Captain Mugford: Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors, Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO.

  THE DREAM CONFIRMED BY REALITY.

  Three years elapsed before I saw the cape again. Indeed the remembranceof that visit there, of a few days only, began to assume indistinctnessas a dream, and sometimes as I thought of it, recalling the events ofthe journey there and back in the chaise, the wild scenery and thestrange sound of the surf, the old dark house and the devoted blackservants--sometimes, I say, as I thought of all these, as I loved to dowhen I settled myself in bed for the night, or when in summer I lay onmy back in the grass looking up at the flying clouds, I would have tostop and fix my attention sharp, to be sure whether it ever had been areality, or whether it might not be, after all, only a dream. I thinkmy father was afraid of the fascination of the cape for us boys--afraidits charms, if we once partook of them freely, might distract ourattention from the order and duties of school life. To be sure, wealways went to the country with our parents for a month or six weeks,and enjoyed it exceedingly, laying up a stock of trout, squirrel, andbadger stories to last us through the winter. But there was no othercountry, we imagined, like the cape; and as our father and mother neverlived there, and rarely spent even a single night on the whole property,they thought it best, I suppose, that we should not run wild there andget a relish for what all boys seem to have, in some degree, by nature.I mean the spirit of adventure, and love of the sea.

  However, the good time came at last, or a reliable promise of it first,just fifty years ago this very February. We older boys--Walter, sixteenyears of age, Drake, fourteen, and I, Robert, twelve--were attendingschool at Bristol, and were, as usual too in the winter evenings, atwork over our lessons at the library table, when, on onenever-to-be-forgotten evening, our father, who was sitting in an easychair by the fire, suddenly asked, "Boys, how would you like to passnext summer on the cape?" Ah! didn't we three give a terrific chorus ofassent? "Jolly! magnificent! splendid!" we cried, while Walter justquietly vaulted over half a dozen chairs, two or three at a time,backwards and forwards, till he had expended some of the animal vivacitystored up in abundance within him. Drake, as usual when extremelypleased, tried to accomplish the rubbing of his stomach and the pattingof his head both at the same time; and I climbed into the chair with myfather, and patted his cheeks and thanked him with a fierce shake of thehands.

  "Bob, boy, you are the only one of my youngsters who has been at the oldplace, and you must have painted it as a wonderful corner of the earth,that Walter and Drake should testify their pleasure in such eccentricways.--And look here, Walter: when you wish to turn acrobat again, letit not be in this library or over those chairs; choose some piece ofgreen grass out of doors.--Well, boys, _perhaps_ you can pass the summerat the cape. I do not promise it, but shall try to arrange it so ifyour mother is willing; but under the unfailing condition that you makegood progress in your studies until that time."

  "Shall we all be there together, father, and for the whole summer, andwithout any school? How delightful!"

  "Not too fast, Drake. Without school? What an idea! Why, in sixmonths you would be as wild and ignorant as the sheep there. No; youshall have a strict tutor, who will keep you in harness, and help Walterto prepare for going up next year to Cambridge. But only you three willbe there. I have some business in London, and I shall take your motherand Aggie and Charley with me."

  During those February evenings there were many more conversations on thesame subject, full of interest to us boys, and finally it was fullydecided by our father and mother that we should go in May, and staythere until autumn; that a certain Mr Clare should be our tutor, andthat Clump and Juno should be our housekeepers and victuallers.

  Never did a springtime appear longer and more wearisome. We countedevery day, and were disgusted with March for having thirty-one of them.What greatly increased our impatience and the splendour of ouranticipation was that, some time in March, our father told us that abrig had been cast away in a curious manner on the shore of the cape,and that he had purchased the wreck as it lay, well preserved and firmlyheld in the rocks above ordinary high-tide. He proposed, at some futuretime, to make use of it as a sort of storehouse, or perhaps dwelling forlabourers. A shipwreck! a real wreck! and on our cape! stranded on thevery shore of our Robinson Crusoe-like paradise! Just imagine ourexcitement.

  The particulars of the wreck were as follows:--A brig of 300 tonsburden, on a voyage from South America to the Thames, having lost herreckoning in consequence of several days' heavy gale and thick weather,suddenly made the light on the Lizard, and as quickly lost it again inthe fog which surrounded her. The captain, mistaking the light he hadseen for some other well-known beacon, set his course accordingly. Thatwas near nine o'clock in the evening. The wind and tide helped him onthe course steered, and a little after midnight the misguided brigstruck on a rock three-quarters of a mile south-west of our point ofland. The wind had then increased to a gale, and was gathering newstrength with every moment. In less than an hour the thumping andgrating of the vessel's keel ceased, and then the captain knew that therising tide had set him off the rock; but, alas! his good brig wasleaking badly, and the fierce wind was driving her--whither the captainknew not; and in five minutes more, by the force of the wind and suctionof the shore current, she was thrown high up on a rocky projection ofour cape. One sailor was washed overboard by the breakers as she passedthrough them, and was dashed to death, probably in an instant, by thefierce waves. The next day, when the storm had abated, the body wasfound far above where the brig lay fastened immovably in the vice-likefissure of enormous rocks. Twenty sovereigns, which perhaps the poorfellow had saved to bring home to his old mother, were found in a beltaround his waist.

  The damaged cargo was removed, and the wreck sold at auction, my fatherbeing the purchaser.

  There was an old church situated on the summit of a neighbouring pointof land, and to its now seldom used churchyard the body of the poorsailor was conveyed. His grave was one of the first points of interestto us when our visit to the cape commenced; and many a time that seasondid I sit and watch the brown headstone topping the bleakest part of thesea-bluff, and as the great voice of the sea, dashing and foaming on thestony beach beneath, sang in its eternal melancholy grandeur, I fanciedlong, long histories of what might have been that sailor's life; and Iwondered sadly if the poor mother knew where her son's grave was, andwhether she would ever come to look at it. On the stone was written:--

  HARRY BREESE LIES HERE, NEAR WHERE A CRUEL SHIPWRECK CAST HIM, MARCH 23RD, 1814: AGED 24 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, AND 17 DAYS. REST IN PEACE, POOR BODY; THY SHIPMATE, SOUL, HAS GONE ALOFT, WHERE THY DEAR CAPTAIN, JESUS, IS.

  By the 7th May everything was prepared for our departure. On the nextmorning early we were to start in the stage-coach, and, what had latelyadded to our brilliant anticipations, Harry and Alfred Higginson, two ofour most intimate friends, were to go with us--to be with us all thesummer, join our studies and our fun. But we were to separate from ourfather and mother, and from our dear sister Aggie and the littleCharley--from all those dear ones from whom we had never been parted fora day and night before. We were to leave for half a year. All this,covered at first by the hopes and fancies we had built, and by the noiseand activity of preparation, appeared then, when everything was packed,and we, the evening before the journey, drew our chairs about thetea-table. The prospect of such a magnificent time as we expected tohave on the cape lost some of its brilliancy. Indeed, I positivelyregretted that we were to go. We boys were as hushed as frightenedmice.

  After tea, Drake and I got very close to our mother on the sofa, butWalter lounged nervously about, trying to appear, I think, as if such anaffair--a parting for six months--were nothing to such a big fellow ashe. Aggie came and held my hand. When our father had taken his usualseat, he and our mother commenced to give us careful instructions how wewere to regulate our time and conduc
t during our separation from them;we were directed about our lessons, clothes, language, and play; to bekind and patient with Clump and Juno; and very particular were ourorders about the new tutor, Mr Clare, to whom we had been formallyintroduced a few days before, and we were required to promise solemnlythat we would obey him implicitly in every respect. Besides which ourfather delighted us very much by the information that he had engaged anold seaman, Mugford by name, once boatswain of an Indiaman, who hadtaken up his abode at the fishing town across the bay from our cape, tobe with us often through the summer in our out-of-school hours; that hewould be, as it were, our skipper--perhaps reside with us--and that hewas to have full command in all our water amusements; he would teach usto swim, to row, and to sail. That last subject cheered us up a bit,and when I saw Walter, who was still walking up and down the room, goingthrough a pantomimic swim, striking out his arms in big circles, rightand left, I commenced to smile, and Drake to laugh outright. So ourconference ended in good spirits. And then we all kneeled in familyprayer, and that evening before the parting, as we kneeled and heard myfather's earnest words, I realised fully, perhaps for the first time,how, more than parents or friends, God was our Father; how, though wewere going away from home and its securities, yet God was to be with us,stronger and kinder than any on earth, to guard and care for us.

  During the few days we had known Mr Clare, he had been with usconstantly, but we had not decided whether to like him or not. Heseemed pleasant, and was easy enough, both in his manners andconversation, but yet he had a calm and decided way that was ratherprovoking; as if to say, "I have read you through and through, boys, andcan govern you as easily as possible." Now we had no idea of resistinghim; we intended to behave well, and therefore his manner rather nettledus. However, there was not much to object to. His appearance wascertainly all right--a large, bright, manly face and hearty smile, and astrong, agile figure. We five boys had talked him over, and at the lastballoting our votes were a tie, for Walter declined to express anopinion yet whether Mr Clare was a "screw" or a "good fellow." HarryHigginson and Drake voted "screw," whilst Alfred and I said "goodfellow."

  We must pass over the "goodbyes" of the next morning. Let us imaginethere were no wet eyes and sinking hearts. However it may have been,the big rumbling old stage-coach containing Mr Clare and five boys, andloaded well with trunks and boxes, rattled from our house in --- Streetat about six o'clock on that eighth morning in May, fifty years ago.Our hearts cheered up with the growth of the sun. By ten o'clock wewere very talkative; by one, very hungry. The contents of a basket,well-stored by our mother, and put in just as we were starting, settledthat complaint. The afternoon was tedious, and we were not sorry whenthe coach dropped us at the quiet little country inn where we were tosleep. I need not describe the journey of the next day. We were tooeager to get to its termination to care much for the beautiful scenerythrough which we passed. As the evening drew on the weather becamechilly. Ah! we were approaching the sea. By nine at night innumerablestars were twinkling over a dusky point of land which seemed to havewaded out as far as possible into the indefinable expanse mirroringunsteadily a host of lights. A strong, damp, briny breath came up tous, and a vast murmur as if thousands of unseen, mysterious, deep-voicedspirits were chanting some wonderful religious service. "Whoa!" with aheavy lurch the yellow post-chaise, in which we had performed the secondday's journey, came to a stand. We had arrived before the old stone arkthat was to be our home for half a year.