The Storyteller.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 12, 22 March 1900, Page 23

The Storyteller.

A STORY OF A LOST TREASURE SHIP.

We all wondered what brought him into this wild district, so far from his own land, or what induced him to take up his abode in that old ruined tower. Such a place bh it was to make a home in !

Grey and old ; storm-beaten ; with deep crevices, into which you oonM put your hand, between its hug'p stones ; and quaint nooks in high cave-courses, in which the wandering Bwallows in summer-time built their nests — as one might see by the straws and moss that peeped thereout ; it was about as unlikely a spot as anyone not altogether demented would be expected to select for habitation. There was nothing standing but the bare walls ; and how thick and Btrong they were !

Local history and tradition had alike failed to tell its story ; it had been roofless and ruined for longer than the fathers and grandfathers of the present generation could remember ; and was likely to remain so until the lapsing ages should ma.ke its walls crumble on the precipice they surmounted, and cause them to topple over into the sea. Not, indeed, that they could fall right into the sea, save when the winter winds sent the great rolling waves of the Atlantic inwards and swept them, leaping and surging, to the base of the cliffs. At such a time they would, no doubt, if they gave way, descend into the sea, but at other periods they would simply fall on a small strand, crescent-shaped, of the finest sand, as white as flour ; or, otherwise, on the great beams and timbers protruding with uncouth prominence through it — the relics of a great vessel that some time in the past had been wrecked by the pitiless sea and driven in there.

It must have been a ship of no ordinary kind that was thus driven in and wrecked, for its gigantic beams were too unwieldy for any vessels that our island had ever seen. Moreover, they were fastened and clamped with iron and copper bolts and nuts to a degree and in themselves were black and hard ; so much so, indeed, that they remained there for generations untouched by the inhabitants, who would rather do without firing than go to the trouble of cutting them up. When it came there, who manned it, when it sailed the seas, what nation's flag it bore aloft — were all things that the great ever-advancing wave of time had buried away and hidden out of sight. And, for aught one could see of decay about them, they were likely to last as long as the old castle itself. But a change came over thecn and the surroundings quite unexpectedly ; and this brings me back to the commencement of my story.

He was a small, withered, black-looking little man. I remember very well when I first saw him — standing at the door of the old castle, looking down on the strand and over the sea, and taking note generally of the place. He might be sixty years of age, or only forty, from what anyone could judge by his appearance. And the gibberish he spoke ! — it was enough to make all the neighbours Hugh when they heard it. Much he cared about their laughing ! He ordered in timber, got a local carpenter to help him, and soon had a portion of the old casrlf roofed iv. Had two or three rooms made in it, too, quite comfortable — though it was the won.ier of everybody what a single man, and a stranger to boot, wanted so many for. And then it became rumoured that he had taken a lease of the place from Lord Clare, as if he were going to live in it for ever. Knowing people shook their heads and said : 1 Wait until wiuter ; wait until the storms come from the west and the great Atlantic waves roll in, and see how long he will remain in it !'

' What was he going to do with it ? — what was he going to do with himself I — how wan he going to live ? ' were questions constantly asked. Not asked of him — people were too much afraid of him to do that — but of one another.

They were boon answered. He began boatbuilding. If he had begun to build another Noah's Ark, people would not have been one whit mure surprised. The only boats used along our portion of the Irish coast were corragh^, which were merely a slight framework of timber covered over with hides of kine. Nothing else would live in the stormy seas that surrounded us. Who was going to buy his boats when made, or where were they to be used ? And then people shook their heads and laughed more consumedly than before. But quite heedless of what anyone said or thought, the new arrival kept straight and steadily at his work.

It was not the least curious thing about him that he should try to work up the huge beams of the sand-covered wreck into materials for his trade. It was quite of a piece with all his oddities, and those who laughed at him before pitied now, for they considered him thoroughly demented. The Mad Spaniard — I should have told you that he came from Spain ; I don't know how we chanced to know it, but we did — the Spania, or Mai Spaniard, as he was called, soon came to be Bpoken of far and near, aud people would wander to the place Sunday after Sunday, when they had time, to look at the progress the new trade was making and at the boatbuilder himself.

But they had soon something else to talk, about when one summer's evening they found that another had joined him— a young girl. How she came there, or when she had come, no one knew or could tell ; but there she was, walking with him. If the boat-builder was old and withered and grizzly, the new-comer was fresh and soft and sweet as the May flowers growing in the valleys hard by. Slender and elegant, with a face singularly sweet and winsome — though its dark olive colour contrasted curiously with the fresh and white of our island girls — and with a pair of dark eyes, out of which shot gleams of light brighter than the brightest sunshine when she smiled. She was the very perfection of gentle and blooming girlhood. Her step was so light it would scarcely bend the flower on the hill-side, and her slender form put to shame the most graceful of our island lassies ; though, I can tell you, looking back at it now

after the lapse of some fifty years, there were some among them who needed not to blush beside the best of those who trod the streets of the metropolis — aDd who knew it too, moreover. But the attractive characteristic of the Donna Graoia— for so the old man termed her — was her voice. Unlike him, she apoka the English language, but it was with a foreign accent that seemed to give it a charm that it never before possessed ; and in her tones you would wonder whether it was the soft murmuring of the stream in the summer time you heard, or the silver note of a golden harp. At any rate, that was the way Phadrig Coady, the philomath, pat it ; and if he did not know how to desoribe it who could I—for1 — for he was a man of deep learning, so deep, indeed, that very few could fathom it, and had read a wonderful deal of books.

Just about this time there oame to Ennismore House — Lord Clare's place — his son, Captain Norman. He was not the eldest son, only the second eldest, and had been away serving with the colours in the wars. He had been with Lord Gough in India, and had crossed swords with the Punjaub cavalry at the passage of the Sutlej ; had seen the sun darken with the haze of battle on the plains of Sindhia ; aud had been one of the first to reaoh the ramparts on the great day of victory, when the flag of England was planted on the blood-stained redoubts of Chillianwalla. He had been seriously woundei, too, and was home now for a time invalided.

A gay, handsome, stalwart young fellow he was, notwithstanding that he was obliged, for the time being, to use a cratch to assist him in walking ; and no one would think, looking at hia bright, pleasant, laughing eyes that he had ever drawn sword to smite a foeman, or that he had ridden over a battlefield with the dead and dying lying thick around him. But the ways of human destiny are wonderful, and so it wa9 that in his rambles over the hill ot Clare in search of health he came into the neighbourhood of Mona Castle ; and coming into the neighbourhood of the old ruin, of course he heard of the stranger who had settled down there ; and of course, too, out of an indolent curiosity, he visited the place. It was only a few days after the sweet foreign young lady had come to it, and no doubt they must have been completely unknown to one another. But they might have known one another for years, so intimate did they become in a short time. They were always together. If Donna Gracia went for a walk along the oliffa overlooking the Atlantic, it was not long before she was joined by Captain Norman. If the sea were calm and the sun turned into a sheet of molten gold until it spread away glittering to the horizon, be sure if a speck broke the level reach of glowing waters it was Captain Norman's corragh, with the Spanish Rose beside him. Charlie Norman — for so the tenantry were wont affectionately to call him — used to laugh gaily if anyone joked him on the subject, and say he was only teaching her to sail the corragh in return for her teaching him the Spanish language. But we all knew very well how it was, and that the soft winsome ways of the Spanish Rose had caught} him, and that the sparkles of her black-blue eyes had fairly bewitched him. Bewitched him. indeed, iB the only way to Bay it, for after a few months, and when the captain was restored to as good health aa ever he was in, the order for his recall came. His regiment was ordered for foreign service again, and he was bound to go, but he did not go. If they had offered him the colonelcy of his regiment — nay, if they had made him general of division or cominander-in-chief — he would have refused it, for the pleasure of listening to Donna Gracia's silver accents and basking in the light that streamed from her sunny eyes. It was a time when England needed all her men, and when honour and duty were words first on all men's lips, and, for the matter of that, in all men's hearts too ; and the first consequence of Charlie Norman's delay or reluotance in going was that he was broken from his commission ; aad the second that he was, in a fit of wrath and humiliation, disinherited by his father. He was the second son, you remember, and the estates were strictly entailed. All this time the old man — the Mad Spaniard as they called him — was working away steadily at his boat-building, pretending to mind nothing ; but keeping a pretty sharp eye, you may depend, on his daughter, or niece, or grand-daughter, or whatever relation che might be to him. And it was really wonderful to see what a fair and trim and stately little boat he did finally construct, and how blithe aud free she swam the waters even of the stormiest day. But there soon came a new development in affairs ; for one evening in the autumn a strange schooner dropped her anchor in the offing. In the morning she was gone ; and, lo and behold 1 with her, too, was gone the Spanish Rose, Donna Gracia — gone beyond all doubt and question, for she was seen there no more. Gone— what was worse — without Charlie Norman's knowledge, as was clear enough from his distracted condition when he found it out. His worst enemy, if he had one — which was very unlikely— would have pitied him in the sorrow and desolation of his heart. It was not that he cared, I do believe, for the loss of his commission, or for his being disinherited by his father — it was for the gloom that had fallen on his heart and his life owing to her disappearance. The Mad Spaniard could, or would, give him no information of her whereabouts or whither she had gone, only that she had taken a sudden notion of joining her friends who were on board the schooner. Indeed, it would have been difficult to get much more information out of him, for he could not, or pretended he could not, speak our language ; and Captain Norman knew none of his, save what he picked up from the Rose, and we doubt whether that was much. Day after day and week after week Charlie Norman moped about on the hills and along the ihore, hoping against hope that she might come back as unexpectedly as she had gone away. But she never came. By degrees the bright look of health and vigour died out of hia face, the quick good humoured gleam from his eye, the buoyancy and activity from his form. He was falling into bad health, and what was worse, into bad spirits : and the difference

between his appearance now and what it was in the summer days, when he shot his corragh over the shining waves with Gracia beside him, was painful to see. There was no home for him at Lord Clare's ; his commission was gone ; his love had fled — what was he to do f

When it became palpable lenongh that the Spanish girl was coming no more, he answered the unasked question himself — he disappeared without telling anyone whither he was going. He had been seen about the rocks overlooking the little harbour one evening, and the next morning was nowhere to be found. Nor did he turn np again. Some said the poor young fellow had drowned himself in a fit of melancholy ,• others that he had gone away and volunteered into the ranks of his former regiment. Most people believed the former ; for, indeed, how could a high-spirited young fellow consent to serve as a private where he had worn the gold epaulets of an officer 1 Many an anxious search was made — not by Lord Clare or any of his people ; he never made the slightest inquiries after him— disowned him, in fact — but by the dwellers of the island — along the shore for his body, in case the waves should oast it up ; but they never did. If the sea held his body it kept it close in its depths and did not yield it up to the searchers. By-and-bye it began to be rumoured that his ' fetch ' was appearing. People belated at night along the rooks overhead the old castle declared they had seen him, or someone like him. Of course nobody believed them. Why should they T Such things are nonsense, you know ; but all the same the islanders began to give a wide berth to the rocks when the shadows of night commenced to fall ; all the more because strange lights began to be seen occasionally over the cliffy at untimely hours. There was no mistaking these latter. Not one or two, bnt ten or twenty, had seen them from a distance, far into the night— nay, at and past the midnight hour — -rising and sinking, as if carried by someone walking over, and through the ups and downs of, the oliffs. As a consequence, naturally that portion of the shore was less and less frequented thereafter ; for, fortunately, the usual harbour for the fishing-boats lay on the other side, and there was no essential need to go there.

It may be readily imagined that after the misfortunes which had oome on the young officer, the Mad Spaniard did not grow in more favour with the inhabitants. But as no one molested him, and as he did not know, or if he did, did not care for what they thought, but worked on unceasingly, it came to pass that by degrees people withdrew their attention from him, and concentrated it on their own proper business. He was always looked upon as uncanny, and it rather began to be thought that the troubles that had come on Captain Norman might readily come in other ways on those who impertinently meddled with his affairs. Wherefore, people let him quietly alone, and a good deal of the interest attaching to him and his affairs when he first came having died out, it was rarely, if, indeed, at all, anyone went to that portion of the island. But stray fishermen, sailing around in their corraghs, brought word that he was still at work, for they could hear him busily hammering with his axe at the sides of the old hulk, or see him soooping the sand from her interior, or burrowing it out.

One evening, late in the month of October, when the Atlantic storms might be expeoted at any moment to begin on the coast, the tall masts of a foreign-rigged vessel appeared in the offing, and later on the same evening dropped anchor hard by the coast, and not far from the Mad Spaniard's harbour. It was a reckless thing to do, for if a storm cauae on nothing in the world could save her ; and very suddenly they did come on this wild coast. Of course we all wondered what brought her there ; and many were the aurmiaes concerning her. Had she come with a supply of winter provisions for the lone worker ? Or, again, had she brought back Charlie Norman's lost love, the lost Spanish Rose ? This latter looked so Tery likely that we all jumpedj umped at once to the conclusion that she had, that this was the mission that brought her here.

You may depend curious footsteps were straying early next day to the shore, for not a few thought and hoped that the missing youth might have, by some curious turn of the wheel of chances, come back with the Rose. Numerous lights had been teen •bout the place — on the cliffs, on the sands, on the Bea — all night, as if some scenes of rejoicing were going on. But behold 1 when they arrived there tin vessel was gone ; stranger still, the Mad Spaniard was gone ! Tnere was not a houl about the place ; they had all departed with the morning dawn. The news soon spread, and quite a crowd gathered, who scattered themselves over the place, curiously searching and investigating. And then came a strange revealment I The old hulk, massive and magnificent even in her ruin, had been quite excavated, the aand completely cleared away down to the lowest timbers of her keel. Compartments hidden away for generations — centuries— had been laid bare and broken up ; and scattered here and there over the naked timbers were— «hining pieces of gold ! Yes, shining pieces of gAd— broad Spanish doubloons, which had fallen about, either unnoticed by the finders, or perhaps considered by them in the hurry of their departure, and in the larger treasure they had to deal with, as not worth the trouble of picking up.

Then we knew it all. The very name, Sanctistinia Trinidad, in huge bronze letters on her uncovered eide, half hidden by a greenish ooating of verdigris, was enough to tell the tale. If we did not understand it at once, Phadrig Coady, dominie and philomath, was there to explain it — not a little, be it said, to our mortification

The Sanctutima Trinidad was one of the treasure ships of the famous Armada. When that great fleet came availing up the English Channel in mighty crescent, her tall masts stood high above the others, Don Vespasian Gonzaga of Spain commanded her. She formed a mark for the attacks of the great naval leaders, the bold sealords, whom this crisis in England's fortunes called forth. Drake had levelled his guns under her huge sides, and poured shoe and shell into her almost solid wooden walls ; Howaid and Efflngham had mantled her in a haze of battle- smoke ; Hawkins

had riddled her aores of sails with chain shot ; and Bir Martin Frobisher had swept her bulwarks with grape until not a living Spanish face could peer above them With the defeat and scattering of the Armada, the tattered and torn galliatie shook herself free from these deadf ul watchdogs, mustered what sail she could, and, in despairing retreat, bore northwards around the shorea of Scotland, and homewards by the western Irish coast. There, the fieroe Atlantic atorms had caught her, had rent her torn sails afresh, aad made her a helpless wreck on the wild waters, and had finally flung her on the quicksands of Arran Island, not a soul of her crew or offi-ers remaining to teli her tale. The wild waves completed their work by sweeping the drifting sand around and over her, until nothing but the shattered timbers of her prow remained visible.

Until the Mad Spaniard came! The wonder was how he learned it. Some Spanish archives, perhaps, preserved remembrance of the vessels in which the gold was carried, and some chance incident had brought to light where her ruined timbers lay.

Now we understood what the old foreigner's boat- building meant ; now we knew how little of the fool or the madman there was about him. He had laboured zealously, untiringly in his quest, had taken cunning: steps enough to keep our superstitious islanders' eyes from his work, and had found at last his reward. The strangely-rigged barque was bearing even now off to Spanish soil, solid gold, and treasure.

How we wondered to be Bure, and how many of us writhed under our sense of wrong and disappointment. For was it not our gold he had carried off — it was long enough in our island to be our property. Oh, if we only had known it was there. Maledictions loud and deep followed in the wake of that treacherous Spanish barque, with that cunning Spanish rogue on board. However, there was nothing for it but to put up with the loss and pick np what gold had been scattered and dropped by the thieves, and look vainly for more.

We daresay there was no one more disappointed and annoyed, when he heard of it, than was Lord Clare. It was not enough that the villainous Spaniard and his daughter had bewitched his son and destroyed his prospects in lif *, but that they should despoil his estate of the treasure therein. And, indeed, it did seem as if in c*rrying off gold, the Mad Spaniard had carried off a good deaf of the old lord's luck, too, or rather had left behind for him a special series of misfortunes. For one day G-erald, his eldest son, out shooting on the hilla, by accident, passing a fence, lodged the oontents of his gun in his own heart, and was carried home dead. More than that, heavy reverses came to the Earl in some mining' speculations he had long been engaged in ; the mortgagees on his property foreclosed their mortgage ; and the broad acres of his ancestors, and every stick and atone in Ennismore were advertised for sale.

Of course we islanders were all deeply concerned in this. It was of deep moment to us who should be our next landlord. We were sorry for the old lord, for he had been a good and kindly ruler of his tenantry. The story of the Mad Spaniard and his treasure quickly left men's minds in presence of this new event, whioh we beheld in the light of a grave calamity. We could only look on and sorrow for him ; we were as powerless to help him as we were to stay the storms that swept the coast.

The day came when the sale was to be effected, the mortgage foreclose, and the estates of Arranmore to pass from the hands of its ancient possessors. Of course the tenantry all assembled to witness a proceeding that was of such deep moment to them ; and, of oourse, among the others went we islanders. There was a large concourse' assembled. There are few things more melancholy than the break* ing up of an ancient home ; it means the sundrence of so many ties, the ruin of so many hopes, the coming of so many changes. Where' fore an air of gloom pervaded the place as we wandered aimlessly about, waiting for the sale to commence. Carriages bearing many of the surrounding gentry drove up ; oontaining, also, many London gentlemen interested in the matter, either as intending purchasers as relatives, or as mortgagees. We were watching the various vehicles which, as they came, discharged their freights, and went away, without indeed any motive more potential than vague and idle curiosity, when suddenly a neighbour touched me on the arm and said, in a voice which at once caught my attention, so full of strange surprise it was — ' Look, Look 1'

I looked in the direction his outstretched hand indicated ; and there, in the act of descending from an elegant carriage, the same curious grin I remembered so well on his tawny wrinkled face, was— yes, by the immortal ghost of King Bryan J— was Spania, the Mad Spaniard himself I

I rubbed my eyes quick and hard, for I thought I waa bewitched or dreaming. I rubbed them harder still when the next moment there stepped down — like a sunbeam a summer flower entrancing, radiant — Donna Gracia, the Spanish Rose, smiling, delighted, with a halo of loveliness around her whioh far outshone even her beauty on the summer sands of Arran. I think I rubbed my eyes hardest of all when there came from the carriage, third and lastly, Charlie Norman— the future Lord Clare ! — looking just as good-humoured and brave as when he carried the colours of England on the redoubts of the Btormed Indian strongholds I

Is it necessary to tell how the sale was stopped ; how the old baronial castle remained undespoiled ; how the mortgage was paid off ; how such a wedding was never yet seen in hall or tower as that which celebrated the union of the Hon. Captain Charles Norman and Donna Gracia, heiress to I don't know how many Spanish quarterings — for she was lineal dscendant to the powerful grandee whose bones whitened on the unpitying Arran ooast ; how, when the old lord was gathered to his fathers, the succeeding Lord and Lady Clare made themselves so popular and beloved that I don't think a single soul envied the possessors of the treasures torn from the depths of the Sanctitsima Trinidad? I trow not.— James Dowling in the New Era.