by Bram Stoker
His purpose and mine was to arrange all about the wedding, which we wanted to be exactly as she wished. She asked herfather to let it be as quiet as possible, with absolutely no fuss — no publicity, and in some quiet place where no one knew us.
“Tell Arthur,” she said, “that I should like it to be somewhere near the sea, and where we can get easily on the Continent.” I fixed on Hythe, which I had been in the habit of visiting occasionally, as the place where we were to be married. Here, high over the sea level, rises the grand old church where the bones of so many brave old Norsemen rest after a thousand years. The place was so near to Folkestone that, after the wedding and an informal breakfast, we could drive over to catch the mid-day boat. I lived the requisite time in Hythe, and complied with all the formalities. I did not see my darling until we met in the church-porch, and then I gazed on her with unstinted admiration. Oh, what a peerless beauty she was! Every natural grace and quality seemed developed to the full. Every single grace of womanhood was there; every subtle manifestation of high- breeding; every stamp of the highest culture. There was no one in the porch — for those with me delicately remained in the church when they saw me go out to meet my bride — and I met her with a joy unspeakable. Joyce went in and left her with me a moment — they had evidently arranged to do so — but when we were quite alone she said to me, with a very serious look: “Mr. Severn, before we go into the church answer me one question — answer me truthfully, I implore you!” A great fear came upon me that at the last I was to suffer the loss of her I loved — that at the moment when the cup of happiness was at my lips it was to be dashed aside; and it was with a hoarse voice and a beating heart I answered: “I shall speak truly, Norah. What is it?” She said, very demurely:
“Mr. Severn, are you satisfied with me?” I looked up and caught the happy smile in her eyes, and for answer took her in my arms to kiss her; but she said: “Not yet, Arthur, not yet. What would they say? And, besides, it would be unlucky.” So I released her, and she took my arm, and as we came up the aisle together I whispered to her: “Yes, my darling! Yes, yes, a thousand times! The time has been long, long; but the days were well spent.” She looked at me with a glad, happy look as she murmured in my ear:
“We shall see Italy soon, dear, together. I am so happy!” and she pinched my arm. That was a very happy wedding, and as informal as it was happy. As Norah had no bridesmaid, Dick, who was to have been my best man, was not going to act; but when Norah knew this she insisted on it, and said, sweetly: “I should not feel I was married properly unless Dick took his place. And as to my having no bridesmaid, all I can say is, if we had half so good a girl friend, she would be here, of course.” This settled the matter, and Dick, with his usual grace and energy carried out the best man’s chief duty of taking care of his principal’s hat. There were only our immediate circle present: Joyce and Eugene, Miss Joyce (who had come all the wayfrom Knocknacar), Mr. Chapman, and Mr. Caicy (who had also come over from Galway specially). There was one other old friend also present, but I did not know it until I came out of the vestry, after signing the register, with my wife on my arm.
There, standing modestly in the background, and with a smile as manifest as a ten-acre field, was none other than Andy — Andy, so well-dressed and smart that there was really nothing to distinguish him from any other man in Hythe. Norah saw him first, and said, heartily: “Why, there is Andy! How are you, Andy?” and held out her hand. Andy took it in his great fist, and stooped and kissed it as if it had been a saint’s hand and not a woman’s:
“God bless and keep ye, Miss Norah darlin’, an’ the Virgin and the saints watch over ye both!” Then he shook hands with me.
“Thank you, Andy,” we said, both together, and then I beckoned Dick and whispered to him. We went back to breakfast in my rooms, and sat down as happy a party as could be, the only one not quite comfortable at first being Andy. He and Dick both came in quite hot and flushed. Dick pointed to him: “He’s an obstinate, truculent villain, is Andy! Why, I had to almost fight him to make him come in. Now, Andy, no running away; it is Miss Norah’s will.” And Andy subsided bashfully into a seat. It was fully several minutes before he either smiled or winked. We had a couple of hours to pass before it became time to leave for Folkestone; and when breakfast was over, one and then another said a few kindly words. Dick opened the ball by speaking most beautifully of our own worthiness, and of how honestly and honorably each had won the other, and of the long life and happiness that lay, he hoped and believed, before us. Then Joyce spoke a few manly words of love for his daughter and his pride in her. The tears were in his eyes when he said how his one regret in life was that her dear mother had to look down from Heaven her approval on this day, instead of sharing it among us as the best of mothers and the best of women. Then Norah turned to him and laid her head on his breast and cried a little — not unhappily, but happily, as a bride should cry at leaving those she loves for one she loves better still.
Of course both the lawyers spoke, and Eugene said a few words bashfully. I was about to reply to them all, when Andy got up and crystallised the situation in a few words.
“Miss Norah an’ yer ‘an’r, I’d like, if I might make so bould, to say a wurrd fur all the men and weemen in Ireland that ayther iv yez iver kem across. I often heerd ivfairies, an’ Masther Art knows well how he hunted wan from the top iv Knocknacar to the top iv Knockcalltecrore, and I won’t say a wurrd about the kind iv a fairy he wanted to find — not even in her quare kind iv an eye — bekase I might be overlooked, as the mastherwas; and, more betoken, since I kem here Masther Dick has tould me that I’m to be yer ‘anVs Irish coachman. Hurroo! an’ I might get evicted from that same houldin’ fur me impidence in tellin’ tales iv the Masther before he was married; but I’ll promise yez both that there’ll be no man from the Giant’s Causeway to Cape Clearwhat’ll thry, an’ thryhardher, to make yerfeet walk an’ yer wheels rowl in aisy ways than meself. I’m takin’ a liberty, I know, be sayin’ so much, but plase God, ye’ll walk yer ways wid honor an’ wid peace, believin’ inaichotheran’ in God; an’ may he bless ye both, an’ yer childher, and yer childher’s childher to folly ye. An’ if iver ayther iv yez wants to shtep into glory over a man’s body, I hope ye’ll not look past poor ould Andy Sullivan!” Andy’s speech was quaint, but it was truly meant, for his heart was full of quick sympathy, and the honest fellow’s eyes were full of tears as he concluded.
Then Miss Joyce’s health was neatly proposed by Mr. Chapman and responded to in such a way by Mr. Caicy that Norah whispered to me that she would not be surprised if aunt took up her residence in Galway before long.
And now the hour was come to say good-bye to all friends. We entered our carriage and rolled away, leaving behind us waving hands, loving eyes, and hearts that beat most truly.
And the great world lay before us with all the possibilities of happiness that men and women may win for themselves. There was never a cloud to shadow our sunlit way; and we felt that we were one.
THE END
THE WATTER’S MOU’
This is Stoker’s third novel. The title means “the water’s mouth” in Scottish dialect, referring to a river emptying into the ocean. The novel was first published in 1895 by A. Constable and Company of Westminster as part of their Acme Library series. It is the story of a woman in love with a man whose job it is to stop poor fishermen smuggling – one of whom happens to be her father.
The first edition
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER I
It threatened to be a wild night. All day banks of sea-fog had come and gone, sweeping on shore with the south-east wind, which is so fatal at Cruden Bay, and indeed all along the coast of Aberdeenshire, and losing themselves in the breezy expanses of the high uplands beyond. As yet the wind only came in puffs, followed by intervals of ominous calm; but the barometer had
been falling for days, and the sky had on the previous night been streaked with great ‘mare’s-tails’ running in the direction of the dangerous wind. Up to early morning the wind had been south-westerly, but had then ‘backed’ to south-east; and the sudden change, no less than the backing, was ominous indeed. From the waste of sea came a ceaseless muffled roar, which seemed loudest and most full of dangerous import when it came through the mystery of the driving fog. Whenever the fog-belts would lift or disperse, or disappear inland before the gusts of wind, the sea would look as though swept with growing anger; for though there were neither big waves as during a storm, nor a great swell as after one, all the surface of the water as far as the eye could reach was covered with little waves tipped with white. Closer together grew these waves as the day wore on, the angrier ever the curl of the white water where they broke. In the North Sea it does not take long for the waves to rise; and all along the eastern edge of Buchan it was taken for granted that there would be wild work on the coast before the night was over.
In the little look-out house on the top of the cliff over the tiny harbour of Port Erroll the coastguard on duty was pacing rapidly to and fro. Every now and again he would pause, and, lifting a field-glass from the desk, sweep the horizon from Girdleness at the south of Aberdeen, when the lifting of the mist would let him see beyond the Scaurs, away to the north, where the high cranes of the Blackman quarries at Murdoch Head seemed to cleave the sky like gigantic gallows-trees.
He was manifestly in high spirits, and from the manner in which, one after another, he looked again and again at the Martini-Henry rifle in the rack, the navy revolver stuck muzzle down on a spike, and the cutlass in its sheath hanging on the wall, it was easy to see that his interest arose from something connected with his work as a coastguard. On the desk lay an open telegram smoothed down by his hard hands, with the brown envelope lying beside it. It gave some sort of clue to his excitement, although it did not go into detail. ‘Keep careful watch tonight; run expected; spare no efforts; most important.’
William Barrow, popularly known as Sailor Willy, was a very young man to be a chief boatman in the preventive service, albeit that his station was one of the smallest on the coast. He had been allowed, as a reward for saving the life of his lieutenant, to join the coast service, and had been promoted to chief boatman as a further reward for a clever capture of smugglers, wherein he had shown not only great bravery, but much ability and power of rapid organisation.
The Aberdeen coast is an important one in the way of guarding on account of the vast number of fishing-smacks which, during the season, work from Peterhead up and down the coast, and away on the North Sea right to the shores of Germany and Holland. This vast coming and going affords endless opportunities for smuggling; and, despite of all vigilance, a considerable amount of ‘stuff’ finds its way to the consumers without the formality of the Custom House. The fish traffic is a quick traffic, and its returns come all at once, so that a truly enormous staff would be requisite to examine adequately the thousand fishing-smacks which use the harbour of Peterhead, and on Sundays pack its basins with a solid mass of boats. The coast-line for some forty miles south is favourable for this illicit traffic. The gneiss and granite formations broken up by every convulsion of nature, and worn by the strain and toil ages into every conceivable form of rocky beauty, offers an endless variety of narrow creeks and bays where the daring, to whom rocks and the currents and the tides are known, may find entrance and speedy exit for their craft. This season the smuggling had been chiefly of an overt kind — that is, the goods had been brought into the harbour amongst the fish and nets, and had been taken through the streets under the eyes of the unsuspecting Customs officers. Some of these takes were so large, that the authorities had made up their minds that there must be a great amount of smuggling going on. The secret agents in the German, Dutch, Flemish, and French ports were asked to make extra exertions in discovering the amount of the illicit trade, and their later reports were of an almost alarming nature. They said that really vast amounts of tobacco, brandy, ruin, silks, laces, and all sorts of excisable commodities were being secretly shipped in the British fishing-fleet; and as only a very small proportion of this was discovered, it was manifest that smuggling to a large extent was once more to the fore. Accordingly precautions were doubled all along the east coast frequented by the fishing-fleets. Not only were the coastguards warned of the danger and cautioned against devices which might keep them from their work at critical times, but they were apprised of every new shipment as reported from abroad. Furthermore, the detectives of the service were sent about to parts where the men were suspected of laxity — or worse.
Thus it was that Sailor Willy, with the experience of two promotions for cause, and with the sense of responsibility which belonged to his office, felt in every way elated at the possibility of some daring work before him. He knew, of course, that a similar telegram had been received at every station on the coast, and that the chance of an attempt being made in Cruden Bay or its surroundings was a small one; but he was young and brave and hopeful, and with an adamantine sense of integrity to support him in his work. It was unfortunate that his comrade was absent, ill in the hospital at Aberdeen, and that the strain at present on the service, together with the men away on annual training and in the naval manoeuvres, did not permit of a substitute being sent to him. However, he felt strong enough to undertake any amount of duty — he was strong enough and handsome enough to have a good opinion of himself, and too brave and too sensible to let his head be turned by vanity.
As he walked to and fro there was in the distance of his mind — in that dim background against which in a man’s mind a woman’s form finds suitable projection — some sort of vague hope that a wild dream of rising in the world might be some time realised. He knew that every precaution in his power had been already taken, and felt that he could indulge in fancies without detriment to his work. He had signalled the coastguard at Whinnyfold on the south side of the Bay, and they had exchanged ideas by means of the signal language. His appliances for further signalling by day or night were in perfect order, and he had been right over his whole boundary since he had received the telegram seeing that all things were in order. Willy Barrow was not one to leave things to chance where duty was concerned.
His day-dreams were not all selfish. They were at least so far unselfish that the results were to be shared with another; for Willy Barrow was engaged to be married. Maggie MacWhirter was the daughter of an old fisherman who had seen days more prosperous than the present. He had once on a time owned a fishing-smack, but by degrees he had been compelled to borrow on her, till now, when, although he was nominal owner, the boat was so heavily mortgaged that at any moment he might lose his entire possession. That such an event was not unlikely was manifest, for the mortgagee was no other than Solomon Mendoza of Hamburg and Aberdeen, who had changed in like manner the ownership of a hundred boats, and who had the reputation of being as remorseless as he was rich. MacWhirter had long been a widower, and Maggie since a little girl had kept house for her father and her two brothers, Andrew and Niel. Andrew was twenty-seven — six years older than Maggie — and Niel had just turned twenty. The elder brother was a quiet, self-contained, hard working man, who now and again manifested great determination, though generally at unexpected times; the younger was rash, impetuous, and passionate, and though in his moments of quiescence more tender to those he cared for than was usual with men of his class, he was a never-ending source of anxiety to his father and his sister. Andrew, or Sandy as he was always called, took him with consistent quietness.
The present year, although a good one in the main, had been but poor for MacWhirter’s boat. Never once had he had a good take of fish — not one-half the number of crans of the best boat; and the season was so far advanced, and the supply had been so plentiful, that a few days before, the notice had been up at Peterhead that after the following week the buyers would not take any more herring.
This notice naturally caused much excitement, and the whole fishing industry determined to make every effort to improve the shining hours left to them. Exertions were on all sides redoubled, and on sea and shore there was little idleness. Naturally the smuggling interest bestirred itself too; its chance for the year was in the rush and bustle and hurry of the coming and going fleet, and anything held over for a chance had to be ventured now or left over for a year — which might mean indefinitely. Great ventures were therefore taken by some of the boats; and from their daring the authorities concluded that either heavy bribes were given, or else that the goods were provided by others than the fishermen who undertook to run them. A few important seizures, however, made the men wary; and it was understood from the less frequent but greater importance of the seizures, that the price for ‘running’ had greatly gone up. There was much passionate excitement amongst those who were found out and their friends, and a general wish to discover the informers. Some of the smuggling fishermen at first refused to pay the fines until they were told who had informed. This position being unsupportable, they had instead paid the fines and cherished hatred in their hearts. Some of the more reckless and turbulent spirits had declared their intention of avenging themselves on the informers when they should be known. It was only natural that this feeling of rage should extend to the Customs officers and men of the preventive service, who stood between the unscrupulous adventurers and their harvest; and altogether matters had become somewhat strained between the fishermen and the authorities.