Mary Anerley: A Yorkshire Tale

by R. D. Blackmore

This was a trifle too much for Carroway. Up he jumped with surprising speed, took one stride through the station door, and seizing Cadman by the collar, shook him, wrung his ear with the left hand, which was like a pair of pincers, and then with the other flung him backward as if he were an empty bag. The fellow was too much amazed to strike, or close with him, or even swear, but received the vehement impact without any stay behind him. So that he staggered back, hat downward, and striking one heel on a stone, fell over the brink of the shallow cliff to the sand below.

The lieutenant, who never had thought of this, was terribly scared, and his wrath turned cold. For although the fall was of no great depth, and the ground at the bottom so soft, if the poor man had struck it poll foremost, as he fell, it was likely that his neck was broken. Without any thought of his crippled heel, Carroway took the jump himself.

As soon as he recovered from the jar, which shook his stiff joints and stiffer back, he ran to the coast-guardsman and raised him, and found him very much inclined to swear. This was a good sign, and the officer was thankful, and raised him in the gravelly sand, and kindly requested him to have it out, and to thank the Lord as soon as he felt better. But Cadman, although he very soon came round, abstained from every token of gratitude. Falling with his mouth wide open in surprise, he had filled it with gravel of inferior taste, as a tidy sewer pipe ran out just there, and at every execration he discharged a little.

“What can be done with a fellow so ungrateful?” cried the lieutenant, standing stiffly up again; “nothing but to let him come back to his manners. Hark you, John Cadman, between your bad words, if a glass of hot grog will restore your right wits, you can come up and have it, when your clothes are brushed.”

With these words Carroway strode off to his cottage, without even deigning to look back, for a minute had been enough to show him that no very serious harm was done.

The other man did not stir until his officer was out of sight; and then he arose and rubbed himself, but did not care to go for his rummer of hot grog.

“I must work this off,” the lieutenant said, as soon as he had told his wife, and received his scolding; “I can not sit down; I must do something. My mind is becoming too much for me, I fear. Can you expect me to be laughed at? I shall take a little sail in the boat; the wind suits, and I have a particular reason. Expect me, my dear, when you see me.”

In half an hour the largest boat, which carried a brass swivel-gun in her bows, was stretching gracefully across the bay, with her three white sails flashing back the sunset. The lieutenant steered, and he had four men with him, of whom Cadman was not one, that worthy being left at home to nurse his bruises and his dudgeon. These four men now were quite marvellously civil, having heard of their comrade's plight, and being pleased alike with that and with their commander's prowess. For Cadman was by no means popular among them, because, though his pay was the same as theirs, he always tried to be looked up to; the while his manners were not distinguished, and scarcely could be called polite, when a supper required to be paid for. In derision of this, and of his desire for mastery, they had taken to call him “Boatswain Jack,” or “John Boatswain,” and provoked him by a subscription to present him with a pig-whistle. For these were men who liked well enough to receive hard words from their betters who were masters of their business, but saw neither virtue nor value in submitting to superior airs from their equals.

The Royal George, as this boat was called, passed through the fleet of quiet vessels, some of which trembled for a second visitation; but not deigning to molest them, she stood on, and rounding Flamborough Head, passed by the pillar rocks called King and Queen, and bore up for the North Landing cove. Here sail was taken in, and oars were manned; and Carroway ordered his men to pull in to the entrance of each of the well-known caves.

To enter these, when any swell is running, requires great care and experience; and the Royal George had too much beam to do it comfortably, even in the best of weather. And now what the sailors call a “chopping sea” had set in with the turn of the tide, although the wind was still off-shore; so that even to lie to at the mouth made rather a ticklish job of it. The men looked at one another, and did not like it, for a badly handled oar would have cast them on the rocks, which are villainously hard and jagged, and would stave in the toughest boat, like biscuit china. However, they durst not say that they feared it; and by skill and steadiness they examined all three caves quite enough to be certain that no boat was in them.