The village of Clovelly, which looks out from the steep cliff's side on Bideford Bay, has surely a character peculiar to itself. Rising abruptly from an antique pier, its lichen-covered cottages are piled up on an incline so sharp that the traveller has to climb its oblique, pebble-paved street, and is constrained to wonder how human habitations were perched on so precipitous an acclivity, and how the villagers contrive to descend day after day without bodily detriment, or to ascend with fish-filled maunds without perilling their existence. Besides the dwellings which line the slanting thoroughfare, a number of cottages are scattered on the right and left, embosomed in foliage which salutes the waving ocean; and so completely is the cliff graced with fine old trees and with tangled underwood, through which a grey rock here and there protrudes, that the village looks right cosy, despite its perpendicular build, and adds no little to the picturesque appearance of the charming coast.
The only inn of those days, which swung its sign in the main street of that unique fishing hamlet, was the Crown and Anchor, in which Pickard and the 'prentice were quartered for the night. The captain and Mr. Mogford repaired to the outskirts of the village, where a relative of the former resided, a worthy bachelor, who made them welcome to his home and to such Devonshire fare as his larder afforded. Everything was done that evening which Cousin William could do to make the seamen 'snug and comfortable.'
It's like a dream, cap'n,' said Mogford; 'ain't it?'
'A dream with a plaguey nightmare into the bargain,' responded Stauncy; 'but the ship isn't launched, and the skipper isn't born, who can stand anything that comes.'
'Misfortunes will happen,' said the relative, with a sedate smile, 'and we must all be thankful it's no worse. We shall hear of many a wreck after such a night, and the list of widows and orphans will be greatly increased, I'm thinking.'
'Well, William,' said the captain, 'the mate knows, and I know, that every effort was made to weather the storm and keep her afloat. But it was to be.'
'There!' hastily interrupted the cousin. 'You're at your old doctrine again, James, which is really no creed at all, but only an easy, excusing way of getting over a difficulty, and sometimes of justifying a crime.'
'I don't know anything about that, William,' replied the captain; 'all I know is, that what is to be, will be.'
'What is to be: you mean by that, what has been determined by the Divine will. This is true as regards Divine permission, but not as regards responsibility and the rights and wrongs of what happens; because a great deal comes to pass through the wickedness of men, who act from the impulses of their own bad hearts.'
The captain winced, and, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable at the turn his relative's logic had taken, he replied, 'I cannot argue with you, cousin, particularly as you are a pious man. All I want to say is, that everything was done that mortal could do to survive the gale. But it was to be.'
'Everything,' said the mate; 'nothing but good handling would have kept her from foundering, or from running ashore between Bude and 'Arty. No better seamanship could be.'
'Thank you, Mogford,' replied Stauncy; 'we shall have to give an account of ourselves, I suppose, and you'll bear witness for me, I'm sure.'
'I should think so,' answered the mate; 'and perhaps your good cousin here will appear to prove that it wasn't to be.'
'It would require data,' responded the relative, 'with which I am unacquainted, and which have no existence, I am sure, to prove it in this case. But such a thing might be proved.'
And thus the evening was spent pleasantly, as it seemed: their worthy host declared it was spent profitably. They were known to become more eloquent! as it advanced; and the mate was afterwards heard to say that the debating theologian delivered them a final lecture before they separa............