Authors: James Fenimore Cooper
"'Tis done, Wycherly," she said, again looking over the cliff; "shall I
throw you down one end of the rope?—but, alas! I have not strength to
raise you; and Sir Wycherly and father seem unable to assist me!"
"Do not hurry yourself, Mildred, and all will be well. Go, and put one
end of the line around the signal-staff, then put the two ends together,
tie them in a knot, and drop them down over my head. Be careful not to
come too near the cliff, for—"
The last injunction was useless, Mildred having flown to execute her
commission. Her quick mind readily comprehended what was expected of
her, and her nimble fingers soon performed their task. Tying a knot in
the ends of the line, she did as desired, and the small rope was soon
dangling within reach of Wychecombe's arm. It is not easy to make a
landsman understand the confidence which a sailor feels in a rope. Place
but a frail and rotten piece of twisted hemp in his hand, and he will
risk his person in situations from which he would otherwise recoil in
dread. Accustomed to hang suspended in the air, with ropes only for his
foothold, or with ropes to grasp with his hand, his eye gets an
intuitive knowledge of what will sustain him, and he unhesitatingly
trusts his person to a few seemingly slight strands, that, to one
unpractised, appear wholly unworthy of his confidence. Signal-halyards
are ropes smaller than the little finger of a man of any size; but they
are usually made with care, and every rope-yarn tells. Wychecombe, too,
was aware that these particular halyards were new, for he had assisted
in reeving them himself, only the week before. It was owing to this
circumstance that they were long enough to reach him; a large allowance
for wear and tear having been made in cutting them from the coil. As it
was, the ends dropped some twenty feet below the ledge on which he
stood.
"All safe, now, Mildred!" cried the young man, in a voice of exultation
the moment his hand caught the two ends of the line, which he
immediately passed around his body, beneath the arms, as a precaution
against accidents. "All safe, now, dearest girl; have no further concern
about me."
Mildred drew back, for worlds could not have tempted her to witness the
desperate effort that she knew must follow. By this time, Sir Wycherly,
who had been an interested witness of all that passed, found his voice,
and assumed the office of director.
"Stop, my young namesake," he eagerly cried, when he found that the
sailor was about to make an effort to drag his own body up the cliff;
"stop; that will never do; let Dutton and me do that much for you, at
least. We have seen all that has passed, and are now able to do
something."
"No—no, Sir Wycherly—on no account touch the halyards. By hauling them
over the top of the rocks you will probably cut them, or part them, and
then I'm lost, without hope!"
"Oh! Sir Wycherly," said Mildred, earnestly, clasping her hands
together, as if to enforce the request with prayer; "do not—do not
touch the line."
"We had better let the lad manage the matter in his own way," put in
Dutton; "he is active, resolute, and a seaman, and will do better for
himself than I fear we can do for him. He has got a turn round his body,
and is tolerably safe against any slip, or mishap."
As the words were uttered, the whole three drew back a short distance
and watched the result, in intense anxiety. Dutton, however, so far
recollected himself, as to take an end of the old halyards, which were
kept in a chest at the foot of the staff, and to make, an attempt to
stopper together the two parts of the little rope on which the youth
depended, for should one of the parts of it break, without this
precaution, there was nothing to prevent the halyards from running round
the staff, and destroying the hold. The size of the halyards rendered
this expedient very difficult of attainment, but enough was done to give
the arrangement a little more of the air of security. All this time
young Wychecombe was making his own preparations on the ledge, and quite
out of view; but the tension on the halyards soon announced that his
weight was now pendent from them. Mildred's heart seemed ready to leap
from her mouth, as she noted each jerk on the lines; and her father
watched every new pull, as if he expected the next moment would produce
the final catastrophe. It required a prodigious effort in the young man
to raise his own weight for such a distance, by lines so small. Had the
rope been of any size, the achievement would have been trifling for one
of the frame and habits of the sailor, more especially as he could
slightly avail himself of his feet, by pressing them against the rocks;
but, as it was, he felt as if he were dragging the mountain up after
him. At length, his head appeared a few inches above the rocks, but with
his feet pressed against the cliff, and his body inclining outward, at
an angle of forty-five degrees.
"Help him—help him, father!" exclaimed Mildred, covering her face with
her hands, to exclude the sight of Wychecombe's desperate struggles. "If
he fall now, he will be destroyed. Oh! save him, save him, Sir
Wycherly!"
But neither of those to whom she appealed, could be of any use. The
nervous trembling again came over the father; and as for the baronet,
age and inexperience rendered him helpless.
"Have you no rope, Mr. Dutton, to throw over my shoulders," cried
Wychecombe, suspending his exertions in pure exhaustion, still keeping
all he had gained, with his head projecting outward, over the abyss
beneath, and his face turned towards heaven. "Throw a rope over my
shoulders, and drag my body in to the cliff."
Dutton showed an eager desire to comply, but his nerves had not yet been
excited by the usual potations, and his hands shook in a way to render
it questionable whether he could perform even this simple service. But
for his daughter, indeed, he would hardly have set about it
intelligently. Mildred, accustomed to using the signal-halyards,
procured the old line, and handed it to her father, who discovered some
of his professional knowledge in his manner of using it. Doubling the
halyards twice, he threw the bight over Wychecombe's shoulders, and
aided by Mildred, endeavoured to draw the body of the young man upwards
and towards the cliff. But their united strength was unequal to the
task, and wearied with holding on, and, indeed, unable to support his
own weight any longer by so small a rope, Wychecombe felt compelled to
suffer his feet to drop beneath him, and slid down again upon the ledge.
Here, even his vigorous frame shook with its prodigious exertions; and
he was compelled to seat himself on the shelf, and rest with his back
against the cliff, to recover his self-command and strength. Mildred
uttered a faint shriek as he disappeared, but was too much
horror-stricken to approach the verge of the precipice to ascertain his
fate.
"Be composed, Milly," said her father, "he is safe, as you may see by
the halyards; and to say the truth, the stuff holds on well. So long as
the line proves true, the boy can't fall; he has taken a double turn
with the end of it round his body. Make your mind easy, girl, for I feel
better now, and see my way clear. Don't be uneasy, Sir Wycherly; we'll
have the lad safe on
terra firma
again, in ten minutes. I scarce know
what has come over me, this morning; but I've not had the command of my
limbs as in common. It cannot be fright, for I've seen too many men in
danger to be disabled by
that
; and I think, Milly, it must be the
rheumatism, of which I've so often spoken, and which I've inherited from
my poor mother, dear old soul. Do you know, Sir Wycherly, that
rheumatism can be inherited like gout?"
"I dare say it may—I dare say it may, Dutton—but never mind the
disease, now; get my young namesake back here on the grass, and I will
hear all about it. I would give the world that I had not sent Dick to
Mr. Rotherham's this morning. Can't we contrive to make the pony pull
the boy up?"
"The traces are hardly strong enough for such work, Sir Wycherly. Have a
little patience, and I will manage the whole thing, 'ship-shape, and
Brister fashion,' as we say at sea. Halloo there, Master
Wychecombe—answer my hail, and I will soon get you into deep water."
"I'm safe on the ledge," returned the voice of Wychecombe, from below;
"I wish you would look to the signal-halyards, and see they do not chafe
against the rocks, Mr. Dutton."
"All right, sir; all right. Slack up, if you please, and let me have all
the line you can, without casting off from your body. Keep fast the end
for fear of accidents."
In an instant the halyards slackened, and Dutton, who by this time had
gained his self-command, though still weak and unnerved by the habits of
the last fifteen years, forced the bight along the edge of the cliff,
until he had brought it over a projection of the rocks, where it
fastened itself. This arrangement caused the line to lead down to the
part of the cliffs from which the young man had fallen, and where it was
by no means difficult for a steady head and active limbs to move about
and pluck flowers. It consequently remained for Wychecombe merely to
regain a footing on that part of the hill-side, to ascend to the summit
without difficulty. It is true he was now below the point from which he
had fallen, but by swinging himself off laterally, or even by springing,
aided by the line, it was not a difficult achievement to reach it, and
he no sooner understood the nature of the change that had been made,
than he set about attempting it. The confident manner of Dutton
encouraged both the baronet and Mildred, and they drew to the cliff,
again; standing near the verge, though on the part where the rocks might
be descended, with less apprehension of consequences.
As soon as Wychecombe had made all his preparations, he stood on the end
of the ledge, tightened the line, looked carefully for a foothold on the
other side of the chasm, and made his leap. As a matter of course, the
body of the young man swung readily across the space, until the line
became perpendicular, and then he found a surface so broken, as to
render his ascent by no means difficult, aided as he was by the
halyards. Scrambling upwards, he soon rejected the aid of the line, and
sprang upon the head-land. At the same instant, Mildred fell senseless
on the grass.
"I want a hero:—an uncommon want,
When every year and month send forth a new one;
'Till, after cloying the gazelles with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;—"
BYRON.
In consequence of the unsteadiness of the father's nerves, the duty of
raising Mildred in his arms, and of carrying her to the cottage,
devolved on the young man. This he did with a readiness and concern
which proved how deep an interest he took in her situation, and with a
power of arm which showed that his strength was increased rather than
lessened by the condition into which she had fallen. So rapid was his
movement, that no one saw the kiss he impressed on the palid cheek of
the sweet girl, or the tender pressure with which he grasped the
lifeless form. By the time he reached the door, the motion and air had
begun to revive her, and Wychecombe committed her to the care of her
alarmed mother, with a few hurried words of explanation. He did not
leave the house, however, for a quarter of an hour, except to call out
to Dutton that Mildred was reviving, and that he need be under no
uneasiness on her account. Why he remained so long, we leave the reader
to imagine, for the girl had been immediately taken to her own little
chamber, and he saw her no more for several hours.
When our young sailor came out upon the head-land again, he found the
party near the flag-staff increased to four. Dick, the groom, had
returned from his errand, and Tom Wychecombe, the intended heir of the
baronet, was also there, in mourning for his reputed father, the judge.
This young man had become a frequent visiter to the station, of late,
affecting to imbibe his uncle's taste for sea air, and a view of the
ocean. There had been several meetings between himself and his namesake,
and each interview was becoming less amicable than the preceding, for a
reason that was sufficiently known to the parties. When they met on the
present occasion, therefore, the bows they exchanged were haughty and
distant, and the glances cast at each other might have been termed
hostile, were it not that a sinister irony was blended with that of Tom
Wychecombe. Still, the feelings that were uppermost did not prevent the
latter from speaking in an apparently friendly manner.
"They tell me, Mr. Wychecombe," observed the judge's heir, (for this Tom
Wychecombe might legally claim to be;) "they tell me, Mr. Wychecombe,
that you have been taking a lesson in your trade this morning, by
swinging over the cliffs at the end of a rope? Now, that is an exploit,
more to the taste of an American than to that of an Englishman, I should
think. But, I dare say one is compelled to do many things in the
colonies, that we never dream of at home."
This was said with seeming indifference, though with great art. Sir
Wycherly's principal weakness was an overweening and an ignorant
admiration of his own country, and all it contained. He was also
strongly addicted to that feeling of contempt for the dependencies of
the empire, which seems to be inseparable from the political connection
between the people of the metropolitan country and their colonies. There
must be entire equality, for perfect respect, in any situation in life;
and, as a rule, men always appropriate to their own shares, any admitted
superiority that may happen to exist on the part of the communities to
which they belong. It is on this principle, that the tenant of a
cock-loft in Paris or London, is so apt to feel a high claim to
superiority over the occupant of a comfortable abode in a village. As
between England and her North American colonies in particular, this
feeling was stronger than is the case usually, on account of the early
democratical tendencies of the latter; not, that these tendencies had
already become the subject of political jealousies, but that they left
social impressions, which were singularly adapted to bringing the
colonists into contempt among a people predominant for their own
factitious habits, and who are so strongly inclined to view everything,
even to principles, through the medium of arbitrary, conventional
customs. It must be confessed that the Americans, in the middle of the
eighteenth century, were an exceedingly provincial, and in many
particulars a narrow-minded people, as well in their opinions as in
their habits; nor is the reproach altogether removed at the present day;
but the country from which they are derived had not then made the vast
strides in civilization, for which it has latterly become so
distinguished. The indifference, too, with which all Europe regarded the
whole American continent, and to which England, herself, though she
possessed so large a stake on this side of the Atlantic, formed no
material exception, constantly led that quarter of the world into
profound mistakes in all its reasoning that was connected with this
quarter of the world, and aided in producing the state of feeling to
which we have alluded. Sir Wycherly felt and reasoned on the subject of
America much as the great bulk of his countrymen felt and reasoned in
1745; the exceptions existing only among the enlightened, and those
whose particular duties rendered more correct knowledge necessary, and
not always among them. It is said that the English minister conceived
the idea of taxing America, from the circumstance of seeing a wealthy
Virginian lose a large sum at play, a sort of
argumentum ad hominem
that brought with it a very dangerous conclusion to apply to the sort of
people with whom he had to deal. Let this be as it might, there is no
more question, that at the period of our tale, the profoundest ignorance
concerning America existed generally in the mother country, than there
is that the profoundest respect existed in America for nearly every
thing English. Truth compels us to add, that in despite of all that has
passed, the cis-atlantic portion of the weakness has longest endured the
assaults of time and of an increased intercourse.