


Produced by David Widger





"THERE IS SORROW ON THE SEA"

By Gilbert Parker





I

               "YORK FACTORY, HUDSON'S BAY,
                  "23rd September, 1747.

"MY DEAR COUSIN FANNY,--It was a year last April Fool's Day, I left you
on the sands there at Mablethorpe, no more than a stone's throw from the
Book-in-Hand Inn, swearing that you should never see me or hear from me
again. You remember how we saw the coast-guards flash their lights here
and there, as they searched the sands for me? how one came bundling down
the bank, calling, 'Who goes there?' You remember that when I said, 'A
friend,' he stumbled, and his light fell to the sands and went out,
and in the darkness you and I stole away: you to your home, with a
whispering, 'God-bless-you, Cousin Dick,' over your shoulder, and I with
a bit of a laugh that, maybe, cut to the heart, and that split in a sob
in my own throat--though you didn't hear that.

"'Twas a bad night's work that, Cousin Fanny, and maybe I wish it
undone, and maybe I don't; but a devil gets into the heart of a man when
he has to fly from the lass he loves, while the friends of his youth go
hunting him with muskets, and he has to steal out of the backdoor of his
own country and shelter himself, like a cold sparrow, up in the eaves of
the world.

"Ay, lass, that's how I left the fens of Lincolnshire a year last April
Fool's Day. There wasn't a <DW18> from, Lincoln town to Mablethorpe that
I hadn't crossed with a running jump; and there wasn't a break in the
shore, or a sink-hole in the sand, or a clump of rushes, or a samphire
bed, from Skegness to Theddlethorpe, that I didn't know like every line
of your face. And when I was a slip of a lad-ay, and later too--how you
and I used to snuggle into little nooks of the sand-hills, maybe
just beneath the coast-guard's hut, and watch the tide come swilling
in-water-daisies you used to call the breaking surf, Cousin Fanny. And
that was like you, always with a fancy about everything you saw.
And when the ships, the fishing-smacks with their red sails, and the
tall-masted brigs went by, taking the white foam on their canvas, you
used to wish that you might sail away to the lands you'd heard tell
of from old skippers that gathered round my uncle's fire in the
Book-in-Hand. Ay, a grand thing I thought it would be, too, to go riding
round the world on a well-washed deck, with plenty of food and grog, and
maybe, by-and-by, to be first mate, and lord it from fo'castle bunk to
stern-rail.

"You did not know, did you, who was the coast-guardsman that stumbled as
he came on us that night? It looked a stupid thing to do that, and let
the lantern fall. But, lass, 'twas done o' purpose. That was the one man
in all the parish that would ha' risked his neck to let me free. 'Twas
Lancy Doane, who's give me as many beatings in his time as I him. We
were always getting foul one o' t'other since I was big enough to shy a
bit of turf at him across a <DW18>, and there isn't a spot on's body that
I haven't hit, nor one on mine that he hasn't mauled. I've sat on his
head, and he's had his knee in my stomach till I squealed, and we never
could meet without back-talking and rasping 'gainst the grain. The night
before he joined the coast-guardsmen, he was down at the Book-in-Hand,
and 'twas little like that I'd let the good chance pass--I might never
have another; for Gover'ment folk will not easy work a quarrel on their
own account. I mind him sittin' there on the settle, his shins against
the fire, a long pipe going, and Casey of the Lazy Beetle, and Jobbin
the mate of the Dodger, and Little Faddo, who had the fat Dutch wife
down by the Ship Inn, and Whiggle the preaching blacksmith. And you were
standin' with your back to the shinin' pewters, and the great jug of ale
with the white napkin behind you; the light o' the fire wavin' on your
face, and your look lost in the deep hollow o' the chimney. I think of
you most as you were that minute, Cousin Fanny, when I come in. I tell
you straight and fair, that was the prettiest picture I ever saw; and
I've seen some rare fine things in my travels. 'Twas as if the thing had
been set by some one, just to show you off to your best. Here you were,
a slip of a lass, straight as a bulrush, and your head hangin' proud on
your shoulders; yet modest too, as you can see off here in the North the
top of the golden-rod flower swing on its stem. You were slim as slim,
and yet there wasn't a corner on you; so soft and full and firm you
were, like the breast of a quail; and I mind me how the shine of your
cheeks was like the glimmer of an apple after you've rubbed it with
a bit of cloth. Well, there you stood in some sort of smooth, plain,
clingin' gown, a little bit loose and tumblin' at the throat, and your
pretty foot with a brown slipper pushed out, just savin' you from bein'
prim. That's why the men liked you--you didn't carry a sermon in your
waist-ribbon, and the Lord's Day in the lift o' your chin; but you had
a smile to give when 'twas the right time for it, and men never said
things with you there that they'd have said before many another maid.

"'Twas a thing I've thought on off here, where I've little to do but
think, how a lass like you could put a finger on the lip of such rough
tykes as Faddo, Jobbin, and the rest, keepin' their rude words under
flap and button. Do you mind how, when I passed you comin' in, I laid my
hand on yours as it rested on the dresser? That hand of yours wasn't
a tiny bit of a thing, and the fingers weren't all taperin' like a
simperin' miss from town, worked down in the mill of quality and got
from graftin' and graftin', like one of them roses from the flower-house
at Mablethorpe Hall--not fit to stand by one o' them that grew strong
and sweet with no fancy colour, in the garden o' the Book-in-Hand.
Yours was a hand that talked as much as your lips or face, as honest and
white; and the palm all pink, and strong as strong could be, and warmin'
every thread in a man's body when he touched it. Well, I touched your
hand then, and you looked at me and nodded, and went musin' into the
fire again, not seemin' to hear our gabble.

"But, you remember--don't you?--how Jobbin took to chaffin' of Lancy
Doane, and how Faddo's tongue got sharper as the time got on, and many
a nasty word was said of coast-guards and excisemen, and all that had
to do with law and gover'ment. Cuts there were at some of Lancy's wild
doings in the past, and now and then they'd turn to me, saying what they
thought would set me girdin' Lancy too. But I had my own quarrel, and
I wasn't to be baited by such numskulls. And Lancy--that was a thing I
couldn't understand--he did no more than shrug his shoulder and call for
more ale, and wish them all good health and a hundred a year. I never
thought he could ha' been so patient-like. But there was a kind of
little smile, too, on his face, showin' he did some thinkin'; and I
guessed he was bidin' his time.

"I wasn't as sharp as I might ha' been, or I'd ha' seen what he was
waitin' for, with that quiet provokin' smile on his face, and his eyes
smoulderin' like. I don't know to this day whether you wanted to leave
the room when you did, though 'twas about half after ten o'clock, later
than I ever saw you there before. But when my uncle come in from Louth,
and give you a touch on the shoulder, and said: 'To bed wi' you, my
lass,' you waited for a minute longer, glancin' round on all of us, at
last lookin' steady at Lancy; and he got up from his chair, and took off
his hat to you with a way he had. You didn't stay a second after that,
but went away straight, sayin' good-night to all of us, but Lancy was
the only one on his feet.

"Just as soon as the door was shut behind you, Lancy turned round to
the fire, and pushed the log with his feet in a way a man does when he's
think-in' a bit. And Faddo give a nasty laugh, and said:

"' Theer's a dainty sitovation. Theer's Mr. Thomas Doane, outlaw and
smuggler, and theer's Mr. Lancy Doane his brother, coast-guardsman. Now,
if them two should 'appen to meet on Lincolnshire coast, Lord, theer's
a sitovation for ye--Lord, theer's a cud to chew! 'Ere's one gentleman
wants to try 'is 'and at 'elpin' Prince Charlie, and when 'is Up doesn't
amount to anythink, what does the King on 'is throne say? He says, "As
for Thomas Doane, Esquire, aw've doone wi' 'im." And theer's another
gentleman, Mr. Lancy Doane, Esquire. He turns pious, and says, "Aw'm
goin' for a coast-guardsman." What does the King on his throne say? 'E
says, "Theer's the man for me."'"

But aw says, "Aw've doone, aw've doone wi' Mr. Lancy Doane, Esquire, and
be damned to 'im!" He! he! Theer's a fancy sitovation for ye. Mr. Thomas
Doane, Esquire, smuggler and outlaw, an' Mr. Lancy Doane, Esquire,
coast-guardsman. Aw've doone. Ho! ho! That gits into my crop.'

"I tell you these things, Cousin Fanny, because I'm doubtin' if you ever
heard them, or knew exactly how things stood that night. I never was a
friend of Lancy Doane, you understand, but it's only fair that the truth
be told about that quarrel, for like as not he wouldn't speak himself,
and your father was moving in and out; and, I take my oath, I wouldn't
believe Faddo and the others if they was to swear on the Bible. Not that
they didn't know the truth when they saw it, but they did love just to
let their fancy run. I'm livin' over all the things that happened that
night--livin' them over to-day, when everything's so quiet about me
here, so lonesome. I wanted to go over it all, bit by bit, and work it
out in my head, just as you and I used to do the puzzle games we played
in the sands. And maybe, when you're a long way off from things you once
lived, you can see them and understand them better. Out here, where it's
so lonely, and yet so good a place to live in, I seem to get the hang o'
the world better, and why some things are, and other things aren't; and
I thought it would pull at my heart to sit down and write you a long
letter, goin' over the whole business again; but it doesn't. I suppose
I feel as a judge does when he goes over a lot of evidence, and sums it
all up for the jury. I don't seem prejudiced one way or another. But I'm
not sure that I've got all the evidence to make me ken everything; and
that's what made me bitter wild the last time that I saw you. Maybe you
hadn't anything to tell me, and maybe you had, and maybe, if you ever
write to me out here, you'll tell me if there's anything I don't know
about them days.

"Well, I'll go back now to what happened when Faddo was speakin' at my
uncle's bar. Lancy Doane was standin' behind the settle, leanin' his
arms on it, and smokin' his pipe quiet. He waited patient till Faddo
had done, then he comes round the settle, puts his pipe up in the rack
between the rafters, and steps in front of Faddo. If ever the devil was
in a man's face, it looked out of Lancy Doane's that minute. Faddo had
touched him on the raw when he fetched out that about Tom Doane. All of
a sudden Lancy swings, and looks at the clock.

"'It's half-past ten, Jim Faddo,' said he, 'and aw've got an hour an' a
half to deal wi' you as a Lincolnshire lad. At twelve o'clock aw'm the
Gover'ment's, but till then aw'm Lancy Doane, free to strike or free to
let alone; to swallow dirt or throw it; to take a lie or give it. And
now list to me; aw'm not goin' to eat dirt, and aw'm goin' to give you
the lie, and aw'm goin' to break your neck, if I swing for it to-morrow,
Jim Faddo. And here's another thing aw'll tell you. When the clock
strikes twelve, on the best horse in the country aw'll ride to
Theddlethorpe, straight for the well that's dug you know where, to
find your smuggled stuff, and to run the irons round your wrists. Aw'm
dealin' fair wi' you that never dealt fair by no man. You never had
an open hand nor soft heart; and because you've made money, not out o'
smugglin' alone, but out o' poor devils of smugglers that didn't know
rightly to be rogues, you think to fling your dirt where you choose. But
aw'll have ye to-night as a man, and aw'll have ye to-night as a King's
officer, or aw'll go damned to hell.'

"Then he steps back a bit very shiny in the face, and his eyes like
torchlights, but cool and steady. 'Come on now,' he says, 'Jim Faddo,
away from the Book-in-Hand, and down to the beach under the sand-hills,
and we'll see man for man--though, come to think of it, y 'are no man,'
he said--'if ye'll have the right to say when aw'm a King's officer that
you could fling foul words in the face of Lancy Doane. And a word more,'
he says; 'aw wouldn't trust ye if an Angel o' Heaven swore for ye. Take
the knife from the belt behind your back there, and throw it on the
table, for you wouldn't bide by no fair rules o' fightin'. Throw the
knife on the table,' he says, comin' a step forward.

"Faddo got on to his feet. He was bigger built than Lancy, and a bit
taller, and we all knew he was devilish strong in his arms. There was
a look in his face I couldn't understand. One minute I thought it was
fear, and another I thought it was daze; and maybe it was both. But all
on a sudden something horrible cunnin' come into it, and ugly too.

"'Go to the well, then, since ye've found out all about it,' he says,
'but aw've an hour and a half start o' ye, Lancy Doane.'

"'Ye've less than that,' says Lancy back to him, 'if ye go with me to
the sands first.'

"At that my uncle stepped in to say a word for peacemakin', but Lancy
would have none of it. 'Take the knife and throw it on the table,' he
said to Faddo once more, and Faddo took it out and threw it down.

"'Come on, then,' Faddo says, with a sneerin' laugh; 'we'll see by
daybreak who has the best o' this night's work,' and he steps towards
the door.

"'Wait a minute,' says Lancy, gettin' in front of him. 'Now take the
knife from your boot. Take it,' he says again, 'or aw will. That's like
a man, to go to a fist fight wi' knives. Take it,' he said. 'Aw'll gi'
ye till aw count four, and if ye doan't take it, aw'll take it meself.
One!' he says steady and soft. 'Two!' Faddo never moved. 'Three!' The
silence made me sick, and the clock ticked like hammers. 'Four!' he
said, and then he sprang for the boot, but Faddo's hand went down like
lightnin' too. I couldn't tell exactly how they clinched but once or
twice I saw the light flash on the steel. Then they came down together,
Faddo under, and when I looked again Faddo was lying eyes starin' wide,
and