ページの画像
PDF
ePub

THE SAMPHIRE GATHERER'S STORY.

BY ARTHUR HUME PLUNKETT.

"It was here, sir, that Mr. Clements descended."

"How fearful!" I exclaimed, scarcely venturing to look down a precipice at least six hundred feet in depth.

To repeat in a few words what had occupied nearly an hour, and omitting his numerous digressions, the samphire gatherer's tale ran

thus :

At the close of the last century he and his father, samphire gatherers by trade, had assisted in lowering one Mr. Clements down the cliff under rather extraordinary circumstances. Mr. Clements was returning home along the downs, from the then retired, but now fashionable town of when he recognised a boat about a mile from the shore, strongly resembling one in which his wife and sister were in the fre quent habit of passing hours, in a little bay or inlet of the sea near his house. He hastened home only to have all doubts removed as to their identity; and, hurrying back to the spot where he had first observed them, found, to his extreme terror, that the boat had been deserted by its occupants, who had been seen wandering on the rocks under the cliff. To approach them by the sea on either side in time to rescue them from their impending danger was impossible. The tide was rising fast, and their destruction appeared to be inevitable. In this emergency the samphire gatherers were thought of, and sought for; and. declining all their offers, Clements insisted upon descending the cliff, in the hope of placing his wife upon some rock or spot where she might remain in safety till the arrival of the boats from Thus

far had the samphire gatherer got in his story which he was relating to me as I was strolling along the cliffs, when he paused, as I have already mentioned, and pointed to the spot where Mr. Clements descended. Following his example, and taking a seat on the grass near him, the old man continued his tale. I give it in his own words.

"Well, sir; when we found we could not persuade him to let one of us go down in his place, father, as usual, secured a crow-bar into the earth, a few feet from the edge of the cliff; and then twining the rope once round it, in order to give us the steadier hold on Mr. Clements, fastened it under his arms. We then made him change his coat for one of our frocks, such as you see the common people wear in these parts; and taught him how to put his feet steadily against the side of the cliff as it were thus; and made him take the rope between his hands just above the knot, and told him to lean out from the rock as far as he could, and to work downwards with his feet and look up, and keep a watch out for the stones and rubbish which the rope might dislodge. We told him all this, sir; and bade him not be frightened at the birds, as they would not harm him;-the sun had set, sir; and they always make a horrid screeching if you go down the cliff after they are gone to roost ;-and, that if he altered his mind, and wished to come back, he had only to give the rope a couple of pulls, and that we'd haul him up directly. No-no,' says Mr. Clements, there's no necessity for that.' When I get to the bottom, wait for a quarter of an hour; if at the end of that time I give no signal for you to pull me up, you will

[blocks in formation]

6

know that the ladies are safe, and then make what haste you can, and get a boat from I am ready now,' says he, in a faint voice, and his teeth all the while chattering with fear. Never was a man so frightened as he was at that moment. Well, sir, father and I once more lifted the rope, and Mr. Clements leaned back over the edge of the cliff. Down he went. We soon lost sight of him.

"Working with his feet, as father had told him, we slowly supplying out rope as he required it, he moved safely down for a bit; then he rested on a jutting rock. All this time he kept his eyes fixed on the sky. Pressing cautiously with his feet against the chalk; his body almost at right-angles with the cliff; his hands grasping the rope, or sheltering his face from the shower of stones and dirt which it dislodged. He had got about a hundred feet from the top, when, suddenly slipping from the cliff, his chest and face were flung violently against it. He endea voured to regain his footing against the rocks, and in so doing broke through a resolution which he had formed. and looked beneath him. It is a rare sight that for the first time. Well do I remember how my head swam as I looked at the water far, far below; and the waves that one could see, but not hear, as they broke over the shingles. Presence of mind, on which Mr. Clements so vaunted himself, where was it then? He was about to pull the rope; but he thought of his poor wife, and one thought of her was enough. On he went. To regain a footing was impossible. Father and I kept gradually lowering the rope; and with his face to the cliff; his hands outstretched, catching at each object as he passed; enveloped in a shower of chalk and stoncs, which he had not the strength to avoid; gasping and panting for b.eath, poor Mr. Clements slided down for about another hundred feet. Here the cliff arched inwards, forming an immense hollow, like yonder rock, sir; and, swinging to and fro, and round and round, as it were betwixt hea. ven and earth, down he went. At one moment the wide ocean met his dizzy gaze; at another, flocks of the startled birds flew around his head, uttering their shrill and angry cries. Again, sir. he found him. self sliding down against the side of the cliff, his fish all sore and torn, and his body and arms in absolute torture from the pressure of the rope. Again in agony he made a frantic effort to regain a footing; but, in so doing, fastened one of his legs in a narrow fissure, or opening in the 10ck. Vain was the struggle to release it, sir; Mr Clements was either too weak and faint, or the limb too firmly secured in the rock. All his efforts were useless; and I shudder at the bure recollection wh le I tell it, we continued to supply the rope! Hanging by his leg, head downwards, there he lay; the cormorants and sea-mews flitting around him, and joining in his frightful shricks."

“Horrible! was he long thus?"

"Not long, sir. Father soon discovered that there was no weight or pull upon the rope; and, judging from his experience of what had occurred, we raised it a few feet, and released Mr. Clements from his painful situation. From this moment, he told me, he was unconcious as to whether he was ascending or descending, until he heard his name called in a faint voice. He opened his eyes. We had lowered him over the arch of an immense cavern, within which all was darkness. The sea was rolling in beneath him; his feet touched it; he felt that he must either swim or drown; he feebly grasped the rope; a thrill of joy ran through his veins as he found an unex. pected footing on a rock concealed by the waves in about three feet

water; the depth around for the present mattered not. He remained for a few moments motionless on the rock. His name was again called; it sounded from within the cave.

"Extricating himself from the rope, he made an effort to swim; found that he had more strength than he had thought,-swam forward through the darkness up the cavern; struggled-sank-rose again-heard his name called louder and nearer,-made one effort more-felt the sand, the smooth sand, under his feet,-staggered forward, reeled, and fell, exhausted, into the arms of his wife." "And his sister?"

"The ladies were both there, sir. The cavern was about fifty feet in depth, sloping upwards towards the back, and partly filled with weeds, stones, and sand. Here Mrs. Clements and her sister had been driven to take refuge by the rising tide. They had landed from the boat on the rocks, at some distance below the cave, in the hope of finding a pathway or outlet, by which they could escape up the cliff. After a long and hopeless search, they bethought them of the boat; and, to their extreme terror, found that it had been carried away by the rising tide, which now partly covered the rocks. They had just time to climb into the cavern over the fallen rocks under the arch, when the waters sweeping in, closed up all entrance to any but a swimmer. Although the tide was fast rising, the ladies cheered each other with the hope that they should escape. Fortunately the darkness at the back of the cavern was sufficient to prevent their discovering the height to which the water usually rose.

"As you might imagine, Mr Clements was some time before he recovered his senses. His wife was kneeling beside him, chafing his brows, when her sister, starting up, called their attention to the rope by which he had descended. We were pulling it up; and he shook his head as it disappeared over the arch of the cavern. Well he knew how useless it would have been for them to use it. 'It matters not,' he said; they (meaning us) have gone to. We shall have boats here soon; we are safe-quite safe,' and so on, endeavouring to keep their spirits up, while he well knew that in the darkness the chances were that the boat would never find the cave.

"Two hours, sir,-two long hours passed on in this way, and Mr. Clements had given up all hope. The water kept rising and rising, till at last the waves broke at their feet, and each instant threatened their destruction. The ladies were almost dead with fear and cold, when a large heavy, Dutch-built boat-you don't see such now, sir,-swept, with scarcely a sound, under the arch into the cavern, her prow coming in close upon the spot where Mr. Clements and the ladies were. They did not hear her until she was within the cave; and no wonder, for the oars were muffled, and those who were in her were as silent as the grave. It was part of the cargo of a French smuggler, lying a few miles off, that her crew, assisted by some of the fishermen, were about to land, and they had taken shelter in the cavern, having been alarmed at the approach of a boat up the coast. Fortunate was it that Mr. Clements prevented the ladies from calling out for assistance from them—”

"Why I should have thought at such a moment that even smug. glers"

"Not they, sir,-not they; and Mr. Clements knew it. Desperate men like them would have left the poor things to drown, or have murdered them. No; Mr. Clements knew better. He tried a last

and a dangerous chance; but it was his only one. Listen, sir: while the men had their heads turned to the opening of the cavern, watching the boat pass, the sight of which had driven them into it, he lifted the ladies gently into the end of the boat. They couldn't hear him for the noise of the waves; there was plenty of room for them, and he drew a sail over them, and was just stepping in himself after them, when one of the men turned, and he had only time to conceal himself under the bows of the boat before she was again moving silently out of the cave with, as her crew little suspected, the addition of two to their number since she had entered it.

[ocr errors]

"They went about a quarter of a mile down under the cliff, and landed a boy, who disappeared like a cat up the rocks. A dead silence ensued; no one ventured to speak; the men rested on their oars, and the boat gently rose and sank on the waves. At last the silence was broken; something dark was hurled down the cliff at a short distance from the boat. It fell heavily on the rocks. God forgive him, he's tossed him over,' muttered one of the men. And so it was, sir. The poor man on the look-out was asleep near the top of the cliff; and we often hear of these men rolling over in their sleep. There's always a reason for it, sir. They were going to land their cargo, when they heard a gun in the offing from one of the King's cutters. The alarm had been given. Not a moment was to be lost; and, straining every nerve, they bore out to sea.

"They were about two miles from the shore, when some of the men declared it was a lost job, and that they could go no further. Mrs. Clements was quite senseless with cold and exhaustion, but her sister listened eagerly to what the men said. They had some angry words, but the meaning of their conversation she could not understand. There was a little boat astern of the larger one, which they drew to it, and entered one by one, the last man calling out as he stepped in-Now then, boys, pull for your lives; they'll make after us when they find they've lost their prize.'

"The boat had disappeared in the surrounding darkness before the terrified lady comprehended all; and then, sir, in a moment the frightful truth flashed upon her. The devils had scuttled the boat, and it was sinking fast. She said one prayer, and turned to kiss her sleeping sister, when Mr. Clements' voice sounded almost at her side! There he was, sir,-there he was in the self-same little pleasure-boat which had been the cause of all their misfortunes. He had just time to lift the ladies out of the boat, and to get clear of her, when she went down. The revenue-cutter came up, and took them on board all alive; but many months passed before Mrs. Clements recovered the events of that dreadful night."

66

"What became of Mr. Clements when they left him in the cave?" "He held on to the boat for a few minutes till they got outside, and then swam to the rocks, where he found his little pleasure-boat, and entering it, followed in the track of the larger vessel in time to save the life of Mrs. Clements and that of her sister. The sun is setting, sir," said the samphire gatherer, touching his hat to me. must be going homewards. Mayhap," he added, as he turned away on his path, "one of these days, when you are strolling on the rocks below, sir, you will look at the cavern where Mr. Clements found his wife. You can imagine much better than I can describe what must have been their feelings in such a place, and at such a time. Good evening, sir.”

PORTRAIT GALLERY.-No. VII.

ADVENTURES OF THE CANNON FAMILY.

Ir was night before the cavalcading party returned to the oncefamed Bonomia, but in modern times the no less celebrated Boulogne. What could they have been about all this time in a humble cottage? Miss Molly Cannon frightened out of her life, and Lucy Cannon terrified to death; one Frenchman wounded in the head, both smitten in the heart. The fact simply was, that they were making love in the most approved and scientific manner, which we unsophisticated English should endeavour to imitate, since, by curious ancient ma. nuscripts lately discovered in Pompeii, it is clearly proved that Ovid was a native of Gascony.

The Comte des Oripeaux possessed a heart of crystal, suspended round his Byronic neck by a chain of jet-black hair, evidently appertaining to the head that had belonged to the possessor of the aforesaid heart, and from whence had also been ravished or bestowed a raven-lock.

As Molly was pretending to play with affected indifference with the dangling jewel, Des Oripeaux heaved a sigh; Molly responded; Des Oripeaux groaned; Molly hemmed; and timidly asked-unsophisticated child!—if that hair belonged to his sister? Oripeaux was silent. He drooped his head in his hands; he then grasped his throat. He seemed a prey to the pangs of upbraiding conscience; while in fact, he was merely squeezing his jugular veins, to produce a crimson suffusion in his face. An English lover who has no knowledge of anatomy, would never have hit upon such an ingenious stratagem. But here his friend, De la Blagne, who was instilling in Lucy's ear all the devoted spirit of love's distillation, perceived his embarrassment, and hastened to his relief.

66

"Mon ami," he said, Miss Moli, is too subject-to bad shamevere bad shame-mauvaise honte-and his impressionabilité is vere much—ridicule—ma foi. Sometime he is quite assommant,quite knocky me down. De fac of de mattaire is, dat dis dere mèche de chereux-dat nick of hair did belong to a vere silly, foolish, susceptible lady, one Duchesse de Gringullet; and she did one day fancy him one infidèle, and she went for to travel for distraction; till, one morning, she take one chump in de river, from de top of de Euxine Bridge -de Pont Euxine."

"The duchess-a real

But, if

"Gracious me !" exclaimed Molly Cannon. duchess drowned herself!-noyau herself in the rivière-oh, dear !" “Allons, mon ami," added De la Blagne, giving him a choke.chicken thump, which would have rectified a hunchback. "Du courage! You know you naver did loaf dat foolish duchesse, whose husband was sa retainly the most magnifique gentleman I ever saw. de lady do chump into de vater for loaf, ve are no fishaman to chump aftaire. Eh, donc !-for, though one lady may be de toste of de société-eh !-vhen she chumps in the river no gentleman likes toste in vater. No, by Gar! dat is no cham-paign,--ha! ha! eh! donc !" This last ejaculation might lead one to suspect that our witty Frank was a countryman of Ovid.

« 前へ次へ »