CHAPTER XVI.
About half a mile from Tossil's Barton (the farmhouse where we lived)there is a valley, or rather a vast ravine, of a very uncommonformation. A narrow winding rocky combe, where slabs, and tors, andboulder stones, seem pasturing on the velvet grass, or looking into thebright trout-stream, which leaps down a flight of steps without a treeto shade its flash and foam; this narrow, but glad dingle, as it nearsthe sea, bursts suddenly back into a desert gorge, cleaving the heightsthat front the Bristol Channel. The mountain sides from right and left,straight as if struck by rule, steeply converge, like a high-pitchedroof turned upside down; so steep indeed that none can climb them.Along the deep bottom gleams a silver chord, where the cramped streamchafes its way, bedded and banked in stone, without a blade of green.From top to bottom of this huge ravine there is no growth, no rocks, nocliffs, no place to stay the foot, but all a barren, hard, grey stretchof shingle, slates, and gliddery stones: as if the ballast of tenmillion fleets had been shot in two enormous piles, and were always onthe slip. Looking at it we forget that there is such a thing as life:the desolation is not painful, because it is so grand. The brief noonglare of the sun on these Titanic dry walls, where even a lichen dies;the gaunt desert shade stealing back to its lair in the early afternoon;the solemn step of evening stooping to her cloak below--I know not whichof these is the most impressive and mournful. No stir of any sort, novoice of man or beast, no flow of tide, ever comes to visit here; thelittle river, after a course of battles, wins no peaceful union with thesea, but ponds against a shingle bar, and gurgles away in slowwhirlpools. Only a fitful moaning wind draws up and down the melancholychasm. The famous "Valley of Rocks," some four miles to the east, seemsto me common-place and tame compared to this grand defile. Yet how manymen I know who would smoke their pipes throughout it!
Thinking so much of this place, I long wished my mother to see it; andfinding her rather stronger one lovely April morning, I persuaded herforth, embarked on Mrs. Huxtable's donkey. We went, down a smalltributary glen, towards the head of the great defile. The little glenwas bright, and green, and laughing into bud, and bantering a swiftbrook, which could hardly stop to answer, but left the ousels as itpassed to talk at leisure about their nests, and the trout to make thosemusical leaps that sound so crisp through the alders. Another streammeets it among the bushes below, and now they are entitled to thedignity of a bridge whereon grows the maidenhair fern, and which, withits rude and pointed arch, looks like an old pack-saddle upon thestream.
From this point we followed a lane, leading obliquely up the ascent,before the impassable steep begins. Having tethered our quiet donkey toa broken gate, I took my mother along a narrow path through the thicketto the view of the great ravine. Standing at the end of this path, shewas astonished at the scene before her. We had gained a height of abouttwo hundred feet, the hill-top stretched a thousand feet above us. Westood on the very limit of vegetation, a straight line passing clown thehill where the quarry-like steep begins.
My dear mother was tired, and I had called her to come home, lest theview should make her giddy; when suddenly she stepped forward to gathera harebell straggling among the stones. The shingle beneath her footgave way, then below her, and around, and above her head, began in agreat mass to glide. Buried to the knees and falling sideways, she wassinking slowly at first, then quickly and quicker yet, with a hoarseroar of moving tons of stone, gathering and whelming upon her, down therugged abyss. Screaming, I leaped into the avalanche after her, neverthinking that I could only do harm. Stronger, and swifter, and louder,and surging, and berged with shouldering stone the solid cascade rushedon. I saw dearest mother below me trying to clasp her hands in prayer,and to give me her last word. With a desperate effort dragging my shawlfrom the gulfing crash, I threw it towards her, but she did not try tograsp it. A heavy stone leaped over me, and struck her on the head; herhead dropped back, she lay senseless, and nearly buried. We weredashing more headlong and headlong, in the rush of the mountain side, tothe precipice over the river, and my senses had all but failed, andrevenge was prone before judgment, when I heard through the din a shout.On the brink of firm ground stood a man, and signed me to throw myshawl. With all my remaining strength I did so, but not as he meant,for I cast it entirely to him, and pointed to my mother below. Oneinstant the avalanche paused, he leaped about twenty feet down, throughthe heather and gorse, and stayed his descent by clutching a stout ashsapling. To this in a moment he fastened my shawl, (a long and strongplaid), and just as my mother was being swept by, he plunged with theother end into the shingle tide. I saw him leap and struggle towardsher, and lift her out of the gliding tomb, gliding himself the while,and sway himself and his burden, by means of the shawl, not back (forthat was impossible), but obliquely downwards; I saw the strong saplingbow to the strain like a fishing-rod, while hope and terror fought hardwithin me; I saw him, by a desperate effort, which bent the ash-tree tothe ground, leap from the whirling havoc, and lay my mother on the deadfern and heath. Of the rest, I know nothing, having become quiteunconscious, before he saved me, in the same manner.
We must have been taken home in Farmer Huxtable's butt, for I rememberwell that, amidst the stir and fright of our return, and while my motherwas still insensible, Mrs. Huxtable fell savagely upon poor Suke, forhaving despatched that elegant vehicle without cleaning it from the limedust; whereby, as she declared, our dresses (so rent and tattered by thejagged stones) were "muxed up to shords." Poor Suke would have beenlikely to fare much worse, if, at such a time, she had stopped to dustthe cart.
When the farmer came home, his countenance, rich in capacity forexpressing astonishment, far outdid his words. "Wull, wull, for sure!wuther ye did or no?" was all the vent he could find for his ideasduring the rest of the day; though it was plain to all who knew him thathe was thinking profoundly upon the subject, and wholly occupied withit. In the course of the following week he advised me very impressivelynever to do it again; and nothing could ever persuade him but that Ijumped in, and my mother came to rescue me.
But his wife very soon had all her wits about her. She sent to "Coom"for the doctor (I begged that it might not be Mr. Dawe's physician), sheput dear mother to bed, and dressed her wounds with simples worth tendruggists' shops, and bathed her temples with rosemary, and ran down theglen for "fathery ham" (Valerian), which she declared "would kill ninesorts of infermation;" then she hushed the entire household, permittingno tongue to move except her own, and beat her eldest boy (a fine youngHuxtable) for crying, whereupon he roared; she even conquered her strongdesire to know much more than all could tell; and showed my mother suchtrue kindness and pity that I loved her for it at once, and ever since.
Breathing slowly and heavily, my poor mother lay in the bed which hadlong been the pride of Tossil's Barton. The bedstead was made of carvedoak, as many of them are in North Devon, and would have been handsomeand striking, if some ancestral Huxtable had not adorned it withwhitewash. But the quilt was what they were proud of. It was formed ofpatches of diamond shape and most incongruous colours, with a death'shead in the centre and crossbones underneath.
When first I beheld it, I tossed it down the stairs, but my mother wouldhave it brought back and used, because she knew how the family gloriedin it, and she could not bear to hurt their feelings.
One taper white hand lay on it now, with the tender skin bruised anddiscoloured by blows. She had closed the finger which bore her weddingring, and it still remained curved and rigid. In an agony of tears, Iknelt by the side of the bed, watching her placid and deathlike face.Till then I had never known how strongly and deeply I loved her.
I firmly believe that she was revived in some degree by the glare of thepatched quilt upon her eyes. The antagonism of nature was roused, andbrought home her wandering powers. Feebly glancing away, she camesuddenly to herself, and exclaimed:
"Is she safe? is she safe?'
"Yes, mother; here I am, with my own dea
r mother."
She opened her arms, and held me in a nervous cold embrace, and thankedGod, and wept.