour's rest at dinner-time. But as we gather all the fruit by piece-work, and so to speak, our time is our own, what dinner-time we take depends on what sort of a morning's work we've made—sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. You see, this is how we work. In my gang there's six of us, that have always worked together for a good many years now. We get one on each side of a row of strawberries or raspberries or peas, or what not; and when one basket is full, we puts a few handfuls in our apron, always managing so as to take in all the baskets full together; and then at night, when our work is counted up, we share it equally amongst us. We always know every night how much we have made, but only get paid once a week, on Saturdays: Saturday, you know, being an easy day with us, on account of there being no market on Sunday. Our missis is very good that way: every Saturday, afore twelve o'clock, there is our money, much or little; though there is some of the masters as think nothing of keeping their women waiting about till six or seven o'clock at night before they pay them, and perhaps then only gives 'em a part of it; which comes hard on folks as live from hand to mouth, as we have to do; the shop at which we deal only giving one week's credit—pay up one Saturday night, and run on as much as you like till the next; or if you don't pay up, no more credit till you does.
'Apples and pears and such-like fruit we have nothing to do with—men gather them in. In fact as often as not the master sells the fruit as it stands on the tree, and the buyer has to get his own men to pluck it. But there's always some sort of fruit or vegetables to be gathered from the beginning of spring till the end of summer as we can do by piecework; and then the potatoes come in, which we pick up after they've been turned out of the ground by men or by a machine; but that we does by day-work, getting one-and-sixpence a day when we work from six to six; and one-and-twopence when we work from eight till dark. In winter-time there's always something to be done dibbing in cabbage-plants, weeding, and such-like; but what with sharp frosts and heavy snows, we don't earn much then, perhaps doing three or four days' work in a week. Of course if we haven't had the sense to put by some of the money we make in the good times of summer, times come cruel hard on us in the winter; and very few of us like to apply to the parish if we can anyhow help it. Not but what our missis is good to us in that way, often finding us a day's work when it ain't needed, and always giving us a half-pint of beer at the end of the day; which we can't claim, you know.
'We don't take much count of rain either winter or summer, because, you see, people will have their fruit and vegetables fresh gathered; and so we wrap ourselves well up and make the best of it. As I said before, Saturday we don't do much; but then we have to make up for it on Sundays, so as to send the fruit fresh to Monday's market.
'Don't we suffer from rheumatics? Well, you mightn't think so, but it ain't often any of us ails much. You see, being out in all weathers, we get hardened to it; and besides, we always take good care to keep our feet warm and dry—that's why we wear such heavy boots; and that's the chief thing to look after, if you don't want to catch cold; so people say. There ain't many of us but what is on the wrong side of thirty; four out of my gang being widows this many a year, with grown-up sons and daughters; and it's the same in most gangs. Sometimes we have young women amongst us; but there's not many of 'em stays at it after they are married; not all the year through, I mean; perhaps coming for a day or two at the busiest times; but even then it hardly pays them, if they have a young family about 'em. The gangs of young women as you sometimes see, we don't count as belonging to us; they only coming up from Shropshire mostly—for a month or six weeks at the busiest part of the season. Children we never have working with us, I suppose because they wouldn't be careful enough about not crushing the fruit; which as you know, it would never pay to send crushed fruit into market. For my part, I'm very glad as there is no children allowed amongst us, as though it ain't very hard work, it's terribly tedious and back-aching. When our children is old enough, we send the girls out to service somewhere; and there's always plenty of work for the lads, of some sort, about the farms; which is a good deal better than breaking their backs at our work.
'We all of us in my gang live hereabouts, in those little cottages that you see yonder. Three shillings a week the rent of 'em is; but then there's a good piece of garden-ground at the back; and most of us has lodgers, young men what work on the farms and in the gardens mostly. Four rooms there is in my cottage; and I have three lodgers, sometimes four, two sleeping in one room. Good lads they are too. You see, as they get home before I do, I always lay my fire in the morning before I go out; and a neighbour of mine sets it alight in time for the kettle to be a-boiling when they come in to their tea at six o'clock; and they never misses leaving a potful of good strong tea for me to have when I get home; which you may be sure is all the more grateful through being the only hot drink I get all day, having only a drop of cold tea, which I carry in that can there, for my breakfast. And maybe if we are working near a public-house, we club up, and one of us goes and gets a drop of beer to drink with our dinners.
'If it wasn't for the lodgers, the gardens wouldn't be much use to us; but they generally take it in hand, and often comes to take a pride in it; so that we are never short of such vegetables as are in season; which helps a good way towards the rent. They also chop up my wood and fetch my water for me, and make themselves handy in a score of ways; indeed if I lost my lodgers, I don't know what I should do. It ain't much cooking I do in the week; but what there is to do I do after I come home. On Sunday the lads always look for a hot dinner; which when I'm at home, I cook for them; and when I'm at work I get all ready on Saturday night, and one of 'em takes it to the bakehouse to be baked. When we do work on Sundays, if we anyhow can manage it, we try to get done by three or four o'clock, so as we may be in time to dress and go to church; which as a rule we mostly do.
'I can't read nor yet write, and I don't suppose as there's a-many amongst the oldest of us as can. It wasn't much chance of schooling girls like us got in my time, as we was sent out to work at something or other when we was about nine or ten. I did go to school for a little while; but if I learnt anything I must have forgotten it again. The young ones are better off for the matter of that, and are always willing to read or write a letter for us when we want 'em.
'Nineteen years I've been at it regular now, sir; and though I was left a widow with seven children, the oldest of 'em only ten and one at the breast, I'm proud and thankful to say as we've never had any need to ask once for a loaf of bread even from the parish, and trust as we never shall. I ain't the only one either, for there's Mrs Amblin as lives next door to me was left with nine children, oldest only twelve, and has lived to see 'em all doing for themselves without being beholden to nobody for a crust of bread. Some years, when the fruit has been backward or scarce, we've had a very close push to make ends meet; but it has only taught us to be more careful when we have a good season, and to put by a little more towards a bad one. We don't use any bank, bless you! what little we can manage to put by, we generally likes to have handy where we can put our hand on it when we want it. Of course, there's no telling what may happen; but while I have my health and strength left me, I shall always be able to earn as much as I need; and if it should happen as they fail me, well, what with lodgers and the shilling or two my children will help me with, I daresay I shall struggle along somehow. Mostly, though our children don't come to be much more than field-hands and farm-labourers, when the time comes they don't begrudge what is due to their parents, and manage somehow to keep 'em out of the workhouse. Not but some of 'em goes to the bad, as might be expected, seeing the little schooling we can afford to give them, and the temptations there is for them nowadays; but it is only here and there one, and they generally finish up by listing for a soldier, which soon steadies 'em. One of my lads is away now in the East Indies; and though I don't often hear from him, he seems to be getting on quite as well as ever he'd ha' done at home. Our girls mostly gets acquainted with one or other of the men working about the place where they are at service, and get married, sooner perhaps than what we old folks think they ought to—about nineteen or twenty—and settle down near where their husbands work.
'We don't get much chance of holidays when once the season begins, until it is over; because, you see, sir, the master must keep the market supplied; and if he finds one of us not to be depended on to do our work every day, he very soon gets somebody in her place that is; which perhaps is one reason why young women never care to settle down to our life. Altogether, our work ain't so very hard; and if we do have to keep at it for a many hours at a stretch, it's all in the open air, which is a good deal better than being shut up in the walls of a factory; and if we are anyways steady and careful, we can always make sure of a pretty good living. So that you see, sir, there's many as is worse off than us poor garden-women.'
[SEA-SPOIL.]
Somewhat more than a year ago, we called attention to the changes which are to be perceived in the relations of land and water; the action of rivers on the land, and the influence of delta-lands in restoring land, to the earth, being noted in the article alluded to; whilst the destructive action of the sea on many points of the coast was also detailed. In the present instance we purpose to examine a few of the more typical cases of sea-action viewed in its destructive effect upon the land, and also some aspects of earth-movements which undoubtedly favour the destructive power of the ocean.
As regards these destructive powers, much depends of course on the nature of the rock-formations which lie next the sea. A hard formation will, cæteris paribus, resist the attack of the waves to a greater extent than a deposit of soft nature; and the varying nature of the coast-lines of a country determines to a very great extent the regularity or irregularity of the sea's action. A well-known example of a case in which the ocean has acquired over the land an immense advantage in respect of the softness of the formations which favoured its inroad, is found on the Kentish coast. Visitors to Margate and Ramsgate, or voyagers around the south-east corner of our island, know the ancient church of Reculver—or the 'Reculvers' as it is now named—as a familiar landmark. Its two weather-beaten towers and the dismantled edifice are the best known objects amongst the views of the Kentish coast; and to both geologist and antiquary the 'Reculvers' present an object of engrossing interest. In the reign of Henry VIII. the church was one mile distant from the sea; and even in 1781 a very considerable space of ground intervened between the church and the coast-line—so considerable indeed, that several houses and a churchyard of tolerable size existed thereupon. In 1834 the sea had made such progress in the work of spoliation, that the intervening ground had disappeared, and the 'Reculvers' appeared to exist on the verge at once of the cliff and of destruction. An artificial breakwater has, however, saved the structure; but the sacred edifice has been dismantled, and its towers used as marine watch-houses. The surrounding strata are of singularly soft nature, and hence the rapidity with which the eroding action of the waves has proceeded.
An equally instructive case of the destructive action of the sea is afforded by the history of the parish of Eccles in the county of Norfolk. Prior to the accession of James VI. to the English crown the parish was a fairly populous one. At that date, however, the inhabitants petitioned the king for a reduction of taxes, basing their request on the ground that more than three hundred acres of their land had been swept away by the sea. The king's reply was short but characteristic. He dismissed the petition with the remark, that the people of Eccles should be thankful that the sea had been so merciful. Since the time of the niggardly sovereign just mentioned, Eccles has not been spared by the sea. Acres upon acres have been swallowed up by the insatiable waves, and as Sir Charles Lyell informs us, hills of blown sand—forming the characteristic sand-dunes of the geologist—occupy the place where the houses of King James's petitioners were situated. The spire of the parish church, in one drawing, is indeed depicted as projecting from amongst the surrounding sand-dunes, which the wind, as if in league with the ocean, has blown in upon this luckless coast.
The comparison of old maps of counties bordering on the sea with modern charts, affords a striking and clear idea of the rate and extent of this work of destruction. No better illustration can be cited of the ravages of the ocean than that exhibited in maps of the Yorkshire coast-lines, and particularly in the district lying between Flamborough Head and the mouth of the Humber. Whilst the district between the Wash in Lincolnshire and the estuary of the Thames shews an equally great amount of destructive change. Three feet per annum is said to be no uncommon rate for soft strata in these localities to be carried away; and the geologist may point to the famous Goodwin Sands—notorious alike in ancient and modern history—as another example of the results of sea-action, and of the wear and tear exercised by the mighty deep. The contemplation of such actions fits us in a singularly apt manner for the realisation of the full force and meaning of the Laureate's words:
There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O Earth, what changes hast thou seen!
It is highly important, however, to note that the sea receives aid of no ordinary kind in its acts of spoliation by the operation of certain forces affecting the land itself. Land frequently disappears from sight beneath the surface of the sea by a process of subsidence or sinking. We must therefore clearly distinguish between the land which the sea literally takes by its own act, and that which becomes its property through this curious subsidence and sinking of the earth's crust. No doubt the result is practically the same in each case; the sea being in either instance the gainer, and the land the loser. But the sinking of land being a phenomenon less familiar to the ordinary reader, we venture to note a few of its more prominent aspects.
A primary consideration to which it is needful to direct attention consists in the due appreciation of the fact that the land and not the sea is to be here credited with the action under discussion. When a considerable part of a coast-line formerly existing above tide-marks is found to gradually sink below the sea-level, the observer is probably apt to assume that the sea has simply altered its level. The idea of the sea being a constantly changing body is so widely entertained, and that of the land being a solid and immovable portion of the constitution of the earth, is also so deeply rooted in the popular mind, that it may take some little thinking to throw on the land the burden of the change and alteration. It is nevertheless a fact that the great body of water we name the ocean in reality obeys the laws we see exemplified in the disposition of the water contained in a cup or bowl. The water of the sea thus maintains the same level, and is no more subject to violent and permanent alterations than is the water in the cup or bowl. Hence when part of a coast-line appears to become submerged, we must credit the land with being the seat of the change, seeing that the sea must be regarded as stable, unless indeed it could be shewn that the level of the sea had undergone a similar change on all the coasts it touches. Thus if the southern coast of England were found to have been depressed say to the extent of six feet, we must credit the land with the change, unless we could shew that the sea-level on the opposite or French coast had also changed. Now the alterations of land are mostly local or confined to limited areas, and are not seen in other lands bounded by the same sea or ocean as the altered portion. Hence that the land must be regarded as the unstable and the sea as the stable element, has come to be regarded as a fundamental axiom of geology.
When, therefore, the works of man—such as piers, harbours, and dwellings—become the spoil of the sea, the action has either been one effected by the force of the waves without any change of level of the land, or one in which land has simply subsided independently of the destructive action of the sea. In the extreme south of Sweden this action of land-subsidence is at present proceeding at a rate which has been determined by observations conducted for the past century and a half or more. The lower streets of many Swedish sea-port towns have thus been under water for many years, and even streets originally situated far above the water-level have been rendered up as prey to the sea by this mysterious sinking of land. Linnæus (as on a former occasion we remarked) in 1749 marked the exact site and position of a certain stone. In 1836 this stone was found to be nearer the water's edge by one hundred feet than when the great naturalist had observed it; the subsidence having proceeded at this rate and degree in eighty-seven years. The earliest Moravian missionaries in Greenland had frequently to shift the position of the poles to which they moored their boats, owing to the subsidence of land carrying their poles seawards, as it were, by the inflow of the sea over what was once dry land. On the coasts of Devon and Cornwall the observer may detect numerous stumps of trees—still fixed by their roots in the soil in which they grew—existing under water; the site being that of an old forest which was submerged by the sinking of the land, and which has become converted into the spoil and possession of the sea. Even the long arm of the sea—the 'loch' of the Scotch and the 'fjord' of Norway—which seen in the outline of a map, or in all its natural beauty, imparts a character of its own to the scenery of a country, exists to the eye of the geologist simply as a submerged valley, whose sides were once 'with verdure clad,' and on whose fertile slopes trees grew in luxuriant plenty. The subsidence of the land has simply permitted its place to be occupied by water, and the vessel may sail for miles over what was once a fertile valley.
Occasionally the fluctuations of land may be exemplified to an extent which could hardly be expected, a fact well illustrated by the case of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis at Puzzuoli on the Bay of Naples. This temple, now in ruins, dates from a very ancient period, three marble pillars remaining to mark the extent of what was once a magnificent pile of buildings. Half-way up these pillars the marks of boring shell-fish are seen; some burrows formed by these molluscs still containing the shells by means of which they were excavated. At the present time, the sea-level is at the very base of the pillars, or exists even below that site. Hence arises the natural question—'How did the shell-fish gain access to the pillars, to burrow into them in the manner described?' Dismissing as an irrelevant and impossible idea that of the molluscs being able to ascend the dry pillars, two suppositions remain. Either the pillars and temple must have gone down to the sea through the subsidence of the land, or the sea must have come up to the pillars. If the latter theory be entertained, the sea-level must be regarded as having of necessity altered its level all along the Bay of Naples and along all the Mediterranean coasts. And as this inundation would have occurred within the historic period, we would expect not only to have had some record preserved to us of the calamity, but we should also have been able to point to distinct and ineffaceable traces of sea-action on the adjoining coasts. There is, however, no basis whatever for this supposition. No evidence is forthcoming that any such rise of the sea ever took place; and hence we are forced to conclude that the subsidence or sinking of the land contains the only rational explanation of the phenomena. We had thus a local sinking of land taking place at Puzzuoli. The old temple was gradually submerged; its pillars were buried beneath the waters of the sea, and the boring molluscs of the adjacent sea-bed fixed on the pillars as a habitation, and bored their way into the stone. Then a second geological change supervened. The action of subsidence was exchanged for one of elevation; and the temple and its pillars gradually arose from the sea, and attained their present level; whilst the stone-boring shell-fish were left to die in their homes. The surrounding neighbourhood—that of Vesuvius—is the scene of constant change and alteration in land-level; and the incident is worth recording, if only to shew how the observation of the apparently trifling labours of shell-fish serves to substantiate a grave and important chapter in the history of the earth.
The statistics of wrecks and of the amount of human property which have fallen a prey to the 'sounding main' may thus be shewn to be not only paralleled but vastly exceeded in importance and extent by the records of the geologist, when he endeavours to compute the losses of the land or the gains of the sea. But on the other hand, the man of science asks us to reflect on the fact that the matter stolen from us by the sea is undergoing a process of redistribution and reconstruction. The fair acres of which we have been despoiled, will make their appearance in some other form and fashion as the land of the future; just indeed as the present land represents the consolidated sea-spoil of the past, which by a process of elevation has been raised from the sea-depths to constitute the existing order of the earth. Waste and repair are simply the two sides of the geological medal, and exist at the poles of a circle of ceaseless natural change. So that, if it be true that the sea reigns where the land once rose in all its majesty, as the Laureate has told us, no less certain is it that—to conclude with his lines—
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
Thus the subject of sea-spoil, like many another scientific study, opens up before us a veritable chapter of romance, which should possess the greater charm and interest, because it is so true.