The Seaboard Parish, Complete

“I allow I do not quite understand the mystery of it,” I said. “But you never saw lovelier ornamentation than these silvery scales, with all the neatness of what you ladies call a set pattern, and none of the stiffness, for there are not two of them the same in form. And you never saw lovelier curves than this little patient creature, which does not even try to get away from me, makes with the queer long thin body of him.”

“I wonder how it can look after its tail, it is so far off,” said Wynnie.

“It does though—better than you ladies look after your long dresses. I wonder whether it is descended from creatures that once had feet, and did not make a good use of them. Perhaps they had wings even, and would not use them at all, and so lost them. Its ancestors may have had poison-fangs; it is innocent enough. But it is a terrible thing to be all feet, is it not? There is an awful significance in the condemnation of the serpent—‘On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust.’ But it is better to talk of beautiful things. My soul at least has dropped from its world apex. Let us go on. Come, wife. Come, Turner.”

They did not seem willing to rise. But the glen drew me. I rose, and my wife followed my example with the help of my hand. She returned to the subject, however, as we descended the slope.

“Is it possible that in the course of ever so many ages wings and feet should be both lost?” she said.

“The most presumptuous thing in the world is to pronounce on the possible and the impossible. I do not know what is possible and what is impossible. I can only tell a little of what is true and what is untrue. But I do say this, that between the condition of many decent members of society and that for the sake of which God made them, there is a gulf quite as vast as that between a serpent and a bird. I get peeps now and then into the condition of my own heart, which, for the moment, make it seem impossible that I should ever rise into a true state of nature—that is, into the simplicity of God’s will concerning me. The only hope for ourselves and for others lies in him—in the power the creating spirit has over the spirits he has made.”

By this time the descent on the grass was getting too steep and slippery to admit of our continuing to advance in that direction. We turned, therefore, down the valley in the direction of the sea. It was but a narrow cleft, and narrowed much towards a deeper cleft, in which we now saw the tops of trees, and from which we heard the rush of water. Nor had we gone far in this direction before we came upon a gate in a stone wall, which led into what seemed a neglected garden. We entered, and found a path turning and winding, among small trees, and luxuriant ferns, and great stones, and fragments of ruins down towards the bottom of the chasm. The noise of falling water increased as we went on, and at length, after some scrambling and several sharp turns, we found ourselves with a nearly precipitous wall on each side, clothed with shrubs and ivy, and creeping things of the vegetable world. Up this cleft there was no advance. The head of it was a precipice down which shot the stream from the vale above, pouring out of a deep slit it had itself cut in the rock as with a knife. Halfway down, it tumbled into a great basin of hollowed stone, and flowing from a chasm in its side, which left part of the lip of the basin standing like the arch of a vanished bridge, it fell into a black pool below, whence it crept as if half-stunned or weary down the gentle decline of the ravine. It was a perfect little picture. I, for my part, had never seen such a picturesque fall. It was a little gem of nature, complete in effect. The ladies were full of pleasure. Wynnie, forgetting her usual reserve, broke out in frantic exclamations of delight.

We stood for a while regarding the ceaseless pour of the water down the precipice, here shot slanting in a little trough of the rock, full of force and purpose, here falling in great curls of green and gray, with an expression of absolute helplessness and conscious perdition, as if sheer to the centre, but rejoicing the next moment to find itself brought up boiling and bubbling in the basin, to issue in the gathered hope of experience. Then we turned down the stream a little way, crossed it by a plank, and stood again to regard it from the opposite side. Small as the whole affair was—not more than about a hundred and fifty feet in height—it was so full of variety that I saw it was all my memory could do, if it carried away anything like a correct picture of its aspect. I was contemplating it fixedly, when a little stifled cry from Wynnie made me start and look round. Her face was flushed, yet she was trying to look unconcerned.

“I thought we were quite alone, papa,” she said; “but I see a gentleman sketching.”

I looked whither she indicated. A little way down, the bed of the ravine widened considerably, and was no doubt filled with water in rainy weather. Now it was swampy—full of reeds and willow bushes. But on the opposite side of the stream, with a little canal from it going all around it, lay a great flat rectangular stone, not more than a foot above the level of the water, and upon a camp-stool in the centre of this stone sat a gentleman sketching. I had no doubt that Wynnie had recognised him at once. And I was annoyed, and indeed angry, to think that Mr. Percivale had followed us here. But while I regarded him, he looked up, rose very quietly, and, with his pencil in his hand, came towards us. With no nearer approach to familiarity than a bow, and no expression of either much pleasure or any surprise, he said—

“I have seen your party for some time, Mr. Walton—since you crossed the stream; but I would not break in upon your enjoyment with the surprise which my presence here must cause you.”

I suppose I answered with a bow of some sort; for I could not say with truth that I was glad to see him. He resumed, doubtless penetrating my suspicion—

“I have been here almost a week. I certainly had no expectation of the pleasure of seeing you.”

This he said lightly, though no doubt with the object of clearing himself. And I was, if not reassured, yet disarmed, by his statement; for I could not believe, from what I knew of him, that he would be guilty of such a white lie as many a gentleman would have thought justifiable on the occasion. Still, I suppose he found me a little stiff, for presently he said—

“If you will excuse me, I will return to my work.”

Then I felt as if I must say something, for I had shown him no courtesy during the interview.

“It must be a great pleasure to carry away such talismans with you—capable of bringing the place back to your mental vision at any moment.”

“To tell the truth,” he answered, “I am a little ashamed of being found sketching here. Such bits of scenery are not of my favourite studies. But it is a change.”

“It is very beautiful here,” I said, in a tone of contravention.

“It is very pretty,” he answered—“very lovely, if you will—not very beautiful, I think. I would keep that word for things of larger regard. Beauty requires width, and here is none. I had almost said this place was fanciful—the work of imagination in her play-hours, not in her large serious moods. It affects me like the face of a woman only pretty, about which boys and guardsmen will rave—to me not very interesting, save for its single lines.”

“Why, then, do you sketch the place?”

“A very fair question,” he returned, with a smile. “Just because it is soothing from the very absence of beauty. I would far rather, however, if I were only following my taste, take the barest bit of the moor above, with a streak of the cold sky over it. That gives room.”

“You would like to put a skylark in it, wouldn’t you?”

“That I would if I knew how. I see you know what I mean. But the mere romantic I never had much taste for; though if you saw the kind of pictures I try to paint, you would not wonder that I take sketches of places like this, while in my heart of hearts I do not care much for them. They are so different, and just therefore they are good for me. I am not working now; I am only playing.”

“With a view to working better afterwards, I have no doubt,” I answered.

“You are right there, I hope,” was his quiet reply, as he turned and walked back to the island.

He had not made a step towards joining us. He had only taken his hat off to the ladies. He was gaining ground upon me rapidly.

“Have you quarrelled with our new friend, Harry?” said my wife, as I came up to her.

She was sitting on a stone. Turner and Wynnie were farther off towards the foot of the fall.

“Not in the least,” I answered, slightly outraged—I did not at first know why—by the question. “He is only gone to his work, which is a duty belonging both to the first and second tables of the law.”

“I hope you have asked him to come home to our early dinner, then,” she rejoined.

“I have not. That remains for you to do. Come, I will take you to him.”

Ethelwyn rose at once, put her hand in mine, and with a little help soon reached the table-rock. When Percivale saw that she was really on a visit to him on his island-perch, he rose, and when she came near enough, held out his hand. It was but a step, and she was beside him in a moment. After the usual greetings, which on her part, although very quiet, like every motion and word of hers, were yet indubitably cordial and kind, she said, “When you get back to London, Mr. Percivale, might I ask you to allow some friends of mine to call at your studio, and see your paintings?”

“With all my heart,” answered Percivale. “I must warn you, however, that I have not much they will care to see. They will perhaps go away less happy than they entered. Not many people care to see my pictures twice.”

“I would not send you anyone I thought unworthy of the honour,” answered my wife.

Percivale bowed—one of his stately, old-world bows, which I greatly liked.

“Any friend of yours—that is guarantee sufficient,” he answered.

There was this peculiarity about any compliment that Percivale paid, that you had not a doubt of its being genuine.

“Will you come and take an early dinner with us?” said my wife. “My invalid daughter will be very pleased to see you.”

“I will with pleasure,” he answered, but in a tone of some hesitation, as he glanced from Ethelwyn to me.

“My wife speaks for us all,” I said. “It will give us all pleasure.”

“I am only afraid it will break in upon your morning’s work,” remarked Ethelwyn.

“O, that is not of the least consequence,” he rejoined. “In fact, as I have just been saying to Mr. Walton, I am not working at all at present. This is pure recreation.”

As he spoke he turned towards his easel, and began hastily to bundle up his things.

“We’re not quite ready to go yet,” said my wife, loath to leave the lovely spot. “What a curious flat stone this is!” she added.

“It is,” said Percivale. “The man to whom the place belongs, a worthy yeoman of the old school, says that this wider part of the channel must have been the fish-pond, and that the portly monks stood on this stone and fished in the pond.”

“Then was there a monastery here?” I asked.

“Certainly. The ruins of the chapel, one of the smallest, are on the top, just above the fall—rather a fearful place to look down from. I wonder you did not observe them as you came. They say it had a silver bell in the days of its glory, which now lies in a deep hole under the basin, half-way between the top and bottom of the fall. But the old man says that nothing will make him look, or let anyone else lift the huge stone; for he is much better pleased to believe that it may be there, than he would be to know it was not there; for certainly, if it were found, it would not be left there long.”

As he spoke Percivale had continued packing his gear. He now led our party up to the chapel, and thence down a few yards to the edge of the chasm, where the water fell headlong. I turned away with that fear of high places which is one of my many weaknesses; and when I turned again towards the spot, there was Wynnie on the very edge, looking over into the flash and tumult of the water below, but with a nervous grasp of the hand of Percivale, who stood a little farther back.

In going home, the painter led us by an easier way out of the valley, left his little easel and other things at a cottage, and then walked on in front between my wife and daughter, while Turner and I followed. He seemed quite at his ease with them, and plenty of talk and laughter rose on the way. I, however, was chiefly occupied with finding out Turner’s impression of Connie’s condition.