The Maid of Sker. Blackmore Richard Doddridge

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СКАЧАТЬ not," I answered, seeing that my character for good English was at stake.

      "And mother say she know well enough the baby must be a foreigner. On her dress it is to show it. No name, as the Christians put, but marks without any meaning. And of clothes so few upon her till mother go to the old cupboard. Rich people mother do say they must be; but dead by this time, she make no doubt."

      "Boy," I replied, "your mother, I fear, is right in that particular. To me it is a subject of anxiety and sorrow. And I know perhaps more about it than any one else can pretend to do."

      The boy looked at me with wonder and eagerness about it. But I gave him a look, as much as to say, "Ask no more at present." However, he was so full of her that he could not keep from talking.

      "We asked who the naughty bad man was, but she was afraid at that, and went all round the room with her eyes, and hid under mother's apron. And dreadful she cried at breakfast about her mama and her own spoon. To my heart I feel the pain when she does cry; I know I do. And then of a sudden she is laughing, and no reason for it! I never did see such a baby before. Do you think so, Mr Llewellyn?"

       CHAPTER IX.

      SANDHILLS TURNED TO SAND-HOLES

      While I was talking thus with the boy, and expecting his mother every minute (with hope of a little refreshment when the farmer should have dropped off into his usual Sunday sleep), a very strange thing began more and more to force itself on my attention. I have said that the hall of this desolate house was large and long, and had six doorways – narrow arches of heavy stone without a door to any of them. Three of these arches were at the west and three at the east end of the room, and on the south were two old windows, each in a separate gable, high up from the floor, and dark with stone-work and with lead-work; and in the calmest weather these would draw the air and make a rattle. At the north side of the hall was nothing but dead wall, and fireplace, and cupboards, and the broad oak staircase. Having used the freedom to light a pipe, I sate with my face to the chimney-corner, where some wood-ashes were smouldering, after the dinner was done with; and sitting thus, I became aware of a presence of some sort over my right shoulder. At first I thought it was nothing more than the smoke from my own pipe, for I puffed rather hard, in anxiety about that little darling. But seeing surprise, and alarm perhaps, in Watkin's face, who sate opposite, I turned round, and there beheld three distinct and several pillars of a brownish-yellow light standing over against the doorways of the western end.

      At first I was a little scared, and the more so because the rest of the hall was darkening with a pulse of colour gradually vanishing; and for an instant I really thought that the ghosts of the wrecked child's father and mother, and perhaps her nurse, were come to declare the truth about her, and challenge me for my hesitation. But presently I called to mind how many strange things had befallen me, both at sea and on the coast, in the way of feeling and vision too, designed, however, by the Power that sends them, more to forewarn than frighten us, and, as we get used to them, to amuse or edify.

      Therefore I plucked my spirit up and approached this odd appearance, and found that no part of it was visible upon the spot where it seemed to stand. But Watkin, who was much emboldened by my dauntless carriage, called out in Welsh that he could see me walking in and out of them, like so many haystacks. Upon this I took yet further courage, having a witness so close at hand, and nothing seeming to hurt me. So what did I do but go outside, without any motion of running away, but to face the thing to its utmost; and Watkin, keeping along the wall, took good care to come after me.

      Here I discovered in half a second that I had been wise as well as strong in meeting the matter valiantly; for what we had seen was but the glancing – or reflection, as they call it now – of what was being done outside. In a word, the thick and stifling heat of the day (which had gathered to a head the glaring and blazing power of the last two months of hot summer) was just beginning to burst abroad in whirlwind, hail, and thunder. All the upper heaven was covered with a spread of burning yellow; all the half-way sky was red as blood with fibres under it, and all the sides and margin looked as black as the new-tarred bends of a ship. But what threw me most astray was, that the whole was whirling, tossing upward jets of darkness, as a juggler flings his balls, yet at one time spinning round, and at the same time scowling down.

      "It is a hurricane," said I, having seen some in the West Indies which began like this. Watkin knew not much of my meaning, but caught hold of my coat, and stood. And in truth it was enough to make not only a slip of a boy, but a veteran sailor, stand and fear.

      Not a flash of lightning yet broke the expectation of it, nor had been a drop of rain. But to my surprise, and showing how little we know of anything, over the high land broke a sand-storm, such as they have in Africa. It had been brewing some time, most likely in the Kenfig burrows, toward the westward and the windward, although no wind was astir with us. I thought of a dance of waterspouts, such as we had twice encountered in the royal navy; once, I know, was after clearing the mouth of the Strait of Malaccas; where the other was I truly forget, having had so much to go everywhere. But this time the whirling stuff was neither water, nor smoke, nor cloud; but sand, as plain as could be. It was just like the parson's hour-glass – only going up, not coming down, and quickly instead of slowly. And of these funnels, spinning around, and coming near and nearer, there may have been perhaps a dozen, or there may have been threescore. They differed very much in size, according to the breadth of whirlwind, and the stuff it fed upon, and the hole in the air it bored; but all alike had a tawny colour, and a manner of bulking upward, and a loose uncertain edge, often lashing off in frays; and between them black clouds galloped; and sometimes two fell into one, and bodily broke downward; then a pile (as big as Newton Rock) rose in a moment anyhow. Hill or valley made no odds; sandhill, or sand-bottom; the sand was in the place of the air, and the air itself was sand.

      Many people have asked me, over and over again (because such a thing was scarcely known, except at the great storm of sand four hundred years ago, they say) – our people, ever so many times, assert their privilege to ask me (now again especially) how many of these pillars there were! I wish to tell the truth exactly, having no interest in the matter – and if I had, no other matter would it be to me; and after going into my memory deeper than ever I could have expected there would be occasion for, all I can say is this – legion was their number; because they were all coming down upon me; and how could I stop to count them?

      Watkin lost his mind a little, and asked me (with his head gone under my regulation-coat) if I thought it was the judgment-day.

      To this question I "replied distinctly in the negative" (as the man of the paper wrote, when I said "no" about poaching); and then I cheered young Watkin up, and told him that nothing more was wanted than to keep a weather-helm.

      Before his wit could answer helm so much as to clear my meaning, the storm was on me, and broke my pipe, and filled my lungs and all my pockets, and spoiled every corner of the hat I had bought for my dear wife's funeral. I pulled back instantly (almost as quickly as boy Watkin could), and we heard the sand burst over the house, with a rattle like shot, and a roar like cannon. And being well inside the walls, we fixed our eyes on one another, in the gloom and murkiness, as much as we could do for coughing, to be sure of something.

      "Where is Bardie gone?" I asked, as soon as my lungs gave speech to me: it should have been, "Where is Bunny gone?" But my head was full of the little one.

      "Who can tell?" cried the boy, in Welsh, being thoroughly scared of his English. "Oh, Dyo dear, God the great only knows."

      "God will guard her," I said softly, yet without pure faith in it, having seen such cruel things; but the boy's face moved me. Moreover, Bardie seemed almost too full of life for quenching; and having escaped rocks, waves, and quicksands, surely she would never be wrecked upon dry land ignobly. Nevertheless, at the mere idea of those helpless little ones out in all this raging havoc, tears came to my eyes, until the sand, of which the very house was full, СКАЧАТЬ