Into the bay of Wick stretched the dark length of the unfinished breakwater, in its cage of open staging; the travellers (like frames of churches) over-plumbing all; and away at the extreme end, the divers toiling unseen on the foundation. On a platform of loose planks, the assistants turned their air-mills; a stone might be swinging between wind and water; underneath the swell ran gaily; and from time to time, a mailed dragon with a window-glass snout came dripping up the ladder. . . . To go down in the diving-dress, that was my absorbing fancy; and with the countenance of a certain handsome scamp of a diver, Bob Bain by name, I gratified the whim.
It was grey harsh, easterly weather, the swell ran pretty high, and out in the open there were "skipper's daughters," when I found myself at last on the diver's platform, twenty pounds of lead upon each foot and my {172} whole person swollen with ply and ply of woollen underclothing. One moment, the salt wind was whistling round my night-capped head; the next, I was crushed almost double under the weight of the helmet. As that intolerable burthen was laid upon me, I could have found it in my heart (only for shame's sake) to cry off from the whole enterprise. But it was too late. The attendants began to turn the hurdy-gurdy, and the air to whistle through the tube; some one screwed in the barred window of the vizor; and I was cut off in a moment from my fellow-men; standing there in their midst, but quite divorced from intercourse: a creature deaf and dumb, pathetically looking forth upon them from a climate of his own. Except that I could move and feel, I was like a man fallen in a catalepsy. But time was scarce given me to realise my isolation; the weights were hung upon my back and breast, the signal rope was thrust into my unresisting hand; and setting a twenty-pound foot upon the ladder, I began ponderously to descend.
Some twenty rounds below the platform, twilight fell. Looking up, I saw a low green heaven mottled with vanishing bells of white; looking around, except for the weedy spokes and shafts of the ladder, nothing but a green gloaming, somewhat opaque but very restful and delicious. Thirty rounds lower, I stepped off on the pierres perdues of the foundation; a dumb helmeted figure took me by the hand, and made a gesture (as I read it) of encouragement; and looking in at the creature's window, I beheld the face of Bain. There we were, hand to hand and (when it pleased us) eye to eye; and either might have burst himself with shouting, and not a {173} whisper come to his companion's hearing. Each, in his own little world of air, stood incommunicably separate.
Bob had told me ere this a little tale, a five minutes' drama at the bottom of the sea, which at that moment possibly shot across my mind. He was down with another, settling a stone of the sea-wall. They had it well adjusted, Bob gave the signal, the scissors were slipped, the stone set home; and it was time to turn to something else. But still his companion remained bowed over the block like a mourner on a tomb, or only raised himself to make absurd contortions and mysterious signs unknown to the vocabulary of the diver. There, then, these two stood for a while, like the dead and the living; till there flashed a fortunate thought into Bob's mind, and he stooped, peered through the window of that other world, and beheld the face of its inhabitant wet with streaming tears. Ah! the man was in pain! And Bob, glancing downward, saw what was the trouble: the block had been lowered on the foot of that unfortunate—he was caught alive at the bottom of the sea under fifteen tons of rock.
That two men should handle a stone so heavy, even swinging in the scissors, may appear strange to the inexpert. These must bear in mind the great density of the water of the sea, and the surprising results of transplantation to that medium. To understand a little what these are, and how a man's weight, so far from being an encumbrance, is the very ground of his agility, was the chief lesson of my submarine experience. The knowledge came upon me by degrees. As I began to go forward with the hand of my estranged companion, a world of tumbled stones {174} was visible, pillared with the weedy uprights of the staging: overhead, a flat roof of green: a little in front, the sea-wall, like an unfinished rampart. And presently in our upward progress, Bob motioned me to leap upon a stone; I looked to see if he were possibly in earnest, and he only signed to me the more imperiously. Now the block stood six feet high; it would have been quite a leap to me unencumbered; with the breast and back weights, and the twenty pounds upon each foot, and the staggering load of the helmet, the thing was out of reason. I laughed aloud in my tomb; and to prove to Bob how far he was astray, I gave a little impulse from my toes. Up I soared like a bird, my companion soaring at my side. As high as the stone, and then higher, I pursued my impotent and empty flight. Even when the strong arm of Bob had checked my shoulders, my heels continued their ascent; so that I blew out sideways like an autumn leaf, and must be hauled in, hand over hand, as sailors haul in the slack of a sail, and propped upon my feet again like an intoxicated sparrow. Yet a little higher on the foundation, and we began to be affected by the bottom of the swell, running there like a strong breeze of wind. Or so I must suppose; for, safe in my cushion of air, I was conscious of no impact; only swayed idly like a weed, and was now borne helplessly abroad, and now swiftly—and yet with dreamlike gentleness—impelled against my guide. So does a child's balloon divagate upon the currents of the air, and touch and slide off again from every obstacle. So must have ineffectually swung, so resented their inefficiency, those light crowds that followed the {175} Star of Hades, and uttered exiguous voices in the land beyond Cocytus.
There was something strangely exasperating, as well as strangely wearying, in these uncommanded evolutions. It is bitter to return to infancy, to be supported, and directed, and perpetually set upon your feet, by the hand of some one else. The air besides, as it is supplied to you by the busy millers on the platform, closes the eustachian tubes and keeps the neophyte perpetually swallowing, till his throat is grown so dry that he can swallow no longer. And for all these reasons—although I had a fine, dizzy, muddle-headed joy in my surroundings, and longed, and tried, and always failed, to lay hands on the fish that darted here and there about me, swift as humming-birds—yet I fancy I was rather relieved than otherwise when Bain brought me back to the ladder and signed to me to mount. And there was one more experience before me even then. Of a sudden, my ascending head passed into the trough of a swell. Out of the green, I shot at once into a glory of rosy, almost of sanguine light—the multitudinous seas incarnadined, the heaven above a vault of crimson. And then the glory faded into the hard, ugly daylight of a Caithness autumn, with a low sky, a grey sea, and a whistling wind.
(Across the Plains.)
{178}
NOTES
Page
1 Sir Mordred, left in charge of the kingdom during King Arthur's absence oversea, treacherously raised a rebellion and made war on the king when he returned. It was in this war that Arthur presently met his end.
5 The grants to which the Queen refers are the trade-monopolies granted by her, which she now proceeded to abolish.
8 This account of Cleopatra's death (from North's translation of Plutarch's Life of Antony) is closely followed by Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra.
11 The basket of figs contained the asp, from the bite of which Cleopatra died (Antony and Cleopatra, act V. scene ii.).
12 The three first monarchies of the world: these, according to Ralegh's account of the world's history, are those of Assyria, Egypt, and Persia.
13 The good advice of Cineas: when Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was contemplating the invasion of Italy (B.C. 280) his friend and adviser Cineas asked him what he would do when he was master of the world. 'Pyrrhus, finding his drift, answered pleasantly, that they would live merrily: a thing (as Cineas then told him) that they presently might do without any trouble, if he could be contented with his own' (Ralegh).
discourse here means 'fame.'
16 The two kinds of law which Hooker (as he indicates at the beginning of this extract) has already dealt with are: the law which binds a man's private conscience, and the law which regulates his dealings with the state (or 'politic society') of which he is a member.
conceits=conceptions.
18 But that is a wisdom: i.e. the wisdom of wise men, who know how to make a proper use of their studies.
distilled books: i.e. books of selections and extracts.
Abeunt studia, etc.: 'studies pass into the character.'
stond= impediment.
19 bowling, i.e. playing bowls.
schoolmen: the theological and metaphysical writers of the middle ages.
Cymini sectores: 'splitters of cumin-seed,' i.e. what we should call 'hair-splitters,' the seed of the cumin (a plant something like fennel) being very minute.
20 In the universality of the kind, etc.: i.e. the race endures, the individual perishes.
24 Lycosthenes, a German scholar of the sixteenth century, wrote a commentary on a book of Lives of eminent men, a work attributed to Pliny the younger (first century A.D.).
26 The eighth climate: i.e. England, which lies in the eighth of the zones (or 'climates') into which the old geographers divided the globe.
constellated: i.e. born under a particular 'constellation' or conjunction of planets (an astrological expression).
Hydra: the many-headed monster slain by Hercules.
in casting account=in doing sums.
27 Doradoes=rich men; a Spanish word, as in the phrase 'El dorado' ('the rich country').
First, when a city, etc.: the skeleton of this highly involved sentence is as follows: 'First, when a city shall be as it were besieged. . ., that then the people . . . should be disputing. . ., argues first a singular good will. . ., and from thence derives itself [i.e. flows on, proceeds] to a gallant bravery. . . .'
28 as his was who when Rome, etc.: this story is told by Livy, as an instance of the undaunted spirit of the Romans during the Punic war.
mewing properly means 'moulting.' Milton apparently uses it in the sense of 'renewing by the process of moulting.'
29 engrossers: wholesale buyers; here used metaphorically of those who, by curtailing the liberty of book-printing, would 'buy up' the stock of knowledge and dole it out as they thought fit.
30 he who takes up arms for coat and conduct: this refers to Charles I's exaction of a tax for the clothing and conducting (i.e. conveying) of troops.
his four nobles of Danegelt: a noble was a coin worth 6s. 8d. Danegelt was originally the land-tax raised by Ethelred the Unready to buy off the Danes; the word was afterwards used of any unpopular tax, here of Charles I's imposition of ship-money, resisted by Hampden.
In this unhappy battle: the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643, in which the advantage was on the whole with the King against the Roundheads.
33 vacant: i.e. open, unclouded.
addresses to his place: i.e. to his office. Falkland was Secretary of State to Charles I.
40 Phalaris: a Sicilian tyrant of the sixth century B.C., famous for his cruelties. The Greek poet Stesichorus was a contemporary of his.
42 Samuel Pepys, from whose diary this extract (slightly abridged) is taken, wrote solely for his own private amusement, troubling himself very little about style or grammar. He held a post in the Navy Office, and his work did not often allow him to take a day in the country, such as he here describes.
46 Defoe's Captain Singleton is an imaginary account of the adventures of certain pirates in different parts of the world. In the extract here given they are lying in Chinese waters. 'William,' one of their crew, has gone ashore to trade with some Chinese merchants.
47 thieves' pennyworths: 'things sold at a robber's price,' i.e. below their real value.
55 composures=compositions.
56 the Great Mogul: the Emperor of Hindostan.
Muscovy=Russia, of which Moscow was formerly the capital.
57 the old philosopher: Socrates; see Hooker's reference to the anecdote on page 17 of this book.
degree: i.e. of latitude and longitude.
62 whereas the ladies now walk, etc.; this was written in 1711, when ladies wore very large 'hoops,' or crinolines.
65 Tom Jones, the hero of Fielding's novel of that name, takes some friends to see Hamlet, acted by Garrick. Partridge, is a timorous ex-schoolmaster, without experience of the theatre.
77 redans: projecting fortifications.
the talus of the glacis: the pitch of the outer slope of an earthwork.
banquettes: the raised way running along the inside of a rampart.
78 chamade: a signal given by drum, announcing surrender.
79 a new reign: George II died on October 25, 1760.
80 a rag of quality: Horace Walpole was a younger son of Sir Robert Walpole (Earl of Orford).
81 the Duke of Cumberland: second son of George II.
a dark brown adonis: a kind of wig.
the Duke of Newcastle: the Prime Minister.
83 Goldsmith's Citizen of the World consists of a series of letters on European manners and customs, purporting to be written by a Chinaman who has never before visited England.
86 whatever accidentally becomes indisposed, etc.; i.e. whoever falls out with the authorities.
87 There never was a period, etc.: this was written in 1777, during the American War of Independence.
90 'Puss' was Cowper's tame hare.
92 The initials at the foot of the letter are those of William Cowper and Mary Unwin, a friend of the poet's.
99 David Garrick: the celebrated actor (1717-1779).
100 Frank Osbaldistone, the hero of Scott's novel Rob Roy, goes to Yorkshire on a visit to his uncle, Sir Hildebrand Osbaldistone, whom he has never seen. As he approaches his destination he falls in with a young lady on horseback, who turns out to be Diana Vernon, a niece of Sir Hildebrand's. The period of the story is early in the eighteenth century.
106 The 'Festin de pierre': Moliere's play, in which the hero, Don Juan, rashly invites the statue of a man he has murdered to dine with him. The invitation is unexpectedly accepted.
107 Coleridge, the poet, was an old friend and school-fellow of Charles Lamb's.
109 An imaginary dialogue between the two philosophers. Plato, born 427 B.C., was some years the older of the two.
111 Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, with whom Plato had lived for a time, was overthrown and expelled by his subjects, and driven to support himself as a schoolmaster at Corinth.
The Demiurgos: the Creator.
113 Mrs Elton, in Jane Austen's novel Emma, is the somewhat meddlesome wife of the village parson. Mr Knightley is a gentleman living at Donwell, in the neighbourhood. The rest of the people named are other neighbours and friends, one of them, Mr Woodhouse, being an old gentleman of valetudinarian habits.
118 Coleridge, as a young man (he was born in 1772), was for a time in the habit of preaching in Unitarian chapels.
122 This is an extract from a letter of Keats to a friend, written in 1818.
124 The Flight to Varennes: by the middle of 1791 the French Revolution had gone so far that the king and queen were practically prisoners in the palace of the Tuileries at Paris. They at last determined to try to escape, and the arrangements for their flight were carried out, in all possible secrecy, by Choiseul, an officer of the French army, and Fersen, a young Swedish count. Carlyle's vivid account tells how the start was made; but the royal party were stopped at Varennes, not far from the frontier, and brought back to Paris.
the Carrousel, or 'tilting-ground,' was an open space in front of the Tuileries.
130 Trial of the Seven Bishops: James II, in 1687, issued a 'declaration of indulgence,' promising to suspend certain laws against Roman Catholics. His command that this declaration should be read in all parish churches was resisted by seven bishops, who were accordingly brought to trial for sedition. The declaration was very unpopular in the country, so that the result of the trial was anxiously awaited.
135 Cimon was one of the Athenian commanders in the Persian war. He died in 449 B.C.
140 The scene of Hawthorne's novel, The House of the Seven Gables, is laid in a small town in New England.
148 Mr Weston was in the plot with the highwayman to rob Dr Barnard. He had himself tampered with his own pistols (in the stable at Maidstone) so that they should miss fire. Hence his peevishness with Denis Duval, for so unexpectedly routing the thief.
153 Jane Eyre is governess to Mr Rochester's daughter, AdÈle. She describes how he cross-questioned her with regard to her accomplishments.
157 Thoreau lived for two years in a small hut which he built for himself in a wood near Concord, in New England. This extract is from the account he wrote of his life there.
171 Stevenson came of a family of engineers, and he himself was supposed to be preparing for the same profession. But he already wished to be a writer, and his interest in the harbour-works at Wick, in Caithness, which he had been sent to study, was romantic rather than practical.
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