TRUE COURAGE.—A TALE OF TATTERSHALL CASTLE.
In the summer vacation of 183-, a party of gay young collegians visited Tattershall Castle, in Lincolnshire. This remarkably noble ruin consists of a single lofty keep, rising to the height of two hundred feet, the interior being open from summit to basement. Mighty oaken beams once, however, spanned the massive walls, supporting floors which formed stories of varying height. Many of these beams have fallen to the basement, completely rotten, through shameful exposure to the weather ever since the roof crumbled away; others still pertinaciously hang, more or less broken and decayed, but, in a majority of instances, seem as if a strong gust of eddying wind would send them down crashing, to mingle their fragments with those already mouldering below.
The party were in high spirits. They had drunk old wines, and their young blood flowed hotly in their veins; they had laughed, joked, and talked themselves into wild excitement. About half way up to the castle turrets there is a sort of open landing, which goes along one wall of the structure; and on to this landing the party stepped from the grand spiral staircase they had hitherto been ascending, and there paused a moment to look about them. The scene was striking. A few beams sprung across just below their feet; a few thick-moted rays of sun pierced through the adjoining loop-holes; a few fleecy cloudlets flitted athwart the blue ether high overhead. Startled by the noisy visitors, a number of dusky jackdaws flew out of their holes up and down the walls, and, after chattering their decided disapprobation of being disturbed, made half-a-dozen whirling circuits of the interior, rising rapidly upward, until they disappeared.
Immediately afterward, a great white owl projected its visage from a hole close above where one of the beams joined the opposite wall, and, frightedly peering with its great dazzled eyes, the harmless creature bewilderedly popped from its hole on to the beam, and having made a few feeble flutterings with its wings, remained quite stationary, crouched in a ball-like figure, close to the wall.
"Oh, Deschamp," exclaimed one of the party to a friend at his side, who was plucking the long gray moss of a peculiar species, which literally clothes the castle walls inside and out, "look yonder at Minerva's bird."
"Ha! ha!" chorused the company—"a veritable owl!"
Thereupon one and all began picking up bits of brick and mortar from where they stood, and threw them at the bird with various degrees of skill. One or two bits even struck it, but so far from being roused thereby, the owl merely gave one boding, long-drawn, sepulchral screech, and, contracting its ghastly outline into still smaller compass, fairly buried its broad visage between the meeting bony tips of its wings.
"What a stupid creature! hoo! horoo!" shouted they, thinking by that means to induce it to fly. But the outcry only terrified the bird to such a degree, that it stuck its claws convulsively into the decayed timber, and stirred not at all.
"It's the way o' them creeturs," here said the guide, who was showing the party over the castle; "they're about the stupidest things in creation, I'm a thinking!"
"Humph!" muttered Lord Swindon, a handsome, athletic young man of twenty, "with such an example before our eyes, we can not but admit your opinion to be highly philosophic and indisputable. But I say, old fellow," added he, tapping the guide familiarly on the shoulder with the light riding switch he carried in his hand, "is that beam a rotten one?"
"I shouldn't be over-for'ard to trust myself on it, sir," replied the man—a fat dumpy personage.
"You wouldn't! No. I should rather think not," responded Lord Swindon, a smile of supreme disdain sweeping across his features, as he surveyed the "old fellow" from head to foot. "But, tell me, did you ever know any body walk upon it, eh?"
"Oh, dear, yes. Only last summer, a young Oxonian ran from end to end of it, as I seed with my own eyes."
"Did he?"
"True," put in Deschamp. "I remember now, it was young Manners of Brazennose; and didn't he brag about it!"
"Him!" exclaimed Lord Swindon, with a toss of the head; "that fellow, poor milksop? Not," continued he, hastily, "that it is any thing of a feat. Pooh!"
"Not a feat!" murmured his companions; and, with one accord, they stretched forth their necks, and, gazing down the dim abyss, shuddered at what they beheld. Well they might. The beam in question rose at a height of about one hundred feet, and naught beneath it was there but a gloomy chasm, only broken in one or two places by crumbling beams, and not one even of these was by many feet near it. "Oh, Swindon, how can you say so?"
"I can say it, and I do," snappishly replied the fiery young man, his brain heated with wine; "and, at any rate, what that fellow Manners has done, I can do. So look out!"
Thus speaking, he recklessly stepped on the beam, and, despite the remonstrances of his companions, was in the act of proceeding along it, when his arm was firmly grasped, and a low, deep-toned voice exclaimed, "My lord, do you court a horrible death? Do not thus risk your life for naught."
The individual who thus unhesitatingly interfered was evidently unknown to all present, being a casual visitor to the castle, who had just joined the group. With an imprecation, the madcap youngster jerked his arm away, and sprang forward along the beam. Its surface was rough, rounded, and uneven; and as he ran along, swerving from side to side, every instant in danger of being precipitated downward, with the awful certainty of being dashed to pieces, his friends could hardly restrain themselves from shrieking with terror, though such a course would probably have had the immediate effect of discomposing the equilibrium of their rash companion, and so inducing the catastrophe they fully anticipated, without the power of prevention. Had the adventurer's presence of mind one moment failed—had his self-possession and confidence wavered or forsaken him—had his brain sickened, or his eyes turned dim for a single second—had he made the least false step—had his footing slipped on the slimy surface of the beam—had he tripped against any of the knots projecting from the rotten wood which had mouldered away around them—at once would he have been hurled into dread eternity.
But an unseen hand sustained him, and safely he reached the extremity of the beam, ruthlessly wrenched the trembling owl from its perch, waved it aloft in triumph, and then, with a proud ejaculation, began to retrace his steps, with it shrieking and fluttering in his hands. When he reached the centre of the frail beam, which creaked and bent terribly with his comparatively small weight, he paused, drew himself up to his full height—air above, air beneath, air all around, naught but air—and deliberately tore the head of the owl by main force from its body. Having perpetrated this cruel deed, he tossed the bloody head among the breathless spectators, and sharply dashed the writhing body into the void beneath his feet. He coolly watched its descent, until it lay a shapeless mass on the stones below; then, with slow, bravadoing mien, he walked back to his terrified party, and boastingly demanded of them whether they thought "Manners could beat that?"
"My lord," solemnly said the stranger, "you have not performed the act either of a brave or a sane man, and you have committed a despicable deed on one of God's helpless creatures. You ought to thank Him, my lord, from the depth of your soul, that he saved you from the penalty you incurred."
"What do you say?" fiercely demanded Lord Swindon. "Do you dare to insinuate cowardice against me?" and with flashing brow, he assumed a threatening attitude.
"I know not, my lord, whether you are brave or not, but what I have witnessed was certainly not an exercise of true courage," was the passionless reply.
"And yet I'll wager a cool thousand that you daren't do it."
"True, I dare not: for I am incapable of offering a deadly insult to my Maker."
"Fine words!" Then, carried away by the excitement of the moment, he added, with an insolent look and gesture, "You are a lying coward."
"Listen, my lord," answered the person thus addressed, and this time his tone was even calmer than before. "One year ago, you were walking at the midnight hour on the pier at the sea-port of Hull, and but one other person was upon it, and he was a stranger to you. You trod too near the edge of the pier, and fell into the sea. The tempest was howling, and the tide was high and running strongly; and, ere you could utter more than one smothered cry, it had swept you many yards away, and you were sinking rapidly. Except God, none but that stranger heard your cry of agony; and, soon as it reached his ear, he looked forth upon the waters, and, catching a glimpse of your struggling form, he instantly plunged in, and, after much diving, eventually grasped you at a great depth. Long did he support your helpless body, and stoutly did he buffet the stifling waves, and loudly did he call for aid. At length help came; and at the last moment, he and you were saved just in time for life to be preserved in both. Is not this true, my lord?"
"It is," emphatically responded the young nobleman; "but what have you to do with it? I don't know you—though it is not at all wonderful," added he, with a sneer, "that you should happen to know about the matter, for the newspapers blazoned it quite sufficiently."
"My lord, one question more. Did you ever learn who that stranger was who, under God, saved your life?"
"No; when I recovered a little, he left me at the hotel, where he was unknown, and I have never seen him since."
"Then, my lord," was the startling rejoinder, "look well at me, for I am that stranger."
"You?"
"Yes—I whom you have branded as a liar and a coward. Little thought I that the life I saved at the imminent risk of my own would be madly, wickedly jeopardized for no price whatever, as I have seen it this hour. Mine, my lord, was true courage; yours was false. Henceforth know the difference between them. Farewell."
So saying, the stranger bowed, and before another word could be uttered, had left the astounded party.