Off the Skelligs

Chapter I

'There were giants in the earth in those days.'— Gen. vi. 4. 'Seigneur! preservez-moi, preservez ceux quej'aime, -Freres, parens, amis, et mes ennemis meme ; Dans le mal triomphants, De jamais voir, Seigneur ! l'cte sans fleurs vermeilles, La cage sans oiseaux, la ruehe sans abeilles, La maison sans enfans ! ' — Victor Hugo. My father's house stood in a quiet country town, through which a tidal river flowed. The banks of the river were flanked by wooden wharves, which were supported on timbers, and projected over the water. They had granaries behind them, and one of my earliest pleasures was to watch the gangs of men who at high tide towed vessels up the river, where, being moored before these gra naries, cargoes of corn were shot down from VOL. I. the upper stories into their holds, through wooden troughs not unlike fire-escapes.

The back of my father's house was on a level with the wharves, and overlooked a long reach of the river. Our nursery was a low room in the roof, having a large bow-window, in the old-fashioned seat of which I spent many a happy hour with my brother, some times listening to the soft, hissing sound made by the wheat in its descent, sometimes admiring the figure-heads of the vessels, or laboriously spelling out the letters of their names. When the tide was low there was fresh pleasure. Then we could watch the happy little boys, who, with trousers tucked above their knees, used to wade among the piles, which were all green with sea-grass and brist ling with barnacles. We could see them pick ing up empty shells and bits of driftwood in the yellowish mud, or sometimes one of them would discover an old pot or kettle, on which he would drum and play uncouth music.

Joy ous urchins ! I was too complete a baby to envy them, but I thought how grand a lot was theirs. I had a brother two years older than myself. Before I could speak he had taught me my letters, and I used to pick them up and present them to him as he called for them. Of course he was a tiny child at the time, but to me he appeared very large. Nothing has changed to me since babyhood so much as opinions concerning size and height. Truly, ' there were giants in the earth in those days.' All grown-up people appeared to me to be nearly of a size ; — my father was a giant, my mother was a giantess, my brother was large, knowing, old, and never sufficiently to be respected. Rose trees were trees indeed, and no bushes then ! I pulled the roses clown to smell them, and I put up my finger into the flowers of the tall tiger lilies as I stood on tip-toe under them, and regarded the dark dust that came off upon it as something remarkable, procured from a higher sphere.

When my nurse took me up in her arms, oh, what pleasure to see the things on the table, to look down on that distant place the floor, and see my little sister creeping there. A report reached me one day (not, how ever, from a trustworthy source, for it was our little nursemaid who brought it to me) — a report to the effect that once I had been a little baby like her ! That must have been a long time ago, I thought. I pondered on it, but it seemed unlikely, and I did not be lieve it. But as the rich go from their towm houses to their country seats, and as the Vicar of Wakefield and Mrs Primrose migrated from the blue bed to the brown, so we had our periodical changes. Life in the nursery was well enough, but life in the best bed-room smacked of the sublime. The nursery, being in the roof and facing south, became glowing hot towards after noon ; but in the front of the house was a large, delightful room, with closed shutters, into which, on our promise to be quiet, our nurse would often take us, and, folding back one of the shutters, allow us to admire the chintz curtains all gay with apple-boughs and goldfinches flying with spread wings.

Then she would let us climb on to the window-seat, and there we enjoyed hours of contemplation, and hours of talk unintelligible to any but ourselves. What a world those windows opened out to us ! They looked into the minster yard. It was smooth and paved with flagstones, and in its midst rose the great brown minster, the old minster that was full of little holes, and had a bird's head peeping out of each. Oh, to see the rooks and starlings poised on the swaying weathercocks ; to hear the great clock give warning ; to listen to the bells and shout to each other while their clashing. voices hummed and buzzed around us and over us ; to see the clergymen walking in to prayers, and all the blue-coat boys and girls trooping after them ; to watch the father rooks as they flew home with wriggling worms in their mouths ; to see the little starlings creep out of their holes and sit in a row pecking and wrangling,^these were sights indeed.

When shall pleasures for grown-up folks be found to match them ? My brother was the hero of my history, and the being whom I imitated to the utmost of my power. He was a very remarkable child, and had such a retentive memory, that as soon as he could speak he could learn by heart anything that was repeated slowly to him, whether he understood it or not. Our father, perceiving his extraordinary precocity, was very proud of him, and taught him several scenes from Shakespeare, which he used to let him act, making him stamp, frown, and use all kinds of appropriate ges tures, and exciting him by praises and rewards. He little knew the mischief that he was doing by forcing such a brain. On the contrary, he thought education could not begin too early ; and, not content with the progress his child made at home, he sent him at four years old to a lady, who engaged to ' bring him forward.' Under her teaching he mastered reading very quickly, and, reading once learned, vain would have been the attempt to keep him back in other things.

He loved best a large old edition of Shake speare, and our nurse used to let him carry it up into the nursery, because poring over it kept him so quiet. Every scene that he liked he learned. Fighting and slaying scenes were his fa vourites ; and when he knew them by heart he would shut up the folio, stand upon it, and begin to act, while I, being the audi ence, sat on the floor and stared admiringly. He would pretend to cry, would hold out his little hand with a menacing air, then fall down on the floor with a solemn face and a deep sigh, which gave me to understand that he was dead, and that his enemies had killed him. All this my brother did and learned, over and above what he was taught by the lady to whom he was sent for instruction, and my mother never discovered it; otherwise, I believe she would have found some less dan gerous amusement for him.

But she was very delicate, and we seldom saw her, for she could not endure the least noise, and con stantly suffered from headache. At last, one day, ' Snap,' — for that was the only name by which I knew him, this sound having been the first my baby lips had uttered in their apprenticeship to the art of talking, — Snap was seen by me lying on his little bed, the doctor standing on one side and my mother on the other. I was not distinctly sorry for Snap, as not understanding why he was to be pitied — he was not crying — consequently I did not think he could be hurt ; but I wanted to kiss him. Therefore I crept up to his bed and patted his face ; but he did not wake. Some thing nice was brought to him to eat ; but as he would not have it they gave it to me, and I ate it for him. A long time after this Snap got up again ; his hair was very short, and he could not walk, but used to creep on his hands and knees like our little sister.

I thought this very droll, and used to imitate him ; but he soon learned to walk again, and then we thought it very strange when nurse told us that he was not to go to school any more for a long time, not to have Shakes peare, and not to learn anything at all. Snap cried when the great Shakespeare was carried out of the nursery, and he often wearied of looking out of the windows at the ships and at the minster. At last, having absolute need of something to do, he be thought himself, as I suppose, that it would be a desirable thing to make an occupation of me, and every day he taught me scenes and songs, making me a willing little slave, and being kind to me on the whole, though he felt a natural disgust at my not being able to speak plainly, for I lisped after the fashion of very young children, and sometimes wished to lie down on. the floor and go to sleep in the middle of his lesson.

Every day, after we had dined, our dear mamma would come into the nursery and inquire whether we were good, putting her white hand to her brow, and saying wearily, ' I hope my boy is quiet, nurse, and not doing anything particular.' ' Bless me! no, ma'am,' the answer would be. ' The children are at play together.' Then she would go down again, and Snap would begin his daily lesson to me. Every alternate day the old physician would appear with mamma, and call Snap to come and stand before him.

He seldom looked satisfied, and often said, ' I hope this child has not been excited.' ' I cannot do more to prevent excitement,' our mother would reply. ' I never let him learn anything ; I never have him down stairs with me ; I quite debar myself the pleasure of my children's society.' ' Quite right, ma'am,' the old physician used to answer ; ' keep him quiet, and he will be a man yet.' At last one day, about six months after Snap's illness, they came in when we were in very high spirits, chasing one another round the nursery, and the physician said to nurse with a displeased countenance — ' How now, my good woman ! is this the sort of order you keep here ? ' ' How can I help their playing about, sir ? ' she answered coldly. ' Their playing about I do not so much object to,' he replied ; ' but I must protest against the boy's spouting Shakespeare so noisily all the time.' This good doctor had a strong north country accent; but I do not think I should have remembered him and his speeches so well, if my brother had not been in the habit of acting over what he had said, and imitat ing his accent, when he petired. ' And the little girl looks very much ex cited too,' he said on this occasion ; ' I hope her brain is not forced by over-teaching.' ' She has never been taught anything in her life,' said my mother ; ' she is in a state of complete ignorance.' ' She could not be in a better state, ma'am, at her tender age.' 'No,' observed nurse, 'missy has had no book learning; but, ma'am, did you know that she could do that play-acting nearly as well as Master Graham ? ' I remember that my mother looked aghast on hearing this, and that Snap performed a dance of triumph about her chair. ' Could I do acting ? ' asked the physician. ' Oh yes,' I replied, and I began to pucker up my little face into one of Snap's favourite tragic frowns, and to stamp about the nursery.

The doctor laughed, and said, ' Pooh.' I was very much surprised, for I had been told that it was rude to say pooh. But while I wondered at him and his great red cheeks and his glossy shoes, Snap said, ' Missy can say Brutus and Cassius, can't you, missy ? I taught her, mamma ; I make her say it every day.' ' Yes, I can say Bruty and Cassy,' I replied, with smiling pride in the fact, that was a dagger to my mother's heart. ' Well, well, let us hear it, then,' said the doctor ; and after a short altercation between me and Snap, during which I insisted that I must have my pinafore taken off, and put on the paper cap which he called a helmet, I was placed upon the table, while my brother, shuffling in a manner which was intended to represent the footsteps of the Roman citizens, exclaimed, ' The noble Brutus is ascended — silence ! ' and I began in my baby dialect, ' Romans, countrymen, and lovers — ' Probably the doctor did not understand much of my speech, for I was not more forward with my tongue than most children of my age ; but he looked amazed, while I, changing from Brutus to Antony, went on exclaiming and gesticulating, and while Snap, as a rabble of Roman citizens, drummed on the table and stamped.

I stopped short at — 'There burst his mighty heart,' for, to my astonishment, I saw that poor mamma was sobbing and crying most bitterly. They took me down, and stroking her hand, I said, ' Never mind, mamma, don't cry, Cæsar was a naughty man.' She took me on her knee and wept as if her heart would break. Snap then came up and testified concern and amazement. ' This is a blow, ma'am, certainly,' said the good old doctor ; ' but you must bear up against it as bravely as you can.' ' Oh, nurse,' sobbed my mother, 'I trusted you ; how could you deceive me ? ' ' I did not intend, ma'am, to deceive you,' replied nurse ; ' I never gave it a thought that their play could hurt them, and I am sure missy has never had a day's illness in her life ; nothing Master Graham has taught her can possibly have hurt her.' After this we were taken out for a walk, and nurse said we had been naughty.

We supposed we had ; and we noticed that when ever from that time we asked the young nursemaid any question and she was inclined to answer it, nurse would say, ' Hold your tongue, Maria, you know the children is not to know anything whatsoever.' One night however, when nurse was gone down-stairs, I asked Maria why we were not to know anything, and she said, ' Did I remember seeing those three pretty little graves in St Mark's churchyard, where my three little sisters were ? ' I said, ' Oh, yes ; I remembered them very well.' ' Did I wish to stay with papa and mamma and Master Snap, or did I wish to go, and be with them ? ' I thought I should like to stay. 'Then,' she said, 'you must never do any play-acting, nor learn anything that Master Snap wants to teach you ; or else you will be obliged to go, as your little sisters did.' Snap always said his prayers before he went to bed, and I knelt beside him and said the same words.

I knew that there was a God, and that God was in heaven — that, I think, was the extent of my knowledge ; till one day while out walking, Snap and I passed a shop where some books were exposed for sale ; they were old books, and in one which lay open was a print which represented some people standing in flames, under a thing like the arch of a bridge. I asked Snap what that was. He an swered, in a whisper, that it was the place where wicked people were put, after they were dead. But I was not to tell nurse that he had said so, because she would be so very angry, as I was not to know anything. Every day, when we passed that shop, I stood on tip-toe to look at this dreadful but fascinating picture ; and at night, when I was put to bed, I thought about it. I asked Snap if it did not frighten him to think of it ?

But he said, No, he never thought of it at all. So now there were two things in the world to be afraid of, at least, when one happened to think of them ! The least formidable was this picture, the most so was the ghost of Cæsar, which inhabited, as I supposed, a certain square closet in a room called the green bed-room, a closet which I never liked to see opened, even in the broadest daylight, till my nurse's married sister, coming over to spend the day with her, and, hearing of this fancy of mine, carried me into it in her arms, showed me every crevice in the boards, let me peep into every box it contained; and, still keeping me in her arms, gave me a nice piece of cake to eat within its dreaded pre cincts. After that, wherever the ghost of Cæsar might be, I felt sure that it was not there.

About six months after this our nurse left us, and a young woman took her place who was a daughter of one of the sextons of the minster. She had not been many weeks with us, when my mother continuing very unwell, papa took her away, and we did not see them again for a very long time. They were gone on the Continent, we were told, and what the Continent might be I never thought of inquiring. Snap was now quite well, and, under the gentle dominion of our new nurse, we were very happy. She had one habit which pro cured for us many delightful hours. She liked to go into the minster, and talk to her father while he was sweeping and cleaning it. Sometimes other people were there, to whom she talked, and, while she did so, Snap and I crept admiringly about among the old carved work ; stole into the pulpit, and peered down from it ; got into the organ gallery, and saw the angels puffing their cheeks as they blew the trumpets ; and the little cherubs, so smiling and happy — no wonder, when each had got a beautiful pipe of his own to play upon !

Then we would go into the vestry, and feel the great clamps of the parish chests, and look into the closet, where the long white surplices were, which Snap said were the sort of gowns that ghosts always wore. Then we would steal, hand in hand, into the rich, sunny, west end of the minster. Here was a great window, an ancient one, full of prophets and kings ; some on chairs, some on thrones, and some in the open country. A wonderful country this was, with trees like the trees in our Noah's ark, and hills that went straight up to heaven, as might be seen by the angels that stood upon them. That they correctly represented the country they pictured I did not in the least doubt, any more than that all the prophets and kings were portraits, and good ones ! Consequently, when I saw ' Noah ' written under one of them (for I could read by this time, Snap having surreptitiously taught me a good deal) — when, as I say, I saw ' Noah,' I never doubted that he had, as there represented, yellow hair ; and when I afterwards saw a picture of the Deluge, in which that patriarch was represented with dark locks, I thought what an ignorant person he must be that had painted it.

Of the old sexton we soon became very fond, and he was equally fond of us ; therefore it was not wonderful that his daughter should often have brought us to him when she wanted to go out and enjoy herself, and left us till it suited her business or pleasure to come back again. She always took little Amy, our sister, with her. She had been left by our parents in sole charge of us, and immediately abused the liberty that she suddenly found in her power. We were never the worse for it, so she by degrees left us more and more, and I have little doubt that the quiet old sexton, her father, was a far better guardian for us than she was. About this time a personage came upon VOL. I. the stage of our lives, who was known to the world as the Rev. Charles Mompesson, but by me known only by the name of Mompey.

He was, when first I knew him, as young as he could be to be in orders ; for, as I learned afterwards, he came to the place where we lived for a title. Mompey was exceedingly good to us, especially to me, whom he carried about as if I had been a doll, took me up the tower stairs in his arms, and showed Snap and me the great bells when they were ringing, and filling the whole chamber with a humming noise, as if all the bees in the world were swarming there, and let us put our fingers into the holes where the jackdaws and the sparrows built, and feel how warm their eggs were. He was good, delightful, and beautiful. People who love children are generally en dowed by them with this last attribute. Our eyes were influenced by our hearts, and we admired him so much that sometimes we could not help saying to him when he smiled on us, ' 0 Mompey, how beautiful you are ! ' Upon these occasions he would sometimes tell us that other people did not agree with us in opinion ; and I do not doubt the correctness of his words, for he had slightly prominent teeth, which helped to increase the sweet ex pression of his amiable face, but certainly destroyed the regularity of the features ; and, moreover, his face wras slightly, very slightly, marked with small-pox.

The manner of his introduction to us was this. Snap used to personate the characters that he saw in pictures ; and being one day greatly fascinated with the oddity of a figure in one of the side-lights of the minster, he sat before it on a bench, trying to give his face its strange expression, and no doubt succeeding, for he had marvellous powers of imitation. The ficure — that of a saint in a blue baldric — sat on a high chair, with its legs hanging down, but not reaching the ground, and its feet, in their pointed shoes, serenely crossed. Its hands were also crossed, and lightly held a long willow branch, while its head, hanging affectedly on one side, wore a smile, half in nocent, half foolish. Snap got a willow branch, a thing easily procured from the sexton's little garden, and was sitting in the full enjoyment of his mimicry before the painted window when Mr Mompesson passed down the aisle.

He stopped and stared, then laughed with irrepressible amusement. The imitation was too ridiculously good not to be perceived in an instant. Snap did not stir a muscle. In fact, he by no means supposed his personification to be absurd, he was only obeying the strong artistic feeling within him. ' Who is this ? ' said Mr Mompesson. ' What, in the name of wonder, is the child doing ? ' Upon this I, rising from the mat on which I had been sitting admiring my brother, ex claimed in my childish j)iping voice, ' That's Snap ; you must not speak to him now, because he's a mediæval saint.' ' Oh, he is, is he ? ' said Mr Mompesson. ' Here, Wilson, Wilson.' Wilson, the sexton, soon appeared, and Mr Mompesson said, ' Wilson, look at this ! These little chil dren cannot. possibly be allowed to make a play-room of the minster.' Wilson, as I remember, looked foolish, and replied that we never did any mischief ; and as for the little boy, he ' reckoned that he was a kind of natural? ' But they have never played here before, for all that,' he proceeded; ' leastways, not to say play.' Snap by this time had got down from his bench ; and when he heard this last remark he opened his eyes wide, and cried out, 'Oh — oh, didn't you tell me to play at Brutus yesterday, and missy was Lucius, and wouldn't, let Brutus wake her, but lay down and shut up her eyes quite tight ?

And didn't you and Tarrant and Smith say it was just like a theatre ? ' ' You didn't,' said Wilson, reddening. 'We did,' retorted Snap; 'and Smith said, " Lord, how queer ; " and I said he ought not to say so.' ' Why not ? ' asked Mr Mompesson. Snap pointed with his willow wand at the Commandments, which were painted in gold and red and blue under the east window. ' It says there that you mustn't take the Lord's name in vain,' he observed ; and I wondered what he meant, though, true to my habit, I remembered his words all the more readily because I did not understand them. What was known might be rubbed from the tablets of memory like a settled sum, but what was unknown remained to be worked out. Mr Mompesson repeated to Wilson that we were not to play in the minster any more, and asked us if we knew why.

Snap was silent. I said ' No ; ' whereupon he took me up in his arms, and said good little children came to church to pray to God and be taught how to please Him. It was only naughty little children who came there to play. A puzzling assertion this to a child in whose mind was fixed the belief that it was good to play and not good to do anything else whatever. Mr Mompesson took us home with him to his lodgings, and while he dined we sat beside him, making ourselves very much at home, and partaking of some radishes. This parlour was an odd, but a desirable abode ; it had seven sides, and one of its narrow windows looked on the minster roof. It had been anciently part of a monastic house, and had carved work about it which resembled that in the nave. From the window we looked at the many grotesque heads which adorned the flying buttresses of this said nave.

Some of them had open mouths, and these the charitable sparrows had crammed with straw, and gorged with tender nestlings; others had shut mouths, and seemed to leer at the young sparrows and reprove their quarrelsome behaviour. Snap and I were very happy in that little room, and I have no doubt we were exceed ingly queer children, for I remember how we made our host laugh that evening. Another young clergyman came in to see Mompey before we went away, and he also laughed, specially when Snap and I pretended to be mediæval saints. ' The boy is a fine little fellow,' I heard him say ; ' but as for the girl, she is all eyes.' When I heard that, I thought how shock ing it was to be ' all eyes,' and how good it was of papa and mamma to love me notwithstanding.

Chapter II

[Enter the ghost of Cæsar?] Brutus. Is not the leaf turned down Where I left reading ? There it is, I think. How ill this taper burns. — Ha ! who comes here ? I think it is the weakness of mine eyes That shapes this monstrous apparition — It comes upon me. After this we often saw Mr Mompesson, and if I had not been reminded of the picture by those grotesque heads which we could see from his window, I should have been very happy. As it was, there were occasions when a vivid fear of it would suddenly come up and overshadow my infant heart. I used then to creep behind the curtains of Snap's bed, and cover my face with my hands, some times shaking in all my limbs till I gave way to a passion of screaming and crying. I never told any one what it was that frightened me, because my mother had said that I was not to know anything, consequently I thought I ought not to know this.

One day, however, when I was playing in Mr Mompesson's room, I remembered those ugly faces, and crept up to him for protection, hiding my face in the folds of his gown, for he had just come in from the minster, and was standing against a desk, writing. He gave what he had written to a man who stood waiting for it, and then he took me upon his knee. I was cold ; he warmed my hands in his large palm, and inquired whether anything was the matter, asking me if I was happy. I said ' No,' and when he asked why, I can remember that I shook my head and said I must not tell him. He, however, repeated the question, and at last I confided to him as a great secret that there was a place wdiere wicked men were put when they died, and that I had seen a picture of it. I whispered this to him with confidential earnestness, and on hearing it he started and coloured with that fine blush of shame some times seen on the faces of ingenuous young men.