 | CHAPTER XXII.
AN OLD SMUGGLER. The new priest in Conception Bay |  |
22. CHAPTER XXII.
AN OLD SMUGGLER.
IT was not long after the magistratual examination
was completed, before the constable made his appearance
at Mr. Wellon's door, followed by Jesse
and a company.
“Please, Mr. Wellon,” said he, “here's a bit o' something
Jesse's brought; Skipper George found un in the
path by his house, this mornin'. That's what made un
take it so hard not findin' her at Mr. Urston's to-day,
I'll go bail.”
“'E was laayun jes this w'y, sir,” said Jesse; (“so
Uncle George told I,) wi' 'e's broadside to, an' a string
fast to un, 'e said, otherw'ys Uncle George wouldn' ha'
tookt notus to un, 'e said, (didn' um Izik?) an' the string
cotch 'e's foot, sir.”
The thing was a chip, smoothed on all sides, and bearing
an inscription, rude and illegible enough, but which
Jesse repeated very glibly in his own English.
“YER MEAD IS SAFE ANF.”
It was determined that the bit of wood was an oarblade,
and that the meaning was,
“Your maid is safe enough.”
Gilpin dismissed the fishermen and went, as he had
been desired, into Mr. Wellon's study.
The writing upon the chip was not the only literary
effort to be scrutinized. There had been left at the
Minister's door, during the night, a bit of paper on which
(the handwriting being better than the spelling or syntax)
was written as follows:—
“Thers som prodstins bisen about sarchen that's not to
Gud is niver thafe ar smuglar Emunx thim id lik to no
Ef al tels bes thru—plen Spakun.”
Gilpin made his way through this much more readily
than Mr. Wellon had done, smiling at the word “Emunx”
which he said “was one way o' spellin' it!”
What the writer meant to have written, it was concluded,
was,—
“There's some Protestants busying about searching,
that's not too good. Is (there) never (a) thief or smuggler
amongst them, I'd like to know,—if all tales bes true?
—Plain Speaking.”
Gilpin said, “It was easy enough to see what that
meant; it meant Ladford, who fished with Skipper
George, and who was said to have been a wild and desperate
fellow years ago, and to have a price on his head.
He had been very active in the search; a quiet man that
kept back, as Mr. Wellon no doubt had noticed, on Saturday.
But if ever a man had repented in this world, Ladford
had repented, Gilpin believed, and he had been a great
many years in the country. Withal he was the very
handiest man in the Bay; could work a frigate, Gilpin
believed, single-handed, and twirl her round in her own
length.
“As for Skipper George's daughter, everybody knew
that Ladford considered her as an angel, or something
more than earthly; and it was no more to be thought that
he'd harm her, than that her own father would. There
but whether there was a relationship, or what, nobody
knew.”
This was Gilpin's story; and with what Mr. Wellon
had heard before, determined him to find out Ladford and
talk with him; to give the letter to the magistrate just
then, was not thought likely to further the ends of justice;
nor was it thought advisable to mention it.
Captain Nolesworth's opinion, about the punt, seemed
well worth attending to; and it was determined, if possible,
to follow it up. Messrs. Worner & Co.'s head clerk had
expressed a willingness, on behalf of the house, to put
down their names for fifty pounds towards one hundred, to
be offered as reward for finding the lost maiden,—or one
half of fifty pounds for finding her body; and it was
understood that the other merchants of the place (including
Mr. O'Rourke,) would make up the full sum. Undoubtedly
Government would take it up, if the local
magistrates could not do any thing; and whatever facts, if
any, should come out, implicating any persons in the guilt
of kidnapping or abduction, could be laid before the
Grand Jury. Ladford's house, on the southern side of
Indian Point, was the worst there,—and scarcely a house.
Ladford, himself, was of middle size, or more, and upright,
except his head. He had a high, smooth forehead;
deep-set eyes, looking as if their fires were raked up;
slender nose, and thin cheeks and lips;—the whole face
tanned by life-long exposure to the weather.
Beside a battered “sou'-wester,” thrown backward, his
dress was made up of a shirt of bread-bag-stuff, sewed
with round twine, in even sailmaker's stitches, and clean;
and of trowsers cut out of tanned sails, and sewed as
neatly as the shirt. His feet were bare.
“I've come upon some private business with you,” said
the Minister;—Ladford started. The Minister, noticing
it, said: “but I'm not an officer; you needn't be afraid
of me.”
“I oughtn't, sir, surely, of a Minister,” said Ladford.
“No; and needn't. You see I know something of your
case; and we should have known each other, if I could
have found you before; for I've been here two or three
times.”
As he mentioned his fruitless visits, a startling—most
repulsive—leer just showed itself in Ladford's face; but
it disappeared, as suddenly and wholly, as a monster that
has come up, horrid and hideous, to the surface of the
sea, and then has sunk again, bodily, into the dark Deep;
and is gone, as if it had never come, except for the fear
and loathing that it leaves behind.—This face, after that
look, had nothing repulsive in it, but was only the more
subdued and sad.
There was a short silence; and then Ladford spoke:—
“Some men,” said he, “mus'n't keep upon their form;
for it won't do for them to be found by every one; but
I'm sorry you came for nothing, sir; I'd have been here
if I'd known you meant it.”
The Minister took the anonymous letter from his pocket,
and read it.
“There!” said he, “that's what I came about; but
I come as a Minister, you know, and therefore as a
friend.”
“I believe it, sir,” said Ladford, who had been looking
in his face, and now bowed. “I don't blame any man
for thinking ill of me, or speaking ill of me;—I'm a poor
fellow;—but this does me wrong. Why, sir! it may
sound strange, but I'd give my life to find that girl!
now;—my line's nearly paid out, sir.”
As he spoke thus, implying a presentiment of his own
near death, he looked fixedly at the Minister, as if to see
what impression the words made. Then hastily added,
anticipating the answer,—“Those things are all as God
wills; but it comes in on me, like an east wind. Now,
what can I say to you, sir? I wouldn't mind telling all
my story to you, some day, if you'd care to hear it; but
after that letter, I must go off, for a while.”
“Oh! but you needn't go away,” said the Minister,
“being innocent.”
“Yes, sir, but I must; I won't stay away, but for a
while; and I can do something, perhaps, all the time. I
know a place to look in. You'll be like to see me, or hear
from me, before long.”
“I should be glad to hear your story,” said the Minister.
“I suppose your life has been a pretty dark one; but
you repent.”
“It is a bad story, I confess, sir; thirty-six years of
smuggling and all deviltry.—That's a good while!”
“Not so long as God's mercy, to one who repents and
believes,” said the Minister; whose very lips Ladford
watched, much as a deaf man does.
“And one thing I can truly say:—In all my life I
never, knowingly, hurt man, woman, or child—: but
once! but ONCE! and that was a bad `once!'—Ah! poor
Susan!”—As Ladford said this, he gave way, without
restraint; he then continued, (more to himself than to his
hearer,) “I'd give my life to find this girl, if it was only
to help make up for that!”
“We can't make up for one thing, with another,” said
the Minister, gently; “but we can repent, and plead the
Blood of Christ.”
“Ay, sir! Thank God, I know it; and I've been
working away, on that course, these years back.—But,
sir, I was brought up to wickedness, for a trade. You'd
have thought they were a set of devils, out of Hell!
Law-breaking, Sabbath-breaking, oath-breaking, heart-breaking,
swearing, drinking, fighting,—thirty-six years I
was among all that, and more; shamed by it, and hating
it, till I got away from it.—Then, after all, to feel a devil
inside of you, that you've got in a chain; and to feel him
climb up against the sides of you, in here, before you
know, and glare, with his devilish look, out of your eyes,
and put his dirty paw and pull up the corners of your
mouth, and play with the tackle in your throat, and make
the words come out as you didn't mean, and then to feel
that this fellow's growth is out of your own life!”
Mr. Wellon, as he looked at the man, during this
speech, could see, in a sort of fearful pantomime, the
struggle started and stifled between the poor fellow and
his devilish beastly familiar.
“But you do get him down. Christ will trample him
under foot. The more you need it, the more help you
get; `He giveth more grace,'” said the Minister of God,
pouring out encouragement to him.
“I haven't been a man,” said the poor fellow, showing,
by the very words, that he had never lost his manhood;
“I never was a son, nor a brother, nor a friend—.”
“Were you ever married?” asked the Minister.
“No sir; never. I ought to have been, and meant to
have been; but I wasn't.—There's one that knows that
story, if he choose to tell it;” and saying this, Ladford
looked at the Parson humbly, as if waiting for further
question, and then proceeded: “It's just about that part
of my life I'll tell,—if you'll please to hear; 'twas the
it all. And it'll come in very well just now. Perhaps,
you'll know me the better when you've heard it. I
tried to do my duty like a man, to one thing, and there's
all that's left of it,” taking the black ribbon out of a
Bible,—“It's all right,—it's all right!”
Many well-bred people would have been content with
seeing this poor man's relic, and would have kept their
touch and smell far off from it; but Mr. Wellon, with the
senses of a gentleman, had a man's heart, and was a minister
of Christ. He saw that the owner wished to lay it
in his hand, and he held out his hand for it and took it.
“That riband,” the story went on, “used to be about a
little boy's neck; a pretty little fellow:— like this Lucy;
very like!—It isn't likely that he'd have been a wonderful
scholar, like her, but oh! as pretty a little fellow as
ever God made to grow in the world. He was so
straight!—and he stood right up and looked in your face;
as much as to say, `Do you know God? Well, I belong
to Him.' There!—There!”—said poor Ladford, overcome
with what he had been saying and thinking, and
falling down on himself,—his breast on his Bible and his
head between his knees—and giving two heaves of his
body, forward and back. He then raised himself up
again; and, as his hearer, of course, said nothing, he
began again, when he was ready: “His hair was as
thick and solid, as if't was cut out of stone; and his lip had
such a curl to it, just like the crest to a wave;—you
know Lucy's,—it was much the same. I can't tell you his
eyes. You could look into 'em, and wouldn't think there
was any bottom to 'em. It seemed as if you could look
miles into 'em.—Oh! that boy!” he exclaimed, in such
an intense sort of way as might have fixed one of the
visitor:—
“You're not tired of hearing, Mr. Wellon?”
“No, no.”
“Oh! that —! He's gone! — and 'twas this
hand! this very hand —!”
The voice was one of sorrow and not of remorse; but,
having in mind the wild life that this man had led, and,
perhaps, having his heart full of the child that had seemed,
a moment before, to be playing close by them, Mr. Wellon
cried out—
“Why, what did you do to him?”
“Oh! no! not so bad as that.—Not worse than I am,
though,” said Ladford, the indignant voice changing to
self-reproach; “but I couldn't have hurt him, unless I
was drunk, and I never was drunk in my life.”
“Whose child was it?” asked the clergyman.
The smuggler looked at him, with a start, and answered
instantly,—
“He was God's child!”
Having waited for any further question, and none being
asked, he again went on where he had left off:—
“I took him to the church myself, on this arm, and
two real good Christians were godfather and godmother,
for the poor mother's sake. I was over in the far corner;
she wasn't there. I didn't carry him back from church.
I wouldn't have opened my arms to take him in any more
than if he'd been the Lord Jesus Christ, in a manner.
They did love him dearly—poor motherless, fatherless
darling!”
“Why, what became of the mother?”
“Oh! she died. Naturally, she died,” answered the
smuggler, shaking his head and looking down. “I can't
had had so much wickedness done on it, got that boy.”
“I thought he never came near it,” said the Parson,
much as if he thought that he could save it all yet, and
keep the pretty boy, by thrusting in an impossibility made
of words.
Poor Ladford looked mournfully at him, and wistfully,
almost as if he, too, half hoped that it might not all be as
it was, and then, glancing at the black ribbon, continued
his story:—
“He never did, sir; but it got him, just as much as if
it had a great rope of seaweed fast to him and dragged
him in. One day when I was going down the cliff, thinking
of nothing, what should be there, like a beautiful bird
or a butterfly on the path, but that handsome, handsome
boy! I was confused and mazed like, I suppose. It
was so strange to see him there; I don't know if he'd
ever been told not to come to the sea; but he'd been kept
about home; and when I saw him, if I'd only once had
the thought to speak to him;—but I hadn't. I was frightened,
I suppose, and I put out my hand to save him—just
this way—and that's all. That was the last ever was
known of that beautiful child, alive. There's my mark,”
said Ladford, showing the lower half of his left arm with
a knob on it, where it might have been broken.
“Ah! that's a bad break. That was broken in more
than one place, or it hadn't good surgery,” said Mr.
Wellon.
“You know about surgery, sir?” said the smuggler.
“It was broken more than once; but I think the surgeon
did his best. I went over the cliff, too.”
“And the child was lost and you saved, though all the
probability was the other way.”
“Yes, indeed. They say I gave a great spring, like a
madman, and cleared every thing, (except what did this,
and nobody could tell what that was,) and he! he went
right down to his death. There was a rose-bush all
there, where they buried him, and his spirit and life and
all his dear, blessed beauty was gone away out of the
world; and whether it took something out of my eyes I
don't know; but there isn't such a brightness on the
leaves, or grass, or any where. I saved that bit of riband;
it went down with me and came up with me.—
Now, sir,” said Ladford, suddenly gathering himself up,
“I want to get this girl of George Barbury's. It's a good
thing that it wasn't me that went down; ay, it's a merciful
thing, that it wasn't me taken away without e'er a
hand or a word raised up!—But, Parson Wellon, if
there's a way on earth, we must find George Barbury's
daughter. God only knows what I'd give to be the one
to find her!—I owe George Barbury life's blood, and
more!—though he's forgiven me.”
The Minister waited, but Ladford added nothing.
“Then that brought you up?”
“I was brought up at last, but it was years first. I
stopped many a bad thing being done by shipmates or
landsmen after that, and at last I knocked right off. I
had a house and a garden and a fishing boat, and I meant
to sell the whole of 'em, and give away the money to
something good; but they got out a warrant against me,
long after I'd given up, and just when I was going to try
to do some good after all my bad, and so I got away, and
came off; and the neighbors know what I've been since
I've been in this country.”
“You haven't given over honest labor, I hope, now
that you are repenting?” asked Mr. Wellon, his question
appearance of the former smuggler's house and dress.
“No, sir; I do a man's work,” answered the smuggler;
“perhaps more.”
“But you don't drink”—
“And yet I live in that wretched place, and dress like
a convict, you might say,” answered Ladford with a quiet,
sad smile, drawing the contrast in words, that the Minister
had, most likely, in his thought.
“For a man's work you can get a man's wages, can't
you?”
“That wouldn't follow in my case,” said the poor exile;
“but I do.”
Mr. Wellon understood the sentence and replied—
“But certainly, any body that employed you would pay
you?”
“Not so surely; but I'm laying up wages in one place,
I hope. I live, and all I can do in a day's work, is for
others, and I hope I'm laying something by.”
Just as Mr. Wellon was leaving him, a voice was
heard from above, in the little woods, and Ladford answered—
“'Is. I'se a comin'. I'll be with 'ee in short, and
bear a hand about that chumley.” And so entirely had
he taken the words and way of the country, that he
seemed almost another man.
His story had not been a very complete one; but
there seemed to be a tie that bound Ladford to Lucy's
father, or herself, through that boy.
| CHAPTER XXII.
AN OLD SMUGGLER. The new priest in Conception Bay | |