Chapter XXIV: The Story of a Wild Life

Listen, how still waiting, dreaming
Of some wild, heroic life,
How the young heart, all unconscious,
Had really entered on the strife.

Now that I can reason calmly,
And look clearly back again,
I can see the brightest meaning
Threading each dark, torturing pain.

How the strong resolve was broken,
Why rash hope and foolish fear,
And the prayers which God in pity
Still refused to grant or hear.
_Anon._

It was a picturesque group gathered around that table—Zuniga, Hereward and Lilith.

Zuniga, with his slight, elegant and graceful form, his dark complexion—darker still with his luxuriant black curls—fine black eyes, shadowed with black eyelashes, and arched by black eyebrows, and his perfect features, the beautiful mouth not hidden by the twirled moustache divided on the upper lip. Zuniga, with his laughing, reckless, boyish air, seemed the youngest of the group of whom he was the father—or at least the younger of the two men.

Hereward, with his tall and stately figure, his noble head, blonde complexion, severe classic profile, and steel-blue eyes, and with his grave and dignified demeanor, seemed, certainly, the elder of the two.

Lilith, in her simple and elegant morning dress of white foulard silk, which well became her lovely brunette beauty, sat between them, but nearer to the Señor Zuniga.

Had any stranger been told that here sat a married pair and a father, and had been required to tell “which was which,” he would certainly have pointed out Hereward as the father, and the two others as the son and daughter.

Their relative ages were as follows: Zuniga was thirty-eight, Hereward twenty-nine, and Lilith nineteen.

Zuniga began his story in his usual eccentric manner:

“Esteemed son-in-law and beloved daughter! That little personal pronoun, in the first person singular, nominative case, is such a very obtrusive person, that it should be suppressed on every possible occasion. This autobiography, or fragment of autobiography, then, shall be delivered in the third person, with your consent. What do you say?”

Zuniga paused for a reply.

“As you like, señor,” gravely responded Hereward.

“Yes, do, please,” assented Lilith.

Zuniga proceeded:

“About thirty-five years ago——Now don’t throw yourself back in your chair with such a look of anticipated weariness, Hereward. Have more respect for your venerable father-in-law, and set a better example to my daughter, or I shall ‘set’ a mother-in-law over your head, or, rather, a step-mother-in-law, which must be a combination of domestic autocracy. Besides, the story is not so long as the time.

“Well, about thirty-five years ago, the good ship Polly Ann, of Glasgow, Swift, master, bound for New York, when about half way across, sighted a nondescript object, which, on nearer view and closer inspection, proved to be a raft, on which languished a half-dead shipwrecked sailor, and a three-quarters dead shipwrecked child.

“The victims were rescued, taken on board the Polly Ann, and restored by such simple and efficacious treatment as was familiar to the skipper and his crew as specifics ‘for such cases made and provided.’

“The sailor was a man of about fifty winters; the child, a boy of three summers—though why the winters should always be enumerated for the old, and the summers for the young, is more than I can understand, since both young and old have an equal distribution of summers and winters in their years. But this is a digression.

“As soon as the sailor was able to give an account of himself and his fellow-sufferers, we learned that they were the survivors of the ship Falcon, Captain Pentecost, homeward bound from Havana to Liverpool, and foundered in the late equinoctial storm, when in latitude this and that, and longitude so and so; never mind the figures, they are forgotten long ago, even if they were ever exactly known, which is doubtful.

“The crew and passengers of the wrecked ship had left it in two boats and on a raft. The captain had taken command of the first boat, the first mate of the second boat, and the second mate of the raft.

“The sailor could give no account of the fate of either boat after they had left the wreck.

“On the raft besides himself, Zebedee Wyvil, second mate of the Falcon, who was in command, there were seven common seamen and three passengers; these passengers being Señor Don Alphonzo Zuniga and his wife and child.

“A sad story could be told of the long sufferings and terrible deaths of these shipwrecked victims, but it would not only be quite useless, but altogether too heart-rending. Besides which, tragedy is both unpleasant and unprofitable, except to the performers on the stage, with an audience of two thousand persons, averaging a dollar a head.

“In brief, all the passengers on the raft perished from want and exposure, except the sailor, whose strong vitality sustained him, and the child, for whose sake all had denied themselves from the beginning.

“You may be sure that the captain and the crew of the Polly Ann were very much interested in the story of the shipwrecked sailor and the child. The captain gave Zebedee Wyvil a berth as soon as he was able to handle a rope; and one and another talked of adopting the little Spanish waif. But Zebedee Wyvil informed all and sundry that the child was his own treasure trove, and that he should keep it until it should be claimed by those, if any such lived, who should have a better right to it than himself.

“Certainly no one on the Polly Ann ventured after that to dispute Wyvil’s possession of the little Zuniga.

“In due time the Polly Ann reached New York, discharged her cargo of linen, tartan, Paisley shawls, and so forth; loaded with another cargo of tobacco and cotton, and cleared for Glasgow, Zebedee Wyvil going as third mate, and taking with him his treasure trove, to which arrangement no one, under the circumstances, objected.

“In due time also the Polly Ann reached Glasgow, and there Mate Wyvil, who had only engaged for the homeward voyage, left the ship, taking his little Spanish boy with him.

“Zebedee Wyvil was a bachelor; and he was the main support of his sister-in-law, the widow of his younger brother, Andrew, and of her two children, Joseph and Elizabeth, who lived at Stockton, a small village in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

“Zebedee Wyvil, when on shore, always made his home with this sister-in-law.

“Now, on leaving his ship, he resolved to take the Spanish child with him to Stockton, and place him under the care of this sister-in-law.

“But first he bethought him of having the boy christened, lest that necessary ceremony had not already been performed.

“So he took the lad to St. John’s Church in Glasgow and had him christened Joseph Wyvil, in honor of his—Zebedee’s—own father.

“Then he carried the child to his own home and presented him to his sister-in-law.

“The widow and her children received the sailor and the orphan boy with great kindness; but when his name was given—

“‘Joseph Wyvil!’ exclaimed the widow. ‘Why, what in the name of sense put you on giving the bairn that name?’

“‘It was the name of my old feyther, as good a man as ever lived,’ retorted Zebedee.

“‘But it is the name of my own lad!’

“‘So it be! I had forgot that same.’

“‘And now if the bairn bides wi’ us there’ll be two Joseph Wyvils in the one house.’

“‘Well, then, and there cannot be too many Joseph Wyvils anywhere, if they be one and all as good as the first of the name! And, moreover, to distinguish the lads apart, we may even call the elder Joseph, and the younger Joe,’ concluded Zebedee.

“And as he carried the purse, his will was law in that little household, and so the point was settled. His nephew was known as Joseph Wyvil, and his little treasure trove as Joe.

“Joseph was a fine, strong, red-haired and freckle-faced youth of ten, Joe an ugly little black-a-vizzed monkey of four, and Elizabeth, or ‘Lil,’ a pretty baby of two years.

“Uncle Zeb left all his pay with his sister and shipped for another long voyage.

“The three children were brought up together and in due time sent to school.

“Joe, as the adopted son of Uncle Zeb, was taught to call the Widow Wyvil ‘Aunt’ and her children each ‘Cousin.’

“Years went by with but little of incident to the humble household, except in the periodical home-coming and sea-going of Uncle Zeb.

“When Joseph Wyvil, the widow’s son, was fifteen years of age, he was taken from school and apprenticed to a house carpenter, and in time he became a very skilful workman.

“When Joe was about twelve years old he was placed in a collegiate school by his adopted father, whose ambition it was to get his son in the naval academy.

“He remained in that school for three years, during which time two members of the small family passed away—Zebedee Wyvil died of yellow fever, while his ship was in port in Havana; and Susan Wyvil succumbed to pulmonary consumption, in her cottage home at Stockton.

“At the end of the third year Joe left the collegiate school. Not that his preparatory course was finished, and not that he wished to leave, but because the quarterly payments for his board and tuition had ceased with his adopted father’s life.

“And though the masters, knowing the case and the circumstances, would have kept him longer, the pride of this son of the hidalgoes would not suffer him to receive the favor.

“You may object that he had already received favors from humbler people, in having been adopted and cared for by the mate of the Falcon. Ah, but that was so different! Old Zebedee Wyvil had seemed like his own father. He had known no other.

“Well, he left the college, and went home to Stockton, to those who seemed like his own people, poor as they were, since they were all he had left.

“He found his cousins, as he called them, still living together, and occupying the old cottage.

“Joseph was now a fine young man of twenty-one, doing a thriving business at his trade, and making a very comfortable home for his young sister Lil, a lovely girl of thirteen, who kept house for him, and to whom he was devotedly attached—yes, so devotedly attached that friends and neighbors all said Joseph Wyvil would never take a wife while that beloved sister remained unmarried and in his home.

“This sister and brother received poor Joe with the most affectionate welcome, making him feel perfectly at home and at ease.

“In return for all this kindness the dark and swarthy descendant of the Castilians fell desperately in love with the fair-skinned, blue-eyed and flaxen-haired child of the Saxons. He made such ardent and persistent love to the little maid that Lil grew frightened and fled his company, yet never complained of him to her big brother—the little angel! I mean she—Lil—was the little angel, you will all please to understand, and not the big brother, though he was a good fellow enough.

“Ah, well, after Lil repulsed and fled from him, and shunned him altogether as if he had been the horned and hoofed demon himself, he grew desperate and went off to sea.

“Being fairly well educated, and having permission to refer to his college masters, he got a good berth from the first, as captain’s clerk in an East India merchantman.

“For some months all went well enough, and Joe ‘won golden opinions from all sorts of’ officers and men. But being a wild, reckless, impulsive, rollicking sort of a little devil, he soon began to get into all manner of troubles, though he always contrived to get out of them again, falling like a cat on his feet.

“During all this time he kept up an irregular correspondence with his cousin Joseph, freely confessing all his peccadilloes, but stipulating that no one was to tell Lil.

“After a three years’ voyage all around the world, Joe came home, and went straight to the dear old cottage at Stockton.

“He found the house and garden enlarged and improved in proportion to Joseph Wyvil’s increased prosperity.

“Joe was now a sun-burned sailor boy of eighteen, much darker and very much more of a dare-devil than ever.

“Lil was sixteen, and more beautiful than before. She was still the idol of her brother, for whom she kept house, and who—for his dear sister’s sake, as it was said—remained unmarried and unengaged.

“The brother and sister received their sailor cousin with all their old confiding affection. Lil had forgiven his presumption and forgotten her fears of him.

“But, ah! poor Joe! His passion for this ‘fair one with golden locks’ was rekindled into such a fierce flame that nothing on earth seemed strong enough to resist it.

“It was her love or somebody’s life!

“He demanded to marry Lil right off.

“But her brother opposed such precipitate measures; urged that both parties were much too young to dream of marriage, Joe being eighteen, and Lil but sixteen. Why, he said that he, himself, Joseph Wyvil, his elder by six years, did not yet contemplate matrimony. Besides, he could, in any case, give his sister a comfortable home yet for many years, or even for her whole life, while Joe had no home to take her to, and had still his own way to make in the world.

“In answer to all this, Joe, with the modest assurance—or shall we say consummate impudence?—of his nature, proposed that he should immediately marry Lil and that they should continue to live on at the cottage until he should have to go to sea again, when he would leave his wife as heretofore in her old home under the protection of her brother.

“Naturally enough, Mr. Wyvil did not see the excellence of this arrangement in quite so strong and vivid a light as did Joe and even Lil.

“After laughing a little at the ingenuous proposal, he reverted to his first argument, that both were too young, foolish and impecunious to be married—adding that a boy of eighteen and a girl of sixteen, who talked of such a proceeding, should be locked up for a calendar month on a depleting diet of bread and water.

“Whereupon the Spanish lad eagerly declared that as for himself he would most joyfully submit to the terms, bread, water, imprisonment and everything else that might be required to purchase the indulgence, if only Joseph would be so good as to lock him and his sweetheart up in the same room.

“For all answer to that suggestion, Mr. Wyvil informed the ardent lover that he was a lunatic and should be sent to a mad-house.

“Opposition only added fuel to the flame of Joe’s passion. Mr. Wyvil did not understand the difference between the dark blood and the bright when he contemptuously characterized that passion as puppy love.

“Mr. Wyvil went off to his work. He was finishing the interior of a church at that time. Joe raved and Lil cried. And then they took their fate into their own hands. They resolved to run away and get married! Or rather to sneak away.

“Late that night, when honest Joseph Wyvil was in bed and asleep, Joe and Lil, in traveling rig, and with a couple of small valises, in which all their worldly goods were packed, and which were gallantly carried by the gentleman, who balanced them one in each brown hand, Joe and Lil sneaked out of the back door, and under cover of the darkness, trudged on to the railway station, where they took the 12.30 train to Scotland.

“They left the train the next morning only to hasten to the nearest minister’s house to get married. As soon as the ceremony was concluded and they had got a bit of breakfast at the counter of the railway station, standing up at it, uncomfortably, to drink weak and lukewarm coffee and eat stale sandwiches, they took the next train back to England.

“But not daring to face Joseph Wyvil in the first hours of his ‘roused wrath,’ they shunned the neighborhood of Stockton and stopped at a little Yorkshire village of Orton, not far from the city of Carlisle.

“They took lodgings at a pretty, picturesque little farm-house called Hayhurst, from which retreat they both wrote a mutual penitent letter to Joseph Wyvil, expressing profound sorrow for having disobeyed and offended so dear and good a brother, but declaring that they could not do otherwise, as, though he had forbidden them to think of marriage, they loved each other so much that they must either marry or die, and they ended by imploring his forgiveness, and signing themselves his devoted, obedient, loving brother and sister, Lil and Joe.

“Both Joe and Lil thought this letter so very touching, eloquent, pathetic and convincing that it must bring Mr. Wyvil hurrying to them in person with open arms and fervent blessings.

“And they waited for some such happy result.

“But no Mr. Wyvil came to greet their longing eyes. And no letter came in answer to theirs.

“Every day Joe went to the village post-office, but found nothing for them.

“A fortnight passed in this suspense, and then Joe suggested that their letter might have miscarried, and so they sat down together and indited a second letter, more penitent, more pathetic, more eloquent and convincing than the first. Joe posted it with his own hands, and they both waited confidently for some happy result.

“None came. Another fortnight passed, and then Joe grew angry and Lil anxious.

“‘If a man is not satisfied with repentance and confession he is no Christian,’ said Joe.

“‘But we don’t repent, and we only confess what is already known; and perhaps Joseph is sick,’ suggested Lil.

“Then Joe wrote a confidential letter to a mutual friend in Stockton, making inquiries concerning Mr. Joseph Wyvil. In due time he received an answer, stating that Mr. Wyvil was well and prosperous, but so very deeply offended by the runaway marriage that he would not permit his sister’s or his cousin’s name to be mentioned in his presence. The writer concluded his letter in some such words as these:

“‘Give him time and he will come around. He is too good-hearted a man and too fond of his sister, and even of you, to hold out against you both much longer.’

“Lil cried a good deal over this, but Joe encouraged her, and so did their landlady, Mrs. Claxton, who had taken a great fancy to the young pair.

“Fortunately, Joe had thirty pounds saved up from his three years’ pay as captain’s clerk, and so there was no fear of immediate embarrassment.

“Lil, led on by the landlady, interested herself in farm life, in the dairy and in the poultry yard. She was pleased to be permitted to help to skim the milk, or to churn the butter, or to look after the newly hatched, pretty little fluffy chickens and ducklings; and though she often heaved a sigh at the thought of her brother, it soon passed away, leaving no trace behind.

“Joe was more to be pitied. He was in more danger from his idle and objectless life of the present moment. He went daily to the village, and what was worse, he went nightly to the Tawny Lion, the village ale-house, where he formed acquaintance with the young farmers and mechanics of the neighborhood, all tenants of Squire Hawkhurst, of Hawkhurst Hall.