The Martian: A Novel

by George Du Maurier

He was devoted to her, and a splendid little chap, and in the holidays he and she and I were inseparable, and of course Chucker‑out, who went with us wherever it was—Hâvre, Dieppe, Dinard, the Highlands, Whitby, etc.

Once we were privileged to settle ourselves for two months in Castle Rohan, through the kindness of Lord Whitby; and that was the best holiday of all—for the young people especially. And more especially for Barty himself, who had such delightful boyish recollections of that delightful place, and found many old friends among the sailors and fisher people—who remembered him as a boy.

Chips and Marty and I and the faithful Chucker‑out were never happier than on those staiths where there is always such an ancient and fishlike smell; we never tired of watching the miraculous draughts of silver herring being disentangled from the nets and counted into baskets, which were carried on the heads of the stalwart, scaly fishwomen, and packed with salt and ice in innumerable barrels for Billingsgate and other great markets; or else the sales by auction of huge cod and dark‑gray dog‑fish as they lay helpless all of a row on the wet flags amid a crowd of sturdy mariners looking on, with their hands in their pockets and their pipes in their mouths.

Then over that restless little bridge to the picturesque old town, and through its long, narrow street, and up the many stone steps to the ruined abbey and the old church on the East Cliff; and the old churchyard, where there are so many stones in memory of those who were lost at sea.

It was good to be there, in such good company, on a sunny August morning, and look around and about and down below: the miles and miles of purple moor, the woods of Castle Rohan, the wide North Sea, which turns such a heavenly blue beneath a cloudless sky; the two stone piers, with each its lighthouse, and little people patiently looking across the waves for Heaven knows what! the busy harbor full of life and animation; under our feet the red roofs of the old town and the little clock tower of the market‑place; across the stream the long quay with its ale‑houses and emporiums and jet shops and lively traffic; its old gabled dwellings and their rotting wooden balconies. And rising out of all this, tier upon tier, up the opposite cliff, the Whitby of the visitors, dominated by a gigantic windmill that is—or was—almost as important a landmark as the old abbey itself.

To the south the shining river ebbs and flows, between its big ship‑building yards and the railway to York, under endless moving craft and a forest of masts, now straight on end, now slanting helplessly on one side when there's not water enough to float their keels; and the long row of Cornish fishing‑smacks, two or three deep.

How the blue smoke of their cooking wreathes upward in savory whiffs and whirls! They are good cooks, these rovers from Penzance, and do themselves well, and remind us that it is time to go and get lunch at the hotel.

We do, and do ourselves uncommonly well also; and afterwards we take a boat, we four (if the tide serves), and row up for a mile or so to a certain dam at Ruswarp, and there we take another boat on a lovely little secluded river, which is quite independent of tides, and where for a mile or more the trees bend over us from either side as we leisurely paddle along and watch the leaping salmon‑trout, pulling now and then under a drooping ash or weeping‑willow to gaze and dream or chat, or read out loud from Sylvia's Lovers; Sylvia Robson once lived in a little farm‑house near Upgang, which we know well, and at Whitby every one reads about Sylvia Robson; or else we tell stories, or inform each other what a jolly time we're having, and tease old Chucker‑out, who gets quite excited, and we admire the discretion with which he disposes of his huge body as ballast to trim the boat, and remains perfectly still in spite of his excitement for fear he should upset us. Indeed, he has been learning all his life how to behave in boats, and how to get in and out of them.

And so on till tea‑time at five, and we remember there's a little inn at Sleights, where the scones are good; or, better still, a leafy garden full of raspberry‑bushes at Cock Mill, where they give excellent jam with your tea, and from which there are three ways of walking back to Whitby when there's not enough water to row—and which is the most delightful of those three ways has never been decided yet.

Then from the stone pier we watch a hundred brown‑sailed Cornish fishing‑smacks follow each other in single file across the harbor bar and go sailing out into the west as the sun goes down—a most beautiful sight, of which Marty feels all the mystery and the charm and the pathos, and Chips all the jollity and danger and romance.