Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

“What do you mean?”

“Sir,” said Bruce very gravely. “One of the passengers we have just saved is the very same person that I saw writing on your slate at noon. I would swear to the identity in any court of justice.”

“This is becoming more strange and inexplicable every minute,” said the captain; “let us go and have a look at the man.”

They found him in conversation with the captain of the derelict vessel, when both expressed their warmest gratitude for deliverance from a terrible fate, either starvation and exposure, or drowning should the iceberg capsize.

The captain replied that he had done no more than was his duty, and that he was quite sure that they would have done the same for him under similar circumstances; and then he requested both to step down with him into his cabin.

When that was done, turning to the passenger he said: “Will you excuse the liberty I am taking with you, if I desire you to write a few words on the slate?”

“Certainly I will do so,” said the passenger. “What shall I write?”

“Nothing more than this: Steer to the Nor’-West.”

The passenger looked amazed and puzzled; however, he held out his hand for the slate. This the captain extended to him, with that side uppermost on which Bruce and the crew had written, and which writing he had effaced with a sponge. The man wrote the required words. The captain took back the slate, stepping aside whilst the passenger was not observing, turned the slate over, and presented it to him, with the side uppermost on which was the mysterious inscription.

Tendering the slate again to him, he said: “You are ready to swear, sir, that this is your handwriting?”

“Of course it is; you saw me write.”

“Look at it attentively and make sure that it is the same.”

“I have no doubt about it. I make my s in the midst of a sentence in the old-fashioned way, long. And there it is, attached to the t at steer and west.”

“And this also?” asked the captain, turning the slate over.

The passenger looked first at one writing, then at the other, quite confounded. “I don’t understand what this can mean,” said he; “I wrote the words once only. Who wrote the other?”

“That, sir, is more than I can say. My mate informs me that you wrote it, sitting at my desk at noon to-day.”

“That is impossible. I was on the wreck miles away.”

“I saw you there writing it, as distinctly as I see you now,” put in Bruce.

The captain of the wreck turned to the passenger, and said: “Did you dream that you wrote on a slate?”

“Not that I can recall,” replied he.

“Now you speak of dreaming,” said the skipper, “may I inquire what the gentleman was about at noon to-day?”

“Captain,” said the other, “he had become greatly exhausted, and fell into a heavy sleep, some time before noon, and remained in that condition for over an hour. When he awoke he said to me, ‘Captain, I am confident that we shall be relieved this very day.’ When I asked him his reason for so saying, he replied that he had dreamt that he was on board a vessel, and that he was convinced she was coming to our rescue. He described her appearance and outward rig, and, to our astonishment, when your vessel hove in sight, she corresponded exactly to his description. We had not, I must admit, much confidence in his assurance. As it has happened, it looks uncommon like as if Providence had interfered to save us in a very mysterious manner.”

“There can be no doubt about that,” replied the other captain. “It is due to that writing on the slate, however it came about, that all your lives are saved. I was steering at the time considerably south of west, and I altered my course to nor’-west, on account of the writing on the slate.” Then, turning to the passenger, he inquired, “Did you dream of writing on a slate?”

“Not that I am aware of. I have no recollection of that; but I may say that everything here on board seems to me familiar; yet I am certain that I was never in your vessel before. It is very perplexing. May I ask what your mate saw?”

Thereupon Bruce related the circumstances already detailed.

The above extraordinary account was related to Mr. Robert Owen, formerly American Minister at Naples, by Captain J. S. Clarke, of the Julia Hallock, a schooner trading in 1859 between New York and Cuba, who had received it directly from Robert Bruce himself. They sailed together for nearly two years, in 1836 and 1837; so that Captain Clarke had the story from the mate about eight years after the occurrence. Bruce after that became master of the brig Comet, trading to New Brunswick, and she was eventually lost at sea, and Bruce is believed to have perished in her.

In reply to a question as to the character which Bruce bore for uprightness, Captain Clarke replied: “As truthful and straightforward a man as ever I met in my life. We were as intimate as brothers; and two men can’t be together, shut up for nearly two years in the same ship, without getting to know whether they can trust one another’s word or not. He always spoke of the circumstance in terms of reverence, as of an incident that seemed to bring him nearer to God and to another world than anything that had ever happened to him in his life before. I’d stake my life upon it that he was speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in the very extraordinary account which I have related to you just as he delivered it to me.”

Such is the story, and it is much to be regretted that there is no confirmation or other testimony from the two captains, or from any others who were in the vessel.

It is given by the Rev. Bourchier Wrey Savile, in his Apparitions: a Narrative of Facts. London, 1874.

GEORGE PEELE

Peele, a poet and dramatist, was a Devonshire man by birth, but of no family of consequence in the county, as the name does not once occur in the Heralds’ Visitations, either as a family entitled to bear arms or in the alliances of such. He became a student of Christ Church, Oxford, about the year 1573, where he studied to good effect and took his Master’s degree in 1579. Although he unquestionably studied, yet he also spent his spare time in revelry. He was always hard up for money, and was quite unscrupulous how he procured it. On one occasion, but later, when in middle life, he was riding to Oxford on a borrowed horse, and stayed the night at Wycombe, where the landlady of the inn was a great woman for herbs and nostrums of all sorts for the cure of every kind of disease. George Peele fell in with her humour, admired her prescriptions, and said:

“I am a doctor and surgeon myself, and am on my way to visit a gentleman of large estate in Warwickshire, who is fallen into a consumption.”

“Why – bless my heart,” exclaimed the hostess, “our squire here is very bad, and supposed to be in a consumption. The surgeons have given him up.”

Next morning at daybreak away runs the good-natured woman to the Hall, rouses the squire’s wife, and tells her that a notable London doctor is staying at her inn. The lady at once penned a note, entreating the learned leech to visit her husband; and the hostess carried this to Peele and urged him to visit the patient.

George was taken aback, he had not meant his words to be taken au grand sérieux, and he tried to get out of the visit, but a servant from the great house arrived to conduct him to it, and Peele went with him. On his arrival he was gratefully received by the squire’s wife, who conducted him to her husband’s room. George felt his pulse and temples, and shook his head: “He is far spent,” said he, “but under Heaven, I will do him some good, if nature be not quite extinct.” He then asked to be shown into the garden, where he cut a handful of every flower and herb and shrub the garden contained, brought them into the house in the lappet of his cloak, boiled them in ale, strained them, boiled them again; and when he had all the juice out of them, made a hot draught and bade the patient drink a cupful, and ordered the wife to administer the same to the squire morning, noon, and night, and to keep the sick man warm. Then when he took his leave the lady pressed into his hand a couple of brace of angels, or about forty shillings. Away went Le Médecin malgré lui to Oxford, where he roystered so long as the money lasted. Then he had to return to London and by the same way, and was not a little shy of showing in Wycombe, for he did not know but that some of the herbs he had boiled and administered might be poisonous, and have killed the gentleman. So, as he approached the place, he inquired of a country bumpkin how the gentleman was. The fellow told him, that his good landlord, Heaven be praised, had been cured by a wonderful doctor who had come that way by chance.

“Art thou sure of this?” quoth George, “Yes, believe me,” answered the man; “I saw him in fields this morning.”

George Peele now set spurs to his horse, and rode to the inn, where he was cordially received: the hostess clapped her hands; the ostler laughed; the tapster leaped; the chamberlain ran to the gentleman’s house, and told him of the arrival of the doctor. The squire sent for Peele at once, and forced him to accept twenty pounds for having cured him of his consumption. But whether the cure was the result of some herbs that chanced to go into the pot, or was due to the confidence the sick man had in the science of George Peele, none can say.

George Peele took up his residence in London, on the Bank side, over against Black Friars, and picked up a livelihood by writing interludes, and the ordering of pageants. Anthony à Wood says that his plays were not only often acted with great applause in his lifetime, but also did endure reading, with due commendation, after his death. He was a voluminous writer, and would turn his hand to any kind of literary work. On one occasion a gentleman from the West Country engaged him to translate some Greek author into English for him. During the process of the work, Peele applied repeatedly to his patron for advances; but the more Peele was supplied with coin, the slacker he became in his work, and at last the gentleman lost all patience with him. Next time Peele called with the usual request for an advance, he was invited to stay for dinner. During the meal, George incautiously let out that he had not done a line of translation for two months. The gentleman, very incensed, ordered his servants to bind the author hand and foot into a chair. This done a barber was sent for, and by order of the gentleman shaved Peele’s chin, lip, cheeks, and head, and left him as bare of hair as he was of money.

“George,” said the gentleman, “I have always used you as a friend; my purse hath been open to you; you know that I highly value the book I committed to you to translate, and I want it done. I have used you in this fashion so as to force you to stay at home till the translation is completed; for I know you will be ashamed to show in the streets the ridiculous figure you now are. By the time the book is done, your beard will have grown again.” Then he put in his hand forty shillings, detained him till nightfall, and sent him home.

Next morning there was a hubbub in the street, crying and shouting, and a mob collected. The gentleman looked out of his window, and saw a girl with dishevelled hair, wringing her hands and screaming, “Oh! my father! my good – my dear father!” and the people around were clamouring to know what was the matter. Then the girl burst forth into “Woe to this place, that my dear father ever saw it! I am now an orphan, a castaway, and my mother a widow.” The servants of the gentleman came upstairs to him in concern, saying that George Peele’s daughter was on the doorstep calling down imprecations on the house and all within. The gentleman in a mighty quaking sent for the girl, who came in sobbing and crying. When she saw him she screamed, “Out on thee! thou cruel man! Thou hast made my father – my good father – drown himself.” Then she fainted. The gentleman was in serious alarm. He sent his servants at once to buy a new and smart suit of clothes for the girl, as the best way to console her, and gave her five pounds; then, as she recovered, he bade her return home, and tell her mother that he would visit her in the evening.

The gentleman was so crossed in mind, and disturbed in thought at having involuntarily caused a man to commit suicide, that his soul could not be quiet till he had seen the woeful widow. So towards evening he hired a boat and was rowed from the Old Bailey, where he lived, to Black Friars, and went directly to Peele’s house, where he found the wife plucking larks, the orphaned daughter turning the spit, and George, pinned up in a blanket, hard at work at the translation. The gentleman, more relieved at the sight of Peele alive and well than grieved at being cheated out of his money, accepted George’s invitation, and gull and gulled had a merry supper together off roast larks and canary.

One day Peele invited half a score of his friends to a great supper, where all was passing merry; no cheer was lacking; there was wine flowing and music playing. As the night was passing a reckoning was called for. The guests, being well-to-do citizens, insisted that Peele should not treat them all. He, as they were well aware, was not well off, so they threw down their contributions to the feast – some two shillings, some five, some more. “Well,” said George, “as you seem so determined I will submit,” and he gathered the money into his cloak. “But,” said he, “before we part, let us drink a couple of bottles of hippocras and have a caper.” Whilst all were taking the final draught and dancing about the room, George Peele decamped with the contributions, and left his guests to pay the reckoning.

Peele and four of his companions supping together found that they had spent all their cash, save five pounds between them. Holiday time was come, Whitsuntide, and it must be enjoyed, but how was enjoyment to be had for five mates, for four or five days, on five pounds? “I have it,” said Peele. “Trust your money to me, and I will go to the Jew clothes dealer, get a handsome black satin suit and good boots, and you must all be put in livery and pass as my servants.”

Thus costumed, and taking a pair of oars with them, the party ascended the Thames to Brentford, where they entered the inn of the “Three Pigeons.” George called for the host, said he was a big squire in Kent, and that he had come up the river to make merry at Brentford. And he thereupon ordered supper and wine, and paid down out of the money he had in hand.

At dinner, Peele asked the host about the tide. When he heard that the tide did not set out till evening, “Confound it,” said he, “I intended to stay here a few days, but I have not money enough with me to pay. I want to send a lackey to London for a bag of ten pounds that have not seen the sun and begun to melt. Have you a horse?” “Certainly I have,” answered the taverner, “and I can lend it your man.”

Accordingly, one of the good comrades was mounted and sent off to London. Presently in came the hostess with a petition. One of Mr. Peele’s lackeys had been at her to beg his master to allow him to go as far as Kingston to visit a sweetheart he had there. If Mr. Peele would allow him to go he would promise to be back by nightfall.

“How can he?” asked George: “the distance is too great – if he runs, he cannot do it.”

“For the matter of that,” replied the landlady, “I have a mare, and will lend it him.”

“Very well, let the rogue go.”

So away went the fellow with the mare, but not to Kingston – he rode to London, where he met his fellow on the landlord’s other horse. George Peele now sent for the barber to do his hair, and he was to mind and bring his lute with him. In Queen Elizabeth’s time a lute was one of the necessary bits of furniture of a barber’s shop.