Because, when I found no means to escape this degrading voyage to Devonshire, I had said to myself that at any rate it would enable me to peg down those people for the future. Not that they boasted, so to speak, but that they held their tongues at our boasts; as much as to say, “You may talk if you please; it does you good; and our land is such that we never need contradict you.”
But now when I saw these ins and outs, and ups and downs, and cornering places, and the wrinkles of the valleys, and the cheeks of the very rocks, set with green as bright and lively (after a burning summer) as our own country can show in May, I began to think—though I would not say it, through patriotic unwillingness—that the people who lived in such land as this could well afford to hold their tongues, and hearken our talk with pleasure. Captain Fuzzy said no word, to show that he was home again; neither did he care to ask my opinion about the look of it. And old Ike treating me likewise, though he ought to have known much better, there I found myself compelled by my natural desire to know all about my fellow-creatures, to carry on what must have been a most highly flattering patronage towards the boy who did our slop-work, and whose name was “Bang,” because everybody banged him.
This boy, forgetting the respect which is due to the mate of a ship of commerce—for I now assumed that position legally, over the head of old Ikey, who acknowledged my rank when announced to him—this ignorant boy had the insolence to give me a clumsy nudge, and inquire—
“Du ’e knaw thiccy peart over yanner? Them down-plasses, and them zandy backs?”
“My boy,” I replied, “I have not the honour of knowing anything about them. Very likely you think a good deal of them.”
“Whai, thee must be a born vule. Them be Braunton Burrusses!”
“Be them indeed? Take this, my boy, for such valuable information.” And I gave him a cuff of an earnest nature, such as he rarely obtained, perhaps, and well calculated to be of timely service to him. He howled a good bit, and attempted to kick; whereupon I raised him from his natural level, and made his head acquainted with the nature of the foremast, preserving my temper quite admirably, but bearing in mind the great importance of impressing discipline at an early age. And I reaped a well-deserved reward in his lifelong gratitude and respect.
While Bang went below to complete his weeping, and to find some plaster, I began to take accurate observation of these Braunton Burrows, of which I had often heard before from the Devonshire men, who frequent our coast for the purpose of stealing coal or limestone. An up-and-down sort of a place it appeared, as I made it out with my spyglass; and I could not perceive that it beat our sands, as those good people declared of it. Only I noticed that these sandhills were of a different hue from ours. Not so bare and yellow-faced, not so swept by western winds, neither with their tops thrown up like the peak of a new volcano. Rushes, spurge, and goosefoot grasses, and the rib-leafed iris, and in hollow places cat’s-mint, loosestrife, and low eye-bright—these and a thousand other plants seemed to hold the flaky surface so as not to fly like ours. Ike broke silence, which to him was worse than breaking his own windows, and said that all for leagues around was full of giants and great spectres. Moreover, that all of it long had been found an unkid and unholy place, bad for a man to walk in, and swarming with great creatures, striped the contrary way to all good-luck, and having eight legs every side, and a great horn crawling after them. And their food all night was known to be travellers’ skulls and sailors’ bones. Having seen a good deal of land-crabs, I scarcely dared to deny the story, and yet I could hardly make it out. Therefore, without giving vent to opinions of things which might turn out otherwise, I levelled my spyglass again at the region of which I had heard such a strange account. And suddenly here I beheld a man of no common appearance, wandering in and out the hollows, as if he never meant to stop; a tall man with a long grey beard, and wearing a cocked-hat like a colonel. There was something about him that startled me, and drew my whole attention. Therefore, with my perspective glass not long ago cleaned, and set shipshape by a man who understood the bearings—after that rogue of a Hezekiah had done his best to spoil it—with this honest magnifier (the only one that tells no lies) I carefully followed up and down the figure, some three cables’-lengths away, of this strange walker among the sandhills. We were in smooth water now, gliding gently up the river, with the mainsail paying over just enough for steerageway; and so I got my level truly, and could follow every step.
It was a fine old-fashioned man, tall and very upright, with a broad ribbon upon his breast, and something of metal shining; and his Hessian boots flashed now and then as he passed along with a stately stride. His beard was like a streak of silver, and his forehead broad and white; but all the rest of his face was dark, as if from foreign service. His dress seemed to be of a rich black velvet, very choice and costly, and a long sword hung at his side, although so many gentlemen now have ceased to carry even a rapier. I like to see them carry their swords—it shows that they can command themselves; but what touched me most with feeling was his manner of going on. He seemed to be searching, ever searching, up the
