Erema; Or, My Father's Sin

by R. D. Blackmore

“Bless me!” cried the Major, “now I never thought of that. Common people have such ways about things they are used to! I might have stood here for a month, and never have thought of that way to settle it. Ridiculously simple. Give me a taste, Erema. Ah, that is the real beauty of our coast, my dear! The strongest proportion of the saline element—I should know the taste of it any where. No sea-weed, no fishy particles, no sludge, no beards of oysters. The pure, uncontaminated, perfect brine, that sets every male and female on his legs, varicose, orthopedic—I forget their scientifics, but I know the smack of it.”

“Certainly,” I said, “it is beautifully salt. It will give you an appetite for dinner, Major Hockin. I could drink a pint of it, after all that smoke. But don't you think it is a serious thing for the sea itself to come pouring through the bottom of this pebble bank in this way?”

“Not at all. No, I rather like it. It opens up many strictly practical ideas. It adds very much to the value of the land. For instance, a 'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it—and set up an infirmary for foot and mouth disease. And better still, the baths, the baths, my dear. No expense for piping, or pumping, or any thing. Only place your marble at the proper level, and twice a day you have the grand salubrious sparkling influx of ocean's self, self-filtered, and by its own operation permeated with a fine siliceous element. What foreign mud could compete with such a bath?”

“But supposing there should come too much of it,” I said, “and wash both the baths and the bathers away?”

“Such an idea is ridiculous. It can be adjusted to a nicety. I am very glad I happened to observe this thing, this—this noble phenomenon. I shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I am half an hour older. My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite forgot to tell you; but never mind that for the present. Driver, here is half a crown for you. Your master will put down the fly to my account. He owes me a heriot. I shall claim his best beast, the moment he gets one without a broken wind.”

As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wonted alacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had done in London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw) that somebody else might come down for me. And this was Sir Montague Hockin, as I feared was only too likely from what had been said. If I had even suspected that this gentleman was at Bruntlands, I would have done my utmost to stay where I was, in spite of all absence of money. Betsy would gladly have allowed me to remain, without paying even a farthing, until it should become convenient. Pride had forbidden me to speak of this; but I would have got over that pride much rather than meet this Sir Montague Hockin thus. Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether; and having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps, foolish importance to that.

However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one through instinct; and I knew already that in England young women are not quite such masters of their own behavior as in the far West they are allowed to be. And so I did my best that, even in my eyes, he should not see how vexed I was at meeting him. And soon it appeared that this behavior, however painful to me, was no less wise than good, because both with my host and hostess this new visitor was already at the summit of all good graces. He had conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes and upshots, and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the distance; and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had opened a hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of an extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with every feather sticking inside out. When I saw them, I tried for my life not to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded, until the cock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb and very sad inversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife (who stood beneath him, even more turned inside out), capered with his twiggy legs, and gave a long, sad crow. Mrs. Hockin looked at him with intense delight.

“Erema, is it possible that you laugh? I thought that you never laughed, Erema. At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might choose a fitter opportunity, I think. You have spoiled his demonstration altogether—see, he does not understand such unkindness—and it is the very first he has uttered since he came. Oh, poor Fluffsky!”

“I am very, very sorry. But how was I to help it? I would not, on any account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive. Fluffsky, do please to begin again.”

“These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you,” said Sir Montague, coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers for one more crow. “Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have a fowl that even Lady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have it in a week, or a fortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can manage it. They are not to be had except through certain channels, and the fellows who write the poultry books have never even heard of them.”