He hooked the light stripling, hard and firm, to his own staunch powerful frame, and, like a steamer lashed alongside, forced him across the wind–brunt. And so, by keeping the covered ways, by running the grooves of the hurricane, they both got safe to Rushford; to which achievement Bobʼs loving knowledge of every inch of the forest contributed at least as much as the stern strength of the parson.
Pretty Bob had no right, of course, to be out there at that time; but he had heard of a glorious company of the deathʼs–head caterpillar, in a snug potato–field, scooped from out the woodlands. He knew that they must have burrowed now, and so he set out to dig for them with his little handfork, directly the thaw allowed him. Anything to divert his mind, or rather revert it into the natural channel. He had dreamed about sugar–plums, and Amy, and butterfly–nets, and Queens of Spain, and his father scowling over all, until his brain, at that sensitive time, was like a sirex, trying to get out but stuck fast by the antennæ. Now, Bob, though awake to the little tricks and pleasant ways of Nature, as observed in cricks and crannies, knew nothing as yet of her broader moods, her purging sweeps, her clearances,—in a word, he was a stranger to the law of storms. Therefore he got a bitter lesson, and one which set him a thinking. John Rosedew, with his grand bare head bent forward to the wind–blow, and the grey locks sweeping backward—how Amy would have cried!—towed Bob Garnet down the combe which spreads out to the sea at Rushford. The fall of the waves was short and hard—no long ocean rollers yet, only an angry beating surf, sputtering under the gravel–cliff.
They found some shelter in the hollow, which opens to the south–south–west; for, though it was blowing as hard as ever, the wind had not canted round yet; and the little village of Rushford, upon which the sea is gaining so, was happy enough in its “bunney,” and could keep its candles burning.
“Iʼll go home with the boy at sundown, when the gale breaks, as I hope it will. His father will be in a dreadful way, and I know what that man is. But I could not leave the boy there, neither could I go back again.”
So said John Rosedew, lulled by the shelter, feeling as if he had frightened himself and all his household for nothing; almost ashamed to show himself at Octavius Pellʼs sea–cottage, the very last dwelling of the village. But Octave Pell knew better. He had not lived upon that coast, fagging out as a cricketer of the Church of England, with his feet and his hands ready always, and his spiked shoes holding the ground,—he had not been on the outside of all things, hoping for innings some day, without looking up at the skies sometimes, and guessing about promotion. So he knew that his rector, whom he revered beyond all the fathers of men or women—for he too was soft upon Amy—he saw that his rector was right in coming, except for his own dear sake.
John came in, with his shapely legs stuck all tight in the shrunk kerseymere (shrunk, and varnished, and puckered like plaiting, from the pelt of the rain), and by one hand still he drew the quenched and welyy Bob. The wind was sucking round the cliff, and the door flew open hard enough for a weak manʼs legs to go with it. But “Octave” Pell—as he was called, because he would sing, though he could not—the Reverend Octavius was of a sturdy order, well–balanced and steady–going. He drew in his reeking visitors, and dried, and fed, and warmed them; Bob being lodged in a suit of clothes which he could only inhabit sparsely. Then Pell laid aside his rose–root pipe out of deference to his rector, and made Bob drink hot brandy–and–water till he chattered more than his teeth had done.
That curate was a fine young fellow, a B.A. of John Rosedewʼs college, to whom John had given a title for orders—not sold it, as some rectors do, for a twelvemonthʼs stipend. A tall, strong, gentlemanly parson, stuck up in no wise, nor stuck down; neither of the High nor Low Church rut, although an improvement on the old type which cared for none of these things. He did his duty by his parish; and, as follows almost of necessity, his parish loved and admired him. He never lifted a poor manʼs pot–lid to know what he had for dinner; he never made much of sectarian squabbles, nor tried to exorcise dissent. In a word, he kept his place, because he felt and loved it.
Only two rooms had Pell to boast of, but he was wonderfully happy in them. He could find all his property in the dark, and had only one silver spoon. And the man who can be happy with one, was born with it in his mouth. Those two rooms he rented from old Jacob Thwarthawse, or rather from Mrs. Jacob, for the old man was a pilot on the Southampton Water, and scarcely home twice in a twelvemonth. The little cot looked like a boat–house at the bottom of the bunney; so close it was to the high–water mark, that the froth of the waves and the drifting skates’ eggs came almost up to the threshold when the tide ran big, and the wind blew fresh.
And in the gentle summer night—pray what is it in Theocritus? John Rosedew could tell, but not I—at least, I mean without looking—
“Along the pinched caboose, on every side,
With mincing murmur swam the ocean tide.”