Mary Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale

by R. D. Blackmore

The revenue officer had far to go, and was wise in providing provender. And the weather being on the fall toward the equinox, and the tides running strong and uncertain, he had made up his mind to fare inland, instead of attempting the watery ways. He felt that he could ride, as every sailor always feels; and he had a fine horse upon hire from his butcher, which the king himself would pay for. The inferior men had been sent ahead on foot, with orders to march along and hold their tongues. And one of these men was John Cadman, the self-same man who had descended the cliff without any footpath. They were all to be ready, with hanger and pistol, in a hole toward Byrsa Cottage.

Lieutenant Carroway enjoyed his ride. There are men to whom excitement is an elevation of the sad and slow mind, which otherwise seems to have nothing to do. And what finer excitement can a good mind have than in balancing the chances of its body tumbling out of the saddle, and evicting its poor self?

The mind of Charles Carroway was wide awake to this, and tenderly anxious about the bad foot in which its owner ended—because of the importance of the stirrups—and all the sanguine vigor of the heart (which seemed to like some thumping) conveyed to the seat of reason little more than a wish to be well out of it. The brave lieutenant holding place, and sticking to it through a sense of duty, and of the difficulty of getting off, remembered to have heard, when quite a little boy, that a man who gazes steadily between his horse's ears can not possibly tumble off the back. The saying in its wisdom is akin to that which describes the potency of salt upon a sparrow's tail.

While Carroway gloomily pounded the road, with reflection a dangerous luxury, things of even deeper interest took their course at the goal of his endeavors. Mary Anerley, still an exile in the house of the tanner, by reason of her mother's strict coast-guard, had long been thinking that more injustice is done in the world than ought to be; and especially in the matter of free trade she had imbibed lax opinions, which may not be abhorrent to a tanner's nature, but were most unbecoming to the daughter of a farmer orthodox upon his own land, and an officer of King's Fencibles. But how did Mary make this change, and upon questions of public policy chop sides, as quickly as a clever journal does? She did it in the way in which all women think, whose thoughts are of any value, by allowing the heart to go to work, being the more active organ, and create large scenery, into which the tempted mind must follow. To anybody whose life has been saved by anybody else, there should arise not only a fine image of the preserver, but a high sense of the service done to the universe, which must have gone into deepest mourning if deprived of No. One. And then, almost of necessity, succeeds the investment of this benefactor to the world at large with all the great qualities needed for an exploit so stupendous. He has done a great deed, he has proved himself to be gallant, generous, magnanimous; shall I, who exist through his grand nobility, listen to his very low enemies? Therefore Robin was an angel now, and his persecutors must be demons.

Captain Lyth had not been slow to enter into his good luck. He knew that Master Popplewell had a cultivated taste for rare old schnapps, while the partner of his life, and labor, and repose, possessed a desire for the finer kinds of lace. Attending to these points, he was always welcome; and the excellent couple encouraged his affection and liberal goodwill toward them. But Mary would accept no presents from him, and behaved for a long time very strangely, and as if she would rather keep out of his way. Yet he managed to keep on running after her, as much as she managed to run away; for he had been down now into the hold of his heart, searching it with a dark lantern, and there he had discovered “Mary,” “Mary,” not only branded on the hullage of all things, but the pith and pack of everything; and without any fraud upon charter-party, the cargo entire was “Mary.”

Who can tell what a young maid feels, when she herself is doubtful? Somehow she has very large ideas, which only come up when she begins to think; and too often, after some very little thing, she exclaims that all is rubbish. The key-note of her heart is high, and a lot of things fall below harmony, and notably (if she is not a stupe), some of her own dear love's expressions before she has made up her soul to love him. This is a hard time for almost any man, who feels his random mind dipped into with a spirit-gauge and a saccharometer. But in spite of all these indications, Robin Lyth stuck to himself, which is the right way to get credit for sticking.

“Johnny, my dear,” said Deborah Popplewell to her valued husband, just about the time when bold Carroway was getting hot and sore upon the Filey Road, yet steadily enlarging all the penance of return, “things ought to be coming to a point, I think. We ought not to let them so be going on forever. Young people like to be married in the spring; the birds are singing, and the price of coal goes down. And they ought to be engaged six months at least. We were married in the spring, my dear, the Tuesday but one that comes next from Easter-day. There was no lilac out, but there ought to have been, because it was not sunny. And we have never repented it, you know.”

“Never as long as I live shall I forget that day,” said Popplewell; “they sent me home a suit of clothes as were made for kidney-bean sticks. I did want to look nice at church, and crack, crack, crack they went, and out came all the lining. Debby, I had good legs in those days, and could crunch down bark like brewers' grains.”

“And so you could now, my dear, every bit as well. Scarcely any of the young men have your legs. How thankful we ought to be for them—and teeth! But everything seems to be different now, and nobody has any dignity of mind. We sowed broad beans, like a pigeon's foot-tread, out and in, all the way to church.”

“The folk can never do such things now; we must not expect it of such times, my dear. Five-and-forty years ago was ninety times better than these days, Debby, except that you and I was steadfast, and mean to be so to the end, God willing. Lord! what are the lasses that He makes now?”