CHAPTER VII.

NOAH COTTON.

THE WIDOW GRIMSHAWE AND HER NEIGHBOURS.

On the road to ----, a small seaport town on the east coast of England, there stood in my young days an old-fashioned, high-gabled, red brick cottage. The house was divided into two tenements, the doors opening in the centre of the building. A rustic porch shaded the entrance to the left from the scorching rays of the sun, and the clouds of dust which during the summer months rose from the public road in front. Some person, whose love of nature had survived amidst the crushing cares of poverty, had twined around the rude trelliswork the deliciously fragrant branches of the brier-rose, which, during the months of June and July, loaded the air with its sweet breath.

The door to the right, although unmarked by sign or chequer-board, opened into a low hedge-tavern of very ill repute, well known through the country by the name of the "Brig's Foot," which it derived from its near proximity to the bridge that crossed the river--a slow-moving, muddy stream, whose brackish waters seemed to have fallen asleep upon their bed of fat, black ooze, while creeping onward to the sea, through a long flat expanse of dreary marshes.

The "Brig's Foot" was kept by the Widow Mason and her son, both persons of notoriously bad character. The old man had been killed a few months before in a drunken brawl with some smugglers; and his name was held in such ill odour that his ghost was reported to haunt the road leading to C---- churchyard, which formed the receptacle, but it would seem not the resting-place, of the dead.

None but persons of the very lowest description frequented the tavern. Beggars made it their headquarters; smugglers and poachers their hiding-place; and sailors, on shore for a spree, the scene of their drunken revels. The honest labourer shunned the threshold as a moral pest-house, and the tired traveller, who called there once, seldom repeated the visit. The magistrates, who ought to have put down the place as a public nuisance, winked at it as a necessary evil; the more to be tolerated, as it was half a mile beyond the precincts of the town.

Outwardly the place had some attractive features, it was kept so scrupulously clean. The walls were so white, the floor so neatly sanded, and the pewter pots glittered so cheerily on the polished oak-table which served for a bar, that a casual observer might reasonably have expected very comfortable and respectable accommodation from a scene which, though on an humble scale, promised so fair. Even the sleek, well-fed tabby-cat purred so peacefully on the door-sill that she seemed to invite the pedestrian to shelter and repose.

Martha Mason, the mistress of the house, was a bad woman, in the fullest sense of the word. Cunning, hard-hearted, and avaricious, without pity, and without remorse; a creature so hardened in the ways of sin, that conscience had long ceased to offer the least resistance to the perpetration of crime. Unfeminine in mind and person, you could scarcely persuade yourself that the coarse, harsh features, and bristling hair about the upper lip, belonged to a female, had not the untamed tongue, ever active in abuse and malice, asserted its claim to the weaker sex, and rated and scolded through the long day, as none but the tongue of a bad woman can rate and scold. An accident had deprived the hideous old crone of the use of one of her legs, which she dragged after her by the help of a crutch. But though she could not move quickly in consequence of her lameness, she was an excellent hand at quickening the motions of those who had the misfortune to be under her control.

Her son Robert, who went by the familiar appellation of "Bully Bob," was the counterpart of his mother. A lazy, drunken fellow, who might be seen from morning till night lounging, with his pipe in his mouth, on the well-worn settle at the door, humming some low ribald song to chase away the lagging hours, till the shades of evening roused him from his sluggish stupor to mingle with gamblers and thieves in their low debauch. The expression of this young man's face was so bad, and his manners and language so coarse and obscene, that he was an object of dislike and dread to his low associates, who regarded him as a fit subject for the gallows. In the eyes of his mother, Bob Mason was a very fine young man--a desirable mate for any farmer's daughter in the country.

The old Spanish proverb, "Poverty makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows," was never more fully exemplified than in the case of these people and their next door neighbours.

Dorothy Grimshawe was the widow of a fisherman, whose boat foundered in the dreadful storm of the 10th of October, 1824. Like many others, who sailed from the little port high in health and hope, expecting to reap a fine harvest from the vast shoals of herrings which annually visit that coast, Daniel Grimshawe fell a prey to the spoiler, Death, that stern fisher of men.

The following morning, after the subsidence of the gale, the beach for miles was strewn with pieces of wreck, and the bodies of forty drowned men were cast ashore! Most of these proved to be natives of the town; and the bodies being carried to the town-hall, notice was sent to the wives of the absent fishermen to come and claim their dead.

This awful summons quickly collected a crowd to the spot. Many anxious women and children were there, and Dorothy Grimshawe and her little ones came with the rest.

"Thank the good God! my man is not there," said a poor woman, coming out with her apron to her face. "The Lord save us! 'tis a fearsome sight."

"He may be food for the crabs at the bottom of the sea," said a hoarse voice from the crowd; "you are not going to flatter yourself, Nancy, that you are better off than the rest."

"Oh, oh, oh!" shrieked the poor woman, thus deprived by envy of the anchor of hope to which she clung. "I trusted in the mercy of God; I could not look to the bottom of the salt deep."

"Trust to Him yet, Nancy, and all will be well," said an old weather-beaten tar. "It is He who rules the winds and waves, and brings the storm-tossed ship into a safe harbour."

"But what has He done for these poor men? Were they worse than the rest?" sobbed Nancy.

"It is not for us to bring to the light what He has left in darkness," said the old sailor. "He took three fine lads of mine in one night, and left me childless. But it is not for the like o' me to murmur against _Him_. I always trusted to His providence, and I found that it gave me strength in the hour of danger."

"Dorothy," cried he, turning to Mrs. Grimshawe, "it is your turn to go in. It's no use crying and hanging back. Mayhap Dan has escaped the storm, an' is spreading a white sheet to the fine, fresh breeze this morning."

"My heart feels as cold as a stone," sobbed Dorothy: "I dare not go forward; I feel--I know that he is there."

"Shall I go for you? I have known Dan from a boy."

"Oh, no, no; I must see with my own eyes," said Dorothy; "nothing else will convince me that he is either saved, or lost;" and she hurried into the hall.

Trembling with apprehension, the poor woman entered the melancholy place of death. The bodies were arranged in rows along the floor, and covered decently with coarse clean sheets. The mournful and mysterious silence which always broods above the dead, was broken by sighs and sobs. Wives, mothers, sisters, and little children, were collected in heartrending groups around some uncovered and dearly-loved face, whose glassy eyes, staring and motionless, were alike unconscious of their presence and their tears.

Mrs. Grimshawe recoiled with a sudden backward step--"What if Dan is here?" She pressed her hands tightly upon her breast--the stifled cry of agony and fear that burst from her lips, nearly choked her--she clutched at the bare walls for support, and panted and gasped for breath.

A little humpbacked child, after casting upon her mother a look of unutterable pity, slowly advanced to the first shrouded figure, and, kneeling down, reverentially lifted the sheet, and gazed long and sadly upon the object beneath. "Father!" murmured the child; no other word escaped her quivering lips. She meekly laid her head upon the dead seaman's breast, and kissed his cold lips and brow with devoted affection. Then, rising from her knees, she went to her pale, weeping, distressed mother, and, taking her gently by the hand, led her up to the object of her search.

The winds and waves are sad disfigurers; but Mrs. Grimshawe instantly recognised, in the distorted features, so marred in their conflict with the elements, the husband of her youth, the father of her orphan children; and, with a loud shriek, she fell upon the bosom of the dead. Rough, pitiful hands lifted her up, and unclasped the rigid fingers that tightened about his neck, and bore the widow tenderly back to her desolate home.

Weeks went by, and the fisherman slept in his peaceful grave. His little children had ceased to weep and ask for their father, before Dorothy Grimshawe awoke to a consciousness of her terrible loss and altered fortunes. During the period of her mental derangement, her wants had been supplied by some charitable ladies in the neighbourhood. Shortly after her restoration to reason, a further trial awaited her--she became the victim of palsy. In the meridian of life she found her physical strength prostrate, and her body a useless broken machine, no longer responsive to the guidance, or obedient to the will of its possessor. An active mind shut up in a dead body,--an imprisoned bird, vainly beating itself against the walls of its cage. Human nature could scarcely furnish a more melancholy spectacle; speech, sight, and hearing, were still hers; but the means of locomotion were lost to her for ever.

The full extent of her calamity did not strike her at first. Hope whispered that the loss of the use of her lower limbs was only temporary, brought on by the anguish of her mind; that time, and the doctor's medicines, would restore her to health and usefulness.

Alas! poor Dorothy. How long did you cling to these vain hopes! How reluctantly did you at last admit that your case was hopeless,--that death could alone release you from a state of helpless suffering! Then came terrible thoughts of the workhouse for yourself and your children; and the drop was ever upon your cheek--the sigh rising constantly to your lips. Be patient, poor afflicted one! God has smitten, but not forsaken you. Pity still lives in the human heart, and help is nearer than you think.

In her early life Dorothy had lived for several years nursery-maid in a clergyman's family. One of the children entrusted to her care had loved her very sincerely; he was now a wealthy merchant in the town. When Mr. Rollins heard of her distress, he hastened to comfort and console her. He gave her part of the red-brick cottage rent free for the rest of her life; sent her two youngest daughters to school, and settled a small annuity upon her, which, though inadequate to the wants of one so perfectly dependent, greatly ameliorated the woes of her condition. Dorothy had resided several years in the cottage, before the Masons came to live under the same roof. They soon showed what manner of people they were, and annoyed the poor widow with their rude and riotous mode of life. But complaints were useless. Mr. Rollins was travelling with his bride on the Continent; and his steward, who had accepted the Masons for tenants, laughed at Dorothy's objections to their character and occupation, bluntly telling her, "that beggars could not be choosers; that she might be thankful that she had a comfortable warm roof over her head, without having to work hard for it like her neighbours." She acknowledged the truth of the remark, and endeavoured to submit to her fate with patience and resignation.