Chapter 19

Consciousness returned before they reached the shore, and Harry had her conveyed to his mother's house. It is difficult for a sensitive girl of nineteen to look with indifference upon a man who has saved her life, and who risked his in doing so; and Eleanor Macdonald (for such was the name of the young governess) did not look with indifference upon Harry Teasdale. I might tell you how the shipwrecked party remained for five days at Embleton, and how, during that period, love rose in the heart of the young fisherman, and gratitude warmed into affection in the breast of Eleanor--how he discovered that she was an orphan, with no friend, save the education which her parents had conferred on her, and how he loved her the more, when he heard that she was friendless and alone in the world--how the tear was on his hardy cheek when they parted--how more than once he went many miles to visit her--and how Eleanor Macdonald, forsaking the refinements of the society of which she was a dependant, became the wife of the Northumbrian fisherman. But it is not of Harry's younger days that I am now about to write. Throughout sixteen happy years they lived together; and though, when the tempests blew and the storms raged, while his skiff was on the waves, she often shed tears for his sake, yet, though her education was superior to his, his conduct and conversation never raised a blush to her cheeks. Harry was also proud of his wife, and he showed his pride, by spending every moment he could command at her side, by listening to her words, and gazing on her face with delight. But she died, leaving him an only daughter as the remembrancer of their loves; and to that daughter she had imparted all that she herself knew.

Besides his calling as a fisherman, and his adventures as a smuggler on sea, Harry also made frequent inland excursions. These were generally performed by night, across the wild muir, and by the most unfrequented paths. A strong black horse, remarkable for its swiftness of foot, was the constant companion of his midnight journeys. A canvas bag, fastened at both ends, and resembling a wallet, was invariably placed across the back of the animal, and at each end of the bag was a keg of brandy or Hollands, while the rider sat over these; and behind him was a large and rude portmanteau, containing packages of tea and tobacco. In his hand he carried a strong riding-whip, and in the breast-pocket of his greatcoat two horse-pistols, always loaded and ready for extremities. These journeys frequently required several days, or rather nights, for their performance; for he carried his contraband goods to towns fifty miles distant, and on both sides of the Border. The darker the night was, and the more tempestuous, the more welcome it was to Harry. He saw none of the beauties in the moon on which poets dwell with admiration. Its light may have charms for the lover, but it has none for the smuggler. For twenty years he had carried on this mode of traffic with uninterrupted success. He had been frequently pursued; but his good steed, aided by his knowledge of localities, had ever carried him beyond the reach of danger; and his _stow-holes_ had been so secretly and so cunningly designed, that no one but himself was able to discover them, and informations against him always fell to the ground.

Emboldened by long success, he had ceased to be a mere purchaser of contraband goods upon the sea, and the story became current that he had bought a share of a lugger, in conjunction with an Englishman then resident at Cuxhaven. His brother-fishermen were not all men of honour; for you will find black sheep in every society, and amongst all ranks of life. Some of them had looked with an envious eye upon Harry's run of good fortune, and they bore it with impatience; but now, when he fairly, boldly, and proudly stepped out of their walk, and seemed to rise head and shoulders above them, it was more than they could stand. It was the lugger's first trip, and they, having managed to obtain intelligence of the day on which she was to sail with a rich cargo, gave information of the fact to the commander of a revenue-cutter then cruising upon the coast.

I have mentioned that Harry was in the habit of wandering along the coast with a telescope under his arm. From the period of his wife's death, he had not gone regularly to sea, but let others have a share of his boats for a stipulated portion of the fish they caught. Now, it was about daybreak, on a morning in the middle of September, that he was on the beach as I have described him, and perceiving the figure of the cutter on the water, he raised his glass to his eye, to examine it more minutely. He expected the lugger on the following night, and the cutter was an object of interest to Harry. As day began to brighten, he knelt down behind a sand-bank, in order that he might take his observations, without the chance of being discovered; and while he yet knelt, he perceived a boat pulled from the side of the cutter towards the shore. At the first glance, he descried it to be an Embleton cobble, and before it proceeded far, he discovered to whom it belonged. He knew that the owner was his enemy, though he had not the courage openly to acknowledge it, and in a moment the nature of his errand to the cutter flashed through Harry's brain.

"I see it! I see it all!" said the smuggler, dashing the telescope back into its case; "the low, the skulking coward, to go blab upon a neighbour! But Ise have the weather-gauge o' both o' them, or my name's not Harry Teasdale."

So saying, he hastened home to his house--he examined his cutlass, his pistols, the bullets, and the powder. "All's right," said the smuggler, and he entered the room where his daughter slept. He laid his rough hand gently upon hers.

"Fanny, love," said he, "thou knowest that I expect the lugger to-night, and I don't think I shall be at home, and I mayn't be all to-morrow; but you won't fret, like a good girl, I know you won't. Keep all right, love, till I be back; and say nothing."

"Dear father," returned Fanny, who was now a lovely girl of eighteen, "I tremble for this life which we lead--as my poor mother said, it adds the punishment of the law to the dangers of the sea."

"Oh, don't mention thy mother, dearest!" said the smuggler, "or thou wilt make a child of thy father, when he should be thinking of other things. Ah, Fanny! when I lost thy mother, I lost everything that gave delight to my heart. Since then, the fairest fields are to me no better than a bare muir, and I have only thee, my love--only my Fanny, to comfort me. So, thou wilt not cry now--thou wilt not distress thy father, wilt thou? No, no! I know thou wilt not. I shall be back to thee to-morrow, love."

More passed between the smuggler and his daughter--words of remonstrance, of tenderness, and assurance; and when he had left her, he again went to the beach, to where his boat had just landed from the night's fishing. None of the other boats had yet arrived. As he approached, the crew said they "saw by his face there was something unpleasant in the wind," and others added--

"Something's vexed Skipper Harry this morning, and that's a shame, for a better soul never lived."

"Well, mates," said he, as he approached them, "have you seen a shark cruising off the coast this morning?"

"No," was the reply.

"But I have," said Harry, "though she is making off to keep out of sight now; and, more than that, I have seen a cut-throat lubber that I would not set my foot upon--I mean the old Beelzebub imp, with the white and yellow stripe on his yawl, pull from her side. And what was he doing there? Was it not telling them to look out for the lugger?"

Some of the boat's crew uttered sudden and bitter imprecations.

"Let us go and sink the old rascal before he reach the shore," said one.

"With all my heart," cried another; for they were all interested in the landing of the lugger, and in the excitement of the moment they wist not what they said.

"Softly, softly, my lads," returned Harry; "we must think now what we can do for the cargo and ourselves, and not of him."

"Right, master," replied another; "that is what I am thinking."

"Now, look ye," continued Harry, "I believe we shall have a squall before night, and a pretty sharp one, too; but we mustn't mind that when our fortunes are at stake. Hang all black-hearted knaves that would peach on a neighbour, say I; but it is done in our case, and we must only do our best to make the rascal's story stick in his throat, or be the same as if it had; and I think it may be done yet. I know, but the peachers can't, that the lugger is to deliver a few score kegs at Blyth before she run down here. We must off and meet her, and give warning."

"Ay, ay, Master Teasdale, thou'rt right; but, now that the thing has got wind, the sharks will keep a hawk's eye on us, and how we are to do it, I can't see."

"Why, because thou'rt blind," said Harry.

"No, hang it, and if I be, master," replied the other; "I can see as far as most o' folks, as ye can testify; and I dow see plain enough, that if we put to sea now, we shall hae the cutter after us; and that would be what I call only leading the shark to where the salmon lay."

"Man, I wonder to hear thee," said Harry; "folk wad say thou hadst nae mair gumption than a born fool. Do ye think I wad be such an ass as to send out spies in the face o' the enemy? Hae I had a run o' gud luck for twenty years, and yet ye think me nae better general than that comes to? I said, nae doubt, that we should gang to sea to meet the lugger, though there will be a squall, and a heavy one, too, before night, as sure as I'm telling ye; but I didna say that we should dow sae under the bows o' the cutter, in our awn boat, or out o' Embleton."

"Right, right, master," said another, "no more you did. Ned isn't half awake."

The name of the fisherman alluded to was Ned Thomson.

"Well, Ned, my lad," continued Harry, "I tell thee what must be done: I shall go saddle my old nag, get thou a horse from thy wife's father--he has two, and can spare one--and let us jog on as fast as we can for Blyth; but we mustn't keep by the coast, lest the king's folk get their eyes upon us. So away, get ready, lad, set out as quick as thee can--few are astir yet. I won't wait on thee, and thou won't wait on me; but whoever comes first to Felton Brig shall just place two bits o' stones about the middle--on the parapet I think they ca' it; but it is the dyke on each side o' the brig I mean, ye knaw. Put them on the left-hand side in gaun alang, down the water; or if they're there when ye come up, ye'll ken that I'm afore ye. So get ready, lad--quick as ever ye can. Tell the awd man naething about what ye want wi' the horse--the fewer that knaw onything about thir things the better. And ye, lads, will be upon the look-out; and, if we can get the lugger run in here, have a'thing in readiness."

"No fear o' that, master," said they.

"Well, sir," said Ned, "I'll be ready in a trap-stick, but I knaw the awd chap will kick up a sang about lendin his horse."

"Tell him I'll pay for it, if ye break its legs," said Harry.

The crew of the boat laughed, and some of them said--"Nobody will doubt that, master--you are able enough to do it."

It must be observed that, since Harry had ceased to go regularly to sea, and when he was really considered to be a rich man, the crew of his boat began to call him _master_, notwithstanding his sou'-wester and canvas kilt. And now that it was known to them, and currently rumoured in Embleton, that he was part proprietor of a lugger, many of the villagers began to call Fanny Miss Teasdale; and it must be said, that in her dress and conversation she much nearer approximated to one that might be styled _Miss_, than to a fisherman's daughter. But, when the character and education of her mother are taken into account, this will not be wondered at.

It would be uninteresting to the reader to describe the journey of Harry and Ned Thomson to Blyth; before they arrived at Felton, Harry had overtaken Ned, and they rode on together.

On arriving at Blyth, they stopped at the door of an individual who was to receive forty kilderkins of Hollands from the lugger, and a quantity of tobacco. It is well known to be the first duty of an equestrian traveller to look after his horse, and to see that it is fed; but, in this instance, Harry forgot the established rule--the horses were given in charge of a girl to take them to a stable, to see them fed, or otherwise, and Harry hastened into the house, and breathlessly inquired of its owner--"I hope to heaven, sir, ye have heard nothing of the Swallow?"

[The lugger was called the "Swallow," from the carpenter in Cuxhaven, who built her, having warranted that she "would _fly_ through the water."]

"Why, nothing," replied Harry's brother smuggler; "but we shall be on the look-out for her to-night."

"So far well," said Harry; "but I hope you have no fear of any king's lobsters being upon the coast, or rats ashore?"

"I don't think we have anything to fear from the cutters," said the other; "but I won't answer for the spies on shore; there are folk wi' us here, as weel as wi' ye, that canna see their neighbours thrive and haud their tongue; and I think some o' them hae been gaun owre aften about wi' the spy-glass this day or two."

"Then," said Harry, "the lugger doesna break bulk here, nor at Embleton outher--that's flat. Get ye a boat ready, neighbour, and we maun off and meet her, or ye may drink sma' yill to your venture and mine."

"It is growing too stormy for a boat to venture out," answered the other.

"Smash, man!" rejoined Harry; "wad you sit here on your hunkers, while your capital is in danger o' being robbed frae ye as simply as ye would snuff out a candle, and a' to escape a night's doukin! Get up, man--get a boat--we maun to sea--we maun meet the lugger, or you and I are done men--clean ruined a'thegither. I hae risked the better part o' my bit Fanny's fortune upon this venture, and, Heaven! I'll suffer death ten thousand-fold afore I see her brought to poverty; sae get a boat--get it--and if ye daurna gang out, and if nane o' your folk daur gang, Ned and me will gang our tow sels."

"Surely ye wad be mad, Harry, to attempt such a thing in an open boat to-night," said the Blyth merchant.

"Mad or no mad," answered Harry, "I hae said it, and I am determined. There is nae danger yet wi' a man that knaws how to manage a boat. If ye gang pullin through thick and thin, through main strength and for bare life, as many of the folk upon our coast dee, then there is danger--but there is nae use for the like o' that. It isna enough to manage an oar; you must knaw how to humour the sea, and to manage a wave. Dinna think I've been at sea mair than thirty years without knawing something about the matter. But I tell you what it is, friend--ye knaw what the Bible says--'The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong;' now, the way to face breakers, or a storm at sea, is not to pull through desperation, as if your life depended on the pulling; but when you see a wave coming, ye must backwater and backwater, and not pull again until ye see an opportunity of gauin forward. It is the trusting to mere pulling, sir, that makes our life-boats useless. The rowers in a life-boat should study the sea as well as their oars. They should consider that they save life by watching the wave that breaks over the vessel, as well as by straining every nerve to reach her. Now, this is a stormy night, nae doubt, but we maun just consider ourselves gaun off to the lugger in the situation o' folk gaun off in a life-boat. We maun work cannily and warily, and I'll tak the management o' the boat mysel."

"If ye dow that, master," said Ned Thomson, "then I gang wi' ye to a dead certainty."

"Well, Harry," replied the merchant, "if it maun be sae, it just maun be sae; but I think it a rash and a dangerous undertaking. I wad sooner risk a' that I have on board."

"Why, man, I really wonder to hear ye," said Harry; "folk wad say that ye had been swaddled in lambs' wool a' your life, and nursed on your mother's knee. Get a boat, and let us off to the lugger, and nae mair about it."

His orders were obeyed; and, about an hour after sunset, himself, with Ned Thomson, the merchant, and four others, put off to sea. They had indeed embarked upon a perilous voyage--before they were a mile from the shore, the wind blew a perfect hurricane, and the waves chased each other in circles, like monsters at play. Still Harry guided the boat with unerring skill. He ordered them to draw back from the bursting wave--they rose over it--he rendered it subservient to his purpose. Within two hours he descried the lights of the lugger. He knew them, for he had given directions for their use, and similar lights were hoisted from the cobble which he steered.

"All's well!" said Harry, and in his momentary joy he forgot the tempestuous sea in which they laboured. They reached the lugger--they gained the deck.

"Put back, friend--put back," was the first salutation of Harry to the skipper; "the camp is blown, and there are sharks along shore."

"The devil!" replied the captain, who was an Englishman; "and what shall we do?"

"Back, back," answered Harry; "that is all in the meantime."

But the storm now raged with more fierceness--it was impossible for the boat to return to the shore, and Harry and his comrades were compelled to put to sea with the lugger. Even she became in danger, and it required the exertions of all hands to manage her.

The storm continued until near daybreak, and the vessel had plied many miles from the shore; but as day began to dawn, and the storm abated, an enemy that they feared more appeared within a quarter-of-a-mile from them, in the shape of a cutter-brig. A gun was fired from the latter, as a signal for the lugger to lie to. Consternation seized the crew, and they hurried to and fro upon the deck in confusion.

"Clear the decks!" cried the skipper; "they shan't get all without paying for it. Look to the guns, my hearties."

"Avast! Master Skipper," said Harry; "though my property be in danger, I see no cause why I should put my neck in danger too. It will be time enough to fight when we canna better dow; and if we can keep them in play a' day there will be sma' danger in wur gi'en them the slip at night."

"As you like, Mr Teasdale," said the skipper; "all's one to me. Helm about, my lad," added he, addressing the steersman, and away went the lugger, as an arrow, scudding before the wind.

The cutter made all sail, and gave chase, firing shot after shot. She was considered one of the fastest vessels in the service; and though, on the part of Harry and his friends, every nerve was strained, every sail hoisted, and every manoeuvre used, they could not keep the lugger out of harm's way. Every half-hour he looked at his watch, and wished for night, and his friend, the skipper, followed his example. There was a hot chase for several hours; and, though tubs of brandy were thrown overboard by the dozen, still the whizzing bullets from the cutter passed over the heads of the smugglers. It ought to be mentioned, also, that the rigging of the lugger had early sustained damage, and her speed was checked. About sunset a shot injured her rudder, and she became for a time, as Harry described her, "as helpless as a child." The cutter instantly bore down upon her.

"Now for it, my lads!" cried the skipper; "there is nothing for it but fighting now--I suppose that is what you mean, Master Teasdale?"

Harry nodded his head, and quietly drew his pistols from the breast-pocket of his greatcoat; and then added--

"Now, lads, this is a bad job, but we must try to make the best on't, and, as we hae gone thus far" (and he discharged a pistol at the cutter as he spoke), "ye knaw it is o' nae use to think o' yielding--it is better to be shot than hanged."

In a few minutes the firing of the cutter was returned by the lugger, from two large guns and a number of small-arms. Harry, in the midst of the smoke and flame of the action, and the havoc of the bullets, was as cool and collected as if smoking his pipe upon the beach at Embleton.

"See to get the helm repaired, lad, as fast as ye can," said he to the carpenter, while in the act of reloading his pistols. "Let us fight away, but mind ye your awn wark."

Harry's was the philosophy of courage, mingled with the calculations of worldly wisdom.

The firing had been kept up on both sides for the space of half-an-hour, and the decks of both were stained with the blood of the wounded, when a party from the brig, headed by her first mate, succeeded in boarding the lugger. Harry seized a cutlass which lay unsheathed by the side of the companion, and was the first who rushed forward to repel them.

"Out o' my ship, ye thieves!" cried he, while, with his long arm, he brandished the deadly weapon, and for a moment forgot his habitual discretion.

Others of the crew instantly sprang to the assistance of Harry; and, after a short but desperate encounter, the invaders were driven from the deck, leaving their chief mate, insensible from wounds, behind them.

The rudder being repaired so as to render her manageable, the lugger kept up a sort of retreating fight until night set in, when, as Harry said, "she gave the cutter the slip like a knotless thread."

But now a disagreeable question arose amongst them, and that was, what they should do with the wounded officer, who had been left as a prize in their hands--though a prize that they would much rather have been without. Some wished that he might die of his wounds, and so they would get rid of him; for they were puzzled how to dispose of him in such a way as not to lead to their detection, and place their lives in jeopardy. Harry was on his knees by the side of the officer, washing his wounds with Riga balsam, of which they had a store on board, and binding them up, when one desperate fellow cut short the perplexity and discussion of the crew, by proposing to fling their _prize_ overboard.

On hearing the brutal proposal, Harry sprang to his feet, and hurling out his long bony arm, he exclaimed, "Ye savage!" and, dashing his fist in the face of the ruffian, felled him to the deck.

The man (if we may call one who could entertain so inhuman an idea by the name of man) rose, bleeding, growling, and muttering threats of revenge.

"Ye'll blab, will ye?" said Harry, eyeing him fiercely; "threaten to dow it again, and there's the portion that's waiting for yur neck!" and, as he spoke, he pointed with his finger to the cross-tree of the lugger, and added, "and ye knaw that the same reward awaits ye if ye set yur weel-faur'd face ashore! Out o' my sight, ye 'scape-the-gallows!"

For three days and nights, after her encounter with the brig, the lugger kept out to sea; and on the fourth night, which was thick, dark, and starless, Harry resolved to risk all; and, desiring the skipper to stand for the shore, all but run her aground on Embleton beach. No light was hoisted, no signal given. Harry held up his finger, and every soul in the lugger was mute as death. A boat was lowered in silence, and four of the crew being placed under the command of Ned Thomson, pulled ashore. The boat flew quickly, but the oars seemed only to kiss the water, and no sound audible at the distance of five yards proceeded from their stroke.

"Now, pull back quietly, mates," said Ned, "and I'll be aboard wi' some o' wur awn folks in a twinkling."