Chapter 2. The Dream Confirmed By Reality

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_ CHAPTER TWO. THE DREAM CONFIRMED BY REALITY

Three years elapsed before I saw the cape again. Indeed the remembrance of that visit there, of a few days only, began to assume indistinctness as a dream, and sometimes as I thought of it, recalling the events of the journey there and back in the chaise, the wild scenery and the strange sound of the surf, the old dark house and the devoted black servants--sometimes, I say, as I thought of all these, as I loved to do when I settled myself in bed for the night, or when in summer I lay on my back in the grass looking up at the flying clouds, I would have to stop and fix my attention sharp, to be sure whether it ever had been a reality, or whether it might not be, after all, only a dream. I think my father was afraid of the fascination of the cape for us boys--afraid its charms, if we once partook of them freely, might distract our attention from the order and duties of school life. To be sure, we always went to the country with our parents for a month or six weeks, and enjoyed it exceedingly, laying up a stock of trout, squirrel, and badger stories to last us through the winter. But there was no other country, we imagined, like the cape; and as our father and mother never lived there, and rarely spent even a single night on the whole property, they thought it best, I suppose, that we should not run wild there and get a relish for what all boys seem to have, in some degree, by nature. I mean the spirit of adventure, and love of the sea.

However, the good time came at last, or a reliable promise of it first, just fifty years ago this very February. We older boys--Walter, sixteen years of age, Drake, fourteen, and I, Robert, twelve--were attending school at Bristol, and were, as usual too in the winter evenings, at work over our lessons at the library table, when, on one never-to-be-forgotten evening, our father, who was sitting in an easy chair by the fire, suddenly asked, "Boys, how would you like to pass next summer on the cape?" Ah! didn't we three give a terrific chorus of assent? "Jolly! magnificent! splendid!" we cried, while Walter just quietly vaulted over half a dozen chairs, two or three at a time, backwards and forwards, till he had expended some of the animal vivacity stored up in abundance within him. Drake, as usual when extremely pleased, tried to accomplish the rubbing of his stomach and the patting of his head both at the same time; and I climbed into the chair with my father, and patted his cheeks and thanked him with a fierce shake of the hands.

"Bob, boy, you are the only one of my youngsters who has been at the old place, and you must have painted it as a wonderful corner of the earth, that Walter and Drake should testify their pleasure in such eccentric ways.--And look here, Walter: when you wish to turn acrobat again, let it not be in this library or over those chairs; choose some piece of green grass out of doors.--Well, boys, _perhaps_ you can pass the summer at the cape. I do not promise it, but shall try to arrange it so if your mother is willing; but under the unfailing condition that you make good progress in your studies until that time."

"Shall we all be there together, father, and for the whole summer, and without any school? How delightful!"

"Not too fast, Drake. Without school? What an idea! Why, in six months you would be as wild and ignorant as the sheep there. No; you shall have a strict tutor, who will keep you in harness, and help Walter to prepare for going up next year to Cambridge. But only you three will be there. I have some business in London, and I shall take your mother and Aggie and Charley with me."

During those February evenings there were many more conversations on the same subject, full of interest to us boys, and finally it was fully decided by our father and mother that we should go in May, and stay there until autumn; that a certain Mr Clare should be our tutor, and that Clump and Juno should be our housekeepers and victuallers.

Never did a springtime appear longer and more wearisome. We counted every day, and were disgusted with March for having thirty-one of them. What greatly increased our impatience and the splendour of our anticipation was that, some time in March, our father told us that a brig had been cast away in a curious manner on the shore of the cape, and that he had purchased the wreck as it lay, well preserved and firmly held in the rocks above ordinary high-tide. He proposed, at some future time, to make use of it as a sort of storehouse, or perhaps dwelling for labourers. A shipwreck! a real wreck! and on our cape! stranded on the very shore of our Robinson Crusoe-like paradise! Just imagine our excitement.

The particulars of the wreck were as follows:--A brig of 300 tons burden, on a voyage from South America to the Thames, having lost her reckoning in consequence of several days' heavy gale and thick weather, suddenly made the light on the Lizard, and as quickly lost it again in the fog which surrounded her. The captain, mistaking the light he had seen for some other well-known beacon, set his course accordingly. That was near nine o'clock in the evening. The wind and tide helped him on the course steered, and a little after midnight the misguided brig struck on a rock three-quarters of a mile south-west of our point of land. The wind had then increased to a gale, and was gathering new strength with every moment. In less than an hour the thumping and grating of the vessel's keel ceased, and then the captain knew that the rising tide had set him off the rock; but, alas! his good brig was leaking badly, and the fierce wind was driving her--whither the captain knew not; and in five minutes more, by the force of the wind and suction of the shore current, she was thrown high up on a rocky projection of our cape. One sailor was washed overboard by the breakers as she passed through them, and was dashed to death, probably in an instant, by the fierce waves. The next day, when the storm had abated, the body was found far above where the brig lay fastened immovably in the vice-like fissure of enormous rocks. Twenty sovereigns, which perhaps the poor fellow had saved to bring home to his old mother, were found in a belt around his waist.

The damaged cargo was removed, and the wreck sold at auction, my father being the purchaser.

There was an old church situated on the summit of a neighbouring point of land, and to its now seldom used churchyard the body of the poor sailor was conveyed. His grave was one of the first points of interest to us when our visit to the cape commenced; and many a time that season did I sit and watch the brown headstone topping the bleakest part of the sea-bluff, and as the great voice of the sea, dashing and foaming on the stony beach beneath, sang in its eternal melancholy grandeur, I fancied long, long histories of what might have been that sailor's life; and I wondered sadly if the poor mother knew where her son's grave was, and whether she would ever come to look at it. On the stone was written:--

HARRY BREESE
LIES HERE, NEAR WHERE A CRUEL SHIPWRECK CAST HIM,
MARCH 23RD, 1814:
AGED 24 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, AND 17 DAYS.
REST IN PEACE, POOR BODY;
THY SHIPMATE, SOUL, HAS GONE ALOFT,
WHERE THY DEAR CAPTAIN, JESUS, IS.

By the 7th May everything was prepared for our departure. On the next morning early we were to start in the stage-coach, and, what had lately added to our brilliant anticipations, Harry and Alfred Higginson, two of our most intimate friends, were to go with us--to be with us all the summer, join our studies and our fun. But we were to separate from our father and mother, and from our dear sister Aggie and the little Charley--from all those dear ones from whom we had never been parted for a day and night before. We were to leave for half a year. All this, covered at first by the hopes and fancies we had built, and by the noise and activity of preparation, appeared then, when everything was packed, and we, the evening before the journey, drew our chairs about the tea-table. The prospect of such a magnificent time as we expected to have on the cape lost some of its brilliancy. Indeed, I positively regretted that we were to go. We boys were as hushed as frightened mice.

After tea, Drake and I got very close to our mother on the sofa, but Walter lounged nervously about, trying to appear, I think, as if such an affair--a parting for six months--were nothing to such a big fellow as he. Aggie came and held my hand. When our father had taken his usual seat, he and our mother commenced to give us careful instructions how we were to regulate our time and conduct during our separation from them; we were directed about our lessons, clothes, language, and play; to be kind and patient with Clump and Juno; and very particular were our orders about the new tutor, Mr Clare, to whom we had been formally introduced a few days before, and we were required to promise solemnly that we would obey him implicitly in every respect. Besides which our father delighted us very much by the information that he had engaged an old seaman, Mugford by name, once boatswain of an Indiaman, who had taken up his abode at the fishing town across the bay from our cape, to be with us often through the summer in our out-of-school hours; that he would be, as it were, our skipper--perhaps reside with us--and that he was to have full command in all our water amusements; he would teach us to swim, to row, and to sail. That last subject cheered us up a bit, and when I saw Walter, who was still walking up and down the room, going through a pantomimic swim, striking out his arms in big circles, right and left, I commenced to smile, and Drake to laugh outright. So our conference ended in good spirits. And then we all kneeled in family prayer, and that evening before the parting, as we kneeled and heard my father's earnest words, I realised fully, perhaps for the first time, how, more than parents or friends, God was our Father; how, though we were going away from home and its securities, yet God was to be with us, stronger and kinder than any on earth, to guard and care for us.

During the few days we had known Mr Clare, he had been with us constantly, but we had not decided whether to like him or not. He seemed pleasant, and was easy enough, both in his manners and conversation, but yet he had a calm and decided way that was rather provoking; as if to say, "I have read you through and through, boys, and can govern you as easily as possible." Now we had no idea of resisting him; we intended to behave well, and therefore his manner rather nettled us. However, there was not much to object to. His appearance was certainly all right--a large, bright, manly face and hearty smile, and a strong, agile figure. We five boys had talked him over, and at the last balloting our votes were a tie, for Walter declined to express an opinion yet whether Mr Clare was a "screw" or a "good fellow." Harry Higginson and Drake voted "screw," whilst Alfred and I said "good fellow."

We must pass over the "goodbyes" of the next morning. Let us imagine there were no wet eyes and sinking hearts. However it may have been, the big rumbling old stage-coach containing Mr Clare and five boys, and loaded well with trunks and boxes, rattled from our house in --- Street at about six o'clock on that eighth morning in May, fifty years ago. Our hearts cheered up with the growth of the sun. By ten o'clock we were very talkative; by one, very hungry. The contents of a basket, well-stored by our mother, and put in just as we were starting, settled that complaint. The afternoon was tedious, and we were not sorry when the coach dropped us at the quiet little country inn where we were to sleep. I need not describe the journey of the next day. We were too eager to get to its termination to care much for the beautiful scenery through which we passed. As the evening drew on the weather became chilly. Ah! we were approaching the sea. By nine at night innumerable stars were twinkling over a dusky point of land which seemed to have waded out as far as possible into the indefinable expanse mirroring unsteadily a host of lights. A strong, damp, briny breath came up to us, and a vast murmur as if thousands of unseen, mysterious, deep-voiced spirits were chanting some wonderful religious service. "Whoa!" with a heavy lurch the yellow post-chaise, in which we had performed the second day's journey, came to a stand. We had arrived before the old stone ark that was to be our home for half a year. _

Read next: Chapter 3. Introduction To Our Salt Tutor And The Wreck

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