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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14817-0.txt b/14817-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f2d8216 --- /dev/null +++ b/14817-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10340 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14817 *** + +THE WHITE WOLF AND OTHER FIRESIDE TALES. + +By Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch ('Q'). + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +MIRACLE OF THE WHITE WOLF. + +SINDBAD ON BURRATOR. + +VICTOR. + +THE CAPTURE OF THE _BURGOMEISTER VAN DER WERF. + +KING O' PRUSSIA. + +THE MAN WHO COULD HAVE TOLD. + +THE CELLARS OF RUEDA. + +THE HAUNTED YACHT. + +PARSON JACK'S FORTUNE. + +THE BURGLARY CLUB. + +CONCERNING ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. + +COX _VERSUS_ PRETYMAN. + +THE BRIDALS OF YSSELMONDE. + +ENGLAND! + +JOHN AND THE GHOSTS. + +THREE PHOTOGRAPHS. + +THE TALKING SHIPS. + +THE KEEPERS OF THE LAMP. + +TWO BOYS. + +THE SENIOR FELLOW. + +BALLAST. + + + +THE MIRACLE OF THE _WHITE WOLF_. + + +I.--THE TALE OF SNORRI GAMLASON + +In the early summer of 1358, with the breaking up of the ice, there came +to Brattahlid, in Greenland, a merchant-ship from Norway, with +provisions for the Christian settlements on the coast. The master's +name was Snorri Gamlason, and it happened that as he sailed into +Eric's Fiord and warped alongside the quay, word was brought to him that +the Bishop of Garda had arrived that day in Brattahlid, to hold a +confirmation. Whereupon this Snorri went ashore at once, and, getting +audience of the Bishop, gave him a little book, with an account of how +he had come by it. + +The book was written in Danish, and Snorri could not understand a word +of it, being indeed unable to read or to write; but he told this +tale:-- + +His ship, about three weeks before, had run into a calm, which lasted +for three days and two nights, and with a northerly drift she fell away, +little by little, towards a range of icebergs which stretched across and +ahead of them in a solid chain. But about noon of the third day the +colour of the sky warned him of a worse peril, and soon there came up +from the westward a bank of fog, with snow in it, and a wind that +increased until they began to hear the ice grinding and breaking up-- +as it seemed--all around them. Snorri steered at first for the +southward, where had been open water; but by and by found that even here +were drifting bergs. He therefore put his helm down and felt his way +through the weather by short boards, and so, with the most of his men +stationed forward to keep a look-out, fenced, as it were, with the +danger, steering and tacking, until by God's grace the fog lifted, and +the wind blew gently once more. + +And now in the clear sunshine he saw that the storm had been more +violent than any had supposed; since the wall of ice, which before had +been solid, was now burst and riven in many places, and in particular to +the eastward, where a broad path of water lay before them almost like a +canal, but winding here and there. Towards this Snorri steered, and +entered it with a fair breeze. + +They had come, he said, but to the second bend of this waterway, when a +seaman, who had climbed the mast on the chance of spying an outlet, +called out in surprise that there was a ship ahead of them, but two +miles off, and running down the channel before the wind, even as they. +At first he found no credit for this tale, and even when those on deck +spied her mast and yard overtopping a gap between two bergs, they could +only set it down for a mirage or cheat of eyesight in the clear weather. + +But by and by, said Snorri, they could not doubt they were in chase of a +ship, and, further, that they were fast overtaking her. For she steered +with no method, and shook with every slant of wind, and anon went off +before it like a helpless thing, until in the end she was fetched up by +the jutting foot of a berg, and there shook her sail, flapping with such +noise that Snorri's men heard it, though yet a mile away. + +They bore down upon her, and now took note that this sail of hers was +ragged and frozen, so that it flapped like a jointed board, and that her +rigging hung in all ways and untended, but stiff with rime; and drawing +yet nearer, they saw an ice-line about her hull, so deep that her +timbers seemed bitten through, and a great pile of frozen snow upon her +poop, banked even above her tiller; but no helmsman, and no living soul +upon her. + +Then Snorri let lower his boat, and was rowed towards her; and, coming +alongside, gave a hail, which was unanswered. But from the frozen pile +by the tiller there stuck out a man's arm, ghastly to see. +Snorri climbed on board by the waist, where her sides were low and a +well reached aft from the mast to the poop. There was a cabin beneath +the poop, and another and larger room under the deck forward, between +the step of the mast and the bows. Into each of these he broke with +axes and bars, and in the one found nothing but some cooking-pots and +bedding; but in the other--that is, the after-cabin--the door, as he +burst it in, almost fell against a young man seated by a bed. +So life-like was he that Snorri called aloud in the doorway, but anon, +peering into the gloomy place, perceived the body to be frozen upright +and stiff, and that on the bed lay another body, of a lady slight and +young, and very fair. She, too, was dead and frozen; yet her cheeks, +albeit white as the pillow against which they rested, had not lost their +roundness. Snorri took note also of her dress and of the coverlet +reaching from the bed's foot to her waist, that they were of silk for +the most part, and richly embroidered, and her shift and the bed-sheets +about her of fine linen. The man's dress was poor and coarse by +comparison; yet he carried a sword, and was plainly of gentle nurture. +The sword Snorri drew from its sheath and brought away; also he took a +small box of jewels; but little else could he find on the ship, and no +food of any kind. + +His design was to leave the ship as he found it, carrying away only +these tokens that his story, when he arrived at Brattahlid, might be +received with faith; and to direct where the ship might be sought for. +But as he quitted the cabin some of his men shouted from the deck, where +they had discovered yet another body frozen in a drift. This was an old +man seated with crossed legs and leaning against the mast, having an +ink-horn slung about his neck, and almost hidden by his grey beard, and +on his knee a book, which he held with a thumb frozen between two pages. + +This was the book which Snorri had brought to Brattahlid, and which the +Bishop of Garda read aloud to him that same afternoon, translating as he +went; the ink being fresh, the writing clerkly, and scarcely a page +damaged by the weather. It bore no title; but the Bishop, who +afterwards caused his secretary to take a copy of the tale, gave it a +very long one, beginning: "God's mercy shown in a Miracle upon certain +castaways from Jutland, at the Feast of the Nativity of His Blessed Son, +our Lord, in the year MCCCLVII., whereby He made dead trees to put forth +in leaf, and comforted desperate men with summer in the midst of the +Frozen Sea" . . . with much beside. But all this appears in the tale, +which I will head only with the name of the writer. + + + +II.--PETER KURT'S MANUSCRIPT [1] + +Now that our troubles are over, and I sit by the mast of our late +unhappy ship, not knowing if I am on earth or in paradise, but full-fed +and warm in all my limbs, yea pierced and glowing with the love of +Almighty God, I am resolved to take pen and use my unfrozen ink in +telling out of what misery His hand hath led us to this present Eden. + +I who write this am Peter Kurt, and I was the steward of my master Ebbe +while he dwelt in his own castle of Nebbegaard. Poor he was then, and +poor, I suppose, he is still in all but love and the favour of God; but +in those days the love was but an old servant's (to wit, my own), and +the favour of God not evident, but the poverty, on the other hand, +bitterly apparent in all our housekeeping. We lived alone, with a +handful of servants--sometimes as few as three--in the castle which +stands between the sandhills and the woods, as you sail into Veile +Fiord. All these woods, as far away as to Rosenvold, had been the good +knight his father's, but were lost to us before Ebbe's birth, and leased +on pledge to the Knight Borre, of Egeskov, of whom I am to tell; and +with them went all the crew of verderers, huntsmen, grooms, prickers, +and ostringers that had kept Nebbegaard cheerful the year round. +His mother had died at my master's birth, and the knight himself but two +years after, so that the lad grew up in his poverty with no heritage but +a few barren acres of sand, a tumbling house, and his father's sword, +and small prospect of winning the broad lands out of Borre's clutches. + +Nevertheless, under my tutoring he grew into a tall lad and a bold, a +good swordsman, skilful at the tilt and in handling a boat; but not +talkative or free in his address of strangers. The most of his days he +spent in fishing, or in the making and mending of gear; and his +evenings, after our lesson in sword-play, in the reading of books (of +which Nebbegaard had good store), and specially of the Icelanders, +skalds and sagamen; also at times in the study of Latin with me, who had +been bred to the priesthood, but left it for love of his father, my +foster-brother, and now had no ambition of my own but to serve this lad +and make him as good a man. + +But there were days when he would have naught to do with fishing or with +books; dark days when I forbore and left him to mope by the dunes, or in +the great garden which had been his mother's, but was now a wilderness +untended. And it was then that he first met with the lady Mette. + +For as he walked there one morning, a little before noon, a swift shadow +passed overhead between him and the sun, and almost before he could +glance upward a body came dropping out of the sky and fell with a thud +among the rose-bushes by the eastern wall. It was a heron, and after it +swooped the bird which had murdered it; a white ger-falcon of the kind +which breeds in Greenland, but a trained bird, as he knew by the sound +of the bells on her legs as she plunged through the bushes. Ebbe ran at +once to the corner where the birds struggled; but as he picked up the +pelt he happened to glance towards the western wall, and in the gateway +there stood a maiden with her hand on the bridle of a white palfrey. +Her dog came running towards Ebbe as he stood. He beat it off, and +carrying the pelt across to its mistress, waited a moment silently, cap +in hand, while she called the great falcon back to its lure and leashed +it to her wrist, which seemed all too slight for the weight. + +Then, as Ebbe held out the dead heron, she shook her head and laughed. +"I am not sure, sir, that I have any right to it. We flushed it yonder +between the wood and the sandhills, and, though I did not stay to +consider, I think it must belong to the owner of the shore-land." + +"It is true," said Ebbe, "that I own the shore-land, and the forest, +too, if law could enforce right. But for the bird you are welcome to +it, and to as many more as you care to kill." + +Upon this she knit her brows. "The forest? But I thought that the +forest was my father's? My name," said she, "is Mette, and my father is +the Knight Borre, of Egeskov." + +"I am Ebbe of Nebbegaard, and," said he, perceiving the mirth in her +eyes, "you have heard the rhyme upon me-- + + "'Ebbe from Nebbe, with all his men good, + Has neither food nor firing-wood.'" + +"I had not meant to be discourteous," said she contritely; "but tell me +more of these forest-lands." + +"Nay," answered Ebbe, "hither comes riding your father with his men. +Ask him for the story, and when he has told it you may know why I cannot +make him or his daughter welcome at Nebbegaard." + +To this she made no reply, but with her hand on the palfrey's bridle +went slowly back to meet her father, who reined up at a little distance +and waited, offering Ebbe no salutation. Then a groom helped her to the +saddle, and the company rode away towards Egeskov, leaving the lad with +the dead bird in his hand. + +For weeks after this meeting he moped more than usual. He had known +before that Sir Borre would leave no son, and that the lands of +Nebbegaard, if ever to be won back, must be wrested from a woman--and +this had ever troubled him. It troubled me the less because I hoped +there might be another way than force; and even if it should come to +that, Sir Borre's past treachery had killed in me all kindness towards +his house, male or female. + +He and my old master and five other knights of the eastern coast had +been heavily oppressed by the Lord of Trelde, Lars Trolle, who owned +many ships, and, though no better than a pirate, claimed a right of +levying tribute along the shore that faces Funen, upon pretence of +protecting it. After enduring many raids and paying toll under threat +for years, these seven knights banded together to rid themselves of this +robber; but word of their meetings being carried to Trolle, he came +secretly one night to Nebbegaard with three ships' crews, broke down the +doors, and finding the seven assembled in debate, made them prisoners +and held them at ransom. My master, a poor man, could only purchase +release by the help of his comrade, Borre, who found the ransom, but +took in exchange the lands of Nebbegaard, to hold them until repaid out +of their revenues; but of these he could never after be brought to give +an account. We on our side had lost the power to enforce it, and behind +his own strength he could now threaten us with Lars Trolle's, to whom he +had been reconciled. + +Therefore I felt no tenderness for Sir Borre's house, if by any means +our estates could be recovered. But after this meeting with Sir Borre's +daughter, I could see that my young lord went heavily troubled; and I +began to think of other means than force. + +It may have been six months later that word fame to us of great stir and +bustle at Egeskov. Sir Borre, being aged, and anxious to see his +daughter married before he died, had proclaimed a Bride-show. Now the +custom is, and the rule, that any suitor (so he be of gentle birth) may +offer himself in these contests; nor will the parents begin to bargain +until he has approved himself,--a wise plan, since it lessens the +disputing, which else might be endless. So when this news reached us I +looked at my master, and he, perceiving what I would say, answered it. + +"If Holgar will carry me," said he, "we will ride to Egeskov." + +This Holgar was a stout roan horse, foaled at Nebbegaard, but now well +advanced in years, and the last of that red stock for which our stables +had been famous. + +"He will carry you thither," said I; "and by God's grace, bring you home +with a bride behind you." + +Upon this my master hung his head. "Peter," he said, "do not think I +attempt this because it is the easier way." + +"It comes easier than fighting with a woman," I answered. "But you will +find it hard enow when the old man begins to haggle." + +I did not know then that the lad's heart was honestly given to this +maid; but so it was, and had been from the moment when she stood before +him in the gateway. + +So to Egeskov we rode, and there found no less than forty suitors +assembled, and some with a hundred servants in retinue. Sir Borre +received us with no care to hide his scorn, though the hour had not come +for putting it into words; and truly my master's arms were +old-fashioned, and with the dents they had honourably taken when they +cased his father, made a poor battered show, for all my scouring. + +Nevertheless, I had no fear when his turn came to ride the ring. +Three rides had each wooer under the lady Mette's eyes, and three rings +Ebbe carried off and laid on the cushion before her. She stooped and +passed about his neck the gold chain which she held for the prize; but I +think they exchanged no looks. Only one other rider brought two rings, +and this was a son of Lars Trolle, Olaf by name, a tall young knight, +and well-favoured, but disdainful; whom I knew Sir Borre must favour if +he could. + +I could not see that the maiden favoured him above the rest, yet I kept +a close eye upon this youth, and must own that in the jousting which +followed he carried himself well. For this the most of the wooers had +fresh horses, and I drew a long breath when, at the close of the third +course, my master, with two others, remained in the lists. For it had +been announced to us that the last courses should be ridden on the +morrow. But now Sir Borre behaved very treacherously, for perceiving +(as I am sure) that the horse Holgar was overwearied and panting, he +gave word that the sport should not be stayed. More by grace of Heaven +it was than by force of riding that Ebbe unhorsed his next man, a +knight's son from Smalling; but in the last course, which he rode +against Olaf of Trolle, who had stood a bye, his good honest beast came +to the tilt-cloth with knees trembling, and at a touch rolled over, +though between the two lances (I will swear) there was nothing to +choose. I was quick to pick up my dear lad; but he would have none of +my comfort, and limped away from the lists as one who had borne himself +shamefully. Yea, and my own heart was hot as I led Holgar back to +stable, without waiting to see the prize claimed by one who, though a +fair fighter, had not won it without foul aid. + +Having stalled Holgar I had much ado to find his master again, and +endless work to persuade him to quit his sulks and join the other +suitors in the hall that night, when each presented his bride-gift. +Even when I had won him over, he refused to take the coffer I placed in +his hands, though it held his mother's jewels, few but precious. +But entering with the last, as became his humble rank of esquire, he +laid nothing at the lady's feet save his sword and the chain that she +herself had given him. + +"You bring little, Squire Ebbe," said the Knight Borre, from his seat +beside his daughter. + +"I bring what is most precious in the world to me," said Ebbe. + +"Your lance is broken, I believe?" said the old knight scornfully. + +"My lance is not broken," he answered; "else you should have it to match +your word." And rising, without a look at Mette, whose eyes were +downcast, he strode back to the door. + +I had now given up hope, for the maid showed no sign of kindness, and +the old man and the youth were like two dogs--the very sight of the one +set the other growling. Yet--since to leave in a huff would have been +discourteous--I prevailed on my master to bide over the morrow, and even +to mount Holgar and ride forth to the hunt which was to close the +Bride-show. He mounted, indeed, but kept apart and well behind Mette +and her brisk group of wooers. For, apart from his lack of inclination, +his horse was not yet recovered; and by and by, as the prickers started +a deer, the hunt swept ahead of him and left him riding alone. + +He had a mind to turn aside and ride straight back to Nebbegaard, +whither he had sent me on to announce him (and dismally enough I +obeyed), when at the end of a green glade he spied Mette returning alone +on her white palfrey. + +"For I am tired of this hunting," she told him, as she came near. +"And you? Does it weary you also, that you lag so far behind?" + +"It would never weary me," he answered; "but I have a weary horse." + +"Then let us exchange," said she. "Though mine is but a palfrey, it +would carry you better. Your roan betrayed you yesterday, and it is +better to borrow than to miss excelling." + +"My house," answered Ebbe, still sulkily, "has had enough borrowing of +Egeskov; and my horse may be valueless, but he is one of the few things +dear to me, and I must keep him." + +"Truly then," said she, "your words were nought, last night, when you +professed to offer me the gifts most precious to you in the world." + +And before he could reply to this, she had pricked on and was lost in +the woodland. + +Ebbe sat for a while as she left him, considering, at the crossing of +two glades. Then he twitched Holgar's rein and turned back towards +Nebbegaard. But at the edge of the wood, spying a shepherd seated below +in the plain by his flock, he rode down to the man, and called to him +and said-- + +"Go this evening to Egeskov and greet the lady Mette, and say to her +that Ebbe of Nebbegaard could not barter his good horse, the last of his +father's stable. But that she may know he was honest in offering her +the thing most precious to him, tell her further what thou hast seen." + +So saying, he alighted off Holgar, and, smoothing his neck, whispered a +word in his ear. And the old horse turned his muzzle and rubbed it +against his master's left palm, whose right gripped a dagger and drove +it straight for the heart. This was the end of the roan stock of +Nebbegaard. + +My master Ebbe reached home that night with the mire thick on his boots. +Having fed him, I went to the stables, and finding no Holgar made sure +that he had killed the poor beast in wrath for his discomforture at the +tilt. The true reason he gave me many days after. I misjudged him, +judging him by his father's temper. + +On the morrow of the Bride-show the suitors took their leave of Egeskov, +under promise to return again at the month's end and hear how the lady +Mette had chosen. So they went their ways, none doubting that the +fortunate one would be Olaf of Trelde; and, for me, I blamed myself that +we had ever gone to Egeskov. + +But on the third morning after the Bride-show I changed this advice very +suddenly; for going at six of the morning to unlock our postern gate, as +my custom was, I found a tall black stallion tethered there and left +without a keeper. His harness was of red leather, and each broad +crimson rein bore certain words embroidered: on the one "A Straight +Quarrel is Soonest Mended "; on the other, "Who Will Dare Learns +Swiftness." + +Little time I lost in calling my master to admire, and having read what +was written, he looked in my eyes and said, "I go back to Egeskov." + +"That is well done," said I; "may the Almighty God prosper it!" + +"But," said he doubtfully, "if I determine on a strange thing, will you +help me, Peter? I may need a dozen men; men without wives to miss +them." + +"I can yet find a dozen such along the fiord," I answered. + +"And we go on a long journey, perhaps never to return to Nebbegaard." + +"Dear master," said I, "what matter where my old bones lie after they +have done serving you?" He kissed me and rode away to Egeskov. + +"I thought that the Squire of Nebbe had done with us," Sir Borre began +to sneer, when Ebbe found audience. "But the Bride-show is over, my +man, and I give not my answer for a month yet." + +"Your word is long to pledge, and longer to redeem," said Ebbe. +"I know that, were I to wait a twelvemonth, you would not of free will +give me Mette." + +"Ah, you know that, do you? Well, then, you are right, Master Lackland, +and the greater your impudence in hoping to wile from me through my +daughter what you could not take by force." + +Ebbe replied, "I was prepared to find it difficult, but let that pass. +As touching my lack of land, I have Nebbegaard left; a poor estate and +barren, yet I think you would be glad of it, to add to the lands of +which you robbed us." + +"Well," said Borre, "I would give a certain price for it, but not my +daughter, nor anything near so precious to me." + +"Give me one long ship," said Ebbe; "the swiftest of your seven which +ride in the strait between Egeskov and Stryb. You shall take +Nebbegaard for her, since I am weary of living at home and care little +to live at all without Mette." + +Borre's eyes shone with greed. "I commend you," said he; "for a stout +lad there is nothing like risking his life to win a fortune. +Give me the deeds belonging to Nebbegaard, and you shall have my ship +_Gold Mary_." + +"By your leave," said Ebbe, "I have spent some time in watching your +ships upon the fiord; and the ship in my mind was the _White Wolf_." + +Sir Borre laughed to find himself outwitted, for the _White Wolf_ could +outsail all his fleet. But in any case he had the better of the bargain +and could afford to show some good-humour. Moreover, though he knew not +that Mette had any tenderness for this youth, his spirits rose at the +prospect of getting him out of the way. + +So the bargain was struck, and as Nebbe rode homewards to his castle for +the last time, he met the shepherd who had taken his former message. +The man was waiting for him, and (as you guess) by Mette's orders. + +"Tell the lady Mette," said Ebbe, "that I have sold Nebbegaard for the +_White Wolf_, and that two nights from now my men will be aboard of her; +also that I sup with her father that evening before the boat takes me +off from the Bent Ness." + +So it was that two nights later Ebbe supped at Egeskov, and was kept +drinking by the old knight for an hour maybe after the lady Mette had +risen and left the hall for her own room. + +And at the end, after the last speeding-cup, needs must Sir Borre (who +had grown friendly beyond all belief) see him to the gate and stand +there bare-headed among his torch-bearers while my master mounted the +black stallion that was to bear him to Bent Ness, three miles away, +where I waited with the boat. + +But as Ebbe shook his rein, and moved out of the torchlight, came the +damsel Mette stealing out of the shadow upon the far side of the horse. +He reached down a hand, and she took it, and sprang up behind him. + +"For this bout, Sir Borre, I came with a fresh horse!" called my master +blithely; and so, striking spur, galloped off into the dark. + +Little chance had Sir Borre to overtake them. The stallion was swift, +our boat waiting in the lee of the Ness, the wind southerly and fresh, +the _White Wolf_ ready for sea, with sail hoisted and but one small +anchor to get on board or cut away if need were. But there was no need. +Before the men of Egeskov reached the Ness and found there the black +stallion roaming, its riders were sailing out of the Strait with a merry +breeze. So began our voyage. + +My master was minded to sail for Norway and take service under the king. +But first, coming to the island of Laeso, he must put ashore and seek a +priest, by whom he and the lady Mette were safely made man and wife. +Two days he spent at the island, and then, with fresh store of +provisions, we headed northward again. + +It was past Skagen that our troubles began, with a furious wind from the +north-east against which there was no contending, so that we ran from it +and were driven for two days and a night into the wide sea. Even when +it lessened, the wind held in the east; and we, who could handle the +ship, but knew little of reckoning, crept northward again in the hope to +sight the coast of Norway. For two days we held on at this, lying close +by the wind, and in good spirits, although our progress was not much; +but on the third blew another gale--this time from the south-east--and +for a week gale followed gale, and we went in deadly peril, yet never +losing hope. The worst was the darkness, for the year was now drawing +towards Yule, and as we pressed farther north we lost almost all sight +of the sun. + +At length, with the darkness and the bitter cold and our stores running +low, we resolved to let the wind take us with what swiftness it might to +whatsoever land it listed; and so ran westward, with darkness closing +upon us, and famine and a great despair. + +But the lady Mette did not lose heart, and the worst of all (our failing +cupboard) we kept from her, so that she never lacked for plenty. +Truly her cheerfulness paid us back, and her love for my master, the +like of which I had not seen in this world; no, nor dreamed of. +Hand in hand this pair would sit, watching the ice which was our prison +and the great North Lights, she close against Ebbe's side for warmth, +and (I believe) as happy us a bird; he trembling for the end. +The worst was to see her at table, pressing food to his mouth and +wondering at his little hunger; while his whole body cried out for the +meat, only it could not be spared. + +Though she must know soon, none of us had the heart to tell her; and not +out of pity alone, but because with her must die out the last spark by +which we warmed ourselves. + +But there came a morning--I write it as of a time long ago, and yet it +was but yesterday, praise be unto God!--there came a morning when I +awoke and found that two of our men had died in the plight, of frost and +famine. They must be hidden before my mistress discovered aught; and so +before her hour of waking we weighted and dropped the bodies overside +into deep water; for the ice had not yet wholly closed about us. Now as +I stooped, I suppose that my legs gave way beneath me. At any rate, I +fell; and in falling struck my head against the bulwarks, and opened my +eyes in that unending dusk to find the lady Mette stooping over me. + +Then somehow I was aware that she had called for wine to force down my +throat, and had been told that there was no wine; and also that with +this answer had come to her the knowledge, full and sudden, of our case. +Better had we done to trust her than to hide it all this while, for she +turned to Ebbe, who stood at her shoulder, and "Is not this the feast of +Yule?" she asked. My master bent his head, but without answering. + +"Ah!" she cried to him. "Now I know what I have longed to know, that +your love is less than mine, for you can love yet be doubtful of +miracles; while to me, now that I have loved, no miracle can be aught +but small." She bowed herself over me. "Art dying, old friend? +Look up and learn that God, being Love, deserts not lovers." + +Then she stooped and gathered, as I thought, a handful of snow from the +deck; but lo! when she pressed it to my lips, and I tasted, it was +heavenly manna. + +And looking up past her face I saw the ribbons of the North Lights fade +in a great and wide sunlight, bathing the deck and my frozen limbs. +Nor did they feel it only, but on the wind came the noise of bergs +rending, springs breaking, birds singing, many and curious. And with +that, as I am a sinful man, I gazed up into green leaves; for either we +had sailed into Paradise or the timbers of the _White Wolf_ were +swelling with sap and pushing forth bough upon bough. Yea, and there +were roses at the mast's foot, and my fingers, as I stretched them, +dabbled in mosses. While I lay there, breathing softly, as one who +dreams and fears to awake, I heard her voice talking among the noises of +birds and brooks, and by the scent it seemed to be in a garden; but +whether it spake to me or to Ebbe I knew not, nor cared. "The Lord is +my Shepherd, and guides me," it said, "wherefore I lack nothing. +He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me by comfortable +streams: He reviveth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of +the shadow of death, I will fear no harm: Thy rod and Thy staff they +comfort me." But, a little after, I knew that the voice spake to my +master, for it said: "Let us go forth into the field, O beloved: let us +lodge in the villages: let us get up betimes to the vineyard and see if +the vine have budded, if its blossom be open, the pomegranates in +flower. Even there will I give thee my love." Then looking again I saw +that the two had gone from me and left me alone. + +But, blessed be God, they took not away the vision, and now I know +certainly that it is no cheat. For here sit I, dipping my pen into the +unfrozen ink, and, when a word will not come, looking up into the broad +branches and listening to the birds till I forget my story. It is long +since they left me; but I am full fed, and the ship floats pleasantly. +After so much misery I am as one rocked on the bosom of God; and the +pine resin has a pleasant smell. + + +[1] The courtship of Ebbe, the poor esquire of Nebbegaard, and the +maiden Mette is a traditional tale of West Jutland. A version of it was +Englished by Thorpe from Carit Etlar's "_Eventyr og Folkesagen fra +Jylland_": but this, while it tells of Ebbe's adventures at the +"Bride-show," and afterwards at the hunting-party, contains no account +of the lovers' escape and voyage, or of the miracle which brought them +comfort at the last. Indeed, Master Kurt contradicts the common tale in +many ways, but above all in his ending, wherein (although he narrates a +miracle) I find him worthy of belief. + + + +SINDBAD ON BURRATOR. + + +I heard this story in a farmhouse upon Dartmoor, and I give it in the +words of the local doctor who told it. We were a reading-party of +three undergraduates and a Christ Church don. The don had slipped on a +boulder, two days before, while fishing the river Meavy, and sprained +his ankle; hence Dr. Miles's visit. The two had made friends over the +don's fly-book and the discovery that what the doctor did not know about +Dartmoor trout was not worth knowing; hence an invitation to extend his +visit over dinner. At dinner the talk diverged from sport to the +ancient tin-works, stone circles, camps and cromlechs on the tors about +us, and from there to touch speculatively on the darker side of the old +religions: hence at length the doctor's story, which he told over the +pipes and whisky, leaning his arms upon the table and gazing at it +rather than at us, as though drawing his memories out of depths below +its polished surface. + + +It must be thirty--yes, thirty--years ago (he said) since I met the man, +on a bright November morning, when the Dartmoor hounds were drawing +Burrator Wood. Burrator House in those days belonged to the Rajah +Brooke--Brooke of Sarawak--who had bought it from Harry Terrell; or +rather it had been bought for him by the Baroness Burdett Coutts and +other admirers in England. Harry Terrell--a great sportsman in his +day--had been loth enough to part with it, and when the bargain was +first proposed, had named at random a price which was about double what +he had given for the place. The Rajah closed with the sum at once, +asked him to make a list of everything in the house, and put a price on +whatever he cared to sell. Terrell made a full list, putting what +seemed to him fair prices on most of the furniture, and high ones-- +prohibitive he thought--on the sticks he had a fancy to keep. The Rajah +glanced over the paper in his grand manner, and says he, "I'll take it +all." "Stop! stop!" cried Terrell, "I bain't going to let you have the +bed I was married in!" "As you please; we'll strike out the bed, +then," the Rajah answered. That is how he took possession. + +Burrator House, as I daresay you know, faces across the Meavy upon +Burrator Wood; and the wood, thanks to Terrell, had always been a sure +draw for a fox. I had tramped over from Tavistock on this particular +morning,--for I was new to the country, a young man looking around me +for a practice, and did not yet possess a horse,--and I sat on the slope +above the house, at the foot of the tor, watching the scene on the +opposite bank. The fixture, always a favourite one, and the Rajah's +hospitality--which was noble, like everything about him--had brought out +a large and brightly-dressed field; and among them, in his black coat, +moved Terrell on a horse twice as good as it looked. He had ridden over +from his new home, and I daresay in the rush of old associations had +forgotten for the while that the familiar place was no longer his. + +The Rajah, a statue of a man, sat on a tall grey at the covert's edge, +directly below me; and from time to time I watched him through my +field-glass. He had lately recovered from a stroke of paralysis, and +was (I am told) the wreck of his old self; but the old fire lived in the +ashes. He sat there, tall, lean, upright as a ramrod, with his eyes +turned from the covert and gazing straight in front, over his horse's +ears, on the rushing Meavy. He had forgotten the hounds; his care for +his guests was at an end; and I wondered what thoughts, what memories of +the East, possessed him. There is always a loneliness about a great +man, don't you think? But I have never felt one to be so terribly--yes, +terribly--alone as the Rajah was that morning among his guests and the +Devonshire tors. + +"Every inch a king," said a voice at my elbow, and a little man settled +himself down on the turf beside me. I set down my glasses with a start. +He was a spare dry fellow of about fifty, dressed in what I took for the +working suit of a mechanic. Certainly he did not belong to the moor. +He wore no collar, but a dingy yellow handkerchief knotted about his +throat, and both throat and face were seamed with wrinkles--so thickly +seamed that at first glance you might take them for tattoo-marks; but I +had time for a second, for without troubling to meet my eyes he nodded +towards the Rajah. + +"I've cut a day's work and travelled out from Plymouth to get a sight of +him; and I've a wife will pull my hair out when I get home and she finds +I haven't been to the docks to-day; and I've had no breakfast but thirty +grains of opium; but he's worth it." + +"Thirty grains of opium!" I stared at him, incredulous. He did not +turn, but, still with his eyes on the valley below us, stretched out a +hand. It's fingers were gnarled, and hooked like a bird's claw, and on +the little finger a ruby flashed in the morning sunlight--not a large +ruby, but of the purest pigeon's-blood shade, and in any case a stone of +price. + +"You see this? My wife thinks it a sham one, but it's not. And some +day, when I'm drunk or in low water, I shall part with it--but not yet. +You've an eye for it, I see,"--and yet he was not looking towards me,-- +"but the Rajah, yonder, and I are the only two within a hundred miles +that can read what's in the heart of it." + +He gazed for a second or two at the stone, lifted it to his ear as if +listening, and lowering his hand to the turf, bent over it and gazed +again. "Ay, _he_ could understand and see into you, my beauty! +_He_ could hear the little drums tum-a-rumbling, and the ox-bells and +bangles tinkling, and the shuffle of the elephants going by; _he_ could +read the lust in you, and the blood and the sun flickering and licking +round the _kris_ that spilt it--for it's the devil you have in you, my +dear. But we know you--he and I--he and I. Ah! there you go," he +muttered as the hounds broke into cry, and the riders swept round the +edge of the copse towards the sound of a view-halloo. "There you go," +he nodded after the Rajah; "but ride as you will, the East is in you, +great man--its gold in your blood, its dust in your eyelids, its own +stink in your nostril; and, ride as you will, you can never escape it." + +He clasped his knees and leaned back against the slope, following the +grey horse and its rider with idolatrous gaze; and I noted that one of +the clasped hands lacked the two middle fingers. + +"You know him?" I asked. "You have seen him out there, at Sarawak?" + +"I never saw him; but I heard of him." He smiled to himself. "It's not +easy to pass certain gates in the East without hearing tell of the Rajah +Brooke." + +For a while he sat nursing his knee while I filled and lit a pipe. +Then he turned abruptly, and over the flame of the match I saw his eyes, +the pupils clouded around the iris and, as it were, withdrawn inward and +away from the world. "Ever heard of Cagayan Sulu?" he asked. + +"Never," said I. "Who or what is it?" + +"It's an island," said he. "It lies a matter of eighty miles off the +north-east corner of Borneo--facing Sandakan, as you might say." + +"Who owns it?" + +He seemed to be considering the question. "Well," he answered slowly, +"if you asked the Spanish Government I suppose they'd tell you the King +of Spain; but that's a lie. If you asked the natives--the Hadji Hamid, +for instance--you'd be told it belonged to them; and that's half a lie. +And if you asked the Father of Lies he might tell you the truth and call +me for witness. I lost two fingers there--the only English flesh ever +buried in those parts--so I've bought my knowledge." + +"How did you come there?" I asked,--"if it's a fair question." + +He chuckled without mirth. "As it happens, that's _not_ a fair +question. But I'll tell you this much, I came there with a brass band." + +I began to think the man out of his mind. + +"With the instruments, that is. I'd dropped the bandmaster on the way. +Look here," he went on sharply, "the beginning is funny enough, but I'm +telling you no lies. We'll suppose there was a ship, a British +man-of-war--name not necessary just now." + +"I think I understand," I nodded. + +"Oh no, you don't," said he. "I'm not a deserter--at least not +exactly--or I shouldn't be telling this to you. Well, we'll suppose +this ship bound from Labuan to Hong-Kong with orders to keep along the +north side of Borneo, to start with, and do a bit of exploring by the +way. This would be in 'forty-nine, when the British Government had just +taken over Labuan. _Very_ good. Next we'll suppose the captain puts in +at Kudat, in Marudu Bay, to pay a polite call on the Rajah there or some +understrapper of the Sultan's, and takes his ship's band ashore by way +of compliment, and that the band gets too drunk to play 'Annie Laurie.'" +He chuckled again. "I never saw such a band as we were, down by the +water's edge; and O'Hara, the bandmaster, took on and played the fool to +such a tune, while we waited for the boat to take us aboard, that for +the very love I bore him I had to knock him down and sit on him in a +quiet corner. + +"While I sat keeping guard on him I must have dropped asleep myself; for +the next I remember was waking up to find the beach deserted and the +boat gone. This put me in a sweat, of course; but after groping some +while about the foreshore (which was as dark as the inside of your hat), +I tripped over a rope and so found a native boat. O'Hara wouldn't wake, +so I just lifted him on board like a sack, tossed in his cornet and my +bombardon, tumbled in on top of them, and started to row for dear life +towards the ship's light in the offing. + +"But the Rajah, or rather his servants, had filled us up with a kind of +sticky drink that only begins to work when you think it about time to +leave off. I must have pulled miles towards that ship, and every time I +cast an eye over my shoulder her light was shining just as far away as +ever. At last I remember feeling sure I was bewitched, and with that I +must have tumbled off the thwart in a sound sleep. + +"When I awoke I had both arms round the bombardon; there wasn't a sight +of land, or of the ship, anywhere; and, if you please, the sun was near +sinking! This time I managed to wake up O'Hara. We had splitting +headaches, the pair of us; but we snatched up our instruments and +started to blow on them like mad. Not a soul heard, though we blew till +the sweat poured down us, and kept up the concert pretty well all +through the night. You may think it funny, and I suppose we did amount +to something like a joke--we two bandsmen booming away at the Popular +Airs of Old England and the Huntsmen's Chorus under those everlasting +stars. You wouldn't say so, if you had been the audience when O'Hara +broke down and began to confess his sins. + +"Luckily the sea kept smooth, and next morning I took the oars in +earnest. We had no compass, and I was famished; but I stuck to it, +steering by the sun and pulling in the direction where I supposed land +to lie. O'Hara kept a look-out. We saw nothing, however, and down came +the night again. + +"Though the hunger had been gnawing and griping me for hours, yet-- +dog-tired as I was--I curled myself at the bottom of the boat and slept, +and dreamed I was on board ship again and in my hammock. A sort of +booming in my ears awoke me. Looking up I saw daylight around--clear +morning light and blue sky--and right overhead, as it were, a great +cliff standing against the blue. And there in the face of day O'Hara +sat on the thwart, tugging like mad, now cricking his neck almost to +stare up at the cliff, and now grinning down at me in silly triumph. + +"With that I caught at the meaning of the sound in my ears. +'You infernal fool!' I shouted, staggering up and making to snatch the +paddle from him. 'Get her nose round to it and back her!' For it was +the noise of breaking water. + +"But I was too late. Our boat, I must tell you, was a sort of Dutch +pram, about twelve feet long and narrowing at the bows, which stood well +out of water; handy enough for beaching, but not to be taken through +breakers, by reason of its sitting low in the stern. O'Hara, as I +yelled at him, pulled his starboard paddle and brought her (for these +prams spin round easily) almost broadside on to a tall comber. As we +slid up the side of it and hung there, I had a glimpse of a steep clean +fissure straight through the wall of rock ahead; and in that instant +O'Hara sprawled his arms and toppled overboard. The boat and I went by +him with a rush. I saw a hand and wrist lifted above the foam, but when +I looked back for them they were gone--gone as I shot over the bar and +through the cleft into smooth water. I shouted and pulled back to the +edge of the breakers; but he was gone, and I never saw him again. + +"I suppose it was ten minutes before I took heart to look about me. +I was floating on a lake of the bluest water I ever set eyes on, and as +calm as a pond except by the entrance where the spent waves, after +tumbling over the bar, spread themselves in long ripples, widening and +widening until the edge of them melted and they were gone. The banks of +the lake rose sheer from its edge, or so steeply that I saw no way of +climbing them--walls you might call them, a good hundred feet high, and +widening gradually towards the top, but in a circle as regular as ever +you could draw with a pair of compasses. Any fool could see what had +happened--that here was the crater of a dead volcano, one side of which +had been broken into by the sea; but the beauty of it, sir, coming on +top of my weakness, fairly made me cry. For the walls at the top were +fringed with palms and jungle trees, and hung with creepers like +curtains that trailed over the face of the cliff and down among the +ferns by the shore. I leaned over the boat and stared into the water. +It was clear, clear--you've no notion how clear; but no bottom could I +see. It seemed to sink right through and into the sea on the other side +of the world! + +"Well, all this was mighty pretty, but it didn't tell me where to find a +meal; so I baled out the boat and paddled along the eastern edge of the +lake searching the cliffs for a path, and after an hour or so I hit on +what looked to me like a foot-track, zig-zagging up through the creepers +and across the face of the rock. I determined to try it, made the boat +fast to a clump of fern, slung O'Hara's cornet on to my side-belt and +began to climb. + +"I saw no marks of footsteps; but the track was a path all right, though +a teazer. A dozen times I had to crawl on hands and knees under the +creepers--creepers with stems as thick as my two wrists--and once, about +two-thirds of the way up, I was forced to push sideways through a +crevice dripping with water, and so steep under foot that I slid twice +and caked myself with mud. I very nearly gave out here; but it was do +or die, and after ten minutes more of scratching, pushing, and +scrambling, I reached the top and sat down to mop my face and recover. + +"I daresay it was another ten minutes before I fetched breath enough and +looked about me; and as I turned my head, there, close behind me, lay +another crater with another lake smiling below, all blue and peaceful as +the one I had left! I gazed from one to the other. This new crater had +no opening on the sea; its sides were steeper, though not quite so tall; +and either my eyes played me a trick or its water stood at a higher +level. I stood there, comparing the two, when suddenly against the +skyline, and not two hundred yards away, I caught sight of a man. + +"He was walking towards me around the edge of the crater, and halting +every now and then to stare down at my boat. He might be a friend, or +he might be a foe; but anyway it was not for me, in my condition, to +choose which, so I waited for him to come up. And first I saw that he +carried a spear, and wore a pair of wide dirty-white trousers and a +short coat embroidered with gold; and next that he was a true Malay, +pretty well on in years, with a greyish beard falling over his chest. +He had no shirt, but a scarlet sash wrapped about his waist and holding +a _kris_ and two long pistols handsomely inlaid with gold. In spite of +his weapons he seemed a benevolent old boy. + +"He pointed towards my boat and tried me with a few questions, first in +his own language, then in Spanish, of which I knew very little beyond +the sound. But I spread out my hands towards the sea, by way of +explaining our voyage, and then pointed to my mouth. If he understood +he seemed in no hurry. He tapped O'Hara's cornet gingerly with two +fingers. I unstrung it and made shift to play 'Home, Sweet Home.' +This delighted him; he nodded, rubbed his hands, and stepped a few paces +from me, then turned and began fingering his spear in a way I did not +like at all. 'It's a matter of taste, sir,' said I, or words to that +effect, dropping the cornet like a hot potato; but he pointed towards +it, and then over a ridge inland, and I gathered I must pick it up and +follow him--which I did, and pretty quick. + +"From the top of this ridge we faced across a small plain bounded on the +north with a tier of hills, most of which seemed by their shape to be +volcanoes, and out of action--for the sky lay quite blue and clear above +them. The way down into this plain led through jungle; but the plain +itself had been cleared of all but small clumps dotted here and there, +which gave it, you might say, the look of an English park; and about +half-way across, in a clear stretch of lalang grass, stood a village of +white huts huddling round a larger and much taller house. + +"The old man led me straight towards this, and, coming closer, I saw +that the large house had a rough glacis about it and a round wall +pierced with loopholes. A number of goats were feeding here and a few +small cattle; also the ground about the village had been cleared and +planted with fruit-trees,--mangoes, bananas, limes, and oranges,--but as +yet I saw no inhabitants. The old Malay, who had kept ahead of me all +the way, walking at a fair pace, here halted and once more signed to me +to blow on the cornet. I obeyed, of course, this time with 'The British +Grenadiers.' I declare to you it was like starting a swarm of bees. +You wouldn't believe the troops that came pouring out of those few +huts--the women in loose trousers pretty much like the men's, but with +arms bare and loose _sarongs_ flung over their right shoulders, the +children with no more clothes than a pocket-handkerchief apiece. +I can't tell you what first informed me of my guide's rank among them-- +whether the salaams they offered him, or the richness of his dress-- +he was the only one with gold lace and the only one who carried +pistols--or the air with which he paraded me through the crowd, waving +the people back to right and left, and clearing a way to a narrow door +in the wall around the great house. A man armed with a long +fowling-piece saluted him at the entry; and once inside he pointed from +the house to his own breast, as much as to say, 'I am the Chief, and +this is mine.' I saluted him humbly. + +"A verandah ran around the four sides of the house, with a trench +between it and the fortified wall. A plank bridge led across the trench +to the verandah steps, where my master--or, to call him by his right +name, Hadji Hamid--halted again and clapped his hands. A couple of +young Malay women, dressed like those I had passed in the street, ran +out in answer, and were ordered to bring me food. While it was +preparing I rested on a low chair, blinking at the sunlight on the +fortified wall. It had been pierced, on the side of the house, for +eleven guns, but six of the embrasures were empty, and of the five +pieces standing no two were alike in size, age, or manufacture, and the +best seemed to be a nine-pounder, strapped to its carriage with rope. +Hadji Hamid saw what I was looking at, and chuckled to himself solemnly. +All through the meal--which began with a mess of rice and chopped fowl +and ended with bananas--he sat beside me, chewing betel, touching this +thing and that, naming it in his language and making me repeat the words +after him. He smiled at every mistake, but never lost his patience; +indeed it was clear that my quickness delighted him, and I did my best, +wondering all the while what he meant to do with me. + +"Well, to be short, sir, he intended to keep me. I believe he would +have done it for the sake of the cornet; but before I had finished +eating, up stepped a sentry escorting a man with my bombardon under his +arm. I had left it, as you know, in the boat, and had heard no order +given; but the boat I never saw again, and here was my bombardon. +Hadji Hamid took it in both hands, felt it all over, patted it, and +ended by turning it over to me and calling in dumb show for a tune. +I tell you, my performance was a success. At the first blast he leaned +back suddenly in his chair; at the second he turned a kind of purple +under his yellow skin; but at the third he caught hold of his stomach +and began to roll in his seat and laugh. You never saw a man laugh like +it. He made scarcely any sound; he was too near apoplexy to speak; but +the tears ran down his face, and one minute his hand would be up waving +feebly to me to stop, the next he'd be signalling to go on again. +I wanted poor O'Hara; he used to give himself airs and swear at my +playing, but among these people he and his cornet would have had to +stand down. + +"They gave me a bed that night in a corner of the verandah, and next +morning my master came himself to wake me, and took me down to the +village bathing-pool, just below the fortifications. It hurt my modesty +to find the whole mob of inhabitants gathered there and waiting, and it +didn't set me at ease, exactly, to notice that each man carried his +spear. For one nasty moment I pictured a duck-hunt, with me playing +duck. But there was no cause for alarm. At a signal from Hamid, who +stripped and led the way, in we tumbled together--men, women, and +children--the men first laying their spears on the bank beside their +clothes. Six remained on shore to keep guard, and were relieved after +five minutes by another six from the pool. There was a good deal of +splashing and horse-play, but nothing you could call immodest, though my +fair skin came in for an amount of attention I had to get used to. + +"My breakfast was served to me alone, and soon after I was summoned to +attend my master in one of the state rooms of the house. I found him on +a shaded platform, seated opposite an old native as well-dressed and +venerable-looking as himself, but stouter. The pair lolled on cushions +at either end of the platform, smoking and smoothing their grey beards. +I understood that the visitor was a personage and (somehow) that he had +been sent for expressly to hear and be astonished by my performance. + +"The two instruments were brought in upon cushions, and I began to play. +The visitor--who had less sense of humour than Hamid--did not laugh at +all. Instead, he took the mouthpiece of his _tchibouk_ slowly from his +lips and held it at a little distance, while his mouth and eyes opened +wider and wider. Hamid eyed him keenly, with a kind of triumph under +his lids; and the triumph grew as the old man's stare lit up with a +jealousy there was no mistaking. + +"This, too, passed as I wound up with a flourish and stood at attention, +waiting for orders. The visitor put out his hand, but as I offered him +the bombardon he waved it aside impatiently and pointed to the cornet. +I passed it up to him; he patted and examined it for a while, laid it on +his knee, and the two men began talking in low voices. + +"I could see that compliments were passing; but you'll guess I wasn't +prepared for what followed. Hamid stood up suddenly and whispered to +one of his six guards stationed below the platform. The man went out, +and returned in five minutes followed by a girl. Now that the island +girls were beautiful I had already discovered that morning, and this one +was no exception--a small thing about five feet, with glossy black hair +and the tiniest feet and hands. She seemed to me to walk nervously, as +if brought up for punishment; and a thought took me--and I shall be glad +of it when I come to die--that if they meant to ill-use her I might do +worse than assault that venerable pair with my bombardon and end my +adventures with credit. + +"My eyes were so taken up with the girl that for a full minute I paid no +attention to my master. She had come to a halt under the platform, a +couple of paces from me, with her eyes cast down upon the floor; and he +on the platform was speaking. By and by he stopped, and glancing up I +saw that he was motioning me to leave the room. Well, they had made no +show as yet of ill-treating her; so I flung her one more look and +obeyed, feeling pretty mean. I went out into the verandah, walked the +length of it and turned--and there stood the girl right before me! +Her little feet had followed me so softly that I had heard nothing; and +now, as I stared at her, she crept close with a sort of sidelong motion, +and knelt at my feet, at the same moment drawing her _sarong_ over her +head to hide it. Then the truth came upon me--I was married! + +"Aoodya was her name. What else can I tell you about her, to describe +her? She was a child, and all life came as play to her, yet she +understood love to the tips of her little madder-brown fingers. +She was my teacher, too, and I sat at her feet day after day and learned +while she drilled the island-language into me; learned by the hour while +she untwisted her hair and rubbed it with grated cocoanut, and broke off +her toilet to point to this thing and that and tell me its name, +laughing at my mistakes or flipping bits of betel at me by way of +reward. I had no wife at home to vex my conscience at all. All day we +played about Hamid's verandah like two children, and Hamid watched us +with a sort of twinkle in his eye, seemingly well content. It was plain +he had taken a fancy to me, and I thought, as time passed, he grew +friendlier. + +"I blessed the old fellow, too. Had he not given me Aoodya? I puzzled +my head over this favour, until Aoodya explained. 'You see,' she said, +'it was done to oblige the Hadji Hassan.' This was the old man who had +listened to my performance on the bombardon. He lived in a stockaded +house on the far side of the island, the chieftancy of which he and +Hamid shared between them and without dispute. + +"'How should it oblige Hassan?' I asked. + +"'Because Hassan could not see or hear my lord and lover without longing +to possess such a man for his very own. As who could?' And here she +blew me a kiss. + +"'Thank you, jewel of my heart,' said I; 'but yet I don't see. +Was it me he wanted, or the bombardon?' + +"'I fancy he thought of you together; but of course he did not ask for +the big thing--that would have been greedy. He would be content with +the little one, the what-you-call cornet; and--don't you see?' + +"'No doubt it's stupid of me, my dear,' said I, 'but I'll be shot if I +do.' + +"She was sitting with a lapful of pandanus leaves, blue and green, +weaving a mat of them while we talked, and had just picked out a beater +from the tools scattered round her--a flat piece of board with a +bevilled edge, and shaped away to a handle. 'Stupid!' she says to me, +just like so, and at the same time raps me over the hand smartly. +'He thought--if peradventure there came to us a little one--' + +"'_With_ a what-you-call cornet?'--I clapped my hand to my mouth over a +guffaw; and, with that, She--who had started laughing too--came to a +stop, with her eyes fastened on the back of it. I saw them stiffen, and +the pretty round pupils draw in and shrink to narrow slits like a cat's, +and her arm went back slowly behind her, and her bosom leaned nearer and +nearer. I thought she was going to spring at me, and as my silly laugh +died out I turned my hand and held it palm outward, to fend her off. +On the back of it was a drop of blood where the bevelled edge of the +beater had by accident broken the skin. + +"Somehow this movement of mine seemed to fetch her to bearings. +Her hand came slowly forward again, hesitated, seemed to hover for a +moment at her throat, then went swiftly down to her bosom between bodice +and flesh, and came up again tugging after it what looked to me a piece +of coarse thread. She tossed it into my lap as I still sat there +cross-legged, and with that sprang up and raced away from me, down to +the verandah. There was no chance of catching her, and I was (to tell +the truth) a bit too much taken aback to try. I picked up the string. +On it was threaded a silk purse no bigger than a shilling; and from this +I shook into my palm a small stone like an opal. I turned it over once +or twice, put it back in the purse, and stowed string, purse, and all in +my breeches' pocket. + +"I strolled down the verandah to our quarters in search of Aoodya, but +the room was empty; and after that I'm afraid I smoked and sulked for +the rest of the day, until nightfall. After playing the Hadji Hamid +through his meal I went out to our favourite seat on the edge of the dry +ditch, when she came to me out of nowhere across the withered grass of +the compound. + +"'Have you the charm, O beloved?' she whispered. + +"'Oh, it's a charm, is it?' said I, partly sulky yet. + +"'Yes, and you must never lose it--never part with it--never, above all, +give it back to me. Promise me that, beloved; and I, who have wept +much, am happy again.' + +"So I promised, and she snuggled close to me, and all was as before. +No more was said between us, and by next morning she seemed to have +clean forgotten the affair. But I thought of it at times, and it +puzzled me. + +"Now, as I said, my master had taken a fancy to me quite apart from the +bombardon, and a token of it was his constantly taking me out as +companion on his walks. You may think it odd that he never troubled +about my being an unbeliever--for of course he held by the Prophet, and +so did all the islanders, Aoodya included. But in fact, though his +people called themselves Mahommedans, each man treated his religion much +as he chose, and Hamid talked to me as freely as if I had been his son. + +"In this way I learned a deal of the island and its customs, and of the +terms by which Hamid and Hassan between them shared its rule. But that +any others laid claim to it I had no idea, until one day as we were +walking on the coast, and not far from the crater where he had found me +first, my master asked suddenly, 'Was I happy?' + +"'Quite happy,' I answered. + +"'You would not leave us if you could?' he went on, and began to laugh +quiet-like, behind his beard. 'Oho! Love, love! I that am old have +been merry in my day.' We walked for another mile, maybe, without +speaking, and came to the edge of a valley. 'Look down yonder,' said +he. + +"Below us, and in the mouth of the valley, which grew broad and shallow +as it neared the sea, I saw a hill topped by a round wall and compound. +There might have been half a dozen houses within the compound, all +thatched, and above them stood up a flag painted in red and yellow +stripes, and so stiff in the breeze that with half an eye you could tell +it was no bunting but a sheet of tin. + +"Hullo!' said I. 'Spaniards?' + +"'Puf!' Hamid grinned at the flag and spat. 'A Captain Marquinez +inhabits there, with four Manila men and their wives. He is a sensible +fellow, and does no harm, and if it pleases him to hoist that toy on a +bamboo, he is welcome.' + +"'They claim the island, then?' + +"'What matters it if they claim? There was a letter once came to us +from the Spanish Governor in Tolo. That man was a fool. He gave us +warning that by order of the Government at Manila he would send a +hundred men to build a fort inland and set up a garrison. Hassan and I +took counsel together. 'He is a fool,' said Hassan; 'but we must answer +him.' So we answered him thus. 'Send your men. To-day they come; +to-morrow they die--yet trouble not; _we_ will bury them.' + +"'Were they sent?' I asked. + +"'They were not sent. He was a fool, yet within bounds. Nevertheless +a time may come for us--not for Hassan and me, we shall die in our +beds--but for our sons. Even for this we are prepared.' He would have +said more, but checked himself. (I learned later on that the islanders +kept one of the craters fortified for emergency, to make a last stand +there; but they never allowed me to see the place.) 'We have gods of +our own,' said Hamid slily, 'who will be helpful--the more so that we do +not bother them over trifles. Also there are--other things; and the +lake Sinquan, and another which you have not seen, are full of +crocodiles.' He stamped his foot. 'My son, beneath this spot there +has been fire, and still the men of Cagayan walk warily and go not +without their spears. For you it is different; yet when you come upon +aught that puzzles you, it were well to put no questions even to +yourself.' + +"'Not even about this?' I asked, and showed him the purse and stone +which Aoodya had tossed to me. + +"'You are in luck's way,' said he, 'whoever gave you that.' He pulled a +small pouch from his breast, opened it, and showed me a stone exactly +like mine. 'It is a cocoanut pearl. Keep it near to your hand, and +forget not to touch it if you hear noises in the air or a man meet you +with eyes like razors.' + +"I wanted to ask him more, but he started to walk back hastily, and when +I caught him up would talk of nothing but the sugar and sweet-potato +crops, and the yield of cocoanut oil to be carried to Kudat at the next +north-east monsoon. I noticed that the fruit-trees planted along the +shore were old, and that scores of them had ceased bearing. 'They will +last my day,' said he. 'Let my sons plant others if they so will.' He +always spoke in this careless way of his children, and I believe he had +many, for an islander keeps as many wives as he can afford; but they +lived about the villages, and could not be told from the other +inhabitants by any sign of rank or mark of favour he showed them. + +"For a long while I believed that Aoodya must be a daughter of his. +She always denied it, but owned that she had never known her mother and +had lived in Hamid's house ever since she could remember. Anyhow, he +took the greatest care of me, and never allowed me to join the +expeditions which sailed twice a year from the island--to Palawan for +paddy, and to the north of Borneo with oil and nuts and pandanus mats. +He may have mistrusted me; but more likely he forbade it out of care for +me and the music I played; for the _prahus_ regularly came back with +three or four of their number missing--either capsized on the voyage or +blown away towards Tawi-Tawi, where the pirates accounted for them. + +"Though I might not sail abroad he allowed me to join the tuburing +parties off the shore. We would work along the reefs there in rafts of +bamboo, towing with us two or three dug-outs filled with mashed +_tubur_-roots. At the right spot the dug-outs would be upset, and after +a while the fish came floating up on their sides, or belly uppermost, to +be speared by us; for the root puddles the water like milk, and +stupefies them somehow without hurting the flesh, which in an hour or so +is fit to eat. + +"We had been tuburing one afternoon, and put back with our baskets +filled to a spit of the shore where we had left an old islander, Kotali +by name, alone and tending a fire for our meal. Coming near we saw him +stretched on the sand by his cooking-pots, and shouted to wake him, for +his fire was low. Kotali did not stir. I was one of the first to jump +ashore and run to him. He lay with his legs drawn up, his hands +clenched, his eyes wide open and staring at us horribly. The man was as +dead as a nail. + +"I never saw people worse frightened. 'The Berbalangs!' said someone in +a dreadful sort of whisper, and we started to run back to the raft for +our lives--I with the rest, for the panic had taken hold of me, though I +could see no sign of an enemy. I supposed these Berbalangs, named with +such awe, to be pirates or marauders from Tawi-Tawi or some neighbouring +island, and the first hint that reached me of anything worse was a +wailing sound which grew as we ran, and overhauled us, until the air was +filled with roaring, so that I swung round to defend myself, yet could +see nothing. To my surprise a man who had been running beside me +dropped on the sand, pulled a sigh of relief, and began to mop his +face--and this in the very worst of the racket. 'They are gone by,' he +shouted; 'the worse the noise the farther off they are. They have taken +their fill to-day on poor old Kotali.' + +"Suddenly the noise ceased altogether, and we picked up courage to +return and bury the body. We had a basket of limes on the raft, and +these were fetched and the juice squeezed over the grave; but no one +seemed inclined to answer the questions I put about these Berbalangs. +It seemed that unless they were close at hand there was ill-luck even in +mentioning them, and I walked back to the village in a good deal of +perplexity. + +"I should tell you, sir, that by this time I was the father of a fine +boy; and that Aoodya doted on him. When she was not feeding him or +calling on me to admire his perfections, from the cleverness of his +smile to the beautiful shape of his toes, he lay and slept, or kicked in +a basket slung on a long bamboo fastened across the rafters, Aoodya +would give the basket a pull, and this set it bobbing up and down on the +spring of the bamboo for minutes at a time. + +"Now when I reached home with my string of fish, I walked round to the +back of the house to clean them before going in. This took me past the +window of our room, and glancing inside--the window was unglazed, you +understand--I saw Aoodya standing before the cradle and talking, quick +and angry, with a man posted in the doorway opening on the verandah. + +"I was not jealous. The thought never entered my head. But I dropped +my fish and whipped round to the doorway in time to catch him as he +turned to go, having heard my footstep belike. + +"'Who the something-or-other are you?' I asked. 'And what's your +business in my private house?' + +"The man--a yellow-faced fellow, but young in figure--muttered something +in a gibberish new to me, and made as if excusing himself. It gave me +an ugly start to see that his eyes were yellow too, with long slits for +pupils; but I saw too that he was afraid of me, and being in a towering +rage myself, I out with my _kris_. + +"'Now look here,' I said; 'I don't understand what you say, but maybe +you understand this. Walk! And if I catch you here again, you'll need +someone to sew you up.' + +"I watched him as he went across the compound. The guard at the gate +scarcely looked up, and if the thing hadn't been impossible, there, in +the broad daylight, I could have fancied he saw no one. I turned to +Aoodya and took her hands, for she was trembling from head to foot. +At my touch she burst out sobbing, clung to my shoulder and begged me to +protect her. + +"'Why, of course I will,' said I, more cheerfully than I felt by a long +sight. 'If I'd known you were frightened like this, I'd have slit his +body to match his eyes. But who is he, at all?' + +"'He--he said he was my brother!' she wailed, and clung to me again. +'I cannot--I cannot!' + +"'I'll brother him!' cried I. 'But what is it he wants?' + +"'I cannot--I cannot!' was all she would say; and now her sobs were so +loud that the child woke up screaming and had to be soothed. And this +seemed to do her good. + +"Well, I got her to bed and asleep early that night; but before morning +I had a worse fright than ever. Somehow in my dream I had a feeling +come to me that the bed was empty, and sat up suddenly, half awake and +scared. Aoodya had risen and was standing by the cradle, with one hand +on its edge; in the other was the lamp--a clam-shell fastened in a split +handle of bamboo, and holding a pith wick and a little oil. The flame +wavered against her eyes as she held it up and peered into the baby's +face--and her eyes were like as I had seen them once before, and +devilish like the eyes I had seen in another face that afternoon. + +"A man never knows what he can do till the call comes. There, betwixt +sleep and waking, I knew that happiness had come to an end for us. +Yet I slipped out of bed very softly, took the lamp from her as gentle +as you please, set it on a stool and, turning, reached out for her two +wrists and held them--for how long I can't tell you. She didn't try to +fend me away, or struggle at all, and not a word did I utter, but stood +holding her--the babe asleep beside us--and listened to her breathing +until it grew easier, and she leaned to me, weak as water. + +"Then I let go, and lifting the child's head from the pillow pulled +Aoodya's charm, the cocoanut pearl, from my neck and hung it about his. +'That's for you, sonny,' said I, 'and if the Berbalangs come along you +can pass them on to your father.' I faced round on Aoodya with a smile +which no doubt was thin enough, though honestly meant to hearten her. +'It's all right, old girl. Come back to bed,' said I, and held her in +my arms until I fell asleep in the dawn. + +"But of course it was not all right; and after two days spent with this +dismal secret between us, and Aoodya all the while play-acting at her +old tricks of love for me and the babe--as if, God knows, I doubted +they, and not the horror, were her real self--I could stand it no +longer, but did what I ought to have done before; sought out my master +and made a clean breast of it. + +"I could see that it took the old man between wind and water. When I +had done he sat for some time pulling his beard and eyeing me once or +twice rather queerly, as I thought. + +"'My friend,' said he at last, 'I suppose you will be suspecting me; yet +I give you my word--and the Hadji Hamid is no liar--that if Aoodya is a +Berbalang, or a daughter of Berbalangs, the same was unknown to me when +I married you.' + +"'I'll believe that,' I answered; 'the more by token that I never +suspected you.' + +"'She had no known father, which (as you know) is held a disgrace among +us; so much a disgrace that she grew up without suitors in spite of her +looks and my favour. Therefore I seized my chance of giving her a +husband, and in that I am not guiltless towards you; but of anything +worse I was ignorant, and for proof I am going to help you if I can.' +He frowned to himself, still tugging at his beard. 'Her mother was of +good family, on this side of the island. Therefore she cannot be pure +Berbalang, and most likely the Berbalangs have no more than a fetch upon +her'--he used a word new to me, but 'fetch' I took to be the meaning of +it. 'If so, we must go to them and persuade them to take it off. +They owe me something; for though, as we value peace and quiet, Hassan +and I leave them alone in their own dirty village and ask no tax nor +homage, we could make things uncomfortable if we chose. Yes, yes,' said +he, 'I think it can be done; but it will be dangerous. You are wearing +your cocoanut pearl, of course?' + +"I told him that I had given it up to the baby. + +"He nodded. 'Yes, that was well done; but you must borrow it for the +day. Run and fetch it at once; we have a long walk before us.' + +"So I ran back, and without telling Aoodya, who was washing her linen +behind the house, slipped the pearl off the child's neck and returned to +Hamid. I found him, with two spears in his hand, waiting for me. +He gave me one, and forth we set. + +"The Berbalangs' village stands on a sort of table-land in the hills +which rise all the way to Mount Tebulian, near the centre of the island. +After the first two miles I found myself in strange country, and Hamid +kept silence and signed to me to do the same. In this way we sweated up +the slopes until, a little after noon, we reached a pass, and saw the +roofs of the village over the edge of a broad step, as it were, half a +mile above us. Here we sat down, and Hamid, drawing a couple of limes +from his pocket, explained that I must on no account taste any food the +Berbalangs set before us unless I first sprinkled it with lime juice. +It might look like curried fish, but would, as likely as not, be human +flesh disguised, the taste of which would destroy my soul and convert me +into a Berbalang; a touch of the lime juice would turn such food back to +its proper shape and show me what I was being asked to eat. + +"We now moved forward again, very cautiously, and soon came to the +village. The houses, perhaps a dozen in all, were scandalously dirty, +otherwise pretty much like those in Hamid's own village. But not a +living creature could be seen. Hamid, I could tell, was puzzled, and +even a bit frightened. He put a good face on it, all the same, and +began to walk from house to house, keeping his spear handy as he peered +in at the doors. Still not a soul could we find, barring an old goat +tethered and a few roaming fowls. The stink of the place sickened us, +and I wanted to run, though we came across no actual horrors. In one +room we found a pan of rice lately boiled and still smoking, and +sprinkled it with lime juice. It remained good rice. Out into the +street we went, and Hamid, growing bolder, raised a loud halloo. +The noise of it sent the fowls scudding, and the hills around took it up +and echoed it. + +"He looked at me. 'They must be out on the hunt,' said he. + +"'Good Lord!' I gasped. 'And the child at home--without the pearl!' +I turned and plunged for it down the slope like a madman. + +"What to do I had no idea; but I hadn't a doubt that the Berbalangs were +after Aoodya or the child, or both, and I headed for home with the wind +singing by my ears. At the foot of the pass I looked back. Hamid was +following, skipping from one lava stone to another at a pace that did +credit to his old legs. He waved a hand and called--as I thought, to +encourage me; and away down I pounded. + +"I must have reached the edge of the plain in twenty minutes (the climb +had taken us more than two hours), and, once there, I squeezed my elbows +into my sides and settled into stride. Luckily the season was dry, and +a fire, three weeks before, had swept over the tall lalang grass, +leaving a thin layer of ash, which made running easy. For all that, I +was pretty near dead beat when I reached the compound and ran past the +sentry. The man cried out at sight of me as I went by; but I thought he +was just pattering out his challenge, being taken unawares; and knowing +he would not let off his musket if he recognised me, I paid no +attention. + +"I had prepared myself (as I thought) for anything--to find Aoodya dead +beside the child, or to find them both unharmed and flourishing as I had +left them. But what happened was that I burst in and stared around an +empty room. _That_ knocked the wind out of my sails. I called twice, +leaned my head against the door-post and panted; called again, and, +getting no answer, walked stupidly back across the compound to the gate. + +"The sentry there was pointing. I believe he was telling me, too, that +Aoodya, with the child in her arms, had passed out some while before. +But as he waved a hand towards the plain I saw a figure running there, +and recognised Hamid. The old man was heading, not towards us, but for +the seashore, and, plain as daylight, he was heading there with a +purpose. I remembered now his cry to me from the head of the pass. +So I pressed elbows to side again and lit out after him. + +"He was making for a thick patch of jungle between us and the sea, and +though I had run at least a mile out of the way I soon began to +overhaul him. But long before I reached the clump he had found an +opening in it and dived out of sight, and I overtook him only when the +growth thinned suddenly by the edge of a crater, plunging down to a lake +so exactly like Sinquan that I had to look about me and take my bearings +before making sure that this was another, and one I had never yet seen. + +"I caught him by the arm, and we peered down the slope together. +At the foot of it, and by the edge of the lake, there ran a strip of +white beach; and there, and almost directly below us, were gathered the +Berbalangs. + +"They were moving and pushing into place in a sort of circle around a +small bundle which at first sight I took for a heap of clothes. At that +distance they seemed harmless enough, and, barring the strangeness of +the spot, might have been an ordinary party of islanders forming up for +a dance. But when, all of a sudden, the ring came to a standstill, and +a figure stepped out of it towards the bundle in the centre, my wits +came back to me, and I flung up both arms, shouting 'Aoodya! Aoodya!' + +"She must have made three paces in the time my voice took to reach her. +She was close to the child. Then she halted and stood for a moment +gazing up at me. I saw something bright drop from her. And with that +she stooped, caught up the child, and was racing up the slope towards +us. + +"'Steady!' muttered Hamid, as a man broke from the circle, plucked up +the knife from the sand and rushed after her. 'Steady!' he said again. + +"Aoodya had a start of twenty yards or more, and in the first +half-minute she actually managed to better it. Hamid, beside me, rubbed +a bullet quickly on the rind of one of his lime-fruits and rammed it +home. He took an eternal time about it; and below, now, the man was +gaining. Unluckily their courses brought them into line, and twice the +old man cursed softly and lowered his piece. + +"Flesh and blood could not stand this. I let out a groan and sprang +down the cliff. It was madness, and at the third step all foothold +slipped from under me; but my clutch was tight on a fistful of creepers, +and their tendrils were tough as a ship's rope. So down I went, now +touching earth, now fending off from the rock with my feet, now missing +hold and sprawling into a mass of leaves and roots, among which I +clutched wildly and checked myself by the first thing handy--until, with +the crack of Hamid's musket above, the vine, or whatever it was to which +I clung for the moment, gave way as if shorn by the bullet, and I +pitched a full twenty feet with a rush of loose earth and dust. + +"I fell almost at the heels of Aoodya's enemy, upon a ledge along which +he was swiftly running her down. Hamid's bullet had missed him, and +before I could make the third in the chase he was forty yards ahead. +I saw his bare shoulders parting the creepers--threading their way in +and out like a bobbin, and jogging as the pace fell slower; for now we +were all three in difficulties. Perhaps Aoodya had missed the track; at +any rate the ledge we were now following grew shallower as it curved +over the corner of the beach and ran sheer over the water of the lake. +A jungle tree leaned out here, with a clear drop of a hundred feet. +As I closed on my man, he swerved and began to clamber out along the +trunk; and over his shoulder I saw Aoodya, with the babe in the crick of +her arm, upon a bough which swayed and sank beneath her. + +"I clutched at his ankle. He reached back with a hiss of his breath and +jabbed his knife down on my left hand, cutting across the two middle +fingers and pinning me through the small bones to the trunk. I tell +you, sir, I scarcely felt it. My right went down to my waist and pulled +out the _kris_ there. He was the man I had caught within the verandah +three days before; these were the same eyes shining, like a cat's, back +into mine, and what I had promised him then I gave him now. But it was +Hamid who killed him. For as my _kris_ went into the flank of him, +above the hip, Hamid's second shot cut down through his neck. His face +at the moment rested sideways against the branch, and I suppose the +bullet passed through to the bough and cost me Aoodya. For as the +Berbalang fell, the bough seemed to rip away from where his cheek had +rested, and Aoodya, with my child in her arms, swung back under my feet +and dropped like a stone into the lake. + +"I can't tell you, sir, how long I lay stretched out along that trunk, +with the Berbalang's knife still pinned through my hand. I was staring +down into the water. Aoodya and my child never rose again; but the +Berbalang came to the surface at once and floated, bobbing for a while +on the ripple, his head thrown back, his brown chest shining up at me, +and the blood spreading on the water around it. + +"It was Hamid who unpinned me and led me away. He had made shift to +climb down, and while binding up my wounded hand pointed towards the +beach. It was empty. The crowd of Berbalangs had disappeared. + +"He found the track which Aoodya had missed, and as he led me up and out +of the crater I heard him talking--talking. I suppose he was trying to +comfort me--he was a good fellow; but at the top I turned on him, and +'Master,' I said, 'you have tried to do me much kindness, but to-day I +have bought my quittance.' With that I left him standing and walked +straight over the brow of the hill. I never looked behind me until I +reached the Spaniards' compound, and called out at the gate to be let +pass. + +"Captain Marquinez was lying in a hammock in the cool of his verandah +when the gate-keeper took me to him. He was, I think, the weariest man +I ever happened on. 'So you want to leave the island?' said he when my +tale was out. 'Yes, yes, I believe you; I've learnt to believe anything +of those devils up yonder. But you must wait a fortnight, till the +relief-boat arrives from Jola'--" + + +Here the story-teller broke off as a rider upon a grey horse came at a +foot-pace round the slope of Burrator below us and passed on without +seeing. It was the Rajah, returning solitary from the hunt, and his +eyes were still fastened ahead of him. + +"Ah, great man! England is a weary hole for the likes of you and me. +It's here they talk of the East, but we have loved it and hated it and +known it, and remember. Our eyes have seen--our eyes have seen." + +He stood up, pulled himself together with a kind of shiver, and suddenly +shambled away across the slope, having said no good-bye, but leaving me +there at gaze. + + + +VICTOR. + + +I. + + +"You will ruin his life," said one of the two women. As the phrase +escaped her she remembered, or seemed to remember, having met with it in +half a dozen novels. She had nerved herself for the interview which up +to this moment had been desperately real; but now she felt herself +losing grip. It had all happened before . . . somewhere; she was +reacting an old scene, going through a part; the four or five +second-hand words gave her this sensation. Then she reflected that the +other woman, too, had perhaps met them before in some cheap novelette, +and, being an uneducated person, would probably find them the more +impressive for that. + +The other woman had in fact met them before, in the pages of _Bow +Bells_, and been impressed by them. But since then love had found her +ignorant and left her wise; wiser than in her humiliation she dared to +guess, and yet the wiser for being humiliated. She answered in a +curiously dispassionate voice: "I think, miss, his life is ruined +already; that is, if he sent you to say all this to me." + +"He did not." Miss Bracy lifted the nose and chin which she inherited +from several highly distinguished Crusaders, and gave the denial sharply +and promptly, looking her ex-maid straight in the face. She had never-- +to use her own words--stood any nonsense from Bassett. + +But Bassett, formerly so docile (though, as it now turned out, so +deceitful); who had always known her place and never answered her +mistress but with respect; was to-day an unrecognisable Bassett--not in +the least impudent, but as certainly not to be awed or brow-beaten. +Standing in the glare of discovered misconduct, under the scourge of her +shame, the poor girl had grasped some secret strength which made her +invincible. + +"But I think, miss," she answered, "Mr. Frank must have known you was +coming." And this Miss Bracy could not deny. She had never told a lie +in her life. + +"It is very likely--no, it is certain--that he guessed," she admitted. + +"And if so, it comes to the same thing," Bassett persisted, with a shade +of weariness in her voice. + +"You ungrateful girl! You ungrateful and quite extraordinary girl! +First you inveigle that poor boy at the very outset of his career, and +then when upon a supposed point of honour he offers to marry you--" + +"A 'supposed' point, miss? Do you say 'supposed'?" + +"Not one in a thousand would offer such a redemption. And even he +cannot know what it will mean to his life--what it will cost him." + +"I shall tell him, miss," said Bassett quietly. + +"And his parents--what do you suppose they would say, were they alive? +His poor mother, for instance?" + +Bassett dismissed this point silently. To Miss Bracy the queerest thing +about the girl was the quiet practical manner she had put on so +suddenly. + +"You said, miss, that Mr. Frank wants to make amends on a 'supposed' +point of honour. Don't you think it a real one?" + +Miss Bracy's somewhat high cheekbones showed two red spots. "Because he +offers it, it doesn't follow that you ought to accept. And that's the +whole point," she wound up viciously. + +Bassett sighed that she could not get her question answered. +"You will excuse me, miss, but I never 'inveigled' him, as you say. +That I deny; and if you ask Mr. Frank he will bear me out. Not that +it's any use trying to make you believe," she added, with a drop back to +her old level tone as she saw the other's eyebrows go up. It was indeed +hopeless, Miss Bracy being one of those women who take it for granted +that a man has been inveigled as soon as his love-affairs run counter to +their own wishes or taste; and who thereby reveal an estimate of man for +which in the end they are pretty sure to pay heavily. All her answer +now was a frankly incredulous stare. + +"You won't believe me, miss. It's not your fault, I know; you _can't_ +believe me. But I loved Mr. Frank." + +Miss Bracy made a funny little sound high up in her Crusader nose. +That the passions of gentlemen were often ill-regulated she knew; it +disgusted her, but she recognised it as a real danger to be watched by +their anxious relatives. That _love_, however--what she understood by +_love_--could be felt by the lower orders, the people who "walked +together" and "kept company" before mating, was too incredible. +Even if driven by evidence to admit the fact she would have set it down +to the pernicious encroachment of Board School education, and remarked +that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. + +"'Love!' My poor child, don't profane a word you cannot possibly +understand. A nice love, indeed, that shows itself by ruining his +life!" + +That second-hand phrase again! As it slipped out, the indomitable +Bassett dealt it another blow. + +"I am not sure, miss, that I love him any longer--in the same way, I +mean. I should always have a regard for him--for many reasons--and +because he behaved honourably in a way. But I couldn't quite believe in +him as I did before he showed himself weak." + +"Well, of all the--" Miss Bracy's lips were open for a word to fit this +offence, when Bassett followed it up with a worse one. + +"I beg your pardon, miss, but you are so fond of Mr. Frank--Supposing I +refused his offer, would you marry him yourself?" + +The girl, too, meant it quite seriously. In her tone was no trace of +impudence. She had divined her adversary's secret, and thrust home the +question with a kind of anxious honesty. Miss Bracy, red and gasping, +tingling with shame, yet knew that she was not being exulted over. +She dropped the unequal fight between conventional argument and naked +insight, and stood up, woman to woman. She neither denied nor +exclaimed. She too told the truth. + +"Never!"--she paused. "After what has happened I would never marry my +cousin." + +"I thought that, miss. You mean it, I am sure; and it eases my mind; +because you have been a good mistress to me, and it would always have +been a sorry thought that I'd stood in your way. Not that it would have +prevented me." + +"Do you still stand there and tell me that you will hold this unhappy +boy to his word?" + +"He's twenty-two, miss; my own age. Yes, I shall hold him to it." + +"To save yourself!" + +"No, miss." + +"For his own sake, then?" Miss Bracy's laugh was passing bitter. + +"No, miss--though there might be something in that." + +"For whose then?" + +The girl did not answer. But in the silence her mistress understood, +and moved to the door. She was beaten, and she knew it; beaten and +unforgiving, In the doorway she turned. + +"It is not for your own sake that you persist? It was not to gratify +yourself--to be made a lady--that you plotted this? Very well; you +shall be taken at your word. I cannot counsel Frank against his honour; +if he insists, and you still accept the sacrifice, he shall marry you. +But from that hour--you understand?--you have seen the last of him. +I know Frank well enough to promise it." + +She paused to let the words sink in and watch their effect. This was +not only cruel, but a mistake; for it gave Bassett--who was past caring +for it--the last word. + +"If you do, miss," she said drearily, yet with a mind made up, +"I daresay that will be best." + + + +II. + + +Long before I heard this story I knew three of the characters in it. +Just within the harbour beside which I am writing this--on your left as +you enter it from the sea--a little creek runs up past Battery Point to +a stout sea-wall with a turfed garden behind it and a low cottage, and +behind these a steep-sided valley, down which a stream tumbles to a +granite conduit. It chokes and overflows the conduit, is caught again +into a granite-covered gutter by the door of the cottage, and emerges +beyond it in a small cascade upon the beach. At spring tides the sea +climbs to the foot of this cascade, and great then is the splashing. +The land-birds, tits and warblers, come down to the very edge to drink; +but none of them--unless it be the wagtail--will trespass on the beach +below. The rooks and gulls, on their side, never forage above the +cascade, but when the ploughing calls them inland, mount and cross the +frontier-line high overhead. All day long in summer the windows of the +cottage stand open, and its rooms are filled with song; and night and +day, summer and winter, the inmates move and talk, wake and sleep, to +the contending music of the waters. + +It had lain tenantless for two years, when one spring morning Miss Bracy +and Mr. Frank Bracy arrived and took possession. They came (for aught +we knew) out of nowhere; but they brought a good many boxes, six cats, +and a complete set of new muslin blinds. On their way they purchased a +quart of fresh milk, and Mr. Frank fed the cats while Miss Bracy put up +the blinds. In the afternoon a long van arrived with a load of +furniture; and we children who had gathered to watch were rewarded by a +sensation when the van started by disgorging an artist's lay-figure, +followed by a suit of armour. From these to a mahogany chest of drawers +with brass handles was a sad drop, and we never regained the high +romance of those first few minutes; but the furniture was undeniably +handsome, and when Miss Bracy stepped out and offered us sixpence apiece +to go and annoy somebody else, we came away convinced that our visitors +were persons of exceptionally high rank. It puzzled us afterwards that, +though a bargain is a bargain, not one of us had stayed to claim his +sixpence. + +The newcomers brought no servants; but after a week there arrived (also +out of nowhere) an elderly and taciturn cook. Also, Miss Bracy on the +third morning walked up to the farm at the head of the valley and hired +down the hind's second daughter for a "help." We knew this girl, Lizzie +Truscott, and waylaid her on her homeward road that evening for +information. She told us that Miss Bracy's cats had a cradle apiece +lined with muslin over pink calico; that the window curtains inside +reached from the ceilings to the floors; that the number of knives and +forks was something cruel--one kind for fish, another for meat, and a +third for fruit; that in one of the looking-glasses a body could see +herself at one time from head to feet, though why you should want a +looking-glass to see your feet in when you could see them without was +more than she knew; and, finally, that Miss Bracy had strictly forbidden +her to carry tales--a behest which, convinced that Miss Bracy had +dealings with the Evil One, she meant to observe. The elderly cook when +she arrived warned us away from the door with a dialect we did not +recognise. Her name (Lizzie reported) was Deborah, and in our haste we +set her down for a Jewess; but I seem to have detected her accent since, +and a few of her pet phrases, in the pages of Scottish fiction. + +This is all I can tell--so fitful are childish memories--of the coming +of Miss Bracy and Mr. Frank. I cannot say, for instance, what gossip it +bred, or how soon they wore down the edge of it and became, with their +eccentricities, an accepted feature of the spot they had made their +home. They made no friends, no acquaintances: everyone knew of Miss +Bracy's cats, but few had seen them. Miss Bracy herself was on view in +church every Sunday morning, when Mr. Frank walked with her as far as +the porch. He never entered the building, but took a country walk +during service, returning in time to meet her at the porch and escort +her home. His other walks he took alone, and almost always at night. +The policeman tramping towards Four Turnings after midnight to report to +the country patrol would meet him and pause for a minute's chat. +Night-wandering beasts--foxes and owls and hedgehogs--knew his footstep +and unlearned their first fear of it. Sometimes, but not often, you +might surprise him of an afternoon seated before an easel in some +out-of-the-way corner of the cliffs; but if you paused then to look, he +too paused and seemed inclined to smudge out his work. The Vicar put it +about that Mr. Frank had formerly been a painter of fame, and (being an +astute man) one day decoyed him into his library, where hung an +engraving of a picture "Amos Barton" by one F. Bracy. It had made a +small sensation at Burlington House a dozen years before; and the Vicar +liked it for the pathos of its subject--an elderly clergyman beside his +wife's deathbed. To him the picture itself could have told little more +than this engraving, which utterly failed to suggest the wonderful +colour and careful work the artist (a young man with a theory and +enthusiasm to back it) had lavished on the worn carpet and valances of +the bed, as well as on the chestnut hair of the dying woman glorified in +the red light of sunset. + +Mr. Frank glanced up at the engraving and turned his face away. +It was the face of a man taken at unawares, embarrassed, almost afraid. +The Vicar, who had been watching him, intending some pleasant remark +about the picture, saw at once that something was wrong, and with great +tact kept the talk upon some petty act of charity in which he sought to +enlist his visitor's help. Mr. Frank listened, gave his promise +hurriedly and made his escape. He never entered the Vicarage again. + + + +III. + + +Eighteen years had passed since Miss Bracy's interview with Bassett; and +now, late on a summer afternoon, she and Mr. Frank were pacing the +little waterside garden while they awaited their first visitor. + +Mr. Frank betrayed the greater emotion, or at any rate the greater +nervousness. Since breakfast he had been unable to sit still or to +apply himself to any piece of work for ten minutes together, until Miss +Bracy suggested the lawn-mower and brought purgatory upon herself. +With that lawn-mower all the afternoon he had been "rattling her brain +to fiddle-strings"--as she put it--and working himself into a heat which +obliged a change of clothes before tea. The tea stood ready now on a +table which Deborah had carried out into the garden--dainty linen and +silverware, and flowered china dishes heaped with cakes of which only +Scotswomen know the secrets. The sun, dropping behind Battery Point, +slanted its rays down through the pine-trunks and over the fiery massed +plumes of rhododendrons. Scents of jasmine and of shorn grass mingled +with the clean breath of the sea borne to the garden wall on a high tide +tranquil and clear--so clear that the eye following for a hundred yards +the lines of the cove could see the feet of the cliffs where they +rested, three fathoms down, on lily-white sand. Miss Bracy adored these +clean depths. She had missed much that life could have given; but at +least she had found a life comely and to her mind. She had sacrificed +much; but at times she forgot how much in contemplating the modest +elegance of the altar. + +She wore, this evening, a gown of purplish silk, with a light cashmere +scarf about her shoulders. Nothing could make her a tall woman; but her +grey hair, dressed high _a l'imperatrice_, gave her dignity at least, +and an air of old-fashioned distinction. And she was one of those few +and fortunate ladies who never need to worry about the appearance of +their cavaliers. Mr. Frank--six feet of him, without reckoning a slight +stoop--always satisfied the eye; his grey flannel suit fitted loosely +but fitted well; his wide-brimmed straw hat was as faultless as his +linen; his necktie had a negligent neatness; you felt sure alike and at +once of his bootmaker and his shirtmaker; and his fresh complexion, his +prematurely white hair, his strong well-kept hands, completed the +impression of cleanliness for its own sake, of a careful physical cult +as far as possible removed from foppery. + +This may have been in Miss Bracy's mind when she began: "I daresay he +will be fairly presentable, to look at. That unfortunate woman had at +least an art of dressing--a quiet taste too, quite extraordinary in one +of her station. I often wondered where she picked it up." + +Mr. Frank winced. Until the news of his wife's death came, a fortnight +ago, her name had not been spoken between them for years. That he and +his cousin regarded her very differently he knew; but while silence was +kept it had been possible to ignore the difference. Now it surprised +him that speech should hurt so; and, at the same moment, that his cousin +should not divine how sorely it hurt. After all _he_ was the saddest +evidence of poor Bassett's "lady-like" tastes. + +"I suppose you know nothing of the school she sent him to?" Miss Bracy +went on--"King William's, or whatever it is." + +"King Edward's," Mr. Frank corrected. "Yes, I made inquiries about it +at the time--ten years ago. People speak well of it. Not a public +school, of course--at least, not quite; the line isn't so easy to draw +nowadays--but it turns out gentlemen." + +In her heart Miss Bracy thought him too hopeful; but she said, +"He wrote a becoming letter--his hand, by the way, curiously suggests +yours; it was quite a nice letter, and agreeably surprised me. +I shouldn't wonder if his headmaster had helped him with it and cut out +the boyish heroics; for of course _she_ must have taught him to hate +us." + +"My dear Laura, why in the world--" began Mr. Frank testily. + +"Oh, she had spirit!"--the encounter of long ago rose up in Miss Bracy's +memory, and she nodded her head with conviction. "Like most of the +quiet ones, she had spirit. You don't suppose, I imagine, that she +forgave?" + +"No." Mr. Frank came to a halt and dug with his heel at a daisy root in +the turf. Then using his heel as a pivot he swung himself round in an +awkward circle. The action was ludicrous almost, but he faced his +cousin again with serious eyes. "But it is not her heart that I doubt," +he added gently. + +Miss Bracy stared up at him, "My dear Frank, do you mean to tell me that +you _regret_?" + +Yes; as a fact he did regret, and knew that he would never cease to +regret. He was not a man to nurse malice even for a wrong done to him, +still less to live carelessly conscious of having wronged another. +He was weak, but incurably just. And more; though self entered last +into his regret, he knew perfectly well that the wrong had wrecked him +too. His was a career _manque_: he had failed as a man, and it had +broken his nerve as an artist. He was a dabbler now, with--as Heine +said of de Musset--a fine future _behind him_, and none but an artist +can tell the bitterness of that self-knowledge. Had he kept his faith +with Bassett in spirit as in letter, he might have failed just as +decidedly; her daily companionship might have coarsened his inspiration, +soured him, driven him to work cheaply, recklessly; but at least he +could have accused fate, circumstance, a boyish error, whereas now he +and his own manhood shared the defeat and the responsibility. Yes, he +regretted; but it would never do to let Laura know his regret. +That would be to play the double traitor. She had saved him +(she believed) from himself; with utterly wrong-headed loyalty she had +devoted her life to this. The other debt was irredeemable, but this at +any rate could be paid. + +He evaded her question. "My dear," he said, "what was done has been +atoned for by her, and is being atoned for by--by us. Let us think of +her without bitterness." + +Miss Bracy shook her head "I am a poor sort of Christian," she +confessed; "and if she has taught this boy to hate us--" + +"Mr. Victor Bracy," announced Deborah from the garden-porch behind them, +and a tall youth in black stepped past her and came across the turf with +a shy smile. + +The pair turned with an odd sense of confusion, almost of dismay. +They were prepared for the "Victor," but somehow they had not thought of +him as bearing their own surname. Mr. Frank had felt the shock once +before, in addressing an envelope; but to Miss Bracy it was quite new. + +Yet she was the first to recover herself, and, while holding out her +hand, took quick note that the boy had Frank's stature and eyes, carried +his clothes well, and himself, if shyly, without clumsiness. She could +find no fault with his manner of shaking hands; and when he turned to +his father, the boy's greeting was the less embarrassed of the two. +Mr. Frank indeed had suddenly become conscious of his light suit and +bird's-eye neckcloth. + +"But how did you come?" asked Miss Bracy. "We sent a cart to meet you-- +I heard no sound of wheels." + +"Yes, I saw it outside the station; but the man didn't recognise me-- +quite a small crowd came by the train--and of course I didn't recognise +him. So I bribed a porter to put my luggage on a barrow and come along +with me. Half-way up the hill the cart overtook us--the driver full of +apologies. While they transhipped my things I walked on ahead--yes, +listen, there it comes; and--Oh, I say, what a lovely spot!" + +Miss Bracy was listening--not for the wheels and not to the story, but +critically to every word as it came from his lips. "The woman has +certainly done wonders," was her unspoken comment. At Victor's frank +outburst, however, she flushed with something like real pleasure. She +was proud of her cottage and garden, and had even a sort of proprietary +feeling about the view. + +They sat down around the little tea-table; the boy first apologising for +his travel-stains (he was, in fact, as neat as a pin) and afterwards +chatting gaily about his journey--not talking too much, but appealing +from one to another with a quick deferent grace, and allowing them +always the lead. "This is better and better," thought Miss Bracy as she +poured tea; and, after a while, "But this is amazing!" He was a +thorough child, too, with all his unconscious tact. The scent of a +lemon-verbena plant fetched him suddenly to his feet with his eyes +bright. "Please let me--" he thrust his face into the bush; +"I have never seen it growing like this." + +Miss Bracy looked at Mr. Frank. How utterly different it was from their +old-maidish expectations! They had pictured the scene a hundred times, +and always it included some awkwardly decorous reference to the dead +woman. _This_ had been their terror--to do justice to the occasion +without hurting the poor boy's feelings--to meet his sullen shyness, +perhaps antipathy, with a welcome which somehow excused the past. +Yes, the past (they had felt) required excuse to _him_. And he had made +no allusion to his mother, and obviously wished for none. Miss Bracy +could not help smiling at the picture of their fears. + +The boy turned, caught her smiling, and broke into a jolly laugh at his +own absurdity. It echoed in the garden, where no one had laughed aloud +for years. + +And with that laugh Bassett's revenge began. + + + +IV. + + +For with that laugh they began to love him. They did not--or at any +rate Miss Bracy 'did not--know it at the time. For some days they +watched him; and he, the unsuspicious one, administered a score of +shocks as again and again he took them neatly and decisively at +unawares. He had accepted them at once and in entire good faith. +They were (with just the right recognition of their seniority) good +comrades in this jolliest of worlds. They were his holiday hosts, and +it was not for the guest to hint (just yet) at the end of the holiday. + +He surprised them at every turn. His father's canvases filled him with +admiring awe. "Oh, but I say--however is it done?" As he stood before +them with legs a trifle wide, he smoothed the top of his head with a +gesture of perplexity. And Mr. Frank, standing at his shoulder with +legs similarly spread, used the same gesture--as Miss Bracy had seen him +use it a thousand times. Yet the boy had no artistic talent--not so +much as a germ. For beauty of line and beauty of colour he inherited an +impeccable eye; indeed his young senses were alive to seize all innocent +delight,--his quickness in scenting the lemon-verbena bush proved but +the first of many instances. But he began and ended with enjoyment; of +the artist's impulse to reproduce and imitate beauty he felt nothing. +Mr. Frank recognised with a pang that he had failed not only in keeping +his torch bright but in passing it on; that the true self which he had +missed expressing must die with him barren and untransmitted. +The closer he drew in affection, the farther this son of his receded,-- +receded in the very act of acknowledging his sonship--with a gesture, +smilingly imprehensible; with eyes which allured the yearning he +baffled, and tied it to the hopeless chase. + +Mr. Frank, who worshipped flowers, was perhaps the most ineffective +gardener in England. With a trowel and the best intentions he would do +more damage in twenty minutes than Miss Bracy could repair in a week. +She had made a paradise in spite of him, and he contented himself with +assuring her that the next tenant would dig it up and find it paved with +good intentions. The seeds he sowed--and he must have sown many pounds' +worth before she stopped the wild expense--never sprouted by any chance. +"Dormant, my dear Laura--dormant!" he would exclaim in springtime, +rubbing his head perplexedly as he studied the empty borders. +"When I die, and am buried here, they will all sprout together, and you +will have to take a hook and cut your way daily through the vegetation +which hides my grave." But Victor, who approached them in the frankest +ignorance, seemed to divine the ways of flowers at once. In the autumn +he struck cuttings of Miss Bracy's rarest roses; he removed a sickly +passion-flower from one corner of the cottage to another and restored it +to health within a fortnight. Within a week after his coming he and +Miss Bracy were deep in cross-fertilizing a borderful of carnations she +had raised from seed. He carried the same natural deftness into a score +of small household repairs. He devised new cradles for Miss Bracy's +cats, and those conservative animals at once accepted the improvement; +he invented a cupboard for his father's canvases; he laid an electric +bell from the kitchen beneath the floor of the dining-room, so that Miss +Bracy could ring for Deborah by a mere pressure of the foot; and the +well-rope which Deborah had been used to wind up painfully was soon +fitted with a wheel and balance-weight which saved four-fifths of the +labour. + +"It beats me where you learned how to do these things," his father +protested. + +"But it doesn't want learning; it's all so simple--not like painting, +you know." + +Mr. Frank had been corresponding with the boy's headmaster. "Yes, he is +a good fellow," said one of the letters; "just a gentle clear-minded +boy, with courage at call when he wants it, and one really remarkable +talent. You may not have discovered it, but he is a mathematician; and +as different from the ordinary book-made mathematician--from the dozens +of boys I send up regularly to Cambridge--as cheese is from chalk. +He has a sort of passion for pure reasoning--for its processes. +Of course he does not know it; but from the first it has been a pleasure +to me (an old pupil of Routh's) to watch his work. 'Style' is not a +word one associates as a rule with mathematics, but I can use no other +to express the quality which your boy brings to that study. . . ." + +"Good Lord!" groaned Mr. Frank, who had never been able to add up his +washing bills. + +He read the letter to Miss Bracy, and the pair began to watch Victor +with a new wonder. They were confident that no Bracy had ever been a +mathematician; for an uncle of theirs, now a rector in Shropshire and +once of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where for reasons best known to +himself he had sought honours in the Mathematical Tripos and narrowly +missed the Wooden Spoon, had clearly no claim to the title. Whence in +the world did the boy derive this gift? "His mother--" Miss Bracy +began, and broke off as a puff of smoke shot out from the fireplace. +It was late September; Deborah had lit the fire that morning for the +first time since May, and the chimney never drew well at starting. +Miss Bracy took the tongs in hand, but she was not thinking of the +smoke; neither was Mr. Frank, while he watched her. They were both +thinking of the dead woman. The thought of her--the ghost of her--was +always rising now between them and her boy; _she_ was the impalpable +screen they tried daily and in vain to pierce; to _her_ they had come to +refer unconsciously all that was inexplicable in him. And so much was +inexplicable! They loved him now; they stretched out their hands to +him: behind _her_ he smiled at them, but through or across _her_ their +hands could never reach. + +As at first they had avoided all allusion to her, and been thankful that +the boy's reticence made it easy, so now they grew almost feverishly +anxious to discover how he felt towards his mother's memory. +They detected each other laying small traps for him, and were ashamed. +They held their breath as with an air of cheerful unconsciousness he +walked past the traps, escaping them one and all. At first in her +irritation Miss Bracy accused him of what she (of all women!) called +false pride. "He is ashamed of her. He wishes to forget, and is only +too glad that we began by encouraging him." On second thoughts she knew +the charge to be undeserved and odious. His obvious simplicity gave it +the lie. Moreover she knew that a small water-colour sketch of her in +her youth--a drawing of Mr. Frank's--stood on the table in the boy's +bedroom. Miss Bracy often dusted that room with her own hands. + +"And, Frank," she confessed one day, "he kisses it! I know by the +dullness on the glass when I rub it." She did not add that she rubbed +it viciously. "I tell you," she insisted, almost with a groan, +"he lives with her. She is with him in this house in spite of us; she +talks with him; his real existence is with her. He comes out of it to +make himself pleasant to us, but he goes back and tells her his +secrets." + +"Nonsense, Laura," Mr. Frank interrupted testily. "For some reason or +other the boy is getting on your nerves. It is natural, after all." + +"Natural? Yes, I see: you mean that I'm an old maid, and it's a case of +crabbed age and youth." + +"My dear Laura, I mean nothing so rude. But, after all, we have been +living here a great many years and it _is_ a change." + +"Frank, you can be singularly dense at times. Must I tell you in so +many words that I am fond of the boy, and if he'd be only as fond of me +he might racket the house down and I'd only like him the better for it?" + +Mr. Frank rubbed his head, and then with sudden resolution marched out +of the house in search of Victor. He found the boy on the roof removing +a patent cowl which the local mason had set up a week before to cure the +smoky chimney. + +"My dear fellow," the father cried up, "you'll break your neck! +Come down at once--I have something particular to say to you." + +Victor descended with the cowl under his arm. "Do be careful. . . . +Doesn't it make you giddy, clambering about in places like that?" +Mr. Frank had no head at all for a height. + +"Not a bit. . . . Just look at this silly contrivance--choked with soot +in three days! The fellow who invented it ought to have his head +examined." + +"It has made you in a horrible mess," said his father, who took no +interest in cowls, but lost his temper in a smoky house. + +"I'll run in and have a change and wash." + +"No; put the nasty thing down and come into the garden." He opened the +gate, and Victor followed, after dipping his hands in the waterfall. + +"The fact is, my boy, I've come to a decision. This has been a pleasant +time--a very pleasant time--for all of us. We have put off speaking to +you about this, but I hope you understand that this is to be your home +henceforward; that we wish it and shall be the happier for having +you . . ." + +Victor had been gazing out over the cove, but now turned and met his +father's eyes frankly. "I have a little money," he said. +"Mother managed to put by a small sum from time to time, enough to start +me in life. She did not tell me until a few days before she died: she +knew I wanted to be an engineer." + +He said this quite simply. It was the first time he had mentioned his +mother. Mr. Frank felt his face flushing. + +"But your headmaster tells me it will be a thousand pities if you don't +go to Cambridge. I am proposing that you should go there--should +matriculate this term. My dear boy"--he laid a hand on Victor's arm--" +don't refuse me this. I have no right--perhaps--to insist; but I +daresay you can guess what your acceptance would mean to me. You can +choose your own career when the time comes. For your sake your mother +would have liked this: ask yourself if she would not." + +Mr. Frank had not looked forward to pleading like this; yet when it came +to the point this seemed his only possible attitude. Victor had removed +his gaze, and his eyes were resting now on the green sunny waves rolling +in at the harbour's mouth. For almost a minute he kept silence; then-- + +"Yes, she would advise it," he said. It was as though he had laid the +case before an unseen counsellor and waited submissively for the answer. +Mr. Frank had gained his end and without trouble: yet he felt a +disappointment he could not at once explain. He was the last man in the +world to expect a gratitude which he did not deserve; but in the +satisfaction of carrying his point he missed something, and surmised +what he missed. The boy had not turned to _him_ for the answer, but had +turned away and brought it to him. Father and son would never have the +deeper joy of taking counsel together heart to heart. + + + +V. + + +So Victor went up to Trinity, and returned for the Christmas vacation on +the heels of an announcement that he had won a scholarship. He had +grown more manly and serious, and he smoked a tobacco which sorely tried +Miss Bracy's distinguished nose; but he kept the boyish laugh--the laugh +which always seemed to them to call invitingly from the door of his +soul, "Why don't you enter and read me? The house is clean and full of +goodwill--Come!" But though they never ceased trying, they could never +penetrate to those inner chambers. Sometimes--though they might be +talking of most trivial matters--the appeal would suddenly grow +pathetic, almost plangent, "What is this that shuts me off from you? +We sit together and love one another: why am I set apart?" Time was +when he had seemed to them consciously reticent, almost of set purpose; +but now it was they who, looking within the doorway, saw the dead woman +standing there with finger on lip. + +He made no intimate friends at Cambridge; yet was popular and something +of a figure in his College, which had marked him down for high--perhaps +the highest--university honours, and was pleasantly astonished to find +him also a good cricketer. His good looks attracted men; they asked his +name, were told it, and exclaimed, "Bracy? Not the man Trinity is +running for Senior Wrangler?" With this double reputation he might have +won a host of friends, and his father and Miss Bracy would gladly have +welcomed one, in hope that such companionship might exorcise the ghost: +but he kept his way, liking and liked by men, yet aloof; with many +acquaintances, censorious of none, influenced by none; avoiding when he +disapproved, but not judging, and in no haste even to disapprove; easy +to approach, and almost eager for goodwill, yet in the end inaccessible. + +His first Easter vacation he spent with a reading-party in Cumberland. +There he first tasted the "sacred fury" of the mountains and +mountain-climbing, and in Switzerland the next August it grew to be a +passion. He returned to it again and again, in Cumberland playing at +the game with half a dozen fellow-undergraduates whom he had bitten with +the mania; but in Switzerland during the Long vacations giving himself +over to a glut of it, with only a guide and porter for company-- +sometimes alone, if he could ever be said to be alone. As in +mathematics so in his sport, the cold heights were the mistresses he +wooed; the peaks called to him, the rare atmosphere, the glittering +wastes. He neither scorned danger nor was daunted by it. Below in the +forests he would sing aloud, but the summits held him silent. As an old +pastor at Zermatt told Mr. Frank, he would come down from a mountain +"like Moses, with his face illumined." + +He started on his third visit to Switzerland early in July: in the +second week in August Miss Bracy and Mr. Frank were to join him at +Chamounix, and thence the three would make a tour together. He started +in the highest spirits, and halted at the gate to wave his ice-axe +defiantly. . . . + + + +VI. + + +The clergyman who ministered to the little tin English Church boarded at +the big hotel, which kept a bedroom and a sitting-room at his disposal. +They faced north from the back of the building, which stood against the +mountain-side; but the sitting-room had a second window at the corner of +the block, and from this the eye went up over a plantation of dark firs +to the white snowfields of the Col and the dark jagged wall of the +Aiguille du Geant--distant, yet as clear as if stencilled against the +blue heaven. It was a delectable vision; but the clergyman, being +short-sighted as a mole, had never seen it. He wore spectacles with a +line running horizontally across them, and through these he peered at +Mr. Frank and Miss Bracy as if uncertain of their distance. + +Mr. Frank, in a suit of black, sat at the little round table in the +centre of the room, pressing his finger-tips into the soft nap of a +gaudy French table-cloth. Miss Bracy stood by the window with her back +to the room, but she was listening. She too wore black. The fourth +person, at the little clergyman's elbow, was Christian the guide. +It was he who spoke, while Mr. Frank dug his fingers deeper, and the +clergyman nodded at every pause sympathetically, and both kept their +eyes on the table-cloth, the pink and crimson roses of which on their +background of buff and maroon were to one a blur only, to the other a +pattern bitten on his brain. + +"It must have been between noon and one o'clock"--the guide was saying-- +"when we crossed the Col and began on the rocks. I was leading, of +course; the Herr next, and Michel"--this was their porter--"behind. +We had halted and lunched at the foot of the rocks. They were nasty, +with a coating, for the most part, of thin ice which we must knock away; +but not really dangerous. The Herr was silent; not singing--he had been +singing and laughing all through the morning--but in high spirits. +He kept his breath now for business. I never knew him fatigued; and +that day I had to beg him once or twice not to press the pace. +Michel was tired, I think, and the wine he had taken earlier had upset +his stomach; also he had been earning wages all the winter in England as +a gentleman's valet and this was his first ascent for the year, so it +may have been that his nerve was wrong. + +"The first trouble we had with him was soon after starting on the rocks. +We were roped; and at the first awkward place he said, 'If one of us +should slip now, we are all lost.' The Herr was annoyed, as I have +never seen him; and I too was angry, the more because what he said had +some truth, but it was not, you understand, the moment to say it. After +this we had no great trouble until we had passed the place where Herr +Mummery turned back. About thirty metres from the summit we came to a +bit requiring caution; a small _couloir_ filled with good ice but at a +slope--so!" Here Christian held his open hand aslant, but Mr. Frank did +not lift his eyes. "They anchored themselves and held me while I cut +steps--large steps--across it. On the other side there was no good +foothold within length of the rope, so I cast off, and the Herr came +across in my steps with Michel well anchored. It was now Michel's turn, +and having now the extra length of rope brought across by the Herr, I +could go higher to a rock and moor myself firmly. The Herr was right +enough where he stood, but not to bear any strain; so I told him to cast +off that I might look to Michel alone. While he unknotted his rope I +turned to examine the rock, and at that instant . . . Michel did not +understand, or was impatient to get it over . . . at any rate he started +to cross just as the Herr had both hands busy. He slipped at the third +step . . . I heard, and turned again in time to see the jerk come. +The Herr bent backward, but it was useless: he was torn from his +foothold--" + +The little clergyman nodded and broke in: "They were found, close +together, on a ledge two thousand feet below. Your son, sir, was not +much mutilated, though many limbs were broken--and his spine and neck. +The bodies were found the next day and brought down. We did all that +was possible. Shall I take you and madame to the grave?" + +But the guide had not finished. "He fell almost on top of Michel, and +the two went spinning down the _couloir_ out of sight. I do not think +that Michel uttered any cry: but the Herr, as the strain came and he +bent backwards against it, seeking to get his axe free and plant +it . . . though that would have been useless . . . the Herr cried once +and very loud . . . such a strange cry!--" + +"Madame will be glad," interrupted the clergyman again, who had heard +Christian's story at the inquest,--"Madame will be glad"--he addressed +Miss Bracy, who, as he was dimly aware, had been standing throughout +with face averted, staring up at the far-away cliffs. "The young man's +last thoughts--" + +But Christian was not to be denied. He had told the story a score of +times during the last three days, and had assured himself by every +evidence that he could tell it effectively. He was something of an +egoist, too, and the climax he had in mind was that of his own emotions +in recrossing the fatal _couloir_ ropeless, with shaking knees, haunted +by the Englishman's last cry. + +"Such a strange cry," he persisted. "His eyes were on mine for a moment +. . . then they turned from me to the _couloir_ and the great space +below, It was then he uttered it, stretching out his hands as the rope +pulled him forward--yet not as one afraid. 'Mother!' he cried: just +that, and only once--'Mother!'" + +Mr. Frank looked up sharply, and turned his head towards Miss Bracy. +The clergyman and the guide also had their eyes on her, the latter +waiting for the effect of his climax. + +"It must be a consolation to you--" the clergyman began to mumble. + +But Miss Bracy did not turn. Mr. Frank withdrew his eyes from her and +fixed them again on the gaudy tablecloth. She continued to stare up at +he clean ice-fields, the pencilled cliffs. She did not even move. + +So Bassett was avenged. + + + +THE CAPTURE OF THE _BURGOMEISTER VAN DER WERF. + + +A REPORTED TALE OF A DUTCHMAN AND A PRIVATEER + +Yes, a heap of folks have admired that teapot. Hundreds of pounds we +must have been offered for it, first and last, since the night my wife's +grandfather, Captain John Tackabird--or Cap'n Jacka, as he was always +called--brought it into the family over the back-garden wall, and his +funny little wife went for him with the broom-handle. Poor souls, they +were always a most affectionate couple, and religious too, but not much +to look at; and when he took and died of a seizure in the Waterloo year +she wasn't long in following. + +Ay, ay--very pleasant in their lives! though not what you would call +lovely. I've heard that, through being allowed by his mother to run too +soon, Tackabird's legs grew up so bandy, the other children used to +drive their hoops between them. And next, at fifteen, what must he do +but upset a bee-skip! A bee stung him, and all his hair came off, and +for three parts of his natural life be went about as bald as an egg. +To cap everything, he'd scarcely began courting when he lost his left +eye in a little job with the preventive men; but none of this seemed to +make any difference to the woman. Peters her maiden name was--Mary +Polly Peters; a little figure with beady black eyes. She believed that +all Captain Jacka's defects would be set right in another world, though +not to hinder her recognising him; and meantime the more he got chipped +about the more she doted on what was left of the man. + +Everyone in Polperro respected the couple, for Mary Polly kept herself +_to_ herself, and Captain Jacka was known for the handiest man in the +haven to run a Guernsey cargo or handle a privateer, and this though he +took to privateering late in life, in the service of the "Hand and +Glove" company of adventurers. By and by Mr. Zephaniah Job, who looked +after these affairs in Polperro--free-trade and privateering both-- +started a second company called the "Pride of the West," and put Captain +Jacka to command their first ship, the old _Pride_ lugger; a very good +choice, seeing that for three years together he cleared over forty per +cent. on the adventurers' capital. + +The more was his disappointment when they built a new lugger, the +_Unity_, one hundred and sixty tons, and Job gave the command to a smart +young fellow called Dick Hewitt, whose father held shares in the concern +and money to buy votes beside. I've told you how Jacka swallowed his +pride and sailed as mate under this Hewitt, and how he managed to heap +coals of fire on the company's head. Well that's one story and this is +another. I'm telling now of the second boat, when Captain Jacka, or, as +you might say, Providence--for what happened was none of his seeking, +and the old boy acted throughout as innocent as a sucking-child--left +off shaming the company as honest men, and hit them slap in their +pockets, where they could feel. + +The bottom of the quarrel was that Mr. Job, the agent, took a dislike to +Jacka. He was one of your sour, long-jawed sort, a bit of a lawyer, +with a temper like Old Nick, and just the amount of decent feeling that +makes a man the angrier for knowing he's unjust, especially when the +fellow that's hit takes it smiling instead of cursing; and more +especially still when he carries but one eye in his head, and be dashed +if you can tell whether its twinkling back at you out of pure sweetness +of nature or because it sees a joke of its own. I believe Captain Jacka +twinkled back on Mr. Job as he twinkled on the rest of the world, +willing to be friends and search for the best side of everyone, if he +might be allowed. But Mr. Job couldn't be sure of this, and I'm fain to +admit the old boy was a trial to him, with his easy-going ways. +Job, you see, was a stickler for order; kept his accounts like the Bank +of England, all in the best penmanship, with black and red ink, and +signed his name at the end with a beautiful flourish in the shape of a +swan, all done with one stroke--he having been a school-master in his +youth, and highly respected at it until his unfortunate temper made him +shy a child out of window, which drove him out of the business, as such +things will. In young Dick Hewitt he had a captain to his mind: soap +and tidiness and punctuality, and oil and rotten-stone for the very +gun-swivels; all the crew touching caps, and nerve and seamanship on top +of all. Jacka admired the young spark, for all his boastfulness; for +his own part he could do anything with a ship but keep her tidy. +"What's the use of giving yourself on-necessary work?" he'd say in his +mild manner, if he saw one of his hands coiling a rope or housing a sail +neatly. "We may be wantin' it any minute, and then you'll be sorry for +labour thrown away." The dirtiness of his decks was a caution, and this +was the queerer because in his own parlour you might have eaten your +dinner off the floor. "I reckon," he'd explain, "when the Lord made sea +and land He meant there should be a difference, and likewise when He +made man and woman," and stuck to his untidiness afloat because it made +him the gladder to be at home again. Mary Polly, though she lived +within forty yards of the sea, and was proud of her husband as any +mortal woman, would never step on board a boat. The sight of one +(she declared) turned her stomach, and she married their only child to a +house-decorator. + +All this untidiness was poison to Mr. Job, and it worked inside the man +until he was just one simmering pot of wrath, and liable to boil over at +the leastest little extra provocation. + +One day--it was the tenth of July in the year 'nine; Peter's Tide, and +the Upper Town crowded with peep-shows and ranter-go-rounds, and folks +keeping the feast--Mr. Job takes a stroll down the quay past the +sweet-standings, and cocks his eye over the edge, down upon the deck of +the old _Pride_ that was moored alongside and fitting out for a fresh +cruise. And there, in the shade of the quay wall, sat old Captain Jacka +with a hammer, tap-tapping at a square of tinplate. + +"Hullo!" Mr. Job hailed. "Where's the crew?" + +"Up riding the hobby-horses, I b'lieve," answered Jacka, as friendly as +you please. + +"And in thirty-six hours you've engaged to have the _Pride_ ready for +sea!" + +"She's about ready now," said Jacka, stopping to put a peppermint in his +mouth. He had bought a packet off one of the sweet-standings, and +spread it on the deck beside him. "Feast-day doesn't come round more +than once a year, and I haven't the heart to deny them, with the work so +well forward, too." The old fellow fairly beamed across his deck, the +raffle of which was something cruel. "There's a fat woman up there, +too. I'm told she's well worth seeing." + +"You call that dirty mess 'being fit for sea'?" asked Mr. Job, nodding +down, but bottling up his anger after a fashion. "Look here, Captain +Tackabird, you're a servant of the company; and I'll trouble you to +stand up and behave respectful when the company's agent pays you a visit +of inspection." + +"Cert'nly, Mr. Job." Jacka scrambled up to his feet as mild as milk. +"Beg your pardon, sir, I thought you'd just strolled down to pass the +time of day." + +"And don't flash that plaguey thing in my eyes, as you're doing." +For Jacka was standing in the sunshine now, with the tinplate in his +hands blazing away like a looking-glass. + +"Very well, sir. Perhaps you'll allow me to fetch a hat out of the +cabin; for my head feels the heat powerful, being so bald. They do say +it twinkles a bit, too, when the sun catches it the right way." + +So down he went to the cabin, and up he came again to find Mr. Job with +his best coat-tails spread, seated on the carriage of the _Pride's_ +stern-chaser. + +"Oh, Lord!" he couldn't help groaning. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Nothing, Mr. Job, nothing." The fact was, Jacka had smeared a dollop +of honey on that very gun-carriage to keep the wasps off him while he +worked. The sweet-standings, you see, always drew a swarm of wasps on +feast-days, and the old man never could abide them since his accident +with the bee-skip. + +Mr. Job sat there with his mouth screwed up, eyeing the whole length of +the lugger. + +"I'd like to know why you were hammering out that tinplate?" said he. +"I can see with my own eyes you've been knocking dents in the deck; but +I s'pose that wasn't your only object." + +"I reckoned to tack it over this here hole in the bulwarks where the +tide swung her up against the quay-end." Captain Jacka showed him the +place. + +"I'd have let you have a fresh plank if you'd only reported the damage +in time." + +"Oh," said Jacka, "a scrap of tin will answer just as well--every bit." + +"I can't think, Captain Tackabird, how it comes that you've no more +regard for appearances. Just look at the _Unity_, for instance, and how +young Hewitt keeps her." + +"Born different, I suppose." + +"Ay, and if you don't look out you'll end different. Patching a boat +with tin!" Mr. Job let out a rasping kind of laugh. "But that's +Polperro, all over. Do you know what they tell about you, down to St. +Ann's?"--Mr. Job came from St. Ann's--"They say, down there, that every +man-child in Polperro is born with a patch in the seat of his--" + +Mr. Job stood up and cast a hand behind him, to explain. . . . + +"I put it there to keep off the wopses," said Captain Jacka. + + +"But what did he say?" asked Mary Polly, when her husband brought home +the tale. + +"First he said, 'I'll make you pay for this.' Well, that was fair +enough, for I ought to have warned him; but when I asked the price, and +where the stuff could be matched--for 'twas his best suit, you +understand--all of a sudden he stamps his foot and lets fly with the +most horrible oaths. It fairly creamed my flesh to hear him. +He's a man of wrath, my love, and the end of him will be worse than the +beginning." + +"I daresay; but he'll give you the sack before that happens." + +The two poor old souls looked at one another; for Job had control of all +the privateering companies in Polperro, and influence enough to starve a +man out of the place. + +"Lev us take counsel of the Lord," said the old boy, as she knew he +would. So down on their knees they went, and prayed together. +Jacka even put up a petition for Mr. Job, but Mary Polly couldn't say +"Amen" to that. + +The next morning Captain Jacka went down to the _Pride_ at the usual +hour, but only to find his crew scrubbing decks and Mr. Job ready for +him. "There's your marching orders," says the enemy, handing him a +paper; "and if you want a character at any time, just come to me, and +I'll give you a daisy." + +Well, the old chap said no word, but turned about then and there, and +back along the quay like a man in a dream. All the way he kept fumbling +the document without daring to open it, and when he reached his own door +he just sat down on the little low wall outside, laid the cursed thing +on his knee, pulled a bandanna out of his breeches pocket, and polished +the top of his poor head till it fairly blazed in the eye of the sun. + +He was sitting there, dazed and quiet, when the door opened and out came +Mary Polly with a rag-mat in her hand, meaning to bang it against the +wall, as her custom was. + +"Hullo!" says she, stopping short on the threshold. "Back again, like a +bad penny?" + +"Bad enough, this time," says her husband, without turning round; and +drops his head with a groan. + +I must say the woman's behaviour was peculiar. For first of all she +stepped forward and gave his head a stroking, just as you might a +child's, and then she looks up and down the street, and says, +"I'm ashamed of 'ee, carryin' on like this for all the public to see. +Stick your hands in your pockets," says she. + +"What's the use of that?" But he did it. + +"Now whistle." + +"Eh?" + +"Whistle a tune." + +"But I can't." + +"You can if you try; I've heard you whistlin' 'Rule Britannia' scores of +times, or bits of it. Now I'm goin' to beat this mat and make believe +to be talkin' to 'ee. At the very first sound old Mrs. Scantlebury'll +poke her head out, she always does. So you go on whistlin', and don't +mind anything I say. There'll be no peace in life for us after she gets +wind you've been sacked; and just now I want a little time to myself to +relieve my feelin's." + +So Jacka started to whistle, feeling mighty shy, and Mary Polly picked +up the mat. + +"I wish," says she to the mat, "you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang) +Job (whang). I do dearly wish for my life you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah +(whang) Job (whang). I'd take your ugly old head with its stivery grey +whiskers and I'd (bang, whang)--I'd (bang, whang)--I'd treat you like +this here mat, and lay you down for folks to wipe their shoes upon, Mr. +(whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang)." + +"When Britain first at Heaven's command," whistled Jacka; and the Widow +Scantlebury, two doors up the street, was properly taken in. An hour +later, when the news of Jacka's dismissal was all over the town, she had +to sit down and consider. "I see'd him come up the street"--this was +how she told the story, being the sort of woman that never knows where +the truth ends--"just as Mary Polly was shaking out her mat. He came up +like a whipped dog, stuck his hands in his pockets and started to +whistle, for all the world like a whipped dog, you understand? Any fool +could see the man had something on his mind and wanted to break it +gentle. But not she! Went on banging the mat, if you'll believe me, +till my flesh ached to see a woman so dull-minded. Of course it wasn' +no business of mine, tho' you _would_ think, after living with a man +thirty years--" and so on, and so on. + +But when Mary Polly had relieved her feelings, and the two old souls +were in the kitchen with the door shut behind them, they came very near +to breaking down. You see, Captain Jacka had followed the trade in +Polperro all his days, and his heart was in it till Mr. Job pulled him +up by the roots. He and Mary Polly had saved a little, and looked +forward to leaving it to their only child--my wife's mother, that was; +and anyway it wasn't enough to maintain them, let be that to touch a +penny of it would have burnt their fingers. No; Captain Jacka must find +a new billet. + +But in a month or so, when folks had given up sympathising--for Mary +Polly hated to be pitied, and gave them no encouragement--he saw plain +enough that there was no billet for him in a small place like Polperro +where Mr. Job ruled the roost. Before Christmas his mind was made up; +and early in Christmas week he said good-bye to his wife, marched up to +Four Turnings with his kit on his back, and shipped on board Boutigo's +Two-Horse Conveyance for Falmouth. + +There was a Mr. Rogers living at Falmouth who had been a shareholder in +the old "Hand and Glove" company, but had sold out over some quarrel +with Mr. Job; and to him Jacka applied. + +"I'm told that seamen are scarce, sir," says he. "I was wondering if +you could find me a berth anywhere, for I've 'arned forty per cent. for +my employers before now, and could do it again, but for a man of my +unfortunate looks 'tis hard to get a start." + +Mr. Rogers tapped the desk with his ruler, like one considering. +"Why have they turned you out?" he asked. "Anything professional?" + +"How could _I_ help Mr. Job's sitting down on a lump of honey? +I put it to you, sir, as a business man." + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Mr. Rogers. "Let's have the story." + +So out it all came. "He's a man of wrath," said Captain Jacka, +"and he'll be sorry for it when he comes to die." + +"There's one or two," said Mr. Rogers, "would like to hurry that +reckoning a bit. Well, well, I can make shift to fit you up with +something for a week or two, and maybe by that time there'll be an +opening aboard one of the Packets. Just now, in Christmas week, +business is slack enough, but what do you say to going mate on a vessel +as far as the Downs?" + +"Nothing I should like better," says Jacka. + +"You'd better have a look at her first," says Mr. Rogers. + +So he takes Jacka off to the Market Strand, calls for a waterman's +wherry, and inside of ten minutes they were being pulled out to the +Roads. + +"There's your ship," says Mr. Rogers, as they pushed out beyond the old +dock into Carrick Roads. + +Jacka opened first his eyes and then his mouth. The vessel was a kind +of top-sail schooner, but with a hull there was no mistaking, the more +by token that the tide was swinging her stern-on, and showing him a pair +of windows picked out in red paint, with shutter-boards and brass hinges +shining. + +"Mr. Rogers," he said, "I han't read the _Sherborne Mercury_ lately, +but is--is the war over?" + +"No, nor likely to be." + +"But, Mr. Rogers, sir, either that there ship is a Dutchman or else I +be." + +"Look at her flag, you old fool." + +"Never see'd the like of it." + +"That's the flag of the Principality of Nibby-Gibby. Ever heard of it?" + +"Can't say I have." + +"No more did I till the day before yesterday, and I won't swear I've got +it right yet. But 'tis somewhere up the Baltic I understand. +That there ship--her name, by the way, is the _Burgomeister Van der +Werf_--is bound up Channel with sugar from Jamaica--with a licence. +Maybe you folks up to Polperro don't know what that means?" + +"I only know that, if I'd ran across her in the old _Pride_, I'd have +clapped a crew on board and run her into a British port and no questions +asked." + +Says Mr. Rogers, "If that's the way you Polperro men keep abreast of +Board of Trade regulations, it strikes me you might have done worse than +lose your billet with the _Pride of the West_." + +In the time left before the waterman brought them alongside, Mr. Rogers +explained, as well as he could, the new system (as it was then) of +licences; by which the Government winked at neutral vessels carrying +goods into the enemy's ports, in spite of the blockade, and bringing us +back Baltic timber for shipbuilding. + +"But a Dutchman isn' no neutral," Captain Jacka objected. + +"I did hear," said Mr. Rogers, stroking his chin and looking sideways, +"that these licences have their market-price, and that in Amsterdam just +now it's seven hundred rix-dollars." + +"Well-a-well, if the Board of Trade's satisfied," says Jacka, "it's not +for the likes of me to object. But if I was a Christian ruler I should +think twice afore invitin' such a deal of hard swearin'." + +"You'll find Captain Cornelisz a Lutheran," Mr. Rogers assured him, +"and a very sociable fellow, with the little English he can muster." + +Well, to make my story short, Jacka stepped on board and found the Dutch +skipper monstrous polite and accommodating, though terrible sleepy, the +reason being that, his mate falling sick at Kingston of the yellow +fever, he had been forced to navigate his vessel home single-handed. +He owned up, too, that he had a poor head for ciphering, so that 'twas +more by luck than good management he'd hit off the Channel at all. +At any rate he was glad enough of a chance to shift off responsibility +and take a sound nap, and inside of half an hour the bargain was struck +over a glass of hot schnapps. Mr. Rogers shook hands and put off for +shore again, and a boat went with him to fetch Jacka's kit, which he'd +left in the office. + +At six o'clock the _Van der Werf_ weighed anchor and headed out under +easy canvas. The wind outside was almost dead contrary, E. by N. and +half E., and blowing a little under half a gale, but the skipper seemed +in a hurry, and Jacka didn't mind. + +"She's a good boat by all seeming," said he as they cleared St. +Anthony's light; "but she wants a sea-way. I reckon, sir, you'd better +stay on deck for a tack or two, till I find how she comes about. +I'm accustomed, you see, to something a bit sharper in the bows, and +just at first that may tempt me to run it too fine." + +"Who wants you to run it fine at all?" asked Captain Cornelisz. + +"Well, naturally you'll work it in short tacks and hug the English side +pretty close." + +"Short tacks? Not a bit of it; tide'll be running up strong by time +we're out in deep water. Put her right across for France, keep her +pretty full--she won't bear pinching--and let her rip." + +"Risky." + +"How's that?" + +"_Chasse-marees_ are pretty thick, I'm told, once you get near t'other +side, 'specially between Morlaix and Guernsey, let alone a chance of +dropping across a French cruiser." + +"My good man, I've been stopped twice on this voyage already by French +cruisers: once off Brest, and the second time about fifty miles this +side of Ushant." + +"You don't tell me!" says Jacka. "How the dickens did they let you go?" + +"Well," answers the Dutchman, "I took the precaution of fitting myself +_with two sets of papers_. Oh," says he, as Jacka lets out a low +whistle, "it's the ordinary thing in our line of business. So you just +do as I tell you and make the boards as long as you please, for I'm +dropping with sleep in my boots. Keep the ship going, and if you sight +anyone that looks like trouble just give me a hail down the companion, +for I can talk to any frigate, British or French." + +With that he bundled away below, and Jacka, after a word or two with the +man at the helm, to make sure they understood enough of each other's +lingo, settled down with his pipe for the night's work. + +The wind held pretty steady, and the _Van der Werf_ made nothing of the +cross-seas, being a beamy craft and fit for any weather in a sea-way. +Jacka conned her very careful, and decided there was no use in driving +her; extra sail would only fling up more water without improving her +speed. So he jogged along steady, keeping her full and by, and letting +her take the seas the best way she liked them. Towards morning he even +began to doze a bit, till warned by a new motion of the ship that she +wasn't doing her best. He opened his eyes and shouted-- + +"Up with your helm, ye lubber! Hard up, I tell ye, and keep her full!" + +A pretty heavy spray at that moment came over the bow and took him fair +in the face, and he stumbled aft in none too sweet a temper. Then he +saw what had happened: the fresh hand at the wheel had dozed off where +he stood and let the _Van der Werf_ run up in the wind. The fellow was +little more than a boy, and white in the face with want of sleep. +Captain Jacka was always a kind-hearted man. Said he, as he flung the +spokes round, and the _Van der Werf_ began to pay off: "Look here, my +lad, if you can't keep a better eye open, I'll take a trick myself. +So go you forward and stow yourself somewheres within call." + +With that he took the helm, and glad of it, to keep himself awake; and +so held her going till daybreak. + +By eight in the morning, just as the light began creeping, and Jacka was +calculating his whereabouts, he lifted his eye over the weather-bow, +and-- + +"Hullo!" he sings out. "What's yonder to windward?" + +The lad he'd relieved jumps up from where he'd been napping beside the +bitts, and runs forward. But, whatever he sang out, Jacka paid no +attention; for by this time his own one eye had told him all he wanted +to know, and a trifle more; and he clutched at the wheel for a moment +like a man dazed. Then, I believe, a sort of heavenly joy crept over +his face, mixed with a sort of heavenly cunning. + +"Call up the crew," he ordered. "I'm going to put her about. The whole +crew--every man-Jack of them!" + +By the time the men tumbled up, Jacka had his helm up, and the _Van der +Werf_, with sheets pinned, was leaning to it and knocking up the +unholiest sputter. + +"All right, my lads. Don't stand glazing at me like stuck pigs. +Stand by to slacken sheets. I'm going to gybe her." + +Well, they obeyed, though not a man of them could guess what he was +after. Over went the big mainsail with a jerk that must have pitched +Captain Cornelisz clean out of his bunk below; for half a minute later +he comes puffing and growling up the companion and wanting to know in +his best Dutch if this was the end of the world, and if not, what was +it? + +"That's capital," says Jacka, "for I was just about stepping down to +call you. See that lugger, yonder?" He jerked his thumb over his +shoulder at a speck in the grey from which the _Van der Werf_ was now +running at something like nine knots an hour. + +"Well?" + +"I know that lugger, and we're running away from her." + +"Pack of stuff!" says Captain Cornelisz, or Dutch to that effect. +"D'ee want to be told a dozen times that this is a licensed ship?" +And he called for his flag, to hoist it. + +"Oh, drop your fancy pocket-handkerchiefs, and listen to reason, that's +a dear man! _O' course_ I know you carry a licence; but the point is-- +the lugger don't know. _O' course_ I'm running away from her, by your +leave; but the point is--she can run and reach three miles to our two. +And lastly, _o' course_ you're master here, and can do what you please; +but, if you're not pressed for time, there's money in it, and you shan't +say I didn't give you the chance." + +Captain Cornelisz eyed Jacka for a full minute, and then a dinky little +smile started in one eye and spread till it covered the whole of his +wide face. + +"You're a knowing one," said he. + +"Was never considered so," answered Jacka, very modest. + +"She's put about and after us," said the skipper, after a long stare +over his right shoulder. + +"She'll have us in less than three hours. There's one thing to be done, +and that's to stow me somewheres out of the way; for if anyone on board +of her catches sight of me, the game's up. S'pose we try the lazarette, +if you have such a place. I like fresh air as a rule, but for once in a +while I don't mind bein' squoze; and, as lazarettes go, yours ought to +be nice and roomy." + +"You shall have a bottle of Hollands for company," promised Captain +Cornelisz. + +So the hatch was pulled up, and down Jacka crept and curled himself up +in the darkness. The Dutchman provisioned him there with a bottle of +strong waters and a bag of biscuits, and--what's more--called down to +him so long as was prudent and kept him informed how the chase was +going. + +By this time the lugger--which I needn't tell you was Mr. Zephaniah +Job's pet _Unity_, with Captain Dick Hewitt commanding--was closing down +on the _Van der Werf_, overhauling her hand-over-fist. Down in the +lazarette Jacka had scarcely finished prising the cork out of his bottle +of Hollands when he heard the bang of a gun. This was the lugger's +command to round-to and surrender; and the old boy, who had been vexing +himself with fear that some cruiser might drop in and spoil sport, put +the bottle to his mouth and drank Mr. Job's very good health. + +"For I think," says he to himself, with a chuckle, "I can trust Cap'n +Dick Hewitt to put his foot into this little mess just as deep as it +will go." + +With that, being heavy after his night's watch, he tied up his chin in +his bandanna handkerchief to keep him from snoring, curled round, and +dropped off to sleep like a babe. + + +Well, sir, Cap'n Dick Hewitt brought-to his prize, as he reckoned her; +and when he came aboard and sized up the cargo and the _Unity's_ luck, +as he reckoned it, his boastfulness was neither to hold nor to bind. +No such windfall had been picked up for the _Pride of the West_ during +the four years he'd been in the company's service. He scarce stayed to +give a glance at the _Van der Werf's_ papers, though Captain Cornelisz +was ready for him with the wrong set. "I guess," says he, "you'll spare +yourself the trouble to pretend you ain't a Dutchman"; and when the +skipper flung his arms about and began to jabber like a play-actor, +'twas "All right, Mynheer; we'll talk about that at Falmouth. +Look here, boys," he sings out to his boarding party, "we've something +here too good to be let out of sight. My idea is to reach back for +Polperro in company, and let Mr. Job and the shareholders have a view of +her before taking her round to Falmouth. It won't cost us three hours +extra," says he, "and a little bit of a flourish is excusable under the +circumstances." + +So up for Polperro they bore, half a dozen men from the lugger working +the _Van der Werf_, and old Captain Jacka asleep in her lazarette till +roused out of his dreams by the rattle as they cast anchor half a +cable's length outside the haven. The tide was drawing to flood and the +evening dusking down, and in sails Captain Dick in the _Unity_ as big as +bull's beef, and shouts his news to all the loafers on the quay. + +"But come and take a look at her for yourself," says he to Mr. Job, who +had stepped down with his best telescope. + +Job put off that evening in something like a flutter of spirits; for to +tell the truth half a dozen of the shareholders had been cutting up +rough over his treatment of Jacka, and here was an answer for them, and +proof that he'd been right in preaching up Dick Hewitt to be worth ten +of the old man. + +Alongside he comes in the _Unity's_ boat, steps aboard, and makes a +polite leg to Captain Cornelisz, with any amount of sham sympathy in his +eye. + +"Dear, dear," says he, "this is a very unfort'nit business for you, +Cap'n What's-your-name! In time of war I s'pose such things must +happen; but I can't help feelin' sorry for you," says he. + +"I was thinkin' to reckon the damage at six hundred pounds," says the +Dutch skipper, meek as you please. + +"Hey?" says Mr. Job. + +"Well, sir, I likes to be reasonable; but it's a question of missing the +convoy, and under the circumstances--case of illegal detention at the +best--you won't consider six hundred pounds out of the way. Of course," +says he, "I haven't been allowed to study your lugger's papers, so it +may be flat piracy. But if your skipper had taken the trouble to study +mine--" + +"What in thunder is he telling about?" demanded Mr. Job. + +"Only this, sir," answered Captain Cornelisz, smiling very sweet, and +pulling out his licence from his side-pocket, he read, "'And the said +vessel has our protection while bearing any flag except the French, and +notwithstanding the documents accompanying the said vessel and cargo may +represent the same to be destined to any neutral or hostile port, or to +whomsoever such property may appear to belong.' The wording you see, +sir, is very particular, and under the circumstances I can't say less +than six hundred pounds; but, of course, if you oblige me to take it to +the courts, there's your papers to be considered, which may raise the +question of piracy." + + +Just an hour later, when Mr. Job had returned to shore in the devil's +own temper to call a hasty meeting of his shareholders--and Captain +Hewitt along with him, with his tail between his Legs--Captain Cornelisz +raised the trap of the lazarette. + +"I'm thinking a little fresh air's no more than you deserve," said he. + +"But where are we, in this world?" asked Jacka. + +"So well as I can learn, 'tis a place called Polperro." + +Jacka chuckled. "Seen anything of a party called Job?" + +"He's to bring me six hundred pounds before morning," answered the +Dutchman, lighting his pipe. "And see here--I'm a fair-dealin' man, and +I own I owe you a good twenty of it. You shall have it when you leave +the ship, and I'll chance making it right with the owners." + +"Very good of you, to be sure," allowed Jacka. + +"But that isn't all. I owe you something on my own account, and if +there's any small favour I can do you, in reason--" + +"Well, since you put it so friendly, I'd like an hour or so ashore." + +"Ashore? What, to-night?" + +"It's my home, you see," Jacka explained; "and my old woman lives +there." + +"You don't say so? Well, you shall be put ashore as soon as you please. +Anything else?" + +"I see'd a very pretty teapot and sugar basin in your cabin yestiddy. +I don't know if you set any particular store by them; but if you don't, +my old woman's terrible fond of china, and you can deduct it out of the +twenty pounds, it you like." + +"Shouldn't think of it," says Captain Cornelisz; "they're best Nankin, +and they're yours. Anything else?" + +"Well, if I might ask the loan of a pair of your breeches till +to-morrow. They seem to me a bit fuller in the seat than mine, and let +alone being handy to carry the china in, they'll be a kind of disguise. +For, to tell the truth, I don't want to be seen in Polperro streets to +be mixed up with this business, and my legs be so bandy that in any +ordinary small clothes there's no mistaking me, even in the dark." + + +So the _Van der Werf's_ boat landed Jacka that night in pitch darkness +half a mile west of the haven, where a ridge of rock gives shelter from +the easterly swell. And just half an hour later, as Mary Polly turned +in her sleep, she heard a stone trickle down the cliff at the back of +the cottage and drop thud! into the yard under her window. She sat bolt +upright in bed. "There's some villain of a thief after my Minorca's +eggs," said she. + +Another stone trickled and fell. Like the woman of spirit she was, she +jumped out of bed, crept downstairs to the kitchen, picked up the broom, +and listened, with her hand on the latch of the back-door. + +She heard the scrape of a toe-plate on the wall outside. + +This was too much. "You mean, sneakin', snivellin', pilferin', +egg-stealin' highwayman!" cries she, and lets fly. + +Well, sir, the sugar basin was scat to atoms, but the teapot, as you +see, didn' suffer more than a chip. The wonder was, she stayed her hand +at the second stroke, old Jacka being in no position to defend himself +or explain. In later days when she invited her friends to tea, she used +to put it down to instinct. "Something _warned_ me," she'd say. +But that's how the teapot came into our family. + + + +KING O' PRUSSIA. + + +REPORTED TALE OF A SMUGGLER, A REVENUE CUTTER, AND AN OFFICIOUS +MINISTER. + +You have heard tell, of course, of Captain John Carter, the famous +smuggler of Prussia Cove, and his brothers Harry, Francis, and Charles, +and Captain Will Richards, "Tummels," Carpenter Hosking, Uncle Billy, +and the rest of the Cove boys; likewise of old Nan Leggo and Bessie +Bussow that kept the Kiddlywink[1] there? Well, well, I see our +youngsters going to school nowadays with their hair brushed, and I hear +them singing away inside the classroom for all the world as if they were +glad to grow up and pay taxes; and it makes me wonder if they can be the +children of that old-fangled race. Sometimes I think it's high time for +me to go. There was a newspaper fellow down here when the _General +Walker_ came ashore, and, after asking a lot of questions, he put the +case in a nutshell. "You're a link with the past," he said; "that's +what you are." I don't know if he invented the expression, or if he +picked it up somewhere and used it on me, but it's a terrible clever +one. + +You mustn't think I'm boasting. I never knew Captain John; he died in +the year 'seven, and I wasn't born for twelve months after. But I've +shaken hands with Captain Harry--the one who was taken prisoner by the +French, and came near to losing his head. He spent his latter years +farming at Rinsey and local preaching; a very earnest man. He gave me +my first-class ticket--that was in the late twenties, and not long +before his death. And Captain Will Richards I knew well; he took over +the business after Captain John, and lasted down to the Crimea year. +I carried the coffin; eighty-five his age was, according to the plate on +it; but, of course, the business had come to an end long before. + +Everybody calls it Prussia Cove in these days. The visitors ask for +Prussia Cove, and go and crane their heads over. You know the place?-- +just east of Cuddan Point. It's three coves really; Pisky's Cove, +Bessie's Cove, and Prussia. The first has no good landing, but plenty +of good caves; east of that comes Bessie's, where the Kiddlywink stood, +with a harbour cut in the solid rock, and a roadway, and more caves; and +east of that, with a point and a small island dividing them, comes +Prussia, where John Carter had his house. Before his time it was called +Porthleah, but he got the nickname "King o' Prussia" as a boy, and it +stuck to him, and now it sticks to the old place. The visitors crane +their heads over (for you must do that to count the vessels in the +harbour right underneath you), and ask foolish questions, and get +answered with a pack of lies. There's an old tale for one, about a +fellow who heard that the real King of Prussia had been defeated by +Napoleon Bonaparte. "Ah," says he, "I'm sorry for that man. +Misfortunes never come single; not more'n six weeks ago he lost three +hundred keg of brandy, by information, so I'm told." All nonsense! +Porthleah never lost but one keg in all John Carter's time, and that was +a leaky one in a pool at Pisky's which the custom-house fellows sniffed +as they went by. To be sure, one day when the King was away from home, +the collector came round from Penzance, seized a cargo, and carried it +off to the Custom House store. What did Carter do when he came home and +heard about it? He had agreed to deliver the goods by a certain day, +his character for honest business was at stake and he wasn't going to +disappoint his customers. So he rode into Penzance that night, broke +open the Custom House store, and rode back with all his kegs; nothing +else, mind you. When the officers next morning discovered what had +happened, they allowed at once this was Carter's work, because he was an +honest man and wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to him. + +But the tale they tell oftenest is about the battery he kept on Enys +Point, and how he opened fire with it upon His Majesty's vessel; and I +want you to have the rights of _that_ as I had it from Captain Will +Richards himself. To hear folks speak you would think the King just +opened fire and blazed away for the fun of it; whereas, with all his +daring, he was the quietest, most inoffensive man in the trade, if only +you let him alone. Mr. Wearne, the collector, understood this, and it +was not by his fault either that the firing came about, but all through +an interfering woman and a preacher who couldn't mind his own business. + +It began in this way. Bessie Bussow had a sister-in-law married and +living over here in Ardevora--Ann Geen was the name of her--a daughter +of Kitty Lemal. (You've heard tell of Kitty Lemal and her eight +daughters, and her stocking full of guineas? No? Well there's another +story for you one of these days.) This Ann was the youngest of the +eight, and married John Geen latish in life, just in time to bring him a +boy before he left her a widow; and after her mother Kitty died she and +the boy lived together in the old house at Carne Glaze--Ugnes House[2] +they used to call it. The boy, being the son of old parents, was a +lean, scrag-necked child, with a lollopping big head, too clever for his +years. He had the Lemals' pluck inside him though, for all his unhandy +looks; and, of course, his mother thought him a nonesuch. + +Well, with all the country talking about John Carter and his doings, you +may fancy that every boy in Ardevora wanted to grow up in a hurry and be +off to Prussia Cove a-smuggling. It took young Phoby Geen (his real +name was Deiphobus) as bad as the rest. He had been over to the Cove +with his mother on a visit to Bessie Bussow, and there in the Kiddlywink +the King had patted him on his big head and given him a shilling. +After that the boy gave his mother no peace. She, poor soul, wanted to +make a preacher of him, and wouldn't hear of his going; but often, after +he had turned fifteen, she would be out of bed ten times of a night and +listening at his door to make sure he hadn't run off in the dark. + +I told you the boy was clever; and this is how he gained his end. +There had always been a tale that the Ugnes House was haunted--the ghost +being old Reginald Bottrell, Kitty Lemal's father, a very respectable +sea-captain, who died in his bed with no reason whatever for being +uncomfortable in the next world. Still, "walk" he did, or was said to; +and one fine day the boy came to his mother with a pretty tale. +It went that, the evening before, he and his young cousin, Arch'laus +Bryant, had been lying stretched on their stomachs before the fire in +the big room--he reading the _Pilgrim's Progress_ by the light of the +turves, and Arch'laus listening. The boys were waiting for their +supper, and for Mrs. Geen to come back from her Saturday's shopping. +Happening to look up as he turned a page, Phoby saw, on the steps which +led down into the room, a brisk, stout little gentleman, dressed in a +long, cutaway coat, black velvet waistcoat and breeches, black ribbed +stockings, and pump shoes tied with a bow. He twinkled with brass or +gilt buttons--one row down the coat and two rows down the waistcoat--and +each button was stamped with a pattern of flowers. His head was bald, +except for a bit of hair at the back; he had no hat; and when he turned, +after closing the door behind him, Phoby took notice that his belly was +round and as tight as a drum. The boy denied being frightened; +"the gentleman," he said, "was most pleasant-looking in all his +features. I didn't take 'en for a sperat, but for somebody come to see +mother. I stood up and said, 'Good eveling, sir. Mother'll be back in +a minute or two if you'll take a seat.'" "I'm not come for she, but +for thee," he said; "Deiphobus Geen, idle no longer. Arise, take my +advice, and go a-smuggling." And with that he vanished through the +door. + +The boy pitched this tale to his mother, and Arch'laus backed him up, +adding that the ghost had turned to him and said, "Thou, too, Arch'laus +in a year's time shall be a smuggler--p'r'aps sooner." He told this to +his father and got strapped for it. But Mrs. Geen came of a family that +believed in ghosts. The boy's tale described his grandfather to a +hair--which was not wonderful considering how often she had talked to +Phoby about the old man. At any rate, after being in two minds for a +week she gave way, after a fashion, and allowed Phoby to run over to +Prussia Cove to his aunt, Bessie Bussow; and Bessie--who loved spirit-- +had him apprenticed to Hosking, the Cove carpenter. Pretty carpenter's +work Hosking was likely to teach him! + +Now, after the way of women, the deed was no sooner done than Mrs. Geen +began to repent it. She knew very well that her dear boy would run into +danger; but she kept her trouble to herself until there arrived at +Ardevora a new Methodist preacher called Meakin. In those days John +Wesley himself used to pay us a visit pretty well every August or +September, but this year, for some reason or other, he gave us an extra +revival, and sent down this Meakin to us at the beginning of June. +For a very good reason he was never sent again. + +He started very well indeed. You couldn't call him much to look at; he +had a long pair of legs which seemed differently jointed to yours and +mine; no shoulders nor stomach to speak of, no-coloured hair, and a +glazing, watery eye. But the wonder began when you heard his voice. +It filled his clothes out suddenly like one of those indiarubber +squeakers the children blow at Whitsun Fair; and coming from a man whose +looks were all against him, it made you feel humble-minded for having +been so quick to judge. I think he had found out the value of this kind +of surprise and went about neglecting his appearance on purpose. + +As I say, he started very well. He preached at the Stennack on +Saturday, and next day near the market-place, "for the sake," he said, +"of those who could not climb the hill"--though, to be sure, they +needn't have left their doors to hear him a mile off. There was a tidy +gathering--farm-carts and market-carts and gigs from all parts of the +country round--almost as many as if he had been John Wesley himself. +He preached again at five o'clock in the evening, and so fired up Mrs. +Geen that by ten next morning she was down at Nance's house, where he +lodged, laying all her trouble before him. + +Mr. Meakin heard her out, and then took a line which altogether +surprised her. He seemed to care less for the danger her Phoby was +running than for the crime he was committing. Yes; he called it a +crime! + +"As a Christian woman," he said, "you must know his soul's in danger. +What in comparison with that does his body matter?" + +Mrs. Geen hadn't any answer for this, so what she said was, "My Phoby +'ve never given me a day's trouble since his teething." And then, +seeing the preacher was upset, and wishing to keep things as pleasant as +possible, she went on, "I don't see no crime in learning to be a +carpenter." + +"By your own showing," said Mr. Meakin, "he is in danger of being led +into smuggling by wild companions." + +"Nothing wild about John Carter," she held out. "A married man and as +steady as you could wish to see; a man with convictions of sin, as I +know, an' two of his brothers saved. You couldn' hear a prettier +preacher than Charles. And John, he always runs a freight most careful. +I never heard of any wildness at all in connection with he--not a +whisper." + +The preacher fairly stamped, and began tapping the palm of his hand with +his forefinger. + +"But the smuggling, ma'am--that's what I call your attention to! +The smuggling itself is not only a crime but a sin; every bit as much a +sin as the violence and swearing which go with it." + +"No swearing at all," said Ann Geen. "You don't know John Carter, or +you wouldn' suggest such a thing. Every man that swears in his employ +is docked sixpence out of his pay. My sister-in-law keeps the money in +a box over her chimney-piece, and they drink it out together come +Christmas." + +By this the preacher was fairly dancing. "Woman!" he shouted, soon as +he could recover his mouth-speech. + +"I'm no such thing!" said she, up at once and very indignant. +"And your master, John Wesley, would never have said it." + +The preacher took a gulp and tried a quieter tack. "I beg your pardon, +ma'am," says he, "but you seemed to be wilfully misunderstanding me. +Let us confine ourselves to smuggling," says he. + +"Very well," says she; "I'm agreeable." + +"I tell you, then, that it's a sin; it's defrauding the King just as +much as if you dipped your hand into His Majesty's pocket"--"I shouldn' +dream of being so familiar," said Mrs. Geen, but he didn't hear her-- +"and if you'll permit me, I'll explain how that is," he said. + +"Well," she allowed, folding the shawl about her which she always wore +in the hottest weather; "you can say what you mind to about it, so long +as you help me get my Phoby back. That's what I come for." + +I daresay, now, you've sometimes heard it brought up against us in these +parts that we're like the men of Athens, always ready to listen to any +new thing. The preacher took up his parable then and there; and being, +as I say, an able man in spite of his looks, within half an hour he had +actually convinced the woman that there was something to be ashamed of +in smuggling. And as soon as he'd done that, nothing would satisfy her +but to hire the pony-cart from the George and Dragon and drive the +preacher to Prussia Cove the very next day to rescue her boy from these +evil companions. "'Twould be a great thing to convince John Carter," +she said, "and a feather in your cap. And even if you don't, the place +is worth seeing, and he usually kills a pair of ducks for visitors." + +So early the next day (Tuesday, June 4), away they started; and, the day +being hot and the pony slow, arrived at Bessie Bussow's about four +o'clock. 'Tis a pretty peaceable spot on a June afternoon, with the sun +dropping out to sea and right against your eyes; and this day the Cove +seemed more peaceable than ordinary--the boats at anchor, no sound of +work at all, and scarcely a sign of life but the smoke from Bessie +Bussow's chimney. + +"Where's my boy?" was the first question Mrs. Geen put to her +sister-in-law after the two women had kissed each other. + +"Out seaning," answered Bessie, as prompt as you please. +"But most likely he'll be home some time to-night. The master's got a +new sean-boat, and all the boys be out working her. There's not a soul +left in the Cove barring the master himself and Uncle Billy." + +"Well, I'm glad of my life the boy's at such innocent work; but I've +come to see John Carter and take him away. The preacher here says that +smuggling is a sin and the soul's destruction; he's quite sure of it in +his own mind, and whiles there's any doubt I don't want my Phoby to risk +it." + +"Aw?" said Bessie. "I'd dearly like to hear how he makes that out. +But I han't got time to be talking just now. You'd best take him across +and let him try to persuade John Carter, while I get your room ready. +I saw John going towards his house ten minutes ago, and I'se warn he'll +offer the preacher a bed and listen to all he's got to say." + +So, having stabled the pony, Mrs. Geen and the preacher walked over to +Carter's house together. They found the King in his kitchen-parlour, +divided between his accounts and a mug of cider, and he made them +welcome, being always fond of preachers and having a great respect for +Ann Geen because of her family. + +There was a great heap of shavings in the fire-place, for the room was a +sunny one, facing south by west. But the King told her where to find +some tea that had never paid duty, and she took off her bonnet and +boiled the kettle in the kitchen at the back, and it wasn't till they'd +drunk a cup that she explained what had brought her, and called on the +preacher to wrestle. + +Captain John listened very politely, or seemed to, and nodded his head +at the right time; but he couldn't help being a bit absent-minded. +Fact was, he expected a cargo home that very evening, and didn't feel so +easy about it as usual. Up to now he had always run his stuff in +goodish-sized vessels--luggers or cutter-rigged craft running up to +fifty or sixty tons as we should reckon now. But Captain Will Richards +had taken a great fancy to the Cawsand plan of using light-built open +row-boats or, as you might say, galleys, pulling eight oars, and put +together to pass for sean-boats. After the war, when there was no +longer any privateering, vessels like Captain Carter's, carrying +eighteen or twenty guns apiece, couldn't pretend to be other than +smugglers or pirates, and then these make-belief sean-boats came into +use everywhere. But just now they were a novelty. The King, persuaded +by Richards, ordered one down from Cawsand, and had already used it once +or twice to meet his larger craft somewhere in a good offing and +tranship their cargoes. By this he could run his kegs ashore at any +state of the tide, leaving the empty vessels to be watched or overhauled +by the Customs' fellows. + +But this time--the weather being fine and settled, and the winds light-- +he was trying a faster game, and had sent the sean-boat right across +channel to Roscoff, keeping his sailing-craft in harbour. It would be +dark before nine, no moon till after mid-night, and by all calculations +the boat ought to make the cove between ten and eleven, after lying well +outside and waiting her chance. It all seemed promising enough, but +somehow the King couldn't be quite easy. + +However, he listened quietly, and the preacher talked away for one solid +hour, until Uncle Billy Leggo (who had been keeping watch all the +afternoon) came knocking at the door. "You'll excuse me a minute," said +the King, and went outside to hear the report. The weather had been +flat calm all day, with a slow ground-swell running into the cove, but +with the cool of the evening a light off-shore breeze had sprung up, and +Uncle Billy had just seen the Revenue cutter stealing out from Penzance. + +"Botheration!" said Captain Carter, and fined himself sixpence. +Then he went back to the parlour, and the preacher started afresh. + +Twice again before supper came Uncle Billy with news of the cutter's +movements, and the second time there could be no mistaking them, for she +was dodging back and forth and lying foxy around Cuddan Point. + +All through supper the preacher talked on and on, and the King ate +without knowing what he was eating. He couldn't afford to lose this +cargo; yet Mr. Collector Wearne meant business this time, and would +collar the boat to a certainty unless she were warned off. But to show +a light from the coast meant a hundred pounds fine or twelve months' +hard labour. The King slewed round in his chair and looked at the great +pile of shavings in the fireplace. A hundred pounds fine with the +chance of burning the house-thatch about his ears! + +Supper over, he and his guests turned their chairs towards the +fireplace. The King took flint and steel and struck a match; lit his +pipe, and stared at the shavings; then dropped the light on the floor, +ground it out with his heel, and puffed away thoughtfully. The preacher +went on talking. + +"Render unto Caesar . . . tribute to whom tribute is due. That applies +to King George to-day every bit so much as it did to Caesar." + +"Caesar and King George be two different persons," said Captain John, +stopping his pipe with his thumb. + +"The principle's the same." + +"I don't see it," said the captain. "I read my Bible, and it says that +Caesar ordered the whole world to be taxed. Now that's sense. +Caesar didn't go niggling away with a duty on silk here and another on +brandy there and another on tea and another on East Indy calicoes. Mind +you, I've got no personal feeling against King George; but it does annoy +me to see a man calling hisself King of England and making money in +these petty ways." + +"It's his birthday to-day," put in Mrs. Geen; "though I didn't remember +it till I saw the flag on Ardevora church-tower this morning." + +"Is it? Then we'll drink his health, ma'am, to show there's no +animosity." Captain John fetched a bottle of brandy and glasses and +mixed drinks for his guests. Then he took his seat, reached out for +flint and steel again, and says he very quietly-- + +"I wish the boys were at home. We'd have a bonfire." + +"Up to Walsall--that's where I come from," said the preacher, "we always +kept up His Majesty's birthday with a bonfire and fireworks. But you +don't seem so loyal in these parts." + +"Fireworks? Did you now?" Captain John set down the tinder-box and +rubbed his chin. "Well," said he, going to a cupboard, and glancing up +on his way at the tall clock, "as it happens I've a rocket or two here-- +though to be sure it seems like a waste, with nobody left in the Cove to +see or raise so much as a cheer." + +"It's the spirit of the thing that counts," said the preacher. + +"They've lain here so long," Captain John went on in a sort of musing +way, "they may be mildewed, for all I know." + +"You leave that to me," said the preacher; "I knows all about fireworks. +There don't seem nothing wrong about this one," he said, taking it and +fingering the fuse. "May I have a try with 'em?" + +"Try, and welcome. I don't understand these things for my part: I only +know they takes up a lot of room in the cupboard, and I'll be glad to +see the last of 'em." + +So out into the night they three went together. But when they had the +rocket fixed, Captain John was taken that poorly he had to come back and +sit in the chair, and rub his thighs and his stomach. And when, sitting +there, he heard the rocket go up, _whoosh!_ he had to rub them the +harder. + +"It went off capital!" called the preacher, popping his head in at the +door. "Can't us try another?" And now Captain John had to rub his eyes +before turning to him. "Take the lot," he said, and pushed the whole +bundle into the preacher's hands. "Aw, if King George had a few more +friends like you! Take the lot of 'em, loyal man!" He fairly thrust +him out to door, and had to lean a hand there before he could follow, +feeling weak all over to think of Collector Wearne and his men, and what +their faces must be like, down in the Revenue cutter; but he had no time +to taste the fun of it properly, for just then he heard Bessie Bussow's +voice outside asking questions all of a screech. The first rocket had +fetched her over hot-foot and agog, and the captain had to run out and +stop her tongue, and send her home with Ann Geen. But they didn't go +till the preacher had touched off every single rocket, stepping back +as they went _whoosh! whoosh!_ and waving his hat and crying, "God save +the King!" "God save the King!" cried Captain John after him, and +Bessie stood wondering if the end of the world had come, or the master +had gone clean out of his wits. + +The captain used to try and explain it afterwards when he told the +story. "You've seen a woman in hysterics," he'd say, "and you know how +a man feels when he wants to drop work and go on the drink for a week. +Well, 'twasn' exactly one or t'other with me, but a little like both. +I'm a level-headed tradesman, and known for such, but if ever that chap +walks into my house again, I'll be wise, and go straight out by the back +door and put myself under restraint." + +After the women had gone, he took the fellow back to the kitchen, and +sat putting questions to him in a reverent sort of voice, and eyeing him +as awesome as Billy Bennett when he hooked the mermaid, until the poor +creature talked himself sleepy, and asked to be shown to his room. +Captain Carter saw him to bed, came downstairs to the parlour again, and +spread himself on the sofa for forty winks; for between the boat dodging +out to sea and the pack-horses waiting ready up at Trenowl's farm above +the hill, there was no going to bed for him that night. + +He had been sleeping maybe for two hours, when a whistle fetched him to +his feet and out of the door like a scout. 'Twas nothing more nor less +than the boys' arrival signal, and this was what had happened. + +When the preacher's first rocket went off, the collector, down on board +the cutter, was taking his bit of supper in the cabin. At the sound of +it he rushed up the companion, and found all his crew on deck with their +necks cricked back, barring one man, who that moment popped his head up +through the fore-hatchway. "What on earth was that?" he asked. +"A rocket, sir," said the chief boatman; "just sent up from Prussia +Cove." Mr. Wearne couldn't find his breath for a moment; but when he +did, 'twas to say, "Very well, John Carter. I've a-got you this time, +my dandy! I don't quite understand how you come to be such a fool. +But that rocket costs you a hundred pounds, and if I'm not mistaken I'll +have your cargo 'pon top of it." + +The breeze still blew pretty steady, and he gave orders to stand out +into the bay, get an offing, and keep a sharp look-out as the moon rose. +He knew that all Carter's ordinary craft, except the sean-boat, were +quiet at anchor at Bessie's Cove; but he reckoned that the boat had gone +out this time to meet and unload a stranger. He never dreamed she would +be crossing all the way to Roscoff and back on her own account. +He knew, too, that Carter had a "spot" near Mousehole to fall back upon +when a landing at Prussia Cove couldn't be worked. So he stood out to +put the cutter on a line commanding both places, which, with the +soldier's wind then blowing, was easy enough; and as she pushed out her +nose past Cuddan Point the whole sky began to bang with rockets. + +This puzzled him fairly, as Carter knew it would. And it puzzled the +Cove boys in the sean-boat as they lay on their oars about three miles +from shore and discussed the first warning. But in one of the flashes +Captain Harry Carter, who was commanding, spied the cutter's sails quite +plain under the dark of the land, plain enough to see that she was +running out free. He knew that he couldn't have been seen by her in the +heave of the swell, for the sean-boat lay pretty low with her heavy +cargo, and he'd given her a lick of grey paint at Roscoff by way of +extra precaution. So, thought he, "A signal's a signal; but brother +John doesn't know what I know. Let the cutter stand out as she's going, +and we'll nip in round the tail of her. She can't follow into the Cove, +with her draught, even if she spies us; and by daybreak we'll have the +best part of the cargo landed." And so he did, muffling oars and +crossing over a mile to southward of the cutter, and after that way-all! +and pull for the Cove. + +The preacher at John Carter's, and Mrs. Geen at Bessie Bussow's, both +woke early next morning. But Mrs. Geen was first by a good hour, and +what pulled the preacher out of bed was the sound of guns. He put his +head out of window, and could hardly believe it was the peaceful place +he'd come upon last evening. The beach swarmed with men like emmets. +Near up, by high-water mark, men were unloading a long-boat for dear +life--some passing kegs, others slinging them to horses, others running +the horses up the cliff under his window. At first he thought it must +be their trampling had woke him out of sleep, but the next moment +_bang!_ the room shook all about him, a cloud of smoke drifted up +towards him from the Enys Point, and through it, while 'twas clearing, +he saw John Carter and another man run to the battery and begin to load +again, with Mrs. Geen behind them waving a rammer, and dancing like a +paper-woman in a cyclone. Below the mouth of the Cove tossed a boatload +of men, pulling and backing with their heads ducked, their faces on a +level with their shoulders, and all turned back towards the battery, +while a big red-faced man stood up in the stern-sheets shaking his fist +and dancing almost as excitedly as Mrs. Geen. Still farther out, a fine +cutter lay rocking on the swell, her bosom swinging and sails shaking in +the flat calm. + +The preacher dragged on his clothes somehow, tore out of the house and +down to the Point as fast as legs would carry him. "Wha--what's the +meanin' of this?" he screeched, rushing up to Captain John, who was +sighting one of his three little nine-pounders. + +"Blest if _I_ know!" said the captain. "We was a peaceable lot enough +till you and Mrs. Geen came a-visiting; but you two would play Hamlet's +ghost with a Quaker meeting." + +"It's my Phoby--they're after my Phoby!" screamed Mrs. Geen, and then +she turned on the fellow behind Captain John; it was Hosking, once a +man-of-war's man, and now supposed to be teaching her boy the carpentry +trade. "_This_ is what you bring en to, is it? You deceiver, you! +You bare-faced villain!" (The man had a beard as big as a furze bush.) +"Look at the poor lamb up there loadin' the hosses, and to think I bore +and reared en for this! If you let one of they fellows lay hands on my +Phoby I'll scratch out ivery eye in your head . . ." + +"Stand by, Tim," says the captain quietly. "Drat the boat! If she +keeps bobbiting about like that I shall hit her, sure 'nuff!" +_Bang!_ went the little gun, and kicked backwards clean over its +carriage. The shot whizzed about six feet above the boat, and plunged +into the heaving swell between it and the cutter. "Bit too near, that. +I don't want to hurt Roger Wearne, though he _do_ make such tempting, +ugly faces." + +"But what do they want? What are they after?" stuttered the preacher. + +"They're after my Phoby!" cried Mrs. Geen. + +"Not a bit of it," said Captain John good-humouredly. "From all I can +see it's the preacher here they want to collar." + +"_Me!_" screams the poor man--"_me!_" + +"Well, if you _will_ go letting off rockets. I dunno what it costs up +to Walsall, or wherever you come from, but down in these parts 'tis a +hundred pound or twelve calendar months." + +The preacher turned white and began to shake all of a sudden like a +leaf. "But I didn't mean--I had no idea--you don't intend to tell me--" +he stammered. + +"Here, Tummels!" Captain John hailed a man who came running down to lend +a hand with the guns. "Take the preacher here and fix him on one of the +horses; sling a keg each side of him if he looks like tumbling off. +Sorry to hurry you, sir," he explained; "but 'tis for your good. +You must clear out of this before the officers get sight of your face, +and I don't know how much longer I can frighten 'em off. When you get +up to Trenowl you can cast loose and run, and it mayn't be time wasted +if you make up an _alibi_ as you go along. It don't seem hospitable, I +grant ee, but as a smuggler you're too enterprising for this little +out-o'-the-way cove." + +Tummels led the preacher away in too much of a daze to answer. +He opened his mouth, but at that moment _bang!_ went Hosking with +another of the guns. By and by Captain John let out a chuckle as he saw +the poor man moving up the cliff track, swaying between two kegs and +clutching at his horse's mane every time Tummels smacked the beast on +the rump. The horse he rode was almost the last. By seven o'clock the +boys had cleared the whole of their cargo, and still the preventive boat +hung in the mouth of the Cove, pulling and backing and waiting for the +chance Captain John never allowed them. + +You see, Captain Harry, having dodged in behind the cutter without being +spied, had a pretty start with the unloading. When day broke, Mr. +Wearne, finding no sean-boat or suspicious craft in sight, and allowing +that there was no fear of another attempt before nightfall, had stood +down again for Prussia Cove, meaning to send in a boat (for the cutter +drew too much water) and have it out with Captain Carter about the +rockets. You can fancy his face when he came abreast the entrance and +found the boys working like a hive of bees. As for resistance, the King +always swore he hadn't an idea of it till Mrs. Geen put it into his +head. The battery was never intended for more than show. "She's a +wonderful woman," he declared; but he had a monstrous respect for all +the Lemals. "Blood in every one of 'em," he said. + +But, of course, the fun wasn't finished yet. Soon after seven, and +after the last of the cargo had been salved under their eyes, the +preventive men drew off. By a quarter past eight Wearne had worked the +cutter in as close as he dared, and then opened fire with his guns. +The first shot struck the 'taty-patch in front of Carter's house; the +second plunked into the water not fifteen yards from the gun's muzzle. +In the swell running she could make no practice at all, though she kept +it up till midday. The boys behind the battery ran out and cheered +whenever one flew extra wide, and this made Wearne mad. Will Richards, +Tummels, and young Phoby Geen posted themselves in shelter behind the +captain's house, and whenever a shot buried itself in the soft cliff one +of them would run with a tubbal and dig it out. All this time Uncle +Bill Leggo, having finished loading up the kegs, was carting water from +the stream on the beach to the kitchen garden above the house, and his +old sister Nan leading the horses (for it was a two-horse job). +Richards called to him to leave out, it was too dangerous. "Now there," +said Uncle Bill, "I've been thinkin' of Nan and the hosses this brave +while!" + +At noon Wearne ceased firing, and sent off a boat towards Penzance. +The Cove boys still held the battery; and the two parties had their +dinners, lit their pipes and studied each other all the long +after-noon. But towards five o'clock a riding company arrived to help +the law, and opened a musket fire on the rear of the battery from the +hedge at the top of the hill. The game was up now. The boys scattered +and took shelter in Bessie Bussow's house, and Captain John, having +hoisted a flag of truce, waited for Wearne and his boat with all the +calmness in life. + +"A pretty day's work this!" was the collector's first word as he stepped +ashore. + +"Amusin' from first to last," agreed Captain John in his cordial way. + +Says the collector slowly, "Well, tastes differ. You may be right, of +course, but we'll begin at the beginning, and see how it works out. +First, then, at nine forty-five last night you showed an unauthorised +light for the purpose of cheating the revenue. Cost of that caper, one +hundred pounds." + +"Be you talkin' of the rockets?" + +"'Course I be." + +"Well then, _I_ didn't fire them, nor anyone belongin' to the Cove. +I didn't set anyone to fire them, and they waren't fired to warn +anybody. Let alone I have proof they was sent up by a Methody preacher +to relieve his feelin's. You've known me too long, Roger Wearne, to +think me fool enough to waste a whole future joy[3] over so simple a +business as warnin' a boat." + +"What are you tellin' me?" + +"The truth, as I always do; and I advise you to believe it, or 'twon't +be the first time you've seen too far into a brick wall." + +Wearne knew well enough what Captain John meant. Just a year before he +had paid a surprise visit to the Cove, ferreted out a locked shed and +asked to be shown what was inside. The King refused. "It held +nothing," he said, "but provisions for his brother Henry's vessel." +Of course Wearne couldn't believe this; a locked store in Prussia Cove +was much too sure a thing. So first he argued, and then he broke the +door open, and, sure enough, found innocent provisions inside just as +he'd been promised. Next morning the shed was empty. "Didn' I warn +'ee," said John, "against breaking in that door and leaving my property +exposed. Now I'll have to make 'ee pay for it;" and pay for it Wearne +did. + +"All I know," the captain went on, "is that a Methody preacher paid me a +visit last night, with the objic (so far as I can make out, for things +have been movin' so fast I hadn't time to question en as I wished) o' +teachin' me what was due to King George. In pursooance o' which--it +being His Majesty's birthday--he took and fired a dozen rockets I keep +on the off-chance of wantin' one of these days to signal the Custom +House at Penzance. I own 'twas a funny thing to do, but folks takes +their patriotism different. I daresay, now, _you_ didn't even remember +'twas His Majesty's birthday." + +Wearne tried a fresh tack. "We'll take that yarn later on," he said. +"You can't deny a cargo was run this morning." + +"We'll allow it for the moment. But that only proves that no boat was +warned away." + +"And when I sent a boat in to capture it, you deliberately opened fire; +in other words, tried to murder me, His Majesty's representative." + +"Tried to murder you? Look here." Captain John stepped to one of his +still loaded guns and pointed it carefully at a plank floating out at +the mouth of the Cove--a plank knocked by the cutter's guns out of Uncle +Bill Leggo's 'taty patch, and now drifting out to sea on the first of +the ebb. He pointed the gun carefully, let fly, and knocked the bit of +wood to flinders. "That's what I do when I try," he said. "Why, bless +'ee, I was no more in earnest than _you_ were!" + +This made Wearne blush for his marksmanship. "But _you'll_ have to +prove that," he said. + +"Why, damme," said John Carter, and fined himself another sixpence on +the spot; "if you are so partic'ler, _get out there in the boat again, +and I will_." + +Well, the upshot was that after some palaver Wearne agreed to walk up to +the captain's house and reckon the accounts between them. He had missed +a pretty haul and been openly defied. On the other hand he hadn't a man +hurt, and he knew the King's Government still owed John Carter for a +lugger he had lent two years before to chase a French privateer lying +off Ardevora. Carter had sent the lugger round at Wearne's particular +request; she was short handed, and after a running fight of three or +four hours the Frenchman put in a shot which sent her to the bottom and +drowned fourteen hands. For this, as Wearne knew, he had never received +proper compensation. I fancy the two came to an agreement to set one +thing against another and call quits. At any rate, John was put to no +further annoyance over that day's caper. As for the preacher, I'm told +that no person in these parts ever set eyes on him again. And Ann Geen +drove home that evening with her Phoby beside her. "I'm sorry to let +'ee go, my son," said John; "but 'twould never do for me to have your +mother comin' over here too often. I've a great respect for all the +Lemals; but on the female side they be too frolicsome for a steady-going +trade like mine." + + +[1] Drinking-house. +[2] Huguenot's house. +[3] Feu de joie. + + + +THE MAN WHO COULD HAVE TOLD. + + +It was ten o'clock--a sunny, gusty morning in early September--when +H.M.S. _Berenice_, second-class cruiser, left the Hamoaze and pushed +slowly out into the Sound on her way to the China Seas. + +From the Hoe, on a grassy slope below the great hotel, John Gilbart +watched her as she thrust her long white side into view between Devil's +Point and the wooded slopes of Mount Edgcumbe; watched her as she stole +past Drake's Island and headed up the Asia passage. She kept little +more than steerage way, threading her path among anchored yachts gay +with bunting, and now and then politely slowing in the crowd of smaller +craft under sail. For it was regatta morning. The tall club flagstaff +behind and above Gilbart's head wore its full code of signals, with blue +ensign on the gaff and blue burgee at the topmast head, and fluttered +them intermittently as the nor'westerly breeze broke down in flaws over +the leads of the club-house. Below him half a dozen small boys with +bundles of programmes came skirmishing up the hill through the sparse +groups of onlookers. Off the promenade pier, where the excursion +steamers bumped and reeked and blew their sirens, the committee-ship lay +moored in a moving swarm of rowboats, dingies, and steam-launches. She +flew her B signal as yet, but the seconds were drawing on toward the +five-minute gun; and beyond, on the ruffled Sound, nine or ten yachts +were manoeuvring and trimming their canvas; two forty-raters dodging and +playing through the opening stage of their duel for the start; four or +five twenties taking matters easy as yet; all with jackyards hoisted. +To the eastward a couple of belated twenties came creeping out from +their anchorage in Cattewater. + +All this Gilbart's gaze took in; with the stately merchantmen riding +beyond the throng, and the low breakwater three miles away, and the blue +horizon beyond all. Out of that blue from time to time came the low, +jarring vibration which told of an unseen gunboat at practice; and from +time to time a puff of white smoke from the Picklecombe battery held him +listening for its louder boom. But he returned always to the _Berenice_ +moving away up the Asia passage, so cautiously that between whiles she +seemed to be drifting; but always moving, with the smoke blown level +from her buff-coloured funnels, with clean white sides and clean white +ensign, and here and there a sparkle of sunlight on rail or gun-breech +or torpedo-tube. She was bound on a three-years' cruise; and Gilbart, +who happened to know this and was besides something of a sentimentalist, +detected pathos in this departure on a festival morning. It seemed to +him--as she swung round her stern and his quick eye caught the glint of +her gilded name with the muzzle of her six-inch gun on the platform +above, foreshortened in the middle of its white screen like a bull's-eye +in a target--it seemed to him that this holiday throng took little heed +of the three hundred odd men so silently going forth to do England's +work and fight her battles. On her deck yesterday afternoon he had +shaken hands and parted with a friend, a stoker on board, and had seen +some pitiful good-byes. His friend Casey, to be sure, was unmarried--an +un-amiable man with a cynical tongue--with no one to regret him and no +disposition to make a fuss over a three-years' exile. But at the head +of the ship's ladder Gilbart had passed through a group of red-eyed +women, one or two with babies at the breast. It was not a pretty sight: +one poor creature had abandoned herself completely, and rocked to and +fro holding on by the bulwarks and bellowing aloud. This and a vision +of dirty wet handkerchiefs haunted him like a physical sickness. + +Gilbart considered himself an Imperialist, read his newspaper +religiously, and had shown great loyalty as secretary of a local +sub-committee at the time of the Queen's Jubilee, in collecting +subscriptions among the dockyardsmen. Habitually he felt a lump in his +throat when he spoke of the Flag. His calling--that of lay-assistant +and auxiliary preacher (at a pinch) to a dockyard Mission--perhaps +encouraged this surface emotion; but by nature he was one of those who +need to make a fuss to feel they are properly patriotic. To his +thinking every yacht in the Sound should have dipped her flag to +the _Berenice_. + +Surely even a salute of guns would not have been too much. But no: that +is the way England dismisses her sons, without so much as a cheer! + +He felt ashamed of this cold send-off; ashamed for his countrymen. +"What do they know or care?" he asked himself, fastening his scorn on +the backs of an unconscious group of country-people who had raced one +another uphill from an excursion steamer and halted panting and laughing +half-way up the slope. It irritated him the more when he thought of +Casey's pale, derisive face. He and Casey had often argued about +patriotism; or rather he had done the arguing while Casey sneered. +Casey was a stoker, and knew how fuel should be applied. + +Casey made no pretence to love England. Gilbart never quite knew why he +tolerated him. But so it was: they had met in the reading-room of a +Sailors' Home, and had somehow struck up an acquaintance, even a sort of +unacknowledged friendship. Their common love of books may have helped; +for Casey--Heaven knew where or how--had picked up an education far +above Gilbart's, and amazing in a common stoker. Also he wore some +baffling, attractive mystery behind his reserve. Once or twice-- +certainly not half a dozen times--he had at a casual word pulled open +for an instant the doors of his heart and given Gilbart a sensation of +looking into a furnace, into white-hot depths, sudden and frightening. +But what chiefly won him was the knowledge that in some perverse, +involuntary and quite inexplicable way he was liked by this sullen +fellow, who had no other friend and sought none. He knew the liking to +be there as surely as he knew it to be shy and sullen, curt in +expression, contemptuous of itself. Had he ever troubled to examine +himself honestly, Gilbart must have acknowledged himself Casey's +inferior in all but amiability; and Casey no doubt knew this. But in +friendship as in love there is usually one who likes and one who suffers +himself to be liked, and the positions are not allotted by merit. +Gilbart--a self-deceiver all his life--had accepted the compliment +complacently enough. + +The _Berenice_ cleared the crowd and quickened her speed as the +five-minute gun puffed out from the committee-ship and the Blue Peter +ran up the halyards in the smoke. Gilbart turned his attention upon the +two big yachts and followed their movements until the starting-gun was +fired; saw them haul up and plunge over the line so close together that +the crews might have shaken hands; watched them as they fluttered out +their spinnakers for the run to the eastern mark, for all the world like +two great white moths floating side by side swiftly but with no show of +hurry. When he returned to the cruiser she was far away, almost off the +western end of the breakwater--gone, so far as he was concerned and +whoever else might be watching her from the shore; the parting over, the +threads torn and snapped, her crew face to face now with the long +voyage. + +He drew a long breath, and was aware for the first time of a woman +standing about twenty yards on his left behind a group of chattering +holiday-makers. He saw at a glance that she did not belong to them, but +was gazing after the _Berenice_; a forlorn, tearless figure, with a +handkerchief crumpled up into a ball in her hand. Affability was a part +of Gilbart's profession, and besides, he hated to see a woman suffer. +He edged toward her and lifted his hat. + +"I hope," said he, "these persons are not annoying you? They don't +understand, of course. I, too, have a friend on the _Berenice_." + +The woman looked at him as though she heard but could not for the moment +grasp what he said. She tightened her grip on the handkerchief and kept +her lips firmly compressed. + +Gilbart saw that, though tearless, her eyes wore traces of tears--no +redness, but some swelling of the lids, with dark semicircles +underneath. + +"To them," he went on, nodding toward the holiday-keepers, "it's only +regatta day. To them she's only a passing ship helping to make up the +pretty scene. They know nothing of the gallant hearts she carries or +the sore ones she leaves behind. If they knew, I wonder if they'd care? +The ordinary Anglo-Saxon has so little imagination!" + +She was staring at him now, and at length seemed to understand. +But with understanding there grew in her eyes a look of anger, almost of +repugnance. "Oh, please go away!" she said. + +He lifted his hat and obeyed; indeed, he walked off to the farthest end +of the Hoe. He was hurt. He had a thin-skinned vanity, and hated to +look small even before a stranger. That snub poisoned his morning, and +although he looked at the yachts, his mind ran all the time upon the +encounter. To be sure he had brought it upon himself, but he preferred +to consider that he had meant kindly--had obviously meant kindly. +He tried to invent a retort,--a gentle, dignified retort which would +have touched her to a regret for her injustice--nothing more. +Perhaps it was not yet too late to return and convey his protest under a +delicate apology; or perhaps the mere sight of him, casually passing, +might move her to make amends. He even strolled back some way with this +idea, but she had disappeared. + +The _Berenice_ had vanished too; around Penlee Point no doubt. +He remembered the field-glasses slung in a case by his hip and was +fumbling with the leather strap when a drop of rain fell on his hand, +the herald of a smart shower. A dark squall came whistling down the +Hamoaze; and standing there in the fringe of it he saw it strike and +spread itself out like a fan over the open Sound at his feet, blotting +the sparkle out of the water, while some of the small boats heeled to it +and others ran up into the wind and lay shaking. It was over in five +minutes, and the sun broke out again before the rain ceased falling; but +Gilbart decided that there was more to follow. He had not come out to +keep holiday, and an unfinished manuscript waited for him in his +lodgings--an address on True Manliness, to be delivered two evenings +hence in the Mission Room to lads under eighteen. Though he delivered +them without manuscript, Gilbart always prepared his addresses carefully +and kept the fair copies in his desk. He lived in hope of being +reported some day, and then--who could say but a book might be called +for? + +His lodgings lay midway down a long, dreary street of small houses, each +with a small yard at the back, each built of brick and stuccoed, all as +like as peas, all inhabited by dockyardsmen or the families of gunners, +artificers, and petty officers in the navy. Prospect Place was its +deceptive name, and it ran parallel with three precisely similar +thoroughfares--Grafton Place, Alderney Place, and Belvedere Avenue. +These four--with a cross-street, where the Mission Room stood facing a +pawnbroker's--comprised Gilbart's field of labour. + +He reached home a little after twelve, ate his dinner, and fell to work +on his manuscript. By half-past three he had finished all but the +peroration. Gilbart prided himself on his perorations; and knowing from +experience that it helped him to ideas and phrases he caught up his hat +and went out for a walk. + +During that walk he did indeed catch and fix the needed sentences. +But, as it happened, he was never afterward able to recall one of them. +All he remembered was that much rain must have fallen; for the pavements +which had been dry in the morning were glistening, and the roadways +muddy and with standing puddles. On his way homeward each of these +puddles reflected the cold, pure light of the dying day, until Prospect +Place might have been a street in the New Jerusalem, paved with jasper, +beryl, and chrysoprase. So much he remembered, and also that his feet +must have taken him back to the Hoe, where the crowd was thicker and the +regatta drawing to an end--a few yachts only left to creep home under a +greenish sky, out of which the wind was fast dying. He had paused +somewhere to listen to a band: he could give no further account to +himself. + +For this was what had happened: as he entered his lodgings and closed +the front door, the letter-box behind it fell open and he saw a sealed +envelope lying inside. He picked it out and read the address. + +"Mrs. Wilcox!" he called down the passage. "When did this come?" + +Mrs. Wilcox, appearing at the kitchen door and wiping her hands, could +not tell. The midday post or else the three o'clock. There were no +others. Come to think of it, she had heard a postman's knock when she +was dishing up the dinner, but had supposed it to be next door. +It sounded like next door. + +Gilbart took the letter upstairs with him. The address was in Casey's +handwriting. "Queer fellow, Casey." He broke the seal in the little +bay window. "Just like him, though, to shake hands yesterday without a +spark of feeling, and then send his good-byes to reach me after he was +well on his way." He drew out the inclosure, unfolded it, and saw that +the paper bore the printed address of the Sailors' Home where Casey +dossed when ashore, and where writing-paper was supplied gratis. +"Couldn't have come ashore after I left him: he'd paid his bill at the +Rest and his bag was aboard. Must have had this in his pocket all the +time; might just as well have handed it to me--with instructions not to +open it--and saved the stamp. What a secretive old chap it is!" + +He held the letter close to his eyes in the waning daylight. + + + "DEAR JOHN,--By the time this reaches you we shall have started; + and by then, or a little later, I shall have gone and the + Berenice with me. If you ask where, I don't know; but it is where + we shall never meet. + + "You serve your country in your own way. I am going to serve mine. + Perhaps I shall also be serving yours; for it is only by striking + terribly and without warning that the brave men in this world can + get even with the cowards who make its laws. + + "One thing I envy you--you'll be alive to see the rage of the sheep. + I am playing this hand alone and without help. So when your silly + newspapers begin to cry out about secret societies, _you will + know_. I never belonged to one in my life. + + "I think I am sorriest about the way you'll think of me. But that + makes no real difference, because I know it to be foolish. I have + the stuff on board and the little machine. I cannot fix the time + to an hour up or down; but you may take it for sure that _some time + between 10 p.m. and midnight the_ Berenice _will be at the bottom of + the sea_ with + + "Yours, P. C." + +While John Gilbart read this there was silence in the stuffy little +room, and for some minutes after. Then he stepped to the mantelpiece +for the match-box and candle. A small ormolu clock ticked there, and +while he groped for the matches he put out a hand to stop the noise, +which had suddenly grown intolerable. He desisted, remembering that he +did not know how the clock worked--that Mrs. Wilcox, who wound it up +religiously on Monday mornings, was proud of it, and--anyway, _that_ +wasn't the machine he wanted to stop. He found a match, lit it and held +it close to the letter. + +The match burned low, scorched his fingers. He dropped it in the +fender, where it flickered out, just missing the "waterfall" of shavings +with which Mrs. Wilcox decorated her fireplace in the summer months. +He did not light another, but went back to the window and stood there, +quite still. + +Down the street to the westward, over the wet roofs still glimmering in +the twilight, one pale green rift divided the heavy clouds, and in that +rift the last of the daylight was dying. Across the way, in the house +facing him, a woman was lighting a lamp. As a rule the inhabitants of +Prospect Place did not draw the blinds of their upper rooms until they +closed the shutters also and went to bed: and Gilbart looked straight +into the little parlour. But he saw nothing. + +He was trying--vainly trying--to bring his mind to it. Nothing really +big had happened to him before: and his first feeling, +characteristically selfish, was that this terrible thing had risen up to +alter all the rest of his life. He must disentangle himself, get away +to a distance and have a look at it. His brain was buzzing. Yes, there +it rose, like a black wall between this moment and all the hours to +come; a brute barrier stretching clean across the prospect. Again and +again he brought his mind up to it as you might coax a horse up to a +fence; again and again it refused. Each time in the last few steps his +heart froze, extending its chill until every separate faculty hung back +springless and inert. And there was no getting round! + +Why had this happened to _him_ of all people? It never for a moment +occurred to him to doubt Casey's word. He saw it now; hideous as the +deed was, Casey was capable of it--had always been capable of it. +Let it go for a miserable tribute to Casey's honesty in the past that +Gilbart accepted the infernal statement at once and without suspicion. +He knew now that from the bottom of their intercourse this candid devil +had been grinning up at him all the time; only his own cowardly, +comfortable habit of seeing the world as he wished it had kept his eyes +turned from the truth. Men don't as a rule commit crimes; not one man +in millions translates himself into a crime of this sort; the odds +against his daring it are only to be told in millions. Yet it had +happened. Man or devil, Casey never paltered with his creed; if the +world differed from him, then it was Casey against the world; a hopeless +business for him, yet he would get in a blow if possible. And Casey had +got in his blow. The incredible had happened; but (Gilbart groaned) why +had it happened to _him?_ In his stupefaction he returned again and +again upon this, catching in the flood at that one little straw of self; +not inhumanly, as callous to the ruin of others; but pitifully, meanly, +because it was the one thing familiar in the roar and din. He cursed +Casey; cursed him for betraying his friendship. The man had no right-- +He pulled up suddenly, with a laugh. After all, Casey had played the +game, had faced the music, and would go down with the _Berenice_. +One soul against three hundred and fifty, perhaps; not what you would +call atonement; but, after all, the best he had to offer. Wonder how +many Samson pulled down with him at Gaza? Wonder if the Bible says? + +"Beg pardon, Mr. Gilbart?" + +It was Mrs. Wilcox standing in the doorway with his tea on a tray. + +"It--it was nothing," he stammered. She must have heard his laugh. + +"Talking to yourself? I often hear you at it over your sermons and +things; sometimes at your dressing, too; I hears you when I'm in here +doing up the room. You'd like the lamp lit, I suppose?" She set down +the tray. + +"Not just yet." + +"Well, it's a bad habit, reading with your meals." + +"It's not worth while to bring a lamp. I must drink my tea in a hurry, +and run out. I have an engagement." + +He heard her go out and close the door. "Casey had no right. It was a +betrayal. If the man were bent on this infernal crime--put the atrocity +of it aside for a moment--call it just an ordinary crime; . . . but why +need he have written that letter? Why involve _him?_ Well, not +involve, perhaps; still there was a kind of responsibility--" + +His eyes had been fastened on the little parlour across the road. +The woman after lighting the lamp had set it in the centre of a round +table and left the room. Between this table and the hearth an old man +sat in an arm-chair, smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper. The back +of the chair was turned toward the window, but over it Gilbart could see +the crown of a grey head and small, steady puffs of smoke ascending +between it and the upper edge of the paper. A light appeared in the +room above; the light of a candle behind the drawn blind. It lasted +there perhaps for ten minutes, and once the woman's shadow moved across +the blind. + +The light went out, and after a minute or two the woman reappeared in +the parlour. She carried a work-basket, and after speaking a word with +the old man in the chair she set the basket down on the table, drew up a +chair and began to darn a child's stocking. Now and then she looked up +as if listening for some sound or movement in the room overhead, but +after a moment or two began to ply her needle again. The needle moved +more slowly--stopped--she bowed her head over the stocking. +Gilbart knew why. She was the wife of a petty officer on the +_Berenice_. The old man in the chair went on reading. + +All this while a light had been growing in Gilbart's brain, and now he +saw. In this street, and the next, and the next, lived scores who had +sons, husbands, brothers on board the _Berenice_; thin walls of brick +and plaster dividing to-night their sore hearts and their prayers; a +whole town with its hopes and its happy days given into keeping of one +ship; not its love only but its trust for life's smallest comforts +following her as she moved away through the darkness. And he alone +knew! He had only to throw open the window--to fling four words into +that silent street--to shout, "The _Berenice_ is lost!"--and with the +breath of it windows would fly open, partitions fall down, and all those +privacies meet and answer in one terrible outcry. He put up a hand to +thrust it away--this awful gift of power. He would have none of it; he +was unfit. "Oh, my God!"--it was he, not Casey, who held the real +infernal machine. It was here, not in the _Berenice_, that the levin +must fall; and he, John Gilbart, held it in his fingers. "Oh, my God, I +am unfit--thrust not this upon me!" + +But there was no escape. He must take his hat and run--run to the Port +Admiral. The errand was useless, he knew; for all the while at the back +of his soul's confusion some practical corners of his brain had been +working at the problem of time--was there time to follow and prevent? +There was not. He knew the _Berenice's_ natural speed to be eighteen +knots. Put it at sixteen, fifteen even; still not the fastest destroyer +in the port--following in a bee-line--could overtake her by midnight. +And there might be, must be, delays. Yet God, too, might interfere; +some providential accident might delay the cruise. _He_ must run, at +any rate. He picked up his hat and ran. + +Now that he was taking action--doing something--the worst horror of +responsibility left him for a while; he seemed to have cast some of it +already off his own shoulders and on to the Admiral's. As he ran he +found time to think of Casey. Casey was doing this thing--not in hatred +or in villainy for gain--but because it seemed to him right--right, or +at least necessary. Casey was laying down his own life in the deed. +How could man, framed in God's image, expect ultimate good out of +devilish cruelty? Yet from the world's beginning men had murdered and +tortured each other on this only plea; had butchered women and the very +babes; had stamped upon God's image and--marvel of marvels--for its +soul's salvation, not for their own advantage. At every stride Gilbart +felt his moral footing, trusted for years without question, cracking and +crumbling and swirling away in blocks. Red flames leapt into the +fissures and filled them. The end of the world had surely come; but--he +must run to the Admiral! He kept that uppermost in his mind, and ran. + +The windows of the Admiralty House blazed with light. The Admiral's +wife was giving a dinner and a dance, and already a small crowd had +gathered to see the earlier guests arrive. The sight dashed Gilbart. +Suddenly he remembered that the letter had reached him by the afternoon +post. It was now half-past seven, and he would have to explain the +interval; for of course the Admiral would suspect the whole story at +first. Gilbart knew the official manner; he had been privileged to +study the fine flower of it in this particular Admiral one afternoon six +months before, when the great man had condescended to sit on the +platform at the Mission anniversary. "Tut, tut--a stupid practical joke +"--that would be the beginning; and then would follow cross-examination +in the coldest court-martial fashion. Well, he could explain; but it +would be just as well to have the story pat beforehand. + +One minute--ten minutes went by. Cabs rattled up and private carriages; +officers in glittering uniforms, ladies muffled in silk and swansdown +stepped past the policeman behind whom Gilbart hesitated. This would +never do; better he had gone in with the story hot on his lips. +He twitched the policeman's elbow. + +"May I pass, please? I want to see the Admiral." + +"That's likely, ain't it?" + +"But I have a message for him; an urgent one--one that won't keep a +moment!" + +"Why, I have seen you hanging round here this quarter hour with these +very eyes! 'Won't keep'? Here, you get out!" + +"I tell you--" + +"Oh, deliver us!" the policeman interrupted. "What's the matter with +you? Come to keep the Admiral's dinner cold while you hand over command +of the Channel Fleet?" He winked heavily at one or two of the nearest +in the crowd, and they laughed. + +Gilbart eyed them savagely. He had a word in his mouth which would stop +their laughing; and for one irrational moment he was near speaking it, +near launching against half a dozen loafers the bolt which only to hold +and handle had aged him ten years in an hour. The word was even on his +tongue when a carriage passed and at its open window a young girl leaned +forward and looked out on the crowd. Her face in the light of the +entrance-lamp was exquisitely fair, delicately rose and white as the +curved inner lip of a sea-shell. At her throat, where her cloak-collar +fell back a little, showing its quilted lining of pale blue satin, a +diamond necklace shimmered, and a rosebud of diamonds in her hair +sparkled so that it seemed to dance. It caught Gilbart's eye, and +somehow it seemed to lift and remove her and the house she was +entering--the lit windows, the guests, the Admiral himself--into another +world. If it were real, then (like enough) this fragile thing, this +Dresden goddess, owned a brother, perhaps a lover, on board the +_Berenice_. If so, here was another world waiting to be shattered--a +world of silks and toys and pretty uniforms and tiny bric-a-brac--a sort +of doll's house inhabited by angels at play. But could it be real? +Could such a world exist and be liable as his own to _It_? Could the +same brutal touch destroy this fabric and the sordid privacies of +Prospect Place--all in a run like a row of card-houses? + +"Never you mind _'im_, Mister Gilbart," said a voice at his elbow, and +he turned and looked in the face of a girl who, in an interval of +dressmaking, had once helped him with his district work. + +"Him?" + +"The peeler," Milly Sanders nodded; and it flashed on Gilbart that the +policeman's joke, the carriage, the girl's face and these thoughts of +his had all gone by in something less than ten seconds. "He've got the +'ump to-night, that's what's the matter with 'im." And Milly Sanders +nodded again reassuringly. + +"What are you doing here?" Gilbart asked. + +"Me? Oh, it's in the way of business, as you might say. I comes here +to pick up 'ints. I s'pose now you thought 'twasn't very +feelin'-'earted, and my Dick gone away foreign only this mornin'?" + +He remembered now that the girl's zeal for Mission work had cooled ever +since she had been walking-out with her Dick--a young stoker in the +_Berenice_. + +"I reckon that's the last of the dinner-guests. The others won't be +comin' much before ten. Well, I'm off to the 'Oe; there's going to be +fireworks, and that's the best place for seein'." + +"In the way of business, too, I suppose?" said Gilbart, and wondered how +he could say it. + +Milly giggled. "You 'ad me there," she confessed. "But what's the good +to give way? I'm sure"--with conviction--"it's just what Dick would +like me to do. I'm going, anyway. So long!" She paused: "that is-- +unless you'd like to come along, too?" + +It was, after all, astonishingly easy. Even if he found and convinced +the Admiral, nothing could be done. Why then should he hasten all this +misery? Was it not, rather, an act of large mercy to hold back the +news? Say that by holding his tongue he delayed it by twenty-four +hours; life after all was made up of days and not so very many of them. +By silence then--it stood to reason--he gained from woe a clear day for +hundreds. Meanwhile here stood one of those hundreds. Might he not +give her, under the very shadow of fate, an hour or two of actual, +positive happiness? He told himself this, knowing all the while that he +lied. He knew that the thing was easier to put off than to do. He knew +that he took Milly's arm in his not to comfort her (although he meant to +do this, too) but to drug his own conscience, and because he was mad-- +yes, mad--for human company and support. For hours--it seemed for +weeks--he had been isolated, alone with that secret and his own soul. +He could bear it no longer; he must ease the torment--only for a +little--then perhaps he would go back to the Admiral. Chatter was what +he wanted, the sound of a fellow-creature's voice, babbling no matter +what. He knew also that he bought this respite at a price, and the +price must be paid terribly when he came to wake. And yet he found it +astonishingly easy to take Milly's arm. + +"But I say," she rattled on, "you must be soft!" + +"Why?" He was drinking in the sound of her words, letting the sense run +by him. + +"Why, to suppose the Admiral would see you at this time. What was it +about?" + +"Please go on talking." + +"Well, I am. What did you want to see the Admiral for? Some Mission +business, I s'pose. . . .Oh, you needn't tell if you don't choose; I'm +not dying to hear." + +They stood side by side on the Hoe, watching the fireworks. Three or +four searchlights were playing over the Sound, turned now upon the +anchored craft, now upward, following the rockets, and again downward, +crisscrossing their white rays as if to catch the dropping +multi-coloured stars. "O--o--oh!" exclaimed Milly, as each shower of +rockets exploded. "But what makes you jump like that?" + +"I say," he asked after a time, "since we've come to enjoy ourselves why +not do the thing thoroughly? What do you say to the theatre after +this?" + +"The theatre! Well, you are gettin' on! That would be 'eavenly. +They've got the 'Charity Girl' on this week--Gertie Lennox dancing. +But don't you disapprove of that sort of thing?" + +"So I--I mean I don't make a practice of it. But perhaps--once in a +way--" + +"I love it; though 'tisn't often I gets the chance. I dunno what Dick +would say, though." + +She said it archly, meaning to suggest that Dick might be jealous. +John Gilbart misunderstood. + +"But that's foolish. Why not to-night as well as any other night? +What difference can it make to--to--" He broke off, laughing a little +wildly. "We'll go and give each other moral support. We'll take +tickets for the pit--no, the dress circle!" + +"The dress circle!" There was awe in Milly's voice; her hand went up to +her head. "They make you take your 'at off there. Oh, I couldn't!" +But he caught her by the arm and hurried her off almost at a run--the +girl giggling and panting and beginning to enjoy herself amazingly. + +The performance had begun; but they found seats in the front row of the +dress circle, almost before she had ceased panting, and Milly was +unpinning her hat and glancing up at the gallery on the chance of an +envious friendly recognition. The lights, the colours, the clash of +brass in the orchestra made Gilbart's head spin. A stout _tenore +robusto_ in the uniform of a naval lieutenant was parading the stage in +halos of mauve and green lime-light, and bawling his own praises to a +semicircle of females. Gilbart's ear caught and retained but a line or +two of their shrill chorus: + + Through the world so wide + He's old England's pride, + But we'er glad now he's come back: + For he's dressed in blue, + And he's always true-- + Heaven bless you, dear old Jack! + +The sentiments of this ditty did not materially differ from those which +Gilbart was in the habit of assimilating from his morning newspaper; nor +were they much more fatuously expressed. Twenty-four hours ago he might +even have applauded them as noisily as anyone in the enraptured house. +Now his gorge rose against the song, the complacent singer, the men and +women who could be amused by such things. Could this be what they +called the joy of living? Milly's eyes had begun to sparkle. He forgot +that in this very contempt the theatre was providing what he had come to +seek--a drug for conscience. And before he recognised this the drug was +weakening. Horribly, stealthily, _It_ began to reassert itself. These +people--what would happen if he stood up in his place and shouted _It?_ +His mind played with the temptation; he saw white faces, men standing +and looking up at him, the performance on the stage arrested, the +orchestra mute; almost he heard his voice ring out over the sudden +frozen consternation. No; he gripped the velvet cushion before him. "I +must sit it out. I will sit it out." + +And he did, though he suffered horribly. Milly found him a desperately +dull companion, but luckily her neighbours' dresses and ornaments +diverted her between the acts. She would have liked an orange; but it +appeared that oranges were not eaten in the dress circle. + +Outside the theatre door in the great portico Gilbart flung up both +hands and let out a long, shuddering sigh. + +"My! What's the matter with you?" asked Milly. + +"Come along and have some supper." + +He led her to a supper-room. "Well, you do know how to do things," she +said. But it frightened her when he ordered champagne. She looked at +him nervously. "I've never tasted it," she confessed; "and"--with a +glance around the room--"and I don't think I like it." + +She drank her glassful, however, while he finished the pint bottle. +Then she picked up her worn gloves. + +"Must we be going?" The end had come and worse torment must begin. + +"Of course we must; and 'igh time too, if you knew what mother'll say +when I get home. You mustn't think I 'aven't enjoyed myself, though," +she added, "because I 'ave." + +Out in the street as they walked arm in arm she unbent still further. +"I shall tell mother, of course. She won't mind when she knows it's +you, because you're so respectable. But girls 'ave to be careful." + +At her door she paused before saying good-night. She loved Dick, of +course; but she wondered a little what Mr. Gilbart meant. His manner +had been so queer when he said, "Must we be going?" + +For a moment she waited, half expecting him to say something, meaning to +be angry if he said it. Such was her crude idea of coquettishness. +But John Gilbart merely shook hands, waited until the door closed behind +her, and bent his steps toward home. + +That was in the next street. He walked briskly up to the door--then +turned on his heel and strode away rapidly. He could not go upstairs; +could not face the silent hours alone. As he retreated the front door +was opened. Mrs. Wilcox had been sitting up for him, and had heard and +recognised his footstep. He ran. After a minute the door was closed +again. + + +At nine o'clock next morning a sentry on the seaward side of Tregantle +Fort saw a man sitting below in the sunshine on the edge of the cliff, +and took him for a tramp. It was John Gilbart. He had spent the night +trudging the streets, but always returning to the pavement in front of +one or the other of the two important newspaper offices. Lights shone +in the upper windows of each, but all was quiet; and he saw the men +leave one by one and walk away into darkness with brisk but regular +footfall. A little before dawn he had caught the newspaper-train for +the west, left it at the first station over the Cornish border and set +his face toward the sea. His walk took him past dewy hedgerows over +which the larks sang. But he neither saw nor heard. A deep peace had +fallen upon him. He knew himself now; had touched the bottom of his +cowardice, his falsity. He would never be happy again, but he could +never deceive himself again; no, not though God interfered. + +He looked out on the sunshine with purged eyes. Now and then he +listened, as if for some sound from the horizon or the great town behind +him. + +_Had_ God interfered? How still the world was! + + + +THE CELLARS OF RUEDA. + + +I. + + +I ENTER THE CELLARS. + +It happened on a broiling afternoon in July 1812, and midway in a +fortnight of exquisite weather, during which Wellington and Marmont +faced each other across the Douro before opening the beautiful series of +evolutions--or, rather, of circumvolutions--which ended suddenly on the +22nd, and locked the two armies in the prettiest pitched battle I have +lived to see. + +For the moment neither General desired a battle. Marmont, thrust back +from Salamanca, had found a strong position where he could safely wait +for reinforcements, and had indeed already collected near upon forty +thousand of all arms, when, on the 8th, Bonnet marched into camp from +Asturias with another six thousand infantry. He had sent, too, to +borrow some divisions from Caffarelli's Army of the North. But these he +expected in vain: for Bonnet's withdrawal from Asturias had laid bare +the whole line of French communication, and so frightened Caffarelli for +the safety of his own districts that he at once recalled the twelve +thousand men he was moving down to the Douro, and in the end sent but a +handful of cavalry, and that grudgingly. + +All this I had the honour to predict to Lord Wellington just twelve +hours before Bonnet's arrival on the scene. I staked my reputation that +Caffarelli (on whom I had been watching and waiting for a month past) +would not move. And Lord Wellington on the spot granted me the few +days' rest I deserved--not so much in joy of the news (which, +nevertheless, was gratifying) as because for the moment he had no work +for me. The knot was tied. He could not attack except at great +disadvantage, for the fords were deep, and Marmont held the one bridge +at Tordesillas. His business was to hold on, covering Salamanca and the +road back to Portugal, and await Marmont's first move. + +The French front stretched as a chord across an arc of the river, which +here takes a long sweep to the south; and the British faced it around +this arc, with their left, centre, and right, upon three tributary +streams--the Guarena, Trabancos, and Zapardiel--over which last, and +just before it joins the Douro, towers the rock of Rueda, crowned with a +ruinated castle. + +Upon this rock--for my quarters lay in face of it, on the opposite bank +of the stream--I had been gazing for the best part of an idle afternoon. +I was comfortable; my _cigarritos_ lay within reach; my tent gave shade +enough; and through the flapway I found myself watching a mighty pretty +comedy, with the rock of Rueda for its back-scene. + +A more satisfactory one I could not have wished, and I have something of +a connoisseur's eye. To be sure, the triangular flapway narrowed the +picture, and although the upstanding rock and castle fell admirably +within the frame, it cut off an animated scene on the left, where their +distant shouts and laughter told me that French and British were bathing +together in the river below and rallying each other on the battles yet +to be fought. For during these weeks, and indeed through the +operations which followed up to the moment of fighting, the armies +behaved less like foes than like two teams before a cricket-match, or +two wrestlers who shake hands and afterwards grin amicably as they move +in circles seeking for a hitch. As I lay, however, the bathing-place +could only be brought into view by craning my neck beyond the tent-door: +and my posture was too well chosen to be shifted. Moreover, I had a +more singular example of these amenities in face of me, on the rock of +Rueda itself. + +The cliff, standing out against the sun's glare like ivory beneath the +blue, and quivering with heat, was flecked here and there with small +lilac shadows; and these shadows marked the entrances of the caves with +which Rueda was honeycombed. I had once or twice resolved to visit +these caves; for I had heard much of their renown, and even (although +this I disbelieved) that they contained wine enough to intoxicate all +the troops in the Peninsula. Wine in abundance they certainly +contained, and all the afternoon men singly and in clusters had been +swarming in and out of these entrances like flies about a honeypot. +For whatever might be happening on the Trabancos under Lord Wellington's +eye, here at Rueda, on the extreme right, discipline for the while had +disappeared: and presumably the like was true of Marmont's extreme left +holding the bridge of Tordesillas. For from the bridge a short roadway +leads to Rueda; and among the figures moving about the rock, diminished +by distance though they were, I counted quite a respectable proportion +of Frenchmen. No one who loves his calling ever quite forgets it: and +though no one could well have appeared (or indeed felt) lazier, I was +really giving my eye practice in discriminating, on this ant-hill, the +drunk from the sober, and even the moderately drunk from the incapable. + +There could be no doubt, at any rate, concerning one little Frenchman +whom two tall British grenadiers were guiding down the cliff towards the +road. And against my will I had to drop my cigarette and laugh aloud: +for the two guides were themselves unsteady, yet as desperately intent +upon the job as though they handled a chest of treasure. Now they would +prop him up and run him over a few yards of easy ground: anon, at a +sharp descent, one would clamber down ahead and catch the burden his +comrade lowered by the collar, with a subsidiary grip upon belt or +pantaloons. But to the Frenchman all smooth and rugged came alike: his +legs sprawled impartially: and once, having floundered on top of the +leading Samaritan with a shock which rolled the pair to the very verge +of a precipice, he recovered himself, and sat up in an attitude which, +at half a mile's distance, was eloquent of tipsy reproach. In short, +when the procession had filed past the edge of my tent-flap, I crawled +out to watch: and then it occurred to me as worth a lazy man's while to +cross the Zapardiel by the pontoon bridge below and head these comedians +off upon the highroad. They promised to repay a closer view. + +So I did; gained the road, and, seating myself beside it, hailed them as +they came. + +"My friend," said I to the leading grenadier, "you are taking a deal of +trouble with your prisoner." + +The grenadier stared at his comrade, and his comrade at him. As if by +signal they mopped their brows with their coat-sleeves. The Frenchman +sat down on the road without more ado. + +"Prisoner?" mumbled the first grenadier. + +"Ay," said I. "Who is he? He doesn't look like a general of brigade." + +"Devil take me if _I_ know. Who will he be, Bill?" + +Bill stared at the Frenchman blankly, and rooted him out of the dust +with his toe. "I wonder, now! 'Picked him up, somewheres--Get up, you +little pig, and carry your liquor like a gentleman. It was Mike +intojuced him." + +"I did not," said Mike. + +"Very well, then, ye did not. I must have come by him some other way." + +"It was yourself tripped over him in the cellar, up yandhar." He broke +off and eyed me, meditating a sudden thought. "It seems mighty queer, +that--speaking of a cellar as 'up yandhar.' Now a cellar, by rights, +should be in the ground, under your fut." + +"And so it is," argued Bill; "slap in the bowels of it." + +"Ah, be quiet wid your bowels! As I was saying, sor, Bill tripped +over the little fellow: and the next I knew he was crying to be tuk home +to camp, and Bill swearing to do it if it cost him his stripes. +And that is where I come into this fatigue job: for the man's no friend +of mine, and will not be looking it, I hope." + +"Did I so?" Bill exclaimed, regarding himself suddenly from outside, as +it were, and not without admiration. "Did I promise that? +Well, then"--he fixed a sternly disapproving stare on the Frenchman-- +"the Lord knows what possessed me; but to the bridgehead you go, if I +fight the whole of Clausel's division single-handed. Take his feet, +Mike; I'm a man of my word. Hep!--ready is it? For'ard!" + +For a minute or so, as they staggered down the road, I stared after +them; and then upon an impulse mounted the track by which they had +descended. + +It was easy enough, or they had never come down alive; but the sun's +rays smote hotly off the face of the rock, and at one point I narrowly +missed being brained by a stone dislodged by some drunkard above me. +Already, however, the stream of tipplers had begun to set back towards +the camp, and my main difficulty was to steer against it, avoiding +disputes as to the rule of the road. I had no intention of climbing to +the castle: my whim was--and herein again I set my training a test--to +walk straight to the particular opening from which, across the +Zapardiel, I had seen my comedians emerge. + +I found it, not without difficulty--a broad archway of rock, so low that +a man of ordinary stature must stoop to pass beneath it; with, for +threshold, a sill of dry fine earth which sloped up to a ridge +immediately beneath the archway, and on the inner side dipped down into +darkness so abruptly that as I mounted on the outer side I found myself +staring, at a distance of two yards or less, into the face of an old man +seated within the cave, out of which his head and shoulders arose into +view as if by magic. + +"Ah!" said he calmly. "Good evening, senor. You will find good +entertainment within." He pointed past him into absolute night, or so +it seemed to my dazzled eyes. + +He spoke in Spanish, which is my native tongue--although not my +ancestral one. And as I crouched to pass the archway I found time to +speculate on his business in this cavern. For clearly he had not come +hither to drink, and as clearly he had nothing to do with either army. +At first glance I took him for a priest; but his bands, if he wore them, +were hidden beneath a dark poncho fitting tightly about his throat, and +his bald head baffled any search for a tonsure. Although a small book +lay open on his lap, I had interrupted no reading; for when I came upon +him his spectacles were perched high over his brows and gleamed upon me +like a duplicate pair of eyes. He was patently sober, too, which +perhaps came as the greatest shock of all to me, after meeting so many +on my path who were patently the reverse. + +I answered his salutation. "But you will pardon me, excellent sir, for +saying that you perhaps mistake the entertainment I seek. We gentlemen +of Spain are temperate livers, and I will confess that curiosity alone +has brought me--or say, rather, the fame of your wonderful cellars of +Rueda." + +I put it thus, thinking he might perhaps be some official of the caves +or of the castle above. But he let the shot pass. His lean hands from +the first had been fumbling with his poncho, to throw back the folds of +it in courtesy to a stranger; but this seemed no easy matter, and at a +sign from me he desisted. + +"I can promise you," he answered, "nothing more amusing than the group +with which you paused to converse just now by the road." + +"Eh? You saw me?" + +"I was watching from the path outside; for I too can enjoy a timely +laugh." + +No one, I am bound to say, would have guessed it. With his long scrag +neck and great moons of spectacles, which he had now drawn down, the +better to study me, he suggested an absurd combination of the vulture +and the owl. + +"_Dios!_ You have good eyes, then." + +"For long distances. But they cannot see Salamanca." His gaze wandered +for a moment to the entrance beyond which, far below and away, a sunny +landscape twinkled, and he sighed. But before I could read any meaning +in the words or the sigh, his spectacles were turned upon me again. +"You are Spanish?" he asked abruptly. + +"Of Castile, for that matter; though not, I may own to you, of pure +descent. I come from Aranjuez, where a Scottish ancestor, whose name I +bear, settled and married soon after the War of Succession." + +"A Scot?" He leaned forward, and his hands, which had been resting on +his lap, clutched the book nervously. "Of the Highlands?" + +I nodded, wondering at his agitation. + +"Even so, senor." + +"They say that all Scotsmen in Spain know one another. Tell me, my son +"--he was a priest, then, after all--"tell me, for the love of God, if +you know where to find a certain Manuel McNeill, who, I hear, is a +famous scout." + +"That, reverend father, is not always easy, as the French would tell +you; but for me, here, it happens to be very easy indeed, seeing that I +am the unworthy sinner you condescend to compliment." + +"You?" He drew back, incredulous. "You?" he repeated, thrusting the +book into his pocket and groping on the rocky soil beside him. +"The finger of God, then, is in this. What have I done with my candle? +Ah, here it is. Oblige me by holding it--so--while I strike a light." +I heard the rattle of a tinder-box. "They sell these candles"--here he +caught a spark and blew--"they sell these candles at the castle above. +The quality is indifferent and the price excessive; but I wander at +night and pick up those which the soldiers drop--an astonishing number, +I can assure you. See, it is lit!" He stretched out a hand and took +the candle from me. "Be careful of your footsteps, for the floor is +rough." + +"But, pardon me; before I follow, I have a right to know upon what +business." + +He turned and peered at me, holding the candle high. "You are +suspicious," he said, almost querulously. + +"It goes with my trade." + +"I take you to one who will be joyful to see you. Will that suffice, my +son?" + +"Your description, reverend father, would include many persons--from the +Duke of Ragusa downwards--whom, nevertheless, I have no desire to meet." + +"Well, I will tell you, though I was planning it for a happy surprise. +This person is a kinsman of yours--a Captain Alan McNeill." + +I stepped back a pace and eyed him. "Then," said I, "your story will +certainly not suffice; for I know it to be impossible. It was only last +April that I took leave of Captain Alan McNeill on the road to Bayonne +and close to the frontier. He was then a prisoner under escort, with a +letter from Marmont ordering the Governor of Bayonne to clap him in +irons and forward him to Paris, where (the Marshal hinted) no harm would +be done by shooting him." + +"Then he must have escaped." + +"Pardon me, that again is impossible; for I should add that he was under +some kind of parole." + +"A prisoner under escort, in irons--condemned, or at least intended, to +be shot--and all the while under parole! My friend, that must surely +have been a strange kind of parole!" + +"It was, and, saving your reverence, a cursed dirty kind. But it +sufficed for my kinsman, as I know to my cost. For with the help of the +_partidas_ I rescued him, close to the frontier; and he--like the fool, +or like the noble gentleman he was--declined his salvation, released the +escort (which we had overpowered), shook hands with us, and rode forward +to his death." + +"A brave story." + +"You would say so, did you know the whole of it. There is no man alive +whose hand I could grasp as proudly as I grasped his at the last: and no +other, alive or dead, of whom I could say, with the same conviction, +that he made me at once think worse of myself and better of human +nature." + +"He seems, then, to have a mania for improving his fellow-men; for," +said my guide, still pausing with the candle aloft and twinkling on his +spectacles, "I assure you he has been trying to make a Lutheran of +_me!_" + +Wholly incredulous as I was, this took me fairly between wind and water. +"Did he," I stammered, "did he happen to mention the Scarlet Woman?" + +"Several times: though (in justice to his delicacy, I must say it) only +in his delirium." + +"His delirium?" + +"He has been ill; almost desperately ill. A case of sunstroke, I +believe. Do I understand that you believe sufficiently to follow me?" + +"I cannot say that I believe. Yet if it be not Captain Alan McNeill, +and if for some purpose which--to be frank with you--I cannot guess, I +am being walked into a trap, you may take credit to yourself that it has +been well, nay excellently, invented. I pay you that compliment +beforehand, and for my kinsman's sake, or for the sake of his memory, I +accept the risk." + +"There is no risk," answered the reverend father, at once leading the +way: "none, that is to say, with me to guide you." + +"There is risk, then, in some degree?" + +"We skirt a labyrinth," he answered quietly. "You will have observed, +of course, that no one has passed us or disturbed our talk. To be sure, +the archway under which you found me is one of the 'false entrances,' as +they are called, of Rueda cellars. There are a dozen between this and +the summit, and perhaps half a dozen below, which give easy access to +the wine-vaults, and in any of which a crowd of goers and comers would +have incommoded us. For the soldiers would seem--and very wisely, I +must allow--to follow a chart and confine themselves to the easier +outskirts of these caves. Wisely, because the few cellars they visit +contain Val de Penas enough to keep two armies drunk until either +Wellington enters Madrid or Marmont recaptures Salamanca. But they are +not adventurous: and the few who dare, though no doubt they penetrate to +better wine, are not in the end to be envied. . . . Now this passage of +ours is popularly, but quite erroneously, supposed to lead nowhere, and +is therefore by consent avoided." + +"Excuse me," said I, "but it was precisely by this exit that I saw +emerge three men as honestly drunk as any three I have met in my life." + +For the moment he seemed to pay no heed, but stooped and held the candle +low before his feet. + +"The path, you perceive, here shelves downwards. By following it we +should find ourselves, after ten minutes or so, at the end of a _cul de +sac_. But see this narrow ledge to the right--pay particular heed to +your footsteps here, I pray you: it curves to the right, broadening ever +so little before it disappears around the corner: yet here lies the true +path, and you shall presently own it an excellent one." He sprang +forward like a goat, and turning, again held the candle low that I might +plant my feet wisely. Sure enough, just around the corner the ledge +widened at once, and we passed into a new gallery. + +"Ah, you were talking of those three drunkards? Well, they must have +emerged by following this very path." + +"Impossible." + +"Excuse me, but for a scout whose fame is acknowledged, you seem fond of +a word which Bonaparte (we are told) has banished from the dictionaries. +Ask yourself, now. They were assuredly drunk, and your own eyes have +assured you there is no wine between us and daylight. My son, I have +inhabited Rueda long enough to acquire a faith in miracles, even had I +brought none with me. Along this ledge our three drunkards strolled +like children out of the very womb of earth. They will never know what +they escaped: should the knowledge ever come to them it ought to turn +their hair grey then and there." + +"Children and drunkards," said I. "You know the byword?" + +"And might believe it--but for much evidence on the other side." + +But I was following another thought, and for the moment did not hear him +closely. "I suppose, then, the owners guard the main entrances, but +leave such as this, for instance, to be defended by their own +difficulty?" + +"Why should any be guarded?" he asked, pausing to untie a second candle +from the bunch he had suspended from his belt. + +"Eh? Surely to leave all this wine exposed in a world of thieves--" + +The reverend father smiled as he lit the new candle from the stump of +his old one. "No doubt the wine-growers did not contemplate a visit +from two armies, and such very thirsty ones. The peasants hereabouts +are abstemious, and the few thieves count for no more than flies. +For the rest--" + +He was stooping again, with his candle all but level with the ledge and +a few inches wide of it. Held so, it cast a feeble ray into the black +void below us: and down there--thirty feet down perhaps--as his talk +broke in two like a snapped guitar-string, my eyes caught a blur of +scarlet. + +"For God's sake," I cried, "hold the light steady!" + +"To what purpose?" he asked grimly. "That is one whom Providence did +not lead out to light. See, he is broken to pieces--you can tell from +the way he lies; and dead, too. My son, the caves of Rueda protect +themselves." + +He shuffled to the end of the ledge, and there, at the entrance of a +dark gallery, so low that our heads almost knocked against the +rock-roof, he halted again and leaned his ear against the wall on the +right. + +"Sometimes where the wall is thin I have heard them crying and beating +on it with their fists." + +I shivered. The reader knows me by this time for a man of fair +courage: but the bravest man on earth may be caught off his own ground, +and I do not mind confessing that here was a situation for which a stout +parentage and a pretty severe training had somehow failed to provide. +In short, as my guide pushed forward, I followed in knock-knee'd terror. +I wanted to run. I told myself that if this indeed were a trap, and he +should turn and rush upon me, I was as a child at his mercy. +And he might do worse: he might blow out the light and disappear. +As the gallery narrowed and at the same time contracted in height, so +that at length we were crawling on hands and knees, this insanity grew. +Two or three times I felt for my knife, with an impulse to drive it +through his back, seize the candles and escape: nor at this moment can I +say what restrained me. + +At length, and after crawling for at least two hundred yards, without +any warning he stood erect: and this was the worst moment of all. +For as he did so the light vanished--or so nearly as to leave but the +feeblest glimmer, the reason being (and I discovered it with a sob) that +he stood in an ample vaulted chamber while I was yet beneath the roof of +the tunnel. The first thing I saw on emerging beside him was the belly +of a great wine-tun curving out above my head, its recurve hidden, lost +somewhere in upper darkness: and the first thing I heard was the whip of +a bat's wing by the candle. My guide beat it off. + +"Better take a candle and light it from mine. These creatures breed +here in thousands--hear them now above us!" + +"But what is that other sound?" I asked, and together we moved towards +it. + +Three enormous tuns stood in the chamber, and we halted by the base of +the farthest, where, with a spilt pail beside him, lay a British +sergeant of the 36th Regiment tranquilly snoring! That and no other was +the sound, and a blesseder I never heard. I could have kicked the +fellow awake for the mere pleasure of shaking hands with him. My guide +moved on. + +"But we are not going to leave him here!" + +"Oh, as for that, his sleep is good for hours to come. If you choose, +we can pick him up on our return." + +So we left him, and now I went forward with a heart strangely comforted, +although on leaving the great cellar I knew myself hopelessly lost. +Hitherto I might have turned, and, fortune aiding, have found daylight: +but beyond the cellar the galleries ramified by the score, and we walked +so rapidly and chose between them with such apparent lack of method that +I lost count. My one consolation was the memory of a burly figure in +scarlet supine beneath a wine-tun. + +I was thinking of him when, at the end of a passage to me +indistinguishable from any of the dozen or so we had already followed, +my guide put out a hand, and, drawing aside a goatskin curtain, revealed +a small chamber with a lamp hanging from the roof, and under the lamp a +bed of straw, and upon the bed an emaciated man, propped and holding a +book. + +His eyes were on the entrance; for he had heard our footsteps. +And almost we broke into one cry of joy. It was indeed my kinsman, +Captain McNeill! + + + +II. + + +CAPTAIN MCNEILL'S ADVENTURES. + +"But how on earth came you here?" was the unspoken question in the eyes +of both of us; and, each reading the reflection of his own, we both +broke out together into a laugh--though my kinsman's was all but +inaudible--and after it he lay back on his pillow (an old knapsack) and +panted. + +"My story must needs be the shorter," said I; "so let us have it over +and get it out of the way. I come from watching Caffarelli in the +north, and for the last four days have been taking a holiday and +twiddling my fingers in camp here, just across the Zapardiel. +Happening this afternoon to stroll to this amazing rock, I fell in with +the reverend father here, and most incautiously told him my name: since +which he has been leading me a dance which may or may not have turned my +hair grey." + +"The reverend father?" echoed Captain Alan. + +"He has not," said I, turning upon my guide, who stood apart with a +baffling smile, "as yet done me the honour to reciprocate my weak +confidences." + +Captain Alan too stared at him. "Are you a priest, sir?" he demanded. + +He was answered by a bow. "You didn't know it?" cried I. "It's the one +thing he has allowed me to discover." + +"But I understood that you were a scholar, sir--" + +"The two callings are not incompatible, I hope?" + +"--of the University of Salamanca: a Doctor, too. My memory is yet +weak, but surely I had it from your own lips that you were a Doctor?" + +"--of Moral Philosophy," the old man answered with another bow. +"Of the College of the Conception--now, alas! destroyed." + +"The care with which you have tended me, sir, has helped my mistake: and +now my gratitude for it must help my apologies. I fear I have, from +time to time, allowed my tongue to take many liberties with your +profession." + +"You have, to be sure, been somewhat hard with us." + +"My prejudice is an honest one, sir." + +"Of that there can be no possible doubt." + +"But it must frequently have pained you." + +"Not the least in the world," the old Doctor assured him, almost with +_bonhomie_. "Besides, you were suffering from sunstroke." + +My kinsman eyed him; and I could have laughed to watch it--that gaze +betrayed a faint expiring hope that, after all, his diatribes against +the Scarlet Woman had shaken the Doctor--upon whom (I need scarcely say) +they had produced about as much effect as upon the rock of Rueda itself. +And I think that, though regretfully, he must at length have realised +this, for he sank back on the pillow again with a gentle weariness in +every line of his Don Quixote face. + +"Ah, yes, from sunstroke! My cousin"--here he turned towards me--"this +gentleman--or, as I must now learn to call him, this most reverend +Doctor of Philosophy, Gil Gonsalvez de Covadonga--found me some days ago +stretched unconscious beside the highroad to Tordesillas, and in two +ways has saved my life: first, by conveying me to this hiding-place, for +the whole _terrain_ was occupied by Marmont's troops, and I lay there in +my scarlet tunic, a windfall for the first French patrol that might +pass; and, secondly, by nursing me through delirium back to health of +mind and strength of body." + +"The latter has yet to come, Senor Capitano," the Doctor interposed. + +And I: "My cousin, your distaste for disguise will yet be the death of +you. But tell me, what were you doing in this neighbourhood?" + +"Why, watching Marmont, to be sure, as my orders were." + +"Your orders? You don't mean to tell me that Lord Wellington knows of +your return!" + +"I reported myself to him on the nineteenth of last month in the camp on +San Christoval: he gave me my directions that same evening." + +"But, Heavens!" I cried, "it is barely a week ago that I returned from +the north and had an hour's interview with him; and he never mentioned +your name, though aware (as he must be) that no news in the world could +give me more joy." + +"Is that so, cousin?" He gazed at me earnestly and wistfully, as I +thought. + +"You know it is so," I answered, turning my face away that he might not +see my emotion. + +"As for Lord Wellington's silence," Captain Alan went on, after musing a +while, "he has a great capacity for it, as you know; and perhaps he has +persuaded himself that we work better apart. Our later performances in +and around Sabugal might well excuse that belief." + +"But now I suppose you have some message for him. Is it urgent? +Or will you satisfy me first how you came here--you, whom I left a +prisoner on the road to Bayonne and, as I desperately thought, to +execution?" + +"There is no message, for I broke down before my work had well +recommenced; and Wellington knows of my illness and my whereabouts, so +there is no urgency." + +He glanced at the Doctor and so did I. "The reverend father's behaviour +assuredly suggested urgency," I said. + +"And was there none?" asked the old man quietly. "You sons of war chase +the oldest of human illusions: to you nothing is of moment but the +impact of brutal forces or the earthly cunning which arrays and moves +them. To me all this is less hateful than contemptible, in moment not +comparable with the joy of a single human soul. Believe me, my sons, +although the French have destroyed my peerless University--fortis +Salamantina, arx sapientia--I were less eager to hurry God's avenging +hand on them than to bring together two souls which in the pure joy of +meeting soar for a moment together, and, fraternising, forget this +world. Nay, deny it not: for I saw it, standing by. Least of all be +ashamed of it." + +"I am not sure that I understand you, holy father," I answered. +"But you have done us a true service, and shall be rewarded by a +confession--from a stubborn heretic, too." I glanced at Captain Alan +mischievously. + +My kinsman put up a hand in protest. + +"Oh, I will prepare the way for you," said I: "and by and by you will be +astonished to find how easy it comes." I turned to the Doctor +Gonsalvez. "You must know, then, my father, that the Captain and I, +though we follow the same business and with degrees of success we are +too amiable to dispute about, yet employ very different methods. +He, for instance, scorns disguises, while I pride myself upon mine. +And, by the way, as a Professor of Moral Philosophy, you are doubtless +used to deciding questions of casuistry?" + +"For twenty years, more or less, I have presided at the public +disputations in the Sala del Claustro of our University." + +"Then perhaps you will resolve me the moral difference between hiding in +a truss of hay and hiding under a wig? For, in faith, I can see none." + +"That is matter for the private conscience," broke in Captain Alan. + +"Pardon me," suggested the Doctor; "you promised me a narrative, I +believe." + +"We'll proceed, then. Our methods--this, at least, is important--were +different: which made it the more distressing that the similarity of our +names confused us in our enemies' minds, who grossly mistook us for one +and the same person: which not only humiliated us as artists but ended +in positive inconvenience. At Sabugal, in April last, after a +bewildering comedy of errors, the Duke of Ragusa captured my kinsman +here, and held him to account for some escapade of mine, of which, as a +matter of fact, he had no knowledge whatever. You follow me?" + +The Doctor nodded gravely. + +"Well, Marmont showed no vindictiveness, but said in effect, 'You have +done, sir, much damage to our arms, and without stretching a point I +might have you hanged for a spy. I shall, however, treat you leniently, +and send you to France into safe keeping, merely exacting your promise +that you will not consent to be released by any of the _partidas_ on the +journey through Spain.' My cousin might have answered that he had never +done an hour's scouting in his life save in the uniform of a British +officer, and nothing whatever to deserve the death of a spy. +Suspecting, however, that I might be mixed up in the business, he gave +his parole and set out for the frontier under the guard of a young +cavalry officer and one trooper. + +"Meanwhile I had word of his capture: and knowing nothing of this +parole, I posted to Lord Wellington, obtained a bond for twelve thousand +francs payable for my kinsman's rescue, sought out the guerilla chief, +Mina, borrowed two men on Wellington's bond--the scoundrel would lend no +more--and actually brought off the rescue at Beasain, a few miles on +this side of the frontier. One of our shots broke the young officer's +sword-arm, the trooper was pitched from his horse and stunned, and +behold! my kinsman in our hands, safe and sound. + +"It was then, reverend father, that I first heard of his parole. +He informed me of it, and while thanking me for my succour, refused to +accept it. 'Very well done,' say you as a Doctor of Morality. +But meanwhile I was searching the young officer, and finding a letter +upon him from the Duke of Ragusa, broke the seal. 'Not so well done,' +say you: but again wait a moment. This letter was addressed to the +Governor of Bayonne, and gave orders that Captain McNeill, as a spy and +a dangerous man, should be forwarded to Paris in irons. There was also +a hint that a request for his execution might accompany him to Paris. +And this was a prisoner who, on promise of clemency, had given his +parole! Now what, in your opinion, was a fair course for our friend +here, on proof of this dirty treachery?" + +"We will reserve this as Question Number Two," answered the Doctor +gravely, "and proceed with the narrative, which (I opine) goes on to say +that Captain McNeill preferred his oath to the excuse for considering it +annulled, collected his escort, shook hands with you, and went forward +to his fate." + +"A man must save his soul," Captain McNeill explained modestly. + +"You are to me, sir, a heretic (pardon my saying it); which prevents me +from taking as cheerful a view as I could wish concerning your soul. +But assuredly you saved your honour." + +"Well, I hope so," the Captain answered, picking up the story: +"but really, in the sequel, I had to take some decisions which, obvious +as they seemed at the time, have since caused me grave searchings of +heart, and upon which I shall be grateful for your opinion." + +"Am I appealed to as a priest?" + +"Most certainly not, but as a Professor--a title for which, by the way, +we have in Scotland an extraordinary reverence. I rode on, sir, with my +escort, and that night we reached Tolosa, where the young Lieutenant-- +his name was Gerard--found a surgeon to set his bone. He suffered +considerable pain, yet insisted next morning upon proceeding with me. +I imagine his motives to have been mixed; but please myself with +thinking that a latent desire to serve me made one of them. On the +other hand, the seal of Marmont's letter had been broken in his keeping; +a serious matter for a young officer, and one which he would naturally +desire to defer explaining. At Tolosa he accounted for his wound by +some tale of brigands and a chance shot at long range. On the morrow we +rode to Irun and crossed the Bidassoa. We were now on French soil. +Throughout the morning he had spoken little, and I too had preferred my +own thoughts. But now, as we broke our fast and cracked a bottle +together at the first tavern on the French shore, I opened fire by +asking him if he yet carried the Marshal's letter with the broken seal. +'To be sure,' said he. 'And what will you do with it?' I went on. +'Why, deliver it, I suppose, to the Governor of Bayonne, to whom it is +addressed.' 'And, when asked to account for the broken seal, you will +tell him the exact truth about it and the rescue?' 'I must,' +he answered; 'and I hope my report will help you, sir. It will not be +my fault if it does not.' 'You are an excellent fellow,' said I; +'but it will help me little. You do not know the contents of that +letter as I do--not willingly, but because it was read aloud in my +presence by the man who opened it.' And, before he could remonstrate, I +had told him its purport. Now, sir, that was not quite fair to the +young man, and I am not sure that it was strictly honourable?" + +Captain McNeill paused with a question in his voice." + +"Proceed, sir," said the Doctor: "I reserve this as Question Number +Three, remarking only that the young man owed you something for having +saved his life." + +"Just so; and that is where the unfairness came in. He was +inexpressibly shocked. 'Why,' he cried, 'the Marshal had put you under +parole!' 'So far as the frontier,' said I. 'The promise upon which I +swore was that I would not consent to be released by the _partidas_ on +my journey through Spain. Once in France, I could not escape his +vengeance. Now for this very reason I have a right to interpret my +promise strictly, and I consider that during the past half-hour my +parole has expired.' 'I cannot deny it,' he allowed, and took a pace or +two up and down the room, then halted in front of me. 'You would +suggest, sir, that since this letter was taken from me by the +_partidas_, and you and I alone know that it was restored, I owe you the +favour of suppressing it.' 'Good Heavens! my young friend,' I +exclaimed, 'I suggest nothing of the sort. I may ask you to risk for my +sake a professional ambition which is very dear to you, but certainly +not to imperil your young soul by a falsehood. No, sir, if you will +deliver me to the Governor of Bayonne as a prisoner on honourable +parole--which I will renew here and extend to the gates of that city +only--and will then request an interview for the purpose of delivering +your letter and explaining how the seal came to be broken, with Joly'-- +this was the trooper--'for witness, you will gain me all the time I hope +to need.' 'That will be little enough,' objected he. 'I must make the +most of it,' said I; 'and we must manage to time our arrival for the +evening, when the Governor will either be supping or at the theatre, +that the delay, if possible, may be of his creating.' 'I owe you more +than this,' said the ingenuous youth. 'And I, sir, am even ashamed of +myself for asking so much,' I answered. + +"Well, so we contrived it; entered Bayonne at nightfall, presented +ourselves at the Citadel, and were, to our inexpressible joy, received +by the Deputy-Governor, who heard the Lieutenant's report and endorsed +the false paper of parole which Marmont had given me, and which, in +fact, had now expired. The fatal letter Lieutenant Gerard kept in his +pocket, while demanding an interview with the Governor himself. +This (he was told) could not be granted until the morning--'the Governor +was entertaining that night'--and with a well-feigned reluctance he +saluted and withdrew. Outside the Deputy's door we parted without a +word, and at the Citadel gate, having shown my pass, which left me free +to seek lodgings in the city, I halted, and, under the sentry's nose, +dropped a note into the Governor's letter-box. I had written it at +Hendaye, and addressed it to the Duke of Ragusa; and it ran-- + + "MONSIEUR LE MARECHAL,--I send this under cover of the Governor from + the city of Bayonne, out of which I hope to escape to-night, + having come so far in obedience to my word, which appears to be + more sacred than that of a Marshal of France. My escort having + been overpowered between Vittoria and Tolosa, I declined the + rescue offered me, but not before your letter to the Governor had + been broken open and its contents read, in my presence. + This letter also I saw restored to its bearer, who during its + perusal lay unconscious, of a severe and painful wound in his + sword-arm. I beg to assure you that he has behaved in all respects + as a gentleman of courage and honour: and, conceiving that you owe + me some reparation, I shall rely on you that his prospects as a + soldier are not in any way compromised by the miscarriage of your + benevolent plans concerning me." + +I laughed aloud, and even the Doctor relaxed his features. + +"Bravo, kinsman!" said I. "If Marmont hates one thing more than another +it's to see his majestic image diminished in the looking-glass. But-- +faith! I'd have kept that letter in my pocket until I was many miles +south of Bayonne." + +"South? You don't suppose I had any intention of escaping towards the +Pyrenees? Why, my dear fellow, that's the very direction in which they +were bound to search." + +"Oh, very well," said I--a trifle nettled, I will confess--"perhaps you +preferred Paris!" + +"Precisely," was the cool answer. "I preferred Paris: and having but an +hour or two to spare before the hotels closed, I at once inquired at the +chief hotels if any French officer were starting that night for the +capital. The first-named, if I remember, the _Hotel du Sud_--I drew +blank. At the second, the _Trois Couronnes_, I was informed that a +chaise and four had been ordered by no less a man than General Souham, +who would start that night as soon as he returned from supping with the +Governor. I waited: the General arrived a few minutes before ten +o'clock: I introduced myself--" + +"General Souham," I groaned. "Reverend father, I have not yet tasted +the wine of Rueda: it appears to me that the fumes are strong enough. +He tells me he introduced himself to General Souham!" + +"--and, I assure you, found him excellent company. We travelled three +in the chaise--the General, his aide-de-camp, and your fortunate +kinsman. A second chaise followed with the General's baggage. +He and the aide-de-camp at times beguiled the road with a game of +picquet: for myself, I disapprove of cards." + +"Doubtless you told them so at an early stage?" I suggested, with a last +effort at irony. + +"I was obliged to, seeing that the General challenged me to a _partie_; +but I did not, I hope, adopt a tone inconsistent with good fellowship. +We travelled through to Paris, with a few hours' break at Orleans--an +opportunity which I seized to purchase a suit of clothes more congruous +than my uniform with the part I had to play in Paris. I had ventured to +ask General Souham's advice, and he assured me that a British officer, +though a prisoner on parole, might incur some risk from the Parisian mob +by wearing his uniform in public." + +"Cousin," said I, "henceforth pursue your tale without interruption. +There was a time when, in my folly, I presumed to criticise your +methods. I apologise." + +"On leaving the tailor's shop I was accosted by a wretched creature who +had seen me alight from the chaise in His Majesty's uniform, and had +followed, but did not venture to introduce himself until I emerged in a +less compromising garb. He was, it appeared, a British agent--and a +traitor to his own country--and I gathered that a part of his dirty +trade lay in assisting British prisoners to break their parole. +He assumed that I travelled on parole, and insinuated that I might have +occasion to break it: and, with all the will in the world to crack his +head, I let the mistake and suspicion pass. For a napoleon I received +the address of a Parisian agent in the Rue Carcassonne, whose name I +will confide in you, in case you should ever require his services. +For truly, although I had some difficulty in persuading him that I broke +no faith in seeking to escape from France (a point in which self-respect +obliged me to insist, though he himself treated it with irritating +nonchalance), this agent proved a zealous fellow, and served me well. + +"He fell in, too, with my proposals, complimented me on their boldness, +and advanced me money to further them. I took a lodging _au troisieme_ +in the Faubourg St. Honore, and for a fortnight walked Paris without an +attempt at concealment, frequenting the cafes, and spending my evenings +at the theatre. Once or twice I encountered Souham himself, with whom I +had parted on the friendliest terms: but he did not choose to recognise +me--perhaps he had his good-natured suspicions. I lived unchallenged, +though walking all the while on a razor's edge. I had reckoned on two +fair chances in my favour. There was a chance that the Governor of +Bayonne, on finding himself tricked, would for his own security suppress +Marmont's letter, trusting that the affair would pass without inquiry: +and there was the further chance that Marmont himself, on receipt of my +note, would remember the magnanimity which (to do him justice) he +usually has at call, and give orders whistling off the pursuit. +At any rate, I spent a fortnight in Paris; and no man questioned or +troubled me. + +"On the same morning that I paid my second weekly bill the agent called +on me with a capital plan of escape, which (being a facetious fellow) he +announced as follows: 'I wish you good morning, Mr. Buck,' he began. +'Sir,' I answered, 'I have no claim to such a designation. My pleasures +in Paris have been entirely respectable, and I dislike familiarity.' +'Mr. Jonathan Buck, I should have said.' 'Sir,' I corrected him, +'if your clients are so numerous that you confuse their names, I must +remind you that mine is McNeill.' 'Pardon me,' he replied, 'you have +this morning inherited that of an American citizen who died suddenly +last evening in an obscure lodging near the Barriere de Pantin; and, in +addition, a passport now waiting for him at the Foreign Office, if you +have the courage to claim it. You resemble the deceased sufficiently to +answer a passport's description: and if you secure it, I advise a speedy +departure, with Nantes for your objective.' Accordingly, that same +evening I left Paris for the Loire." + +"You had the coolness to apply for that passport?" + +"And the good fortune to obtain it. If anything, my dear fellow, +deserves the degree of astonishment your face expresses, it should +rather be my consenting to use disguise, and so breaking through a +self-denying ordinance on which you have sometimes rallied me. +Suspense--the danger from Bayonne hourly anticipated--had perhaps shaken +my nerves. To be brief, I travelled to Nantes as Mr. Jonathan Buck, and +in that name took passage in a vessel bound for Philadelphia and on the +point (as I understood) of lifting anchor. + +"I slept that night on board the _Minnie Dwight_--this was the vessel's +name--in full hope that my troubles were at an end. But next morning +her captain came to me with a long face and a report that some hitch had +occurred between him and the port authorities over his clearing-papers. +'And how long will this detain us?' I asked, cutting short an +explanation too technical for my understanding. He answered that he had +been to his Consul to protest, but could promise nothing short of a +week's delay. + +"Well, I saw nothing for it but to shut the cabin-door, make a clean +breast of my fears, and desire him to help me in devising some new plan. +He was a good fellow, and ingenious too; for after he had dashed up my +hopes with the news that a similar embargo lay on all foreign ships in +the port, his face cleared, and, said he, 'There's no help for it, but +you must play the sea-lawyer and I the brutal tyrant. It's hard, too, +upon a man who treats his crew like his own children, and victuals his +ship like an eating-house: but a seaman's rig and forty dollars is all +you need, and with this you'll fare off to the American Consul's and +swear that I've made life a burden to you.' 'Why forty dollars?' I +asked. He winked. 'That's earnest money that when you reach the United +States you'll have the law of me for ill-usage.' 'And what shall I get +in exchange?' 'You will get a certificate enabling you to pass from +port as a discharged sailor seeking a ship.' I thanked him warmly, and +agreed; climbed down the ship's side in my new rig, waved an affecting +farewell to my benevolent tyrant, and sought the American Consul who (it +seemed) was used to discontented seamen. At all events, he accepted +without suspicion his share in the dishonouring comedy, took my forty +dollars, and made out my certificate." + +Here the Captain glanced at Doctor Gonsalvez, who blinked. + +Said I: "Even a Protestant must sometimes understand the relief of +confession." + +"Armed with this," he went on, "I made my way to the mouth of the Loire, +to St. Nazaire, between which and Le Croisic lies a small island where, +in the present weakness of the French marine, English ships of war are +suffered to water unmolested. For ten napoleons I bribed an old +fisherman to row me out at night to this island, which we reached at +daybreak, and to our dismay found the anchorage empty. We cast our +nets, however, for a blind, and taking a few fish on our way, worked +slowly down to the south-west, where my comrade (and a faithful one he +proved) had heard reports of an English frigate nosing about the coast. +Sure enough, between breakfast and noon we caught sight of her topmasts: +but to reach her we must pass in full view and almost within point-blank +range of a coast battery. We were scarcely abreast of it when a +round-shot plumped into the sea ahead of us and brought us to, and +almost at once a boatful of soldiers put off to board us. + +"Their object, it turned out, was merely to warn us not to pass the +battery, or the chances were five to one that the Englishman would +capture us. In no way discomposed, my friend maintained that we (he +passed me off as his son) must either fish or starve; that we had come a +long distance, knew every inch of the coast, and ran no danger. +He backed this up by bribing the soldiers with our whole morning's +catch, and in the end they contented themselves by insisting that we +should wait under the battery until nightfall and so depart. And this +we did: but in the meanwhile, pretending our anxiety to avoid her, we +cross-questioned the soldiers so precisely on the Englishman's bearings +that, when darkness fell and we slipped our anchor, we ran straight down +on her without the slightest difficulty. She was the _Agile_ sloop of +twenty-four guns, and from her deck I waved good-bye to the fisherman, +scarcely more delighted by my safety than he by his napoleons, which in +my gratitude I had raised to fifteen. + +"The _Agile_ landed me in Plymouth without mishap: and so end my +adventures. I ought to add, however, that, though my own conscience +held no reproach for my trick upon Marmont, I sought and obtained +permission from the War Office to select a prisoner of my own rank and +exchange him with France; and with him I sent a precise account, which +will afford some amusement to the Duke of Ragusa's enemies if he happen +to have any at headquarters. You, my cousin, will doubtless consider +this mere supererogation, but I should be glad of the reverend Doctor's +opinion." + +"We will reserve this," said the Doctor, "as Question Number Five." + +"And you promptly reshipped for Lisbon, followed the army to Salamanca, +and resumed your work?" said I. + +"Even so: but I suspect that these adventures have rattled me. I am not +the man I was: else I had not succumbed so easily to a mere +_coup-de-soleil_. Will the reverend Doctor complete the narrative by +describing how he found me?" + +"In a ditch," said the reverend Doctor placidly. "My college was +destroyed: my beloved Salamanca in ruins. 'To a philosopher,' said I, +'all the world is a home; but especially such wine-vaults as are found +in Rueda.' I saddled, therefore, my mule; loaded her with a very few +books and still fewer sticks of furniture; more frugal even than +Juvenal's friend Umbricius, _cui tota domus redo, componitur una_. +On my road, and almost under the shadow of this rock, my mule shied in +the most ladylike fashion at sight of a redcoat prostrate in the dust. +The rest you can guess: but assuredly I did not guess at the time that I +had happened on one whose story will--if ever God restores me to my +University--so illustrate my lectures as to make them appear that which +they will not be--an entirely new set of compositions." + +"Well," said I, "the hour is late: and however cheerfully you men of +conscience and of casuistry may look forward to spending the night in +these caves, I have seen enough, and have enough imagination at the back +of it, to desire nothing so little." + +"I will escort you," said the Doctor. + +"That was implied," I answered: and after shaking hands with my kinsman +and promising to visit him on the morrow, I suffered myself to be guided +back along the horrible passages. On the way the Doctor Gonsalvez +paused more than once to chuckle, and at each remove I found this +indulgence more uncanny. + +In the great cellar we came upon the sergeant of the 36th, still +slumbering. I stirred him with my foot, and, sitting up, he amicably +invited us to join him in a drink. I did so, the Doctor drawing it from +the spigot into a pail. + +"Might be worse!" hiccupped the sergeant, watching me. + +I agreed that it might be a great deal worse. Between us we steered him +out, through the tunnel, along the ledge, and so to the archway under +which Venus sparkled in the purple heaven. Here the Doctor bade us +good-night, and left me to pilot my drunkard down the cliff. At the +foot he shook hands with me in a fervour of tipsy gratitude: and I +returned the grasp with an _empressement_, a passion almost, the exact +grounds of which unless he should happen to read these lines and +remember the circumstances--contingencies equally remote--he will spend +his life without surmising. + + + +THE HAUNTED YACHT. + + +A YARN. + + +If any one cares to buy the yawl _Siren_, he may have her for +200 pounds, or a trifle less than the worth of her ballast, as lead goes +nowadays. For sufficient reasons--to be disclosed in the course of this +narrative--I am unable to give her builder's name, and for reasons quite +as sufficient I must admit the figures of her registered tonnage +(29.56), cut on the beam of her forecastle, to be a fraud. I will be +perfectly frank; there is a mystery about the yacht. But I gave +400 pounds for her in the early summer of 1890, and thought her dirt +cheap. She was built under the old "Thames rule," that is, somewhere +between 1875 and 1880, and was therefore long and narrow to begin with. +She has been lengthened since. Nevertheless, though nobody could call +her a dry boat, she will behave herself in any ordinary sea, and come +about quicker than most of her type. She is fast, has sound timbers and +sheathing that fits her like a skin, and her mainmast and bowsprit are +particularly fine spars of Oregon pine; her mizzen doesn't count for +much. Let me mention the newest of patent capstans--I put this into her +myself--cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned with red +morocco, two suits of sails, besides a big spinnaker that does not +belong to her present rig, a serviceable dinghy--well, you can see for +yourselves without my saying more, that, even to break up, she is worth +quite double the money. + +In what follows I shall take leave here and there to alter a name or +suppress it. With these exceptions you shall hear precisely how the +_Siren_ came into my hands. + +Early in 1890 I determined, for the sake of my health, to take a longer +holiday than usual, and spend the months of July, August, and September +in a cruise about the Channel. My notion was to cross over to the +French coast, sail down as far as Cherbourg, recross to Salcombe, and +thence idle westward to Scilly, and finish up, perhaps, with a run over +to Ireland. This, I say, was my notion: you could not call it a plan, +for it left me free to anchor in any port I chose, and to stay there +just as long as it amused me. One fixed intention I had, and one only-- +to avoid the big regattas. Money had to be considered, and I thought at +first of hiring. I wanted something between twenty-five and forty tons, +small enough to be worked by myself and a crew of three or at most three +men and a boy, and large enough to keep us occupied while at sea. + +Of course, I studied the advertisement columns, and for some time found +nothing that seemed even likely to suit. But at last in _The Field_, +and in the left-hand bottom corner--where it had been squeezed by the +lists of the usual well-known agencies--I came on the following:-- + + "YAWL, 35 tons. For immediate SALE, that fast and comfortable + cruiser _Siren_. Lately refitted and now in perfect condition + throughout. Rigging, etc., as good as new. Cabin appointments of + unusual richness and taste. 400 pounds. Apply, Messrs. Dewy and + Moss, Agents and Surveyors, Portside Street, F--." + +On reading this I took Lloyd's _Yacht Register_ from its shelf, and +hunted for further details. _Sirens_ crowd pretty thickly in the +Register; only a little less thickly than _Undines_. Including +_Sirenes_ and _Sirenas_, I found some fourteen--and not a yawl amongst +them, nor anything of her tonnage. There were two more in Lloyd's _List +of American Yachts_--one a centre-board schooner, the other a +centre-board sloop; and, in a further list, I came upon a _Siren_ that +had changed her name to _Mirage_--a screw-schooner of one hundred and +ninety tons, owned by no less a person than the Marquis of Ormonde. +On the whole it seemed pretty clear that Lloyd knew not of the existence +of this "fast and comfortable cruiser" of thirty-five tons. + +However, if half the promises of the advertisement were genuine, the +chance ought not to be lost for lack of further inquiry. So I sat down +there and then and wrote a letter to the poetically-named Dewy and Moss, +asking some questions in detail about the boat, and, in particular, +where she was to be seen. + +The answer came by return of post. The boat had been laid up since the +autumn in a sheltered creek of the F-- River, about three-quarters of a +mile up from the harbour side, where Messrs. Dewy and Moss transacted +business. The keys lay at their office, and she could be inspected at +any time. Her sails, gear, and movable furniture were stored in a roomy +loft at the back of Messrs, Dewy and Moss's own premises. Their client +was a lady who wished to keep her name concealed--at any rate during the +preliminaries; but they had full power to conduct the sale. The yacht +was a bargain. The lady wished to be rid of it at once; but they might +mention that she would not take a penny less than the quoted price of +400 pounds. They would be happy to deal with me in that or any other +line of business; and they enclosed their card. + +The card bore witness to the extraordinary versatility of Messrs. Dewy +and Moss, if to nothing else. Here is the digest of it:-- +"Auctioneers; Practical Valuers; House and Estate Agents; Business +Brokers; Ship Brokers; Accountants and Commission Merchants; Servants' +Registry Office; Fire, Life, Accident, and Plate Glass Insurance +Effected; Fire Claims prepared and adjusted; Live Stock Insured; Agents +for Gibson's Non-Slipping Cycles; Agents for Packington's Manures, the +best and cheapest for all crops; Valuations for Probate; Emigration +Agents; Private Arrangements negotiated with Creditors; Old Violins +cleaned and repaired; Vice-Consulate for Norway and Sweden." + +I cannot say this card produced quite the impression which its composers +no doubt desired. It seemed to me that Messrs. Dewy and Moss had +altogether too many strings to their bow. And the railway journey to +F-- was a long one. So I hesitated for two days; and on the late +afternoon of the third found myself some three hundred miles from home, +standing in a windy street full of the blown odours of shipping, and +pulling at a bell which sounded with terrifying alacrity just on the +other side of the door. A window was thrown up, right above me, and a +head appeared (of Dewy, as it turned out), and invited me to come +upstairs. + +Mr. Dewy met me on the landing, introduced himself, and led me into his +office, where a fat young woman sat awkwardly upon a wooden chair +several inches too high for her. Hastily reviewing the many +professional capacities in which Mr. Dewy could serve her, I decided +that she must be a cook in search of a place. The agent gave me the +only other chair in the room--it was clear that in their various feats +of commercial dexterity the firm depended very little upon furniture-- +and balanced himself on the edge of his knee-hole table. He was a +little, round man, and his feet dangled three inches from the floor. +He looked honest enough, and spoke straightforwardly. + +"You have come about the yacht, sir. You would wish to inspect her at +once? This is most unfortunate! Your letter only reached us this +afternoon. The fact is, my partner, Mr. Moss, has gone off for the day +to N-- to attend a meeting of the Amateur Bee-keepers' Association--my +partner is an enthusiast upon bee-culture." + +The versatility of Moss began to grow bewildering. "--and will not be +back until late to-night. As for me," he consulted his watch, +"I am due in half an hour's time to conduct the rehearsal of a service +of song at the Lady Huntingdon's Chapel, down the street, where I play +the harmonium." + +The diversity of Dewy dazed me. + +"You are staying the night at F--?" he said. + +"Why, yes. I sleep at the Ship Inn, but hoped to leave early +to-morrow." + +"Of course you could inspect the sails and gear at once; they are in the +loft behind." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. + +"So I understand, but it would be better to see the boat first." + +"Naturally, naturally. I hope you see how I am placed? You would not +desire me, I feel sure, to disappoint the chapel members who will be +waiting presently for their rehearsal. Stay . . . perhaps you would not +greatly object to rowing up and inspecting the yacht by yourself? +Here are the keys, and my boat is at your disposal; or, if you prefer +it, a waterman--" + +"Nothing would suit me better, if you don't mind my using the boat." + +"It will be a favour, sir, your using her, I assure you. This way, if +you please." + +He jumped down from the table and led the way downstairs, and through +some very rickety back premises to the quay door, where his boat lay +moored to a frape. As I climbed down and cast off, Mr. Dewy pulled out +his watch again. + +"The evenings are lengthening, and you will have plenty of time. +Half an hour to high water; you will have the tide with you each way. +The keys will open everything on board. By the way, you can't miss +her--black, with a tarnished gilt line, moored beside a large white +schooner, just three-quarters of a mile up. You can tie up the boat to +the frape on your return; to-morrow will do for the keys; at your +service any time after nine a.m. Good evening, sir!" + +Mr. Dewy turned and hurried back to his client, whose presence during +our interview he had completely ignored. + +The sun had dropped behind the tall hills that line the western shore of +the beautiful F-- River; but a soft yellow light, too generously spread +to dazzle, suffused the whole sky, and was reflected on the tide that +stole up with scarcely a ripple. A sharp bend of the stream brought me +in sight of the two yachts, not fifty yards away--their inverted +reflections motionless as themselves; I rested on my oars and drifted up +towards them, conning the black yawl carefully. + +She struck me as too big for a 35-tonner, fore-shortened though she +lay--a wall-sided narrow boat, but a very pretty specimen of her type. +Her dismantled masts were painted white, and her upper boards had been +removed, of course. + +Hullo! + +There was a man standing on her deck. + +She lay with her nose pointing up the river and her stern towards me. +The man stood by her wheel (for some idiotic reason, best known to +himself, her builder had given her a wheel instead of a tiller), which +was covered up with tarpaulin. He stood with a hand on this tarpaulin +case, and looked back over his shoulder towards me--a tall fellow with a +reddish beard and a clean-shaven upper lip. I was drifting close by +this time--he looking curiously at me--and I must have been studying his +features for half a minute before I hailed him. + +"Yacht ahoy!" I called out. "Is that the _Siren?_" + +Getting no answer, I pulled the boat close under the yacht's side, made +her fast, and climbed on board by way of the channels. + +"This is the _Siren_, eh?" I said, looking down her deck towards the +wheel. + +There was no man to be seen. + +I stared around for a minute or so; ran to the opposite side and looked +over; ran aft and leaned over her taffrail; ran forward and peered over +her bows. Her counter was too short to conceal a man, and her stem had +absolutely no overhang at all; yet no man was to be seen, nor boat nor +sign of a man. I tried the companion: it was covered and padlocked. +The sail-hatch and fore-hatch were also fastened and padlocked, and the +skylights covered with tarpaulin and screwed firmly down. A mouse could +not have found its way below, except perhaps by the stove-pipe or the +pipe leading down to the chain-locker. + +I was no believer in ghosts, but I had to hit on some theory there and +then. My nerves had been out of order for a month or two, and the long +railway journey must have played havoc with them. The whole thing was a +hallucination. So I told myself while pulling the coverings off the +skylights, but somehow got mighty little comfort out of it; and I will +not deny that I fumbled a bit with the padlock on the main hatchway, or +that I looked down a second time before setting foot on the companion +ladder. + +She was a sweet ship; and the air below, though stuffy, had no taste of +bilge in it. I explored main cabin, sleeping cabins, forecastle. +The movable furniture had been taken ashore, as I had been told; but the +fixtures were in good order, the decorations in good taste. Not a panel +had shrunk or warped, nor could I find any leakage. At the same time I +could find no evidence that she had been visited lately by man or ghost. +The only thing that seemed queer was the inscription "29.56" on the beam +in the forecastle. It certainly struck me that the surveyor must have +under-registered her, but for the moment I thought little about it. + +Passing back through the main cabin I paused to examine one or two of +the fittings--particularly a neat glass-fronted bookcase, with a small +sideboard below it, containing three drawers and a cellaret. +The bookcase was empty and clean swept; so also were the drawers. +At the bottom of the cellaret I found a couple of flags stowed--a +tattered yellow quarantine-signal tightly rolled into a bundle, and a +red ensign neatly folded. As I lifted out the latter, there dropped +from its folds and fell upon the cabin floor--a book. + +I picked it up--a thin quarto bound in black morocco, and rather the +worse for wear. On its top side it bore the following inscription in +dingy gilt letters:-- + + JOB'S HOTEL, PENLEVEN, + + VISITORS' BOOK. + + J. JOB, _Proprietor_. + +Standing there beneath the skylight I turned its pages over, wondering +vaguely how the visitors' book of a small provincial hotel had found its +way into that drawer. It contained the usual assortment of conventional +praise and vulgar jocosity:-- + + _Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Smith of Huddersfield, + cannot speak too highly of Mrs. Job's ham and + eggs.--September 15, 1881_. + + _Arrived wet through after a 15-mile tramp + along the coast; but thanks to Mr. and Mrs. + Job were soon steaming over a comfortable + fire.--John and Annie Watson, March, 1882._ + +Note appended by a humorist: + + _Then you sat on the hob, I suppose._ + +There was the politely patronising entry: + + _Being accustomed to Wolverhampton, I am + greatly pleased with this coast.--F. B. W._ + +The poetical effusion: + + _Majestic spot! Say, doth the sun in heaven + Behold aught to equal thee, wave-washed + Penleven?_ etc. + +Lighter verse: + + _Here I came to take my ease, + Agreeably disappointed to find no fl-- + Mrs. Job, your bread and butter + Is quite too utterly, utterly utter!_ + + _J. Harper, June 3rd, 1883._ + +The contemplative man's ejaculation: + + _It is impossible, on viewing these Cyclopean cliffs, + to repress the thought, How great is Nature, + how little Man!_ + (A note: _So it is, old chap!_ and a reproof + in another hand: _Shut up! can't you see + he's suffering?)_ + +The last entry was a brief one: + + _J. MacGuire, Liverpool. September 2nd, 1886._ + +Twilight forced me to close the book and put it back in its place. +As I did so, I glanced up involuntarily towards the skylight, as if I +half expected to find a pair of eyes staring down on me. Yet the book +contained nothing but these mere trivialities. Whatever my +apprehension, I was (as "J. Harper" would have said) "agreeably +disappointed." I climbed on deck again, relocked the hatch, replaced +the tarpaulins, jumped into the boat and rowed homewards. Though the +tide favoured me, it was dark before I reached Mr. Dewy's quay-door. +Having, with some difficulty, found the frape, I made the boat fast. +I groped my way across his back premises and out into the gaslit street; +and so to the Ship Inn, a fair dinner, and a sound night's sleep. + +At ten o'clock next morning I called on Messrs. Dewy and Moss. +Again Mr. Dewy received me, and again he apologised for the absence of +his partner, who had caught an early train to attend a wrestling match +at the far end of the county. Mr. Dewy showed me the sails, gear, +cushions, etc., of the _Siren_--everything in surprising condition. +I told him that I meant business, and added-- + +"I suppose you have all the yacht's papers?" + +He stroked his chin, bent his head to one side, and asked, "Shall you +require them?" + +"Of course," I said; "the transfer must be regular. We must have her +certificate of registry, at the very least." + +"In that case I had better write and get them from my client." + +"Is she not a resident here?" + +"I don't know," he said, "that I ought to tell you. But I see no harm-- +you are evidently, sir, a _bona fide_ purchaser. The lady's name is +Carlingford--a widow--residing at present in Bristol." + +"This is annoying," said I; "but if she lives anywhere near the Temple +Mead Station, I might skip a train there and call on her. She herself +desired no delay, and I desire it just as little. But the papers are +necessary." + +After some little demur, he gave me the address, and we parted. +At the door I turned and asked, "By the way, who was the fellow on board +the _Siren_ last night as I rowed up to her?" + +He gave me a stare of genuine surprise. "A man on board? Whoever he +was, he had no business there. I make a point of looking after the +yacht myself." + +I hurried to the railway station. Soon after six that evening I knocked +at Mrs. Carlingford's lodgings in an unattractive street of Bedminster, +that unattractive suburb. A small maid opened the door, took my card, +and showed me into a small sitting-room on the ground floor. I looked +about me--a round table, a horsehair couch, a walnut sideboard with +glass panels, a lithograph of John Wesley being rescued from the flames +of his father's rectory, a coloured photograph-- + +As the door opened behind me and a woman entered, I jumped back almost +into her arms. The coloured photograph, staring at me from the opposite +wall above the mantelshelf, was a portrait--a portrait of the man I had +seen on board the _Siren!_ + +"Who is that?" I demanded, wheeling round without ceremony. + +But if I was startled, Mrs. Carlingford seemed ready to drop with +fright. The little woman--she was a very small, shrinking creature, +with a pallid face and large nervous eyes--put out a hand against the +jamb of the door, and gasped out-- + +"Why do you ask? What do you want?" + +"I beg your pardon," I said; "it was merely curiosity. I thought I had +seen the face somewhere." + +"He was my husband." + +"He is dead, then?" + +"Oh, why do you ask? Yes; he died abroad." She touched her widow's cap +with a shaking finger, and then covered her face with her hands. +"I was there--I saw it. Why do you ask?" she repeated. + +"I beg your pardon sincerely," I said; "it was only that the portrait +reminded me of somebody--But my business here is quite different. +I am come about the yacht _Siren_ which you have advertised for sale." + +She seemed more than ever inclined to run. Her voice scarcely rose +above a whisper. + +"My agents at F-- have full instructions about the sale." + +"Yes, but they tell me you have the papers. I may say that I have seen +the yacht and gear and am ready to pay the price you ask for immediate +possession. I said as much to Mr. Dewy. But the papers, of course--" + +"Are they necessary?" + +"Certainly they are. At least the certificate of registry or, failing +that, some reference to the port of registry, if the transfer is to be +made. I should also like to see her warrant if she has one, and her +sailmaker's certificate. Messrs. Dewy and Moss could draw up the +inventory." + +She still hesitated. At length she said, "I have the certificate; I +will fetch it. The other papers, if she had any, have been lost or +destroyed. She never had a warrant. I believe my husband belonged to +no Yacht Club. I understand very little of these matters." + +She left the room, and returned in five minutes or so with the open +document in her hand. + +"But," said I, looking over it, "this is a certificate of a vessel +called the _Wasp_." + +"Ah, I must explain that. I wished the boat to change her name with the +new owner. Her old name--it has associations--painful ones--I should +not like anyone else to know her as the _Wasp_." + +"Well," I admitted, "I can understand that. But, see here, she is +entered as having one mast and carrying a cutter rig." + +"She was a cutter originally. My husband had her lengthened, in 1886, I +think by five feet, and turned her into a yawl. It was abroad, at +Malaga--" + +"A curious port to choose." + +"She was built, you see, as long ago as 1875. My husband used to say +she was a broad boat for those days, and could be lengthened +successfully and turned into quite a new-looking vessel. He gave her an +entirely new sheathing, too, and all her spars are new. She was not +insured, and, being in a foreign port, it was understood he would have +her newly registered when he returned, which he fully intended. +So no alterations were made in the certificate here, and, I believe, her +old tonnage is still carved up somewhere inside her." + +This was true enough. The figures on the certificate, 29.56, were those +I had seen on the beam in the forecastle. + +"My husband never lived to reach England, and when she came back to F--, +though she was visited, of course, by the Custom House officer and +coastguard, nobody asked for her certificate, and so the alterations in +her were never explained. She was laid up at once in the F-- River, and +there she has remained." + +Certain structural peculiarities in the main cabin--scarcely noted at +the time, but now remembered--served to confirm Mrs. Carlingford's +plainly told story. On my return to London that night I hunted up some +back volumes of Hunt, and satisfied myself on the matter of the _Wasp_ +and her owner, William Carlingford. And, to be short, the transfer was +made on a fresh survey, the cheque sent to Mrs. Carlingford, and the +yawl _Siren_ passed into my hands. + +All being settled, I wrote to my old acquaintance, Mr. Dewy, asking him +to fit the vessel out, and find me a steady skipper and crew--not +without some apprehension of hearing by return of post that Dewy and +Moss were ready and willing to sign articles with me to steer and sail +the yacht in their spare moments. Perhaps the idea did not occur to +them. At any rate they found me a crew, and a good one; and I spent a +very comfortable three months, cruising along the south-western coast, +across to Scilly, from Scilly to Cork and back to Southampton, where on +September 29, 1891, I laid the yacht up for the winter. + +Thrice since have I applied to Messrs. Dewy and Moss for a crew, and +always with satisfactory results. But I must pass over 1892 and 1893 +and come to the summer of 1894; or, to be precise, to Wednesday, the +11th of July. We had left Plymouth that morning for a run westward; +but, the wind falling light towards noon, we found ourselves drifting, +or doing little more, off the entrance of the small fishing haven of +Penleven. Though I had never visited Penleven I knew, on the evidence +of many picture-shows, that the place was well worth seeing. +Besides, had I not the assurances of the Visitors' Book in my cabin? +It occurred to me that I would anchor for an hour or two in the entrance +of the haven, and eat my lunch ashore at Mr. Job's hotel. Mr. Job would +doubtless be pleased to recover his long-lost volume, and I had no more +wish than right to retain it. + +Job's hotel was unpretending. Mrs. Job offered me ham and eggs and, as +an alternative, a cut off a boiled silver-side of beef, if I did not +mind waiting for ten minutes or so, when her husband would be back to +dinner. I said that I would wait, and added that I should be pleased to +make Mr. Job's acquaintance on his return, as I had a trifling message +for him. + +About ten minutes later, while studying a series of German lithographs +in the coffee-room, I heard a heavy footstep in the passage and a knock +at the door; and Mr. Job appeared, a giant of a man, with a giant's +girth and red cheeks, which he sufflated as a preliminary of speech. + +"Good day, Mr. Job," said I. "I won't keep you from your dinner, but +the fact is, I am the unwilling guardian of a trifle belonging to you." +And I showed him the Visitors' Book. + +I thought the man would have had an apoplectic fit there on the spot. +He rolled his eyes, dropped heavily upon a chair, and began to breathe +hard and short. + +"Where--where--?" he gasped, and began to struggle again for breath. + +I said, "For some reason or other the sight of this book distresses you, +and I think you had better not try to speak for a bit. I will tell you +exactly how the book came into my possession, and afterwards you can let +me have your side of the story, if you choose." And I told him just +what I have told the reader. + +At the conclusion, Mr. Job loosed his neckcloth and spoke-- + +"That book, sir, ought to be lyin' at the bottom of the sea. It was +lost on the evening of September the 3rd, 1886, on board a yacht that +went down with all hands. Now I'll tell you all about it. There was a +gentleman called Blake staying over at Port William that summer--that's +four miles up the coast, you know." + +I nodded. + +". . . staying with his wife and one son, a tall young fellow, aged +about twenty-one, maybe. They came from Liverpool--and they had a yacht +with them, that they kept in Port William harbour, anchored just below +the bridge. She would be about thirty tons--a very pretty boat. +They had only one hired hand for crew; used to work her themselves for +the most part; the lady was extraordinary clever at the helm, or at the +sheets either. Very quiet people they were. You might see them most +days that summer, anchored out on the whiting grounds. What was she +called? The _Queen of Sheba_--cutter-rigged-quite a new boat. +It was said afterwards that the owner, Mr. Blake, designed her himself. +She used often to drop anchor off Penleven. Know her? Why of course +I'd know her; 'specially considerin' what happened. + +"'What was that?' A very sad case; it made a lot of talk at the time. +One day--it was the third of September, '86--Mr. and Mrs. Blake and the +son, they anchored off the haven and came up here to tea. I supposed at +the time they'd left their paid hand, Robertson, on board; but it turned +out he was left home at Port William that day, barkin' a small mainsail +that Mr. Blake had bought o' purpose for the fishin'. Well, Mrs. Blake +she ordered tea, and while my missus was layin' the cloth young Mr. +Blake he picks up that very book, sir, that was lyin' on the sideboard, +and begins readin' it and laffin'. My wife, she goes out of the room +for to cut the bread-and-butter, and when she comes back there was the +two gentlemen by the window studyin' the book with their backs to the +room, and Mrs. Blake lyin' back in the chair I'm now sittin' on, an' her +face turned to the wall--so. The young Mr. Blake he turns round and +says, 'This here's a very amusin' book, Mrs. Job. Would you mind my +borrowing it for a day or two to copy out some of the poetry? +I'll bring it back next time we put into Penleven.' Of course my wife +says, 'No, she didn't mind.' Then the elder Mr. Blake he says, +'I see you had a visitor here yesterday--a Mr. MacGuire. Is he in the +house?' My wife said, 'No; the gentleman had left his traps, but he'd +started that morning to walk to Port William to spend the day.' +Nothing more passed. They had their tea, and paid for it, and went off +to their yacht. I saw that book in the young man's hand as he went down +the passage. + +"Well, sir, it was just dusking in as they weighed and stood up towards +Port William, the wind blowing pretty steady from the south'ard. +At about ten minutes to seven o'clock it blew up in a sudden little +squall--nothing to mention; the fishing-boats just noticed it, and that +was all. But it was reckoned that squall capsized the _Queen of Sheba_. +She never reached Port William, and no man ever clapped eyes on her +after twenty minutes past six, when Dick Crego declares he saw her off +the Blowth, half-way towards home, and going steady under all canvas. +The affair caused a lot of stir, here and at Port William, and in the +newspapers. Short-handed as they were, of course they'd no business to +carry on as they did--'specially as my wife declares from her looks that +Mrs. Blake was feelin' faint afore they started. She always seemed to +me a weak, timmersome woman at the best; small and ailin' to look at." + +"And Mr. Blake?" + +"Oh, he was a strong-made gentleman: tall, with a big red beard." + +"The son?" + +"Took after his father, only he hadn't any beard; a fine upstanding +pair." + +"And no trace was ever found of them?" + +"Not a stick nor a shred." + +"But about this Visitors' Book? You'll swear they took it with them? +See, there's not a stain of salt-water upon it." + +"No, there isn't; but I'll swear young Mr. Blake had it in his hand as +he went from my door." + +I said, "Mr. Job, I've kept you already too long from your dinner. +Go and eat, and ask them to send in something for me. Afterwards, I +want you to come with me and take a look at my yacht, that is lying just +outside the haven." + +As we started from the shore Mr. Job, casting his eyes over the _Siren_, +remarked, "That's a very pretty yawl of yours, sir." As we drew nearer, +he began to eye her uneasily. + +"She has been lengthened some five or six feet," I said; "she was a +cutter to begin with." + +"Lord help us!" then said Mr. Job, in a hoarse whisper. "She's the +_Queen of Sheba_. I'd swear to her run anywhere--ay, or to that queer +angle of her hawse-holes." + +A close examination confirmed Mr. Job that my yacht was no other than +the lost _Queen of Sheba_, lengthened and altered in rig. It persuaded +me, too. I turned back to Plymouth, and, leaving the boat in +Cattewater, drove to the Millbay Station and took a ticket for Bristol. +Arriving there just twenty-four hours after my interview with Mr. Job, I +made my way to Mrs. Carlingford's lodgings. + +She had left them two years before; nothing was known of her +whereabouts. The landlady could not even tell me whether she had moved +from Bedminster: And so I had to let the matter rest. + +But just fourteen days ago I received the following letter, dated from a +workhouse in one of the Midland counties:-- + + + "DEAR SIR,--I am a dying woman, and shall probably be dead before + this reaches you. The doctor says he cannot give me forty-eight + hours. It is _angina pectoris_, and I suffer horribly at times. + The yacht you purchased of me is not the _Wasp_, but the _Queen of + Sheba_. My husband designed her. He was a man of some property + near Limerick; and he and my son were involved in some of the + Irish troubles between 1881 and 1884. It was said they had joined + one of the brotherhoods, and betrayed their oaths. This I am sure + was not true. But it is certain we had to run for fear of + assassination. After a year in Liverpool we were forced to fly + south to Port William, where we brought the yacht and lived for + some time in quiet, under our own names. But we knew this could + not last, and had taken measures to escape when need arose. + My husband had chanced, while at Liverpool, upon an old yacht, + dismantled and rotting in the Mersey--but of about the same size as + his own and still, of course, upon the register. He bought her + of her owner--a Mr. Carlingford, and a stranger--for a very few + pounds, and with her--what he valued far more--her papers; but he + never completed the transfer at the Custom House. His plan was, if + pressed, to escape abroad, and pass his yacht off as the _Wasp_, and + himself as Mr. Carlingford. All the while we lived at Port William + the _Queen of Sheba_ was kept amply provisioned for a voyage of at + least three weeks, when the necessity overtook us, quite suddenly-- + the name of a man, MacGuire, in the Visitors' Book of a small inn at + Penleven. We left Penleven at dusk that evening, and held steadily + up the coast until darkness. Then we turned the yacht's head, and + ran straight across for Morlaix; but the weather continuing fine for + a good fortnight (our first night at sea was the roughest in all + this time), we changed our minds, cleared Ushant, and held right + across for Vigo; thence, after re-victualling, we cruised slowly + down the coast and through the Straits, finally reaching Malaga. + There we stayed and had the yacht lengthened. My husband had sold + his small property before ever we came to Port William, and had + managed to invest the whole under the name of Carlingford. + There was no difficulty about letters of credit. At each port on the + way we had shown the Wasp's papers, and used the name of + Carlingford; and at Lisbon we read in an English newspaper about the + supposed capsizing of the _Queen of Sheba_. Still, we had not only + to persuade the officials at the various ports that our boat was the + _Wasp_. We knew that our enemies were harder to delude, and our + next step was to make her as unlike the _Wasp_ or the _Queen of + Sheba_ as possible. This we did by lengthening her and altering her + rig. But it proved useless, as I had always feared it would. + The day after we sailed from Malaga, a Spanish-speaking seaman, whom + we had hired there as extra hand, came aft as if to speak to my + husband (who stood at the wheel), and, halting a pace or two from + him, lifted a revolver, called him by name, and shot him dead. + Before he could turn, my son had knocked him senseless, and in + another minute had tumbled him overboard. We buried my husband + in the sea, next day. We held on, we two alone, past Gibraltar-- + I steering and my son handling all the sails--and ran up for Cadiz. + There we made deposition of our losses, inventing a story to account + for them, and my son took the train for Paris, for we knew that our + enemies had tracked the yacht, and there would be no escape for him + if he clung to her. I waited for six days, and then engaged a crew + and worked the yacht back to F--. I have never since set eyes on my + son; but he is alive, and his hiding is known to myself and to one + man only--a member of the brotherhood, who surprised the secret. + To keep that man silent I spent all my remaining money; to quiet him + I had to sell the yacht; and now that money, too, is gone, and I am + dying in a workhouse. God help my son now! I deceived you, and yet + I think I did you no great wrong. The yacht I sold you was my own, + and she was worth the money. The figures on the beam were cut there + by my husband before we reached Vigo, to make the yacht correspond + with the _Wasp's_ certificate. If I have wronged you, I implore + your pardon.--Yours truly, + + "CATHERINE BLAKE." + + +Well, that is the end of the story. It does not, I am aware, quite +account for the figure I saw standing by the _Siren's_ wheel. As for +the _Wasp_, she has long since rotted to pieces on the waters of the +Mersey. But the question is, Have I a right to sell the _Siren?_ +I certainly have a right to keep her, for she is mine, sold to me in due +form by her rightful owner, and honestly paid for. But then I don't +want to keep her! + + + +PARSON JACK'S FORTUNE. + + + +I. + + +From Langona church tower you see nothing of the Atlantic but a wedge +between two cliffs of a sandy creek. The cottages--thirty in all, +perhaps--huddle in a semicircle of the hills about a spring of clear +water, which overflows and leaps as from a platform into the hollow +coombe, its conduit down to the sands. But Langona Church stands out +more boldly, on a high grassy meadow thrust forward like a bastion over +the stream's right flank. It has no tree, no habitation between it and +the ocean: it breaks the northerly gales for the cottages behind and +under its lee, and these gales have given its tamarisk hedge and even +its gravestones so noticeable a slant inland that, by a trick of +eyesight, the church itself seems tilted perilously forward. + +Forward, in fact--that is to say, seaward--the tower does lean; though +but by a foot or so, and now not perilously; the salt winds, impotent +against its masonry, having bitten with more effect into the earth +around its base. But the church has been restored, the mischief +arrested, and the danger no longer haunts its vicar as it haunted the +Rev. John Flood on a bright September morning in 1885. + +He sat on a thyme-covered hummock by the valley stream, with knees drawn +up and palms pressed against his aching head: sat as he had been sitting +for half an hour past, a shovel beside him and an empty sack, which he +had brought down to fill with clean river-sand. A chaffinch, fresh from +his bath, flitted incessantly between the rail of the footbridge, a +dozen yards below, and the boughs of a tamarisk beside it. He paid no +attention to Parson Jack. Few living creatures ever did. + +Even his parishioners--those who knew of it--felt no great concern that +Parson Jack had been drunk again last night. There was no harm in the +man. "He had this failing, to be sure: with a little liquor he talked +silly, though not so silly as you might suppose. Let him alone, and +he'll find his way home somehow. Scandalous? Oh, no doubt! But you +might easily go farther and find a worse parson than Flood." + +It never occurred to them that he felt any special remorse. His agonies +were private, and his chance of redemption lay in this, that they +neither ceased nor eased with time; perhaps in this, too, that he wasted +no breath in apologetics or self-pity, but blamed himself squarely like +a man. + +Yet a sentimentalist in his place might have run up a long and tearful +account against Providence, fate, circumstances--whatever +sentimentalists choose to arraign rather than themselves. +Five-and-twenty years before, Jack Flood had been a rowdy +undergraduate of Brasenose College, Oxford; in his third year of +residence, with more than a fair prospect of being ploughed--or, in the +language of that generation, "plucked"--at the end of it; a member of +the Phoenix Wine Club, owner of a brute which he not only called a +"hunter" but made to do duty for one at least twice a week; and debtor +among various Oxford tradesmen to the tune of something like 500 pounds. +At this point his father--a Berkshire rector--died suddenly of a +paralytic stroke, leaving Jack and his elder brother Lionel (then abroad +in the new Indian Civil Service) to realise and divide an estate of 1200 +pounds. + +Six hundred pounds is a fair equipment for starting a young man in life; +but not when he already owes five hundred, and has few brains, no +decided bent, and only a little of the most useless learning. +Jack surrendered two-thirds of his patrimony to his pressing creditors, +sold his hunter, read hard for a term, scrambled into his degree, and +was received, a month or two later, into Holy Orders. His father had +sent him to Brasenose College as a step to this, and Jack had looked +forward to being a parson some day--a sporting parson, be it understood. + +For the moment, however, he was almost penniless; and he had answered in +vain some dozen advertisements of curacies, when a college friend came +to the rescue and prevailed on a distant kinsman to offer him the living +of Langona, with a net annual stipend of 51 pounds eighteen shillings +and sixpence. There are such "livings." + +It was offered, of course, and accepted, merely as a stopgap. +But twenty-five years had passed, and at Langona Parson Flood remained. +It had cost him twenty of these to wipe off his Oxford debts, with +interest; but he had managed to retain the small remnant of his capital, +and this with his benefice yielded an income better than a day +labourer's. That he was still a bachelor goes without saying. +In the summer he fished; in the winter he followed, afoot, a pack of +harriers kept by his patron, Sir Harry Vyell of Carwithiel. These were +his recreations. He could not afford to travel, and cared little for +reading. His library consisted of his Bible, two or three small +Divinity Handbooks, a _Pickwick, Stonehenge on the Dog_, and a couple of +"Handley Cross" novels, with coloured illustrations by John Leech. +Twice a year or thereabouts a letter reached him from his brother in +Calcutta, who was apparently prospering, and had a wife and three +children--though for some years the letters had brought no news of them. + +"Something was wrong," Parson Jack decided after a while, finding that +his messages to them met with no answer; and he felt a delicacy in +asking questions. He believed that the children had been sent home to +England--he did not know where--and would have liked to pay them a +visit. But for him a journey was out of the question. So he lived on, +alone and forgotten. + +On Sundays he wore a black suit, which had lasted him for ten years, and +would have to last for another five at least. On week-days he dressed +in blue guernsey and corduroys, and smoked a clay pipe. His +broad-brimmed clerical hat alone distinguished him from the +farm-labourers in his parish; but when at work upon the church--patching +its shingle roof, or pouring mortar into its gaping wounds--he discarded +this for a maroon-coloured cap, not unlike a biretta, which offered less +surface to the high winds. + +He knew nothing of architecture: could not, in fact, distinguish Norman +work from Perpendicular; and at first had taken to these odd jobs of +masonry as a handy way of killing time. He had wit enough, however, to +learn pretty soon that the whole fabric was eaten with rot and in danger +from every gale; and by degrees (he could not explain how) the ruin had +set up a claim on him. In his worst dreams he saw it toppling, falling; +during the winter gales he lay awake listening, imagining the throes and +shudders of its old beams, and would be abroad before daybreak, waiting +for the light to assure him that it yet stood. A casual tourist, +happening on him at work, some summers before, had mistaken him for a +hired mason, and discoursed learnedly on the beauties of the edifice and +the pity of its decay. "That's a vile job you have in hand, my friend-- +a bit of sheer vandalism," said the tourist; "but I suppose the Parson +who employs you knows no better." Parson Jack had been within an ace of +revealing himself, but now changed his mind and asked humbly enough what +was amiss. Whereupon the tourist pulled out a pencil and an old +envelope, and explained. "But there," he broke off, "it would take me a +week to go into these matters, and you a deal longer to understand. +I'd enjoy twenty minutes' talk with your Parson. The church wants +restoration from beginning to end, and by a first-class man. +It deserves no less, for it's interesting throughout; in some points +unique." "That would cost money now?" suggested Parson Jack, pitching +his voice to the true Langona sing-song. "Two thousand pounds would go +a long way."--The tourist scanned the waggon-roof critically, and +lowering his eyes, at length observed the Parson's smile. "Ah, I see! a +sum that would take some collecting hereabouts. Parson's none too well +off, eh?" "Fifty pounds a year or so." "Scandalous! Who's the lay +impropriator?" He was told. "Well, but wouldn't he help?" Parson Jack +shook his head; he had never asked a penny from Sir Harry Vyell, who was +a notorious Gallio in all that concerned religion. He had a further +reason, too. He suspected that Sir Harry chafed a little in a careless +way at his continuing to hold the living, and would be glad to see him +replaced by an incumbent with private means and no failings to be +apologised for with a shrug of the shoulders. Sir Harry, he knew, was +aware of these hateful lapses, though too delicate to allude to them, +and far too charitable to use them (unless under compulsion) as a lever +for getting rid of him. And this knowledge was perhaps the worst of his +shame. Yet what could he do? since to surrender Langona was to starve. +"Your Parson might at least make a beginning," pursued the tourist. +"A box, now, inviting donations--that would cost nothing, and might +relieve a visitor here and there of a spare sovereign. He could put up +a second box for himself: it's quite a usual thing in churches when the +parish priest is poor. You might make the suggestion, if he's not too +proud." + +"I will," said Parson Jack, and after the tourist had gone he thought +much of these two boxes. Indeed, he made and fixed up the first that +same week, though he labelled it "For Church Repairs," fighting shy of +"Restoration" as too magniloquent. The second cost him long searchings +of heart, and he walked over and laid the case before Parson Kendall, +Rector of the near parish of St. Cadox, a good Christian and a good +fellow, with whom he sometimes smoked a pipe. "Why not?" answered +Parson Kendall; "it's the most ordinary thing in the world." "But Sir +Harry may not like it." The Rector chuckled. "If he doesn't, he'll +consult me; and I shall ask him why he hunts a pack by subscription." + +So the second box was nailed beside the first, and excited little +discussion. Indeed, the pair hung in so obscure a corner--behind the +font--that at the first service only Parson Jack and the Widow Copping +were aware of them. The Parson stumbled and hesitated so badly over the +prayers that one or two worshippers felt sure he had been drinking; +which was not the fact. The Widow Copping took no interest in +collecting-boxes; and, besides, she could not read. So the innovation +missed fire. Moreover, it suggested neither popery nor priestcraft, and +only a fool would suspect Parson Flood of either. + +The "Parson's Box" remained, provoking no criticism. He himself had a +little plan for its contents. He would spend the money on a journey to +his nephew and nieces, if they were anywhere in England. He would find +out. There was no hurry, he told himself, with a queer smile. + +There was not. The box provoked neither ill-criticism nor effusive +charity. On Trinity Sunday, when he opened it and counted out one +shilling in silver and sevenpence in coppers, Parson Jack pulled a wry +face and then laughed aloud. + + + +II. + + +_Toot--toot--toot!_ + +The postman's horn in the village street above him shook the Parson out +of his idleness, if not out of his dark thoughts. He sprang up, gripped +his shovel, and began spading the white river-sand into his sack. + +"It is useless, after all," said he to himself. "The crack on the south +of the tower stands still, but the smaller and more dangerous one--the +one on the weather side--is widening fast. This winter, even, may +finish matters." + +He took up a few more shovelfuls. "Anyhow, it will not last my time; +and since it will not--" He paused, as a thought rose before him like a +blank wall. If the church fell--nay, _when_ it fell--this comrade which +had taken possession of his purposes, his fears, his fate--this +enigmatic building of which he knew neither the history nor the +founder's name, but only its wounds--why, then his occupation was gone! +He might outlive it for years, perhaps a third of a lifetime; but he had +no hopes beyond. In imagination he saw it fall, and after that-- +nothing. And he laughed--not the laugh with which he had counted out +the money in his collecting-box, but one of sheer self-contempt, and +passing bitter. + +The impression had been so sharp that he flung a glance up at the grey +tower topping the grey-green rise; and with that was aware of the +postman swinging, with long strides, down the slope towards him. + +He turned in confusion and resumed his shovelling. Why was the man +coming this way, by a path out of his daily beat? Parson Jack stooped +over his work. He wished to avoid greeting him. There was talk, no +doubt, up at the village. . . . + +But the postman was not to be denied. He stopped and hailed across the +stream. + +"Hulloa, Parson! I've just left a letter for you up at the Parsonage: a +long blue letter, and important, by the look of it, with a seal--a man's +hand coming out of a castle. Do you know it?" + +"No," answered Parson Jack. "Did you come out of your way to tell me +this?" + +"Not quite; though I'd do as much for 'ee any day, out of friendliness. +But, tell 'ee the truth, I was sent to seek you with a message." + +"A message?" + +"Sir Harry has ridden over from Carwithiel, and wants you up to church. +He's there waitin' with his nephew, a narra-chested slip of a chap with +a square-cut collar and a Popish sort of face." + +Parson Jack lifted his shovel and passed his palm over its blade, which +the sand had already polished. "Thank you," said he, "I'll be going at +once." + +But he made no motion to start while the postman stood eyeing him. +A sudden selfish fear paralysed him. Had Sir Harry heard? And was this +the end of his patron's forbearance? No; the news could not have +reached Carwithiel so quickly. He had no enemy to arise early and carry +it; to no living creature were even his follies of such importance. + +"Don't forget your letter," the postman reminded him, moving off towards +the foot-bridge. + +Parson Jack watched him as he crossed it, and until he had scaled the +western slope and disappeared over its shoulder. Then, kneeling by the +stream, he dipped his head, and let the icy water run past his temples. +When he raised it again his plain face was glowing, for hard fare and +life in the open weather kept his complexion clear and ruddy. But the +hand gripping the sack on his shoulder shook as he climbed the hill. + +By the lych-gate he found two saddle-horses tethered, and just outside +the porch stood Sir Harry Vyell--a strikingly handsome man with a +careless thoroughbred look; in fact, well over sixty, but apparently ten +years younger. By habit he dressed well, and was scrupulously careful +of his person; by habit, too, he remained sweet of temper and kindly of +speech. But beneath this mask of habit the heart had withered, a while +ago, to dust, and lay in the grave of his only son. + +"Ah? Good morning, Flood!" cried Sir Harry genially. Parson Jack, +reassured, felt the colour rushing into his face. "I've brought over my +nephew Clem to introduce to you--he's in Orders, you know--scholar of +Balliol, Fellow of All Souls, and what not. High Anglican, too--he'll +be a bishop one of these days, if money doesn't make him lazy. +He's inside, dancing with delight in front of your chancel-screen--or, +rather, the remains of it. Church architecture is his craze just now-- +that and Church History. Between ourselves"--Sir Harry glanced over his +shoulder--"he has a bee or two in his bonnet; but that's as it should +be. Every lad at his age wants to eat up the world." + +Parson Jack could remember no such ambition. They passed into the +church together. + +Now the surprise which awaits you in Langona Church is its chancel, +which stands high above the level of the nave, and, rising suddenly +beneath a fine Early English arch, carries the eye upward to the altar +with a strange illusion of distance. Even in those days the first +impression was one of rare, almost singular, beauty--an impression lost +in a series of small pangs as your eye rested on the ruinous details one +by one. For of the great screen nothing remained but two tall uprights, +surmounted by hideous knops--the addition of some local carpenter. +Between the lozenge-shaped shafts of the choir arches, the worm-riddled +parclose screens dripped sawdust in little heaps. Down in the nave, +bench-ends leaned askew or had been broken up, built as panels into deal +pews, and daubed with paint; the floor was broken and ran in uneven +waves; the walls shed plaster, and a monstrous gallery blocked the +belfry arch. Upon this gallery Parson Jack had spent most of his +careful, unsightly carpentry, for the simple reason that it had been +unsafe; and, for the simple reason that they had let in the rain, he had +provided half a dozen windows with new panes, solid enough, but in +appearance worthy only to cover cucumbers. + +As he entered with Sir Harry, the Rev. Clement Vyell swung round upon +him eagerly, but paused with a just perceptible start at sight of his +unclerical garb. + +"Let me introduce you, Clem. This is Mr. Flood." + +Parson Jack bowed, and let his eyes travel around the church, which he +had often enough pitied, but of which he now for the first time felt +ashamed. + +"We're in a sad mess, I'm afraid," he muttered. + +"It's most interesting, nevertheless," Clement Vyell answered. He was a +thin-faced youth with a high pedagogic voice. "Better a church in this +condition than one restored out of all whooping--though I read on the +box yonder that you are collecting towards a restoration." + +Parson Jack blushed hotly. + +"You have made a start, eh? What are your funds in hand?" + +"Two pounds four shillings--as yet." + +Sir Harry laughed outright; and after a moment Parson Jack laughed too-- +he could not help it. But Clement Vyell frowned, having no sense of +humour. + +"I patch it up, you know--after a fashion." Parson Jack's tone was +humble enough and propitiatory; nevertheless, he glanced at his +handiwork with something like pride. "The windows, for instance--" + +The younger man turned with a shudder. "I suppose now," he said +abruptly, staring up at an arch connecting the choir-stalls with the +southern transept, "this bit of Norman work will be as old as anything +you have?" + +That it was Norman came as news to Parson Jack. He, too, stared up at +it, resting a palm on a crumbling bench-end. + +"Well," said he ingenuously, "I'm no judge of these things, you know; +but I always supposed the tower was the oldest bit." + +He broke off in confusion--not at his speech, but because Clement +Vyell's eyes were resting on the back of his hand, which shook with a +tell-tale palsy. + +"The tower," said the young man icily, "is Perpendicular, and later than +1412, at all events, when a former belfry fell in, destroyed the nave, +and cracked the pavement, as you see. All this is matter of record, as +you may learn, sir, from the books which, I feel sure, my uncle will be +pleased to lend you. I need not ask, perhaps, if in the course of +your--ah--excavations you have come on any traces of the original +pre-Augustine Oratory, or of the conventual buildings which existed here +till, we are told, the middle of the thirteenth century." + +He turned away, obviously expecting no answer, addressed himself +henceforward to Sir Harry, and ignored Parson Jack, who followed him +abashed, yet secretly burning to hear more, and wondering where all this +knowledge could be obtained. + +"But it is inconceivable!" Clement Vyell protested to his uncle, half an +hour later, as they rode back towards Carwithiel. "The man has had the +cure of that parish for--how long, do you say?--twenty-five years, and +has never had the curiosity to discover the most rudimentary facts in +its history." + +"A hard case," assented Sir Harry. "He lifts his elbow, too." + +"Eh?" + +"Drinks." Sir Harry illustrated the idiom, lifting an imaginary glass +to his mouth. "Oh, it's notorious. But what the deuce can we do? +Kick him out?--not so easy; and, besides, he'd die under a hedge. +You're hard on him, Clem. He has his notions of duty. Why"--the +Baronet laughed--"I've seen him on the roof with a tar-bucket, caulking +the leaks for dear life. He's a gentleman, too." + +Clement Vyell tightened his lips and rode on in silence. + + +Left alone, Parson Jack stared around his church. His repairs, in which +he had taken pride before now, seemed nakedly, hideously mean at this +moment. But a new sense fought with his dejection--a sense altogether +new to him--that his church had a history, a meaning into which he had +never penetrated. The aisles seemed to expand, the chancel to reach up +into a distance in which space and time were confused; and, following +it, his eye rested on a patch of colour in the east window between the +wooden tablets of the Law--a cluster of fragments of stained glass, +rescued by some former vicar and set amid the clear panes--the legs and +scarlet robe of a saint, an angel's wing, a broken legend on a scroll, +part of a coat-of-arms, azure with a fesse,--wavy of gold--all thrown +together as by a kaleidoscope gone mad. Each of these scraps had once a +meaning: so this church held meanings, too long ignored by him, partly +intelligible yet, soon to be mixed inextricably in a common downfall. +For Clement Vyell might be wise in the history of architecture, but his +eye had not read the one plain warning which stared a common workman in +the face--that the days of this building were surely numbered, and were +probably few. + +Parson Jack had a mind to run after him. He must learn, and speedily, +all about the church, its builders, this old colony of monks. +But where? In books doubtless. Where could those books be found? + +He had almost reached the door, when his eye fell on the two +collecting-boxes. With a sudden thought he paused, drew a key from the +pocket of his corduroys, and unlocked his own--the Parson's box. +A sovereign lay within. + +He picked up the coin and considered it, a dark flush growing on his +face. Parson Jack had a temper, though few guessed it. With an effort +he controlled it now, dropped the sovereign into the box labelled +"Church Repairs," and walked slowly out. + +He had no longer a mind to run after Clement Vyell. Instead, he bent +his steps towards the four-roomed cottage which he called the Parsonage +and found too large for his needs. + +On the sitting-room table lay a letter, in a large blue envelope with a +red seal. + + + +III. + + +That same day, and soon after three o'clock in the afternoon, Parson +Jack knocked at the door of St. Cadox Rectory. + +The Rector, a widower, usually ate his dinner in the middle of the day, +and immediately afterwards retired to his study (with a glass of hot +brandy-and-water), presumably to meditate. At Parson Jack's entrance he +started up from his arm-chair with a flushed face and a somewhat +incoherent greeting, in the middle of which he suddenly observed that +his friend's face, too, was agitated. + +"But what brings you? Nothing wrong, I hope?" + +"No--o," answered Parson Jack dubiously. Then, "Oh no; on the contrary, +I came to ask if you have any books bearing on this part of the world-- +county histories, ecclesiastical histories, and the like--especially +ecclesiastical histories. I want to read up about Langona." + +The Rector's eyes twinkled. "This is rather sudden, eh?" + +"After five-and-twenty years? I suppose it is." Parson Jack blushed +like a schoolboy; but he laughed, nevertheless, for he held news, and it +bubbled within him. + +"Preparing a lecture?" + +"No; the fact is"--he straightened his face--"I've just learnt of my +brother Lionel's death in India. I've never seen him since we were +boys," he added apologetically. + +"H'm, h'm." The Rector paid his respect to Death in a serious little +cough. "Still, I don't quite understand--" + +"He has left me five thousand pounds." + +"Ah? A very tidy sum--my dear Flood, I congratulate you; with all my +heart I do. You have the prospect now of many happy days." He shook +his friend's hand warmly. "But--excuse me--what has this to do with +reading ecclesiastical history, of Langona or any other place?" + +"Well," Parson Jack answered shyly, sitting down and filling his pipe, +"I thought of restoring the church." + +"My dear fellow, don't be a fool--if I may speak profanely. +Five thousand pounds is a tidy sum, no doubt, in Langona especially. +But you'll be leaving Langona. You can buy yourself a decent little +living, or retire and set up comfortably as a bachelor on two hundred +and fifty pounds a year, with a cob, and a gig as you grow older." + +Parson Jack shook his head. "I've been paying debts all my life, with +the help of Langona," said he, puffing slowly. "And now I see that I +owe the place repayment. But it isn't _that_ exactly," he went on with +a quickening voice and another of his shy blushes, "and I don't want you +to mistake that for the real reason. The fact is, I'm attached to the +place--to the church especially. It seems a silly thing to say, when I +haven't troubled to learn ten words of its history, and don't know +Norman work from--well, from any but my own." He laughed grimly, biting +on his pipe-stem. "But that can be mended, I suppose--and the old barn +has become a sort of companion--and that's about the long and short of +it." + +The Rector leaned forward and tapped the bowl of his pipe reflectively +on the fender-bars. + +"You are the residuary legatee, I take it. Your brother was unmarried?" + +"Oh dear, no! Lionel was married, and had three children--two girls and +a boy: 'has,' I should say, for I imagine they're all alive--the widow, +too. I don't know where they are. The lawyers merely speak of my five +thousand as a legacy; they say nothing of the rest of the will." + +"That's queer." The Rector reached for his tobacco-jar. + +"Eh? You mean my not knowing the whereabouts of the family? Between +ourselves, I believe there was a screw loose in Lionel's domestic +affairs. I know nothing definite--positively. We corresponded now and +then," continued Parson Jack--"say twice a year--and of late years he +dropped all mention of them, and I gathered that questions were not +wanted. But the wife and children are provided for, you may depend; and +there's the pension." + +"You are not an executor even?" + +"No; it seems there were two; but one died. The survivor, a Major +Bromham, lives in Plymouth--retired, apparently, and I suppose an old +friend of Lionel's. It's through his solicitors that I had the news." + +"And with it the first announcement of your brother's death. It seems +queer to me that this Major Bromham didn't send you a line of his own. +How do the lawyers put it?" + +"Oh, the barest announcement. Here it is; you can read for yourself: +'On the instruction of our client, Major Bromham, late 16th Bengal +Lancers, we have to inform you of the death, by syncope, at Calcutta, on +the 5th of July last, of your brother, Lionel Flood, Esq., late of the +Indian Civil Service, Assistant-Commissioner; and also that by the terms +of his will, executed'--so-and-so--'of which our client is the surviving +executor,' etc.--all precious formal and cold-blooded. No doubt his +death was telegraphed home to the newspapers, and they take it for +granted that I heard or read of it." + +"Perhaps." The Rector rose. "Shall we have a stroll through the +stables? Afterwards you shall have a book or two to carry off." + +"But look here, Kendall; I came to you as a friend, you know. It seems +to me all plain sailing enough. But you seem to imply--" + +"Do I? Then I am doubtless an ass." + +"You think this Major Bromham should have written to me direct--I see +that you do. Well, he lives no farther away than Plymouth. I might run +up and call on him. Why, to be sure"--Parson Jack's brow cleared--"and +he can give me the address of the wife and children." + + + +IV. + + +Parson Jack walked home with a volume of Gilbert's _Survey_ and another +of the _Parochial History of Cornwall_ under his arm, and Parker's +_Glossary_ in his skirt pocket. He began that evening with the +_Parochial History_, article "Langona," and smoked his pipe over it till +midnight in a sort of rapture it would be hard to analyse. In fact, no +doubt it was made up of that childish delight which most men feel on +reading in print what they know perfectly well already. "The eastern +end of the north aisle is used as a vestry, and the eastern end of the +south aisle is impropriated to the church-warden's use." Yes, that was +right. And the inscription on the one marble tablet was correctly +given, and the legend over the south porch: "_Ego sum Janua, per me qui +intrabit Servabitur_" But the delight of recognition was mixed with +that of discovery. The lower part of the tower was Early English, the +upper Perpendicular (a pause here, and a reference to Parker); the nave, +too, Perpendicular. Ah, then, it could only have been the upper part-- +the belfry--which fell in and destroyed the nave. What was the date?-- +1412. And they both had been rebuilt together--on the call of Edmund +Stafford, Bishop of Exeter--in the August of that year. He read on, the +familiar at each step opening new bypaths into the unguessed. But the +delight of delights was to hug, while he read, his purpose to change all +this story of ruin, to give it a new and happier chapter, to stand out +eminent among the forgotten Vicars of Langona. . . . + +The book slid from his knee to the floor with a crash. He picked it up +carefully, turned down the lamp, laughed to himself, and went off to +bed, shivering but happy. + +He awoke to fresh day-dreams. Day-dreams filled the next week with +visions of the church in all its destined beauty. To be sure, they were +extravagant enough, fantasies in which flying buttresses and flamboyant +traceries waltzed around solid Norman and rigid Perpendicular, +nightmares of undigested Parker. But they kept Parson Jack happy. + +He had not forgotten to answer Messrs. Cudmore's letter, thanking them +for their information, and adding that he proposed to pay a visit to +Plymouth, and would call upon Major Bromham, with that gentleman's +leave, and discuss the legacy. They replied that their client was just +then in the north of Devon on a shooting-party, but would return to +Plymouth by an afternoon train on the following Wednesday and grant Mr. +Flood an interview. + +The tone of this letter, as of the previous one, was unmistakably cold, +but Parson Jack read nothing more in it than professional formality. +On the Wednesday, however, when he reached Plymouth, he presented +himself at Messrs. Cudmore's office, and was admitted to see the head of +the firm, the manner of his reception began to puzzle him. + +"Mr.--ah--Flood?" began Mr. Cudmore senior, with the faintest possible +bow. "Our client, Major Bromham, is not returning until late this +afternoon--by the four-forty train, in fact. I myself dictated the +letter in reply to yours, and fancied I had made it explicit." + +"Oh, quite. I called merely in the hope that you would give me some +further information about my brother's will; since, apart from this +legacy, I know nothing." + +"You must excuse me, but I prefer to leave that to the Major. In any +case, the will is to be proved without delay, and may then, as you know, +be inspected for a shilling." + +Parson Jack, guileless man that he was, had a way of putting a straight +question. "I want to know," said he quietly, "why on earth you are +treating me like this?" + +"My dear sir--" began the lawyer. But Parson Jack cut him short. + +"I, for my part, will be plain with you. I ask to see the will simply +because I know nothing of my brother's property, and wish to see how his +wife and children are provided for. There is nothing extraordinary in +that, surely?" + +"H'm"--the lawyer pondered, eyeing him. Clearly there was something in +this shabbily dressed clergyman which countered his expectations. +"The person who could best satisfy you on this point would be Mrs. +Flood herself; but I take it you have no desire to see her personally." + +"Mrs. Flood? Do you mean my brother's wife?" + +"Certainly." + +"But--but is she here--in Plymouth?" Parson Jack's eyes opened wide. + +"I presume so. Hoe Terrace, she informs me, has been her address for +these eight years. But of course you are aware--" + +"Aware, sir? I am aware of nothing. Least of all am I aware of any +reason why I should not call upon her. Hoe Terrace, did you say? +What number?" + +"Thirty-four. You will bear in mind that I have not advised--" + +"Oh, dear me, no; you have advised nothing. Good-morning, Mr. Cudmore!" +And Parson Jack, fuming, found himself in the street. + +He filled and lit his pipe, to soothe his humour. But he forgot that +the clergy of Plymouth do not as a rule smoke clay pipes in the public +streets, and the attention he excited puzzled and angered him yet +further. He set it down to his threadbare coat and rustic boots. +It was in no sweet mood that he strode up Hoe Terrace, eyeing the +numbers above the doors, and halted at length to knock out his pipe +before a house with an unpainted area-railing, to which a small boy in +ragged knickerbockers was engaged in attaching with a string the tail of +a protesting puppy. + +"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said Parson Jack, rapping the bowl +of his pipe against his boot-heel. + +"I don't suppose you would," retorted the small boy. "But then there's +some parsons wouldn't smoke a clay." + +Before Parson Jack could discover a repartee the door opened and a young +man with a weak chin and bright yellow boots came out laughing, followed +by a good-looking girl, who turned on the step to close the door behind +her. Although in black, she was outrageously over-dressed. An enormous +black feather nodded above her "picture" hat, and with one hand she held +up her skirt, revealing a white embroidered petticoat deplorably stained +with mud. + +In the act of turning she caught sight of the small boy, and at once +began to rate him. + +"Haven't I told you fifty times to let that dog alone? Go indoors this +instant and get yourself cleaned! For my part, I don't know what +Tillotson means, letting you out of school so early." + +"I haven't been to school," the boy announced, catching at a dirty sheet +of newspaper which fluttered against the railing, and nonchalantly +folding it into a cocked hat. + +"Your mumps have been all right for a week. There's not the slightest +risk of infection, and you know it. You don't tell me you've persuaded +mother--" + +"I haven't said a word to her," the boy interrupted. "It isn't mumps; +it's these breeches. If you can't find time to darn 'em, I'm not going +to school till somebody can." + +The young man tittered, and the girl--with a toss of her head and a +glance at Parson Jack, who was pretending to tie his boot-lace--accepted +defeat. + +"Where did you pick up that puppy?" asked Parson Jack, after watching +the pair up the street. + +"What's that to you?" + +"Nothing at all; only I'm a judge of wire-haired terriers, and he has a +touch of breed somewhere. Well, if you won't answer that question, I'll +try you with another. Is that Gertrude--or Ada?" He nodded up the +street. + +"That's Ada. Gertrude is indoors, trimming a hat. You seem to know a +heap about us." + +"Not much; but I'm going to call and find out more if I can. You're +Richard, I suppose?" + +"Dick, for short. Ring the bell, if you like, and I'll run round and +open the door. Only don't say I didn't warn you." This sounded like an +absurd echo of the lawyer, and set Parson Jack smiling. "We don't +subscribe to anything, or take any truck in parsons; and the slavey has +a whitlow on her finger, and mother's having fits over the cooking. +But come in, if you want to." + +"Thank you, I will." + +While Parson Jack ascended to the front door and rang at the bell, Dick +skipped down the area steps, and presently opened to him with a mock +start of surprise. "Beg your pardon," said he, "but I took you for the +rates, or the broker's man." He winked as he ushered in the visitor. +The running click of a sewing-machine sounded above stairs, and up from +the basement floated an aroma of fried onions, and filled the passage. + +"First turning to the right!" admonished the boy, and stepping past him, +to the head of the basement stairs, called down: "Mother! I say, +mother, here's a gentleman to see you!" + +"Then," came the answer, "tell Gerty to step down and find out what he +wants. I'm busy." + +Parson Jack discreetly shut the door, and fell to studying the not +over-clean drawing-room, which was tricked out with muslin draperies, +cheap Japanese fans, photographs--mostly of officers in the uniform of +the Royal Marines--and such artistic trifles as painted tambourines, +sabots, drain-pipes, and milking-stools. In one wicker-chair--the +wicker daubed with royal-red enamel--lay a banjo; in another was curled +a sleeping terrier--indubitable mother of the puppy outside. Near the +door stood a piano with a comic opera score on the music-rest, open at +No. 12, "I'm a Cheery Fusileery--O!" and on its rosewood top an ash-tray +full of cigarette-ends and a shaded lamp the base of which needed +wiping. + +The terrier awoke, yawned, and was waddling down from its couch to make +friends, when Master Dick returned. + +"Mother wants to know who you are and what's your business. +Gerty wouldn't come down when she heard you weren't Jack Phillips." + +"Then tell your mother that I am your uncle, John Flood. That will +satisfy her, perhaps." + +"Whe--ew!" Dick took him in from top to toe, in a long incredulous +stare; but turned and went without another word. + +It may have been five minutes before the door opened and Mrs. Flood +entered, with an air nicely balanced between curiosity, _hauteur_, and +injured innocence--a shabby-genteel woman, in a widow's cap and a black +cashmere gown which had been too near the frying-pan. + +"Good morning." + +Mrs. Flood bowed stiffly, not to say stonily, folded her wrists +accurately in front of her, over her waistband, and waited. + +"I am John Flood, you know--poor Lionel's brother. I have just come +from Cudmore & Cudmore's, the solicitors, to talk with you, if I may, +about this will. It seems that I have a legacy, but beyond this I know +nothing, and indeed until Messrs. Cudmore wrote I wasn't even aware of +an illness." + +Mrs. Flood's eyes seemed to answer, if such a thing could be said in a +ladylike way, that he might tell that to the Marines. But, without +relenting their hostility, she took occasion to mop them. + +"It was a cruel will," she murmured. "My husband and I had differences; +in fact, we have lived apart for many years. Still--" She broke off. +"You know, of course, that he went wrong--took to living with natives +and adopted their horrible ways--in the end, I believe, turned Hindu." + +"God bless my soul! But he used to write regularly--up to the end." + +"No doubt." The two words were full of spiteful meaning, though what +that meaning was Parson Jack could not guess. + +"His letters gave no hint of--of this." + +Again Mrs. Flood's bitter smile gave him--politely--the lie. + +"He drank, too," she went on, after a cold pause. "I had always +supposed it was the one thing those natives didn't do. We thought of +contesting the will on the ground of undue influence and his mind being +gone." + +"Did Lionel leave them much, then?" + +"'Them'?" she queried. + +"His friends over there--the natives." + +"He left nothing but this legacy of five thousand pounds, and the +residue in equal shares to his poor family." Here her handkerchief came +into play again. "Only, as it turns out, there isn't any residue-- +scarcely a penny more when all is realised--except the pension, of +course." Unmasking her batteries with sudden spite, she added, "Even +between you I couldn't be robbed of _that!_" + +Parson Jack controlled himself. He was genuinely sorry for the woman. +But either cheek showed a red spot and his voice shook a little as he +answered, "This is a trifle gratuitous, then--your talk about undue +influence." + +"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," replied Mrs. Flood, with a +small and vicious titter; not because she believed him to be guilty or +that it would do any good, but simply because her instinct told her it +would hurt. + +"That seems to close the discussion." Parson Jack bowed with honest, if +clumsy, dignity. "I am sorry, madam, for what you have told me; but my +regrets had better be expressed to Major Bromham." + +"_Regrets_, indeed!" sniffed Mrs. Flood. + +And these were the last words he ever heard from her. A minute later he +found himself in the street, walking towards the Hoe and drawing deep +breaths as his lungs felt the sea-breeze. He had not the least notion +of his direction; but as he went he muttered to himself; and for a +parson's his words sounded deplorably like swearing. + +"Hi! hi!" called a shrill voice behind him. He swung right about and +found himself frowning down upon Master Dick. + +"How did you like it?" inquired that youngster, panting. "She's a +caution, the mater; but it wasn't a patch on what I've heard her promise +to give you if ever she sets eyes on you." + +"Indeed? How do you know, pray?" + +"Why, I listened at the door, of course," was the unabashed reply. +"But I don't believe a word of it, you know," he added reassuringly. + +"A word of what?" + +"That rot about undue influence." + +"I thank you. Did you follow me to tell me this?" + +"Well, I dunno. Yes, I guess I did. You're a white man; I saw that at +once, though you _do_ smoke a clay pipe." + +"Thank you again for the reminder." Parson Jack pulled out his clay and +filled it. "So I'm a white man?" + +Dick nodded. "I'm not saying anything about the legacy. That's hard +lines on us, of course; but I believe you. There's no chance of my +being a gentleman now, like you; but"--with a wry grin--"I'm not the +sort of chap to bear malice." + +They had walked on through the gate leading to the Hoe, and were in full +view now of the splendid panorama of the Sound. + +"And why shouldn't you be a gentleman?" asked Parson Jack, halting and +cocking down an eye upon this queer urchin. + +"Well, there's a goodish bit against it, you'll allow. You saw what +we're like at home." He looked up at Parson Jack frankly enough, but +into his speech there crept a strange embarrassment, too old for his +years. "I mean, you saw enough without my telling you; and I mustn't +give the show away." + +"No, to be sure," assented Parson Jack. "Dick, you've the makings of a +good fellow," he added musingly. + +But the boy's eyes had wandered to the broad sheet of water below. +"Crikey, there she goes!" he cried, and jerked his arm towards an +unwieldy battle-ship nosing her way out of the Hamoaze, her low bows +tracing a thin line of white. For half a minute they stood watching +her. + +"She's ugly enough, in all conscience," commented Parson Jack. + +"She's a holy terror. But perhaps you don't believe in turrets. Nor do +I, to _that_ extent. It's tempting Providence." + +"In what way?" + +"Top-hamper," said Dick shortly. "But she's a terror all the same." + +"What's her name, I wonder?" + +"Sakes! You don't say you don't know the old _Devastation?_ Why, it's +fifteen years or so since they launched her at Portsmouth, and I hear +tell she'll have to be reconstructed, though even then I guess they +won't trust her far at sea. She has no speed, either, for these days. +Oh, she's a holy fraud!" And Master Dick poured in a broadside of +expert criticism as the monster felt her way and slowly headed around +the Winter Buoy into the Smeaton Pass. + +"Nevertheless, you wouldn't object to be on board of her?" + +"Don't!" The boy's eyes had filled on a sudden. "You mayn't mean it, +but it--it hurts." + + +Four hours later, in the early dusk, Parson Jack stepped into the +street, after shaking hands with Major Bromham at the door. What is +more, the Major stood bareheaded in the doorway for some moments, and +stared after him. Dick had echoed Lawyer Cudmore once that day; it was +now the Major's turn to echo Dick. + +"That's a white man," he muttered to himself. "Curiously like his +brother, too--in the days before he went wrong. But Lionel Flood had a +soft strake in him, and India found it out. This parson seems tougher-- +result of hard work and plain living, no doubt." + +His musings at this point grew involved, and he frowned. "Says he knew +nothing of Lionel's affairs--offers to show me all the letters to prove +it; but this behaviour of his is proof enough. Deuced handsome +behaviour, too. I wonder if he can afford it? Gad, what a pack of +falsehoods that woman has poured into me! She always had a gift of +circumstantial lying. I believe, if Lionel had kept a tight rein on her +and shown her the whip now and then--but what's the use of speculating? +Anyway, it's rough on the Parson, and if I hadn't to consider Dick and +the girls--" + + +Dusk had given way to gaslight, and Parson Jack still paced the streets, +intending but still deferring to find a dinner and a night's lodging. +He had shaken hands with Major Bromham in a mood of curious exaltation. +He had decided almost without a struggle. To his mind the question was +a clear one of right and wrong, and no argument helped it. Still, a man +does not renounce five thousand pounds every day of his life; and, when +he does, has some right to pat his conscience on the back. He derived +some pleasure, too, from picturing the pretty gratitude with which his +beneficiaries would hear Major Bromham's message. He did not know Mrs. +Flood. + +But . . . his church? He had forgotten it, or almost forgotten; and the +recollection came upon him like a blow. He halted beneath a gas-lamp in +dismay; not in resentment at the shattering of his dream, for he +scarcely thought of himself; not in doubt, for he had done rightly, and +his church could not be restored at the expense of right; but in sheer +dismay before the blank certainty that now his church must fall. +Nothing could save it. He must go home to it, live with it, watch it to +the inevitable end. He put out a hand against the iron pillar, and of a +sudden felt faint, almost sick. As a matter of fact, he had eaten +nothing since his early breakfast. + +A few doors down the street the bright lamp of a tavern--the Sword and +Flag--caught his eye. He tottered in and asked for a glass of brandy. +It did him good, and he called for another. Some soldiers entering, +with a girl or two, and finding a clergyman seated with his glass in +this not over-reputable den, began to chaff. He answered gently and +good-naturedly, but with a slight stutter--enough to hint at fun ahead; +and they improved upon the hint. By nine o'clock Parson Jack was silly +drunk; at eleven, when the premises were closed, the police found him +speechless; and the rest of the night he spent in the borough lock-up. + + + +V. + + +It appeared in the newspapers, of course. "Deplorable story: A +clergyman fined for drunkenness." This was more than even Sir Harry +could stand. + +"I'm sorry for you, Flood," said he, when, three days later, Parson Jack +appeared at Carwithiel to resign his living. "But you've taken the only +proper course. Otherwise, you'd have driven us to an inquiry, +sequestration, no end of a scandal. I've had to keep my eyes shut once +or twice in the past, as you probably guess." + +"You have shown me all the kindness you could," answered Parson Jack. +"I won't disgust you with thanks, and there are no excuses." He picked +up his hat and turned to go. + +"Well, but look here; don't be in a hurry. What about your prospects? +They're none too healthy, I'm afraid. Still, if a few pounds could give +you a fresh start somewhere--" + +"I have no prospects, but for the moment I wasn't thinking of myself. +I was thinking of Langona and the old church." + +"Oh, the church is all right! Clem--my nephew--has a fad in his head. +He asked me yesterday for the living--in case you resigned. I tell him +it's folly; a youngster oughtn't to play with his chances. But he +insists that it will do him good to fling up Oxford and play +parish-priest for a year or two. He has taken a fancy to your church, +and wants to restore it. He can pay for his whims: the money's all in +his branch of the family." + +"Restore it! The church--restored!" + +Sir Harry looked up sharply, for the words came in a whisper of awe, +almost of terror; and looking up, he saw Parson Jack's eyes dilated as a +man's who stares on a vision; but while they stared there grew in them a +slow, beatific surmise. + +"The Lord taketh away," said Parson Jack. "Blessed be the name of the +Lord!" + +Six weeks later the Rev. Clement Vyell was inducted into the living of +Langona, vacant by the resignation of the Rev. John Flood. His first +sermon announced that the church was to be restored without delay; that +plans were even now being prepared by an eminent architect, and that, as +soon as they arrived and were approved, tenders would be invited. + +Mr. Vyell was in no hurry to take possession of the Parsonage; indeed, +bachelor though he was, and professed ascetic, he decided that, to be +habitable, it needed a wing and a new kitchen at the back. For the +present he accepted his uncle's invitation to use the hospitality, and +the library, of Carwithiel. Parson Jack might give up possession at his +own convenience. Nevertheless he gave it up at once, packed his few +belongings, and hired a bedroom at the Widow Copping's. It appeared +that he, too, needed time to look about him. + +And so he loitered about Langona until the architect's plans were +received, discussed, approved, and submitted to tender. A Bristol +builder secured the contract. + +The day after it was signed Parson Jack walked over to Carwithiel again, +and asked leave to speak with Mr. Vyell. He wore his old working suit. + +"I have come to ask a favour, sir," said he, speaking humbly. "I hear +that the contract for the church has been given to Miles & Co., of +Bristol; and I would take it kindly if you recommended me to them as a +workman." + +The new Vicar was taken by surprise, and showed it. + +"I have picked up some knowledge of the work in these years," Parson +Jack explained timidly. "And I know the weak points in the old fabric +better than most men. As for steadiness," he wound up, "I only ask to +be given a trial. You must discharge me the first time I give cause of +complaint." + +"What on earth could I say to the man?" Mr. Vyell demanded that evening, +when he discussed the application with his uncle. + +"I hope you accepted?" said Sir Harry sharply. + +"Ye-es, though I fear it was imprudent." + +"Fiddlestick! Speak a word for him to Miles; he won't find a better +workman." + + +So Parson Jack stayed at Langona, and beheld his best dream take shape, +though not at his command, and yet in part by his fashioning. Nay, even +some measure of that personal pride for which he had once bargained was +restored to him during the second year, on the day when the contractor-- +who shared the common knowledge of his past, but respected his +unequalled knowledge of the old fabric and its weakness, his gentle +ardour in learning, and his mild authority among the men--appointed him +clerk of the works. In those days Parson Jack needed no man's pity, for +all day long he redeemed a debt and wrought into substance an ambition +that yet grew purer--as few ambitions do--in taking substance. And with +it he wove another dream which, in the intervals of labour, would draw +him out of the churchyard and hold him at gaze there, with his eyes on +the wedge of blue sea beyond the coombe. + +From the hour of his fall no strong drink passed his lips. His was an +almost desperate case, but he fought with two strong allies. It was as +though the old church, rallying under his eyes for a new lease of life, +put new blood into him, repaying his love. Also he had Dick's letters. + +"Upon my word," said Sir Harry to his nephew, "I've a mind to put Flood +into the living again when this business is over and you tire of your +whim. I suppose there's nothing to prevent it?" + +There was nothing to prevent it; but as a reward it lay outside Parson +Jack's speculation, perhaps beyond his desire. His reward came to him +on the afternoon when, having mounted a ladder beside the new east +window, he looked over his shoulder and saw Parson Kendall entering the +churchyard by the lych-gate, and ushering in a youngster--a mere boy +still, but splendid in the uniform of a freshly blown naval cadet. + +Parson Jack can scarcely be said to have risen to the occasion. +"Hullo, Dick!" he said, descending the ladder and holding out his hand. + +But the Rector, standing aside, made a better speech; though this, too, +was short enough. + +"God fulfils Himself in many ways," said the Rector to himself. + + + +THE BURGLARY CLUB. + + +"Yes," said the Judge, "I ought by this time to know something of +Cornish juries. They acquit oftener than other juries, to be sure; and +the general notion is that they incline more towards mercy. +Privately, I believe that mercy has very little to do with it." + +"Stupidity," said the High Sheriff sententiously, and sipped his wine. +His own obtuseness on the Bench was notorious, and had kept adding for +thirty years to the Duchy's stock of harmless merriment. + +"Nothing of the sort," snapped his lordship. "You can convict a man, I +presume, as stupidly as you can acquit him. No: with other juries a +crime is a crime, and a misdemeanour is a misdemeanour. You tell them +so and they accept it. But with Cornishmen you have first to explain +that the alleged offence is illegal; next, you must satisfy them that it +ought to be illegal; and then, if you choose, you can proceed to prove +that the prisoner committed it. They will finally discharge him on the +ground that he never had the advantage of such a clear exposition of the +law as they have just enjoyed." + +"Well, but isn't that stupidity?" persisted the High Sheriff. + +The Judge turned impatiently and addressed a grey-headed man on his +left. "Did I ever tell you, Mr.--, how I once enjoyed the hospitality +of a Cornish village, through the simple accident of being mistaken for +a burglar?" + +The grey-headed man--an eminent Q.C. and leader of the Western Circuit-- +dropped an olive into his glass of sherry. He had been dozing. +Two or three guests and members of the Junior Bar drew their chairs +closer. + +"It was in 1845," the Judge began, "just after I had taken my degree, +and I had been walking through Cornwall with a knapsack--no small +adventure, I can tell you, in those days. The inhabitants declined to +believe that anyone could walk and carry a pack for the fun of the +thing, and I left a trail of suspicion behind me. The folks were +invariably hospitable, though convinced that I was pursuing no good. +You remember, Mr.--, that when Telemachus visited Gerenia he was +generously entertained, and afterwards politely asked if he happened to +be a pirate. My case was pretty similar, only my Cornish hosts did not +ask, but took it for granted. + +"In the first week of August--to be precise, on the 4th--I reached +Polreen Cove, and found lodging at the small inn. The spot and the +people so pleased me that I engaged my rooms for a week. At the week's +end I had decided to stay for a month. I stayed for almost two months. + +"Well, as luck would have it, I had not been in Polreen three nights +before there happened the first burglary within the memory of its oldest +inhabitant--if burglary it was. I incline to think that Mrs. Giddy, the +general dealer, had left her shop-door unbolted, and that the culprit, +after removing the bell--the door had two flaps, and the bell, hung on a +half-coil of metal, was fitted to a socket inside the lower flap--had +quietly walked in and made his choice. This choice was a peculiar one-- +six bars of yellow soap, a cullender, some tallow candles, a pair of +alpaca boots, a pair of braces, several boxes of matches, an uncertain +amount of cheese, a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs, a coloured almanack, +three of Mrs. Giddy's brass weights, and the bell. He was detected two +months later at Bristol, in the act of using one of the handkerchiefs, +which illustrated the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai; and four other +handkerchiefs were found in his possession, together with Mrs. Giddy's +brass weights. He had disposed of the rest of the booty, and proved to +be a stowaway who had been turned out of a Cardiff schooner on Penzance +quay, penniless and starving. Nothing further was proved against him, +and it still puzzles me how he made his way through the length of +Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset, on the not very nutritious spoils of Mrs. +Giddy's shop. + +"For the moment he got clear away. Not a soul in Polreen had set eyes +on him, and as he entered the village by night so he departed. + +"I know now that the excitement in the Cove was intense; that for weeks +afterwards the women carried their silver teaspoons and chinaware to bed +with them; and I should explain that the housewives of Polreen are +inordinately proud of their teaspoons and chinaware--heirlooms which +mark the only degrees of social importance recognised among the +inhabitants of that happy Cove. A family there counts its teaspoons as +our old nobility counted its quarterings; a girl is judged to have made +a good, bad, or indifferent match by the number of teaspoons she +'marries into'; and the extreme act of disinheritance is symbolised, not +by the testamentary shilling, nor by erasing a name from the Family +Bible, but by alienating the family plate-basket. In short, teaspoons +are to the Covers what the salt-cellar was to the ancient Latin races. + +"But at the time, though I could not help observing symptoms of +suppressed excitement, the Cove behaved with an outward calm which +struck me as highly creditable. To be sure, the men seemed to spend an +extravagant amount of their time in the tap-room of the inn, which +happened to be immediately beneath my sitting-room. Hour after hour the +sound of their muffled conversation ascended to me through the +planching, as I sat and studied--Dumas, I think. Low, monotonous, +untiring, it lasted from breakfast-time until nine o'clock at night, +when it ceased abruptly, the company dispersed, and each man went home +to reassure and protect his wife. I suppose some liquor was required to +start this conversation and keep it going, just as seamen use a +bucketful of water to start a ship's pump; but I must admit that during +my whole stay at Polreen I never saw an inhabitant who could be +described as the worse for drink. + +"I did not know that this assemblage in the tap-room was unusual and +clean contrary to the men's habits, and therefore may be excused for not +guessing its significance. Nor was I familiar enough with Polreen to +note an even more frequent change in the atmosphere and routine of its +daily life. When the weather is fine, down there, the men put out to +sea and the women go about their work with smiles. When it blows, the +women go about their work, but resignedly and in a temper, which the men +avoid by ranging up shoulder to shoulder along the wall by the lifeboat +house, and gazing with approval at the weather; with approval, because +it relieves them of the fatigue of argument. But should the day break +doubtfully, and the men incline to give themselves the benefit of the +doubt, then, indeed, you will learn who are masters of the Cove. For in +extreme cases the women will even invade the 'randivoo,' and shrill is +the noise of battle until the weather declares unmistakably for one side +or the other. Does it refuse to declare itself? Then I can promise you +that half an hour will see the men routed and straggling down the beach +to their boats, arching their backs and ducking their heads, may be, +under the parting volley. + +"But, as I say, I did not know Polreen and its ways. It awoke no wonder +in me to see the bulk of its male population ranged like statues, day +after day, and from dawn till eve, against the wall by the lifeboat +house, talking little (or ceasing, at any rate, to talk when I +approached), smoking much, conning a serene sky, and the dimples spread +on the sea by a gentle nor'-westerly breeze. At intervals one or two +would leisurely fall out of the line and saunter towards the inn, +leaving their places to others as leisurely sauntering from the inn. +It did, indeed, occur to me to wonder how they earned their living, for +during the first fortnight, beyond the occasional hauling of a crab-pot, +I saw no evidence at all of labour. It was on the tip of my tongue, +once or twice, to question them; but, though polite, they clearly had no +wish to be communicative. + +"I found great difficulty in hiring a boat and the services of its +owner. I wished to be rowed along the coast; to try for pollack; to +inspect some of Polreen's famous caves. The men were polite again; but +one boat leaked badly, another had been pulled up for the carpenter to +insert a new strake, a third was too heavy, the owner of a fourth could +not leave his business--it wouldn't pay him! At length I patched up a +bargain with an old fisherman named Udy--or rather Old Tom Udy, to +distinguish him from his son, who was Young Tom. He owned the most +ramshackle old boat in the Cove: if the others were out of repair, his +was manifestly beyond it. I took my life in my hands and struck the +bargain. + +"'When do 'ee want her?' + +"'Now, at once,' said I; 'or as soon as you have had your dinner.' + +"He went back to the company by the lifeboat house. He reminded me of +some ancient king consulting a company of stone gods. They looked at +him, and he looked at them. I suppose a word or two was said; half a +dozen of them spat reflectively; nobody moved. Old Tom Udy came down +the beach again; we embarked and pushed off, and the row of +expressionless faces watched us from the shore. + +"In silence we visited the famous caverns. As we emerged from the last +of these I essayed some casual talk. To tell the truth, I was +beginning to feel the want of it, and of course I began on the first +topic of local interest--the burglary. + +"'The odd thing to me,' said I, 'is that you seem to have no particular +suspicions.' + +"'I'd rather you didn' talk of it,' said Old Tom Udy. 'I got my living +to get, and 'tis a day's journey to Bodmin. Tho' you musn' think,' he +added, 'that we bear any gridge.' + +"'It seems to me that you men in the Cove treat the whole affair very +lightly.' + +"'Iss, tha's of it,' he assented. 'Mind you, tisn' _right_, Seemin' to +me 'tis a terrible thought. Here you be, for the sake of argument, a +Christian man, and in beauty next door to the angels, and the only use +you make of it is to steal groceries. You don't think I'm putting it +too strong?' + +"' Not a bit.' + +"'Well, I'm glad o' that, because, since you ask me, as a professing +Christian, I cudn' say any less. But you musn' think we bear any +gridge.' + +"'I'm sure I wonder you don't. And the police still have no clue?' + +"'The police? You mean Sammy Crego, the constable? Why, I've knawed en +from a boy--pretty thing if any person in Polreen listened to he! +No: us han't failed so low yet as to mind anything the constable says.' + +"'Then the whole affair is as much a mystery as ever?' + +"'Now, look 'ee here; I don't want to tell nothin' more about it. +A still tongue makes a wise head; an' there's a pollack on the end of +your line.' + +"The wind stuck in the north-west, and day after day the regal summer +weather continued. I grew tired of hauling in pollack, and determined +to have a try for the more exciting conger. The fun of this, as you +know, does not begin till night-fall, and it was seven o'clock in the +evening, or thereabouts, when we pushed off from the beach. By eight we +had reached the best grounds and begun operations. An hour passed, or a +little more, and then Old Tom Udy asked when I thought of returning. + +"'Why, bless the man,' said I, 'we've not had a bite yet!' + +"He glanced at me furtively while he lit a pipe. 'I reckoned, maybe, +you might have business ashore, so to speak.' + +"'What earthly business should I have in Polreen at this hour?' + +"'Aw, well . . . you know best . . . no affair o' mine. 'Tis a dark +night, too.' + +"'All the better for conger, eh?' + +"'So 'tis.' He seemed about to say more, but at that moment I felt a +long pull on the line, and for an hour or two the conger kept us busy. + +"It must have been a week later, at least (for the moon was drawing to +the full), that I pulled up the blind of my sitting-room a little before +mid-night, and, ravished by the beauty of the scene (for, I tell you, +Polreen can be beautiful by moonlight), determined to stroll down to the +beach and smoke my last pipe there before going to bed. The door of the +inn was locked, no doubt; but, the house standing on the steep slope of +the main street, I could step easily on to the edge of the water-barrel +beneath my window and lower myself to the ground. + +"I did so. Just as I touched solid earth I heard footsteps. +They paused suddenly, and, glancing up the moonlit road, I descried the +gigantic figure of Wesley Truscott, the coxswain of the lifeboat. +He must have seen me, for the light on the whitewashed front of the inn +was almost as brilliant as day. But, whatever his business, he had no +wish to meet me, for he dodged aside into the shadow of a porch, and +after a few seconds I heard him tip-toeing up the hill again. + +"I began to have my doubts about Polreen's primitive virtues. +Certainly the village, as it lay bathed in moonlight, its whitewashed +terraces and glimmering roofs embowered in dark clusters of fuchsia and +tamarisk, seemed to harbour nothing but peace and sleeping innocence. +An ebbing tide lapped the pebbles on the beach, each pebble distinct and +glistening as the water left it. Far in the quiet offing the lights of +a fishing-fleet twinkled like a line of jewels through the haze. + +"Half-way down the beach I turned for a backward look at the village. + +"Now the wall by the lifeboat house looks on the Cove. Its front is +turned from the village and the village street, and can only be seen +from the beach. You may imagine my surprise, then, as I turned and +found myself face to face with a dozen tall men, standing there upright +and silent. + +"'Good Heavens!' I cried, 'what is the matter? What brings you all here +at this time of night?' + +"If I was surprised, they were obviously embarrassed. They drew +together a little, as if to avoid observation. But the moon shone full +on the wall, affording them not a scrap of shadow. + +"For a moment no one answered. Then I heard mutterings, and, as I +stepped up, one of the elder men, Archelaus Warne by name, was pushed +forward. + +"'We wasn' expectin' of you down here,' he stammered, after clearing his +throat. + +"'No reason why you should,' said I. + +"'We done our best to keep out o' your way--never thinkin' you'd be +after the boats,'--he nodded towards the boats drawn up on the beach at +our feet. + +"'I'm afraid I don't understand you in the least.' + +"'Well, you see, 'tis a kind o' club.' + +"'Indeed?' said I, not in the least enlightened. + +"'Iss;' he turned to his companions. 'I s'pose I'd better tell en?' +They nodded gravely, and he resumed. 'You see, 'tis this way: ever +since that burglary there's no resting for the women. My poor back is +blue all over with the cloam my missus takes to bed. And ha'f a dozen +times a night 'tis, '_Arch'laus, I'm sartin I hear some person movin'-- +Arch'laus, fit an' take a light and have a look downstairs, that's a +dear!_' An' these fellows'll tell 'ee 'tis every bit so bad with they. +'Tis right enough in the daytime, so long as the women got us 'ithin +hail, but by night there's no peace nor rest.' + +"One or two husbands corroborated. + +"'Well, now--I think 'twas the third night after this affair happened-- +I crep' downstairs for the fifth time or so just to ease the old woman's +mind, and opens the door, when what do I see but Billy Polkinghorne +here, sittin' on his own doorstep like a lost dog. 'Aw,' says I, 'so +thee'rt feelin' of it, too!' 'Feelin' of it!' says he, 'durned if +this isn' the awnly place I can get a wink o' sleep!' 'Come'st way +long to Wall-end and tetch pipe,' says I. Tha's how it began. An' now, +ever since Billy thought 'pon the plan of settin' someone, turn an' +turn, to watch your window, there's nothin' to hurry us. Why, only just +as you came along, Billy was saying, 'Burglary!' he says, 'why, I han't +been so happy in mind since the _Indian Queen_ came ashore!'' + +"'Watch my window? Why the--' And then, as light broke on me, +'Look here,' I said, 'you don't mean to tell me you've been suspecting +_me_ of the burglary all this time!' + +"'You musn' think,' said Archelaus Warne, 'that we bear any gridge.'" + + +"Well," the Judge concluded, "as I told you, the thief was apprehended a +week or two later, and my innocence established. But, oddly enough, +some thirty years after I had to try a case at the Assizes here, in +which Archelaus Warne (very old and infirm) appeared as a witness, I +recognised him at once, and, when I sent for him afterwards and inquired +after my friends at Polreen, his first words were, 'There now--I wasn' +so far wrong, after all! I knawed you must be mixed up with these +things, wan way or 'nother.'" + + + +CONCERNING ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. + + +Let those who know my affection for Troy consider what my feelings were, +the other day, when on my return from a brief jaunt to London I alighted +at the railway station amid all the tokens of a severe and general +catastrophe. The porter who opened the door for me had a bandaged head. +George the 'bus driver carried his right arm in a sling, but professed +himself able to guide his vehicle through our tortuous streets +left-handed. I had declined the offer, and was putting some +sympathetic question, when a procession came by. Four children of +serious demeanour conveyed a groaning comrade on a stretcher, while a +couple more limped after in approved splints. I stopped them, of +course. The rearmost sufferer--who wore on his shin-bone a wicker +trellis of the sort used for covering flower-plots, and a tourniquet, +contrived with a pebble and a handkerchief, about his femoral artery-- +informed me that it was a case of First Aid to the Injured, which he was +rendering at some risk to his own (compound) fracture. + +"It's wonderful," said George, with a grin, "what crazes the youngsters +will pick up." + +Thereupon the truth came out. It appeared that during my absence a +member of the Ambulance Association of St. John of Jerusalem had +descended upon the town with a course of lectures, and the town had +taken up the novelty with its usual spirit. + +I said a course of lectures; but in Troy we are nothing if not +thoroughgoing, and by this time (so George informed me) three courses +were in full swing. The railway servants and jetty-men (our +instructor's earliest pupils) had arrived at restoring animation to the +apparently drowned; while a mixed class, drawn from the townsfolk +generally, were learning to bandage, and the members of our Young +Women's Christian Association had attended but two lectures and still +dallied with the wonders of the human frame. + +George told me all about it on our way through the town--for I had +consented to be driven on condition that he removed his arm from the +sling, and he could not deny this to an old friend (as I make free to +call myself). Besides, he was bursting to talk. To be sure, he slipped +it back for a few moments as we breasted the hill beyond the post-office +and his horses dropped to a walk. I fancy that he glanced at me +apologetically; but since there was comparatively little danger +hereabouts I thought it more delicate to look the other way. + +"And the Chamber of Commerce has not protested?" I asked. + +We call it the "Chamber of Commerce" for euphony's sake. It is in fact +an association which keeps an eye upon the Parish Council, Harbour +Board, and Great Western Railway, and incites these bodies to make our +town more attractive to visitors. It consists mainly of lodging-house +keepers, and has this summer prevailed on the Railway Company to issue +cheap Saturday market tickets to Plymouth--a boon which the visitor will +soon learn (if we may take our own experience as a test) to rank high +among the minor comforts of life. + +No; the Chamber of Commerce had not protested. And yet it occurred to +me more than once during the next few days that strangers attracted to +Troy by its reputation as a health resort must have marvelled as they +walked our streets, where cases of sunstroke, frost-bite, snake-bite, +and incipient croup challenged their pity at every corner. The very +babies took their first steps in splints, and when they tumbled were +examined by their older playmates, and pronounced to be suffering from +apoplexy or alcoholic poisoning, as fancy happened to suggest. +I believe that a single instruction in the Association's Handbook-- +carefully italicised there, I must admit--alone saved our rising +generation. It ran: "_Unless perfectly sure that the patient is +intoxicated, do not give the emetic_." + +To be sure, we left these extravagances to the children. But childhood, +after all, is a relative term, and in Troy we pass through it to sober +age by nice gradations; which take time. Already a foreign sailor who +had committed the double imprudence of drinking heavily at the Crown and +Anchor, and falling asleep afterwards on the foreshore while waiting for +his boat, was complaining vigorously, through his Vice-Consul, of the +varieties of treatment practised upon his insensible body; and only the +difficulty of tracing five Esmarch bandages in a town where five hundred +had been sold in a fortnight averted a prosecution. I was even prepared +for a visit from Sir Felix Felix-Williams, our worthy Squire, who seldom +misses an opportunity of turning our local enthusiasms to account, and +sometimes does me the honour to enlist my help; but scarcely for the +turn his suggestions took. + +"You are, of course, interested in this movement?" he began. + +"I have to be, seeing that I live in the midst of it." + +"You have joined the Ambulance Class, I hear." + +"Do you think I would neglect a precaution so obvious? Until their +enthusiasm abates, I certainly shall range myself among the First-Aiders +rather than the Injured." + +"My idea was, to strike while the iron is hot." + +"Oh," said I, "a town with so many in the fire--" + +"And I thought, perhaps, if we could manage to connect it in some way +with the Primrose League--" + +"But what can it have to do with the Primrose League?" I asked stiffly. +I will admit now to a slight prejudice against the Ambulance business-- +due perhaps to the lecturer's having chosen to start it in my absence. + +Sir Felix was disappointed, and showed it. "Why, it was you," he +reminded me, "who helped us last year by setting the widows to race for +a leg of mutton." + +"I was a symbolist in those days. And, excuse me, Sir Felix, it was not +last year, but the year before. Last year we had the surrender of +Cronje at Paardeberg, with the widows dressed up as Boer women." + +"Is that so? I thought we had Cronje two years ago, but no doubt you +are right. Now I thought that, with our Primrose fete coming on, and +everybody just now taking such an interest in the Empire--" + +"To be sure!" I cried. "'First Aid to the Empire'--it will look well on +the bills." + +Sir Felix rubbed his hands together--a trick of his when he is pleased. +"It's an idea, eh?" + +"A brilliant one." + +"Well, but you haven't heard all." He looked at me almost slyly. +"It occurred to me, that while--er--associating this enthusiasm of ours +with the imperial idea, we might at the same time do a good turn for +ourselves. You think that permissible?" + +"Permissible? For what else does an empire exist?" + +"Quite so. As I was saying to Lady Williams, only this morning, we must +bring _home_ to less thoughtful persons a sense of its beneficence. +Now it occurs to me: why go on subscribing to these great public Nursing +Funds, in which our mite is a mere drop in the ocean, when by sending up +a nurse from our own town--she would, of course, be a member of the +League--not only should we have the satisfaction of knowing that our +help is effective, but the young woman would be earning a salary and +supporting herself?" + +"Admirable!" said I. "It would look so much better in the papers too." + +"You see, we have at this moment a score of young women, all natives of +the town and members of the League, undergoing instruction from our +lecturer. After the course there will be an examination; and then, with +the lecturer's help--and the advice, if I might suggest it, of Lady +Williams, who can tell him if the candidate's family be respectable and +deserving--we can surely select a young person to do us credit." + + +Sir Felix took his departure in the cheerfullest temper, and I record +his suggestion as one eminently worthy of his head and his heart, +although subsequent events have, alas! brought it to nought. I doubt if +we shall send up a nurse from Troy; indeed, I doubt if there will even +be an examination. + + +Last evening the Young Women's Christian Association attended its sixth +Ambulance lecture. The subject--roller bandaging--being a practical +one, a small boy was had in, set on the platform, and bandaged in sight +of the audience--plain bandaged, reverse bandaged, figure-of-eight +bandaged, bandaged on forefinger, thumb, hand, wrist and forearm, elbow, +shoulder, knee, ankle, foot. He declares that he enjoyed himself +thoroughly. After each demonstration the young women took a turn and +practised with such assiduity that an hour slipped pleasantly away. +The bandages were applied, the spirals neatly stitched, and the stitches +promptly snipped for the next pupil to begin. An occasional prick with +the needle evoked no more than a playful remonstrance from the boy and a +ripple of laughter from the fair executants. At length, alas! Miss +Sophy Rabling, in snipping her bandage from the boy's foot, fumbled and +drove a point of the scissors sharply into his toe. + +With a howl he caught at his foot, from which one or two drops of blood +were trickling. And the sight of it so affected Miss Sophy that she +dropped upon the platform in a swoon. A class-mate in the body of the +hall almost instantly followed her example. + +The lecturer, I am bound to say, behaved admirably. So far was he from +losing his head, that he instantly seized on the accident to turn it to +account. + +"First aid!" he cried. "Subject: Fainting. Patient No. 1, head to be +pressed down below her knees and kept there for a few minutes. +Patient No. 2, to be extended on the floor, care being taken to keep +head and body level. A form being handy, we could, as an alternative, +have hung Patient No. 1 over it, head downwards." + +But at this point, unfortunately, the humour of the situation became too +much for Miss Gertrude Hansombody, another of the students. She began +to titter, went on to laugh uncontrollably, then to clench her hands and +sob. + +"Subject: Hysterics!" called the lecturer. "Treatment: Be firm with +the patient, hold her firmly by the wrists and threaten her with cold +water--" + +He spoke to empty benches. The rest of his pupils had escaped from the +room and were now on their way home, and running for dear life. + +I do not expect that St. John of Jerusalem will figure prominently in +our Primrose fete. My reason for saying so is an urgent letter just +received from Sir Felix, who wishes to confer with me in the course of +the day. + + + +COX _VERSUS_ PRETYMAN. + + +We are not litigious in Troy, and we obey the laws of England cheerfully +if we sometimes claim to interpret them in our own way. I leave others +to determine whether the Chief Constable's decision, that one policeman +amply suffices for us, be an effect or a cause, but certain it is that +we rarely trouble any court, and almost never that of Assize. + +This accounts in part for the popular interest awakened by the suit of +Cox _versus_ Pretyman, heard a few days ago at the Bodmin Assizes. I +say "in part," because the case presented (as the newspapers phrase it) +some unusual features, and differed noticeably from the ordinary Action +for Breach of Promise. "No harm in that," you will say? Indeed no; and +we should have regarded it as no more than our due but for an +apprehension that the conduct alleged against the defendant concerned us +all by compromising the good name of our town. + +At any rate, last Wednesday found the streets full of citizens hurrying +to the railway station, and throughout the morning our stationmaster had +difficulty in handling the traffic. The journey to Bodmin is not a long +one as the crow flies, but, as our carpenter, Mr. Hansombody, put it, +"we are not crows, and, that being the case, naturally resent being +packed sixteen in a compartment." Mr. Hansombody taxed the Great +Western Company with lack of foresight in not running excursion trains, +and appealed to me to support his complaint. I argued (with the general +approval of our fellow-travellers) that there was something heartless in +the idea of an excursion to listen to the recital of a woman's wrongs, +especially of Miss Cox's, whom we had known so long and esteemed. +Driven from this position, Mr. Hansombody took a fresh stand on the +superiority of the old broad-gauge carriages; and this, since it raised +no personal question, we discussed in very good humour while we unpacked +and ate our luncheons. + +In the midst of our meal a lady at the far end of the compartment heaved +a sigh and ejaculated "Poor thing!"--which at once set us off discussing +the case anew. We agreed that such conduct as Pretyman's was +fortunately rare amongst us. We tried to disclaim him--no easy matter, +since his father and mother had been natives of Troy, and he had spent +all his life in our midst. The lady in the corner challenged Mr. +Hansombody to deny that our town was deteriorating--the rising +generation more mischievous than its parents, and given to mitching from +school, and cigarette smoking, if not to worse. + +Now this was a really damaging attack, for Mr. Hansombody not only +presides over our School Board, but has a son in the tobacco business. +He met it magnificently. "He would dismiss (he said) the cigarette +question as one upon which--Heaven knew with how little justice!--he +might be suspected of private bias; but on the question of truancy he +had something to say, and he would say it. To begin with, he would +admit that the children in Troy played truant; the percentage of school +attendance was abnormally low. Yes, he admitted the fact, and thanked +the lady for having called attention to it, since it bore upon the +subject now uppermost in our minds. He had here"--and he drew from his +pocket a magazine article--"some statistics to which he would invite our +attention. They showed the average school attendance in Cornwall to be +lower than in any county of England or Wales. _But_"--and Mr. +Hansombody raised his forefinger--"the same statistician in the very +same paper proves the average of criminal prosecutions in Cornwall to be +the lowest in England and Wales." + +"And you infer--" I began as he paused triumphantly. + +"I infer nothing, sir. I leave the inference to be drawn by our +faddists in education, and I only hope they'll enjoy it." + +Well, apart from its bearing on Mr. Hansombody's position as Chairman of +our Board (which we forbore to examine), this discovery consoled us +somewhat and amused us a great deal until we reached Bodmin, when we +hurried at once to the Assize Court. + +I have said that the action, Cox _v._ Pretyman, was for damages for +Breach of Promise of Marriage. Both parties are natives and +parishioners of Fowey, and attend the same place of worship. +The plaintiff, Miss Rebecca Cox, earns her living as a dressmaker's +assistant; the defendant is our watch-maker, and opened a shop of his +own but a few months before approaching Miss Cox with proposals of +marriage. This was fifteen years ago. I may mention that some kind of +counter-claim was put in "for goods delivered"; the goods in question +being a musical-box and sundry small articles for parlour amusement, +such as a solitaire-tray, two packs of "Patience" cards, a race-game, +and the like. But the defendant did not allege that these had been sent +or accepted as whole or partial quittance of his contract to marry, and +I can only suppose that he pleaded them in mitigation of damages. +Miss Cox asked for one hundred and fifty pounds. + +Her evidence was given in quiet but resolute tones, and for some time +disclosed nothing sensational. The circumstances in which Mr. Pretyman +had sued for and obtained the promise of her hand differed in no +important particular from those which ordinarily attend the +_fiancailles_ of respectable young persons in Troy; and for twelve years +his courtship ran an even course. "After this," asserted Miss Cox, +"his attentions cooled. He was friendly and kind enough when we met, +and still talked of enlarging his shop-front and marrying in the near +future. But his visits were not frequent enough to be called courting." +Of late, though living in the same street, she had only seen him on +Sundays; and even so he would be occupied almost all the day and evening +with services, Sunday school, prayer-meetings, and occasional addresses. +At length she taxed him with indifference, and, finding his excuses +unsatisfactory, was persuaded by her friends to bring the present +action. She liked the man well enough; but for the last two or three +years "his heart hadn't been in it. He didn't do any proper courting." + +Defendant's counsel (a young man) attempted in cross-examination to lead +Miss Cox to reveal herself as an exacting young woman. + +"Do you assert that at length you came to see nothing of defendant +during the week?" + +"Only through the shop window as I went by to my work. And of late, +when he saw me coming, he would screw a magnifying glass in his eye and +pretend to be busy with his watch-making. I believe he did it to avoid +looking at me, and also because he knew I couldn't bear him with his +face screwed up. It makes such a difference to his appearance." + +"Gently, gently, Miss Cox! You must not give us your mere suppositions. +Now, did he never pay you a visit, or take you for a walk, say on +Wednesdays? That would be early-closing day, I believe." + +"Never for the last three years, sir, after he became a Freemason. +Wednesdays was lodge-night." + +"Well then, on Saturday, after shop hours?" + +"Yes, he used to come on Saturdays, till he was made a Forester. +The Foresters meet every Saturday evening." + +"Mondays then, or Tuesdays? We haven't exhausted the week yet, Miss +Cox." + +"No, sir. Mondays he was a Rechabite and went to tent. Tuesdays he +would be an Ancient Druid--" + +"Gently! On Mondays, you say, he was a Rechabite and went to tent. +What is a Rechabite? And what does he do in a tent?" + +_Plaintiff_ (dissolving in tears): "Ah, sir, if I only knew!" + +Here the Judge interposed. A Rechabite, he believed, went to a tent, or +habitation, for the purpose (among others) of abstaining from alcoholic +drinks. + +_Plaintiff_ (briskly): "But, my lord, you wouldn't call that proper +courting!" + +Defendant's counsel had taken this opportunity to resume his seat. +But counsel for the plaintiff now arose, with a smile, to re-examine. + +"Did Mr. Pretyman walk out with you on Thursday evenings?" + +"Oh no, sir. On Thursday evenings Mr. Pretyman was an Oddfellow." + +"I think we have only to account for Fridays," said his lordship, after +consulting his notes. + +"On Fridays, my lord, Mr. Pretyman was an Ancient Buffalo." + +"An Ancient Buffalo?" + +"Yes, my lord (sobbing). I don't know what it means, but that was the +last straw." + + +"The first question for the jury to determine," said his lordship, a +little later, "is whether an affianced young woman, as such, has a right +to expect from her betrothed such attentions as may reasonably be taken +as earnest of his desire to fulfil his contract within a reasonable +time. In the present instance, the fact that the contract was made does +not stand in doubt; it is not disputed. Now arises a second question. +Can a man who is on weekdays a Freemason, a Rechabite, an Oddfellow, a +Forester, an Ancient Druid, and an Ancient Buffalo, and on +Sundays (as I gather) a Yarmouth Bloater--" + +"Plymouth Brother, my lord," plaintiff's counsel corrected. + +"I beg your pardon--a Plymouth Brother. I say, can a man who after his +betrothal voluntarily preoccupies himself with these multifarious +functions be held--I will not say to have disqualified himself for that +willing exchange of confidence which is the surest guarantee of lasting +happiness between man and wife--but to have raised such obstacles to the +fulfilment of the original contract as reasonably warrant the accusation +of _mala fides?_" + +Well, the jury held that he could; for without troubling to leave the +box they gave their verdict for the plaintiff, and assessed the damages +at one hundred pounds. + +Towards the close of the case we all felt ashamed of Pretyman. +His defence had been weak; it struck us as almost derisory; and Mr. +Hansombody agreed with me in a whisper that under similar circumstances +he or I could have made a better fight for it. The fellow had shown no +sport. We blushed for our town. + +But Troy has a knack of winning its races on the post. Judgment, as the +phrase goes, was on the point of being entered accordingly, when the +defendant looked up towards the Bench with a sudden, happy smile. + +"Here, wait a minute!" he said. "I have a question to put to his +lordship." + +"Eh?" said the Judge. "Certainly. What is it?" + +"I want to know, my lord, if I can claim the benefit of the First +Offenders Act?" + + +The train on the return journey was worse crowded than ever; but nobody +minded. For we had managed to give plaintiff and defendant a +compartment to themselves. + + + +THE BRIDALS OF YSSELMONDE. + + +When the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Carinthia travelled in state to wed the +Princess Sophia of Ysselmonde, he did so by land, and for two reasons; +the first being that this was the shortest way, and the second that he +possessed no ships. These, at any rate, were the reasons alleged by his +Chancellor, to whom he left all arrangements. For himself, he took very +little interest in the marriage beyond inquiring the age of his bride. +"Six years," was the answer, and this seemed to him very young, for he +had already passed his tenth birthday. + +The Pope, however, had contrived and blessed the match; so Ferdinand +raised no serious objection, but in due course came to Ysselmonde with +his bodyguard of the famous Green Carinthian Archers, and two hundred +halberdiers and twelve waggons--four to carry his wardrobe, and the +remaining eight piled with wedding presents. On the way, while +Ferdinand looked for birds' nests, the Chancellor sang the praises of +the Princess Sophia, who (he declared) was more beautiful than the day. +"But you have never seen her," objected Ferdinand. "No, your Highness, +and that is why I contented myself with a purely conventional phrase;" +and the Chancellor, who practised _finesse_ in his odd moments, began to +talk of the sea, the sight of which awaited them at Ysselmonde. +"And what is the sea like?" "Well, your Highness, the sea is somewhat +difficult to describe, for in fact there is nothing to compare with it." +"You have seen it, I suppose?" "Sire, I have done more; for once, while +serving as Ambassador at Venice, I had the honour to be upset in it." + +With such converse they beguiled the road until they reached Ysselmonde, +and found the sea completely hidden by flags and triumphal arches. +And there, after three days' feasting, the little Grand Duke and the +still smaller Princess were married in the Cathedral by the Cardinal +Archbishop, and the Pope's legate handed them his master's blessing in a +morocco-covered case, and as they drove back to the Palace the Dutchmen +waved their hats and shouted "Boo-mp!" but the Carinthian Archers cried +"Talassio!" which not only sounded better, but proved (when they +obligingly explained what it meant) that the ancestors of the Grand Duke +of Carinthia had lived in Rome long before any Pope. + +On reaching the Palace the bride and bridegroom were taken to a gilded +drawing-room, and there left to talk together, while the guests filled +up the time before the banquet by admiring the presents and calculating +their cost. Ferdinand said, "Well, _that's_ over;" and the Princess +said, "Yes,"--for this was their first opportunity of conversing alone. + +"You're a great deal better than I expected," said Ferdinand +reassuringly. Indeed, in her straight dress sewn with seed-pearls and +her coif of Dutch lace surmounted with a little crown of diamonds, the +Princess looked quite beautiful; and he in his white satin suit, crossed +with the blue ribbon of St. John Nepomuc, was the handsomest boy she had +ever seen. "Besides," he added, "my Chancellor says you are hereditary +High Admiral of the Ocean--it's in the marriage settlement; and that +would make up for a lot. Where is it?" + +"The Ocean?" She felt very shy still. "I have never seen it, but I +believe it's somewhere at the bottom of the garden." + +"Suppose we go and have a look at it?" She was about to say that she +must ask leave of her governess, but he looked so masterful and +independent that she hadn't the courage. It gave her quite a thrill as +he took her hand and led her out through the low window to the great +stone terrace. They passed down the terrace steps into a garden ablaze +with tulip beds in geometrical patterns; at the foot ran a yew hedge, +and beyond it, in a side-walk, they came upon a scullion boy chasing a +sulphur-yellow butterfly. The Grand Duke forgot his fine manners, and +dropped his bride's hand to join in the chase; but the boy no sooner +caught sight of him than he fled with a cry of dismay and popped into an +arbour. There, a minute later, the bride and bridegroom found him +stooping over a churn and stirring with might and main. + +"What are you stirring, boy?" asked Ferdinand. + +"Praised be the Virgin!" said the boy, "I _believe_ it's an ice-pudding +for the banquet. But they shouldn't have put the ice-puddings in the +same arbour as the fireworks; for, if your Highness will +allow me to say so, you can't expect old heads on young shoulders." + +"Are the fireworks in our honour too?" + +"Why, of course," the scullion answered; "everything is in your honour +to-day." + +This simplified matters wonderfully. The children passed on through a +gate in the garden wall and came upon a clearing beside a woodstack; and +there stood a caravan with its shafts in the air. A woman sat on the +tilt at the back, reading, and every now and then glancing towards two +men engaged in deadly combat in the middle of the clearing, who shouted +as they thrust at one another with long swords. + +The little Princess, who, except when driven in her state-coach to the +Cathedral, had never before strayed outside the garden, turned very pale +and caught at her husband's hand. But he stepped forward boldly. + +"Now yield thee, caitiff, or thine hour has come!" shouted one of the +fighters and flourished his blade. + +"Sooner I'll die than tum te tum te tum!" the other answered quite as +fiercely. + +"Slave of thine become," said the woman from the caravan. + +"Thank you. Sooner I'll die than slave of thine become!" He laid about +him with fresh vigour. + +"Put down your swords," commanded Ferdinand. + +"And now tell me who you are." + +"We are Valentine and Orson," they answered. + +"Indeed?" Ferdinand had heard of them, and shook hands affably. +"Then I'm very glad to make your acquaintance." + +"And," said they, "we are rehearsing for the performance at the Palace +to-night in your Highnesses' honour." + +"Oh, so this is in our honour too?" + +"To be sure," said the woman; "and I am to dress up as Hymen and speak +the Epilogue in a saffron robe. It has some good lines; for instance--" + + 'Ye Loves and Genial Hours, conspire + To gratify this Royal Pair + With Sons impetuous as their Sire, + And Daughters as their Mother fair!' + +"Thank you," said Ferdinand. "But we are very busy to-day and must take +one thing at a time. Can you tell us the way to the sea, please?" + +The woman pointed along a path which led to a moss-covered gate and an +orchard where the apple-blossom piled itself in pink clouds against the +blue sky: as they followed the path they heard her laughing, and looked +back to see her still staring after them and laughing merrily, while +Valentine and Orson leaned on their swords and laughed too. + +The orchard was the prettiest in the whole world. Blackbirds played +hide-and-seek beneath the boughs, blue and white violets hid in the tall +grass around the boles, and the spaces between were carpeted with +daisies to the edge of a streamlet. Over the streamlet sang thrushes +and goldfinches and bull-finches innumerable, and their voices shook +down the blossom like a fall of pink snow, which threatened to cover +even the daisies. The Grand Duke and the Princess believed that all +this beauty was in their honour, no less than the chorus of the bells +floating across the tree-tops from the city. + +"This is the best of all," said Ferdinand as they seated themselves by +the stream. "I had no idea marriage was such fun. And they haven't +even forgotten the trout!" he cried, peering over the brink. + +"Can you make daisy-chains?" asked the Princess timidly. + +He could not; so she taught him, feeling secretly proud that there was +something he could learn of her. When the chain was finished he flung +it over his neck and kissed her. "Though I don't like kissing, as a +rule," he explained. + +"And this shall be my wedding present," said she. + +"Why, I brought you six waggon-loads!--beauties--all chosen by my +Chancellor." + +"But he didn't make or choose this one," said Sophia, "and I like this +one best." They sat silent for a moment. "Dear me," she sighed, +"what a lot we have to learn of each other's ways!" + +"Hullo!" Ferdinand was staring down the glade. "What's that line at the +end there, across the sky?" + +Sophia turned. "I think that's the sea--yes, there is a ship upon it." + +"But why have they hung a blue cloth in front of it?" + +"I expect that's in our honour too." + +They took hands and trotted to the end of the orchard; and there, beyond +the hedge, ran a canal, and beyond the canal a wide flat country +stretched away to the sea,--a land dotted with windmills and cattle and +red-and-white houses with weathercocks,--a land, too, criss-crossed with +canals, whereon dozens of boats, and even some large ships, threaded +their way like dancers in and out of the groups of cattle, or sailed +past a house so closely as almost to poke a bowsprit through the front +door. The weather-cocks spun and glittered, the windmills waved their +arms, the boats bowed and curtseyed to the children. Never was such a +salutation. Even the blue cloth in the distance twinkled, and Ferdinand +saw at a glance that it was embroidered with silver. + +But the finest flash of all came from a barge moored in the canal just +below them, where a middle-aged woman sat scouring a copper pan. + +"Good-day!" cried Ferdinand across the hedge. "Why are you doing that?" + +"Why, in honour of the wedding, to be sure. 'Must show one's best at +such times, if only for one's own satisfaction." Then, as he climbed +into view and helped Sophia over the hedge, she recognised them, and, +dropping her pan with a clatter, called on the saints to bless them and +keep them always. The bridal pair clambered down to the towpath, and +from the towpath to her cabin, where she fed them (for they were hungry +by this time) with bread and honey from a marvellous cupboard painted +all over with tulips: in short, they enjoyed themselves immensely. + +"Only," said Ferdinand, "I wish they hadn't covered up the sea, for I +wanted a good look at it." + +"The sea?" said the barge-woman, all of a shiver. Then she explained +that her two sons had been drowned in it. "Though, to be sure," said +she, "they died for your Majesty's honour, and, if God should give them +back to me, would do so again." + +"For me?" exclaimed Sophia, opening her eyes very wide. + +"Ay, to be sure, my dear. So it's no wonder--eh?--that I should love +you." + + +By the time they said good-bye to her and hurried back through the +orchard, a dew was gathering on the grass and a young moon had poised +herself above the apple-boughs. The birds here were silent; but high on +the stone terrace, when they reached it, a solitary one began to sing. +From the bright windows facing the terrace came the clatter of plates +and glasses, with loud outbursts of laughter. But this bird had chosen +his station beneath a dark window at the corner, and sang there unseen. +It was the nightingale. + +They could not understand what he sang. "It is my window," whispered +Sophia, and began to weep in the darkness, without knowing why; for she +was not miserable in the least, but, on the contrary, very, very happy. +They listened, hand in hand, by a fountain on the terrace. Through the +windows they could see the Papal legate chatting at table with the King, +Sophia's father, and the Chancellor hobnobbing with the Cardinal +Archbishop. Only the Queen of Ysselmonde sat at the table with her +wrists on the arms of her throne and her eyes looking out into the +darkness, as though she caught some whisper of the bird's song. But the +children knew that he sang for them, not for her; for he told of all the +adventures of the day, and he told not as I am telling them, but so +beautifully that the heart ached to hear. Yet his song was of two words +only. "Young--young--young! Love love--love!"--the same words over and +over. + +A courtier came staggering out from the banqueting-hall, and the bird +flew away. The children standing by the fountain watched him as he +found the water and dipped his face in it, with a groan. He was +exceedingly drunk; but as he lifted his head he caught sight of them in +the moonlight and excused himself. + +"In your Highnesses' honour," he assured them: "'been doing my best." + +"Poor man!" said Sophia. "But how loyal!" + + + +ENGLAND! + + +At Madeira seven of us were added to the first-class passengers of the +_Cambuscan_, homeward bound from Cape Town; and even so the company made +a poor muster in the saloon, which required a hundred and seventy feet +of hurricane-deck for covering. Those were days--long before the South +African War, before the Jameson Raid even--when every ship carried out a +load of miners for the Transvaal, and returned comparatively empty, +though as a rule with plenty of obviously rich men and be-diamonded +ladies. + +But every tide has its backwash; and it so happened that the _Cambuscan_ +held as many second and third-class passengers as she could stow. +They were--their general air proclaimed it--the failures of South +African immigration; men and women who had gone out too early and given +up the struggle just when the propitious moment arrived. Seediness +marked the second-class; the third-class came from all parts, from the +Cape to Pietermaritzburg, but they might have conspired to assemble on +the _Cambuscan_ as a protest against high hopes and dreams of a promised +land. The protest, let me add, was an entirely passive one. They stood +aloof, watching the flashy gaieties of the hurricane-deck from their own +sad penumbra--a dejected, wistful, whispering throng. "They simply +don't occur," one of the be-diamonded ladies remarked to me, and went on +to praise the U-- Line for arranging it so. With nightfall--or a trifle +later--they vanished; and at most, when the time came for my last pipe +before turning in, two or three figures would be left pacing there +forward, pacing and turning and pacing again. I wondered who these +figures were, and what their thoughts. They and the sleepers hived +beneath them belonged to another world--a world driven with ours through +wave and darkness, urged by the same propellers, controlled by the same +helmsman, separated only by thin partitions which the touch of a rock +would tear down like paper; yet, while the partitions stood, separated +as no city separates its rich and poor. Only on Sundays did these two +worlds consent to meet. They had, it appeared, a common God, and joined +for a few minutes once a week in worshipping Him. + +The be-diamonded lady, however, was not quite accurate. Once, and once +only--it was the second day out from Madeira--the third-class passengers +did "occur," to the extent of organising athletic sports, and even (with +the captain's leave) of levying prize-money from the saloon-deck. +Some four or five of us, when their delegate approached, were lounging +beneath the great awning and listening, or pretending to listen, to the +discourse of our only millionaire, Mr. Olstein. As usual, he recited +his wrongs; and, as usual, the mere recital caused him to perspire. +The hairs on the back of his expostulatory hand bristled with +indignation, the diamonds on his fingers flashed with it. We had known +him but two days and were passing weary of him, but allowed him to talk. +He apostrophised the British Flag--his final Court of Appeal, he termed +it--while we stared out over the waters. + +"We love it," he insisted. "We never see it without a lump in our +throats. But we ask ourselves, How long is this affection to count for +nothing? What are we to get in return?" + +No one answered, perhaps because no one knew. My thoughts had flown +forward to a small riverside church in England, and a memorial window to +one whose body had been found after Isandlwhana with the same flag +wrapped around it beneath the tunic. This was _his_ reward. + +"Hey? What's this?" Mr. Olstein took the subscription list, fitted his +gold-rimmed glasses and eyed the delegate over the paper. +"Athletic sports? Not much in your line, I should say." + +"No, sir;" and while the delegate bent his eyes a bright spot showed on +either cheek. He was a weedy, hollow-chested man, about six feet in +height, with tell-tale pits at the back of the neck, and a ragged beard +evidently grown on the voyage. "I'm only a collector, with the +captain's permission." + +"I see." Mr. Olstein pulled out a sovereign. "I don't put this on +_you_, mind; I can tell a consumptive with half an eye. See here"--he +appealed to us--"this is just what we suffer from. You fellows with +lung trouble flock to a tepid hole like Madeira, while the Cape would +cure you in half the time: why, the voyage itself only begins to be +decent after you get south! But you won't see it; and the people who +_do_ see it are just the sort who don't pay us when they come, and +damage us when they go back,--hard cases, sent out to pick up a living +as well as their health, who get stranded and hurry home half-cured." + +A young Briton in the deck-chair next to mine rose and walked off +abruptly, while I fumbled for a coin, ashamed to meet the collector's +eye. + +"Hullo!" Mr. Olstein grinned at me. "Our friend's in a hurry to dodge +the subscription list." + +But the young Briton turned and intercepted the collector as he moved +towards the next group. + +"It's _your_ sovereign," said I, "that seems to be overlooked." + +Mr. Olstein saw it at his elbow and re-pocketed it. "Well, if he hasn't +the sense to pick it up, I've some more than to whistle him back. +But that'll show you the sort of fool we send out to compete with +Germans and suchlike. It's enough to make a man ashamed of his +country." + +This happened on a Saturday morning, and in the afternoon we attended +the sports--a depressing ceremony. The performers went through their +contests, so to speak, with bated breath and a self-consciousness which, +try as we might, poisoned our applause and made it insufferably +patronising. Their backers would pluck up heart and encourage them +loudly with Whitechapel catch-words, and anon would hush their voices in +uneasy shame. Our collector, brave by fits in his dignity as steward, +would catch the eye of a saloon-deck passenger and shrink behind the +enormous rosette which some wag had pinned upon him. + +Next day I made an opportunity to speak with him, after service. +It needed no pressing to extract his story, and he told it with entire +simplicity. He was a Cockney, and by trade had been a baker in +Bermondsey. "A wearing trade," he said. "The most of us die before +forty. You'd be surprised." But he had started with a sound +constitution, and somehow persuaded himself, in spite of warnings, that +he was immune. At thirty-two he had married. "A deal later than most," +he explained--and had scarcely been married three months before lung +trouble declared itself. "I had a few pounds put by, having married so +late; and it seemed a duty to Emily to give myself every chance: so we +packed up almost at once and started for South Africa. It was a wrench +to her, but the voyage out did us both all the good in the world, she +being in a delicate state of health, and the room in Bermondsey not fit +for a woman in that condition." The baby was born in Cape Town, five +months after their landing. "But they've no employment for bakers out +there," he assured me. "We found trade very low altogether, and what I +picked up wasn't any healthier than in London. Emily disliked the +place, too; though she'd have stayed gladly if it had been doing me any +good. And so back we're going. There's one thing: I'm safe of work. +My old employer in Bermondsey has promised that all right. And the +child, you see, sir, won't suffer. There's no consumption, that I know +of, in either of our families; and Emily, you may be sure, will see he's +not brought up to be a baker." + +He announced it in the most matter-of-fact way. He was going back to +England to die--to die speedily--and he knew it. "I should like you to +see our baby, sir," he added. "He weighs extraordinary, for his age. +My wife comes from the North of England--a very big-boned family; and +he's British, every ounce of him, though he _was_ born in South Africa." + +But the wife took a chill on entering the Bay, and remained below with +the child; nor was it until the day we sighted England that I saw the +whole family together. + + +We were to pick up the Eddystone; and as this was calculated to happen +at sunset, or a little after, the usual sweepstake on the saloon-deck +aroused a little more than the usual excitement. For the first glimpse, +whether of lighthouse or light, would give the prize to the nearest +guesser. If we anticipated sunset, the clearness of the weather would +decide between two pretty close shots: if we ran it fine, the lamp +(which carries for seventeen miles and more) might upset those who +staked on daylight even at that distance from the mark. Our guesses had +been tabulated, and the paper pinned up in the smoking-room. + +They allowed a margin of some twenty-five knots on the twenty-four +hours' run--ranging, as nearly as I can recollect, from three hundred +and thirty-five to three hundred and sixty; and the date being the last +week of March, and sunset falling close on half-past six, a whole nebula +of guesses surrounded that hour, one or two divided only by a few +seconds. + +A strong head-wind met us in the Channel, and the backers of daylight +had almost given up hope; but it dropped in the late afternoon, and by +the log we were evidently in for a close finish. Mr. Olstein had set +his watch by the ship's chronometer, and consulted it from minute to +minute. He stood by me, binocular in hand, and grew paler with +excitement as sunset drew on and the minutes scored off the guesses one +by one from the list. His guess was among the last, but not actually +the last by half a dozen. + +We had reached a point when five minutes disposed of no less than nine +guesses. The weather was dull: no one could tell precisely if the sun +had sunk or not. We were certainly within twenty miles of the rock, and +by the Nautical Almanack, unless our chronometer erred, the light ought +to flash out within sixty seconds. If within forty the man sang out +from the crow's-nest, Mr. Olstein would lose; after forty he had a whole +minute and a half for a clear win. + +The forty seconds passed. Mr. Olstein drew a long breath of relief. +"But why the devil don't they light up?" he demanded after a moment. +"I call you to witness what the time is by our chronometer. I'll have +it tested as soon as I step ashore, and if it's wrong I'll complain to +the Company; if it's not, I'll send the Trinity House a letter'll lay +those lighthouse fellows by the heels! Punctuality, sir, in the case of +shipping--life or death--" + +The cry of the man in the crow's-nest mingled with ours as a spark +touched the north-eastern horizon almost ahead of us--trembled and +died--shone out, as it seemed, more steadily--and again was quenched. + +Mr. Olstein slapped his thigh. He had won something like ten pounds and +was a joyous millionaire. "That makes twice in four voyages," he +proclaimed. + +I congratulated him and strode forward. A group of third-class +passengers had gathered by the starboard bow. They, too, had heard the +cry. To all appearance they might have been an ordinary Whitechapel +crowd, and even now they scarcely lifted their voices; but they +whispered and pointed. + +"The Eddystone!" + +I singled out my friend the baker. Before I could reach him he had +broken from the group. I hailed him. Without seeming to hear, he +disappeared down the fore-companion. But by and by he emerged again, +and with a baby in his arms. Evidently he had torn it from its cot. +His wife followed, weak and protesting. + +The child, too, raised a wail of querulous protest; but he hugged it to +him, and running to the ship's side held it aloft. + +"England, baby!" + +It turned its head, seeking the pillow or its mother; and would not +look, but broke into fresh and louder wailing. + +"England!" + +He hugged it afresh. God knows of what feeling sprang the tears that +fell on its face and baptized it. But he hushed his voice, and, lifting +the child again, coaxed it to look--coaxed it with tears streaming now, +and with a thrill that would not be denied-- + +"England, baby--England!" + + + +JOHN AND THE GHOSTS. + + +In the kingdom of Illyria there lived, not long ago, a poor wood-cutter +with three sons, who in time went forth to seek their fortunes. At the +end of three years they returned by agreement, to compare their progress +in the world. The eldest had become a lawyer, and the second a +merchant, and each of these had won riches and friends; but John, the +youngest, who had enlisted in the army, could only show a cork leg and a +medal. + +"You have made a bad business of it," said his brothers. "Your medal is +worthless except to a collector of such things, and your leg a positive +disadvantage. Fortunately we have influence, and since you are our +brother we must see what we can do for you." + +Now the King of Illyria lived at that time in his capital, in a brick +palace at the end of the great park. He kept this park open to all, and +allowed no one to build in it. But the richest citizens, who were so +fond of their ruler that they could not live out of his sight, had their +houses just beyond the park, in the rear of the Palace, on a piece of +ground which they called Palace Gardens. The name was a little +misleading, for the true gardens lay in front of the Palace, where +children of all classes played among the trees and flower-beds and +artificial ponds, and the King sat and watched them, because he took +delight in children, and because the sight of them cheered his only +daughter, who had fallen into a deep melancholy. But the rich citizens +clung to it, for it gave a pleasant neighbourly air to their roadway, +and showed what friendliness there was between the monarch of Illyria +and his people. + +At either end you entered the roadway (if you were allowed) by an iron +gate, and each gate had a sentry-box beside it, and a tall beadle, and a +notice-board to save him the trouble of explanation. The notice ran-- + + PRIVATE.--_The Beadle has orders to refuse + admittance to all Waggons, Tradesmen's + Carts, Hackney Coaches, Donkeys, Beggars, + Disorderly Characters, or Persons carrying + Burdens_. + +A sedentary life had told so severely upon one of the two beadles that +he could no longer enter his box with dignity or read his newspaper +there with any comfort. He resigned, and John obtained the post by his +brothers' interest, in spite of his cork leg. + +He had now a bright green suit with scarlet pipings, a gold-laced hat, a +fashionable address, and very little to do. But the army had taught him +to be active, and for lack of anything better he fell into deep +thinking. This came near to bringing him into trouble. One evening he +looked out of his sentry-box and saw a mild and somewhat sad-featured +old gentleman approaching the gate. + +"No admittance," said John. + +"Tut, tut!" said the old gentleman. "I'm the King." + +John looked at the face on his medal, and sure enough there was a +resemblance. "But, all the same, your Majesty carries a burden,"--here +he pointed to the notice-board,--"and the folks along this road are +mighty particular." + +The King smiled and then sighed heavily. + +"It's about the Princess, my daughter," said he; "she has not smiled for +a whole year." + +"I'll warrant I'd make her," said John. + +"I'll warrant you could not," said the King. "She will never smile +again until she is married." + +"Then," answered John, "speaking in a humble way, as becomes me, why the +dickens alive don't you marry her up and get done with it?" + +The King shook his head. + +"There's a condition attached," said he. "Maybe you have heard of the +famous haunted house in Puns'nby Square?" + +"I've always gone by the spelling, and pronounced it Ponsonby," said +John. + +"Well, the condition is that every suitor for my daughter's hand must +spend a night alone in that house; and if he survives and is ready to +persevere with his wooing, he must return a year later with his bride +and spend the night of his marriage there." + +"And very handy," said John, "for there's a wedding-cake shop at the +corner." + +The King sighed again. + +"Unhappily, none survive. One hundred and fifty-five have undertaken +the adventure, and not a man of them but has either lost his wits or run +for it." + +"Well," said John, "I've been afraid of a great many men--" + +"That's a poor confession for a soldier," put in the King. + +"--when they all happened to come at me together. But I've never yet +met the ghost that could frighten me; and if your Majesty will give me +the latch-key I'll try my luck this very night." + +It could not be done in this free-and-easy way; but at eight o'clock, +after John had visited the Palace and taken an oath in the Princess's +presence (which was his first sight of her), he was driven down to the +house beside the Lord Chamberlain, who admitted him to the black front +hall, and, slamming the door upon him, scuttled out of the porch as +quickly as possible and into his brougham. + +John struck a match, and as he did so heard the carriage roll away. +The walls were bare, and the floor and great staircase ahead of him +carpetless. As the match flickered out he caught a glimpse of a pair of +feet moving up the stairs; that was all--only feet. + +"I'll catch up with the calves on the landing, maybe," said he; and, +striking another match, he followed them up. + +The feet turned aside on the landing and led him into a room on the +right. He paused on the threshold, drew a candle from his pocket, lit +it, and stared about him. The room was of great size, bare and dusty, +with crimson hangings, gilt panels, and one huge gilt chandelier, from +which and from the ceiling and cornice long cobwebs trailed down like +creeping plants. Beneath the chandelier a dark smear ran along the +boards. The feet crossed it towards the fireplace; and as they did so, +John saw them stained with blood. They reached the fire-place and +vanished. + +Scarcely had this happened, before the end of the room opposite the +window began to glow with an unearthly light. John, whose poverty had +taught him to be economical, promptly blew out his candle. A moment +later two men entered, bearing a coffin between them. They rested it +upon the floor and, seating themselves upon it, began to cast dice. +"Your soul!" "My soul!" they kept saying in hollow tones, according as +they won or lost. At length one of them--a tall man in a powdered wig, +with a face extraordinarily pale--flung a hand to his brow, rose and +staggered from the room. The other sat waiting and twirling his black +moustache, with an evil smile. John, who by this time had found a seat +in a far corner, thought him the most poisonous-looking villain he had +ever seen; but as the minutes passed and nothing happened, he turned his +back to the light and pulled out a penny-dreadful. His literary taste +was shocking, and when it came to romance he liked the incidents to +follow one another with great rapidity. + +He was interrupted by a blood-curdling groan, and the first ruffian +broke into the room, dragging by its grey locks the body of an old man. +A young girl followed, weeping and protesting, with dishevelled hair, +and behind her entered a priest with a brazier full of glowing charcoal. +The girl cast herself forward on the old man's body, but the two +scoundrels dragged her from it by force. "The money!" demanded the dark +one; and she drew from her bosom a small key and cast it at his feet. +"My promise!" demanded the other, and seized her by the wrist as the +priest stepped forward. "Quick! over this coffin--man and wife!" +She wrenched her hand away and thrust him backward. The priest +retreated to the brazier and drew out a red-hot iron. + +John thought it about time to interfere. + +"I beg your pardon," said he, stepping forward; "but I suppose you +really _are_ ghosts?" + +"We are unhallowed souls," answered the dark man impressively, +"who return to blight the living with the spectacle of our awful +crimes." + +"Meaning me?" asked John. + +"Ay, sir; and to destroy you to-night if you contract not, upon your +soul, to return with your bride and meet us here a twelvemonth hence." + +"H'm!" said John to himself, "they are three to one; and, after all, +it's what I came for. I suppose," he added aloud, "some form of +document is usual in these cases?" + +The dark man drew out pen and parchment. + +"Hold forth your hand," he commanded; and as John held it out, thinking +he meant to shake it over the bargain, the fellow drove the pen into his +wrist until the blood spurted. "Now sign!" + +"Sign!" said the other villain. + +"Sign!" said the lady. + +"Oh, very well, miss. If you're in the swindle too, my mind is easier," +said John, and signed his name with a flourish. "But a bargain is a +bargain, and what security have I for your part in it?" + +"Our signature!" said the priest terribly, at the same moment pressing +his branding-iron into John's ankle. A smell of burnt cork arose as +John stooped and clapped his hand over the scorched stocking. When he +looked up again his visitors had vanished; and a moment later the +strange light, too, died away. + +But the coffin remained for evidence that he had not been dreaming. +John lit a candle and examined it. + +"Just the thing for me," he exclaimed, finding it to be a mere shell of +pine-boards, loosely nailed together and painted black. "I was +beginning to shiver." He knocked the coffin to pieces, crammed them +into the fireplace, and very soon had a grand fire blazing, before which +he sat and finished his penny-dreadful, and so dropped off into a sound +sleep. + +The Lord Chamberlain arrived early in the morning, and, finding him +stretched there, at first broke into lamentations over the fate of yet +another personable young man; but soon changed his tune when John sat +up, and, rubbing his eyes, demanded to be told the time. + +"But are you really alive? We must drive back and tell his Majesty at +once!" + +"Stay a moment," said John. "There's a brother of mine, a lawyer, in +the city. He will be arriving at his office about this time, and you +must drive me there; for I have a document here of a sort, and must have +it stamped, to be on the safe side." + +So into the city he was driven beside the Lord Chamberlain, and there +had his leg stamped and filed for reference; and, having purchased +another, was conveyed to the Palace, where the King received him with +open arms. + +He was now a favoured guest at Court, and had frequent opportunities of +seeing and conversing with the Princess, with whom he soon fell deeply +in love. But as the months passed and the time drew near for their +marriage, he grew silent and thoughtful, for he feared to expose her, +even in his company, to the sights he had witnessed in the haunted +house. + +He thought and thought, until one fine afternoon he snapped his fingers +suddenly, and after that went about whistling. A fortnight before the +day fixed for the wedding he drove into the city again--but this time to +the office of his other brother, the merchant. + +"I want," he said, "a loan of a thousand pounds." + +"Nothing easier," said his brother. "Here are eight hundred and fifty. +Of the remainder I shall keep fifty as interest for the first year at +five per cent., and the odd hundred should purchase a premium of +insurance for two thousand pounds, which I will retain as security +against accidents." + +This seemed not only fair but brotherly. John pocketed his eight +hundred and fifty pounds, shook his creditor affectionately by the hand, +and hurried westward. + + +The marriage was celebrated with great pomp; and in the evening the +King, who had been shedding tears at intervals throughout the +ceremonies, accompanied his daughter to the haunted house. The Princess +was pale. John, on the contrary, who sat facing her father in the +state-coach, smiled with a cheerfulness which, under the circumstances, +seemed a trifle ill-bred. The wedding-guests followed in twenty-four +chariots. Their cards of invitation had said "Two to five-thirty p.m.," +and it was now eight o'clock; but they could not resist the temptation +to see the last of "the poor dear thing," as they agreed to call the +bride. + +The King sat silent during the drive; he was preparing his farewell +speech, which he meant to deliver in the porch. But arriving and +perceiving a crowd about it, and also, to his vast astonishment, a red +baize carpet on the perron, and a butler bowing in the doorway with two +footmen behind him, he coughed down his exordium, and led his daughter +into the hall amid showers of rice and confetti. The bridegroom +followed; and so did the wedding-guests, since no one opposed them. + +The hall and staircase were decorated with palms and pot-plants, flags +and emblems of Illyria; and in the great drawing-room--which they +entered while John persuaded the King to a seat--they found many rows of +morocco-covered chairs, a miniature stage with a drop representing the +play-scene in _Hamlet_, a row of footlights, a boudoir-grand piano, and +a man seated at the keyboard whom they recognised as a performer in much +demand at suburban dances. + +The company had scarcely seated itself, before a strange light began to +illuminate that end of the room at which the stage stood, and +immediately the curtain rose to the overture of M. Offenbach's _Orphee +aux Enfers_, the pianist continuing with great spirit until a round of +applause greeted the entrance of the two spectral performers. + +Its effect upon them was in the highest degree disconcerting. They set +down the coffin, and, after a brief and hurried conference in an +undertone, the black-mustachioed ghost advanced to the footlights, +singled out John from the audience, and with a terrific scowl demanded +to know the reason of this extraordinary gathering. + +"Come, come, my dear sir," answered John, "our contract, if you will +study it, allows me to invite whom I choose; it merely insists that my +bride and I must be present, as you see we are. Pray go on with your +part, and assure yourself it is no use to try the high horse with me." + +The dark ghost looked at his partner, who shuffled uneasily. + +"I told you," said he, "we should have trouble with this fellow. +I had a presentiment of it when he came to spend the night here without +bringing a bull-dog. That frightening of the bull-dog out of his wits +has always been our most effective bit of business." + +Hereupon the dark ghost took another tone. + +"Our fair but unfortunate victim has a sore throat to-night," he +announced. "The performance is consequently postponed;" and he seated +himself sulkily upon the coffin, when the limelight-man from the wings +promptly bathed him in a flood of the most beautiful rose-colour. +"Oh, this is intolerable!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet. + +"It is not first-rate, I agree," said John, "but, such as it is, we had +better go through with it. Should the company doubt its genuineness, I +can go around afterwards and show the brand on the cork." Here he +tapped the leg, which he had been careful to bring with him. + +Before this evidence of contract the ghosts' resistance collapsed. +They seated themselves on the coffin and began the casting of dice; the +performance proceeded, but in a half-hearted and perfunctory manner, +notwithstanding the vivacious efforts of the limelight-man. + +The tall ghost struck his brow and fled from the stage. There were +cries of "Call him back!" But John explained that this was part of the +drama, and no encores would be allowed; whereupon the audience fell to +hissing the villain, who now sat alone with the most lifelike expression +of malignity. + +"Oh, hang it!" he expostulated after a while, "I am doing this under +protest, and you need not make it worse for a fellow. I draw the line +at hissing." + +"It's the usual thing," explained John affably. + +But when the ghostly lady walked on, and in the act of falling on her +father's body was interrupted by the pianist, who handed up an immense +bouquet, the performers held another hurried colloquy. + +"Look here," said the dark-browed villain, stepping forward and +addressing John; "what will you take to call it quits?" + +"I'll take," said John, "the key which the lady has just handed you. +And if the treasure is at all commensurate with the fuss you have been +making about it, we'll let bygones be bygones." + +Well, it did; and John, having counted it out behind the curtain, came +forward and asked the pianist to play "God save the King"; and so, +having bowed his guests to the door, took possession of the haunted +house and lived in it many years with his bride, in high renown and +prosperity. + + + +THREE PHOTOGRAPHS. + + +"Photograph all the prisoners? But why?" demanded Sir Felix +Felix-Williams. Old Canon Kempe shrugged his shoulders; Admiral +Trewbody turned the pages of the Home Secretary's letter. They sat at +the baize-covered table in the Magistrates' Room--the last of the +Visiting Justices who met, under the old _regime_, to receive the +Governor's report and look after the welfare of the prisoners in +Tregarrick County Gaol. + +"But why, in the name of common-sense?" Sir Felix persisted. + +"I suppose," hazarded the Admiral, "it helps the police in identifying +criminals." + +"But the letter says '_all_ the prisoners.' You don't seriously tell me +that anyone wants a photograph to identify Poacher Tresize, whom I've +committed a score of times if I've committed him once? And perhaps +you'll explain to me this further demand for a 'Composite Photograph' of +all the prisoners, male and female. A 'Composite Photograph!'--have you +ever seen one?" + +"No," the Admiral mused; "but I see what the Home Office is driving at. +Someone has been persuading them to test these new theories in +criminology the doctors are so busy with, especially in Italy." + +"In Italy!" pish'd Sir Felix Felix-Williams. + +"My dear Sir Felix, science has no nationality." The Admiral was a +Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and kept a microscope to amuse +his leisure. + +"It has _some_ proper limits, I should hope," Sir Felix retorted. +It annoyed him--a Chairman of Quarter Sessions for close upon twenty +years--to be told that the science of criminology was yet in its +infancy; and he glanced mischievously at the Canon, who might be +supposed to have a professional quarrel with scientific men. But the +Canon was a wary fighter and no waster of powder and shot. + +"Well, well," said he, "I don't see what harm it can do, or what good. +If the Home Secretary wants his Composite Photograph, let him have it. +The only question is, Have we a photographer who knows how to make one? +Or must we send the negatives up to Whitehall?" + + +So the Visiting Justices sent for the local photographer and consulted +him. And he, being a clever fellow, declared it was easy enough-- +a mere question of care in superimposing the negatives. He had never +actually made the experiment; his clients (so he called his customers) +preferring to be photographed singly or in family groups. But he asked +to be given a trial, and suggested (to be on the safe side) preparing +two or three of these composite prints, between which the Justices might +choose at their next meeting. + + +This was resolved, and the resolution entered in the minutes; and next +day the photographer set to work. Some of the prisoners resisted and +"made faces" in front of the camera, squinting and pulling the most +horrible mouths. A female shoplifter sat under protest, because she was +not allowed to send home for an evening gown. But the most consented +obediently, and Jim Tresize even asked for a copy to take home to his +wife. + +The Admiral (who had married late in life) resided with his wife and +young family in a neat villa just outside the town, where his hobby was +to grow pelargoniums. The photographer passed the gate daily on his way +to and from the prison, and was usually hailed and catechised on his +progress. + +His patience with the recalcitrant prisoners delighted the Admiral, who +more than once assured his wife that Smithers was an intelligent fellow +and quite an artist in his way. "I wonder how he manages it," said Mrs. +Trewbody. "He told baby last autumn that a little bird would fly out of +the camera when he took off the cap, and everyone allows that the result +is most lifelike. But I don't like the idea, and I think it may injure +his trade." + +The Admiral could not always follow his wife's reasoning. "What is it +you dislike?" he asked. + +"Well, it's not nice to think of oneself going into the same camera he +has been using on those wretched prisoners. It's sentiment, I daresay; +but I had the same feeling when he stuck up Harry's photograph in his +showcase at the railway station, among all kinds of objectionable +persons, and I requested him to remove it." + +The Admiral laughed indulgently, being one of those men who find a +charm, even a subtle flattery, in their wives' silliness. + +"I agree with you," he said, "that it's not pleasant to be exposed to +public gaze among a crowd of people one would never think of knowing. +I don't suppose it would actually encourage familiarity; at the same +time there's an air of promiscuity about it--I won't say disrespect-- +which, ahem! jars. But with the prisoners it's different,--my attitude +to them is scientific, if I may say so. I look upon them as a race +apart, almost of another world, and as such I find them extremely +interesting. The possibility of mixing with them on any terms of +intimacy doesn't occur. I am aware, my dear," he wound up graciously, +"that you women seldom understand this mental detachment, being by +nature unscientific, and all the more charming for your prejudices." + + +At the next meeting of Justices Smithers the photographer presented +himself, and produced his prints with a curious air of diffidence. + +"I have," he explained, "brought three for your Worships' selection, and +can honestly assure your Worships that my pains have been endless. +What puzzles me, however, is that although in all three the same +portraits have been imposed, and in the same order, the results are +surprisingly different. The cause of these differences I cannot detect, +though I have gone over the process several times and step by step; but +out of some two dozen experiments I may say that all the results answer +pretty closely to one or another of these three types." Mr. Smithers, +who had spent much time in rehearsing this little speech, handed up +photograph No. 1; and Sir Felix adjusted his spectacles. + +"Villainous!" he exclaimed, recoiling. + +The Canon and the Admiral bent over it together. + +"Most repulsive!" said the Admiral. + +"Here indeed,"--the Canon was more impressive,--"here indeed is an +object-lesson in the effects of crime! Is it possible that to _this_ +Man's passions can degrade his divinely inherited features? Were it not +altogether too horrible, I would have this picture framed and glazed and +hung up in every cottage home in the land." + +"My dear fellow," interrupted Sir Felix, "we cannot possibly let this +monstrosity go up to Whitehall as representative of the inmates of +Tregarrick Gaol! It would mean an inquiry on the spot. It would even +reflect upon _us_. Ours is a decent county, as counties go, and I +protest it shall not, with my consent, be injured by any such libel." + +Mr. Smithers handed up photograph No. 2. + +"This looks better," began Sir Felix; and with that he gave a slight +start, and passed the photograph to the Canon. The Canon, too, started, +and stole a quick glance at Sir Felix: their eyes met. + +"It certainly is singular"--stammered Sir Felix. "I fancied--without +irreverence--But you detected it too?" he wound up incoherently. + +"May I have a look?" The Admiral peered over the Canon's hand, who, +however, did not relinquish the photograph but turned on Smithers +with sudden severity. + +"I presume, sir, this is not an audacious joke?" + +"I assure your Worship--" protested the photographer. "I had some +thoughts of tearing it up, but thought it wouldn't be honest." + +"You did rightly," the Canon answered; "but, now that we have seen it, I +have no such scruple." He tore the print across, and across again. +"Even in this," he said, with a glance at the Admiral, who winced, +"we may perhaps read a lesson, or at least a warning, that man's +presumption in extending the bounds of his knowledge--or, as I should +prefer to call it, his curiosity--may--er--bring him face to face +with--" + +But the Canon's speech tailed off as he regarded the torn pieces of +cardboard in his hand. He felt that the others had been seriously +perturbed and were not listening: he himself was conscious of a shock +too serious for that glib emollient--usually so efficacious--the sound +of his own voice. He perceived that it did not impose even on the +photographer. An uncomfortable silence fell on the room. + +Sir Felix was the first to recover. "Put it in the waste-paper basket: +no, in the fire!" he commanded, and turned to Smithers. "Surely between +these two extremes--" + +"I was on the point of suggesting that your Worships would find No. 3 +more satisfactory," the photographer interrupted, forgetting his manners +in his anxiety to restore these three gentlemen to their ease. +His own discomfort was acute, and he overacted, as a man will who has +unwittingly surprised a State secret and wishes to assure everyone of +his obtuseness. + +Sir Felix studied No. 3. "This appears to me a very ordinary +photograph. Without being positively displeasing, the face is one you +might pass in the street any day, and forget." + +"I hope it suggests no--no well-known features?" put in the Canon +nervously. + +"None at all, I think: but see for yourself. To me it seems--although +hazy, of course--the kind of thing the Home Office might find helpful." + +"It is less distinct than the others." The Admiral pulled his whiskers. + +"And for that reason the more obviously composite--which is what we are +required to furnish. No, indeed, I can find nothing amiss with it, and +I think, gentlemen, if you are agreed, we will forward this print." + + +No. 3 was passed accordingly, the photographer withdrew, and the three +Justices turned to other business, which occupied them for a full two +hours. + +But, I pray you, mark the sequel. + +Mr. Smithers, in his relief and delight at the Magistrates' approbation, +hurried home, fished out a copy of No. 3, exposed it proudly in his shop +window, and went off to the Packhorse Inn for a drink. + +Less than an hour later, Mrs. Trewbody, having packed her family into +the jingle for their afternoon's ride with Miss Platt, the governess, +strolled down into the town to do some light shopping; and, happening to +pass the photographer's window, came to a standstill with a little gasp. + +A moment later she entered the shop; and Mrs. Smithers, answering the +shop bell, found that she had taken the photograph from the window and +was examining it eagerly. + +"This is quite a surprise, Mrs. Smithers. A capital photograph! May I +ask how many copies my husband ordered?" + +"I'm not aware, ma'am, that the Admiral has ordered any as yet; though I +heard Smithers say only this morning as he hoped he'd be pleased with +it." + +"I think I can answer for that, although he _is_ particular. But I +happen to know he disapproves of these things being exposed in the +window. I'll take this copy home with me, if I may. Has your husband +printed any more?" + +"Well no, ma'am. There was one other copy; but Lady Felix-Williams +happened to be passing just now, and spied it, and nothing would do but +she must take it away with her." + +"Lady Felix-Williams?" Mrs. Trewbody stiffened with sudden distrust. +"Now, what would Lady Felix-Williams want with this?" + +"I'm sure I can't tell you, ma'am: but she was delighted. 'A capital +likeness,' she said; 'I've never seen a photograph before that caught +just that expression of his.'" + +"I should very much like to know what _she_ has to do with his +expression," Mrs. Trewbody murmured to herself, between wonder and +incipient alarm. But she concealed her feelings, good lady; and, having +paid for her purchase, carried it home in her muff and stuck it upright +against one of the Sevres candlesticks on her boudoir mantel-shelf. + +And there the Admiral discovered it three-quarters of an hour later. +He came home wanting his tea; and, finding the boudoir empty, advanced +to ring the bell. At that moment his eyes fell on Smithers' replica of +the very photograph he had passed for furtherance to the Home Secretary. +He picked it up and gave vent to a long whistle. + +"Now, how the dickens--" + +His wife appeared in the doorway, with Harry, Dicky, and Theophila +clinging to her skirts, fresh from their ride, and boisterous. + +"My dear Emily, where in the world did you get hold of this?" + +He held the photograph towards her at arm's length, and the children +rushed forward to examine it. + +"Papa! papa!" they shouted together, capering around it. "Oh, mammy, +isn't it him _exactly?_" + + + +THE TALKING SHIPS. + + +He was a happy boy, for he lived beside a harbour, and just below the +last bend where the river swept out of steep woodlands into view of the +sea. A half-ruined castle, with a battery of antiquated guns, still +made-believe to protect the entrance to the harbour, and looked across +it upon a ridge of rocks surmounted by a wooden cross, which the Trinity +pilots kept in repair. Between the cross and the fort, for as long as +he could remember, a procession of ships had come sailing in to anchor +by the great red buoy immediately beneath his nursery window. +They belonged to all nations, and hailed from all imaginable ports; and +from the day his nurse had first stood him upon a chair to watch them, +these had been the great interest of his life. He soon came to know +them all--French brigs and _chasse-marees_, Russian fore-and-afters, +Dutch billyboys, galliots from the East coast, and Thames hay-barges +with vanes and wind-boards. He could tell you why the Italians were +deep in the keel, why the Danes were manned by youngsters, and why these +youngsters deserted, although their skippers looked, and indeed were, +such good-natured fellows; what food the French crews hunted in the +seaweed under the cliff, and when the Baltic traders would be driven +southward by the ice. Once acquainted with a vessel, he would recognise +her at any distance, though by what signs he could no more tell than we +why we recognise a friend. + +On his seventh birthday he was given a sailing boat, on condition that +he learned to read; but, although he kept by the bargain honestly, at +the end of a month he handled her better than he was likely to handle +his book in a year. He had a companion and instructor, of course-- +a pensioner who had left the Navy to become in turn fisherman, +yachtsman, able seaman on board a dozen sailing vessels, and now +yachtsman again. His name was Billy, and he taught the boy many +mysteries, from the tying of knots to the reading of weather-signs; +how to beach a boat, how to take a conger off the hook, how to gaff a +cuttle and avoid its ink. . . . In return the boy gave him his heart, +and even something like worship. + +One fine day, as they tacked to and fro a mile and more from the +harbour's mouth, whiffing for mackerel, the boy looked up from his seat +by the tiller. "I say, Billy, did you speak?" + +Billy, seated on the thwart and leaning with both arms on the weather +gunwale, turned his head lazily. "Not a word this half-hour," he +answered. + +"Well now, I thought not; but somebody, or something--spoke just now." +The boy blushed, for Billy was looking at him quizzically. "It's not +the first time I've heard it, either," he went on; "sometimes it sounds +right astern, and sometimes close beside me." + +"What does it say?" asked Billy, re-lighting his pipe. + +"I don't know that it _says_ anything, and yet it seems to speak out +quite clearly. Five or six times I've heard it, and usually on smooth +days like this, when the wind's steady." + +Billy nodded. "That's right, sonny; I've heard it scores of times. +And they say. . . . But, there, I don't believe a word of it." + +"What do they say?" + +"They say that 'tis the voice of drowned men down below, and that they +hail their names whenever a boat passes." + +The boy stared at the water. He knew it for a floor through which he +let down his trammels and crab-pots into wonderland--a twilight with +forests and meadows of its own, in which all the marvels of all the +fairy-books were possible; but the terror of it had never clouded his +delight. + +"Nonsense, Billy; the voice I hear is always quite cheerful and +friendly--not a bit like a dead man's." + +"I tell what I'm told," answered Billy, and the subject dropped. + +But the boy did not cease thinking about the voice; and some time after +he came, as it seemed, upon a clue. His father had set him to read +Shakespeare; and, taking down the first of twelve volumes from the +shelf, he began upon the first play, _The Tempest_. He was prepared to +yawn, but the first scene flung open a door to him, and he stepped into +a new world, a childish Ferdinand roaming an Isle of Voices. +He resigned Miranda to the grown-up prince, for whom (as he saw at a +glance, being wise in the ways of story-books) she was eminently fitted. +It was in Ariel, perched with harp upon the shrouds of the king's ship, +that he recognised the unseen familiar of his own voyaging. "O spirit, +be my friend--speak to me often!" As children will, he gave Prospero's +island a local habitation in the tangled cliff-garden, tethered Caliban +in the tool-shed, and watched the white surf far withdrawn, or listened +to its murmur between the lordly boles of the red-currant bushes. +For the first time he became aware of some limitations in Billy. + +He had long been aware of some serious limitations in his nurse: she +could not, for instance, sail a boat, and her only knot was a "granny." +He never dreamed of despising her, being an affectionate boy; but more +and more he went his own way without consulting her. Yet it was she +who--unconsciously and quite as if it were nothing out of the way-- +handed him the clue. + +A flagstaff stood in the garden on a grassy platform, half-way down the +cliff-side, and the boy at his earnest wish had been given charge of it. +On weekdays, as a rule he hoisted two flags--an ensign on the gaff, and +a single code-flag at the mast-head; but on Sundays he usually ran up +three or four, and with the help of the code-book spelt out some message +to the harbour. Sometimes, too, if an old friend happened to take up +her moorings at the red buoy below, he would have her code-letters +hoisted to welcome her, or would greet and speed her with such signals +as K.T.N., "Glad to see you," and B.R.D., or B.Q.R., meaning "Good-bye," +"A pleasant passage." Skippers fell into the habit of dipping their +flags to him as they were towed out to sea, and a few amused themselves +while at anchor by pulling out their bags of bunting and signalling +humorous conversations, though their topmasts reached so near to the +boy's platform that they might with less labour have talked through a +speaking-trumpet. + +One morning before Christmas six vessels lay below at the buoy, moored +stem to stem in two tiers of three; and, after hoisting his signal +(C.P.B.H. for "Christmas Eve"), he ran indoors with the news that all +six were answering with bushes of holly at their topmast heads, while +one--a Danish barquentine--had rove stronger halliards and carried a +tall fir-tree at the main, its branches reaching many feet above her +truck. + +"Christmas is Christmas," said his nurse. "When I was young, at such +times there wouldn't be a ship in the harbour without its talking-bush." + +"What is a talking-bush?" the boy asked. + +"And you pretend to be a sailor! Well, well--not to know what happens +on Christmas night when the clocks strike twelve!" + +The boy's eyes grew round. "Do--the--ships--talk?" + +"Why, of course they do! For my part, I wonder what Billy teaches you." + + +Late that evening, when the household supposed him to be in bed, the boy +crept down through the moonlit garden to the dinghy which Billy had left +on its frape under the cliff. But for their riding-lights, the vessels +at the buoy lay asleep. The crews of the foreigners had turned in; the +_Nubian_, of Runcorn, had no soul on board but a night-watchman, now +soundly dozing in the forecastle; and the _Touch-me-not_ was deserted. +The _Touch-me-not_ belonged to the port, and her skipper, Captain +Tangye, looked after her in harbour when he had paid off all hands. +Usually he slept on board; but to-night, after trimming his lamp, he had +rowed ashore to spend Christmas with his family--for which, since he +owned a majority of the shares, no one was likely to blame him. He had +even left the accommodation-ladder hanging over her side, to be handy +for boarding her in the morning. + +All this the boy had noted; and accordingly, having pushed across in the +dinghy, he climbed the _Touch-me-not's_ ladder and dropped upon deck +with a bundle of rugs and his father's greatcoat under his arm. + +He looked about him and listened. There was no sound at all but the lap +of tide between the ships, and the voice of a preacher travelling over +the water from a shed far down the harbour, where the Salvation Army was +holding a midnight service. Captain Tangye had snugged down his ship +for the night: ropes were coiled, deckhouses padlocked, the spokes of +the wheel covered against dew and frost. The boy found the slack of a +stout hawser coiled beneath the taffrail--a circular fort into which he +crept with his rugs, and nestled down warmly; and then for half an hour +lay listening. But only the preacher's voice broke the silence of the +harbour. On--on it went, rising and falling. . . . + +Away in the little town the church clock chimed the quarter. "It must +have missed striking the hour," thought the boy, and he peered over the +edge of his shelter. The preacher's voice had ceased; but another was +speaking, and close beside him. + +"You'd be surprised," it said, "how simple one's pleasures grow with +age. This is the twelfth Christmas I've spent at home, and I assure you +I quite look forward to it: that's a confession, eh?--from one who has +sailed under Nelson and smelt powder in his time." The boy knew that he +must be listening to the _Touch-me-not_, whose keelson came from an old +line-of-battle ship. "To be sure," the voice went on graciously, +"a great deal depends on one's company." + +"Talking of powder," said the _Nubian_, creaking gently on her +stern-moorings, "reminds me of a terrible adventure. My very first +voyage was to the mouth of a river on the West Coast of Africa, where +two native tribes were at war. Somehow, my owner--a scoundrelly fellow +in the Midlands--had wind of the quarrel, and that the tribe nearest the +coast needed gunpowder. We sailed from Cardiff with fifteen hundred +barrels duly labelled, and the natives came out to meet us at the +river-mouth and rafted them ashore; but the barrels, if you will believe +me, held nothing but sifted coal-dust. Off we went before the trick was +discovered, and with six thousand pounds' worth of ivory in my hold. +But the worst villainy was to come; for my owner, pretending that he had +opened up a profitable trade, and having his ivory to show for it, sold +me to a London firm, who loaded me with real gunpowder and sent me out, +six months later, to the same river, but with a new skipper and a +different crew. The natives knew me at once, and came swarming out in +canoes as soon as we dropped anchor. The captain, who of course +suspected nothing, allowed them to crowd on board; and I declare that +within five minutes they had clubbed him and every man of the crew and +tossed their bodies to the sharks. Then they cut my hawsers and towed +me over the river-bar; and, having landed a good half of my barrels, +they built and lit a fire around them in derision. I can hear the +explosion still; my poor upper-works have been crazy ever since. +It destroyed almost all the fighters of the tribe, who had formed a ring +to dance around the fire. The rest fled inland, and I never saw them +again, but lay abandoned for months as they had anchored me, between the +ruined huts and a sandy spit alive with mosquitoes--until somehow a +British tramp-steamer heard of me at one of the trading stations up the +coast. She brought down a crew to man and work me home. But my owner +could not pay the salvage; so the parties who owned the steamer-- +a Runcorn firm--paid him fifty pounds and kept me for their services. +A surveyor examined me, and reported that I should never be fit for +much: the explosion had shaken me to pieces. I might do for the +coasting trade--that was all; and in that I've remained." + +"Owners are rogues, for the most part," commented the Danish +barquentine, rubbing against the _Touch-me-nots_ fender as if to nudge +her. "There's the _Maria Stella Maris_ yonder can tell us a tale of the +food they store us with. She went through a mutiny once, I've heard." + +"I'd rather not talk of it," put in the Italian hastily, and a shudder +ran through her timbers. "It's a dreadful recollection, and I have that +by my mizzen-mast which all the holystone in the world can never scour." + +"But I've had a mutiny, too!" said the Dutch galliot, with a voice of +great importance; and this time the boy felt sure that the vessels +nudged one another. + +"It happened," the galliot went on, "between my skipper and his _vrauw_, +who was to all purpose our mate, and as good a mate as ever I sailed +with. But she would not believe the world was round. The skipper took +a Dutch cheese and tried to explain things: he moved the cheese round, +as it might be, from west to east, and argued and argued, until at last, +being a persevering man, he did really persuade her, but it took a whole +voyage, and by the time he succeeded we were near home again, and in the +North Sea Canal. The moment she was convinced, what must the woman do +but go ashore to an aunt of hers who lived at Zaandam, and refuse to +return on board, though her man went on his bended knees to her! +'I will not,' she said; 'and _that's_ flat, at any rate.' The poor man +had to start afresh, undo every one of his arguments, and prove the +earth flat again, before she would trust herself to travel. It cost us +a week, but for my part I didn't grudge it. Your cliffs and deep-water +harbours don't appeal to me. Give me a canal with windmills and +summer-houses where you can look in on the families drinking tea as you +sail by; give me, above all, a canal on Sundays, when the folks walk +along the towing-path in their best clothes, and you feel as if you were +going to church with them." + +"Give me rather," said the Norwegian barque from Christiansund, +"a fiord with forests running straight up to the snow mountains, and +water so deep that no ship's anchor can reach it." + +"I have seen most waters," the Dane announced calmly and proudly. +"As you see, I am very particular about my paint, for a ship ought to +keep up her beauty and look as young as she can. But I have an ice-mark +around my breast which is usually taken for a proof of experience, and +as a philosopher I say that all waters are tolerable enough if one +carries the talisman." + +"But can a ship be beautiful?" and "What is the talisman?" asked the +Italian and the _Nubian_ together. + +"One at a time, please. My dear," she addressed the Italian, +"the point is, that men, whom we serve, think us beautiful indeed. +It seems strange to us, who carry the thought of the forests we have +left; and on warm days, when the sap awakes in us and tries to climb +again, forgetting its weakness, we miss the green boughs and the moss at +our feet and the birds overhead. But I have studied my reflection often +enough in calm weather, and begin to see what men have in mind when they +admire us." + +"And the talisman?" asked the _Nubian_ again. + +"The talisman? There is no one cure for useless regret, but each must +choose his own. With me it is the thought of the child after whom I was +christened. The day they launched me was her first birthday, and she a +small thing held in the crook of her mother's arm: when the bottle swung +against my stem the wine spurted, and some drops of it fell on her face. +The mother did not see me take the water--she was too busy wiping the +drops away. But it was a successful launch, and I have brought the +family luck, while she has brought them happiness. Because of it, and +because our names are alike, her parents think of us together; and +sometimes, when one begins to talk of 'Thekla,' the other will not know +for a moment which of us is meant. They drink my health, too, on her +birthday, which is the fourteenth of May; and you know King Solomon's +verse for the fourteenth--'She is like the merchants' ships, she +bringeth her food from afar.' This is what I have done while she was +growing; for King Solomon wrote it for a wife, of course. But now I +shall yield up my trust, for when I return she is to be married. She +shall bind that verse upon her with a coral necklace I carry for my +gift, and it shall dance on her white throat when her husband leads her +out to open the wedding-ball." + +"Since you are so fond of children," said the _Touch-me-not_, "tell me, +what shall we do for the one I have on my deck? He is the small boy who +signalled Christmas to us from the garden above; and he dreams of +nothing but the sea, though his parents wish him to stick to his books +and go to college." + +The Dane did not answer for a moment. She was considering. "Wherever +he goes," she said at length, "and whatever he does, he will find that +to serve much is to renounce much. Let us show him that what is +renounced may yet come back in beautiful thoughts." + +And it seemed to the boy that, as she ceased, a star dropped out of the +sky and poised itself above the fir-tree on her maintopmast; and that +the bare mast beneath it put forth branches, while upon every branch, as +it spread, a globe of fire dropped from the star, until a gigantic +Christmas-tree soared from the deck away up to heaven. In the blaze of +it the boy saw the miracle run from ship to ship--the timber bursting +into leaf with the song of birds and the scent of tropical plants. +Across the avenue of teak which had been the _Nubian's_ bulwarks he saw +the Dutchman's galley, now a summer-house set in parterres of tulips. +Beyond it the sails of the _Maria Stella Maris_, shaken from the yards, +were piling themselves into snowy mountains, their foot-ropes and braces +trailing down and breaking into leaves and clusters of the vine. +He heard the murmur of streams flowing, the hum of bees, the whetting of +the scythes--even the stir of insects' wings among the grasses. +From truck to keelson the ships were wavering, dissolving part from part +into remote but unforgotten hiding-places whence the mastering +adventurer had torn them to bind and yoke them in service. Divine the +service, but immortal also the longing to return! "But there the +glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; +wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass +thereby." + +The boy heard the words; but before he understood them a hand was on his +shoulder, and another voice speaking above him. + +"God bless us! it's you, is it? Here's a nice tale to tell your father, +I must say!" He opened his eyes, and above Captain Tangye's shoulder +the branches faded, the lights died out, and the masts stood stripped +and bare for service against the cold dawn. + + + +THE KEEPERS OF THE LAMP. + + +It was in a purple twilight of May that I first saw the lamp shining. +For me, a child of seven, the voyage had been a tiring one: it seemed +many hours since, with a ringing of bells, and hearts adventurously +throbbing with the screw of our small steamboat, we had backed and +swung, casting our wash in waves along the quay-walls, and so, after a +pause during which we held our breath and drifted from the line of +watching faces, had headed away for the great empty sky-line beyond +which the islands lay. I knew that they lay yonder; for, the evening +before, my father had led me up a tall hill and pointed them out to me-- +black specks in the red ball of the sun. But to-day, as hour after hour +went by with the pant of the engines, the lift and slide of the Atlantic +swell, the tonic wind humming against the stays, my eyes grew heavy, and +at length my head dropped against my father's shoulder. And then--to me +it seemed the next instant--he woke me up and pointed towards the +islands as they rose out of the indigo sea. At first they looked rather +like low-lying clouds, but after a minute or two there was no mistaking +them; for, as if they had just discovered _us_, they hung out lamp after +lamp, some steady, some intermittent, but all of them gleaming yellow +along the floor of the sea save one, a crimson light which hid and +showed itself again northward of the rest. Crimson was my favourite +colour in those days, and even as I dropped back into sleep I decided +that I liked this lamp the best of all. + +I awoke again to the sound of voices. We were passing a pilot-boat out +there on the watch for ships. Her crew hailed us as we went by, and I +saw their faces in the green radiance of our starboard light--gaunt, +dark faces, altogether foreign. One of the men, the oldest, was +bareheaded, with long grey locks, and wore a yellow neckcloth with his +shirt open below it, and his naked chest showing. Their voices as they +answered our skipper were clear and gay like the voices of children. + +And, next, we were alongside a quay. Our seats, our bulwarks, even our +decks, shone with dew. A crowd stood on the dim quay-edge and looked +down on us, and chattered, but in soft voices. There was a policeman +too, and I wondered how _he_ came there. Above this shadowy moving +crowd rode the stars I had known at home. I took my father's hand. At +the head of the gangway he stooped, hoisted me on his shoulders, and +carried me up and up through narrow mysterious streets, around dark +corners, past belated islanders hurrying down to the steamer; but always +upward, until he pushed open a door and set me down blinking in a +whitewashed bedroom lit by a couple of candles: and with that came +sleep. + +Happy days followed: blue and white days--days vaulted and floored with +blue, flashing with white granite, with the rush of white water beneath +the shadow of the leaning sail, with white cirrus clouds, with white +wings of seabirds. It was the height of the nesting season, and the +birds had brought us to the islands; my father with paint-box and +camera--though, our time being short, he relied almost wholly on the +latter. A naturalist, and by temper the gentlest of men, in his methods +he was a born pioneer. You can hardly imagine how cumbrous and +well-nigh hopeless a business it was in those days, not so long past, to +pursue after wild life with a camera; but a thousand disheartening +failures left him still grasping the inviolable shade, still confident +that in photography, if it could only be given with rapidity and +precision, lay the naturalist's hope. Blurred negatives were all the +spoil, and, sorry enough, we bore back after long days of tossing and +climbing among the Outer Islands; but we had the reward of living among +the birds. They filled our thoughts, our lives for the time:--great +cormorants and northern divers, flitting red-legged oyster-catchers, +shags spreading their wings to the wind and sun, sea-parrots, murrs, +razor-bills, gannets questing by ones and twos--now poised, now dropping +like plummets with a resounding splash; sandpipers and curlews dotting +the beaches, and wading; tern, common gulls, herring-gulls, and +kittiwakes, and, at nightfall, shearwaters popping from their holes and +swimming and skimming around our boat as we headed for home. And then, +the nests we discovered!--nay, the nests that at times we walked among, +picking our steps like egg-dancers!--nests boldly planted on the bare +rock ledges; nests snugly hidden among the clusters of blue thrift and +the massed sea-pinks. They bloomed everywhere, these sea-pinks; sheet +upon sheet of pale rose-colour, soon to show paler and fade before the +rosy splendours of the mesembryanthemum. But the thrift had no rival to +fear, condensing blue heaven and blue sea in the flower it lifted +against both; and to lie prone and make a frame of it for some winding +channel when the tide-rip flashed and tossed was to send the eye +plunging into blue like an Eastern diver after pearls. + +But when after sunset the blue deepened to violet, always in the heart +of it glowed the crimson light upon Off Island. Night after night I +watched it from my window, and wondered what manner of people they were +who tended it, living out yonder on a rock where no grass grew, and in a +roar of tide which the inhabitants of the greater islands heard on still +days in the few inland valleys where it was possible to lose sight of +the sea. I knew that thousands of puffins bred there, and we were to +visit the rock some day; but, what with the tides and an all but +ceaseless ground swell, our opportunity was long in coming, and Old Seth +(our boatman) kept putting it off until I began to disbelieve in it +altogether. + +It came, though, at last, with a cloudless morning and a north-easterly +breeze, brisk and steady, the clearest day in a fortnight of clear days. +We were heading northward close-hauled through a sound dividing two of +the greater islands--Old Seth at the tiller, my father tending the +sheet, and I perched on the weather gunwale and peering over and down on +the purple reefs we seemed to avoid so narrowly--when Seth lifted his +voice in a shout, and then, with a word of warning, paid out sheet, +brought the boat's nose round and ran her in towards a silver-white +beach on our left. As we downed sail, I saw a girl on the bank above +the beach, leaning on a hoe and gazing at us over a low hedge of +veronica. + +Seth hailed her again, and she came running to the waterside. There she +stood and eyed us shyly: a dark-haired girl, bare-headed, and with the +dust of the potato-patch on her shoes and ankles. + +"Any message for Reub Hicks, my dear? We'm bound over to Off Island." + +She hesitated, looking from Seth to us; and while she hesitated a flush +mounted to her tanned face and deepened there. + +"Come," Old Seth coaxed her, "you needn' be afeard to trust us with your +little secrets." + +She seemed, at all events, to have made up her mind to trust us. +From the pocket of her skirt she drew a tattered, paper-covered book, +opened it, and was about to tear out a couple of pages, but paused. + +"I'd like to send it," said she; but still paused, and at length passed +the open book to Seth. + +"I see." He nodded. "Seems a pity--don't it?--to tear up good printed +stuff. Tell 'ee what," he suggested: "you leave me take the book over +as 'tis, and this evenin', if you'll be waitin' here, I'll bring it back +safe." + +She brightened at once. "That'll do brave. Tell 'en I hope he's +keepin' well, and give my love to the others." + +"Right you are," promised Seth cheerfully, pushing off. + +"And don't you forget!" she called after us. + +Seth laughed. "That's a very good girl, now," he commented as he +settled himself to the tiller again. "Must be a poor job courtin' with +a light-house man: not much walkin' together for they. No harm, I +s'pose, in your seem' the maid's book." He handed it to my father, who +shook his head. + +"Aw," went on Seth, guessing why he hesitated, "there's no writin' in +it--only print." He held the book open. It was a nautical almanack, +and night by night the girl had pencilled out the hour of sunset. +Night by night the first flash of the Off Island lamp carried her +lover's message to her, and, as Seth explained (but it needed no +explanation), at that signal she blotted out yet one more of the days +between her and the marriage day. + +Off Island rose from the sea a sheer mass of granite, about a hundred +and fifty feet in height, and all but inaccessible had it not been for a +rock stair-way hewn out by the Brethren of the Trinity House. +The keepers had spied our boat, and a tall young man stood on one of the +lower steps to welcome us: not Reuben, but Reuben's younger brother Sam. +Reuben met us at the top of the staircase, where the puffins built so +thickly that a false step would almost certainly send the foot crashing +through the roof of one of their oddly shaped houses. He too was a tall +youth; an inch or two taller, maybe, than his brother, whom we had left +in charge of the boat. It would have puzzled you to guess their ages. +Young they surely were, but much gazing in the face of the salt wind had +creased the corners of their eyes, and their faces wore a beautiful +gravity, as though they had been captured young and dedicated to some +priestly service. + +Reuben touched his cap, and, taking the book from Seth without a word, +led us to the cottage, where his mother stood scouring a deal table: a +little woman with dark eyes like beads, and thin grey hair tucked within +a grey muslin cap. She had kilted her gown high and tucked up her +sleeves, and looked to me, for all the world, like a doll on a penwiper. +But her hands were busy continually; the small room shone and gleamed +with her tireless cleansing and polishing; and in the midst of it her +eyes sparkled with expectation of news from the outer world. + +Seth understood her, and rattled at once into a recital of all the +happenings on the islands: births, marriages, and deaths, sickness, +courtship, and boat-building, the price of market-stuff, and the names +of vessels newly arrived in the roads. But after a minute she turned +from him to my father. + +"'Tis all so narrow, sir--Seth's news. I want to know what's happenin' +in the world." + +Now, much was happening in those May weeks--much all over Europe, but +much indeed in France, where Paris was passing through the sharp agonies +of the Commune. The latest my father had to tell was almost a week old; +but two days before we set sail for the islands the Versaillais troops +had swept the boulevards, and every steamer had brought newspapers from +the mainland. Mrs. Hicks' eyes grew bigger and rounder as she listened; +but she had listened a very short while before she cried-- + +"Father must hear this! He's up polishin' the lantern, sir. Begging +your pardon, but he must hear you tell it; he must indeed." With +immense pride she added, "He was over to France, one time." + +She marched us off to the lantern, up the winding stairway, up the +ladder, and into the great glass cage, where stood an old man busily +polishing the brass reflector. + +"Father, here's a gentleman come, with news from France!" + +As the old man came forward with a fumbling step, my father drew a thick +bundle from his coat pocket. "I've brought you some newspapers," said +he; "they will tell you more than I can." + +He held them out, but the wife interposed hurriedly. "Not to him, sir. +Give them to Reuben, if you please, and thank you. But he, sir--he's +blind." + +I looked, as my father looked. A film covered both pupils of the old +man's eyes. + +"He've been blind these seven years," Reuben explained in a low voice. +"Me and Sam are the regular keepers now; but the Board lets him live on +here, and he's terrible clever at polishing." + +"He knows the lamp so well as ever he did," broke in the old woman; +"the leastest little scratch, he don't miss it. How he doesn' break his +poor neck is more'n I can tell; but he don't--though 'tis a sore trial." + +While they explained, the old man's hand went out to caress the lamp, +but stopped within an inch of the sparkling lenses. + +"Iss," said he musingly, "with this here cataract I misses a brave lot. +There's a lot to be seen up here, for a man with eyesight. Will 'ee +tell me, please sir, what's the news from France? I was over there, one +time." + +It turned out he had once paid a visit to one of the small Breton ports: +Roscoff I think it was, and have a suspicion that smuggling lay at the +bottom of the business there. + +"Well now," he commented as my father told something of his tale, +"I wouldn' have thought it of the Johnnies. They treated me very +pleasant, and I speak of a man as I find en." He turned his sightless +eyes on the family he had brought up to think well of Frenchmen. + +"They are different folk in Paris." + +"Iss, that's a big place. Cherbourg's a big place, too, they tell me. +I came near going there, one time; but my travellin's over. It _do_ +give a man something to think over, though. I wish my son here could +have travelled a bit before settlin' down." + +But Reuben, on the far side of the lantern, was turning the pages of the +tattered almanack. + +"Well-a-well!" said the old woman. "A body must be thankful for good +sons, and mine be that. But I'd love to end my days settin' in a window +and watchin' folks go by to church." + + +It was past seven o'clock when we hoisted sail again, and as we drew +near the greater islands a crimson flash shot out over the sea in our +wake. On a dim beach ahead stood a girl waiting. + + + +TWO BOYS. + + +I daresay they never saw, and perhaps never will see, one another. +I met them on separate railway journeys, and the dates are divided by +five years almost. One boy was travelling third-class, the other first. +The age of each when I made his very slight acquaintance (with the one I +did not even exchange a word) was about fourteen. Almost certainly +their lives and their stories have no connection outside of my thoughts. +But I think of them often, and together. They have grown up; the +younger will be a man by this time; if I met them now, their altered +faces would probably be quite strange to me. Yet the two boys remain my +friends, and that is why I take leave to include them among these +stories of my friends. + + +I. + + +The first boy (I never heard his name) was seated in the third-class +smoking-carriage when I joined my train at Plymouth; seated beside his +mother, an over-heated countrywoman in a state of subsiding fussiness. +We had a good five minutes to wait, but, as such women always will, she +had made a bolt for the first door within reach. Of course she found +herself in a smoking compartment, and of course she disliked tobacco, +but could not, although she made two false starts, make up her mind to +change. She had dropped upon one of the middle seats and dragged her +boy down into the next, thus leaving me the only vacant corner. +The others were occupied by a couple of drovers and a middle-aged man +with a newspaper, which he read column by column, advertisements and +all, without raising his eyes for a moment. + +The guard just outside the carriage door had his whistle to his lips, +and his green flag lifted ready to wave, when the woman asked-- +"Can anyone tell me if this train goes to London?" + +The drovers and I assured her that it did. + +"It stops at Bristol, doesn't it? My ticket is for Bristol." + +The train was in motion by this time. We set her mind at ease. +She opened a limp basket (called a "frail" I believe), produced an apple +and offered it to the boy. He shook his head. + +He was a passably good-looking coltish boy, in a best suit which he had +outgrown, and a hard black hat, the brim of which annoyed him when he +leaned back. A binding of black braid advertised what it was meant to +conceal--that the cuffs of his jacket had been lengthened; yet as he sat +with his hands crossed in his lap he displayed a deal of wrist. + +His eyes took my liking at once; eyes of a good grey-black--or, shall I +say, of a grey with fine glooms in it. They looked at you straight but +without staring; neither furtively nor with embarrassment, nor +curiously, nor again sleepily, but with that rare blend of candour and +reserve which allowed you to see that he was thinking his own thoughts, +and had no reason to be ashamed of them. Having taken stock of us, he +gazed thoughtfully out of window. His mother sighed from time to time, +and searched her basket to make sure that this, that, or the other +trifle had not been left behind. The drovers conversed apart; the +middle-aged man (who sat facing the engine) read away pertinaciously at +his newspaper, which he kept folded small by reason of the strong +southerly breeze playing in through the open window; and I divided my +attention between the landscape and the map at the beginning of +Stevenson's _Kidnapped_--then barely a week old, a delight to be +approached with trepidation. + +So we were sitting when the train crawled over the metals beyond +Teignmouth Station, gathered speed, and swung into full view of the open +sea. As the first strong breath of it came rushing in at the window I +heard a shuffle of feet. The boy had risen, and with his eyes was +asking our leave to stand by the door. I drew in my knees to make way +for him, and so, after a moment, did the middle-aged man. He did not +thank us, but stepped past politely enough and stood with his hand on +the leathern window-strap. I stared out of the little side window, +wondering what had caught his attention. + +And while I wondered, suddenly the child broke into song! + +It was the queerest artless performance: it had no tune in it, no +intelligible words--it was just a chant rising and falling as the surf +at the base of the sea-wall boomed and tossed its spray on the wind +fanning his face. And while he chanted, his serious eyes devoured the +blue leagues right away to the horizon. + +The drovers at the far end of the compartment turned their faces inward +and grinned. The middle-aged man looked across at me behind the boy's +back with half a smile and resumed his reading. The mother laughed +apologetically-- + +"'Tis his way. He won't be so crazed for it in a few weeks' time, I +reckon. He's goin' up to Bristol to be bound apprentice to his uncle. +His uncle's master of a sailing ship." + +But the boy did not hear. There are four or five tunnels in the red +sandstone between Teignmouth and Dawlish, and through these he sang on +in a low repressed voice, which broke out high and clear and strong as +we swept again into the large wind and sunshine. At Dawlish Station we +drew up for a minute, and a porter on the up platform nodded to one of +the drovers and asked, "What's the matter with 'ee, in there?" +"Nothin', nothin'; we've got a smokin'-concert on," said the drover. +Across the rails a group waiting for the down train stood and stared at +the boy, whispered, and smiled; and I can still recall the fascinated +gaze of a plump urchin of six as he gripped with one hand a wooden spade +and with the other his mother's skirt. + +But the boy sang on heedless, and still sang on as we left Dawlish +behind. There was no jubilation in his chant, but through it all there +ran and rang out from time to time a note of high challenge. Perhaps I +read too much in it, for in the heart of a boy many thoughts sing +together before they come to birth,--and to the destinies we see so +distinctly he marches through a haze, drawn onward by incommunicable +yearnings. But as, unseen by him, I glanced up at his blown hair and +eager parted lips, the chant seemed to grow articulate-- + +"O Sea, I am coming! O fate, waiting and waited for, I salute you! +Friend or adversary, we meet to try each other: for your wonders I have +eyes, for your trials a heart. Use me, for I am ready!" + +As we turned inland and ran beside the shore of the Exe, his song died +down and ceased. For a while he stood conning the river, the boats, the +red cliffs and whitewashed towns on the farther bank; and so, as we came +in sight of the cathedral towers, stepped back and dropped into his +seat. + +"Well now," said his mother, "you _be_ a funny boy!" + +For a moment he did not seem to hear; then started and came out of his +day-dream with a furious blush. I looked away. + + +II. + + +The second boy wore a well-cut Eton suit, and sat in the smoking +compartment of a padded corridor carriage, with a silk-lined overcoat +beside him and a silver-mounted suit-case in the rack above. He was not +smoking, nor was he reading; but he sat on a great pile of papers and +magazines, and stared straight in front of him--that is to say, straight +at me. + +His stare, though constant and unrelenting, was not in the least +offensive--it had no curiosity in it: he had obviously been +contemplating the cushions before I intruded, and since I had chosen to +occupy his field of vision he contemplated me. + +I had no speaking acquaintance with the boy; but he bore the features of +his family, and his initials were on the suit-case above. So I knew him +for the only son of a man who had once shown me civility, the youngest +and least extravagantly wealthy of three rich brothers. Since one of +these brothers had never married and now was not likely to, it lay +beyond guessing what wealth the boy would inherit some day. + +He was by no means ill-looking, and quite certainly no fool. His face +carried the stamp of his father's ability. It puzzled me what he could +be doing with that pile of papers and magazines; or why, having burdened +himself with them, he should choose to sit and stare instead of reading +them. For his station lay but a twenty minutes' run below mine, and it +was impossible that in the time he could have glanced through the half +of them. + +He had been staring at me, or through me, maybe for half an hour, when +our train slowed down and came to a standstill above the steep valley +between Bodmin Road and Doublebois. After a couple of minutes' wait, +the boy rose and went to the window in the corridor to see what was +happening; and I took this opportunity to glance across at the papers +scattered on the vacant seat. They included three or four sixpenny and +threepenny magazines; a large illustrated paper (_Black and White_, I +think); half a dozen penny weeklies--_Tit-bits_, _Answers_, _Pearson's +Weekly_, _Cassell's Saturday Journal_; I forget what others: halfpenny +papers in a heap--all kinds of _Cuts_, _Snippets_, _Siftings_, _Echoes_, +_Snapshots_, and _Side-lights_; _Pars about People_, _Christian +Sweepings_, _Our Happy Fireside_, and _The Masher_. Many lay face +downward, coyly hiding their titles but disclosing such headlines as +"Facts about the Flag," "Books which have influenced the Bishop of +London," "He gave 'em Fits!" "Our Unique Competition," "Mr. Cecil +Rhodes: a Powerful Personality," "What becomes of old Stage Scenery." + +In the midst of my survey the train began to move forward again, and the +boy came back to his seat. + +"It's only some platelayers on the viaduct," he explained. "They held +up their flag against us. I suppose they were just finishing a job." + +"Nasty place to leave the rails," said I, glancing over the parapet upon +the green tree-tops fifty feet below us." + +"I was thinking that," said he, and a queer tremor in his young voice +made me glance at him sharply. Then suddenly I understood--or thought I +did. + +"You, at any rate, are pretty well insured," said I. + +"Twenty thousand pounds, and a little over: the coupons cost four and +twopence altogether, and then at the end of the journey you can use up +all the reading." + +"Wonderful!" I kept a serious face. "And I suppose all this time you've +been staring at me, amazed by the recklessness of your elders." + +He flushed slightly. "Have I been staring? I beg your pardon, I'm +sure: it's a trick I have. I begin thinking of things, and then--" + +"Thinking, I suppose, of how it would feel to be in a collision, or what +it would be like to leap such a parapet as that and find ourselves +dropping--dropping--into space? But you shouldn't, really. It isn't +healthy in a boy like you: and if you'll listen to one who has known +what nerves are, it may too easily grow to mean something worse." + +"But it isn't that--exactly," he protested; "though of course all that +comes into it. I'm not a--a funk, sir! I was thinking more of the +--of what would come _afterwards_, you know." + +"Oh dear!" I groaned to myself. "It's worse than ever: here's a little +prig worrying about his soul. I shouldn't advise you to trouble about +that, either," I said aloud. + +"But I don't _trouble_ about it." He hesitated, and stumbled into a +burst of confidence. "You see, I'm no good at games--athletics and that +sort of thing--" + +Again he stopped, and I nodded to encourage him. + +"And I'm no swell at schoolwork, either. I went to school late, and +after home it all seems so _young_--if you understand?" + +I thought I did. With his polite grown-up manner I could understand his +isolation among the urchins, the masters, and all the interests of +an ordinary school. + +"But my father--you know him, don't you?--he's disappointed about it. +He'd like me to bring home prizes or cups. I don't think he'd mind what +it was, so long as he could be proud about it. Of course he never +_says_ anything: but a fellow gets to know." + +"I daresay you're right," I said. "But what has this to do with +insuring yourself for twenty thousand pounds?" + +"Well, you see, I'm to go into the Bank some day: and I expect my father +thinks I shall be just as big a duffer at that. I know he does. +But I'm not, if he'd only trust me a bit. So now if we were to smash +up--collide, go off the rails, run over a bridge, or something of that +sort--just think how he'd feel when he found out I'd cleared twenty +thousand by it!" + +"So that's what you were picturing to yourself?" + +He nodded. "That, and the smash, and all. I kept saying, 'Now--if it +comes this moment?' And I wondered a little how it would take _you_ +suddenly: whether you'd start up or fall forward--and if you would say +anything." + +"You are a cheerful companion!" + +He grinned politely. "And afterwards--just before the train stopped I +had a splendid idea. I began making my will. You see, I know +something about investments. I read about them every day." + +"In the _Boy's Own Paper?_" + +"We take in the _Standard_ in our school library, and I have it all to +myself unless there's a war on. I've heard my father say often that +it's a very reliable paper, and so it is, for I've tried it for two +years now. So if I left a will telling just how the twenty thousand +ought to be invested, it would open my father's eyes more than ever." + +"My dear sir," said I, "don't be in a hurry. Serve out your time among +the barbarians at school, and I'll promise you in time your father's +respectful astonishment." + + +These were my two boys; and you may wonder why I always think of them +together. I do, though: and, what is more, I find that together they +help to explain to me my country's greatness. + + + +THE SENIOR FELLOW. + + +There is at Oxford a small college, with a small bursar's garden that in +spring is ablaze with laburnum and scented with lilac; and in the old +wall of this garden, just beneath the largest laburnum-tree, you may +still find a stone with this inscription: "_Jesus have mercy on Miles +Tonken, Fellow. Anno 1545._" + +This college, in the days when I knew it, had three marks of +distinction:--It turned out, on hunting mornings, more "pinks" for its +size than any other in Oxford; its boat was head of the river; and its +Senior Fellow was the Rev. Theobald Pumfrey, who knew more of Athenaeus +than any man in the world. He seldom lectured; but day by day, year +after year, sat in the window above this same small garden, and +accumulated notes for the great edition of his pet author that some +day--nobody quite knew when--was to make him famous. He was the son of +a Cumberland farmer; had come up to the University from a local +grammar-school; and since then (it was said) had revisited his native +village twice only--to bury his father and mother. His mother's death-- +and that had happened five-and-twenty years before--left him without a +single relative on earth: nor could he be said to have a friend, even +among the dons. He rose early, took a solitary walk in the parks, and +would spend the rest of the day at his desk by the window. People +marvelled sometimes why he had taken Holy Orders. It was hinted that +his scout knew, perhaps; but, if so, his scout never divulged the +reasons. + +The scholar was a man, nevertheless; had a humorously wrinkled mouth, +and an eye that twinkled responsive to a jest; and was the best judge of +wine in Oxford. On the strength of this undeniable gift the dons had +long since elected him steward of Common-room; and he valued the +responsibility, abstaining from tobacco--which he loved--to keep pure +his taste for vintages, and preserve a discriminating palate among +sweets. An utterance of his would hint that even his avoidance of +physical exercise was a matter of duty. + +"A man," he said, "may work his body, may work his head, and may enjoy +his dinner. Any two of these things he may do, but not all three. +For me, I wish to work my head, and _must_ enjoy my dinner." And once, +when I dined with him, it was made clear to me that his life was ordered +after a plan. It was a summer evening, and he held a glass of claret +against the sunset. "Wife and children!" he cried suddenly, "wife and +children!" Then, with a wave of his left hand from the claret to the +still lawn below us and the lilacs, "These are my wife and children!" + +It was whispered at length that his commentary on the first book of the +Deipnosophists was all but ready. All through a golden summer and a +quiet Long Vacation it had been maturing, and on the first night of the +October term he arranged his piles of notes about him, set a quire of +clean manuscript paper on his table, dipped pen in inkpot, and began to +muse on the first sentence. + + +An hour passed, and the page was not soiled. Across the still garden +came the sound of cab-wheels rattling over the distant streets. +The undergraduates were coming up for a fresh term. He had heard the +sound a hundred times, almost; and it did not concern him. He had no +lectures to prepare. + +Another hour passed, and another. The noise of the cabs had died out, +and over him was creeping a sick fear, a certainty, that he could not +write a word. The subject was too immense. He had given his life to +Athenaeus, and now Athenaeus was a monster that one man's life and +knowledge would not suffice for. Having withheld his pen till he might +write adequately, he awoke to find that writing was impossible. +A horror took him as he pushed back his chair among the litter of +note-books, and, stepping to the window, threw the sash open. + +Many stars were shining; and between them and the sleeping garden echoed +the clamour of a distant supper-party. He heard no words, only the +noise; but it filled his brain with a sense of the many thousand +supper-parties that the garden had listened to, of the generations that +had come and gone since his own first term, of the boys who had grown +into men while he was working at Athenaeus--always Athenaeus. +His forehead was burning, and as he pushed his hand across it, he seemed +to read in the darkness under the laburnum-tree, "_Jesus have mercy on +Miles Tonken, Fellow. Anno 1545," and found a new meaning--an irony--in +the words. + +Then, because more and more the task of his life became a hopeless +weight, he gave a look at his notebooks and escaped out of the room, +downstairs into the fresh air of the quad, and across it towards the +porter's lodge. He found the porter napping, and, having a private key, +he let himself through the big gate and out into the street. No soul +was abroad: only the gas-lamps threw queer shadows of him on the +pavement, and the night-breeze struck coldly into him as he hurried +along, hating whatever he saw. + +Soon, under a window in St. Giles's, he pulled up. There was a party of +young men inside--perhaps the same supper-party whose voices he had +heard just now. The light from the room flared across the street; but +by keeping close under the sill he stood in darkness, and he paused, +listening eagerly. Above, they were singing a chorus, noted in those +days-- + + +It was pale dawn, and the sun was touching St. Mary's spire into flame +when the heavy-eyed porter heard a key turn in the wicket. It was the +Senior Fellow, and in about half an hour he appeared again at the lodge, +carrying a small bag, and handed the porter a letter addressed to the +President of the College. He then stepped out into the street, and +hurried off towards the railway station. + +For a fortnight we heard nothing of him. Then suddenly he appeared +again--on an evening when the College, having won the "Fours," was +commemorating its success by a bonfire in the big quad. A certain +freshman, stealing down his staircase with a can of colza oil to feed +the flames, was confronted by our missing Senior Fellow. + +"No," said the great scholar, "don't be afraid, and don't seek to hide +that oil-can; but come in here." And he led the way to his room. + +This much is mere rumour; for the freshman was always reticent on the +encounter, and what followed. But many who were present that night can +bear witness that a big portmanteau appeared suddenly on the summit of +the bonfire, and blazed merrily to ashes, having clearly been saturated +with oil. Not until long after were its contents divined. + + +The Senior Fellow went back to his window above the bursar's garden, +though henceforward he dined but rarely in Common-room; and year by year +scholars expected his edition of Athenaeus, until he died and left his +desk full of notebooks to the youth who had carried the oil-can, and who +in course of years had become junior don. Also his will expressed a +wish that this, his favourite pupil, might be elected to succeed him as +steward of Common-room. + +The new steward, eager to fulfil his duties, made it his first business +to inspect the college cellars. He found there abundance of old port, +much fair claret, a bin of inestimable Madeira, several casks of more +curious wines, and among them one labelled "For the Poor." + +It struck him as a pleasant trait in his dead friend, thus to have +dispensed in charity that wine which doubtless had gone beyond its age, +and become unfit for the Fellows' palates. He drew a glassful and +tasted it. + +The first sip was a revelation. He returned to his rooms, wrote a score +of letters inviting to dinner all the acknowledged connoisseurs of other +colleges. When they had dined with him, and fallen into easy attitudes +around the table, he introduced this wine casually among half a dozen +others, and watched the result. + +Not a man who tasted it would taste any other. + +As for the notebooks--those priceless materials for the final edition of +Athenaeus--they were empty, mere blank pages! Only in that labelled +"No. 1" was there a scrap of the old scholar's handwriting, and it +began-- + + "Dulce cum sodalibus + Sapit vinum bonum: + Osculari virgines + Dulcius est donum: + Donum est dulcissimum + Musica tironum-- + Qui tararaboomdeat, + Spernit regis thronum!" + + + +BALLAST. + + +Under the green shore that faces the port, and at a point that, as the +meeting-place of river and harbour, may be called indifferently by +either name, lay a slim-waisted barque at anchor, with a sand-barge +alongside. The time was a soft and sunny morning in early January-- +a day that was Nature's breathing space after a week of sleet and +boisterous winds. The gulls were back again from their inland shelters. +Across the upland above the cliff a ploughman drove leisurably forth and +back, and always close behind his heels the earth was white with these +birds inspecting the fresh-turned furrow. The furze-bushes below him +were braided with cobwebs, and the stays, lifts, and braces of the +barque might have passed also for threads of gossamer spun from her +masts and yards, so delicately were the lines indicated against the +hillside. In the sand-barge, three men were chanting as they worked; +and their song, travelling across still sky and water, rose audibly +above the stir of traffic even in the narrow streets of the town. + +The barque was taking in ballast; and the three men sang as they +shovelled,--for three reasons. It helped them to keep time; it kept +each from shirking his share of the work; and lastly, perhaps, the song +cheered them. They knew it as "The Long Hundred," and it ran-- + + "There goes one. + One there is gone. + Oh, the rare one! + And many more to come + For to make up the sum + Of the hundred so long." + + "There goes two--" + +--and so on, up to twenty. With each line, a shovelful of ballast was +pitched on board by every man; so that, when the twenty six-line stanzas +were ended, each man had thrown one hundred and twenty (a "long +hundred") shovelfuls of sand. Thereupon they paused, "touched pipe" for +a minute or two, and, brushing the back of the hand across their +foreheads to wring off the sweat, started afresh. + +Along the barque's side ran a narrow line of blue paint, signifying that +the vessel was in mourning, that somebody belonging to captain or owner +was lately dead. But in this case it was the captain and owner himself: +and his chief mourner was a bright-eyed woman with a complexion of cream +and roses, who now leant over the bulwarks and looked down +contemplatively upon the three labourers. She was a Canadian, and her +husband, too, had been a Canadian--rich, more than twice her age, and +luxurious. Since his marriage she had accompanied him on all his +voyages. Three months ago his vessel had brought him, sick and +suffering from congestion of the lungs, into this harbour, where his +cargo of timber was to be unloaded: and in this harbour, a week later, +he had died, without a doubt of his wife's affection. From the deck +where she stood she could see between the elms on the hill above the +port the white wall of the cemetery where he lay. The vessel was hers, +and a snug little fortune in Quebec: and she was going back to enjoy it. +For the homeward voyage she had deputed the captain's responsibilities +to the first mate, and had raised his pay slightly, but the captain's +dignity she reserved for herself. + +She wore a black gown, of course, but not a widow's cap: and, though in +fact a widow of twenty-five, had very much more the appearance of a maid +of nineteen as she looked down over the barque's side. Her lips were +parted as if to smile at the first provocation. On either side of her +temples a short brown curl had rebelled and was kissing her cheek. +The sparkle in her eyes told of capacity to enjoy life. Behind her a +coil of smoke rose from the deck-house chimney. She had left the midday +meal she was cooking, and ought to be back looking after it. +Instead, she lingered and looked upon the three men at work below. + +Two of them were old, round-shouldered with labour, their necks burnt +brown with stooping in the sun. The third was a young giant--tall, +fair, and straight--with yellowish hair that curled up tightly at the +back of his head, and lumbar muscles that swelled and sank in a pretty +rhythm as he pitched his ballast and sang-- + + "There goes nine. + Nine there is gone . . ." + +It was upon this man that the woman gazed as she lingered. +His shirt-collar was cut low at the back, and his freckled neck was +shining with sweat. She wanted him to look up, and yet she was afraid +of his looking up. She wondered if he were married--"at his age," she +phrased it to herself--and, if so, what manner of wife he had. She told +herself after a while that she really dreaded extremely being caught +observing these three labourers; that she hated even in seeming to lose +dignity. And still she bent and heard the song to the twentieth and +last verse. + +The young giant, when the spell was over, leant on his shovel for a +moment and then reached out a hand for the cider-keg. One of his +comrades passed it to him. He wiped the orifice, tilted his head back +and drank as a man drinks at midday after a long morning. Some of the +cider trickled down his crisp yellow beard and he shook his head, +scattering the drops off. Then the keg was tilted again, and suddenly +lowered as he was on the point of drinking. His eyes had encountered +those of the woman on deck. + +As they did so, the woman recovered all her boldness. Without in the +least knowing what prompted her, she bent a little further forward and +asked-- + +"What is your name, young man?" + +"William Udy, ma'am." + +"Do you mind breaking off work for a moment and stepping up here?" + +"Cert'nly, ma'am." William Udy laid down his shovel at once. + +A shiver of fear went through the young widow. Why had she asked him +up? Why, on a mere impulse; because she wanted to see him closer-- +nothing more. What possible excuse could she give? She heard the sound +of his heavy boots on the ship's ladder: he would be before her in a +moment, expecting, of course, to be set to work on some odd job or +other. She cast about wildly and could think of no job that wanted +doing. It was appalling: she could not possibly explain-- + +As has happened before now to women, her very weakness saved her in +extremity. William Udy, clambering heavily over the ship's side, found +her leaning against the deck-house, with a face as white as the painted +boards against which her palm rested. + +"What be I to do, ma'am?" he inquired, after a pause, and then added +slowly, "Beggin' your pardon, but be you taken unwell?" + +"Yes," she panted, speaking very faintly, "I was over there--by the +bulwarks, and suddenly--I felt queer--a faintness--I looked over and saw +you--I called the first person I saw. I wanted help." + +William Udy was puzzled. He had not noticed any pallor in the face that +had looked down on him from the ship's side. On the contrary, he seemed +to remember that it struck him as remarkably fresh and rosy. But he saw +no reason for doubting he had been mistaken. + +"Can I do aught for 'ee? Fetch a doctor?" + +"If you wouldn't mind helping me down--down to my cabin--" + +William took her arm gently and led her aft to the companion ladder. +At the top of it she put out a hand vaguely and closed her eyes. + +"I don't think," she murmured, "that I can walk. My head is going round +so. Could you--would it be too heavy--if you carried me?" + +At any other time William would have considered this a good joke. +As it was he took her up like a feather in his arms and carried her down +to the cabin. There he set her down on the sofa and was about to +withdraw, blushing. He was a very shy youth and had never carried a +woman before, let alone one who was his superior in station. + +"Thank you," she said in a voice that was little above a whisper. +"How easily you carried me. It's plain to see you're a married man." + +William started. "There you're wrong, ma'am, pardon me for sayin' it." + +"No? You were so gentle: so gentle although so big"--she smiled +faintly. "Would you mind stepping to the cupboard there and pouring me +out a wineglassful of sherry? It's in the decanter just inside." + +William poured out a glassful and set it on the table in front of her. +She put it to her lips, and having scarcely moistened them, set it down +again. + +"A glass for yourself," she said. "Come now--do! I see you are shocked +at the number of bottles I keep here. But they were my husband's. +He died, you know, a week after we came into harbour." + +William's face worked to express mute sympathy. + +"It's a fearful responsibility," she went on, "being left alone like +this with a vessel to look after, and all his property waiting over +there, on the other side of the water; and I daresay the lawyers, there, +waiting, too, to take advantage of me. I think it's having all this +on my mind that makes my head so giddy at times. . ." + +William stood opposite to her, and thought. It is not known at what +moment the brilliant idea struck him, that as a husband he might be a +tower of strength to the fragile young creature on the sofa. +His comrades after waiting some time for him began their chant again-- + + "There goes one. + One there is gone . . ." + +And while they sang it William began that courtship which ended, three +weeks later, in his sailing for Canada. He went as a bridegroom; or +perhaps (if we must reckon him as part of the ship's equipment), as +ballast. + + + +The End. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales +by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14817 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d1ca740 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14817 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14817) diff --git a/old/14817.txt b/old/14817.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8d9ff4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14817.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10726 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales +by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales + +Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +Release Date: January 27, 2005 [EBook #14817] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITE WOLF AND OTHERS *** + + + + +Produced by Lionel Sear + + + + + +THE WHITE WOLF AND OTHER FIRESIDE TALES. + +By Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch ('Q'). + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +MIRACLE OF THE WHITE WOLF. + +SINDBAD ON BURRATOR. + +VICTOR. + +THE CAPTURE OF THE _BURGOMEISTER VAN DER WERF. + +KING O' PRUSSIA. + +THE MAN WHO COULD HAVE TOLD. + +THE CELLARS OF RUEDA. + +THE HAUNTED YACHT. + +PARSON JACK'S FORTUNE. + +THE BURGLARY CLUB. + +CONCERNING ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. + +COX _VERSUS_ PRETYMAN. + +THE BRIDALS OF YSSELMONDE. + +ENGLAND! + +JOHN AND THE GHOSTS. + +THREE PHOTOGRAPHS. + +THE TALKING SHIPS. + +THE KEEPERS OF THE LAMP. + +TWO BOYS. + +THE SENIOR FELLOW. + +BALLAST. + + + +THE MIRACLE OF THE _WHITE WOLF_. + + +I.--THE TALE OF SNORRI GAMLASON + +In the early summer of 1358, with the breaking up of the ice, there came +to Brattahlid, in Greenland, a merchant-ship from Norway, with +provisions for the Christian settlements on the coast. The master's +name was Snorri Gamlason, and it happened that as he sailed into +Eric's Fiord and warped alongside the quay, word was brought to him that +the Bishop of Garda had arrived that day in Brattahlid, to hold a +confirmation. Whereupon this Snorri went ashore at once, and, getting +audience of the Bishop, gave him a little book, with an account of how +he had come by it. + +The book was written in Danish, and Snorri could not understand a word +of it, being indeed unable to read or to write; but he told this +tale:-- + +His ship, about three weeks before, had run into a calm, which lasted +for three days and two nights, and with a northerly drift she fell away, +little by little, towards a range of icebergs which stretched across and +ahead of them in a solid chain. But about noon of the third day the +colour of the sky warned him of a worse peril, and soon there came up +from the westward a bank of fog, with snow in it, and a wind that +increased until they began to hear the ice grinding and breaking up-- +as it seemed--all around them. Snorri steered at first for the +southward, where had been open water; but by and by found that even here +were drifting bergs. He therefore put his helm down and felt his way +through the weather by short boards, and so, with the most of his men +stationed forward to keep a look-out, fenced, as it were, with the +danger, steering and tacking, until by God's grace the fog lifted, and +the wind blew gently once more. + +And now in the clear sunshine he saw that the storm had been more +violent than any had supposed; since the wall of ice, which before had +been solid, was now burst and riven in many places, and in particular to +the eastward, where a broad path of water lay before them almost like a +canal, but winding here and there. Towards this Snorri steered, and +entered it with a fair breeze. + +They had come, he said, but to the second bend of this waterway, when a +seaman, who had climbed the mast on the chance of spying an outlet, +called out in surprise that there was a ship ahead of them, but two +miles off, and running down the channel before the wind, even as they. +At first he found no credit for this tale, and even when those on deck +spied her mast and yard overtopping a gap between two bergs, they could +only set it down for a mirage or cheat of eyesight in the clear weather. + +But by and by, said Snorri, they could not doubt they were in chase of a +ship, and, further, that they were fast overtaking her. For she steered +with no method, and shook with every slant of wind, and anon went off +before it like a helpless thing, until in the end she was fetched up by +the jutting foot of a berg, and there shook her sail, flapping with such +noise that Snorri's men heard it, though yet a mile away. + +They bore down upon her, and now took note that this sail of hers was +ragged and frozen, so that it flapped like a jointed board, and that her +rigging hung in all ways and untended, but stiff with rime; and drawing +yet nearer, they saw an ice-line about her hull, so deep that her +timbers seemed bitten through, and a great pile of frozen snow upon her +poop, banked even above her tiller; but no helmsman, and no living soul +upon her. + +Then Snorri let lower his boat, and was rowed towards her; and, coming +alongside, gave a hail, which was unanswered. But from the frozen pile +by the tiller there stuck out a man's arm, ghastly to see. +Snorri climbed on board by the waist, where her sides were low and a +well reached aft from the mast to the poop. There was a cabin beneath +the poop, and another and larger room under the deck forward, between +the step of the mast and the bows. Into each of these he broke with +axes and bars, and in the one found nothing but some cooking-pots and +bedding; but in the other--that is, the after-cabin--the door, as he +burst it in, almost fell against a young man seated by a bed. +So life-like was he that Snorri called aloud in the doorway, but anon, +peering into the gloomy place, perceived the body to be frozen upright +and stiff, and that on the bed lay another body, of a lady slight and +young, and very fair. She, too, was dead and frozen; yet her cheeks, +albeit white as the pillow against which they rested, had not lost their +roundness. Snorri took note also of her dress and of the coverlet +reaching from the bed's foot to her waist, that they were of silk for +the most part, and richly embroidered, and her shift and the bed-sheets +about her of fine linen. The man's dress was poor and coarse by +comparison; yet he carried a sword, and was plainly of gentle nurture. +The sword Snorri drew from its sheath and brought away; also he took a +small box of jewels; but little else could he find on the ship, and no +food of any kind. + +His design was to leave the ship as he found it, carrying away only +these tokens that his story, when he arrived at Brattahlid, might be +received with faith; and to direct where the ship might be sought for. +But as he quitted the cabin some of his men shouted from the deck, where +they had discovered yet another body frozen in a drift. This was an old +man seated with crossed legs and leaning against the mast, having an +ink-horn slung about his neck, and almost hidden by his grey beard, and +on his knee a book, which he held with a thumb frozen between two pages. + +This was the book which Snorri had brought to Brattahlid, and which the +Bishop of Garda read aloud to him that same afternoon, translating as he +went; the ink being fresh, the writing clerkly, and scarcely a page +damaged by the weather. It bore no title; but the Bishop, who +afterwards caused his secretary to take a copy of the tale, gave it a +very long one, beginning: "God's mercy shown in a Miracle upon certain +castaways from Jutland, at the Feast of the Nativity of His Blessed Son, +our Lord, in the year MCCCLVII., whereby He made dead trees to put forth +in leaf, and comforted desperate men with summer in the midst of the +Frozen Sea" . . . with much beside. But all this appears in the tale, +which I will head only with the name of the writer. + + + +II.--PETER KURT'S MANUSCRIPT [1] + +Now that our troubles are over, and I sit by the mast of our late +unhappy ship, not knowing if I am on earth or in paradise, but full-fed +and warm in all my limbs, yea pierced and glowing with the love of +Almighty God, I am resolved to take pen and use my unfrozen ink in +telling out of what misery His hand hath led us to this present Eden. + +I who write this am Peter Kurt, and I was the steward of my master Ebbe +while he dwelt in his own castle of Nebbegaard. Poor he was then, and +poor, I suppose, he is still in all but love and the favour of God; but +in those days the love was but an old servant's (to wit, my own), and +the favour of God not evident, but the poverty, on the other hand, +bitterly apparent in all our housekeeping. We lived alone, with a +handful of servants--sometimes as few as three--in the castle which +stands between the sandhills and the woods, as you sail into Veile +Fiord. All these woods, as far away as to Rosenvold, had been the good +knight his father's, but were lost to us before Ebbe's birth, and leased +on pledge to the Knight Borre, of Egeskov, of whom I am to tell; and +with them went all the crew of verderers, huntsmen, grooms, prickers, +and ostringers that had kept Nebbegaard cheerful the year round. +His mother had died at my master's birth, and the knight himself but two +years after, so that the lad grew up in his poverty with no heritage but +a few barren acres of sand, a tumbling house, and his father's sword, +and small prospect of winning the broad lands out of Borre's clutches. + +Nevertheless, under my tutoring he grew into a tall lad and a bold, a +good swordsman, skilful at the tilt and in handling a boat; but not +talkative or free in his address of strangers. The most of his days he +spent in fishing, or in the making and mending of gear; and his +evenings, after our lesson in sword-play, in the reading of books (of +which Nebbegaard had good store), and specially of the Icelanders, +skalds and sagamen; also at times in the study of Latin with me, who had +been bred to the priesthood, but left it for love of his father, my +foster-brother, and now had no ambition of my own but to serve this lad +and make him as good a man. + +But there were days when he would have naught to do with fishing or with +books; dark days when I forbore and left him to mope by the dunes, or in +the great garden which had been his mother's, but was now a wilderness +untended. And it was then that he first met with the lady Mette. + +For as he walked there one morning, a little before noon, a swift shadow +passed overhead between him and the sun, and almost before he could +glance upward a body came dropping out of the sky and fell with a thud +among the rose-bushes by the eastern wall. It was a heron, and after it +swooped the bird which had murdered it; a white ger-falcon of the kind +which breeds in Greenland, but a trained bird, as he knew by the sound +of the bells on her legs as she plunged through the bushes. Ebbe ran at +once to the corner where the birds struggled; but as he picked up the +pelt he happened to glance towards the western wall, and in the gateway +there stood a maiden with her hand on the bridle of a white palfrey. +Her dog came running towards Ebbe as he stood. He beat it off, and +carrying the pelt across to its mistress, waited a moment silently, cap +in hand, while she called the great falcon back to its lure and leashed +it to her wrist, which seemed all too slight for the weight. + +Then, as Ebbe held out the dead heron, she shook her head and laughed. +"I am not sure, sir, that I have any right to it. We flushed it yonder +between the wood and the sandhills, and, though I did not stay to +consider, I think it must belong to the owner of the shore-land." + +"It is true," said Ebbe, "that I own the shore-land, and the forest, +too, if law could enforce right. But for the bird you are welcome to +it, and to as many more as you care to kill." + +Upon this she knit her brows. "The forest? But I thought that the +forest was my father's? My name," said she, "is Mette, and my father is +the Knight Borre, of Egeskov." + +"I am Ebbe of Nebbegaard, and," said he, perceiving the mirth in her +eyes, "you have heard the rhyme upon me-- + + "'Ebbe from Nebbe, with all his men good, + Has neither food nor firing-wood.'" + +"I had not meant to be discourteous," said she contritely; "but tell me +more of these forest-lands." + +"Nay," answered Ebbe, "hither comes riding your father with his men. +Ask him for the story, and when he has told it you may know why I cannot +make him or his daughter welcome at Nebbegaard." + +To this she made no reply, but with her hand on the palfrey's bridle +went slowly back to meet her father, who reined up at a little distance +and waited, offering Ebbe no salutation. Then a groom helped her to the +saddle, and the company rode away towards Egeskov, leaving the lad with +the dead bird in his hand. + +For weeks after this meeting he moped more than usual. He had known +before that Sir Borre would leave no son, and that the lands of +Nebbegaard, if ever to be won back, must be wrested from a woman--and +this had ever troubled him. It troubled me the less because I hoped +there might be another way than force; and even if it should come to +that, Sir Borre's past treachery had killed in me all kindness towards +his house, male or female. + +He and my old master and five other knights of the eastern coast had +been heavily oppressed by the Lord of Trelde, Lars Trolle, who owned +many ships, and, though no better than a pirate, claimed a right of +levying tribute along the shore that faces Funen, upon pretence of +protecting it. After enduring many raids and paying toll under threat +for years, these seven knights banded together to rid themselves of this +robber; but word of their meetings being carried to Trolle, he came +secretly one night to Nebbegaard with three ships' crews, broke down the +doors, and finding the seven assembled in debate, made them prisoners +and held them at ransom. My master, a poor man, could only purchase +release by the help of his comrade, Borre, who found the ransom, but +took in exchange the lands of Nebbegaard, to hold them until repaid out +of their revenues; but of these he could never after be brought to give +an account. We on our side had lost the power to enforce it, and behind +his own strength he could now threaten us with Lars Trolle's, to whom he +had been reconciled. + +Therefore I felt no tenderness for Sir Borre's house, if by any means +our estates could be recovered. But after this meeting with Sir Borre's +daughter, I could see that my young lord went heavily troubled; and I +began to think of other means than force. + +It may have been six months later that word fame to us of great stir and +bustle at Egeskov. Sir Borre, being aged, and anxious to see his +daughter married before he died, had proclaimed a Bride-show. Now the +custom is, and the rule, that any suitor (so he be of gentle birth) may +offer himself in these contests; nor will the parents begin to bargain +until he has approved himself,--a wise plan, since it lessens the +disputing, which else might be endless. So when this news reached us I +looked at my master, and he, perceiving what I would say, answered it. + +"If Holgar will carry me," said he, "we will ride to Egeskov." + +This Holgar was a stout roan horse, foaled at Nebbegaard, but now well +advanced in years, and the last of that red stock for which our stables +had been famous. + +"He will carry you thither," said I; "and by God's grace, bring you home +with a bride behind you." + +Upon this my master hung his head. "Peter," he said, "do not think I +attempt this because it is the easier way." + +"It comes easier than fighting with a woman," I answered. "But you will +find it hard enow when the old man begins to haggle." + +I did not know then that the lad's heart was honestly given to this +maid; but so it was, and had been from the moment when she stood before +him in the gateway. + +So to Egeskov we rode, and there found no less than forty suitors +assembled, and some with a hundred servants in retinue. Sir Borre +received us with no care to hide his scorn, though the hour had not come +for putting it into words; and truly my master's arms were +old-fashioned, and with the dents they had honourably taken when they +cased his father, made a poor battered show, for all my scouring. + +Nevertheless, I had no fear when his turn came to ride the ring. +Three rides had each wooer under the lady Mette's eyes, and three rings +Ebbe carried off and laid on the cushion before her. She stooped and +passed about his neck the gold chain which she held for the prize; but I +think they exchanged no looks. Only one other rider brought two rings, +and this was a son of Lars Trolle, Olaf by name, a tall young knight, +and well-favoured, but disdainful; whom I knew Sir Borre must favour if +he could. + +I could not see that the maiden favoured him above the rest, yet I kept +a close eye upon this youth, and must own that in the jousting which +followed he carried himself well. For this the most of the wooers had +fresh horses, and I drew a long breath when, at the close of the third +course, my master, with two others, remained in the lists. For it had +been announced to us that the last courses should be ridden on the +morrow. But now Sir Borre behaved very treacherously, for perceiving +(as I am sure) that the horse Holgar was overwearied and panting, he +gave word that the sport should not be stayed. More by grace of Heaven +it was than by force of riding that Ebbe unhorsed his next man, a +knight's son from Smalling; but in the last course, which he rode +against Olaf of Trolle, who had stood a bye, his good honest beast came +to the tilt-cloth with knees trembling, and at a touch rolled over, +though between the two lances (I will swear) there was nothing to +choose. I was quick to pick up my dear lad; but he would have none of +my comfort, and limped away from the lists as one who had borne himself +shamefully. Yea, and my own heart was hot as I led Holgar back to +stable, without waiting to see the prize claimed by one who, though a +fair fighter, had not won it without foul aid. + +Having stalled Holgar I had much ado to find his master again, and +endless work to persuade him to quit his sulks and join the other +suitors in the hall that night, when each presented his bride-gift. +Even when I had won him over, he refused to take the coffer I placed in +his hands, though it held his mother's jewels, few but precious. +But entering with the last, as became his humble rank of esquire, he +laid nothing at the lady's feet save his sword and the chain that she +herself had given him. + +"You bring little, Squire Ebbe," said the Knight Borre, from his seat +beside his daughter. + +"I bring what is most precious in the world to me," said Ebbe. + +"Your lance is broken, I believe?" said the old knight scornfully. + +"My lance is not broken," he answered; "else you should have it to match +your word." And rising, without a look at Mette, whose eyes were +downcast, he strode back to the door. + +I had now given up hope, for the maid showed no sign of kindness, and +the old man and the youth were like two dogs--the very sight of the one +set the other growling. Yet--since to leave in a huff would have been +discourteous--I prevailed on my master to bide over the morrow, and even +to mount Holgar and ride forth to the hunt which was to close the +Bride-show. He mounted, indeed, but kept apart and well behind Mette +and her brisk group of wooers. For, apart from his lack of inclination, +his horse was not yet recovered; and by and by, as the prickers started +a deer, the hunt swept ahead of him and left him riding alone. + +He had a mind to turn aside and ride straight back to Nebbegaard, +whither he had sent me on to announce him (and dismally enough I +obeyed), when at the end of a green glade he spied Mette returning alone +on her white palfrey. + +"For I am tired of this hunting," she told him, as she came near. +"And you? Does it weary you also, that you lag so far behind?" + +"It would never weary me," he answered; "but I have a weary horse." + +"Then let us exchange," said she. "Though mine is but a palfrey, it +would carry you better. Your roan betrayed you yesterday, and it is +better to borrow than to miss excelling." + +"My house," answered Ebbe, still sulkily, "has had enough borrowing of +Egeskov; and my horse may be valueless, but he is one of the few things +dear to me, and I must keep him." + +"Truly then," said she, "your words were nought, last night, when you +professed to offer me the gifts most precious to you in the world." + +And before he could reply to this, she had pricked on and was lost in +the woodland. + +Ebbe sat for a while as she left him, considering, at the crossing of +two glades. Then he twitched Holgar's rein and turned back towards +Nebbegaard. But at the edge of the wood, spying a shepherd seated below +in the plain by his flock, he rode down to the man, and called to him +and said-- + +"Go this evening to Egeskov and greet the lady Mette, and say to her +that Ebbe of Nebbegaard could not barter his good horse, the last of his +father's stable. But that she may know he was honest in offering her +the thing most precious to him, tell her further what thou hast seen." + +So saying, he alighted off Holgar, and, smoothing his neck, whispered a +word in his ear. And the old horse turned his muzzle and rubbed it +against his master's left palm, whose right gripped a dagger and drove +it straight for the heart. This was the end of the roan stock of +Nebbegaard. + +My master Ebbe reached home that night with the mire thick on his boots. +Having fed him, I went to the stables, and finding no Holgar made sure +that he had killed the poor beast in wrath for his discomforture at the +tilt. The true reason he gave me many days after. I misjudged him, +judging him by his father's temper. + +On the morrow of the Bride-show the suitors took their leave of Egeskov, +under promise to return again at the month's end and hear how the lady +Mette had chosen. So they went their ways, none doubting that the +fortunate one would be Olaf of Trelde; and, for me, I blamed myself that +we had ever gone to Egeskov. + +But on the third morning after the Bride-show I changed this advice very +suddenly; for going at six of the morning to unlock our postern gate, as +my custom was, I found a tall black stallion tethered there and left +without a keeper. His harness was of red leather, and each broad +crimson rein bore certain words embroidered: on the one "A Straight +Quarrel is Soonest Mended "; on the other, "Who Will Dare Learns +Swiftness." + +Little time I lost in calling my master to admire, and having read what +was written, he looked in my eyes and said, "I go back to Egeskov." + +"That is well done," said I; "may the Almighty God prosper it!" + +"But," said he doubtfully, "if I determine on a strange thing, will you +help me, Peter? I may need a dozen men; men without wives to miss +them." + +"I can yet find a dozen such along the fiord," I answered. + +"And we go on a long journey, perhaps never to return to Nebbegaard." + +"Dear master," said I, "what matter where my old bones lie after they +have done serving you?" He kissed me and rode away to Egeskov. + +"I thought that the Squire of Nebbe had done with us," Sir Borre began +to sneer, when Ebbe found audience. "But the Bride-show is over, my +man, and I give not my answer for a month yet." + +"Your word is long to pledge, and longer to redeem," said Ebbe. +"I know that, were I to wait a twelvemonth, you would not of free will +give me Mette." + +"Ah, you know that, do you? Well, then, you are right, Master Lackland, +and the greater your impudence in hoping to wile from me through my +daughter what you could not take by force." + +Ebbe replied, "I was prepared to find it difficult, but let that pass. +As touching my lack of land, I have Nebbegaard left; a poor estate and +barren, yet I think you would be glad of it, to add to the lands of +which you robbed us." + +"Well," said Borre, "I would give a certain price for it, but not my +daughter, nor anything near so precious to me." + +"Give me one long ship," said Ebbe; "the swiftest of your seven which +ride in the strait between Egeskov and Stryb. You shall take +Nebbegaard for her, since I am weary of living at home and care little +to live at all without Mette." + +Borre's eyes shone with greed. "I commend you," said he; "for a stout +lad there is nothing like risking his life to win a fortune. +Give me the deeds belonging to Nebbegaard, and you shall have my ship +_Gold Mary_." + +"By your leave," said Ebbe, "I have spent some time in watching your +ships upon the fiord; and the ship in my mind was the _White Wolf_." + +Sir Borre laughed to find himself outwitted, for the _White Wolf_ could +outsail all his fleet. But in any case he had the better of the bargain +and could afford to show some good-humour. Moreover, though he knew not +that Mette had any tenderness for this youth, his spirits rose at the +prospect of getting him out of the way. + +So the bargain was struck, and as Nebbe rode homewards to his castle for +the last time, he met the shepherd who had taken his former message. +The man was waiting for him, and (as you guess) by Mette's orders. + +"Tell the lady Mette," said Ebbe, "that I have sold Nebbegaard for the +_White Wolf_, and that two nights from now my men will be aboard of her; +also that I sup with her father that evening before the boat takes me +off from the Bent Ness." + +So it was that two nights later Ebbe supped at Egeskov, and was kept +drinking by the old knight for an hour maybe after the lady Mette had +risen and left the hall for her own room. + +And at the end, after the last speeding-cup, needs must Sir Borre (who +had grown friendly beyond all belief) see him to the gate and stand +there bare-headed among his torch-bearers while my master mounted the +black stallion that was to bear him to Bent Ness, three miles away, +where I waited with the boat. + +But as Ebbe shook his rein, and moved out of the torchlight, came the +damsel Mette stealing out of the shadow upon the far side of the horse. +He reached down a hand, and she took it, and sprang up behind him. + +"For this bout, Sir Borre, I came with a fresh horse!" called my master +blithely; and so, striking spur, galloped off into the dark. + +Little chance had Sir Borre to overtake them. The stallion was swift, +our boat waiting in the lee of the Ness, the wind southerly and fresh, +the _White Wolf_ ready for sea, with sail hoisted and but one small +anchor to get on board or cut away if need were. But there was no need. +Before the men of Egeskov reached the Ness and found there the black +stallion roaming, its riders were sailing out of the Strait with a merry +breeze. So began our voyage. + +My master was minded to sail for Norway and take service under the king. +But first, coming to the island of Laeso, he must put ashore and seek a +priest, by whom he and the lady Mette were safely made man and wife. +Two days he spent at the island, and then, with fresh store of +provisions, we headed northward again. + +It was past Skagen that our troubles began, with a furious wind from the +north-east against which there was no contending, so that we ran from it +and were driven for two days and a night into the wide sea. Even when +it lessened, the wind held in the east; and we, who could handle the +ship, but knew little of reckoning, crept northward again in the hope to +sight the coast of Norway. For two days we held on at this, lying close +by the wind, and in good spirits, although our progress was not much; +but on the third blew another gale--this time from the south-east--and +for a week gale followed gale, and we went in deadly peril, yet never +losing hope. The worst was the darkness, for the year was now drawing +towards Yule, and as we pressed farther north we lost almost all sight +of the sun. + +At length, with the darkness and the bitter cold and our stores running +low, we resolved to let the wind take us with what swiftness it might to +whatsoever land it listed; and so ran westward, with darkness closing +upon us, and famine and a great despair. + +But the lady Mette did not lose heart, and the worst of all (our failing +cupboard) we kept from her, so that she never lacked for plenty. +Truly her cheerfulness paid us back, and her love for my master, the +like of which I had not seen in this world; no, nor dreamed of. +Hand in hand this pair would sit, watching the ice which was our prison +and the great North Lights, she close against Ebbe's side for warmth, +and (I believe) as happy us a bird; he trembling for the end. +The worst was to see her at table, pressing food to his mouth and +wondering at his little hunger; while his whole body cried out for the +meat, only it could not be spared. + +Though she must know soon, none of us had the heart to tell her; and not +out of pity alone, but because with her must die out the last spark by +which we warmed ourselves. + +But there came a morning--I write it as of a time long ago, and yet it +was but yesterday, praise be unto God!--there came a morning when I +awoke and found that two of our men had died in the plight, of frost and +famine. They must be hidden before my mistress discovered aught; and so +before her hour of waking we weighted and dropped the bodies overside +into deep water; for the ice had not yet wholly closed about us. Now as +I stooped, I suppose that my legs gave way beneath me. At any rate, I +fell; and in falling struck my head against the bulwarks, and opened my +eyes in that unending dusk to find the lady Mette stooping over me. + +Then somehow I was aware that she had called for wine to force down my +throat, and had been told that there was no wine; and also that with +this answer had come to her the knowledge, full and sudden, of our case. +Better had we done to trust her than to hide it all this while, for she +turned to Ebbe, who stood at her shoulder, and "Is not this the feast of +Yule?" she asked. My master bent his head, but without answering. + +"Ah!" she cried to him. "Now I know what I have longed to know, that +your love is less than mine, for you can love yet be doubtful of +miracles; while to me, now that I have loved, no miracle can be aught +but small." She bowed herself over me. "Art dying, old friend? +Look up and learn that God, being Love, deserts not lovers." + +Then she stooped and gathered, as I thought, a handful of snow from the +deck; but lo! when she pressed it to my lips, and I tasted, it was +heavenly manna. + +And looking up past her face I saw the ribbons of the North Lights fade +in a great and wide sunlight, bathing the deck and my frozen limbs. +Nor did they feel it only, but on the wind came the noise of bergs +rending, springs breaking, birds singing, many and curious. And with +that, as I am a sinful man, I gazed up into green leaves; for either we +had sailed into Paradise or the timbers of the _White Wolf_ were +swelling with sap and pushing forth bough upon bough. Yea, and there +were roses at the mast's foot, and my fingers, as I stretched them, +dabbled in mosses. While I lay there, breathing softly, as one who +dreams and fears to awake, I heard her voice talking among the noises of +birds and brooks, and by the scent it seemed to be in a garden; but +whether it spake to me or to Ebbe I knew not, nor cared. "The Lord is +my Shepherd, and guides me," it said, "wherefore I lack nothing. +He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me by comfortable +streams: He reviveth my soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of +the shadow of death, I will fear no harm: Thy rod and Thy staff they +comfort me." But, a little after, I knew that the voice spake to my +master, for it said: "Let us go forth into the field, O beloved: let us +lodge in the villages: let us get up betimes to the vineyard and see if +the vine have budded, if its blossom be open, the pomegranates in +flower. Even there will I give thee my love." Then looking again I saw +that the two had gone from me and left me alone. + +But, blessed be God, they took not away the vision, and now I know +certainly that it is no cheat. For here sit I, dipping my pen into the +unfrozen ink, and, when a word will not come, looking up into the broad +branches and listening to the birds till I forget my story. It is long +since they left me; but I am full fed, and the ship floats pleasantly. +After so much misery I am as one rocked on the bosom of God; and the +pine resin has a pleasant smell. + + +[1] The courtship of Ebbe, the poor esquire of Nebbegaard, and the +maiden Mette is a traditional tale of West Jutland. A version of it was +Englished by Thorpe from Carit Etlar's "_Eventyr og Folkesagen fra +Jylland_": but this, while it tells of Ebbe's adventures at the +"Bride-show," and afterwards at the hunting-party, contains no account +of the lovers' escape and voyage, or of the miracle which brought them +comfort at the last. Indeed, Master Kurt contradicts the common tale in +many ways, but above all in his ending, wherein (although he narrates a +miracle) I find him worthy of belief. + + + +SINDBAD ON BURRATOR. + + +I heard this story in a farmhouse upon Dartmoor, and I give it in the +words of the local doctor who told it. We were a reading-party of +three undergraduates and a Christ Church don. The don had slipped on a +boulder, two days before, while fishing the river Meavy, and sprained +his ankle; hence Dr. Miles's visit. The two had made friends over the +don's fly-book and the discovery that what the doctor did not know about +Dartmoor trout was not worth knowing; hence an invitation to extend his +visit over dinner. At dinner the talk diverged from sport to the +ancient tin-works, stone circles, camps and cromlechs on the tors about +us, and from there to touch speculatively on the darker side of the old +religions: hence at length the doctor's story, which he told over the +pipes and whisky, leaning his arms upon the table and gazing at it +rather than at us, as though drawing his memories out of depths below +its polished surface. + + +It must be thirty--yes, thirty--years ago (he said) since I met the man, +on a bright November morning, when the Dartmoor hounds were drawing +Burrator Wood. Burrator House in those days belonged to the Rajah +Brooke--Brooke of Sarawak--who had bought it from Harry Terrell; or +rather it had been bought for him by the Baroness Burdett Coutts and +other admirers in England. Harry Terrell--a great sportsman in his +day--had been loth enough to part with it, and when the bargain was +first proposed, had named at random a price which was about double what +he had given for the place. The Rajah closed with the sum at once, +asked him to make a list of everything in the house, and put a price on +whatever he cared to sell. Terrell made a full list, putting what +seemed to him fair prices on most of the furniture, and high ones-- +prohibitive he thought--on the sticks he had a fancy to keep. The Rajah +glanced over the paper in his grand manner, and says he, "I'll take it +all." "Stop! stop!" cried Terrell, "I bain't going to let you have the +bed I was married in!" "As you please; we'll strike out the bed, +then," the Rajah answered. That is how he took possession. + +Burrator House, as I daresay you know, faces across the Meavy upon +Burrator Wood; and the wood, thanks to Terrell, had always been a sure +draw for a fox. I had tramped over from Tavistock on this particular +morning,--for I was new to the country, a young man looking around me +for a practice, and did not yet possess a horse,--and I sat on the slope +above the house, at the foot of the tor, watching the scene on the +opposite bank. The fixture, always a favourite one, and the Rajah's +hospitality--which was noble, like everything about him--had brought out +a large and brightly-dressed field; and among them, in his black coat, +moved Terrell on a horse twice as good as it looked. He had ridden over +from his new home, and I daresay in the rush of old associations had +forgotten for the while that the familiar place was no longer his. + +The Rajah, a statue of a man, sat on a tall grey at the covert's edge, +directly below me; and from time to time I watched him through my +field-glass. He had lately recovered from a stroke of paralysis, and +was (I am told) the wreck of his old self; but the old fire lived in the +ashes. He sat there, tall, lean, upright as a ramrod, with his eyes +turned from the covert and gazing straight in front, over his horse's +ears, on the rushing Meavy. He had forgotten the hounds; his care for +his guests was at an end; and I wondered what thoughts, what memories of +the East, possessed him. There is always a loneliness about a great +man, don't you think? But I have never felt one to be so terribly--yes, +terribly--alone as the Rajah was that morning among his guests and the +Devonshire tors. + +"Every inch a king," said a voice at my elbow, and a little man settled +himself down on the turf beside me. I set down my glasses with a start. +He was a spare dry fellow of about fifty, dressed in what I took for the +working suit of a mechanic. Certainly he did not belong to the moor. +He wore no collar, but a dingy yellow handkerchief knotted about his +throat, and both throat and face were seamed with wrinkles--so thickly +seamed that at first glance you might take them for tattoo-marks; but I +had time for a second, for without troubling to meet my eyes he nodded +towards the Rajah. + +"I've cut a day's work and travelled out from Plymouth to get a sight of +him; and I've a wife will pull my hair out when I get home and she finds +I haven't been to the docks to-day; and I've had no breakfast but thirty +grains of opium; but he's worth it." + +"Thirty grains of opium!" I stared at him, incredulous. He did not +turn, but, still with his eyes on the valley below us, stretched out a +hand. It's fingers were gnarled, and hooked like a bird's claw, and on +the little finger a ruby flashed in the morning sunlight--not a large +ruby, but of the purest pigeon's-blood shade, and in any case a stone of +price. + +"You see this? My wife thinks it a sham one, but it's not. And some +day, when I'm drunk or in low water, I shall part with it--but not yet. +You've an eye for it, I see,"--and yet he was not looking towards me,-- +"but the Rajah, yonder, and I are the only two within a hundred miles +that can read what's in the heart of it." + +He gazed for a second or two at the stone, lifted it to his ear as if +listening, and lowering his hand to the turf, bent over it and gazed +again. "Ay, _he_ could understand and see into you, my beauty! +_He_ could hear the little drums tum-a-rumbling, and the ox-bells and +bangles tinkling, and the shuffle of the elephants going by; _he_ could +read the lust in you, and the blood and the sun flickering and licking +round the _kris_ that spilt it--for it's the devil you have in you, my +dear. But we know you--he and I--he and I. Ah! there you go," he +muttered as the hounds broke into cry, and the riders swept round the +edge of the copse towards the sound of a view-halloo. "There you go," +he nodded after the Rajah; "but ride as you will, the East is in you, +great man--its gold in your blood, its dust in your eyelids, its own +stink in your nostril; and, ride as you will, you can never escape it." + +He clasped his knees and leaned back against the slope, following the +grey horse and its rider with idolatrous gaze; and I noted that one of +the clasped hands lacked the two middle fingers. + +"You know him?" I asked. "You have seen him out there, at Sarawak?" + +"I never saw him; but I heard of him." He smiled to himself. "It's not +easy to pass certain gates in the East without hearing tell of the Rajah +Brooke." + +For a while he sat nursing his knee while I filled and lit a pipe. +Then he turned abruptly, and over the flame of the match I saw his eyes, +the pupils clouded around the iris and, as it were, withdrawn inward and +away from the world. "Ever heard of Cagayan Sulu?" he asked. + +"Never," said I. "Who or what is it?" + +"It's an island," said he. "It lies a matter of eighty miles off the +north-east corner of Borneo--facing Sandakan, as you might say." + +"Who owns it?" + +He seemed to be considering the question. "Well," he answered slowly, +"if you asked the Spanish Government I suppose they'd tell you the King +of Spain; but that's a lie. If you asked the natives--the Hadji Hamid, +for instance--you'd be told it belonged to them; and that's half a lie. +And if you asked the Father of Lies he might tell you the truth and call +me for witness. I lost two fingers there--the only English flesh ever +buried in those parts--so I've bought my knowledge." + +"How did you come there?" I asked,--"if it's a fair question." + +He chuckled without mirth. "As it happens, that's _not_ a fair +question. But I'll tell you this much, I came there with a brass band." + +I began to think the man out of his mind. + +"With the instruments, that is. I'd dropped the bandmaster on the way. +Look here," he went on sharply, "the beginning is funny enough, but I'm +telling you no lies. We'll suppose there was a ship, a British +man-of-war--name not necessary just now." + +"I think I understand," I nodded. + +"Oh no, you don't," said he. "I'm not a deserter--at least not +exactly--or I shouldn't be telling this to you. Well, we'll suppose +this ship bound from Labuan to Hong-Kong with orders to keep along the +north side of Borneo, to start with, and do a bit of exploring by the +way. This would be in 'forty-nine, when the British Government had just +taken over Labuan. _Very_ good. Next we'll suppose the captain puts in +at Kudat, in Marudu Bay, to pay a polite call on the Rajah there or some +understrapper of the Sultan's, and takes his ship's band ashore by way +of compliment, and that the band gets too drunk to play 'Annie Laurie.'" +He chuckled again. "I never saw such a band as we were, down by the +water's edge; and O'Hara, the bandmaster, took on and played the fool to +such a tune, while we waited for the boat to take us aboard, that for +the very love I bore him I had to knock him down and sit on him in a +quiet corner. + +"While I sat keeping guard on him I must have dropped asleep myself; for +the next I remember was waking up to find the beach deserted and the +boat gone. This put me in a sweat, of course; but after groping some +while about the foreshore (which was as dark as the inside of your hat), +I tripped over a rope and so found a native boat. O'Hara wouldn't wake, +so I just lifted him on board like a sack, tossed in his cornet and my +bombardon, tumbled in on top of them, and started to row for dear life +towards the ship's light in the offing. + +"But the Rajah, or rather his servants, had filled us up with a kind of +sticky drink that only begins to work when you think it about time to +leave off. I must have pulled miles towards that ship, and every time I +cast an eye over my shoulder her light was shining just as far away as +ever. At last I remember feeling sure I was bewitched, and with that I +must have tumbled off the thwart in a sound sleep. + +"When I awoke I had both arms round the bombardon; there wasn't a sight +of land, or of the ship, anywhere; and, if you please, the sun was near +sinking! This time I managed to wake up O'Hara. We had splitting +headaches, the pair of us; but we snatched up our instruments and +started to blow on them like mad. Not a soul heard, though we blew till +the sweat poured down us, and kept up the concert pretty well all +through the night. You may think it funny, and I suppose we did amount +to something like a joke--we two bandsmen booming away at the Popular +Airs of Old England and the Huntsmen's Chorus under those everlasting +stars. You wouldn't say so, if you had been the audience when O'Hara +broke down and began to confess his sins. + +"Luckily the sea kept smooth, and next morning I took the oars in +earnest. We had no compass, and I was famished; but I stuck to it, +steering by the sun and pulling in the direction where I supposed land +to lie. O'Hara kept a look-out. We saw nothing, however, and down came +the night again. + +"Though the hunger had been gnawing and griping me for hours, yet-- +dog-tired as I was--I curled myself at the bottom of the boat and slept, +and dreamed I was on board ship again and in my hammock. A sort of +booming in my ears awoke me. Looking up I saw daylight around--clear +morning light and blue sky--and right overhead, as it were, a great +cliff standing against the blue. And there in the face of day O'Hara +sat on the thwart, tugging like mad, now cricking his neck almost to +stare up at the cliff, and now grinning down at me in silly triumph. + +"With that I caught at the meaning of the sound in my ears. +'You infernal fool!' I shouted, staggering up and making to snatch the +paddle from him. 'Get her nose round to it and back her!' For it was +the noise of breaking water. + +"But I was too late. Our boat, I must tell you, was a sort of Dutch +pram, about twelve feet long and narrowing at the bows, which stood well +out of water; handy enough for beaching, but not to be taken through +breakers, by reason of its sitting low in the stern. O'Hara, as I +yelled at him, pulled his starboard paddle and brought her (for these +prams spin round easily) almost broadside on to a tall comber. As we +slid up the side of it and hung there, I had a glimpse of a steep clean +fissure straight through the wall of rock ahead; and in that instant +O'Hara sprawled his arms and toppled overboard. The boat and I went by +him with a rush. I saw a hand and wrist lifted above the foam, but when +I looked back for them they were gone--gone as I shot over the bar and +through the cleft into smooth water. I shouted and pulled back to the +edge of the breakers; but he was gone, and I never saw him again. + +"I suppose it was ten minutes before I took heart to look about me. +I was floating on a lake of the bluest water I ever set eyes on, and as +calm as a pond except by the entrance where the spent waves, after +tumbling over the bar, spread themselves in long ripples, widening and +widening until the edge of them melted and they were gone. The banks of +the lake rose sheer from its edge, or so steeply that I saw no way of +climbing them--walls you might call them, a good hundred feet high, and +widening gradually towards the top, but in a circle as regular as ever +you could draw with a pair of compasses. Any fool could see what had +happened--that here was the crater of a dead volcano, one side of which +had been broken into by the sea; but the beauty of it, sir, coming on +top of my weakness, fairly made me cry. For the walls at the top were +fringed with palms and jungle trees, and hung with creepers like +curtains that trailed over the face of the cliff and down among the +ferns by the shore. I leaned over the boat and stared into the water. +It was clear, clear--you've no notion how clear; but no bottom could I +see. It seemed to sink right through and into the sea on the other side +of the world! + +"Well, all this was mighty pretty, but it didn't tell me where to find a +meal; so I baled out the boat and paddled along the eastern edge of the +lake searching the cliffs for a path, and after an hour or so I hit on +what looked to me like a foot-track, zig-zagging up through the creepers +and across the face of the rock. I determined to try it, made the boat +fast to a clump of fern, slung O'Hara's cornet on to my side-belt and +began to climb. + +"I saw no marks of footsteps; but the track was a path all right, though +a teazer. A dozen times I had to crawl on hands and knees under the +creepers--creepers with stems as thick as my two wrists--and once, about +two-thirds of the way up, I was forced to push sideways through a +crevice dripping with water, and so steep under foot that I slid twice +and caked myself with mud. I very nearly gave out here; but it was do +or die, and after ten minutes more of scratching, pushing, and +scrambling, I reached the top and sat down to mop my face and recover. + +"I daresay it was another ten minutes before I fetched breath enough and +looked about me; and as I turned my head, there, close behind me, lay +another crater with another lake smiling below, all blue and peaceful as +the one I had left! I gazed from one to the other. This new crater had +no opening on the sea; its sides were steeper, though not quite so tall; +and either my eyes played me a trick or its water stood at a higher +level. I stood there, comparing the two, when suddenly against the +skyline, and not two hundred yards away, I caught sight of a man. + +"He was walking towards me around the edge of the crater, and halting +every now and then to stare down at my boat. He might be a friend, or +he might be a foe; but anyway it was not for me, in my condition, to +choose which, so I waited for him to come up. And first I saw that he +carried a spear, and wore a pair of wide dirty-white trousers and a +short coat embroidered with gold; and next that he was a true Malay, +pretty well on in years, with a greyish beard falling over his chest. +He had no shirt, but a scarlet sash wrapped about his waist and holding +a _kris_ and two long pistols handsomely inlaid with gold. In spite of +his weapons he seemed a benevolent old boy. + +"He pointed towards my boat and tried me with a few questions, first in +his own language, then in Spanish, of which I knew very little beyond +the sound. But I spread out my hands towards the sea, by way of +explaining our voyage, and then pointed to my mouth. If he understood +he seemed in no hurry. He tapped O'Hara's cornet gingerly with two +fingers. I unstrung it and made shift to play 'Home, Sweet Home.' +This delighted him; he nodded, rubbed his hands, and stepped a few paces +from me, then turned and began fingering his spear in a way I did not +like at all. 'It's a matter of taste, sir,' said I, or words to that +effect, dropping the cornet like a hot potato; but he pointed towards +it, and then over a ridge inland, and I gathered I must pick it up and +follow him--which I did, and pretty quick. + +"From the top of this ridge we faced across a small plain bounded on the +north with a tier of hills, most of which seemed by their shape to be +volcanoes, and out of action--for the sky lay quite blue and clear above +them. The way down into this plain led through jungle; but the plain +itself had been cleared of all but small clumps dotted here and there, +which gave it, you might say, the look of an English park; and about +half-way across, in a clear stretch of lalang grass, stood a village of +white huts huddling round a larger and much taller house. + +"The old man led me straight towards this, and, coming closer, I saw +that the large house had a rough glacis about it and a round wall +pierced with loopholes. A number of goats were feeding here and a few +small cattle; also the ground about the village had been cleared and +planted with fruit-trees,--mangoes, bananas, limes, and oranges,--but as +yet I saw no inhabitants. The old Malay, who had kept ahead of me all +the way, walking at a fair pace, here halted and once more signed to me +to blow on the cornet. I obeyed, of course, this time with 'The British +Grenadiers.' I declare to you it was like starting a swarm of bees. +You wouldn't believe the troops that came pouring out of those few +huts--the women in loose trousers pretty much like the men's, but with +arms bare and loose _sarongs_ flung over their right shoulders, the +children with no more clothes than a pocket-handkerchief apiece. +I can't tell you what first informed me of my guide's rank among them-- +whether the salaams they offered him, or the richness of his dress-- +he was the only one with gold lace and the only one who carried +pistols--or the air with which he paraded me through the crowd, waving +the people back to right and left, and clearing a way to a narrow door +in the wall around the great house. A man armed with a long +fowling-piece saluted him at the entry; and once inside he pointed from +the house to his own breast, as much as to say, 'I am the Chief, and +this is mine.' I saluted him humbly. + +"A verandah ran around the four sides of the house, with a trench +between it and the fortified wall. A plank bridge led across the trench +to the verandah steps, where my master--or, to call him by his right +name, Hadji Hamid--halted again and clapped his hands. A couple of +young Malay women, dressed like those I had passed in the street, ran +out in answer, and were ordered to bring me food. While it was +preparing I rested on a low chair, blinking at the sunlight on the +fortified wall. It had been pierced, on the side of the house, for +eleven guns, but six of the embrasures were empty, and of the five +pieces standing no two were alike in size, age, or manufacture, and the +best seemed to be a nine-pounder, strapped to its carriage with rope. +Hadji Hamid saw what I was looking at, and chuckled to himself solemnly. +All through the meal--which began with a mess of rice and chopped fowl +and ended with bananas--he sat beside me, chewing betel, touching this +thing and that, naming it in his language and making me repeat the words +after him. He smiled at every mistake, but never lost his patience; +indeed it was clear that my quickness delighted him, and I did my best, +wondering all the while what he meant to do with me. + +"Well, to be short, sir, he intended to keep me. I believe he would +have done it for the sake of the cornet; but before I had finished +eating, up stepped a sentry escorting a man with my bombardon under his +arm. I had left it, as you know, in the boat, and had heard no order +given; but the boat I never saw again, and here was my bombardon. +Hadji Hamid took it in both hands, felt it all over, patted it, and +ended by turning it over to me and calling in dumb show for a tune. +I tell you, my performance was a success. At the first blast he leaned +back suddenly in his chair; at the second he turned a kind of purple +under his yellow skin; but at the third he caught hold of his stomach +and began to roll in his seat and laugh. You never saw a man laugh like +it. He made scarcely any sound; he was too near apoplexy to speak; but +the tears ran down his face, and one minute his hand would be up waving +feebly to me to stop, the next he'd be signalling to go on again. +I wanted poor O'Hara; he used to give himself airs and swear at my +playing, but among these people he and his cornet would have had to +stand down. + +"They gave me a bed that night in a corner of the verandah, and next +morning my master came himself to wake me, and took me down to the +village bathing-pool, just below the fortifications. It hurt my modesty +to find the whole mob of inhabitants gathered there and waiting, and it +didn't set me at ease, exactly, to notice that each man carried his +spear. For one nasty moment I pictured a duck-hunt, with me playing +duck. But there was no cause for alarm. At a signal from Hamid, who +stripped and led the way, in we tumbled together--men, women, and +children--the men first laying their spears on the bank beside their +clothes. Six remained on shore to keep guard, and were relieved after +five minutes by another six from the pool. There was a good deal of +splashing and horse-play, but nothing you could call immodest, though my +fair skin came in for an amount of attention I had to get used to. + +"My breakfast was served to me alone, and soon after I was summoned to +attend my master in one of the state rooms of the house. I found him on +a shaded platform, seated opposite an old native as well-dressed and +venerable-looking as himself, but stouter. The pair lolled on cushions +at either end of the platform, smoking and smoothing their grey beards. +I understood that the visitor was a personage and (somehow) that he had +been sent for expressly to hear and be astonished by my performance. + +"The two instruments were brought in upon cushions, and I began to play. +The visitor--who had less sense of humour than Hamid--did not laugh at +all. Instead, he took the mouthpiece of his _tchibouk_ slowly from his +lips and held it at a little distance, while his mouth and eyes opened +wider and wider. Hamid eyed him keenly, with a kind of triumph under +his lids; and the triumph grew as the old man's stare lit up with a +jealousy there was no mistaking. + +"This, too, passed as I wound up with a flourish and stood at attention, +waiting for orders. The visitor put out his hand, but as I offered him +the bombardon he waved it aside impatiently and pointed to the cornet. +I passed it up to him; he patted and examined it for a while, laid it on +his knee, and the two men began talking in low voices. + +"I could see that compliments were passing; but you'll guess I wasn't +prepared for what followed. Hamid stood up suddenly and whispered to +one of his six guards stationed below the platform. The man went out, +and returned in five minutes followed by a girl. Now that the island +girls were beautiful I had already discovered that morning, and this one +was no exception--a small thing about five feet, with glossy black hair +and the tiniest feet and hands. She seemed to me to walk nervously, as +if brought up for punishment; and a thought took me--and I shall be glad +of it when I come to die--that if they meant to ill-use her I might do +worse than assault that venerable pair with my bombardon and end my +adventures with credit. + +"My eyes were so taken up with the girl that for a full minute I paid no +attention to my master. She had come to a halt under the platform, a +couple of paces from me, with her eyes cast down upon the floor; and he +on the platform was speaking. By and by he stopped, and glancing up I +saw that he was motioning me to leave the room. Well, they had made no +show as yet of ill-treating her; so I flung her one more look and +obeyed, feeling pretty mean. I went out into the verandah, walked the +length of it and turned--and there stood the girl right before me! +Her little feet had followed me so softly that I had heard nothing; and +now, as I stared at her, she crept close with a sort of sidelong motion, +and knelt at my feet, at the same moment drawing her _sarong_ over her +head to hide it. Then the truth came upon me--I was married! + +"Aoodya was her name. What else can I tell you about her, to describe +her? She was a child, and all life came as play to her, yet she +understood love to the tips of her little madder-brown fingers. +She was my teacher, too, and I sat at her feet day after day and learned +while she drilled the island-language into me; learned by the hour while +she untwisted her hair and rubbed it with grated cocoanut, and broke off +her toilet to point to this thing and that and tell me its name, +laughing at my mistakes or flipping bits of betel at me by way of +reward. I had no wife at home to vex my conscience at all. All day we +played about Hamid's verandah like two children, and Hamid watched us +with a sort of twinkle in his eye, seemingly well content. It was plain +he had taken a fancy to me, and I thought, as time passed, he grew +friendlier. + +"I blessed the old fellow, too. Had he not given me Aoodya? I puzzled +my head over this favour, until Aoodya explained. 'You see,' she said, +'it was done to oblige the Hadji Hassan.' This was the old man who had +listened to my performance on the bombardon. He lived in a stockaded +house on the far side of the island, the chieftancy of which he and +Hamid shared between them and without dispute. + +"'How should it oblige Hassan?' I asked. + +"'Because Hassan could not see or hear my lord and lover without longing +to possess such a man for his very own. As who could?' And here she +blew me a kiss. + +"'Thank you, jewel of my heart,' said I; 'but yet I don't see. +Was it me he wanted, or the bombardon?' + +"'I fancy he thought of you together; but of course he did not ask for +the big thing--that would have been greedy. He would be content with +the little one, the what-you-call cornet; and--don't you see?' + +"'No doubt it's stupid of me, my dear,' said I, 'but I'll be shot if I +do.' + +"She was sitting with a lapful of pandanus leaves, blue and green, +weaving a mat of them while we talked, and had just picked out a beater +from the tools scattered round her--a flat piece of board with a +bevilled edge, and shaped away to a handle. 'Stupid!' she says to me, +just like so, and at the same time raps me over the hand smartly. +'He thought--if peradventure there came to us a little one--' + +"'_With_ a what-you-call cornet?'--I clapped my hand to my mouth over a +guffaw; and, with that, She--who had started laughing too--came to a +stop, with her eyes fastened on the back of it. I saw them stiffen, and +the pretty round pupils draw in and shrink to narrow slits like a cat's, +and her arm went back slowly behind her, and her bosom leaned nearer and +nearer. I thought she was going to spring at me, and as my silly laugh +died out I turned my hand and held it palm outward, to fend her off. +On the back of it was a drop of blood where the bevelled edge of the +beater had by accident broken the skin. + +"Somehow this movement of mine seemed to fetch her to bearings. +Her hand came slowly forward again, hesitated, seemed to hover for a +moment at her throat, then went swiftly down to her bosom between bodice +and flesh, and came up again tugging after it what looked to me a piece +of coarse thread. She tossed it into my lap as I still sat there +cross-legged, and with that sprang up and raced away from me, down to +the verandah. There was no chance of catching her, and I was (to tell +the truth) a bit too much taken aback to try. I picked up the string. +On it was threaded a silk purse no bigger than a shilling; and from this +I shook into my palm a small stone like an opal. I turned it over once +or twice, put it back in the purse, and stowed string, purse, and all in +my breeches' pocket. + +"I strolled down the verandah to our quarters in search of Aoodya, but +the room was empty; and after that I'm afraid I smoked and sulked for +the rest of the day, until nightfall. After playing the Hadji Hamid +through his meal I went out to our favourite seat on the edge of the dry +ditch, when she came to me out of nowhere across the withered grass of +the compound. + +"'Have you the charm, O beloved?' she whispered. + +"'Oh, it's a charm, is it?' said I, partly sulky yet. + +"'Yes, and you must never lose it--never part with it--never, above all, +give it back to me. Promise me that, beloved; and I, who have wept +much, am happy again.' + +"So I promised, and she snuggled close to me, and all was as before. +No more was said between us, and by next morning she seemed to have +clean forgotten the affair. But I thought of it at times, and it +puzzled me. + +"Now, as I said, my master had taken a fancy to me quite apart from the +bombardon, and a token of it was his constantly taking me out as +companion on his walks. You may think it odd that he never troubled +about my being an unbeliever--for of course he held by the Prophet, and +so did all the islanders, Aoodya included. But in fact, though his +people called themselves Mahommedans, each man treated his religion much +as he chose, and Hamid talked to me as freely as if I had been his son. + +"In this way I learned a deal of the island and its customs, and of the +terms by which Hamid and Hassan between them shared its rule. But that +any others laid claim to it I had no idea, until one day as we were +walking on the coast, and not far from the crater where he had found me +first, my master asked suddenly, 'Was I happy?' + +"'Quite happy,' I answered. + +"'You would not leave us if you could?' he went on, and began to laugh +quiet-like, behind his beard. 'Oho! Love, love! I that am old have +been merry in my day.' We walked for another mile, maybe, without +speaking, and came to the edge of a valley. 'Look down yonder,' said +he. + +"Below us, and in the mouth of the valley, which grew broad and shallow +as it neared the sea, I saw a hill topped by a round wall and compound. +There might have been half a dozen houses within the compound, all +thatched, and above them stood up a flag painted in red and yellow +stripes, and so stiff in the breeze that with half an eye you could tell +it was no bunting but a sheet of tin. + +"Hullo!' said I. 'Spaniards?' + +"'Puf!' Hamid grinned at the flag and spat. 'A Captain Marquinez +inhabits there, with four Manila men and their wives. He is a sensible +fellow, and does no harm, and if it pleases him to hoist that toy on a +bamboo, he is welcome.' + +"'They claim the island, then?' + +"'What matters it if they claim? There was a letter once came to us +from the Spanish Governor in Tolo. That man was a fool. He gave us +warning that by order of the Government at Manila he would send a +hundred men to build a fort inland and set up a garrison. Hassan and I +took counsel together. 'He is a fool,' said Hassan; 'but we must answer +him.' So we answered him thus. 'Send your men. To-day they come; +to-morrow they die--yet trouble not; _we_ will bury them.' + +"'Were they sent?' I asked. + +"'They were not sent. He was a fool, yet within bounds. Nevertheless +a time may come for us--not for Hassan and me, we shall die in our +beds--but for our sons. Even for this we are prepared.' He would have +said more, but checked himself. (I learned later on that the islanders +kept one of the craters fortified for emergency, to make a last stand +there; but they never allowed me to see the place.) 'We have gods of +our own,' said Hamid slily, 'who will be helpful--the more so that we do +not bother them over trifles. Also there are--other things; and the +lake Sinquan, and another which you have not seen, are full of +crocodiles.' He stamped his foot. 'My son, beneath this spot there +has been fire, and still the men of Cagayan walk warily and go not +without their spears. For you it is different; yet when you come upon +aught that puzzles you, it were well to put no questions even to +yourself.' + +"'Not even about this?' I asked, and showed him the purse and stone +which Aoodya had tossed to me. + +"'You are in luck's way,' said he, 'whoever gave you that.' He pulled a +small pouch from his breast, opened it, and showed me a stone exactly +like mine. 'It is a cocoanut pearl. Keep it near to your hand, and +forget not to touch it if you hear noises in the air or a man meet you +with eyes like razors.' + +"I wanted to ask him more, but he started to walk back hastily, and when +I caught him up would talk of nothing but the sugar and sweet-potato +crops, and the yield of cocoanut oil to be carried to Kudat at the next +north-east monsoon. I noticed that the fruit-trees planted along the +shore were old, and that scores of them had ceased bearing. 'They will +last my day,' said he. 'Let my sons plant others if they so will.' He +always spoke in this careless way of his children, and I believe he had +many, for an islander keeps as many wives as he can afford; but they +lived about the villages, and could not be told from the other +inhabitants by any sign of rank or mark of favour he showed them. + +"For a long while I believed that Aoodya must be a daughter of his. +She always denied it, but owned that she had never known her mother and +had lived in Hamid's house ever since she could remember. Anyhow, he +took the greatest care of me, and never allowed me to join the +expeditions which sailed twice a year from the island--to Palawan for +paddy, and to the north of Borneo with oil and nuts and pandanus mats. +He may have mistrusted me; but more likely he forbade it out of care for +me and the music I played; for the _prahus_ regularly came back with +three or four of their number missing--either capsized on the voyage or +blown away towards Tawi-Tawi, where the pirates accounted for them. + +"Though I might not sail abroad he allowed me to join the tuburing +parties off the shore. We would work along the reefs there in rafts of +bamboo, towing with us two or three dug-outs filled with mashed +_tubur_-roots. At the right spot the dug-outs would be upset, and after +a while the fish came floating up on their sides, or belly uppermost, to +be speared by us; for the root puddles the water like milk, and +stupefies them somehow without hurting the flesh, which in an hour or so +is fit to eat. + +"We had been tuburing one afternoon, and put back with our baskets +filled to a spit of the shore where we had left an old islander, Kotali +by name, alone and tending a fire for our meal. Coming near we saw him +stretched on the sand by his cooking-pots, and shouted to wake him, for +his fire was low. Kotali did not stir. I was one of the first to jump +ashore and run to him. He lay with his legs drawn up, his hands +clenched, his eyes wide open and staring at us horribly. The man was as +dead as a nail. + +"I never saw people worse frightened. 'The Berbalangs!' said someone in +a dreadful sort of whisper, and we started to run back to the raft for +our lives--I with the rest, for the panic had taken hold of me, though I +could see no sign of an enemy. I supposed these Berbalangs, named with +such awe, to be pirates or marauders from Tawi-Tawi or some neighbouring +island, and the first hint that reached me of anything worse was a +wailing sound which grew as we ran, and overhauled us, until the air was +filled with roaring, so that I swung round to defend myself, yet could +see nothing. To my surprise a man who had been running beside me +dropped on the sand, pulled a sigh of relief, and began to mop his +face--and this in the very worst of the racket. 'They are gone by,' he +shouted; 'the worse the noise the farther off they are. They have taken +their fill to-day on poor old Kotali.' + +"Suddenly the noise ceased altogether, and we picked up courage to +return and bury the body. We had a basket of limes on the raft, and +these were fetched and the juice squeezed over the grave; but no one +seemed inclined to answer the questions I put about these Berbalangs. +It seemed that unless they were close at hand there was ill-luck even in +mentioning them, and I walked back to the village in a good deal of +perplexity. + +"I should tell you, sir, that by this time I was the father of a fine +boy; and that Aoodya doted on him. When she was not feeding him or +calling on me to admire his perfections, from the cleverness of his +smile to the beautiful shape of his toes, he lay and slept, or kicked in +a basket slung on a long bamboo fastened across the rafters, Aoodya +would give the basket a pull, and this set it bobbing up and down on the +spring of the bamboo for minutes at a time. + +"Now when I reached home with my string of fish, I walked round to the +back of the house to clean them before going in. This took me past the +window of our room, and glancing inside--the window was unglazed, you +understand--I saw Aoodya standing before the cradle and talking, quick +and angry, with a man posted in the doorway opening on the verandah. + +"I was not jealous. The thought never entered my head. But I dropped +my fish and whipped round to the doorway in time to catch him as he +turned to go, having heard my footstep belike. + +"'Who the something-or-other are you?' I asked. 'And what's your +business in my private house?' + +"The man--a yellow-faced fellow, but young in figure--muttered something +in a gibberish new to me, and made as if excusing himself. It gave me +an ugly start to see that his eyes were yellow too, with long slits for +pupils; but I saw too that he was afraid of me, and being in a towering +rage myself, I out with my _kris_. + +"'Now look here,' I said; 'I don't understand what you say, but maybe +you understand this. Walk! And if I catch you here again, you'll need +someone to sew you up.' + +"I watched him as he went across the compound. The guard at the gate +scarcely looked up, and if the thing hadn't been impossible, there, in +the broad daylight, I could have fancied he saw no one. I turned to +Aoodya and took her hands, for she was trembling from head to foot. +At my touch she burst out sobbing, clung to my shoulder and begged me to +protect her. + +"'Why, of course I will,' said I, more cheerfully than I felt by a long +sight. 'If I'd known you were frightened like this, I'd have slit his +body to match his eyes. But who is he, at all?' + +"'He--he said he was my brother!' she wailed, and clung to me again. +'I cannot--I cannot!' + +"'I'll brother him!' cried I. 'But what is it he wants?' + +"'I cannot--I cannot!' was all she would say; and now her sobs were so +loud that the child woke up screaming and had to be soothed. And this +seemed to do her good. + +"Well, I got her to bed and asleep early that night; but before morning +I had a worse fright than ever. Somehow in my dream I had a feeling +come to me that the bed was empty, and sat up suddenly, half awake and +scared. Aoodya had risen and was standing by the cradle, with one hand +on its edge; in the other was the lamp--a clam-shell fastened in a split +handle of bamboo, and holding a pith wick and a little oil. The flame +wavered against her eyes as she held it up and peered into the baby's +face--and her eyes were like as I had seen them once before, and +devilish like the eyes I had seen in another face that afternoon. + +"A man never knows what he can do till the call comes. There, betwixt +sleep and waking, I knew that happiness had come to an end for us. +Yet I slipped out of bed very softly, took the lamp from her as gentle +as you please, set it on a stool and, turning, reached out for her two +wrists and held them--for how long I can't tell you. She didn't try to +fend me away, or struggle at all, and not a word did I utter, but stood +holding her--the babe asleep beside us--and listened to her breathing +until it grew easier, and she leaned to me, weak as water. + +"Then I let go, and lifting the child's head from the pillow pulled +Aoodya's charm, the cocoanut pearl, from my neck and hung it about his. +'That's for you, sonny,' said I, 'and if the Berbalangs come along you +can pass them on to your father.' I faced round on Aoodya with a smile +which no doubt was thin enough, though honestly meant to hearten her. +'It's all right, old girl. Come back to bed,' said I, and held her in +my arms until I fell asleep in the dawn. + +"But of course it was not all right; and after two days spent with this +dismal secret between us, and Aoodya all the while play-acting at her +old tricks of love for me and the babe--as if, God knows, I doubted +they, and not the horror, were her real self--I could stand it no +longer, but did what I ought to have done before; sought out my master +and made a clean breast of it. + +"I could see that it took the old man between wind and water. When I +had done he sat for some time pulling his beard and eyeing me once or +twice rather queerly, as I thought. + +"'My friend,' said he at last, 'I suppose you will be suspecting me; yet +I give you my word--and the Hadji Hamid is no liar--that if Aoodya is a +Berbalang, or a daughter of Berbalangs, the same was unknown to me when +I married you.' + +"'I'll believe that,' I answered; 'the more by token that I never +suspected you.' + +"'She had no known father, which (as you know) is held a disgrace among +us; so much a disgrace that she grew up without suitors in spite of her +looks and my favour. Therefore I seized my chance of giving her a +husband, and in that I am not guiltless towards you; but of anything +worse I was ignorant, and for proof I am going to help you if I can.' +He frowned to himself, still tugging at his beard. 'Her mother was of +good family, on this side of the island. Therefore she cannot be pure +Berbalang, and most likely the Berbalangs have no more than a fetch upon +her'--he used a word new to me, but 'fetch' I took to be the meaning of +it. 'If so, we must go to them and persuade them to take it off. +They owe me something; for though, as we value peace and quiet, Hassan +and I leave them alone in their own dirty village and ask no tax nor +homage, we could make things uncomfortable if we chose. Yes, yes,' said +he, 'I think it can be done; but it will be dangerous. You are wearing +your cocoanut pearl, of course?' + +"I told him that I had given it up to the baby. + +"He nodded. 'Yes, that was well done; but you must borrow it for the +day. Run and fetch it at once; we have a long walk before us.' + +"So I ran back, and without telling Aoodya, who was washing her linen +behind the house, slipped the pearl off the child's neck and returned to +Hamid. I found him, with two spears in his hand, waiting for me. +He gave me one, and forth we set. + +"The Berbalangs' village stands on a sort of table-land in the hills +which rise all the way to Mount Tebulian, near the centre of the island. +After the first two miles I found myself in strange country, and Hamid +kept silence and signed to me to do the same. In this way we sweated up +the slopes until, a little after noon, we reached a pass, and saw the +roofs of the village over the edge of a broad step, as it were, half a +mile above us. Here we sat down, and Hamid, drawing a couple of limes +from his pocket, explained that I must on no account taste any food the +Berbalangs set before us unless I first sprinkled it with lime juice. +It might look like curried fish, but would, as likely as not, be human +flesh disguised, the taste of which would destroy my soul and convert me +into a Berbalang; a touch of the lime juice would turn such food back to +its proper shape and show me what I was being asked to eat. + +"We now moved forward again, very cautiously, and soon came to the +village. The houses, perhaps a dozen in all, were scandalously dirty, +otherwise pretty much like those in Hamid's own village. But not a +living creature could be seen. Hamid, I could tell, was puzzled, and +even a bit frightened. He put a good face on it, all the same, and +began to walk from house to house, keeping his spear handy as he peered +in at the doors. Still not a soul could we find, barring an old goat +tethered and a few roaming fowls. The stink of the place sickened us, +and I wanted to run, though we came across no actual horrors. In one +room we found a pan of rice lately boiled and still smoking, and +sprinkled it with lime juice. It remained good rice. Out into the +street we went, and Hamid, growing bolder, raised a loud halloo. +The noise of it sent the fowls scudding, and the hills around took it up +and echoed it. + +"He looked at me. 'They must be out on the hunt,' said he. + +"'Good Lord!' I gasped. 'And the child at home--without the pearl!' +I turned and plunged for it down the slope like a madman. + +"What to do I had no idea; but I hadn't a doubt that the Berbalangs were +after Aoodya or the child, or both, and I headed for home with the wind +singing by my ears. At the foot of the pass I looked back. Hamid was +following, skipping from one lava stone to another at a pace that did +credit to his old legs. He waved a hand and called--as I thought, to +encourage me; and away down I pounded. + +"I must have reached the edge of the plain in twenty minutes (the climb +had taken us more than two hours), and, once there, I squeezed my elbows +into my sides and settled into stride. Luckily the season was dry, and +a fire, three weeks before, had swept over the tall lalang grass, +leaving a thin layer of ash, which made running easy. For all that, I +was pretty near dead beat when I reached the compound and ran past the +sentry. The man cried out at sight of me as I went by; but I thought he +was just pattering out his challenge, being taken unawares; and knowing +he would not let off his musket if he recognised me, I paid no +attention. + +"I had prepared myself (as I thought) for anything--to find Aoodya dead +beside the child, or to find them both unharmed and flourishing as I had +left them. But what happened was that I burst in and stared around an +empty room. _That_ knocked the wind out of my sails. I called twice, +leaned my head against the door-post and panted; called again, and, +getting no answer, walked stupidly back across the compound to the gate. + +"The sentry there was pointing. I believe he was telling me, too, that +Aoodya, with the child in her arms, had passed out some while before. +But as he waved a hand towards the plain I saw a figure running there, +and recognised Hamid. The old man was heading, not towards us, but for +the seashore, and, plain as daylight, he was heading there with a +purpose. I remembered now his cry to me from the head of the pass. +So I pressed elbows to side again and lit out after him. + +"He was making for a thick patch of jungle between us and the sea, and +though I had run at least a mile out of the way I soon began to +overhaul him. But long before I reached the clump he had found an +opening in it and dived out of sight, and I overtook him only when the +growth thinned suddenly by the edge of a crater, plunging down to a lake +so exactly like Sinquan that I had to look about me and take my bearings +before making sure that this was another, and one I had never yet seen. + +"I caught him by the arm, and we peered down the slope together. +At the foot of it, and by the edge of the lake, there ran a strip of +white beach; and there, and almost directly below us, were gathered the +Berbalangs. + +"They were moving and pushing into place in a sort of circle around a +small bundle which at first sight I took for a heap of clothes. At that +distance they seemed harmless enough, and, barring the strangeness of +the spot, might have been an ordinary party of islanders forming up for +a dance. But when, all of a sudden, the ring came to a standstill, and +a figure stepped out of it towards the bundle in the centre, my wits +came back to me, and I flung up both arms, shouting 'Aoodya! Aoodya!' + +"She must have made three paces in the time my voice took to reach her. +She was close to the child. Then she halted and stood for a moment +gazing up at me. I saw something bright drop from her. And with that +she stooped, caught up the child, and was racing up the slope towards +us. + +"'Steady!' muttered Hamid, as a man broke from the circle, plucked up +the knife from the sand and rushed after her. 'Steady!' he said again. + +"Aoodya had a start of twenty yards or more, and in the first +half-minute she actually managed to better it. Hamid, beside me, rubbed +a bullet quickly on the rind of one of his lime-fruits and rammed it +home. He took an eternal time about it; and below, now, the man was +gaining. Unluckily their courses brought them into line, and twice the +old man cursed softly and lowered his piece. + +"Flesh and blood could not stand this. I let out a groan and sprang +down the cliff. It was madness, and at the third step all foothold +slipped from under me; but my clutch was tight on a fistful of creepers, +and their tendrils were tough as a ship's rope. So down I went, now +touching earth, now fending off from the rock with my feet, now missing +hold and sprawling into a mass of leaves and roots, among which I +clutched wildly and checked myself by the first thing handy--until, with +the crack of Hamid's musket above, the vine, or whatever it was to which +I clung for the moment, gave way as if shorn by the bullet, and I +pitched a full twenty feet with a rush of loose earth and dust. + +"I fell almost at the heels of Aoodya's enemy, upon a ledge along which +he was swiftly running her down. Hamid's bullet had missed him, and +before I could make the third in the chase he was forty yards ahead. +I saw his bare shoulders parting the creepers--threading their way in +and out like a bobbin, and jogging as the pace fell slower; for now we +were all three in difficulties. Perhaps Aoodya had missed the track; at +any rate the ledge we were now following grew shallower as it curved +over the corner of the beach and ran sheer over the water of the lake. +A jungle tree leaned out here, with a clear drop of a hundred feet. +As I closed on my man, he swerved and began to clamber out along the +trunk; and over his shoulder I saw Aoodya, with the babe in the crick of +her arm, upon a bough which swayed and sank beneath her. + +"I clutched at his ankle. He reached back with a hiss of his breath and +jabbed his knife down on my left hand, cutting across the two middle +fingers and pinning me through the small bones to the trunk. I tell +you, sir, I scarcely felt it. My right went down to my waist and pulled +out the _kris_ there. He was the man I had caught within the verandah +three days before; these were the same eyes shining, like a cat's, back +into mine, and what I had promised him then I gave him now. But it was +Hamid who killed him. For as my _kris_ went into the flank of him, +above the hip, Hamid's second shot cut down through his neck. His face +at the moment rested sideways against the branch, and I suppose the +bullet passed through to the bough and cost me Aoodya. For as the +Berbalang fell, the bough seemed to rip away from where his cheek had +rested, and Aoodya, with my child in her arms, swung back under my feet +and dropped like a stone into the lake. + +"I can't tell you, sir, how long I lay stretched out along that trunk, +with the Berbalang's knife still pinned through my hand. I was staring +down into the water. Aoodya and my child never rose again; but the +Berbalang came to the surface at once and floated, bobbing for a while +on the ripple, his head thrown back, his brown chest shining up at me, +and the blood spreading on the water around it. + +"It was Hamid who unpinned me and led me away. He had made shift to +climb down, and while binding up my wounded hand pointed towards the +beach. It was empty. The crowd of Berbalangs had disappeared. + +"He found the track which Aoodya had missed, and as he led me up and out +of the crater I heard him talking--talking. I suppose he was trying to +comfort me--he was a good fellow; but at the top I turned on him, and +'Master,' I said, 'you have tried to do me much kindness, but to-day I +have bought my quittance.' With that I left him standing and walked +straight over the brow of the hill. I never looked behind me until I +reached the Spaniards' compound, and called out at the gate to be let +pass. + +"Captain Marquinez was lying in a hammock in the cool of his verandah +when the gate-keeper took me to him. He was, I think, the weariest man +I ever happened on. 'So you want to leave the island?' said he when my +tale was out. 'Yes, yes, I believe you; I've learnt to believe anything +of those devils up yonder. But you must wait a fortnight, till the +relief-boat arrives from Jola'--" + + +Here the story-teller broke off as a rider upon a grey horse came at a +foot-pace round the slope of Burrator below us and passed on without +seeing. It was the Rajah, returning solitary from the hunt, and his +eyes were still fastened ahead of him. + +"Ah, great man! England is a weary hole for the likes of you and me. +It's here they talk of the East, but we have loved it and hated it and +known it, and remember. Our eyes have seen--our eyes have seen." + +He stood up, pulled himself together with a kind of shiver, and suddenly +shambled away across the slope, having said no good-bye, but leaving me +there at gaze. + + + +VICTOR. + + +I. + + +"You will ruin his life," said one of the two women. As the phrase +escaped her she remembered, or seemed to remember, having met with it in +half a dozen novels. She had nerved herself for the interview which up +to this moment had been desperately real; but now she felt herself +losing grip. It had all happened before . . . somewhere; she was +reacting an old scene, going through a part; the four or five +second-hand words gave her this sensation. Then she reflected that the +other woman, too, had perhaps met them before in some cheap novelette, +and, being an uneducated person, would probably find them the more +impressive for that. + +The other woman had in fact met them before, in the pages of _Bow +Bells_, and been impressed by them. But since then love had found her +ignorant and left her wise; wiser than in her humiliation she dared to +guess, and yet the wiser for being humiliated. She answered in a +curiously dispassionate voice: "I think, miss, his life is ruined +already; that is, if he sent you to say all this to me." + +"He did not." Miss Bracy lifted the nose and chin which she inherited +from several highly distinguished Crusaders, and gave the denial sharply +and promptly, looking her ex-maid straight in the face. She had never-- +to use her own words--stood any nonsense from Bassett. + +But Bassett, formerly so docile (though, as it now turned out, so +deceitful); who had always known her place and never answered her +mistress but with respect; was to-day an unrecognisable Bassett--not in +the least impudent, but as certainly not to be awed or brow-beaten. +Standing in the glare of discovered misconduct, under the scourge of her +shame, the poor girl had grasped some secret strength which made her +invincible. + +"But I think, miss," she answered, "Mr. Frank must have known you was +coming." And this Miss Bracy could not deny. She had never told a lie +in her life. + +"It is very likely--no, it is certain--that he guessed," she admitted. + +"And if so, it comes to the same thing," Bassett persisted, with a shade +of weariness in her voice. + +"You ungrateful girl! You ungrateful and quite extraordinary girl! +First you inveigle that poor boy at the very outset of his career, and +then when upon a supposed point of honour he offers to marry you--" + +"A 'supposed' point, miss? Do you say 'supposed'?" + +"Not one in a thousand would offer such a redemption. And even he +cannot know what it will mean to his life--what it will cost him." + +"I shall tell him, miss," said Bassett quietly. + +"And his parents--what do you suppose they would say, were they alive? +His poor mother, for instance?" + +Bassett dismissed this point silently. To Miss Bracy the queerest thing +about the girl was the quiet practical manner she had put on so +suddenly. + +"You said, miss, that Mr. Frank wants to make amends on a 'supposed' +point of honour. Don't you think it a real one?" + +Miss Bracy's somewhat high cheekbones showed two red spots. "Because he +offers it, it doesn't follow that you ought to accept. And that's the +whole point," she wound up viciously. + +Bassett sighed that she could not get her question answered. +"You will excuse me, miss, but I never 'inveigled' him, as you say. +That I deny; and if you ask Mr. Frank he will bear me out. Not that +it's any use trying to make you believe," she added, with a drop back to +her old level tone as she saw the other's eyebrows go up. It was indeed +hopeless, Miss Bracy being one of those women who take it for granted +that a man has been inveigled as soon as his love-affairs run counter to +their own wishes or taste; and who thereby reveal an estimate of man for +which in the end they are pretty sure to pay heavily. All her answer +now was a frankly incredulous stare. + +"You won't believe me, miss. It's not your fault, I know; you _can't_ +believe me. But I loved Mr. Frank." + +Miss Bracy made a funny little sound high up in her Crusader nose. +That the passions of gentlemen were often ill-regulated she knew; it +disgusted her, but she recognised it as a real danger to be watched by +their anxious relatives. That _love_, however--what she understood by +_love_--could be felt by the lower orders, the people who "walked +together" and "kept company" before mating, was too incredible. +Even if driven by evidence to admit the fact she would have set it down +to the pernicious encroachment of Board School education, and remarked +that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. + +"'Love!' My poor child, don't profane a word you cannot possibly +understand. A nice love, indeed, that shows itself by ruining his +life!" + +That second-hand phrase again! As it slipped out, the indomitable +Bassett dealt it another blow. + +"I am not sure, miss, that I love him any longer--in the same way, I +mean. I should always have a regard for him--for many reasons--and +because he behaved honourably in a way. But I couldn't quite believe in +him as I did before he showed himself weak." + +"Well, of all the--" Miss Bracy's lips were open for a word to fit this +offence, when Bassett followed it up with a worse one. + +"I beg your pardon, miss, but you are so fond of Mr. Frank--Supposing I +refused his offer, would you marry him yourself?" + +The girl, too, meant it quite seriously. In her tone was no trace of +impudence. She had divined her adversary's secret, and thrust home the +question with a kind of anxious honesty. Miss Bracy, red and gasping, +tingling with shame, yet knew that she was not being exulted over. +She dropped the unequal fight between conventional argument and naked +insight, and stood up, woman to woman. She neither denied nor +exclaimed. She too told the truth. + +"Never!"--she paused. "After what has happened I would never marry my +cousin." + +"I thought that, miss. You mean it, I am sure; and it eases my mind; +because you have been a good mistress to me, and it would always have +been a sorry thought that I'd stood in your way. Not that it would have +prevented me." + +"Do you still stand there and tell me that you will hold this unhappy +boy to his word?" + +"He's twenty-two, miss; my own age. Yes, I shall hold him to it." + +"To save yourself!" + +"No, miss." + +"For his own sake, then?" Miss Bracy's laugh was passing bitter. + +"No, miss--though there might be something in that." + +"For whose then?" + +The girl did not answer. But in the silence her mistress understood, +and moved to the door. She was beaten, and she knew it; beaten and +unforgiving, In the doorway she turned. + +"It is not for your own sake that you persist? It was not to gratify +yourself--to be made a lady--that you plotted this? Very well; you +shall be taken at your word. I cannot counsel Frank against his honour; +if he insists, and you still accept the sacrifice, he shall marry you. +But from that hour--you understand?--you have seen the last of him. +I know Frank well enough to promise it." + +She paused to let the words sink in and watch their effect. This was +not only cruel, but a mistake; for it gave Bassett--who was past caring +for it--the last word. + +"If you do, miss," she said drearily, yet with a mind made up, +"I daresay that will be best." + + + +II. + + +Long before I heard this story I knew three of the characters in it. +Just within the harbour beside which I am writing this--on your left as +you enter it from the sea--a little creek runs up past Battery Point to +a stout sea-wall with a turfed garden behind it and a low cottage, and +behind these a steep-sided valley, down which a stream tumbles to a +granite conduit. It chokes and overflows the conduit, is caught again +into a granite-covered gutter by the door of the cottage, and emerges +beyond it in a small cascade upon the beach. At spring tides the sea +climbs to the foot of this cascade, and great then is the splashing. +The land-birds, tits and warblers, come down to the very edge to drink; +but none of them--unless it be the wagtail--will trespass on the beach +below. The rooks and gulls, on their side, never forage above the +cascade, but when the ploughing calls them inland, mount and cross the +frontier-line high overhead. All day long in summer the windows of the +cottage stand open, and its rooms are filled with song; and night and +day, summer and winter, the inmates move and talk, wake and sleep, to +the contending music of the waters. + +It had lain tenantless for two years, when one spring morning Miss Bracy +and Mr. Frank Bracy arrived and took possession. They came (for aught +we knew) out of nowhere; but they brought a good many boxes, six cats, +and a complete set of new muslin blinds. On their way they purchased a +quart of fresh milk, and Mr. Frank fed the cats while Miss Bracy put up +the blinds. In the afternoon a long van arrived with a load of +furniture; and we children who had gathered to watch were rewarded by a +sensation when the van started by disgorging an artist's lay-figure, +followed by a suit of armour. From these to a mahogany chest of drawers +with brass handles was a sad drop, and we never regained the high +romance of those first few minutes; but the furniture was undeniably +handsome, and when Miss Bracy stepped out and offered us sixpence apiece +to go and annoy somebody else, we came away convinced that our visitors +were persons of exceptionally high rank. It puzzled us afterwards that, +though a bargain is a bargain, not one of us had stayed to claim his +sixpence. + +The newcomers brought no servants; but after a week there arrived (also +out of nowhere) an elderly and taciturn cook. Also, Miss Bracy on the +third morning walked up to the farm at the head of the valley and hired +down the hind's second daughter for a "help." We knew this girl, Lizzie +Truscott, and waylaid her on her homeward road that evening for +information. She told us that Miss Bracy's cats had a cradle apiece +lined with muslin over pink calico; that the window curtains inside +reached from the ceilings to the floors; that the number of knives and +forks was something cruel--one kind for fish, another for meat, and a +third for fruit; that in one of the looking-glasses a body could see +herself at one time from head to feet, though why you should want a +looking-glass to see your feet in when you could see them without was +more than she knew; and, finally, that Miss Bracy had strictly forbidden +her to carry tales--a behest which, convinced that Miss Bracy had +dealings with the Evil One, she meant to observe. The elderly cook when +she arrived warned us away from the door with a dialect we did not +recognise. Her name (Lizzie reported) was Deborah, and in our haste we +set her down for a Jewess; but I seem to have detected her accent since, +and a few of her pet phrases, in the pages of Scottish fiction. + +This is all I can tell--so fitful are childish memories--of the coming +of Miss Bracy and Mr. Frank. I cannot say, for instance, what gossip it +bred, or how soon they wore down the edge of it and became, with their +eccentricities, an accepted feature of the spot they had made their +home. They made no friends, no acquaintances: everyone knew of Miss +Bracy's cats, but few had seen them. Miss Bracy herself was on view in +church every Sunday morning, when Mr. Frank walked with her as far as +the porch. He never entered the building, but took a country walk +during service, returning in time to meet her at the porch and escort +her home. His other walks he took alone, and almost always at night. +The policeman tramping towards Four Turnings after midnight to report to +the country patrol would meet him and pause for a minute's chat. +Night-wandering beasts--foxes and owls and hedgehogs--knew his footstep +and unlearned their first fear of it. Sometimes, but not often, you +might surprise him of an afternoon seated before an easel in some +out-of-the-way corner of the cliffs; but if you paused then to look, he +too paused and seemed inclined to smudge out his work. The Vicar put it +about that Mr. Frank had formerly been a painter of fame, and (being an +astute man) one day decoyed him into his library, where hung an +engraving of a picture "Amos Barton" by one F. Bracy. It had made a +small sensation at Burlington House a dozen years before; and the Vicar +liked it for the pathos of its subject--an elderly clergyman beside his +wife's deathbed. To him the picture itself could have told little more +than this engraving, which utterly failed to suggest the wonderful +colour and careful work the artist (a young man with a theory and +enthusiasm to back it) had lavished on the worn carpet and valances of +the bed, as well as on the chestnut hair of the dying woman glorified in +the red light of sunset. + +Mr. Frank glanced up at the engraving and turned his face away. +It was the face of a man taken at unawares, embarrassed, almost afraid. +The Vicar, who had been watching him, intending some pleasant remark +about the picture, saw at once that something was wrong, and with great +tact kept the talk upon some petty act of charity in which he sought to +enlist his visitor's help. Mr. Frank listened, gave his promise +hurriedly and made his escape. He never entered the Vicarage again. + + + +III. + + +Eighteen years had passed since Miss Bracy's interview with Bassett; and +now, late on a summer afternoon, she and Mr. Frank were pacing the +little waterside garden while they awaited their first visitor. + +Mr. Frank betrayed the greater emotion, or at any rate the greater +nervousness. Since breakfast he had been unable to sit still or to +apply himself to any piece of work for ten minutes together, until Miss +Bracy suggested the lawn-mower and brought purgatory upon herself. +With that lawn-mower all the afternoon he had been "rattling her brain +to fiddle-strings"--as she put it--and working himself into a heat which +obliged a change of clothes before tea. The tea stood ready now on a +table which Deborah had carried out into the garden--dainty linen and +silverware, and flowered china dishes heaped with cakes of which only +Scotswomen know the secrets. The sun, dropping behind Battery Point, +slanted its rays down through the pine-trunks and over the fiery massed +plumes of rhododendrons. Scents of jasmine and of shorn grass mingled +with the clean breath of the sea borne to the garden wall on a high tide +tranquil and clear--so clear that the eye following for a hundred yards +the lines of the cove could see the feet of the cliffs where they +rested, three fathoms down, on lily-white sand. Miss Bracy adored these +clean depths. She had missed much that life could have given; but at +least she had found a life comely and to her mind. She had sacrificed +much; but at times she forgot how much in contemplating the modest +elegance of the altar. + +She wore, this evening, a gown of purplish silk, with a light cashmere +scarf about her shoulders. Nothing could make her a tall woman; but her +grey hair, dressed high _a l'imperatrice_, gave her dignity at least, +and an air of old-fashioned distinction. And she was one of those few +and fortunate ladies who never need to worry about the appearance of +their cavaliers. Mr. Frank--six feet of him, without reckoning a slight +stoop--always satisfied the eye; his grey flannel suit fitted loosely +but fitted well; his wide-brimmed straw hat was as faultless as his +linen; his necktie had a negligent neatness; you felt sure alike and at +once of his bootmaker and his shirtmaker; and his fresh complexion, his +prematurely white hair, his strong well-kept hands, completed the +impression of cleanliness for its own sake, of a careful physical cult +as far as possible removed from foppery. + +This may have been in Miss Bracy's mind when she began: "I daresay he +will be fairly presentable, to look at. That unfortunate woman had at +least an art of dressing--a quiet taste too, quite extraordinary in one +of her station. I often wondered where she picked it up." + +Mr. Frank winced. Until the news of his wife's death came, a fortnight +ago, her name had not been spoken between them for years. That he and +his cousin regarded her very differently he knew; but while silence was +kept it had been possible to ignore the difference. Now it surprised +him that speech should hurt so; and, at the same moment, that his cousin +should not divine how sorely it hurt. After all _he_ was the saddest +evidence of poor Bassett's "lady-like" tastes. + +"I suppose you know nothing of the school she sent him to?" Miss Bracy +went on--"King William's, or whatever it is." + +"King Edward's," Mr. Frank corrected. "Yes, I made inquiries about it +at the time--ten years ago. People speak well of it. Not a public +school, of course--at least, not quite; the line isn't so easy to draw +nowadays--but it turns out gentlemen." + +In her heart Miss Bracy thought him too hopeful; but she said, +"He wrote a becoming letter--his hand, by the way, curiously suggests +yours; it was quite a nice letter, and agreeably surprised me. +I shouldn't wonder if his headmaster had helped him with it and cut out +the boyish heroics; for of course _she_ must have taught him to hate +us." + +"My dear Laura, why in the world--" began Mr. Frank testily. + +"Oh, she had spirit!"--the encounter of long ago rose up in Miss Bracy's +memory, and she nodded her head with conviction. "Like most of the +quiet ones, she had spirit. You don't suppose, I imagine, that she +forgave?" + +"No." Mr. Frank came to a halt and dug with his heel at a daisy root in +the turf. Then using his heel as a pivot he swung himself round in an +awkward circle. The action was ludicrous almost, but he faced his +cousin again with serious eyes. "But it is not her heart that I doubt," +he added gently. + +Miss Bracy stared up at him, "My dear Frank, do you mean to tell me that +you _regret_?" + +Yes; as a fact he did regret, and knew that he would never cease to +regret. He was not a man to nurse malice even for a wrong done to him, +still less to live carelessly conscious of having wronged another. +He was weak, but incurably just. And more; though self entered last +into his regret, he knew perfectly well that the wrong had wrecked him +too. His was a career _manque_: he had failed as a man, and it had +broken his nerve as an artist. He was a dabbler now, with--as Heine +said of de Musset--a fine future _behind him_, and none but an artist +can tell the bitterness of that self-knowledge. Had he kept his faith +with Bassett in spirit as in letter, he might have failed just as +decidedly; her daily companionship might have coarsened his inspiration, +soured him, driven him to work cheaply, recklessly; but at least he +could have accused fate, circumstance, a boyish error, whereas now he +and his own manhood shared the defeat and the responsibility. Yes, he +regretted; but it would never do to let Laura know his regret. +That would be to play the double traitor. She had saved him +(she believed) from himself; with utterly wrong-headed loyalty she had +devoted her life to this. The other debt was irredeemable, but this at +any rate could be paid. + +He evaded her question. "My dear," he said, "what was done has been +atoned for by her, and is being atoned for by--by us. Let us think of +her without bitterness." + +Miss Bracy shook her head "I am a poor sort of Christian," she +confessed; "and if she has taught this boy to hate us--" + +"Mr. Victor Bracy," announced Deborah from the garden-porch behind them, +and a tall youth in black stepped past her and came across the turf with +a shy smile. + +The pair turned with an odd sense of confusion, almost of dismay. +They were prepared for the "Victor," but somehow they had not thought of +him as bearing their own surname. Mr. Frank had felt the shock once +before, in addressing an envelope; but to Miss Bracy it was quite new. + +Yet she was the first to recover herself, and, while holding out her +hand, took quick note that the boy had Frank's stature and eyes, carried +his clothes well, and himself, if shyly, without clumsiness. She could +find no fault with his manner of shaking hands; and when he turned to +his father, the boy's greeting was the less embarrassed of the two. +Mr. Frank indeed had suddenly become conscious of his light suit and +bird's-eye neckcloth. + +"But how did you come?" asked Miss Bracy. "We sent a cart to meet you-- +I heard no sound of wheels." + +"Yes, I saw it outside the station; but the man didn't recognise me-- +quite a small crowd came by the train--and of course I didn't recognise +him. So I bribed a porter to put my luggage on a barrow and come along +with me. Half-way up the hill the cart overtook us--the driver full of +apologies. While they transhipped my things I walked on ahead--yes, +listen, there it comes; and--Oh, I say, what a lovely spot!" + +Miss Bracy was listening--not for the wheels and not to the story, but +critically to every word as it came from his lips. "The woman has +certainly done wonders," was her unspoken comment. At Victor's frank +outburst, however, she flushed with something like real pleasure. She +was proud of her cottage and garden, and had even a sort of proprietary +feeling about the view. + +They sat down around the little tea-table; the boy first apologising for +his travel-stains (he was, in fact, as neat as a pin) and afterwards +chatting gaily about his journey--not talking too much, but appealing +from one to another with a quick deferent grace, and allowing them +always the lead. "This is better and better," thought Miss Bracy as she +poured tea; and, after a while, "But this is amazing!" He was a +thorough child, too, with all his unconscious tact. The scent of a +lemon-verbena plant fetched him suddenly to his feet with his eyes +bright. "Please let me--" he thrust his face into the bush; +"I have never seen it growing like this." + +Miss Bracy looked at Mr. Frank. How utterly different it was from their +old-maidish expectations! They had pictured the scene a hundred times, +and always it included some awkwardly decorous reference to the dead +woman. _This_ had been their terror--to do justice to the occasion +without hurting the poor boy's feelings--to meet his sullen shyness, +perhaps antipathy, with a welcome which somehow excused the past. +Yes, the past (they had felt) required excuse to _him_. And he had made +no allusion to his mother, and obviously wished for none. Miss Bracy +could not help smiling at the picture of their fears. + +The boy turned, caught her smiling, and broke into a jolly laugh at his +own absurdity. It echoed in the garden, where no one had laughed aloud +for years. + +And with that laugh Bassett's revenge began. + + + +IV. + + +For with that laugh they began to love him. They did not--or at any +rate Miss Bracy 'did not--know it at the time. For some days they +watched him; and he, the unsuspicious one, administered a score of +shocks as again and again he took them neatly and decisively at +unawares. He had accepted them at once and in entire good faith. +They were (with just the right recognition of their seniority) good +comrades in this jolliest of worlds. They were his holiday hosts, and +it was not for the guest to hint (just yet) at the end of the holiday. + +He surprised them at every turn. His father's canvases filled him with +admiring awe. "Oh, but I say--however is it done?" As he stood before +them with legs a trifle wide, he smoothed the top of his head with a +gesture of perplexity. And Mr. Frank, standing at his shoulder with +legs similarly spread, used the same gesture--as Miss Bracy had seen him +use it a thousand times. Yet the boy had no artistic talent--not so +much as a germ. For beauty of line and beauty of colour he inherited an +impeccable eye; indeed his young senses were alive to seize all innocent +delight,--his quickness in scenting the lemon-verbena bush proved but +the first of many instances. But he began and ended with enjoyment; of +the artist's impulse to reproduce and imitate beauty he felt nothing. +Mr. Frank recognised with a pang that he had failed not only in keeping +his torch bright but in passing it on; that the true self which he had +missed expressing must die with him barren and untransmitted. +The closer he drew in affection, the farther this son of his receded,-- +receded in the very act of acknowledging his sonship--with a gesture, +smilingly imprehensible; with eyes which allured the yearning he +baffled, and tied it to the hopeless chase. + +Mr. Frank, who worshipped flowers, was perhaps the most ineffective +gardener in England. With a trowel and the best intentions he would do +more damage in twenty minutes than Miss Bracy could repair in a week. +She had made a paradise in spite of him, and he contented himself with +assuring her that the next tenant would dig it up and find it paved with +good intentions. The seeds he sowed--and he must have sown many pounds' +worth before she stopped the wild expense--never sprouted by any chance. +"Dormant, my dear Laura--dormant!" he would exclaim in springtime, +rubbing his head perplexedly as he studied the empty borders. +"When I die, and am buried here, they will all sprout together, and you +will have to take a hook and cut your way daily through the vegetation +which hides my grave." But Victor, who approached them in the frankest +ignorance, seemed to divine the ways of flowers at once. In the autumn +he struck cuttings of Miss Bracy's rarest roses; he removed a sickly +passion-flower from one corner of the cottage to another and restored it +to health within a fortnight. Within a week after his coming he and +Miss Bracy were deep in cross-fertilizing a borderful of carnations she +had raised from seed. He carried the same natural deftness into a score +of small household repairs. He devised new cradles for Miss Bracy's +cats, and those conservative animals at once accepted the improvement; +he invented a cupboard for his father's canvases; he laid an electric +bell from the kitchen beneath the floor of the dining-room, so that Miss +Bracy could ring for Deborah by a mere pressure of the foot; and the +well-rope which Deborah had been used to wind up painfully was soon +fitted with a wheel and balance-weight which saved four-fifths of the +labour. + +"It beats me where you learned how to do these things," his father +protested. + +"But it doesn't want learning; it's all so simple--not like painting, +you know." + +Mr. Frank had been corresponding with the boy's headmaster. "Yes, he is +a good fellow," said one of the letters; "just a gentle clear-minded +boy, with courage at call when he wants it, and one really remarkable +talent. You may not have discovered it, but he is a mathematician; and +as different from the ordinary book-made mathematician--from the dozens +of boys I send up regularly to Cambridge--as cheese is from chalk. +He has a sort of passion for pure reasoning--for its processes. +Of course he does not know it; but from the first it has been a pleasure +to me (an old pupil of Routh's) to watch his work. 'Style' is not a +word one associates as a rule with mathematics, but I can use no other +to express the quality which your boy brings to that study. . . ." + +"Good Lord!" groaned Mr. Frank, who had never been able to add up his +washing bills. + +He read the letter to Miss Bracy, and the pair began to watch Victor +with a new wonder. They were confident that no Bracy had ever been a +mathematician; for an uncle of theirs, now a rector in Shropshire and +once of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where for reasons best known to +himself he had sought honours in the Mathematical Tripos and narrowly +missed the Wooden Spoon, had clearly no claim to the title. Whence in +the world did the boy derive this gift? "His mother--" Miss Bracy +began, and broke off as a puff of smoke shot out from the fireplace. +It was late September; Deborah had lit the fire that morning for the +first time since May, and the chimney never drew well at starting. +Miss Bracy took the tongs in hand, but she was not thinking of the +smoke; neither was Mr. Frank, while he watched her. They were both +thinking of the dead woman. The thought of her--the ghost of her--was +always rising now between them and her boy; _she_ was the impalpable +screen they tried daily and in vain to pierce; to _her_ they had come to +refer unconsciously all that was inexplicable in him. And so much was +inexplicable! They loved him now; they stretched out their hands to +him: behind _her_ he smiled at them, but through or across _her_ their +hands could never reach. + +As at first they had avoided all allusion to her, and been thankful that +the boy's reticence made it easy, so now they grew almost feverishly +anxious to discover how he felt towards his mother's memory. +They detected each other laying small traps for him, and were ashamed. +They held their breath as with an air of cheerful unconsciousness he +walked past the traps, escaping them one and all. At first in her +irritation Miss Bracy accused him of what she (of all women!) called +false pride. "He is ashamed of her. He wishes to forget, and is only +too glad that we began by encouraging him." On second thoughts she knew +the charge to be undeserved and odious. His obvious simplicity gave it +the lie. Moreover she knew that a small water-colour sketch of her in +her youth--a drawing of Mr. Frank's--stood on the table in the boy's +bedroom. Miss Bracy often dusted that room with her own hands. + +"And, Frank," she confessed one day, "he kisses it! I know by the +dullness on the glass when I rub it." She did not add that she rubbed +it viciously. "I tell you," she insisted, almost with a groan, +"he lives with her. She is with him in this house in spite of us; she +talks with him; his real existence is with her. He comes out of it to +make himself pleasant to us, but he goes back and tells her his +secrets." + +"Nonsense, Laura," Mr. Frank interrupted testily. "For some reason or +other the boy is getting on your nerves. It is natural, after all." + +"Natural? Yes, I see: you mean that I'm an old maid, and it's a case of +crabbed age and youth." + +"My dear Laura, I mean nothing so rude. But, after all, we have been +living here a great many years and it _is_ a change." + +"Frank, you can be singularly dense at times. Must I tell you in so +many words that I am fond of the boy, and if he'd be only as fond of me +he might racket the house down and I'd only like him the better for it?" + +Mr. Frank rubbed his head, and then with sudden resolution marched out +of the house in search of Victor. He found the boy on the roof removing +a patent cowl which the local mason had set up a week before to cure the +smoky chimney. + +"My dear fellow," the father cried up, "you'll break your neck! +Come down at once--I have something particular to say to you." + +Victor descended with the cowl under his arm. "Do be careful. . . . +Doesn't it make you giddy, clambering about in places like that?" +Mr. Frank had no head at all for a height. + +"Not a bit. . . . Just look at this silly contrivance--choked with soot +in three days! The fellow who invented it ought to have his head +examined." + +"It has made you in a horrible mess," said his father, who took no +interest in cowls, but lost his temper in a smoky house. + +"I'll run in and have a change and wash." + +"No; put the nasty thing down and come into the garden." He opened the +gate, and Victor followed, after dipping his hands in the waterfall. + +"The fact is, my boy, I've come to a decision. This has been a pleasant +time--a very pleasant time--for all of us. We have put off speaking to +you about this, but I hope you understand that this is to be your home +henceforward; that we wish it and shall be the happier for having +you . . ." + +Victor had been gazing out over the cove, but now turned and met his +father's eyes frankly. "I have a little money," he said. +"Mother managed to put by a small sum from time to time, enough to start +me in life. She did not tell me until a few days before she died: she +knew I wanted to be an engineer." + +He said this quite simply. It was the first time he had mentioned his +mother. Mr. Frank felt his face flushing. + +"But your headmaster tells me it will be a thousand pities if you don't +go to Cambridge. I am proposing that you should go there--should +matriculate this term. My dear boy"--he laid a hand on Victor's arm--" +don't refuse me this. I have no right--perhaps--to insist; but I +daresay you can guess what your acceptance would mean to me. You can +choose your own career when the time comes. For your sake your mother +would have liked this: ask yourself if she would not." + +Mr. Frank had not looked forward to pleading like this; yet when it came +to the point this seemed his only possible attitude. Victor had removed +his gaze, and his eyes were resting now on the green sunny waves rolling +in at the harbour's mouth. For almost a minute he kept silence; then-- + +"Yes, she would advise it," he said. It was as though he had laid the +case before an unseen counsellor and waited submissively for the answer. +Mr. Frank had gained his end and without trouble: yet he felt a +disappointment he could not at once explain. He was the last man in the +world to expect a gratitude which he did not deserve; but in the +satisfaction of carrying his point he missed something, and surmised +what he missed. The boy had not turned to _him_ for the answer, but had +turned away and brought it to him. Father and son would never have the +deeper joy of taking counsel together heart to heart. + + + +V. + + +So Victor went up to Trinity, and returned for the Christmas vacation on +the heels of an announcement that he had won a scholarship. He had +grown more manly and serious, and he smoked a tobacco which sorely tried +Miss Bracy's distinguished nose; but he kept the boyish laugh--the laugh +which always seemed to them to call invitingly from the door of his +soul, "Why don't you enter and read me? The house is clean and full of +goodwill--Come!" But though they never ceased trying, they could never +penetrate to those inner chambers. Sometimes--though they might be +talking of most trivial matters--the appeal would suddenly grow +pathetic, almost plangent, "What is this that shuts me off from you? +We sit together and love one another: why am I set apart?" Time was +when he had seemed to them consciously reticent, almost of set purpose; +but now it was they who, looking within the doorway, saw the dead woman +standing there with finger on lip. + +He made no intimate friends at Cambridge; yet was popular and something +of a figure in his College, which had marked him down for high--perhaps +the highest--university honours, and was pleasantly astonished to find +him also a good cricketer. His good looks attracted men; they asked his +name, were told it, and exclaimed, "Bracy? Not the man Trinity is +running for Senior Wrangler?" With this double reputation he might have +won a host of friends, and his father and Miss Bracy would gladly have +welcomed one, in hope that such companionship might exorcise the ghost: +but he kept his way, liking and liked by men, yet aloof; with many +acquaintances, censorious of none, influenced by none; avoiding when he +disapproved, but not judging, and in no haste even to disapprove; easy +to approach, and almost eager for goodwill, yet in the end inaccessible. + +His first Easter vacation he spent with a reading-party in Cumberland. +There he first tasted the "sacred fury" of the mountains and +mountain-climbing, and in Switzerland the next August it grew to be a +passion. He returned to it again and again, in Cumberland playing at +the game with half a dozen fellow-undergraduates whom he had bitten with +the mania; but in Switzerland during the Long vacations giving himself +over to a glut of it, with only a guide and porter for company-- +sometimes alone, if he could ever be said to be alone. As in +mathematics so in his sport, the cold heights were the mistresses he +wooed; the peaks called to him, the rare atmosphere, the glittering +wastes. He neither scorned danger nor was daunted by it. Below in the +forests he would sing aloud, but the summits held him silent. As an old +pastor at Zermatt told Mr. Frank, he would come down from a mountain +"like Moses, with his face illumined." + +He started on his third visit to Switzerland early in July: in the +second week in August Miss Bracy and Mr. Frank were to join him at +Chamounix, and thence the three would make a tour together. He started +in the highest spirits, and halted at the gate to wave his ice-axe +defiantly. . . . + + + +VI. + + +The clergyman who ministered to the little tin English Church boarded at +the big hotel, which kept a bedroom and a sitting-room at his disposal. +They faced north from the back of the building, which stood against the +mountain-side; but the sitting-room had a second window at the corner of +the block, and from this the eye went up over a plantation of dark firs +to the white snowfields of the Col and the dark jagged wall of the +Aiguille du Geant--distant, yet as clear as if stencilled against the +blue heaven. It was a delectable vision; but the clergyman, being +short-sighted as a mole, had never seen it. He wore spectacles with a +line running horizontally across them, and through these he peered at +Mr. Frank and Miss Bracy as if uncertain of their distance. + +Mr. Frank, in a suit of black, sat at the little round table in the +centre of the room, pressing his finger-tips into the soft nap of a +gaudy French table-cloth. Miss Bracy stood by the window with her back +to the room, but she was listening. She too wore black. The fourth +person, at the little clergyman's elbow, was Christian the guide. +It was he who spoke, while Mr. Frank dug his fingers deeper, and the +clergyman nodded at every pause sympathetically, and both kept their +eyes on the table-cloth, the pink and crimson roses of which on their +background of buff and maroon were to one a blur only, to the other a +pattern bitten on his brain. + +"It must have been between noon and one o'clock"--the guide was saying-- +"when we crossed the Col and began on the rocks. I was leading, of +course; the Herr next, and Michel"--this was their porter--"behind. +We had halted and lunched at the foot of the rocks. They were nasty, +with a coating, for the most part, of thin ice which we must knock away; +but not really dangerous. The Herr was silent; not singing--he had been +singing and laughing all through the morning--but in high spirits. +He kept his breath now for business. I never knew him fatigued; and +that day I had to beg him once or twice not to press the pace. +Michel was tired, I think, and the wine he had taken earlier had upset +his stomach; also he had been earning wages all the winter in England as +a gentleman's valet and this was his first ascent for the year, so it +may have been that his nerve was wrong. + +"The first trouble we had with him was soon after starting on the rocks. +We were roped; and at the first awkward place he said, 'If one of us +should slip now, we are all lost.' The Herr was annoyed, as I have +never seen him; and I too was angry, the more because what he said had +some truth, but it was not, you understand, the moment to say it. After +this we had no great trouble until we had passed the place where Herr +Mummery turned back. About thirty metres from the summit we came to a +bit requiring caution; a small _couloir_ filled with good ice but at a +slope--so!" Here Christian held his open hand aslant, but Mr. Frank did +not lift his eyes. "They anchored themselves and held me while I cut +steps--large steps--across it. On the other side there was no good +foothold within length of the rope, so I cast off, and the Herr came +across in my steps with Michel well anchored. It was now Michel's turn, +and having now the extra length of rope brought across by the Herr, I +could go higher to a rock and moor myself firmly. The Herr was right +enough where he stood, but not to bear any strain; so I told him to cast +off that I might look to Michel alone. While he unknotted his rope I +turned to examine the rock, and at that instant . . . Michel did not +understand, or was impatient to get it over . . . at any rate he started +to cross just as the Herr had both hands busy. He slipped at the third +step . . . I heard, and turned again in time to see the jerk come. +The Herr bent backward, but it was useless: he was torn from his +foothold--" + +The little clergyman nodded and broke in: "They were found, close +together, on a ledge two thousand feet below. Your son, sir, was not +much mutilated, though many limbs were broken--and his spine and neck. +The bodies were found the next day and brought down. We did all that +was possible. Shall I take you and madame to the grave?" + +But the guide had not finished. "He fell almost on top of Michel, and +the two went spinning down the _couloir_ out of sight. I do not think +that Michel uttered any cry: but the Herr, as the strain came and he +bent backwards against it, seeking to get his axe free and plant +it . . . though that would have been useless . . . the Herr cried once +and very loud . . . such a strange cry!--" + +"Madame will be glad," interrupted the clergyman again, who had heard +Christian's story at the inquest,--"Madame will be glad"--he addressed +Miss Bracy, who, as he was dimly aware, had been standing throughout +with face averted, staring up at the far-away cliffs. "The young man's +last thoughts--" + +But Christian was not to be denied. He had told the story a score of +times during the last three days, and had assured himself by every +evidence that he could tell it effectively. He was something of an +egoist, too, and the climax he had in mind was that of his own emotions +in recrossing the fatal _couloir_ ropeless, with shaking knees, haunted +by the Englishman's last cry. + +"Such a strange cry," he persisted. "His eyes were on mine for a moment +. . . then they turned from me to the _couloir_ and the great space +below, It was then he uttered it, stretching out his hands as the rope +pulled him forward--yet not as one afraid. 'Mother!' he cried: just +that, and only once--'Mother!'" + +Mr. Frank looked up sharply, and turned his head towards Miss Bracy. +The clergyman and the guide also had their eyes on her, the latter +waiting for the effect of his climax. + +"It must be a consolation to you--" the clergyman began to mumble. + +But Miss Bracy did not turn. Mr. Frank withdrew his eyes from her and +fixed them again on the gaudy tablecloth. She continued to stare up at +he clean ice-fields, the pencilled cliffs. She did not even move. + +So Bassett was avenged. + + + +THE CAPTURE OF THE _BURGOMEISTER VAN DER WERF. + + +A REPORTED TALE OF A DUTCHMAN AND A PRIVATEER + +Yes, a heap of folks have admired that teapot. Hundreds of pounds we +must have been offered for it, first and last, since the night my wife's +grandfather, Captain John Tackabird--or Cap'n Jacka, as he was always +called--brought it into the family over the back-garden wall, and his +funny little wife went for him with the broom-handle. Poor souls, they +were always a most affectionate couple, and religious too, but not much +to look at; and when he took and died of a seizure in the Waterloo year +she wasn't long in following. + +Ay, ay--very pleasant in their lives! though not what you would call +lovely. I've heard that, through being allowed by his mother to run too +soon, Tackabird's legs grew up so bandy, the other children used to +drive their hoops between them. And next, at fifteen, what must he do +but upset a bee-skip! A bee stung him, and all his hair came off, and +for three parts of his natural life be went about as bald as an egg. +To cap everything, he'd scarcely began courting when he lost his left +eye in a little job with the preventive men; but none of this seemed to +make any difference to the woman. Peters her maiden name was--Mary +Polly Peters; a little figure with beady black eyes. She believed that +all Captain Jacka's defects would be set right in another world, though +not to hinder her recognising him; and meantime the more he got chipped +about the more she doted on what was left of the man. + +Everyone in Polperro respected the couple, for Mary Polly kept herself +_to_ herself, and Captain Jacka was known for the handiest man in the +haven to run a Guernsey cargo or handle a privateer, and this though he +took to privateering late in life, in the service of the "Hand and +Glove" company of adventurers. By and by Mr. Zephaniah Job, who looked +after these affairs in Polperro--free-trade and privateering both-- +started a second company called the "Pride of the West," and put Captain +Jacka to command their first ship, the old _Pride_ lugger; a very good +choice, seeing that for three years together he cleared over forty per +cent. on the adventurers' capital. + +The more was his disappointment when they built a new lugger, the +_Unity_, one hundred and sixty tons, and Job gave the command to a smart +young fellow called Dick Hewitt, whose father held shares in the concern +and money to buy votes beside. I've told you how Jacka swallowed his +pride and sailed as mate under this Hewitt, and how he managed to heap +coals of fire on the company's head. Well that's one story and this is +another. I'm telling now of the second boat, when Captain Jacka, or, as +you might say, Providence--for what happened was none of his seeking, +and the old boy acted throughout as innocent as a sucking-child--left +off shaming the company as honest men, and hit them slap in their +pockets, where they could feel. + +The bottom of the quarrel was that Mr. Job, the agent, took a dislike to +Jacka. He was one of your sour, long-jawed sort, a bit of a lawyer, +with a temper like Old Nick, and just the amount of decent feeling that +makes a man the angrier for knowing he's unjust, especially when the +fellow that's hit takes it smiling instead of cursing; and more +especially still when he carries but one eye in his head, and be dashed +if you can tell whether its twinkling back at you out of pure sweetness +of nature or because it sees a joke of its own. I believe Captain Jacka +twinkled back on Mr. Job as he twinkled on the rest of the world, +willing to be friends and search for the best side of everyone, if he +might be allowed. But Mr. Job couldn't be sure of this, and I'm fain to +admit the old boy was a trial to him, with his easy-going ways. +Job, you see, was a stickler for order; kept his accounts like the Bank +of England, all in the best penmanship, with black and red ink, and +signed his name at the end with a beautiful flourish in the shape of a +swan, all done with one stroke--he having been a school-master in his +youth, and highly respected at it until his unfortunate temper made him +shy a child out of window, which drove him out of the business, as such +things will. In young Dick Hewitt he had a captain to his mind: soap +and tidiness and punctuality, and oil and rotten-stone for the very +gun-swivels; all the crew touching caps, and nerve and seamanship on top +of all. Jacka admired the young spark, for all his boastfulness; for +his own part he could do anything with a ship but keep her tidy. +"What's the use of giving yourself on-necessary work?" he'd say in his +mild manner, if he saw one of his hands coiling a rope or housing a sail +neatly. "We may be wantin' it any minute, and then you'll be sorry for +labour thrown away." The dirtiness of his decks was a caution, and this +was the queerer because in his own parlour you might have eaten your +dinner off the floor. "I reckon," he'd explain, "when the Lord made sea +and land He meant there should be a difference, and likewise when He +made man and woman," and stuck to his untidiness afloat because it made +him the gladder to be at home again. Mary Polly, though she lived +within forty yards of the sea, and was proud of her husband as any +mortal woman, would never step on board a boat. The sight of one +(she declared) turned her stomach, and she married their only child to a +house-decorator. + +All this untidiness was poison to Mr. Job, and it worked inside the man +until he was just one simmering pot of wrath, and liable to boil over at +the leastest little extra provocation. + +One day--it was the tenth of July in the year 'nine; Peter's Tide, and +the Upper Town crowded with peep-shows and ranter-go-rounds, and folks +keeping the feast--Mr. Job takes a stroll down the quay past the +sweet-standings, and cocks his eye over the edge, down upon the deck of +the old _Pride_ that was moored alongside and fitting out for a fresh +cruise. And there, in the shade of the quay wall, sat old Captain Jacka +with a hammer, tap-tapping at a square of tinplate. + +"Hullo!" Mr. Job hailed. "Where's the crew?" + +"Up riding the hobby-horses, I b'lieve," answered Jacka, as friendly as +you please. + +"And in thirty-six hours you've engaged to have the _Pride_ ready for +sea!" + +"She's about ready now," said Jacka, stopping to put a peppermint in his +mouth. He had bought a packet off one of the sweet-standings, and +spread it on the deck beside him. "Feast-day doesn't come round more +than once a year, and I haven't the heart to deny them, with the work so +well forward, too." The old fellow fairly beamed across his deck, the +raffle of which was something cruel. "There's a fat woman up there, +too. I'm told she's well worth seeing." + +"You call that dirty mess 'being fit for sea'?" asked Mr. Job, nodding +down, but bottling up his anger after a fashion. "Look here, Captain +Tackabird, you're a servant of the company; and I'll trouble you to +stand up and behave respectful when the company's agent pays you a visit +of inspection." + +"Cert'nly, Mr. Job." Jacka scrambled up to his feet as mild as milk. +"Beg your pardon, sir, I thought you'd just strolled down to pass the +time of day." + +"And don't flash that plaguey thing in my eyes, as you're doing." +For Jacka was standing in the sunshine now, with the tinplate in his +hands blazing away like a looking-glass. + +"Very well, sir. Perhaps you'll allow me to fetch a hat out of the +cabin; for my head feels the heat powerful, being so bald. They do say +it twinkles a bit, too, when the sun catches it the right way." + +So down he went to the cabin, and up he came again to find Mr. Job with +his best coat-tails spread, seated on the carriage of the _Pride's_ +stern-chaser. + +"Oh, Lord!" he couldn't help groaning. + +"What's the matter?" + +"Nothing, Mr. Job, nothing." The fact was, Jacka had smeared a dollop +of honey on that very gun-carriage to keep the wasps off him while he +worked. The sweet-standings, you see, always drew a swarm of wasps on +feast-days, and the old man never could abide them since his accident +with the bee-skip. + +Mr. Job sat there with his mouth screwed up, eyeing the whole length of +the lugger. + +"I'd like to know why you were hammering out that tinplate?" said he. +"I can see with my own eyes you've been knocking dents in the deck; but +I s'pose that wasn't your only object." + +"I reckoned to tack it over this here hole in the bulwarks where the +tide swung her up against the quay-end." Captain Jacka showed him the +place. + +"I'd have let you have a fresh plank if you'd only reported the damage +in time." + +"Oh," said Jacka, "a scrap of tin will answer just as well--every bit." + +"I can't think, Captain Tackabird, how it comes that you've no more +regard for appearances. Just look at the _Unity_, for instance, and how +young Hewitt keeps her." + +"Born different, I suppose." + +"Ay, and if you don't look out you'll end different. Patching a boat +with tin!" Mr. Job let out a rasping kind of laugh. "But that's +Polperro, all over. Do you know what they tell about you, down to St. +Ann's?"--Mr. Job came from St. Ann's--"They say, down there, that every +man-child in Polperro is born with a patch in the seat of his--" + +Mr. Job stood up and cast a hand behind him, to explain. . . . + +"I put it there to keep off the wopses," said Captain Jacka. + + +"But what did he say?" asked Mary Polly, when her husband brought home +the tale. + +"First he said, 'I'll make you pay for this.' Well, that was fair +enough, for I ought to have warned him; but when I asked the price, and +where the stuff could be matched--for 'twas his best suit, you +understand--all of a sudden he stamps his foot and lets fly with the +most horrible oaths. It fairly creamed my flesh to hear him. +He's a man of wrath, my love, and the end of him will be worse than the +beginning." + +"I daresay; but he'll give you the sack before that happens." + +The two poor old souls looked at one another; for Job had control of all +the privateering companies in Polperro, and influence enough to starve a +man out of the place. + +"Lev us take counsel of the Lord," said the old boy, as she knew he +would. So down on their knees they went, and prayed together. +Jacka even put up a petition for Mr. Job, but Mary Polly couldn't say +"Amen" to that. + +The next morning Captain Jacka went down to the _Pride_ at the usual +hour, but only to find his crew scrubbing decks and Mr. Job ready for +him. "There's your marching orders," says the enemy, handing him a +paper; "and if you want a character at any time, just come to me, and +I'll give you a daisy." + +Well, the old chap said no word, but turned about then and there, and +back along the quay like a man in a dream. All the way he kept fumbling +the document without daring to open it, and when he reached his own door +he just sat down on the little low wall outside, laid the cursed thing +on his knee, pulled a bandanna out of his breeches pocket, and polished +the top of his poor head till it fairly blazed in the eye of the sun. + +He was sitting there, dazed and quiet, when the door opened and out came +Mary Polly with a rag-mat in her hand, meaning to bang it against the +wall, as her custom was. + +"Hullo!" says she, stopping short on the threshold. "Back again, like a +bad penny?" + +"Bad enough, this time," says her husband, without turning round; and +drops his head with a groan. + +I must say the woman's behaviour was peculiar. For first of all she +stepped forward and gave his head a stroking, just as you might a +child's, and then she looks up and down the street, and says, +"I'm ashamed of 'ee, carryin' on like this for all the public to see. +Stick your hands in your pockets," says she. + +"What's the use of that?" But he did it. + +"Now whistle." + +"Eh?" + +"Whistle a tune." + +"But I can't." + +"You can if you try; I've heard you whistlin' 'Rule Britannia' scores of +times, or bits of it. Now I'm goin' to beat this mat and make believe +to be talkin' to 'ee. At the very first sound old Mrs. Scantlebury'll +poke her head out, she always does. So you go on whistlin', and don't +mind anything I say. There'll be no peace in life for us after she gets +wind you've been sacked; and just now I want a little time to myself to +relieve my feelin's." + +So Jacka started to whistle, feeling mighty shy, and Mary Polly picked +up the mat. + +"I wish," says she to the mat, "you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang) +Job (whang). I do dearly wish for my life you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah +(whang) Job (whang). I'd take your ugly old head with its stivery grey +whiskers and I'd (bang, whang)--I'd (bang, whang)--I'd treat you like +this here mat, and lay you down for folks to wipe their shoes upon, Mr. +(whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang)." + +"When Britain first at Heaven's command," whistled Jacka; and the Widow +Scantlebury, two doors up the street, was properly taken in. An hour +later, when the news of Jacka's dismissal was all over the town, she had +to sit down and consider. "I see'd him come up the street"--this was +how she told the story, being the sort of woman that never knows where +the truth ends--"just as Mary Polly was shaking out her mat. He came up +like a whipped dog, stuck his hands in his pockets and started to +whistle, for all the world like a whipped dog, you understand? Any fool +could see the man had something on his mind and wanted to break it +gentle. But not she! Went on banging the mat, if you'll believe me, +till my flesh ached to see a woman so dull-minded. Of course it wasn' +no business of mine, tho' you _would_ think, after living with a man +thirty years--" and so on, and so on. + +But when Mary Polly had relieved her feelings, and the two old souls +were in the kitchen with the door shut behind them, they came very near +to breaking down. You see, Captain Jacka had followed the trade in +Polperro all his days, and his heart was in it till Mr. Job pulled him +up by the roots. He and Mary Polly had saved a little, and looked +forward to leaving it to their only child--my wife's mother, that was; +and anyway it wasn't enough to maintain them, let be that to touch a +penny of it would have burnt their fingers. No; Captain Jacka must find +a new billet. + +But in a month or so, when folks had given up sympathising--for Mary +Polly hated to be pitied, and gave them no encouragement--he saw plain +enough that there was no billet for him in a small place like Polperro +where Mr. Job ruled the roost. Before Christmas his mind was made up; +and early in Christmas week he said good-bye to his wife, marched up to +Four Turnings with his kit on his back, and shipped on board Boutigo's +Two-Horse Conveyance for Falmouth. + +There was a Mr. Rogers living at Falmouth who had been a shareholder in +the old "Hand and Glove" company, but had sold out over some quarrel +with Mr. Job; and to him Jacka applied. + +"I'm told that seamen are scarce, sir," says he. "I was wondering if +you could find me a berth anywhere, for I've 'arned forty per cent. for +my employers before now, and could do it again, but for a man of my +unfortunate looks 'tis hard to get a start." + +Mr. Rogers tapped the desk with his ruler, like one considering. +"Why have they turned you out?" he asked. "Anything professional?" + +"How could _I_ help Mr. Job's sitting down on a lump of honey? +I put it to you, sir, as a business man." + +"I'm sure I don't know," said Mr. Rogers. "Let's have the story." + +So out it all came. "He's a man of wrath," said Captain Jacka, +"and he'll be sorry for it when he comes to die." + +"There's one or two," said Mr. Rogers, "would like to hurry that +reckoning a bit. Well, well, I can make shift to fit you up with +something for a week or two, and maybe by that time there'll be an +opening aboard one of the Packets. Just now, in Christmas week, +business is slack enough, but what do you say to going mate on a vessel +as far as the Downs?" + +"Nothing I should like better," says Jacka. + +"You'd better have a look at her first," says Mr. Rogers. + +So he takes Jacka off to the Market Strand, calls for a waterman's +wherry, and inside of ten minutes they were being pulled out to the +Roads. + +"There's your ship," says Mr. Rogers, as they pushed out beyond the old +dock into Carrick Roads. + +Jacka opened first his eyes and then his mouth. The vessel was a kind +of top-sail schooner, but with a hull there was no mistaking, the more +by token that the tide was swinging her stern-on, and showing him a pair +of windows picked out in red paint, with shutter-boards and brass hinges +shining. + +"Mr. Rogers," he said, "I han't read the _Sherborne Mercury_ lately, +but is--is the war over?" + +"No, nor likely to be." + +"But, Mr. Rogers, sir, either that there ship is a Dutchman or else I +be." + +"Look at her flag, you old fool." + +"Never see'd the like of it." + +"That's the flag of the Principality of Nibby-Gibby. Ever heard of it?" + +"Can't say I have." + +"No more did I till the day before yesterday, and I won't swear I've got +it right yet. But 'tis somewhere up the Baltic I understand. +That there ship--her name, by the way, is the _Burgomeister Van der +Werf_--is bound up Channel with sugar from Jamaica--with a licence. +Maybe you folks up to Polperro don't know what that means?" + +"I only know that, if I'd ran across her in the old _Pride_, I'd have +clapped a crew on board and run her into a British port and no questions +asked." + +Says Mr. Rogers, "If that's the way you Polperro men keep abreast of +Board of Trade regulations, it strikes me you might have done worse than +lose your billet with the _Pride of the West_." + +In the time left before the waterman brought them alongside, Mr. Rogers +explained, as well as he could, the new system (as it was then) of +licences; by which the Government winked at neutral vessels carrying +goods into the enemy's ports, in spite of the blockade, and bringing us +back Baltic timber for shipbuilding. + +"But a Dutchman isn' no neutral," Captain Jacka objected. + +"I did hear," said Mr. Rogers, stroking his chin and looking sideways, +"that these licences have their market-price, and that in Amsterdam just +now it's seven hundred rix-dollars." + +"Well-a-well, if the Board of Trade's satisfied," says Jacka, "it's not +for the likes of me to object. But if I was a Christian ruler I should +think twice afore invitin' such a deal of hard swearin'." + +"You'll find Captain Cornelisz a Lutheran," Mr. Rogers assured him, +"and a very sociable fellow, with the little English he can muster." + +Well, to make my story short, Jacka stepped on board and found the Dutch +skipper monstrous polite and accommodating, though terrible sleepy, the +reason being that, his mate falling sick at Kingston of the yellow +fever, he had been forced to navigate his vessel home single-handed. +He owned up, too, that he had a poor head for ciphering, so that 'twas +more by luck than good management he'd hit off the Channel at all. +At any rate he was glad enough of a chance to shift off responsibility +and take a sound nap, and inside of half an hour the bargain was struck +over a glass of hot schnapps. Mr. Rogers shook hands and put off for +shore again, and a boat went with him to fetch Jacka's kit, which he'd +left in the office. + +At six o'clock the _Van der Werf_ weighed anchor and headed out under +easy canvas. The wind outside was almost dead contrary, E. by N. and +half E., and blowing a little under half a gale, but the skipper seemed +in a hurry, and Jacka didn't mind. + +"She's a good boat by all seeming," said he as they cleared St. +Anthony's light; "but she wants a sea-way. I reckon, sir, you'd better +stay on deck for a tack or two, till I find how she comes about. +I'm accustomed, you see, to something a bit sharper in the bows, and +just at first that may tempt me to run it too fine." + +"Who wants you to run it fine at all?" asked Captain Cornelisz. + +"Well, naturally you'll work it in short tacks and hug the English side +pretty close." + +"Short tacks? Not a bit of it; tide'll be running up strong by time +we're out in deep water. Put her right across for France, keep her +pretty full--she won't bear pinching--and let her rip." + +"Risky." + +"How's that?" + +"_Chasse-marees_ are pretty thick, I'm told, once you get near t'other +side, 'specially between Morlaix and Guernsey, let alone a chance of +dropping across a French cruiser." + +"My good man, I've been stopped twice on this voyage already by French +cruisers: once off Brest, and the second time about fifty miles this +side of Ushant." + +"You don't tell me!" says Jacka. "How the dickens did they let you go?" + +"Well," answers the Dutchman, "I took the precaution of fitting myself +_with two sets of papers_. Oh," says he, as Jacka lets out a low +whistle, "it's the ordinary thing in our line of business. So you just +do as I tell you and make the boards as long as you please, for I'm +dropping with sleep in my boots. Keep the ship going, and if you sight +anyone that looks like trouble just give me a hail down the companion, +for I can talk to any frigate, British or French." + +With that he bundled away below, and Jacka, after a word or two with the +man at the helm, to make sure they understood enough of each other's +lingo, settled down with his pipe for the night's work. + +The wind held pretty steady, and the _Van der Werf_ made nothing of the +cross-seas, being a beamy craft and fit for any weather in a sea-way. +Jacka conned her very careful, and decided there was no use in driving +her; extra sail would only fling up more water without improving her +speed. So he jogged along steady, keeping her full and by, and letting +her take the seas the best way she liked them. Towards morning he even +began to doze a bit, till warned by a new motion of the ship that she +wasn't doing her best. He opened his eyes and shouted-- + +"Up with your helm, ye lubber! Hard up, I tell ye, and keep her full!" + +A pretty heavy spray at that moment came over the bow and took him fair +in the face, and he stumbled aft in none too sweet a temper. Then he +saw what had happened: the fresh hand at the wheel had dozed off where +he stood and let the _Van der Werf_ run up in the wind. The fellow was +little more than a boy, and white in the face with want of sleep. +Captain Jacka was always a kind-hearted man. Said he, as he flung the +spokes round, and the _Van der Werf_ began to pay off: "Look here, my +lad, if you can't keep a better eye open, I'll take a trick myself. +So go you forward and stow yourself somewheres within call." + +With that he took the helm, and glad of it, to keep himself awake; and +so held her going till daybreak. + +By eight in the morning, just as the light began creeping, and Jacka was +calculating his whereabouts, he lifted his eye over the weather-bow, +and-- + +"Hullo!" he sings out. "What's yonder to windward?" + +The lad he'd relieved jumps up from where he'd been napping beside the +bitts, and runs forward. But, whatever he sang out, Jacka paid no +attention; for by this time his own one eye had told him all he wanted +to know, and a trifle more; and he clutched at the wheel for a moment +like a man dazed. Then, I believe, a sort of heavenly joy crept over +his face, mixed with a sort of heavenly cunning. + +"Call up the crew," he ordered. "I'm going to put her about. The whole +crew--every man-Jack of them!" + +By the time the men tumbled up, Jacka had his helm up, and the _Van der +Werf_, with sheets pinned, was leaning to it and knocking up the +unholiest sputter. + +"All right, my lads. Don't stand glazing at me like stuck pigs. +Stand by to slacken sheets. I'm going to gybe her." + +Well, they obeyed, though not a man of them could guess what he was +after. Over went the big mainsail with a jerk that must have pitched +Captain Cornelisz clean out of his bunk below; for half a minute later +he comes puffing and growling up the companion and wanting to know in +his best Dutch if this was the end of the world, and if not, what was +it? + +"That's capital," says Jacka, "for I was just about stepping down to +call you. See that lugger, yonder?" He jerked his thumb over his +shoulder at a speck in the grey from which the _Van der Werf_ was now +running at something like nine knots an hour. + +"Well?" + +"I know that lugger, and we're running away from her." + +"Pack of stuff!" says Captain Cornelisz, or Dutch to that effect. +"D'ee want to be told a dozen times that this is a licensed ship?" +And he called for his flag, to hoist it. + +"Oh, drop your fancy pocket-handkerchiefs, and listen to reason, that's +a dear man! _O' course_ I know you carry a licence; but the point is-- +the lugger don't know. _O' course_ I'm running away from her, by your +leave; but the point is--she can run and reach three miles to our two. +And lastly, _o' course_ you're master here, and can do what you please; +but, if you're not pressed for time, there's money in it, and you shan't +say I didn't give you the chance." + +Captain Cornelisz eyed Jacka for a full minute, and then a dinky little +smile started in one eye and spread till it covered the whole of his +wide face. + +"You're a knowing one," said he. + +"Was never considered so," answered Jacka, very modest. + +"She's put about and after us," said the skipper, after a long stare +over his right shoulder. + +"She'll have us in less than three hours. There's one thing to be done, +and that's to stow me somewheres out of the way; for if anyone on board +of her catches sight of me, the game's up. S'pose we try the lazarette, +if you have such a place. I like fresh air as a rule, but for once in a +while I don't mind bein' squoze; and, as lazarettes go, yours ought to +be nice and roomy." + +"You shall have a bottle of Hollands for company," promised Captain +Cornelisz. + +So the hatch was pulled up, and down Jacka crept and curled himself up +in the darkness. The Dutchman provisioned him there with a bottle of +strong waters and a bag of biscuits, and--what's more--called down to +him so long as was prudent and kept him informed how the chase was +going. + +By this time the lugger--which I needn't tell you was Mr. Zephaniah +Job's pet _Unity_, with Captain Dick Hewitt commanding--was closing down +on the _Van der Werf_, overhauling her hand-over-fist. Down in the +lazarette Jacka had scarcely finished prising the cork out of his bottle +of Hollands when he heard the bang of a gun. This was the lugger's +command to round-to and surrender; and the old boy, who had been vexing +himself with fear that some cruiser might drop in and spoil sport, put +the bottle to his mouth and drank Mr. Job's very good health. + +"For I think," says he to himself, with a chuckle, "I can trust Cap'n +Dick Hewitt to put his foot into this little mess just as deep as it +will go." + +With that, being heavy after his night's watch, he tied up his chin in +his bandanna handkerchief to keep him from snoring, curled round, and +dropped off to sleep like a babe. + + +Well, sir, Cap'n Dick Hewitt brought-to his prize, as he reckoned her; +and when he came aboard and sized up the cargo and the _Unity's_ luck, +as he reckoned it, his boastfulness was neither to hold nor to bind. +No such windfall had been picked up for the _Pride of the West_ during +the four years he'd been in the company's service. He scarce stayed to +give a glance at the _Van der Werf's_ papers, though Captain Cornelisz +was ready for him with the wrong set. "I guess," says he, "you'll spare +yourself the trouble to pretend you ain't a Dutchman"; and when the +skipper flung his arms about and began to jabber like a play-actor, +'twas "All right, Mynheer; we'll talk about that at Falmouth. +Look here, boys," he sings out to his boarding party, "we've something +here too good to be let out of sight. My idea is to reach back for +Polperro in company, and let Mr. Job and the shareholders have a view of +her before taking her round to Falmouth. It won't cost us three hours +extra," says he, "and a little bit of a flourish is excusable under the +circumstances." + +So up for Polperro they bore, half a dozen men from the lugger working +the _Van der Werf_, and old Captain Jacka asleep in her lazarette till +roused out of his dreams by the rattle as they cast anchor half a +cable's length outside the haven. The tide was drawing to flood and the +evening dusking down, and in sails Captain Dick in the _Unity_ as big as +bull's beef, and shouts his news to all the loafers on the quay. + +"But come and take a look at her for yourself," says he to Mr. Job, who +had stepped down with his best telescope. + +Job put off that evening in something like a flutter of spirits; for to +tell the truth half a dozen of the shareholders had been cutting up +rough over his treatment of Jacka, and here was an answer for them, and +proof that he'd been right in preaching up Dick Hewitt to be worth ten +of the old man. + +Alongside he comes in the _Unity's_ boat, steps aboard, and makes a +polite leg to Captain Cornelisz, with any amount of sham sympathy in his +eye. + +"Dear, dear," says he, "this is a very unfort'nit business for you, +Cap'n What's-your-name! In time of war I s'pose such things must +happen; but I can't help feelin' sorry for you," says he. + +"I was thinkin' to reckon the damage at six hundred pounds," says the +Dutch skipper, meek as you please. + +"Hey?" says Mr. Job. + +"Well, sir, I likes to be reasonable; but it's a question of missing the +convoy, and under the circumstances--case of illegal detention at the +best--you won't consider six hundred pounds out of the way. Of course," +says he, "I haven't been allowed to study your lugger's papers, so it +may be flat piracy. But if your skipper had taken the trouble to study +mine--" + +"What in thunder is he telling about?" demanded Mr. Job. + +"Only this, sir," answered Captain Cornelisz, smiling very sweet, and +pulling out his licence from his side-pocket, he read, "'And the said +vessel has our protection while bearing any flag except the French, and +notwithstanding the documents accompanying the said vessel and cargo may +represent the same to be destined to any neutral or hostile port, or to +whomsoever such property may appear to belong.' The wording you see, +sir, is very particular, and under the circumstances I can't say less +than six hundred pounds; but, of course, if you oblige me to take it to +the courts, there's your papers to be considered, which may raise the +question of piracy." + + +Just an hour later, when Mr. Job had returned to shore in the devil's +own temper to call a hasty meeting of his shareholders--and Captain +Hewitt along with him, with his tail between his Legs--Captain Cornelisz +raised the trap of the lazarette. + +"I'm thinking a little fresh air's no more than you deserve," said he. + +"But where are we, in this world?" asked Jacka. + +"So well as I can learn, 'tis a place called Polperro." + +Jacka chuckled. "Seen anything of a party called Job?" + +"He's to bring me six hundred pounds before morning," answered the +Dutchman, lighting his pipe. "And see here--I'm a fair-dealin' man, and +I own I owe you a good twenty of it. You shall have it when you leave +the ship, and I'll chance making it right with the owners." + +"Very good of you, to be sure," allowed Jacka. + +"But that isn't all. I owe you something on my own account, and if +there's any small favour I can do you, in reason--" + +"Well, since you put it so friendly, I'd like an hour or so ashore." + +"Ashore? What, to-night?" + +"It's my home, you see," Jacka explained; "and my old woman lives +there." + +"You don't say so? Well, you shall be put ashore as soon as you please. +Anything else?" + +"I see'd a very pretty teapot and sugar basin in your cabin yestiddy. +I don't know if you set any particular store by them; but if you don't, +my old woman's terrible fond of china, and you can deduct it out of the +twenty pounds, it you like." + +"Shouldn't think of it," says Captain Cornelisz; "they're best Nankin, +and they're yours. Anything else?" + +"Well, if I might ask the loan of a pair of your breeches till +to-morrow. They seem to me a bit fuller in the seat than mine, and let +alone being handy to carry the china in, they'll be a kind of disguise. +For, to tell the truth, I don't want to be seen in Polperro streets to +be mixed up with this business, and my legs be so bandy that in any +ordinary small clothes there's no mistaking me, even in the dark." + + +So the _Van der Werf's_ boat landed Jacka that night in pitch darkness +half a mile west of the haven, where a ridge of rock gives shelter from +the easterly swell. And just half an hour later, as Mary Polly turned +in her sleep, she heard a stone trickle down the cliff at the back of +the cottage and drop thud! into the yard under her window. She sat bolt +upright in bed. "There's some villain of a thief after my Minorca's +eggs," said she. + +Another stone trickled and fell. Like the woman of spirit she was, she +jumped out of bed, crept downstairs to the kitchen, picked up the broom, +and listened, with her hand on the latch of the back-door. + +She heard the scrape of a toe-plate on the wall outside. + +This was too much. "You mean, sneakin', snivellin', pilferin', +egg-stealin' highwayman!" cries she, and lets fly. + +Well, sir, the sugar basin was scat to atoms, but the teapot, as you +see, didn' suffer more than a chip. The wonder was, she stayed her hand +at the second stroke, old Jacka being in no position to defend himself +or explain. In later days when she invited her friends to tea, she used +to put it down to instinct. "Something _warned_ me," she'd say. +But that's how the teapot came into our family. + + + +KING O' PRUSSIA. + + +REPORTED TALE OF A SMUGGLER, A REVENUE CUTTER, AND AN OFFICIOUS +MINISTER. + +You have heard tell, of course, of Captain John Carter, the famous +smuggler of Prussia Cove, and his brothers Harry, Francis, and Charles, +and Captain Will Richards, "Tummels," Carpenter Hosking, Uncle Billy, +and the rest of the Cove boys; likewise of old Nan Leggo and Bessie +Bussow that kept the Kiddlywink[1] there? Well, well, I see our +youngsters going to school nowadays with their hair brushed, and I hear +them singing away inside the classroom for all the world as if they were +glad to grow up and pay taxes; and it makes me wonder if they can be the +children of that old-fangled race. Sometimes I think it's high time for +me to go. There was a newspaper fellow down here when the _General +Walker_ came ashore, and, after asking a lot of questions, he put the +case in a nutshell. "You're a link with the past," he said; "that's +what you are." I don't know if he invented the expression, or if he +picked it up somewhere and used it on me, but it's a terrible clever +one. + +You mustn't think I'm boasting. I never knew Captain John; he died in +the year 'seven, and I wasn't born for twelve months after. But I've +shaken hands with Captain Harry--the one who was taken prisoner by the +French, and came near to losing his head. He spent his latter years +farming at Rinsey and local preaching; a very earnest man. He gave me +my first-class ticket--that was in the late twenties, and not long +before his death. And Captain Will Richards I knew well; he took over +the business after Captain John, and lasted down to the Crimea year. +I carried the coffin; eighty-five his age was, according to the plate on +it; but, of course, the business had come to an end long before. + +Everybody calls it Prussia Cove in these days. The visitors ask for +Prussia Cove, and go and crane their heads over. You know the place?-- +just east of Cuddan Point. It's three coves really; Pisky's Cove, +Bessie's Cove, and Prussia. The first has no good landing, but plenty +of good caves; east of that comes Bessie's, where the Kiddlywink stood, +with a harbour cut in the solid rock, and a roadway, and more caves; and +east of that, with a point and a small island dividing them, comes +Prussia, where John Carter had his house. Before his time it was called +Porthleah, but he got the nickname "King o' Prussia" as a boy, and it +stuck to him, and now it sticks to the old place. The visitors crane +their heads over (for you must do that to count the vessels in the +harbour right underneath you), and ask foolish questions, and get +answered with a pack of lies. There's an old tale for one, about a +fellow who heard that the real King of Prussia had been defeated by +Napoleon Bonaparte. "Ah," says he, "I'm sorry for that man. +Misfortunes never come single; not more'n six weeks ago he lost three +hundred keg of brandy, by information, so I'm told." All nonsense! +Porthleah never lost but one keg in all John Carter's time, and that was +a leaky one in a pool at Pisky's which the custom-house fellows sniffed +as they went by. To be sure, one day when the King was away from home, +the collector came round from Penzance, seized a cargo, and carried it +off to the Custom House store. What did Carter do when he came home and +heard about it? He had agreed to deliver the goods by a certain day, +his character for honest business was at stake and he wasn't going to +disappoint his customers. So he rode into Penzance that night, broke +open the Custom House store, and rode back with all his kegs; nothing +else, mind you. When the officers next morning discovered what had +happened, they allowed at once this was Carter's work, because he was an +honest man and wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to him. + +But the tale they tell oftenest is about the battery he kept on Enys +Point, and how he opened fire with it upon His Majesty's vessel; and I +want you to have the rights of _that_ as I had it from Captain Will +Richards himself. To hear folks speak you would think the King just +opened fire and blazed away for the fun of it; whereas, with all his +daring, he was the quietest, most inoffensive man in the trade, if only +you let him alone. Mr. Wearne, the collector, understood this, and it +was not by his fault either that the firing came about, but all through +an interfering woman and a preacher who couldn't mind his own business. + +It began in this way. Bessie Bussow had a sister-in-law married and +living over here in Ardevora--Ann Geen was the name of her--a daughter +of Kitty Lemal. (You've heard tell of Kitty Lemal and her eight +daughters, and her stocking full of guineas? No? Well there's another +story for you one of these days.) This Ann was the youngest of the +eight, and married John Geen latish in life, just in time to bring him a +boy before he left her a widow; and after her mother Kitty died she and +the boy lived together in the old house at Carne Glaze--Ugnes House[2] +they used to call it. The boy, being the son of old parents, was a +lean, scrag-necked child, with a lollopping big head, too clever for his +years. He had the Lemals' pluck inside him though, for all his unhandy +looks; and, of course, his mother thought him a nonesuch. + +Well, with all the country talking about John Carter and his doings, you +may fancy that every boy in Ardevora wanted to grow up in a hurry and be +off to Prussia Cove a-smuggling. It took young Phoby Geen (his real +name was Deiphobus) as bad as the rest. He had been over to the Cove +with his mother on a visit to Bessie Bussow, and there in the Kiddlywink +the King had patted him on his big head and given him a shilling. +After that the boy gave his mother no peace. She, poor soul, wanted to +make a preacher of him, and wouldn't hear of his going; but often, after +he had turned fifteen, she would be out of bed ten times of a night and +listening at his door to make sure he hadn't run off in the dark. + +I told you the boy was clever; and this is how he gained his end. +There had always been a tale that the Ugnes House was haunted--the ghost +being old Reginald Bottrell, Kitty Lemal's father, a very respectable +sea-captain, who died in his bed with no reason whatever for being +uncomfortable in the next world. Still, "walk" he did, or was said to; +and one fine day the boy came to his mother with a pretty tale. +It went that, the evening before, he and his young cousin, Arch'laus +Bryant, had been lying stretched on their stomachs before the fire in +the big room--he reading the _Pilgrim's Progress_ by the light of the +turves, and Arch'laus listening. The boys were waiting for their +supper, and for Mrs. Geen to come back from her Saturday's shopping. +Happening to look up as he turned a page, Phoby saw, on the steps which +led down into the room, a brisk, stout little gentleman, dressed in a +long, cutaway coat, black velvet waistcoat and breeches, black ribbed +stockings, and pump shoes tied with a bow. He twinkled with brass or +gilt buttons--one row down the coat and two rows down the waistcoat--and +each button was stamped with a pattern of flowers. His head was bald, +except for a bit of hair at the back; he had no hat; and when he turned, +after closing the door behind him, Phoby took notice that his belly was +round and as tight as a drum. The boy denied being frightened; +"the gentleman," he said, "was most pleasant-looking in all his +features. I didn't take 'en for a sperat, but for somebody come to see +mother. I stood up and said, 'Good eveling, sir. Mother'll be back in +a minute or two if you'll take a seat.'" "I'm not come for she, but +for thee," he said; "Deiphobus Geen, idle no longer. Arise, take my +advice, and go a-smuggling." And with that he vanished through the +door. + +The boy pitched this tale to his mother, and Arch'laus backed him up, +adding that the ghost had turned to him and said, "Thou, too, Arch'laus +in a year's time shall be a smuggler--p'r'aps sooner." He told this to +his father and got strapped for it. But Mrs. Geen came of a family that +believed in ghosts. The boy's tale described his grandfather to a +hair--which was not wonderful considering how often she had talked to +Phoby about the old man. At any rate, after being in two minds for a +week she gave way, after a fashion, and allowed Phoby to run over to +Prussia Cove to his aunt, Bessie Bussow; and Bessie--who loved spirit-- +had him apprenticed to Hosking, the Cove carpenter. Pretty carpenter's +work Hosking was likely to teach him! + +Now, after the way of women, the deed was no sooner done than Mrs. Geen +began to repent it. She knew very well that her dear boy would run into +danger; but she kept her trouble to herself until there arrived at +Ardevora a new Methodist preacher called Meakin. In those days John +Wesley himself used to pay us a visit pretty well every August or +September, but this year, for some reason or other, he gave us an extra +revival, and sent down this Meakin to us at the beginning of June. +For a very good reason he was never sent again. + +He started very well indeed. You couldn't call him much to look at; he +had a long pair of legs which seemed differently jointed to yours and +mine; no shoulders nor stomach to speak of, no-coloured hair, and a +glazing, watery eye. But the wonder began when you heard his voice. +It filled his clothes out suddenly like one of those indiarubber +squeakers the children blow at Whitsun Fair; and coming from a man whose +looks were all against him, it made you feel humble-minded for having +been so quick to judge. I think he had found out the value of this kind +of surprise and went about neglecting his appearance on purpose. + +As I say, he started very well. He preached at the Stennack on +Saturday, and next day near the market-place, "for the sake," he said, +"of those who could not climb the hill"--though, to be sure, they +needn't have left their doors to hear him a mile off. There was a tidy +gathering--farm-carts and market-carts and gigs from all parts of the +country round--almost as many as if he had been John Wesley himself. +He preached again at five o'clock in the evening, and so fired up Mrs. +Geen that by ten next morning she was down at Nance's house, where he +lodged, laying all her trouble before him. + +Mr. Meakin heard her out, and then took a line which altogether +surprised her. He seemed to care less for the danger her Phoby was +running than for the crime he was committing. Yes; he called it a +crime! + +"As a Christian woman," he said, "you must know his soul's in danger. +What in comparison with that does his body matter?" + +Mrs. Geen hadn't any answer for this, so what she said was, "My Phoby +'ve never given me a day's trouble since his teething." And then, +seeing the preacher was upset, and wishing to keep things as pleasant as +possible, she went on, "I don't see no crime in learning to be a +carpenter." + +"By your own showing," said Mr. Meakin, "he is in danger of being led +into smuggling by wild companions." + +"Nothing wild about John Carter," she held out. "A married man and as +steady as you could wish to see; a man with convictions of sin, as I +know, an' two of his brothers saved. You couldn' hear a prettier +preacher than Charles. And John, he always runs a freight most careful. +I never heard of any wildness at all in connection with he--not a +whisper." + +The preacher fairly stamped, and began tapping the palm of his hand with +his forefinger. + +"But the smuggling, ma'am--that's what I call your attention to! +The smuggling itself is not only a crime but a sin; every bit as much a +sin as the violence and swearing which go with it." + +"No swearing at all," said Ann Geen. "You don't know John Carter, or +you wouldn' suggest such a thing. Every man that swears in his employ +is docked sixpence out of his pay. My sister-in-law keeps the money in +a box over her chimney-piece, and they drink it out together come +Christmas." + +By this the preacher was fairly dancing. "Woman!" he shouted, soon as +he could recover his mouth-speech. + +"I'm no such thing!" said she, up at once and very indignant. +"And your master, John Wesley, would never have said it." + +The preacher took a gulp and tried a quieter tack. "I beg your pardon, +ma'am," says he, "but you seemed to be wilfully misunderstanding me. +Let us confine ourselves to smuggling," says he. + +"Very well," says she; "I'm agreeable." + +"I tell you, then, that it's a sin; it's defrauding the King just as +much as if you dipped your hand into His Majesty's pocket"--"I shouldn' +dream of being so familiar," said Mrs. Geen, but he didn't hear her-- +"and if you'll permit me, I'll explain how that is," he said. + +"Well," she allowed, folding the shawl about her which she always wore +in the hottest weather; "you can say what you mind to about it, so long +as you help me get my Phoby back. That's what I come for." + +I daresay, now, you've sometimes heard it brought up against us in these +parts that we're like the men of Athens, always ready to listen to any +new thing. The preacher took up his parable then and there; and being, +as I say, an able man in spite of his looks, within half an hour he had +actually convinced the woman that there was something to be ashamed of +in smuggling. And as soon as he'd done that, nothing would satisfy her +but to hire the pony-cart from the George and Dragon and drive the +preacher to Prussia Cove the very next day to rescue her boy from these +evil companions. "'Twould be a great thing to convince John Carter," +she said, "and a feather in your cap. And even if you don't, the place +is worth seeing, and he usually kills a pair of ducks for visitors." + +So early the next day (Tuesday, June 4), away they started; and, the day +being hot and the pony slow, arrived at Bessie Bussow's about four +o'clock. 'Tis a pretty peaceable spot on a June afternoon, with the sun +dropping out to sea and right against your eyes; and this day the Cove +seemed more peaceable than ordinary--the boats at anchor, no sound of +work at all, and scarcely a sign of life but the smoke from Bessie +Bussow's chimney. + +"Where's my boy?" was the first question Mrs. Geen put to her +sister-in-law after the two women had kissed each other. + +"Out seaning," answered Bessie, as prompt as you please. +"But most likely he'll be home some time to-night. The master's got a +new sean-boat, and all the boys be out working her. There's not a soul +left in the Cove barring the master himself and Uncle Billy." + +"Well, I'm glad of my life the boy's at such innocent work; but I've +come to see John Carter and take him away. The preacher here says that +smuggling is a sin and the soul's destruction; he's quite sure of it in +his own mind, and whiles there's any doubt I don't want my Phoby to risk +it." + +"Aw?" said Bessie. "I'd dearly like to hear how he makes that out. +But I han't got time to be talking just now. You'd best take him across +and let him try to persuade John Carter, while I get your room ready. +I saw John going towards his house ten minutes ago, and I'se warn he'll +offer the preacher a bed and listen to all he's got to say." + +So, having stabled the pony, Mrs. Geen and the preacher walked over to +Carter's house together. They found the King in his kitchen-parlour, +divided between his accounts and a mug of cider, and he made them +welcome, being always fond of preachers and having a great respect for +Ann Geen because of her family. + +There was a great heap of shavings in the fire-place, for the room was a +sunny one, facing south by west. But the King told her where to find +some tea that had never paid duty, and she took off her bonnet and +boiled the kettle in the kitchen at the back, and it wasn't till they'd +drunk a cup that she explained what had brought her, and called on the +preacher to wrestle. + +Captain John listened very politely, or seemed to, and nodded his head +at the right time; but he couldn't help being a bit absent-minded. +Fact was, he expected a cargo home that very evening, and didn't feel so +easy about it as usual. Up to now he had always run his stuff in +goodish-sized vessels--luggers or cutter-rigged craft running up to +fifty or sixty tons as we should reckon now. But Captain Will Richards +had taken a great fancy to the Cawsand plan of using light-built open +row-boats or, as you might say, galleys, pulling eight oars, and put +together to pass for sean-boats. After the war, when there was no +longer any privateering, vessels like Captain Carter's, carrying +eighteen or twenty guns apiece, couldn't pretend to be other than +smugglers or pirates, and then these make-belief sean-boats came into +use everywhere. But just now they were a novelty. The King, persuaded +by Richards, ordered one down from Cawsand, and had already used it once +or twice to meet his larger craft somewhere in a good offing and +tranship their cargoes. By this he could run his kegs ashore at any +state of the tide, leaving the empty vessels to be watched or overhauled +by the Customs' fellows. + +But this time--the weather being fine and settled, and the winds light-- +he was trying a faster game, and had sent the sean-boat right across +channel to Roscoff, keeping his sailing-craft in harbour. It would be +dark before nine, no moon till after mid-night, and by all calculations +the boat ought to make the cove between ten and eleven, after lying well +outside and waiting her chance. It all seemed promising enough, but +somehow the King couldn't be quite easy. + +However, he listened quietly, and the preacher talked away for one solid +hour, until Uncle Billy Leggo (who had been keeping watch all the +afternoon) came knocking at the door. "You'll excuse me a minute," said +the King, and went outside to hear the report. The weather had been +flat calm all day, with a slow ground-swell running into the cove, but +with the cool of the evening a light off-shore breeze had sprung up, and +Uncle Billy had just seen the Revenue cutter stealing out from Penzance. + +"Botheration!" said Captain Carter, and fined himself sixpence. +Then he went back to the parlour, and the preacher started afresh. + +Twice again before supper came Uncle Billy with news of the cutter's +movements, and the second time there could be no mistaking them, for she +was dodging back and forth and lying foxy around Cuddan Point. + +All through supper the preacher talked on and on, and the King ate +without knowing what he was eating. He couldn't afford to lose this +cargo; yet Mr. Collector Wearne meant business this time, and would +collar the boat to a certainty unless she were warned off. But to show +a light from the coast meant a hundred pounds fine or twelve months' +hard labour. The King slewed round in his chair and looked at the great +pile of shavings in the fireplace. A hundred pounds fine with the +chance of burning the house-thatch about his ears! + +Supper over, he and his guests turned their chairs towards the +fireplace. The King took flint and steel and struck a match; lit his +pipe, and stared at the shavings; then dropped the light on the floor, +ground it out with his heel, and puffed away thoughtfully. The preacher +went on talking. + +"Render unto Caesar . . . tribute to whom tribute is due. That applies +to King George to-day every bit so much as it did to Caesar." + +"Caesar and King George be two different persons," said Captain John, +stopping his pipe with his thumb. + +"The principle's the same." + +"I don't see it," said the captain. "I read my Bible, and it says that +Caesar ordered the whole world to be taxed. Now that's sense. +Caesar didn't go niggling away with a duty on silk here and another on +brandy there and another on tea and another on East Indy calicoes. Mind +you, I've got no personal feeling against King George; but it does annoy +me to see a man calling hisself King of England and making money in +these petty ways." + +"It's his birthday to-day," put in Mrs. Geen; "though I didn't remember +it till I saw the flag on Ardevora church-tower this morning." + +"Is it? Then we'll drink his health, ma'am, to show there's no +animosity." Captain John fetched a bottle of brandy and glasses and +mixed drinks for his guests. Then he took his seat, reached out for +flint and steel again, and says he very quietly-- + +"I wish the boys were at home. We'd have a bonfire." + +"Up to Walsall--that's where I come from," said the preacher, "we always +kept up His Majesty's birthday with a bonfire and fireworks. But you +don't seem so loyal in these parts." + +"Fireworks? Did you now?" Captain John set down the tinder-box and +rubbed his chin. "Well," said he, going to a cupboard, and glancing up +on his way at the tall clock, "as it happens I've a rocket or two here-- +though to be sure it seems like a waste, with nobody left in the Cove to +see or raise so much as a cheer." + +"It's the spirit of the thing that counts," said the preacher. + +"They've lain here so long," Captain John went on in a sort of musing +way, "they may be mildewed, for all I know." + +"You leave that to me," said the preacher; "I knows all about fireworks. +There don't seem nothing wrong about this one," he said, taking it and +fingering the fuse. "May I have a try with 'em?" + +"Try, and welcome. I don't understand these things for my part: I only +know they takes up a lot of room in the cupboard, and I'll be glad to +see the last of 'em." + +So out into the night they three went together. But when they had the +rocket fixed, Captain John was taken that poorly he had to come back and +sit in the chair, and rub his thighs and his stomach. And when, sitting +there, he heard the rocket go up, _whoosh!_ he had to rub them the +harder. + +"It went off capital!" called the preacher, popping his head in at the +door. "Can't us try another?" And now Captain John had to rub his eyes +before turning to him. "Take the lot," he said, and pushed the whole +bundle into the preacher's hands. "Aw, if King George had a few more +friends like you! Take the lot of 'em, loyal man!" He fairly thrust +him out to door, and had to lean a hand there before he could follow, +feeling weak all over to think of Collector Wearne and his men, and what +their faces must be like, down in the Revenue cutter; but he had no time +to taste the fun of it properly, for just then he heard Bessie Bussow's +voice outside asking questions all of a screech. The first rocket had +fetched her over hot-foot and agog, and the captain had to run out and +stop her tongue, and send her home with Ann Geen. But they didn't go +till the preacher had touched off every single rocket, stepping back +as they went _whoosh! whoosh!_ and waving his hat and crying, "God save +the King!" "God save the King!" cried Captain John after him, and +Bessie stood wondering if the end of the world had come, or the master +had gone clean out of his wits. + +The captain used to try and explain it afterwards when he told the +story. "You've seen a woman in hysterics," he'd say, "and you know how +a man feels when he wants to drop work and go on the drink for a week. +Well, 'twasn' exactly one or t'other with me, but a little like both. +I'm a level-headed tradesman, and known for such, but if ever that chap +walks into my house again, I'll be wise, and go straight out by the back +door and put myself under restraint." + +After the women had gone, he took the fellow back to the kitchen, and +sat putting questions to him in a reverent sort of voice, and eyeing him +as awesome as Billy Bennett when he hooked the mermaid, until the poor +creature talked himself sleepy, and asked to be shown to his room. +Captain Carter saw him to bed, came downstairs to the parlour again, and +spread himself on the sofa for forty winks; for between the boat dodging +out to sea and the pack-horses waiting ready up at Trenowl's farm above +the hill, there was no going to bed for him that night. + +He had been sleeping maybe for two hours, when a whistle fetched him to +his feet and out of the door like a scout. 'Twas nothing more nor less +than the boys' arrival signal, and this was what had happened. + +When the preacher's first rocket went off, the collector, down on board +the cutter, was taking his bit of supper in the cabin. At the sound of +it he rushed up the companion, and found all his crew on deck with their +necks cricked back, barring one man, who that moment popped his head up +through the fore-hatchway. "What on earth was that?" he asked. +"A rocket, sir," said the chief boatman; "just sent up from Prussia +Cove." Mr. Wearne couldn't find his breath for a moment; but when he +did, 'twas to say, "Very well, John Carter. I've a-got you this time, +my dandy! I don't quite understand how you come to be such a fool. +But that rocket costs you a hundred pounds, and if I'm not mistaken I'll +have your cargo 'pon top of it." + +The breeze still blew pretty steady, and he gave orders to stand out +into the bay, get an offing, and keep a sharp look-out as the moon rose. +He knew that all Carter's ordinary craft, except the sean-boat, were +quiet at anchor at Bessie's Cove; but he reckoned that the boat had gone +out this time to meet and unload a stranger. He never dreamed she would +be crossing all the way to Roscoff and back on her own account. +He knew, too, that Carter had a "spot" near Mousehole to fall back upon +when a landing at Prussia Cove couldn't be worked. So he stood out to +put the cutter on a line commanding both places, which, with the +soldier's wind then blowing, was easy enough; and as she pushed out her +nose past Cuddan Point the whole sky began to bang with rockets. + +This puzzled him fairly, as Carter knew it would. And it puzzled the +Cove boys in the sean-boat as they lay on their oars about three miles +from shore and discussed the first warning. But in one of the flashes +Captain Harry Carter, who was commanding, spied the cutter's sails quite +plain under the dark of the land, plain enough to see that she was +running out free. He knew that he couldn't have been seen by her in the +heave of the swell, for the sean-boat lay pretty low with her heavy +cargo, and he'd given her a lick of grey paint at Roscoff by way of +extra precaution. So, thought he, "A signal's a signal; but brother +John doesn't know what I know. Let the cutter stand out as she's going, +and we'll nip in round the tail of her. She can't follow into the Cove, +with her draught, even if she spies us; and by daybreak we'll have the +best part of the cargo landed." And so he did, muffling oars and +crossing over a mile to southward of the cutter, and after that way-all! +and pull for the Cove. + +The preacher at John Carter's, and Mrs. Geen at Bessie Bussow's, both +woke early next morning. But Mrs. Geen was first by a good hour, and +what pulled the preacher out of bed was the sound of guns. He put his +head out of window, and could hardly believe it was the peaceful place +he'd come upon last evening. The beach swarmed with men like emmets. +Near up, by high-water mark, men were unloading a long-boat for dear +life--some passing kegs, others slinging them to horses, others running +the horses up the cliff under his window. At first he thought it must +be their trampling had woke him out of sleep, but the next moment +_bang!_ the room shook all about him, a cloud of smoke drifted up +towards him from the Enys Point, and through it, while 'twas clearing, +he saw John Carter and another man run to the battery and begin to load +again, with Mrs. Geen behind them waving a rammer, and dancing like a +paper-woman in a cyclone. Below the mouth of the Cove tossed a boatload +of men, pulling and backing with their heads ducked, their faces on a +level with their shoulders, and all turned back towards the battery, +while a big red-faced man stood up in the stern-sheets shaking his fist +and dancing almost as excitedly as Mrs. Geen. Still farther out, a fine +cutter lay rocking on the swell, her bosom swinging and sails shaking in +the flat calm. + +The preacher dragged on his clothes somehow, tore out of the house and +down to the Point as fast as legs would carry him. "Wha--what's the +meanin' of this?" he screeched, rushing up to Captain John, who was +sighting one of his three little nine-pounders. + +"Blest if _I_ know!" said the captain. "We was a peaceable lot enough +till you and Mrs. Geen came a-visiting; but you two would play Hamlet's +ghost with a Quaker meeting." + +"It's my Phoby--they're after my Phoby!" screamed Mrs. Geen, and then +she turned on the fellow behind Captain John; it was Hosking, once a +man-of-war's man, and now supposed to be teaching her boy the carpentry +trade. "_This_ is what you bring en to, is it? You deceiver, you! +You bare-faced villain!" (The man had a beard as big as a furze bush.) +"Look at the poor lamb up there loadin' the hosses, and to think I bore +and reared en for this! If you let one of they fellows lay hands on my +Phoby I'll scratch out ivery eye in your head . . ." + +"Stand by, Tim," says the captain quietly. "Drat the boat! If she +keeps bobbiting about like that I shall hit her, sure 'nuff!" +_Bang!_ went the little gun, and kicked backwards clean over its +carriage. The shot whizzed about six feet above the boat, and plunged +into the heaving swell between it and the cutter. "Bit too near, that. +I don't want to hurt Roger Wearne, though he _do_ make such tempting, +ugly faces." + +"But what do they want? What are they after?" stuttered the preacher. + +"They're after my Phoby!" cried Mrs. Geen. + +"Not a bit of it," said Captain John good-humouredly. "From all I can +see it's the preacher here they want to collar." + +"_Me!_" screams the poor man--"_me!_" + +"Well, if you _will_ go letting off rockets. I dunno what it costs up +to Walsall, or wherever you come from, but down in these parts 'tis a +hundred pound or twelve calendar months." + +The preacher turned white and began to shake all of a sudden like a +leaf. "But I didn't mean--I had no idea--you don't intend to tell me--" +he stammered. + +"Here, Tummels!" Captain John hailed a man who came running down to lend +a hand with the guns. "Take the preacher here and fix him on one of the +horses; sling a keg each side of him if he looks like tumbling off. +Sorry to hurry you, sir," he explained; "but 'tis for your good. +You must clear out of this before the officers get sight of your face, +and I don't know how much longer I can frighten 'em off. When you get +up to Trenowl you can cast loose and run, and it mayn't be time wasted +if you make up an _alibi_ as you go along. It don't seem hospitable, I +grant ee, but as a smuggler you're too enterprising for this little +out-o'-the-way cove." + +Tummels led the preacher away in too much of a daze to answer. +He opened his mouth, but at that moment _bang!_ went Hosking with +another of the guns. By and by Captain John let out a chuckle as he saw +the poor man moving up the cliff track, swaying between two kegs and +clutching at his horse's mane every time Tummels smacked the beast on +the rump. The horse he rode was almost the last. By seven o'clock the +boys had cleared the whole of their cargo, and still the preventive boat +hung in the mouth of the Cove, pulling and backing and waiting for the +chance Captain John never allowed them. + +You see, Captain Harry, having dodged in behind the cutter without being +spied, had a pretty start with the unloading. When day broke, Mr. +Wearne, finding no sean-boat or suspicious craft in sight, and allowing +that there was no fear of another attempt before nightfall, had stood +down again for Prussia Cove, meaning to send in a boat (for the cutter +drew too much water) and have it out with Captain Carter about the +rockets. You can fancy his face when he came abreast the entrance and +found the boys working like a hive of bees. As for resistance, the King +always swore he hadn't an idea of it till Mrs. Geen put it into his +head. The battery was never intended for more than show. "She's a +wonderful woman," he declared; but he had a monstrous respect for all +the Lemals. "Blood in every one of 'em," he said. + +But, of course, the fun wasn't finished yet. Soon after seven, and +after the last of the cargo had been salved under their eyes, the +preventive men drew off. By a quarter past eight Wearne had worked the +cutter in as close as he dared, and then opened fire with his guns. +The first shot struck the 'taty-patch in front of Carter's house; the +second plunked into the water not fifteen yards from the gun's muzzle. +In the swell running she could make no practice at all, though she kept +it up till midday. The boys behind the battery ran out and cheered +whenever one flew extra wide, and this made Wearne mad. Will Richards, +Tummels, and young Phoby Geen posted themselves in shelter behind the +captain's house, and whenever a shot buried itself in the soft cliff one +of them would run with a tubbal and dig it out. All this time Uncle +Bill Leggo, having finished loading up the kegs, was carting water from +the stream on the beach to the kitchen garden above the house, and his +old sister Nan leading the horses (for it was a two-horse job). +Richards called to him to leave out, it was too dangerous. "Now there," +said Uncle Bill, "I've been thinkin' of Nan and the hosses this brave +while!" + +At noon Wearne ceased firing, and sent off a boat towards Penzance. +The Cove boys still held the battery; and the two parties had their +dinners, lit their pipes and studied each other all the long +after-noon. But towards five o'clock a riding company arrived to help +the law, and opened a musket fire on the rear of the battery from the +hedge at the top of the hill. The game was up now. The boys scattered +and took shelter in Bessie Bussow's house, and Captain John, having +hoisted a flag of truce, waited for Wearne and his boat with all the +calmness in life. + +"A pretty day's work this!" was the collector's first word as he stepped +ashore. + +"Amusin' from first to last," agreed Captain John in his cordial way. + +Says the collector slowly, "Well, tastes differ. You may be right, of +course, but we'll begin at the beginning, and see how it works out. +First, then, at nine forty-five last night you showed an unauthorised +light for the purpose of cheating the revenue. Cost of that caper, one +hundred pounds." + +"Be you talkin' of the rockets?" + +"'Course I be." + +"Well then, _I_ didn't fire them, nor anyone belongin' to the Cove. +I didn't set anyone to fire them, and they waren't fired to warn +anybody. Let alone I have proof they was sent up by a Methody preacher +to relieve his feelin's. You've known me too long, Roger Wearne, to +think me fool enough to waste a whole future joy[3] over so simple a +business as warnin' a boat." + +"What are you tellin' me?" + +"The truth, as I always do; and I advise you to believe it, or 'twon't +be the first time you've seen too far into a brick wall." + +Wearne knew well enough what Captain John meant. Just a year before he +had paid a surprise visit to the Cove, ferreted out a locked shed and +asked to be shown what was inside. The King refused. "It held +nothing," he said, "but provisions for his brother Henry's vessel." +Of course Wearne couldn't believe this; a locked store in Prussia Cove +was much too sure a thing. So first he argued, and then he broke the +door open, and, sure enough, found innocent provisions inside just as +he'd been promised. Next morning the shed was empty. "Didn' I warn +'ee," said John, "against breaking in that door and leaving my property +exposed. Now I'll have to make 'ee pay for it;" and pay for it Wearne +did. + +"All I know," the captain went on, "is that a Methody preacher paid me a +visit last night, with the objic (so far as I can make out, for things +have been movin' so fast I hadn't time to question en as I wished) o' +teachin' me what was due to King George. In pursooance o' which--it +being His Majesty's birthday--he took and fired a dozen rockets I keep +on the off-chance of wantin' one of these days to signal the Custom +House at Penzance. I own 'twas a funny thing to do, but folks takes +their patriotism different. I daresay, now, _you_ didn't even remember +'twas His Majesty's birthday." + +Wearne tried a fresh tack. "We'll take that yarn later on," he said. +"You can't deny a cargo was run this morning." + +"We'll allow it for the moment. But that only proves that no boat was +warned away." + +"And when I sent a boat in to capture it, you deliberately opened fire; +in other words, tried to murder me, His Majesty's representative." + +"Tried to murder you? Look here." Captain John stepped to one of his +still loaded guns and pointed it carefully at a plank floating out at +the mouth of the Cove--a plank knocked by the cutter's guns out of Uncle +Bill Leggo's 'taty patch, and now drifting out to sea on the first of +the ebb. He pointed the gun carefully, let fly, and knocked the bit of +wood to flinders. "That's what I do when I try," he said. "Why, bless +'ee, I was no more in earnest than _you_ were!" + +This made Wearne blush for his marksmanship. "But _you'll_ have to +prove that," he said. + +"Why, damme," said John Carter, and fined himself another sixpence on +the spot; "if you are so partic'ler, _get out there in the boat again, +and I will_." + +Well, the upshot was that after some palaver Wearne agreed to walk up to +the captain's house and reckon the accounts between them. He had missed +a pretty haul and been openly defied. On the other hand he hadn't a man +hurt, and he knew the King's Government still owed John Carter for a +lugger he had lent two years before to chase a French privateer lying +off Ardevora. Carter had sent the lugger round at Wearne's particular +request; she was short handed, and after a running fight of three or +four hours the Frenchman put in a shot which sent her to the bottom and +drowned fourteen hands. For this, as Wearne knew, he had never received +proper compensation. I fancy the two came to an agreement to set one +thing against another and call quits. At any rate, John was put to no +further annoyance over that day's caper. As for the preacher, I'm told +that no person in these parts ever set eyes on him again. And Ann Geen +drove home that evening with her Phoby beside her. "I'm sorry to let +'ee go, my son," said John; "but 'twould never do for me to have your +mother comin' over here too often. I've a great respect for all the +Lemals; but on the female side they be too frolicsome for a steady-going +trade like mine." + + +[1] Drinking-house. +[2] Huguenot's house. +[3] Feu de joie. + + + +THE MAN WHO COULD HAVE TOLD. + + +It was ten o'clock--a sunny, gusty morning in early September--when +H.M.S. _Berenice_, second-class cruiser, left the Hamoaze and pushed +slowly out into the Sound on her way to the China Seas. + +From the Hoe, on a grassy slope below the great hotel, John Gilbart +watched her as she thrust her long white side into view between Devil's +Point and the wooded slopes of Mount Edgcumbe; watched her as she stole +past Drake's Island and headed up the Asia passage. She kept little +more than steerage way, threading her path among anchored yachts gay +with bunting, and now and then politely slowing in the crowd of smaller +craft under sail. For it was regatta morning. The tall club flagstaff +behind and above Gilbart's head wore its full code of signals, with blue +ensign on the gaff and blue burgee at the topmast head, and fluttered +them intermittently as the nor'westerly breeze broke down in flaws over +the leads of the club-house. Below him half a dozen small boys with +bundles of programmes came skirmishing up the hill through the sparse +groups of onlookers. Off the promenade pier, where the excursion +steamers bumped and reeked and blew their sirens, the committee-ship lay +moored in a moving swarm of rowboats, dingies, and steam-launches. She +flew her B signal as yet, but the seconds were drawing on toward the +five-minute gun; and beyond, on the ruffled Sound, nine or ten yachts +were manoeuvring and trimming their canvas; two forty-raters dodging and +playing through the opening stage of their duel for the start; four or +five twenties taking matters easy as yet; all with jackyards hoisted. +To the eastward a couple of belated twenties came creeping out from +their anchorage in Cattewater. + +All this Gilbart's gaze took in; with the stately merchantmen riding +beyond the throng, and the low breakwater three miles away, and the blue +horizon beyond all. Out of that blue from time to time came the low, +jarring vibration which told of an unseen gunboat at practice; and from +time to time a puff of white smoke from the Picklecombe battery held him +listening for its louder boom. But he returned always to the _Berenice_ +moving away up the Asia passage, so cautiously that between whiles she +seemed to be drifting; but always moving, with the smoke blown level +from her buff-coloured funnels, with clean white sides and clean white +ensign, and here and there a sparkle of sunlight on rail or gun-breech +or torpedo-tube. She was bound on a three-years' cruise; and Gilbart, +who happened to know this and was besides something of a sentimentalist, +detected pathos in this departure on a festival morning. It seemed to +him--as she swung round her stern and his quick eye caught the glint of +her gilded name with the muzzle of her six-inch gun on the platform +above, foreshortened in the middle of its white screen like a bull's-eye +in a target--it seemed to him that this holiday throng took little heed +of the three hundred odd men so silently going forth to do England's +work and fight her battles. On her deck yesterday afternoon he had +shaken hands and parted with a friend, a stoker on board, and had seen +some pitiful good-byes. His friend Casey, to be sure, was unmarried--an +un-amiable man with a cynical tongue--with no one to regret him and no +disposition to make a fuss over a three-years' exile. But at the head +of the ship's ladder Gilbart had passed through a group of red-eyed +women, one or two with babies at the breast. It was not a pretty sight: +one poor creature had abandoned herself completely, and rocked to and +fro holding on by the bulwarks and bellowing aloud. This and a vision +of dirty wet handkerchiefs haunted him like a physical sickness. + +Gilbart considered himself an Imperialist, read his newspaper +religiously, and had shown great loyalty as secretary of a local +sub-committee at the time of the Queen's Jubilee, in collecting +subscriptions among the dockyardsmen. Habitually he felt a lump in his +throat when he spoke of the Flag. His calling--that of lay-assistant +and auxiliary preacher (at a pinch) to a dockyard Mission--perhaps +encouraged this surface emotion; but by nature he was one of those who +need to make a fuss to feel they are properly patriotic. To his +thinking every yacht in the Sound should have dipped her flag to +the _Berenice_. + +Surely even a salute of guns would not have been too much. But no: that +is the way England dismisses her sons, without so much as a cheer! + +He felt ashamed of this cold send-off; ashamed for his countrymen. +"What do they know or care?" he asked himself, fastening his scorn on +the backs of an unconscious group of country-people who had raced one +another uphill from an excursion steamer and halted panting and laughing +half-way up the slope. It irritated him the more when he thought of +Casey's pale, derisive face. He and Casey had often argued about +patriotism; or rather he had done the arguing while Casey sneered. +Casey was a stoker, and knew how fuel should be applied. + +Casey made no pretence to love England. Gilbart never quite knew why he +tolerated him. But so it was: they had met in the reading-room of a +Sailors' Home, and had somehow struck up an acquaintance, even a sort of +unacknowledged friendship. Their common love of books may have helped; +for Casey--Heaven knew where or how--had picked up an education far +above Gilbart's, and amazing in a common stoker. Also he wore some +baffling, attractive mystery behind his reserve. Once or twice-- +certainly not half a dozen times--he had at a casual word pulled open +for an instant the doors of his heart and given Gilbart a sensation of +looking into a furnace, into white-hot depths, sudden and frightening. +But what chiefly won him was the knowledge that in some perverse, +involuntary and quite inexplicable way he was liked by this sullen +fellow, who had no other friend and sought none. He knew the liking to +be there as surely as he knew it to be shy and sullen, curt in +expression, contemptuous of itself. Had he ever troubled to examine +himself honestly, Gilbart must have acknowledged himself Casey's +inferior in all but amiability; and Casey no doubt knew this. But in +friendship as in love there is usually one who likes and one who suffers +himself to be liked, and the positions are not allotted by merit. +Gilbart--a self-deceiver all his life--had accepted the compliment +complacently enough. + +The _Berenice_ cleared the crowd and quickened her speed as the +five-minute gun puffed out from the committee-ship and the Blue Peter +ran up the halyards in the smoke. Gilbart turned his attention upon the +two big yachts and followed their movements until the starting-gun was +fired; saw them haul up and plunge over the line so close together that +the crews might have shaken hands; watched them as they fluttered out +their spinnakers for the run to the eastern mark, for all the world like +two great white moths floating side by side swiftly but with no show of +hurry. When he returned to the cruiser she was far away, almost off the +western end of the breakwater--gone, so far as he was concerned and +whoever else might be watching her from the shore; the parting over, the +threads torn and snapped, her crew face to face now with the long +voyage. + +He drew a long breath, and was aware for the first time of a woman +standing about twenty yards on his left behind a group of chattering +holiday-makers. He saw at a glance that she did not belong to them, but +was gazing after the _Berenice_; a forlorn, tearless figure, with a +handkerchief crumpled up into a ball in her hand. Affability was a part +of Gilbart's profession, and besides, he hated to see a woman suffer. +He edged toward her and lifted his hat. + +"I hope," said he, "these persons are not annoying you? They don't +understand, of course. I, too, have a friend on the _Berenice_." + +The woman looked at him as though she heard but could not for the moment +grasp what he said. She tightened her grip on the handkerchief and kept +her lips firmly compressed. + +Gilbart saw that, though tearless, her eyes wore traces of tears--no +redness, but some swelling of the lids, with dark semicircles +underneath. + +"To them," he went on, nodding toward the holiday-keepers, "it's only +regatta day. To them she's only a passing ship helping to make up the +pretty scene. They know nothing of the gallant hearts she carries or +the sore ones she leaves behind. If they knew, I wonder if they'd care? +The ordinary Anglo-Saxon has so little imagination!" + +She was staring at him now, and at length seemed to understand. +But with understanding there grew in her eyes a look of anger, almost of +repugnance. "Oh, please go away!" she said. + +He lifted his hat and obeyed; indeed, he walked off to the farthest end +of the Hoe. He was hurt. He had a thin-skinned vanity, and hated to +look small even before a stranger. That snub poisoned his morning, and +although he looked at the yachts, his mind ran all the time upon the +encounter. To be sure he had brought it upon himself, but he preferred +to consider that he had meant kindly--had obviously meant kindly. +He tried to invent a retort,--a gentle, dignified retort which would +have touched her to a regret for her injustice--nothing more. +Perhaps it was not yet too late to return and convey his protest under a +delicate apology; or perhaps the mere sight of him, casually passing, +might move her to make amends. He even strolled back some way with this +idea, but she had disappeared. + +The _Berenice_ had vanished too; around Penlee Point no doubt. +He remembered the field-glasses slung in a case by his hip and was +fumbling with the leather strap when a drop of rain fell on his hand, +the herald of a smart shower. A dark squall came whistling down the +Hamoaze; and standing there in the fringe of it he saw it strike and +spread itself out like a fan over the open Sound at his feet, blotting +the sparkle out of the water, while some of the small boats heeled to it +and others ran up into the wind and lay shaking. It was over in five +minutes, and the sun broke out again before the rain ceased falling; but +Gilbart decided that there was more to follow. He had not come out to +keep holiday, and an unfinished manuscript waited for him in his +lodgings--an address on True Manliness, to be delivered two evenings +hence in the Mission Room to lads under eighteen. Though he delivered +them without manuscript, Gilbart always prepared his addresses carefully +and kept the fair copies in his desk. He lived in hope of being +reported some day, and then--who could say but a book might be called +for? + +His lodgings lay midway down a long, dreary street of small houses, each +with a small yard at the back, each built of brick and stuccoed, all as +like as peas, all inhabited by dockyardsmen or the families of gunners, +artificers, and petty officers in the navy. Prospect Place was its +deceptive name, and it ran parallel with three precisely similar +thoroughfares--Grafton Place, Alderney Place, and Belvedere Avenue. +These four--with a cross-street, where the Mission Room stood facing a +pawnbroker's--comprised Gilbart's field of labour. + +He reached home a little after twelve, ate his dinner, and fell to work +on his manuscript. By half-past three he had finished all but the +peroration. Gilbart prided himself on his perorations; and knowing from +experience that it helped him to ideas and phrases he caught up his hat +and went out for a walk. + +During that walk he did indeed catch and fix the needed sentences. +But, as it happened, he was never afterward able to recall one of them. +All he remembered was that much rain must have fallen; for the pavements +which had been dry in the morning were glistening, and the roadways +muddy and with standing puddles. On his way homeward each of these +puddles reflected the cold, pure light of the dying day, until Prospect +Place might have been a street in the New Jerusalem, paved with jasper, +beryl, and chrysoprase. So much he remembered, and also that his feet +must have taken him back to the Hoe, where the crowd was thicker and the +regatta drawing to an end--a few yachts only left to creep home under a +greenish sky, out of which the wind was fast dying. He had paused +somewhere to listen to a band: he could give no further account to +himself. + +For this was what had happened: as he entered his lodgings and closed +the front door, the letter-box behind it fell open and he saw a sealed +envelope lying inside. He picked it out and read the address. + +"Mrs. Wilcox!" he called down the passage. "When did this come?" + +Mrs. Wilcox, appearing at the kitchen door and wiping her hands, could +not tell. The midday post or else the three o'clock. There were no +others. Come to think of it, she had heard a postman's knock when she +was dishing up the dinner, but had supposed it to be next door. +It sounded like next door. + +Gilbart took the letter upstairs with him. The address was in Casey's +handwriting. "Queer fellow, Casey." He broke the seal in the little +bay window. "Just like him, though, to shake hands yesterday without a +spark of feeling, and then send his good-byes to reach me after he was +well on his way." He drew out the inclosure, unfolded it, and saw that +the paper bore the printed address of the Sailors' Home where Casey +dossed when ashore, and where writing-paper was supplied gratis. +"Couldn't have come ashore after I left him: he'd paid his bill at the +Rest and his bag was aboard. Must have had this in his pocket all the +time; might just as well have handed it to me--with instructions not to +open it--and saved the stamp. What a secretive old chap it is!" + +He held the letter close to his eyes in the waning daylight. + + + "DEAR JOHN,--By the time this reaches you we shall have started; + and by then, or a little later, I shall have gone and the + Berenice with me. If you ask where, I don't know; but it is where + we shall never meet. + + "You serve your country in your own way. I am going to serve mine. + Perhaps I shall also be serving yours; for it is only by striking + terribly and without warning that the brave men in this world can + get even with the cowards who make its laws. + + "One thing I envy you--you'll be alive to see the rage of the sheep. + I am playing this hand alone and without help. So when your silly + newspapers begin to cry out about secret societies, _you will + know_. I never belonged to one in my life. + + "I think I am sorriest about the way you'll think of me. But that + makes no real difference, because I know it to be foolish. I have + the stuff on board and the little machine. I cannot fix the time + to an hour up or down; but you may take it for sure that _some time + between 10 p.m. and midnight the_ Berenice _will be at the bottom of + the sea_ with + + "Yours, P. C." + +While John Gilbart read this there was silence in the stuffy little +room, and for some minutes after. Then he stepped to the mantelpiece +for the match-box and candle. A small ormolu clock ticked there, and +while he groped for the matches he put out a hand to stop the noise, +which had suddenly grown intolerable. He desisted, remembering that he +did not know how the clock worked--that Mrs. Wilcox, who wound it up +religiously on Monday mornings, was proud of it, and--anyway, _that_ +wasn't the machine he wanted to stop. He found a match, lit it and held +it close to the letter. + +The match burned low, scorched his fingers. He dropped it in the +fender, where it flickered out, just missing the "waterfall" of shavings +with which Mrs. Wilcox decorated her fireplace in the summer months. +He did not light another, but went back to the window and stood there, +quite still. + +Down the street to the westward, over the wet roofs still glimmering in +the twilight, one pale green rift divided the heavy clouds, and in that +rift the last of the daylight was dying. Across the way, in the house +facing him, a woman was lighting a lamp. As a rule the inhabitants of +Prospect Place did not draw the blinds of their upper rooms until they +closed the shutters also and went to bed: and Gilbart looked straight +into the little parlour. But he saw nothing. + +He was trying--vainly trying--to bring his mind to it. Nothing really +big had happened to him before: and his first feeling, +characteristically selfish, was that this terrible thing had risen up to +alter all the rest of his life. He must disentangle himself, get away +to a distance and have a look at it. His brain was buzzing. Yes, there +it rose, like a black wall between this moment and all the hours to +come; a brute barrier stretching clean across the prospect. Again and +again he brought his mind up to it as you might coax a horse up to a +fence; again and again it refused. Each time in the last few steps his +heart froze, extending its chill until every separate faculty hung back +springless and inert. And there was no getting round! + +Why had this happened to _him_ of all people? It never for a moment +occurred to him to doubt Casey's word. He saw it now; hideous as the +deed was, Casey was capable of it--had always been capable of it. +Let it go for a miserable tribute to Casey's honesty in the past that +Gilbart accepted the infernal statement at once and without suspicion. +He knew now that from the bottom of their intercourse this candid devil +had been grinning up at him all the time; only his own cowardly, +comfortable habit of seeing the world as he wished it had kept his eyes +turned from the truth. Men don't as a rule commit crimes; not one man +in millions translates himself into a crime of this sort; the odds +against his daring it are only to be told in millions. Yet it had +happened. Man or devil, Casey never paltered with his creed; if the +world differed from him, then it was Casey against the world; a hopeless +business for him, yet he would get in a blow if possible. And Casey had +got in his blow. The incredible had happened; but (Gilbart groaned) why +had it happened to _him?_ In his stupefaction he returned again and +again upon this, catching in the flood at that one little straw of self; +not inhumanly, as callous to the ruin of others; but pitifully, meanly, +because it was the one thing familiar in the roar and din. He cursed +Casey; cursed him for betraying his friendship. The man had no right-- +He pulled up suddenly, with a laugh. After all, Casey had played the +game, had faced the music, and would go down with the _Berenice_. +One soul against three hundred and fifty, perhaps; not what you would +call atonement; but, after all, the best he had to offer. Wonder how +many Samson pulled down with him at Gaza? Wonder if the Bible says? + +"Beg pardon, Mr. Gilbart?" + +It was Mrs. Wilcox standing in the doorway with his tea on a tray. + +"It--it was nothing," he stammered. She must have heard his laugh. + +"Talking to yourself? I often hear you at it over your sermons and +things; sometimes at your dressing, too; I hears you when I'm in here +doing up the room. You'd like the lamp lit, I suppose?" She set down +the tray. + +"Not just yet." + +"Well, it's a bad habit, reading with your meals." + +"It's not worth while to bring a lamp. I must drink my tea in a hurry, +and run out. I have an engagement." + +He heard her go out and close the door. "Casey had no right. It was a +betrayal. If the man were bent on this infernal crime--put the atrocity +of it aside for a moment--call it just an ordinary crime; . . . but why +need he have written that letter? Why involve _him?_ Well, not +involve, perhaps; still there was a kind of responsibility--" + +His eyes had been fastened on the little parlour across the road. +The woman after lighting the lamp had set it in the centre of a round +table and left the room. Between this table and the hearth an old man +sat in an arm-chair, smoking his pipe and reading a newspaper. The back +of the chair was turned toward the window, but over it Gilbart could see +the crown of a grey head and small, steady puffs of smoke ascending +between it and the upper edge of the paper. A light appeared in the +room above; the light of a candle behind the drawn blind. It lasted +there perhaps for ten minutes, and once the woman's shadow moved across +the blind. + +The light went out, and after a minute or two the woman reappeared in +the parlour. She carried a work-basket, and after speaking a word with +the old man in the chair she set the basket down on the table, drew up a +chair and began to darn a child's stocking. Now and then she looked up +as if listening for some sound or movement in the room overhead, but +after a moment or two began to ply her needle again. The needle moved +more slowly--stopped--she bowed her head over the stocking. +Gilbart knew why. She was the wife of a petty officer on the +_Berenice_. The old man in the chair went on reading. + +All this while a light had been growing in Gilbart's brain, and now he +saw. In this street, and the next, and the next, lived scores who had +sons, husbands, brothers on board the _Berenice_; thin walls of brick +and plaster dividing to-night their sore hearts and their prayers; a +whole town with its hopes and its happy days given into keeping of one +ship; not its love only but its trust for life's smallest comforts +following her as she moved away through the darkness. And he alone +knew! He had only to throw open the window--to fling four words into +that silent street--to shout, "The _Berenice_ is lost!"--and with the +breath of it windows would fly open, partitions fall down, and all those +privacies meet and answer in one terrible outcry. He put up a hand to +thrust it away--this awful gift of power. He would have none of it; he +was unfit. "Oh, my God!"--it was he, not Casey, who held the real +infernal machine. It was here, not in the _Berenice_, that the levin +must fall; and he, John Gilbart, held it in his fingers. "Oh, my God, I +am unfit--thrust not this upon me!" + +But there was no escape. He must take his hat and run--run to the Port +Admiral. The errand was useless, he knew; for all the while at the back +of his soul's confusion some practical corners of his brain had been +working at the problem of time--was there time to follow and prevent? +There was not. He knew the _Berenice's_ natural speed to be eighteen +knots. Put it at sixteen, fifteen even; still not the fastest destroyer +in the port--following in a bee-line--could overtake her by midnight. +And there might be, must be, delays. Yet God, too, might interfere; +some providential accident might delay the cruise. _He_ must run, at +any rate. He picked up his hat and ran. + +Now that he was taking action--doing something--the worst horror of +responsibility left him for a while; he seemed to have cast some of it +already off his own shoulders and on to the Admiral's. As he ran he +found time to think of Casey. Casey was doing this thing--not in hatred +or in villainy for gain--but because it seemed to him right--right, or +at least necessary. Casey was laying down his own life in the deed. +How could man, framed in God's image, expect ultimate good out of +devilish cruelty? Yet from the world's beginning men had murdered and +tortured each other on this only plea; had butchered women and the very +babes; had stamped upon God's image and--marvel of marvels--for its +soul's salvation, not for their own advantage. At every stride Gilbart +felt his moral footing, trusted for years without question, cracking and +crumbling and swirling away in blocks. Red flames leapt into the +fissures and filled them. The end of the world had surely come; but--he +must run to the Admiral! He kept that uppermost in his mind, and ran. + +The windows of the Admiralty House blazed with light. The Admiral's +wife was giving a dinner and a dance, and already a small crowd had +gathered to see the earlier guests arrive. The sight dashed Gilbart. +Suddenly he remembered that the letter had reached him by the afternoon +post. It was now half-past seven, and he would have to explain the +interval; for of course the Admiral would suspect the whole story at +first. Gilbart knew the official manner; he had been privileged to +study the fine flower of it in this particular Admiral one afternoon six +months before, when the great man had condescended to sit on the +platform at the Mission anniversary. "Tut, tut--a stupid practical joke +"--that would be the beginning; and then would follow cross-examination +in the coldest court-martial fashion. Well, he could explain; but it +would be just as well to have the story pat beforehand. + +One minute--ten minutes went by. Cabs rattled up and private carriages; +officers in glittering uniforms, ladies muffled in silk and swansdown +stepped past the policeman behind whom Gilbart hesitated. This would +never do; better he had gone in with the story hot on his lips. +He twitched the policeman's elbow. + +"May I pass, please? I want to see the Admiral." + +"That's likely, ain't it?" + +"But I have a message for him; an urgent one--one that won't keep a +moment!" + +"Why, I have seen you hanging round here this quarter hour with these +very eyes! 'Won't keep'? Here, you get out!" + +"I tell you--" + +"Oh, deliver us!" the policeman interrupted. "What's the matter with +you? Come to keep the Admiral's dinner cold while you hand over command +of the Channel Fleet?" He winked heavily at one or two of the nearest +in the crowd, and they laughed. + +Gilbart eyed them savagely. He had a word in his mouth which would stop +their laughing; and for one irrational moment he was near speaking it, +near launching against half a dozen loafers the bolt which only to hold +and handle had aged him ten years in an hour. The word was even on his +tongue when a carriage passed and at its open window a young girl leaned +forward and looked out on the crowd. Her face in the light of the +entrance-lamp was exquisitely fair, delicately rose and white as the +curved inner lip of a sea-shell. At her throat, where her cloak-collar +fell back a little, showing its quilted lining of pale blue satin, a +diamond necklace shimmered, and a rosebud of diamonds in her hair +sparkled so that it seemed to dance. It caught Gilbart's eye, and +somehow it seemed to lift and remove her and the house she was +entering--the lit windows, the guests, the Admiral himself--into another +world. If it were real, then (like enough) this fragile thing, this +Dresden goddess, owned a brother, perhaps a lover, on board the +_Berenice_. If so, here was another world waiting to be shattered--a +world of silks and toys and pretty uniforms and tiny bric-a-brac--a sort +of doll's house inhabited by angels at play. But could it be real? +Could such a world exist and be liable as his own to _It_? Could the +same brutal touch destroy this fabric and the sordid privacies of +Prospect Place--all in a run like a row of card-houses? + +"Never you mind _'im_, Mister Gilbart," said a voice at his elbow, and +he turned and looked in the face of a girl who, in an interval of +dressmaking, had once helped him with his district work. + +"Him?" + +"The peeler," Milly Sanders nodded; and it flashed on Gilbart that the +policeman's joke, the carriage, the girl's face and these thoughts of +his had all gone by in something less than ten seconds. "He've got the +'ump to-night, that's what's the matter with 'im." And Milly Sanders +nodded again reassuringly. + +"What are you doing here?" Gilbart asked. + +"Me? Oh, it's in the way of business, as you might say. I comes here +to pick up 'ints. I s'pose now you thought 'twasn't very +feelin'-'earted, and my Dick gone away foreign only this mornin'?" + +He remembered now that the girl's zeal for Mission work had cooled ever +since she had been walking-out with her Dick--a young stoker in the +_Berenice_. + +"I reckon that's the last of the dinner-guests. The others won't be +comin' much before ten. Well, I'm off to the 'Oe; there's going to be +fireworks, and that's the best place for seein'." + +"In the way of business, too, I suppose?" said Gilbart, and wondered how +he could say it. + +Milly giggled. "You 'ad me there," she confessed. "But what's the good +to give way? I'm sure"--with conviction--"it's just what Dick would +like me to do. I'm going, anyway. So long!" She paused: "that is-- +unless you'd like to come along, too?" + +It was, after all, astonishingly easy. Even if he found and convinced +the Admiral, nothing could be done. Why then should he hasten all this +misery? Was it not, rather, an act of large mercy to hold back the +news? Say that by holding his tongue he delayed it by twenty-four +hours; life after all was made up of days and not so very many of them. +By silence then--it stood to reason--he gained from woe a clear day for +hundreds. Meanwhile here stood one of those hundreds. Might he not +give her, under the very shadow of fate, an hour or two of actual, +positive happiness? He told himself this, knowing all the while that he +lied. He knew that the thing was easier to put off than to do. He knew +that he took Milly's arm in his not to comfort her (although he meant to +do this, too) but to drug his own conscience, and because he was mad-- +yes, mad--for human company and support. For hours--it seemed for +weeks--he had been isolated, alone with that secret and his own soul. +He could bear it no longer; he must ease the torment--only for a +little--then perhaps he would go back to the Admiral. Chatter was what +he wanted, the sound of a fellow-creature's voice, babbling no matter +what. He knew also that he bought this respite at a price, and the +price must be paid terribly when he came to wake. And yet he found it +astonishingly easy to take Milly's arm. + +"But I say," she rattled on, "you must be soft!" + +"Why?" He was drinking in the sound of her words, letting the sense run +by him. + +"Why, to suppose the Admiral would see you at this time. What was it +about?" + +"Please go on talking." + +"Well, I am. What did you want to see the Admiral for? Some Mission +business, I s'pose. . . .Oh, you needn't tell if you don't choose; I'm +not dying to hear." + +They stood side by side on the Hoe, watching the fireworks. Three or +four searchlights were playing over the Sound, turned now upon the +anchored craft, now upward, following the rockets, and again downward, +crisscrossing their white rays as if to catch the dropping +multi-coloured stars. "O--o--oh!" exclaimed Milly, as each shower of +rockets exploded. "But what makes you jump like that?" + +"I say," he asked after a time, "since we've come to enjoy ourselves why +not do the thing thoroughly? What do you say to the theatre after +this?" + +"The theatre! Well, you are gettin' on! That would be 'eavenly. +They've got the 'Charity Girl' on this week--Gertie Lennox dancing. +But don't you disapprove of that sort of thing?" + +"So I--I mean I don't make a practice of it. But perhaps--once in a +way--" + +"I love it; though 'tisn't often I gets the chance. I dunno what Dick +would say, though." + +She said it archly, meaning to suggest that Dick might be jealous. +John Gilbart misunderstood. + +"But that's foolish. Why not to-night as well as any other night? +What difference can it make to--to--" He broke off, laughing a little +wildly. "We'll go and give each other moral support. We'll take +tickets for the pit--no, the dress circle!" + +"The dress circle!" There was awe in Milly's voice; her hand went up to +her head. "They make you take your 'at off there. Oh, I couldn't!" +But he caught her by the arm and hurried her off almost at a run--the +girl giggling and panting and beginning to enjoy herself amazingly. + +The performance had begun; but they found seats in the front row of the +dress circle, almost before she had ceased panting, and Milly was +unpinning her hat and glancing up at the gallery on the chance of an +envious friendly recognition. The lights, the colours, the clash of +brass in the orchestra made Gilbart's head spin. A stout _tenore +robusto_ in the uniform of a naval lieutenant was parading the stage in +halos of mauve and green lime-light, and bawling his own praises to a +semicircle of females. Gilbart's ear caught and retained but a line or +two of their shrill chorus: + + Through the world so wide + He's old England's pride, + But we'er glad now he's come back: + For he's dressed in blue, + And he's always true-- + Heaven bless you, dear old Jack! + +The sentiments of this ditty did not materially differ from those which +Gilbart was in the habit of assimilating from his morning newspaper; nor +were they much more fatuously expressed. Twenty-four hours ago he might +even have applauded them as noisily as anyone in the enraptured house. +Now his gorge rose against the song, the complacent singer, the men and +women who could be amused by such things. Could this be what they +called the joy of living? Milly's eyes had begun to sparkle. He forgot +that in this very contempt the theatre was providing what he had come to +seek--a drug for conscience. And before he recognised this the drug was +weakening. Horribly, stealthily, _It_ began to reassert itself. These +people--what would happen if he stood up in his place and shouted _It?_ +His mind played with the temptation; he saw white faces, men standing +and looking up at him, the performance on the stage arrested, the +orchestra mute; almost he heard his voice ring out over the sudden +frozen consternation. No; he gripped the velvet cushion before him. "I +must sit it out. I will sit it out." + +And he did, though he suffered horribly. Milly found him a desperately +dull companion, but luckily her neighbours' dresses and ornaments +diverted her between the acts. She would have liked an orange; but it +appeared that oranges were not eaten in the dress circle. + +Outside the theatre door in the great portico Gilbart flung up both +hands and let out a long, shuddering sigh. + +"My! What's the matter with you?" asked Milly. + +"Come along and have some supper." + +He led her to a supper-room. "Well, you do know how to do things," she +said. But it frightened her when he ordered champagne. She looked at +him nervously. "I've never tasted it," she confessed; "and"--with a +glance around the room--"and I don't think I like it." + +She drank her glassful, however, while he finished the pint bottle. +Then she picked up her worn gloves. + +"Must we be going?" The end had come and worse torment must begin. + +"Of course we must; and 'igh time too, if you knew what mother'll say +when I get home. You mustn't think I 'aven't enjoyed myself, though," +she added, "because I 'ave." + +Out in the street as they walked arm in arm she unbent still further. +"I shall tell mother, of course. She won't mind when she knows it's +you, because you're so respectable. But girls 'ave to be careful." + +At her door she paused before saying good-night. She loved Dick, of +course; but she wondered a little what Mr. Gilbart meant. His manner +had been so queer when he said, "Must we be going?" + +For a moment she waited, half expecting him to say something, meaning to +be angry if he said it. Such was her crude idea of coquettishness. +But John Gilbart merely shook hands, waited until the door closed behind +her, and bent his steps toward home. + +That was in the next street. He walked briskly up to the door--then +turned on his heel and strode away rapidly. He could not go upstairs; +could not face the silent hours alone. As he retreated the front door +was opened. Mrs. Wilcox had been sitting up for him, and had heard and +recognised his footstep. He ran. After a minute the door was closed +again. + + +At nine o'clock next morning a sentry on the seaward side of Tregantle +Fort saw a man sitting below in the sunshine on the edge of the cliff, +and took him for a tramp. It was John Gilbart. He had spent the night +trudging the streets, but always returning to the pavement in front of +one or the other of the two important newspaper offices. Lights shone +in the upper windows of each, but all was quiet; and he saw the men +leave one by one and walk away into darkness with brisk but regular +footfall. A little before dawn he had caught the newspaper-train for +the west, left it at the first station over the Cornish border and set +his face toward the sea. His walk took him past dewy hedgerows over +which the larks sang. But he neither saw nor heard. A deep peace had +fallen upon him. He knew himself now; had touched the bottom of his +cowardice, his falsity. He would never be happy again, but he could +never deceive himself again; no, not though God interfered. + +He looked out on the sunshine with purged eyes. Now and then he +listened, as if for some sound from the horizon or the great town behind +him. + +_Had_ God interfered? How still the world was! + + + +THE CELLARS OF RUEDA. + + +I. + + +I ENTER THE CELLARS. + +It happened on a broiling afternoon in July 1812, and midway in a +fortnight of exquisite weather, during which Wellington and Marmont +faced each other across the Douro before opening the beautiful series of +evolutions--or, rather, of circumvolutions--which ended suddenly on the +22nd, and locked the two armies in the prettiest pitched battle I have +lived to see. + +For the moment neither General desired a battle. Marmont, thrust back +from Salamanca, had found a strong position where he could safely wait +for reinforcements, and had indeed already collected near upon forty +thousand of all arms, when, on the 8th, Bonnet marched into camp from +Asturias with another six thousand infantry. He had sent, too, to +borrow some divisions from Caffarelli's Army of the North. But these he +expected in vain: for Bonnet's withdrawal from Asturias had laid bare +the whole line of French communication, and so frightened Caffarelli for +the safety of his own districts that he at once recalled the twelve +thousand men he was moving down to the Douro, and in the end sent but a +handful of cavalry, and that grudgingly. + +All this I had the honour to predict to Lord Wellington just twelve +hours before Bonnet's arrival on the scene. I staked my reputation that +Caffarelli (on whom I had been watching and waiting for a month past) +would not move. And Lord Wellington on the spot granted me the few +days' rest I deserved--not so much in joy of the news (which, +nevertheless, was gratifying) as because for the moment he had no work +for me. The knot was tied. He could not attack except at great +disadvantage, for the fords were deep, and Marmont held the one bridge +at Tordesillas. His business was to hold on, covering Salamanca and the +road back to Portugal, and await Marmont's first move. + +The French front stretched as a chord across an arc of the river, which +here takes a long sweep to the south; and the British faced it around +this arc, with their left, centre, and right, upon three tributary +streams--the Guarena, Trabancos, and Zapardiel--over which last, and +just before it joins the Douro, towers the rock of Rueda, crowned with a +ruinated castle. + +Upon this rock--for my quarters lay in face of it, on the opposite bank +of the stream--I had been gazing for the best part of an idle afternoon. +I was comfortable; my _cigarritos_ lay within reach; my tent gave shade +enough; and through the flapway I found myself watching a mighty pretty +comedy, with the rock of Rueda for its back-scene. + +A more satisfactory one I could not have wished, and I have something of +a connoisseur's eye. To be sure, the triangular flapway narrowed the +picture, and although the upstanding rock and castle fell admirably +within the frame, it cut off an animated scene on the left, where their +distant shouts and laughter told me that French and British were bathing +together in the river below and rallying each other on the battles yet +to be fought. For during these weeks, and indeed through the +operations which followed up to the moment of fighting, the armies +behaved less like foes than like two teams before a cricket-match, or +two wrestlers who shake hands and afterwards grin amicably as they move +in circles seeking for a hitch. As I lay, however, the bathing-place +could only be brought into view by craning my neck beyond the tent-door: +and my posture was too well chosen to be shifted. Moreover, I had a +more singular example of these amenities in face of me, on the rock of +Rueda itself. + +The cliff, standing out against the sun's glare like ivory beneath the +blue, and quivering with heat, was flecked here and there with small +lilac shadows; and these shadows marked the entrances of the caves with +which Rueda was honeycombed. I had once or twice resolved to visit +these caves; for I had heard much of their renown, and even (although +this I disbelieved) that they contained wine enough to intoxicate all +the troops in the Peninsula. Wine in abundance they certainly +contained, and all the afternoon men singly and in clusters had been +swarming in and out of these entrances like flies about a honeypot. +For whatever might be happening on the Trabancos under Lord Wellington's +eye, here at Rueda, on the extreme right, discipline for the while had +disappeared: and presumably the like was true of Marmont's extreme left +holding the bridge of Tordesillas. For from the bridge a short roadway +leads to Rueda; and among the figures moving about the rock, diminished +by distance though they were, I counted quite a respectable proportion +of Frenchmen. No one who loves his calling ever quite forgets it: and +though no one could well have appeared (or indeed felt) lazier, I was +really giving my eye practice in discriminating, on this ant-hill, the +drunk from the sober, and even the moderately drunk from the incapable. + +There could be no doubt, at any rate, concerning one little Frenchman +whom two tall British grenadiers were guiding down the cliff towards the +road. And against my will I had to drop my cigarette and laugh aloud: +for the two guides were themselves unsteady, yet as desperately intent +upon the job as though they handled a chest of treasure. Now they would +prop him up and run him over a few yards of easy ground: anon, at a +sharp descent, one would clamber down ahead and catch the burden his +comrade lowered by the collar, with a subsidiary grip upon belt or +pantaloons. But to the Frenchman all smooth and rugged came alike: his +legs sprawled impartially: and once, having floundered on top of the +leading Samaritan with a shock which rolled the pair to the very verge +of a precipice, he recovered himself, and sat up in an attitude which, +at half a mile's distance, was eloquent of tipsy reproach. In short, +when the procession had filed past the edge of my tent-flap, I crawled +out to watch: and then it occurred to me as worth a lazy man's while to +cross the Zapardiel by the pontoon bridge below and head these comedians +off upon the highroad. They promised to repay a closer view. + +So I did; gained the road, and, seating myself beside it, hailed them as +they came. + +"My friend," said I to the leading grenadier, "you are taking a deal of +trouble with your prisoner." + +The grenadier stared at his comrade, and his comrade at him. As if by +signal they mopped their brows with their coat-sleeves. The Frenchman +sat down on the road without more ado. + +"Prisoner?" mumbled the first grenadier. + +"Ay," said I. "Who is he? He doesn't look like a general of brigade." + +"Devil take me if _I_ know. Who will he be, Bill?" + +Bill stared at the Frenchman blankly, and rooted him out of the dust +with his toe. "I wonder, now! 'Picked him up, somewheres--Get up, you +little pig, and carry your liquor like a gentleman. It was Mike +intojuced him." + +"I did not," said Mike. + +"Very well, then, ye did not. I must have come by him some other way." + +"It was yourself tripped over him in the cellar, up yandhar." He broke +off and eyed me, meditating a sudden thought. "It seems mighty queer, +that--speaking of a cellar as 'up yandhar.' Now a cellar, by rights, +should be in the ground, under your fut." + +"And so it is," argued Bill; "slap in the bowels of it." + +"Ah, be quiet wid your bowels! As I was saying, sor, Bill tripped +over the little fellow: and the next I knew he was crying to be tuk home +to camp, and Bill swearing to do it if it cost him his stripes. +And that is where I come into this fatigue job: for the man's no friend +of mine, and will not be looking it, I hope." + +"Did I so?" Bill exclaimed, regarding himself suddenly from outside, as +it were, and not without admiration. "Did I promise that? +Well, then"--he fixed a sternly disapproving stare on the Frenchman-- +"the Lord knows what possessed me; but to the bridgehead you go, if I +fight the whole of Clausel's division single-handed. Take his feet, +Mike; I'm a man of my word. Hep!--ready is it? For'ard!" + +For a minute or so, as they staggered down the road, I stared after +them; and then upon an impulse mounted the track by which they had +descended. + +It was easy enough, or they had never come down alive; but the sun's +rays smote hotly off the face of the rock, and at one point I narrowly +missed being brained by a stone dislodged by some drunkard above me. +Already, however, the stream of tipplers had begun to set back towards +the camp, and my main difficulty was to steer against it, avoiding +disputes as to the rule of the road. I had no intention of climbing to +the castle: my whim was--and herein again I set my training a test--to +walk straight to the particular opening from which, across the +Zapardiel, I had seen my comedians emerge. + +I found it, not without difficulty--a broad archway of rock, so low that +a man of ordinary stature must stoop to pass beneath it; with, for +threshold, a sill of dry fine earth which sloped up to a ridge +immediately beneath the archway, and on the inner side dipped down into +darkness so abruptly that as I mounted on the outer side I found myself +staring, at a distance of two yards or less, into the face of an old man +seated within the cave, out of which his head and shoulders arose into +view as if by magic. + +"Ah!" said he calmly. "Good evening, senor. You will find good +entertainment within." He pointed past him into absolute night, or so +it seemed to my dazzled eyes. + +He spoke in Spanish, which is my native tongue--although not my +ancestral one. And as I crouched to pass the archway I found time to +speculate on his business in this cavern. For clearly he had not come +hither to drink, and as clearly he had nothing to do with either army. +At first glance I took him for a priest; but his bands, if he wore them, +were hidden beneath a dark poncho fitting tightly about his throat, and +his bald head baffled any search for a tonsure. Although a small book +lay open on his lap, I had interrupted no reading; for when I came upon +him his spectacles were perched high over his brows and gleamed upon me +like a duplicate pair of eyes. He was patently sober, too, which +perhaps came as the greatest shock of all to me, after meeting so many +on my path who were patently the reverse. + +I answered his salutation. "But you will pardon me, excellent sir, for +saying that you perhaps mistake the entertainment I seek. We gentlemen +of Spain are temperate livers, and I will confess that curiosity alone +has brought me--or say, rather, the fame of your wonderful cellars of +Rueda." + +I put it thus, thinking he might perhaps be some official of the caves +or of the castle above. But he let the shot pass. His lean hands from +the first had been fumbling with his poncho, to throw back the folds of +it in courtesy to a stranger; but this seemed no easy matter, and at a +sign from me he desisted. + +"I can promise you," he answered, "nothing more amusing than the group +with which you paused to converse just now by the road." + +"Eh? You saw me?" + +"I was watching from the path outside; for I too can enjoy a timely +laugh." + +No one, I am bound to say, would have guessed it. With his long scrag +neck and great moons of spectacles, which he had now drawn down, the +better to study me, he suggested an absurd combination of the vulture +and the owl. + +"_Dios!_ You have good eyes, then." + +"For long distances. But they cannot see Salamanca." His gaze wandered +for a moment to the entrance beyond which, far below and away, a sunny +landscape twinkled, and he sighed. But before I could read any meaning +in the words or the sigh, his spectacles were turned upon me again. +"You are Spanish?" he asked abruptly. + +"Of Castile, for that matter; though not, I may own to you, of pure +descent. I come from Aranjuez, where a Scottish ancestor, whose name I +bear, settled and married soon after the War of Succession." + +"A Scot?" He leaned forward, and his hands, which had been resting on +his lap, clutched the book nervously. "Of the Highlands?" + +I nodded, wondering at his agitation. + +"Even so, senor." + +"They say that all Scotsmen in Spain know one another. Tell me, my son +"--he was a priest, then, after all--"tell me, for the love of God, if +you know where to find a certain Manuel McNeill, who, I hear, is a +famous scout." + +"That, reverend father, is not always easy, as the French would tell +you; but for me, here, it happens to be very easy indeed, seeing that I +am the unworthy sinner you condescend to compliment." + +"You?" He drew back, incredulous. "You?" he repeated, thrusting the +book into his pocket and groping on the rocky soil beside him. +"The finger of God, then, is in this. What have I done with my candle? +Ah, here it is. Oblige me by holding it--so--while I strike a light." +I heard the rattle of a tinder-box. "They sell these candles"--here he +caught a spark and blew--"they sell these candles at the castle above. +The quality is indifferent and the price excessive; but I wander at +night and pick up those which the soldiers drop--an astonishing number, +I can assure you. See, it is lit!" He stretched out a hand and took +the candle from me. "Be careful of your footsteps, for the floor is +rough." + +"But, pardon me; before I follow, I have a right to know upon what +business." + +He turned and peered at me, holding the candle high. "You are +suspicious," he said, almost querulously. + +"It goes with my trade." + +"I take you to one who will be joyful to see you. Will that suffice, my +son?" + +"Your description, reverend father, would include many persons--from the +Duke of Ragusa downwards--whom, nevertheless, I have no desire to meet." + +"Well, I will tell you, though I was planning it for a happy surprise. +This person is a kinsman of yours--a Captain Alan McNeill." + +I stepped back a pace and eyed him. "Then," said I, "your story will +certainly not suffice; for I know it to be impossible. It was only last +April that I took leave of Captain Alan McNeill on the road to Bayonne +and close to the frontier. He was then a prisoner under escort, with a +letter from Marmont ordering the Governor of Bayonne to clap him in +irons and forward him to Paris, where (the Marshal hinted) no harm would +be done by shooting him." + +"Then he must have escaped." + +"Pardon me, that again is impossible; for I should add that he was under +some kind of parole." + +"A prisoner under escort, in irons--condemned, or at least intended, to +be shot--and all the while under parole! My friend, that must surely +have been a strange kind of parole!" + +"It was, and, saving your reverence, a cursed dirty kind. But it +sufficed for my kinsman, as I know to my cost. For with the help of the +_partidas_ I rescued him, close to the frontier; and he--like the fool, +or like the noble gentleman he was--declined his salvation, released the +escort (which we had overpowered), shook hands with us, and rode forward +to his death." + +"A brave story." + +"You would say so, did you know the whole of it. There is no man alive +whose hand I could grasp as proudly as I grasped his at the last: and no +other, alive or dead, of whom I could say, with the same conviction, +that he made me at once think worse of myself and better of human +nature." + +"He seems, then, to have a mania for improving his fellow-men; for," +said my guide, still pausing with the candle aloft and twinkling on his +spectacles, "I assure you he has been trying to make a Lutheran of +_me!_" + +Wholly incredulous as I was, this took me fairly between wind and water. +"Did he," I stammered, "did he happen to mention the Scarlet Woman?" + +"Several times: though (in justice to his delicacy, I must say it) only +in his delirium." + +"His delirium?" + +"He has been ill; almost desperately ill. A case of sunstroke, I +believe. Do I understand that you believe sufficiently to follow me?" + +"I cannot say that I believe. Yet if it be not Captain Alan McNeill, +and if for some purpose which--to be frank with you--I cannot guess, I +am being walked into a trap, you may take credit to yourself that it has +been well, nay excellently, invented. I pay you that compliment +beforehand, and for my kinsman's sake, or for the sake of his memory, I +accept the risk." + +"There is no risk," answered the reverend father, at once leading the +way: "none, that is to say, with me to guide you." + +"There is risk, then, in some degree?" + +"We skirt a labyrinth," he answered quietly. "You will have observed, +of course, that no one has passed us or disturbed our talk. To be sure, +the archway under which you found me is one of the 'false entrances,' as +they are called, of Rueda cellars. There are a dozen between this and +the summit, and perhaps half a dozen below, which give easy access to +the wine-vaults, and in any of which a crowd of goers and comers would +have incommoded us. For the soldiers would seem--and very wisely, I +must allow--to follow a chart and confine themselves to the easier +outskirts of these caves. Wisely, because the few cellars they visit +contain Val de Penas enough to keep two armies drunk until either +Wellington enters Madrid or Marmont recaptures Salamanca. But they are +not adventurous: and the few who dare, though no doubt they penetrate to +better wine, are not in the end to be envied. . . . Now this passage of +ours is popularly, but quite erroneously, supposed to lead nowhere, and +is therefore by consent avoided." + +"Excuse me," said I, "but it was precisely by this exit that I saw +emerge three men as honestly drunk as any three I have met in my life." + +For the moment he seemed to pay no heed, but stooped and held the candle +low before his feet. + +"The path, you perceive, here shelves downwards. By following it we +should find ourselves, after ten minutes or so, at the end of a _cul de +sac_. But see this narrow ledge to the right--pay particular heed to +your footsteps here, I pray you: it curves to the right, broadening ever +so little before it disappears around the corner: yet here lies the true +path, and you shall presently own it an excellent one." He sprang +forward like a goat, and turning, again held the candle low that I might +plant my feet wisely. Sure enough, just around the corner the ledge +widened at once, and we passed into a new gallery. + +"Ah, you were talking of those three drunkards? Well, they must have +emerged by following this very path." + +"Impossible." + +"Excuse me, but for a scout whose fame is acknowledged, you seem fond of +a word which Bonaparte (we are told) has banished from the dictionaries. +Ask yourself, now. They were assuredly drunk, and your own eyes have +assured you there is no wine between us and daylight. My son, I have +inhabited Rueda long enough to acquire a faith in miracles, even had I +brought none with me. Along this ledge our three drunkards strolled +like children out of the very womb of earth. They will never know what +they escaped: should the knowledge ever come to them it ought to turn +their hair grey then and there." + +"Children and drunkards," said I. "You know the byword?" + +"And might believe it--but for much evidence on the other side." + +But I was following another thought, and for the moment did not hear him +closely. "I suppose, then, the owners guard the main entrances, but +leave such as this, for instance, to be defended by their own +difficulty?" + +"Why should any be guarded?" he asked, pausing to untie a second candle +from the bunch he had suspended from his belt. + +"Eh? Surely to leave all this wine exposed in a world of thieves--" + +The reverend father smiled as he lit the new candle from the stump of +his old one. "No doubt the wine-growers did not contemplate a visit +from two armies, and such very thirsty ones. The peasants hereabouts +are abstemious, and the few thieves count for no more than flies. +For the rest--" + +He was stooping again, with his candle all but level with the ledge and +a few inches wide of it. Held so, it cast a feeble ray into the black +void below us: and down there--thirty feet down perhaps--as his talk +broke in two like a snapped guitar-string, my eyes caught a blur of +scarlet. + +"For God's sake," I cried, "hold the light steady!" + +"To what purpose?" he asked grimly. "That is one whom Providence did +not lead out to light. See, he is broken to pieces--you can tell from +the way he lies; and dead, too. My son, the caves of Rueda protect +themselves." + +He shuffled to the end of the ledge, and there, at the entrance of a +dark gallery, so low that our heads almost knocked against the +rock-roof, he halted again and leaned his ear against the wall on the +right. + +"Sometimes where the wall is thin I have heard them crying and beating +on it with their fists." + +I shivered. The reader knows me by this time for a man of fair +courage: but the bravest man on earth may be caught off his own ground, +and I do not mind confessing that here was a situation for which a stout +parentage and a pretty severe training had somehow failed to provide. +In short, as my guide pushed forward, I followed in knock-knee'd terror. +I wanted to run. I told myself that if this indeed were a trap, and he +should turn and rush upon me, I was as a child at his mercy. +And he might do worse: he might blow out the light and disappear. +As the gallery narrowed and at the same time contracted in height, so +that at length we were crawling on hands and knees, this insanity grew. +Two or three times I felt for my knife, with an impulse to drive it +through his back, seize the candles and escape: nor at this moment can I +say what restrained me. + +At length, and after crawling for at least two hundred yards, without +any warning he stood erect: and this was the worst moment of all. +For as he did so the light vanished--or so nearly as to leave but the +feeblest glimmer, the reason being (and I discovered it with a sob) that +he stood in an ample vaulted chamber while I was yet beneath the roof of +the tunnel. The first thing I saw on emerging beside him was the belly +of a great wine-tun curving out above my head, its recurve hidden, lost +somewhere in upper darkness: and the first thing I heard was the whip of +a bat's wing by the candle. My guide beat it off. + +"Better take a candle and light it from mine. These creatures breed +here in thousands--hear them now above us!" + +"But what is that other sound?" I asked, and together we moved towards +it. + +Three enormous tuns stood in the chamber, and we halted by the base of +the farthest, where, with a spilt pail beside him, lay a British +sergeant of the 36th Regiment tranquilly snoring! That and no other was +the sound, and a blesseder I never heard. I could have kicked the +fellow awake for the mere pleasure of shaking hands with him. My guide +moved on. + +"But we are not going to leave him here!" + +"Oh, as for that, his sleep is good for hours to come. If you choose, +we can pick him up on our return." + +So we left him, and now I went forward with a heart strangely comforted, +although on leaving the great cellar I knew myself hopelessly lost. +Hitherto I might have turned, and, fortune aiding, have found daylight: +but beyond the cellar the galleries ramified by the score, and we walked +so rapidly and chose between them with such apparent lack of method that +I lost count. My one consolation was the memory of a burly figure in +scarlet supine beneath a wine-tun. + +I was thinking of him when, at the end of a passage to me +indistinguishable from any of the dozen or so we had already followed, +my guide put out a hand, and, drawing aside a goatskin curtain, revealed +a small chamber with a lamp hanging from the roof, and under the lamp a +bed of straw, and upon the bed an emaciated man, propped and holding a +book. + +His eyes were on the entrance; for he had heard our footsteps. +And almost we broke into one cry of joy. It was indeed my kinsman, +Captain McNeill! + + + +II. + + +CAPTAIN MCNEILL'S ADVENTURES. + +"But how on earth came you here?" was the unspoken question in the eyes +of both of us; and, each reading the reflection of his own, we both +broke out together into a laugh--though my kinsman's was all but +inaudible--and after it he lay back on his pillow (an old knapsack) and +panted. + +"My story must needs be the shorter," said I; "so let us have it over +and get it out of the way. I come from watching Caffarelli in the +north, and for the last four days have been taking a holiday and +twiddling my fingers in camp here, just across the Zapardiel. +Happening this afternoon to stroll to this amazing rock, I fell in with +the reverend father here, and most incautiously told him my name: since +which he has been leading me a dance which may or may not have turned my +hair grey." + +"The reverend father?" echoed Captain Alan. + +"He has not," said I, turning upon my guide, who stood apart with a +baffling smile, "as yet done me the honour to reciprocate my weak +confidences." + +Captain Alan too stared at him. "Are you a priest, sir?" he demanded. + +He was answered by a bow. "You didn't know it?" cried I. "It's the one +thing he has allowed me to discover." + +"But I understood that you were a scholar, sir--" + +"The two callings are not incompatible, I hope?" + +"--of the University of Salamanca: a Doctor, too. My memory is yet +weak, but surely I had it from your own lips that you were a Doctor?" + +"--of Moral Philosophy," the old man answered with another bow. +"Of the College of the Conception--now, alas! destroyed." + +"The care with which you have tended me, sir, has helped my mistake: and +now my gratitude for it must help my apologies. I fear I have, from +time to time, allowed my tongue to take many liberties with your +profession." + +"You have, to be sure, been somewhat hard with us." + +"My prejudice is an honest one, sir." + +"Of that there can be no possible doubt." + +"But it must frequently have pained you." + +"Not the least in the world," the old Doctor assured him, almost with +_bonhomie_. "Besides, you were suffering from sunstroke." + +My kinsman eyed him; and I could have laughed to watch it--that gaze +betrayed a faint expiring hope that, after all, his diatribes against +the Scarlet Woman had shaken the Doctor--upon whom (I need scarcely say) +they had produced about as much effect as upon the rock of Rueda itself. +And I think that, though regretfully, he must at length have realised +this, for he sank back on the pillow again with a gentle weariness in +every line of his Don Quixote face. + +"Ah, yes, from sunstroke! My cousin"--here he turned towards me--"this +gentleman--or, as I must now learn to call him, this most reverend +Doctor of Philosophy, Gil Gonsalvez de Covadonga--found me some days ago +stretched unconscious beside the highroad to Tordesillas, and in two +ways has saved my life: first, by conveying me to this hiding-place, for +the whole _terrain_ was occupied by Marmont's troops, and I lay there in +my scarlet tunic, a windfall for the first French patrol that might +pass; and, secondly, by nursing me through delirium back to health of +mind and strength of body." + +"The latter has yet to come, Senor Capitano," the Doctor interposed. + +And I: "My cousin, your distaste for disguise will yet be the death of +you. But tell me, what were you doing in this neighbourhood?" + +"Why, watching Marmont, to be sure, as my orders were." + +"Your orders? You don't mean to tell me that Lord Wellington knows of +your return!" + +"I reported myself to him on the nineteenth of last month in the camp on +San Christoval: he gave me my directions that same evening." + +"But, Heavens!" I cried, "it is barely a week ago that I returned from +the north and had an hour's interview with him; and he never mentioned +your name, though aware (as he must be) that no news in the world could +give me more joy." + +"Is that so, cousin?" He gazed at me earnestly and wistfully, as I +thought. + +"You know it is so," I answered, turning my face away that he might not +see my emotion. + +"As for Lord Wellington's silence," Captain Alan went on, after musing a +while, "he has a great capacity for it, as you know; and perhaps he has +persuaded himself that we work better apart. Our later performances in +and around Sabugal might well excuse that belief." + +"But now I suppose you have some message for him. Is it urgent? +Or will you satisfy me first how you came here--you, whom I left a +prisoner on the road to Bayonne and, as I desperately thought, to +execution?" + +"There is no message, for I broke down before my work had well +recommenced; and Wellington knows of my illness and my whereabouts, so +there is no urgency." + +He glanced at the Doctor and so did I. "The reverend father's behaviour +assuredly suggested urgency," I said. + +"And was there none?" asked the old man quietly. "You sons of war chase +the oldest of human illusions: to you nothing is of moment but the +impact of brutal forces or the earthly cunning which arrays and moves +them. To me all this is less hateful than contemptible, in moment not +comparable with the joy of a single human soul. Believe me, my sons, +although the French have destroyed my peerless University--fortis +Salamantina, arx sapientia--I were less eager to hurry God's avenging +hand on them than to bring together two souls which in the pure joy of +meeting soar for a moment together, and, fraternising, forget this +world. Nay, deny it not: for I saw it, standing by. Least of all be +ashamed of it." + +"I am not sure that I understand you, holy father," I answered. +"But you have done us a true service, and shall be rewarded by a +confession--from a stubborn heretic, too." I glanced at Captain Alan +mischievously. + +My kinsman put up a hand in protest. + +"Oh, I will prepare the way for you," said I: "and by and by you will be +astonished to find how easy it comes." I turned to the Doctor +Gonsalvez. "You must know, then, my father, that the Captain and I, +though we follow the same business and with degrees of success we are +too amiable to dispute about, yet employ very different methods. +He, for instance, scorns disguises, while I pride myself upon mine. +And, by the way, as a Professor of Moral Philosophy, you are doubtless +used to deciding questions of casuistry?" + +"For twenty years, more or less, I have presided at the public +disputations in the Sala del Claustro of our University." + +"Then perhaps you will resolve me the moral difference between hiding in +a truss of hay and hiding under a wig? For, in faith, I can see none." + +"That is matter for the private conscience," broke in Captain Alan. + +"Pardon me," suggested the Doctor; "you promised me a narrative, I +believe." + +"We'll proceed, then. Our methods--this, at least, is important--were +different: which made it the more distressing that the similarity of our +names confused us in our enemies' minds, who grossly mistook us for one +and the same person: which not only humiliated us as artists but ended +in positive inconvenience. At Sabugal, in April last, after a +bewildering comedy of errors, the Duke of Ragusa captured my kinsman +here, and held him to account for some escapade of mine, of which, as a +matter of fact, he had no knowledge whatever. You follow me?" + +The Doctor nodded gravely. + +"Well, Marmont showed no vindictiveness, but said in effect, 'You have +done, sir, much damage to our arms, and without stretching a point I +might have you hanged for a spy. I shall, however, treat you leniently, +and send you to France into safe keeping, merely exacting your promise +that you will not consent to be released by any of the _partidas_ on the +journey through Spain.' My cousin might have answered that he had never +done an hour's scouting in his life save in the uniform of a British +officer, and nothing whatever to deserve the death of a spy. +Suspecting, however, that I might be mixed up in the business, he gave +his parole and set out for the frontier under the guard of a young +cavalry officer and one trooper. + +"Meanwhile I had word of his capture: and knowing nothing of this +parole, I posted to Lord Wellington, obtained a bond for twelve thousand +francs payable for my kinsman's rescue, sought out the guerilla chief, +Mina, borrowed two men on Wellington's bond--the scoundrel would lend no +more--and actually brought off the rescue at Beasain, a few miles on +this side of the frontier. One of our shots broke the young officer's +sword-arm, the trooper was pitched from his horse and stunned, and +behold! my kinsman in our hands, safe and sound. + +"It was then, reverend father, that I first heard of his parole. +He informed me of it, and while thanking me for my succour, refused to +accept it. 'Very well done,' say you as a Doctor of Morality. +But meanwhile I was searching the young officer, and finding a letter +upon him from the Duke of Ragusa, broke the seal. 'Not so well done,' +say you: but again wait a moment. This letter was addressed to the +Governor of Bayonne, and gave orders that Captain McNeill, as a spy and +a dangerous man, should be forwarded to Paris in irons. There was also +a hint that a request for his execution might accompany him to Paris. +And this was a prisoner who, on promise of clemency, had given his +parole! Now what, in your opinion, was a fair course for our friend +here, on proof of this dirty treachery?" + +"We will reserve this as Question Number Two," answered the Doctor +gravely, "and proceed with the narrative, which (I opine) goes on to say +that Captain McNeill preferred his oath to the excuse for considering it +annulled, collected his escort, shook hands with you, and went forward +to his fate." + +"A man must save his soul," Captain McNeill explained modestly. + +"You are to me, sir, a heretic (pardon my saying it); which prevents me +from taking as cheerful a view as I could wish concerning your soul. +But assuredly you saved your honour." + +"Well, I hope so," the Captain answered, picking up the story: +"but really, in the sequel, I had to take some decisions which, obvious +as they seemed at the time, have since caused me grave searchings of +heart, and upon which I shall be grateful for your opinion." + +"Am I appealed to as a priest?" + +"Most certainly not, but as a Professor--a title for which, by the way, +we have in Scotland an extraordinary reverence. I rode on, sir, with my +escort, and that night we reached Tolosa, where the young Lieutenant-- +his name was Gerard--found a surgeon to set his bone. He suffered +considerable pain, yet insisted next morning upon proceeding with me. +I imagine his motives to have been mixed; but please myself with +thinking that a latent desire to serve me made one of them. On the +other hand, the seal of Marmont's letter had been broken in his keeping; +a serious matter for a young officer, and one which he would naturally +desire to defer explaining. At Tolosa he accounted for his wound by +some tale of brigands and a chance shot at long range. On the morrow we +rode to Irun and crossed the Bidassoa. We were now on French soil. +Throughout the morning he had spoken little, and I too had preferred my +own thoughts. But now, as we broke our fast and cracked a bottle +together at the first tavern on the French shore, I opened fire by +asking him if he yet carried the Marshal's letter with the broken seal. +'To be sure,' said he. 'And what will you do with it?' I went on. +'Why, deliver it, I suppose, to the Governor of Bayonne, to whom it is +addressed.' 'And, when asked to account for the broken seal, you will +tell him the exact truth about it and the rescue?' 'I must,' +he answered; 'and I hope my report will help you, sir. It will not be +my fault if it does not.' 'You are an excellent fellow,' said I; +'but it will help me little. You do not know the contents of that +letter as I do--not willingly, but because it was read aloud in my +presence by the man who opened it.' And, before he could remonstrate, I +had told him its purport. Now, sir, that was not quite fair to the +young man, and I am not sure that it was strictly honourable?" + +Captain McNeill paused with a question in his voice." + +"Proceed, sir," said the Doctor: "I reserve this as Question Number +Three, remarking only that the young man owed you something for having +saved his life." + +"Just so; and that is where the unfairness came in. He was +inexpressibly shocked. 'Why,' he cried, 'the Marshal had put you under +parole!' 'So far as the frontier,' said I. 'The promise upon which I +swore was that I would not consent to be released by the _partidas_ on +my journey through Spain. Once in France, I could not escape his +vengeance. Now for this very reason I have a right to interpret my +promise strictly, and I consider that during the past half-hour my +parole has expired.' 'I cannot deny it,' he allowed, and took a pace or +two up and down the room, then halted in front of me. 'You would +suggest, sir, that since this letter was taken from me by the +_partidas_, and you and I alone know that it was restored, I owe you the +favour of suppressing it.' 'Good Heavens! my young friend,' I +exclaimed, 'I suggest nothing of the sort. I may ask you to risk for my +sake a professional ambition which is very dear to you, but certainly +not to imperil your young soul by a falsehood. No, sir, if you will +deliver me to the Governor of Bayonne as a prisoner on honourable +parole--which I will renew here and extend to the gates of that city +only--and will then request an interview for the purpose of delivering +your letter and explaining how the seal came to be broken, with Joly'-- +this was the trooper--'for witness, you will gain me all the time I hope +to need.' 'That will be little enough,' objected he. 'I must make the +most of it,' said I; 'and we must manage to time our arrival for the +evening, when the Governor will either be supping or at the theatre, +that the delay, if possible, may be of his creating.' 'I owe you more +than this,' said the ingenuous youth. 'And I, sir, am even ashamed of +myself for asking so much,' I answered. + +"Well, so we contrived it; entered Bayonne at nightfall, presented +ourselves at the Citadel, and were, to our inexpressible joy, received +by the Deputy-Governor, who heard the Lieutenant's report and endorsed +the false paper of parole which Marmont had given me, and which, in +fact, had now expired. The fatal letter Lieutenant Gerard kept in his +pocket, while demanding an interview with the Governor himself. +This (he was told) could not be granted until the morning--'the Governor +was entertaining that night'--and with a well-feigned reluctance he +saluted and withdrew. Outside the Deputy's door we parted without a +word, and at the Citadel gate, having shown my pass, which left me free +to seek lodgings in the city, I halted, and, under the sentry's nose, +dropped a note into the Governor's letter-box. I had written it at +Hendaye, and addressed it to the Duke of Ragusa; and it ran-- + + "MONSIEUR LE MARECHAL,--I send this under cover of the Governor from + the city of Bayonne, out of which I hope to escape to-night, + having come so far in obedience to my word, which appears to be + more sacred than that of a Marshal of France. My escort having + been overpowered between Vittoria and Tolosa, I declined the + rescue offered me, but not before your letter to the Governor had + been broken open and its contents read, in my presence. + This letter also I saw restored to its bearer, who during its + perusal lay unconscious, of a severe and painful wound in his + sword-arm. I beg to assure you that he has behaved in all respects + as a gentleman of courage and honour: and, conceiving that you owe + me some reparation, I shall rely on you that his prospects as a + soldier are not in any way compromised by the miscarriage of your + benevolent plans concerning me." + +I laughed aloud, and even the Doctor relaxed his features. + +"Bravo, kinsman!" said I. "If Marmont hates one thing more than another +it's to see his majestic image diminished in the looking-glass. But-- +faith! I'd have kept that letter in my pocket until I was many miles +south of Bayonne." + +"South? You don't suppose I had any intention of escaping towards the +Pyrenees? Why, my dear fellow, that's the very direction in which they +were bound to search." + +"Oh, very well," said I--a trifle nettled, I will confess--"perhaps you +preferred Paris!" + +"Precisely," was the cool answer. "I preferred Paris: and having but an +hour or two to spare before the hotels closed, I at once inquired at the +chief hotels if any French officer were starting that night for the +capital. The first-named, if I remember, the _Hotel du Sud_--I drew +blank. At the second, the _Trois Couronnes_, I was informed that a +chaise and four had been ordered by no less a man than General Souham, +who would start that night as soon as he returned from supping with the +Governor. I waited: the General arrived a few minutes before ten +o'clock: I introduced myself--" + +"General Souham," I groaned. "Reverend father, I have not yet tasted +the wine of Rueda: it appears to me that the fumes are strong enough. +He tells me he introduced himself to General Souham!" + +"--and, I assure you, found him excellent company. We travelled three +in the chaise--the General, his aide-de-camp, and your fortunate +kinsman. A second chaise followed with the General's baggage. +He and the aide-de-camp at times beguiled the road with a game of +picquet: for myself, I disapprove of cards." + +"Doubtless you told them so at an early stage?" I suggested, with a last +effort at irony. + +"I was obliged to, seeing that the General challenged me to a _partie_; +but I did not, I hope, adopt a tone inconsistent with good fellowship. +We travelled through to Paris, with a few hours' break at Orleans--an +opportunity which I seized to purchase a suit of clothes more congruous +than my uniform with the part I had to play in Paris. I had ventured to +ask General Souham's advice, and he assured me that a British officer, +though a prisoner on parole, might incur some risk from the Parisian mob +by wearing his uniform in public." + +"Cousin," said I, "henceforth pursue your tale without interruption. +There was a time when, in my folly, I presumed to criticise your +methods. I apologise." + +"On leaving the tailor's shop I was accosted by a wretched creature who +had seen me alight from the chaise in His Majesty's uniform, and had +followed, but did not venture to introduce himself until I emerged in a +less compromising garb. He was, it appeared, a British agent--and a +traitor to his own country--and I gathered that a part of his dirty +trade lay in assisting British prisoners to break their parole. +He assumed that I travelled on parole, and insinuated that I might have +occasion to break it: and, with all the will in the world to crack his +head, I let the mistake and suspicion pass. For a napoleon I received +the address of a Parisian agent in the Rue Carcassonne, whose name I +will confide in you, in case you should ever require his services. +For truly, although I had some difficulty in persuading him that I broke +no faith in seeking to escape from France (a point in which self-respect +obliged me to insist, though he himself treated it with irritating +nonchalance), this agent proved a zealous fellow, and served me well. + +"He fell in, too, with my proposals, complimented me on their boldness, +and advanced me money to further them. I took a lodging _au troisieme_ +in the Faubourg St. Honore, and for a fortnight walked Paris without an +attempt at concealment, frequenting the cafes, and spending my evenings +at the theatre. Once or twice I encountered Souham himself, with whom I +had parted on the friendliest terms: but he did not choose to recognise +me--perhaps he had his good-natured suspicions. I lived unchallenged, +though walking all the while on a razor's edge. I had reckoned on two +fair chances in my favour. There was a chance that the Governor of +Bayonne, on finding himself tricked, would for his own security suppress +Marmont's letter, trusting that the affair would pass without inquiry: +and there was the further chance that Marmont himself, on receipt of my +note, would remember the magnanimity which (to do him justice) he +usually has at call, and give orders whistling off the pursuit. +At any rate, I spent a fortnight in Paris; and no man questioned or +troubled me. + +"On the same morning that I paid my second weekly bill the agent called +on me with a capital plan of escape, which (being a facetious fellow) he +announced as follows: 'I wish you good morning, Mr. Buck,' he began. +'Sir,' I answered, 'I have no claim to such a designation. My pleasures +in Paris have been entirely respectable, and I dislike familiarity.' +'Mr. Jonathan Buck, I should have said.' 'Sir,' I corrected him, +'if your clients are so numerous that you confuse their names, I must +remind you that mine is McNeill.' 'Pardon me,' he replied, 'you have +this morning inherited that of an American citizen who died suddenly +last evening in an obscure lodging near the Barriere de Pantin; and, in +addition, a passport now waiting for him at the Foreign Office, if you +have the courage to claim it. You resemble the deceased sufficiently to +answer a passport's description: and if you secure it, I advise a speedy +departure, with Nantes for your objective.' Accordingly, that same +evening I left Paris for the Loire." + +"You had the coolness to apply for that passport?" + +"And the good fortune to obtain it. If anything, my dear fellow, +deserves the degree of astonishment your face expresses, it should +rather be my consenting to use disguise, and so breaking through a +self-denying ordinance on which you have sometimes rallied me. +Suspense--the danger from Bayonne hourly anticipated--had perhaps shaken +my nerves. To be brief, I travelled to Nantes as Mr. Jonathan Buck, and +in that name took passage in a vessel bound for Philadelphia and on the +point (as I understood) of lifting anchor. + +"I slept that night on board the _Minnie Dwight_--this was the vessel's +name--in full hope that my troubles were at an end. But next morning +her captain came to me with a long face and a report that some hitch had +occurred between him and the port authorities over his clearing-papers. +'And how long will this detain us?' I asked, cutting short an +explanation too technical for my understanding. He answered that he had +been to his Consul to protest, but could promise nothing short of a +week's delay. + +"Well, I saw nothing for it but to shut the cabin-door, make a clean +breast of my fears, and desire him to help me in devising some new plan. +He was a good fellow, and ingenious too; for after he had dashed up my +hopes with the news that a similar embargo lay on all foreign ships in +the port, his face cleared, and, said he, 'There's no help for it, but +you must play the sea-lawyer and I the brutal tyrant. It's hard, too, +upon a man who treats his crew like his own children, and victuals his +ship like an eating-house: but a seaman's rig and forty dollars is all +you need, and with this you'll fare off to the American Consul's and +swear that I've made life a burden to you.' 'Why forty dollars?' I +asked. He winked. 'That's earnest money that when you reach the United +States you'll have the law of me for ill-usage.' 'And what shall I get +in exchange?' 'You will get a certificate enabling you to pass from +port as a discharged sailor seeking a ship.' I thanked him warmly, and +agreed; climbed down the ship's side in my new rig, waved an affecting +farewell to my benevolent tyrant, and sought the American Consul who (it +seemed) was used to discontented seamen. At all events, he accepted +without suspicion his share in the dishonouring comedy, took my forty +dollars, and made out my certificate." + +Here the Captain glanced at Doctor Gonsalvez, who blinked. + +Said I: "Even a Protestant must sometimes understand the relief of +confession." + +"Armed with this," he went on, "I made my way to the mouth of the Loire, +to St. Nazaire, between which and Le Croisic lies a small island where, +in the present weakness of the French marine, English ships of war are +suffered to water unmolested. For ten napoleons I bribed an old +fisherman to row me out at night to this island, which we reached at +daybreak, and to our dismay found the anchorage empty. We cast our +nets, however, for a blind, and taking a few fish on our way, worked +slowly down to the south-west, where my comrade (and a faithful one he +proved) had heard reports of an English frigate nosing about the coast. +Sure enough, between breakfast and noon we caught sight of her topmasts: +but to reach her we must pass in full view and almost within point-blank +range of a coast battery. We were scarcely abreast of it when a +round-shot plumped into the sea ahead of us and brought us to, and +almost at once a boatful of soldiers put off to board us. + +"Their object, it turned out, was merely to warn us not to pass the +battery, or the chances were five to one that the Englishman would +capture us. In no way discomposed, my friend maintained that we (he +passed me off as his son) must either fish or starve; that we had come a +long distance, knew every inch of the coast, and ran no danger. +He backed this up by bribing the soldiers with our whole morning's +catch, and in the end they contented themselves by insisting that we +should wait under the battery until nightfall and so depart. And this +we did: but in the meanwhile, pretending our anxiety to avoid her, we +cross-questioned the soldiers so precisely on the Englishman's bearings +that, when darkness fell and we slipped our anchor, we ran straight down +on her without the slightest difficulty. She was the _Agile_ sloop of +twenty-four guns, and from her deck I waved good-bye to the fisherman, +scarcely more delighted by my safety than he by his napoleons, which in +my gratitude I had raised to fifteen. + +"The _Agile_ landed me in Plymouth without mishap: and so end my +adventures. I ought to add, however, that, though my own conscience +held no reproach for my trick upon Marmont, I sought and obtained +permission from the War Office to select a prisoner of my own rank and +exchange him with France; and with him I sent a precise account, which +will afford some amusement to the Duke of Ragusa's enemies if he happen +to have any at headquarters. You, my cousin, will doubtless consider +this mere supererogation, but I should be glad of the reverend Doctor's +opinion." + +"We will reserve this," said the Doctor, "as Question Number Five." + +"And you promptly reshipped for Lisbon, followed the army to Salamanca, +and resumed your work?" said I. + +"Even so: but I suspect that these adventures have rattled me. I am not +the man I was: else I had not succumbed so easily to a mere +_coup-de-soleil_. Will the reverend Doctor complete the narrative by +describing how he found me?" + +"In a ditch," said the reverend Doctor placidly. "My college was +destroyed: my beloved Salamanca in ruins. 'To a philosopher,' said I, +'all the world is a home; but especially such wine-vaults as are found +in Rueda.' I saddled, therefore, my mule; loaded her with a very few +books and still fewer sticks of furniture; more frugal even than +Juvenal's friend Umbricius, _cui tota domus redo, componitur una_. +On my road, and almost under the shadow of this rock, my mule shied in +the most ladylike fashion at sight of a redcoat prostrate in the dust. +The rest you can guess: but assuredly I did not guess at the time that I +had happened on one whose story will--if ever God restores me to my +University--so illustrate my lectures as to make them appear that which +they will not be--an entirely new set of compositions." + +"Well," said I, "the hour is late: and however cheerfully you men of +conscience and of casuistry may look forward to spending the night in +these caves, I have seen enough, and have enough imagination at the back +of it, to desire nothing so little." + +"I will escort you," said the Doctor. + +"That was implied," I answered: and after shaking hands with my kinsman +and promising to visit him on the morrow, I suffered myself to be guided +back along the horrible passages. On the way the Doctor Gonsalvez +paused more than once to chuckle, and at each remove I found this +indulgence more uncanny. + +In the great cellar we came upon the sergeant of the 36th, still +slumbering. I stirred him with my foot, and, sitting up, he amicably +invited us to join him in a drink. I did so, the Doctor drawing it from +the spigot into a pail. + +"Might be worse!" hiccupped the sergeant, watching me. + +I agreed that it might be a great deal worse. Between us we steered him +out, through the tunnel, along the ledge, and so to the archway under +which Venus sparkled in the purple heaven. Here the Doctor bade us +good-night, and left me to pilot my drunkard down the cliff. At the +foot he shook hands with me in a fervour of tipsy gratitude: and I +returned the grasp with an _empressement_, a passion almost, the exact +grounds of which unless he should happen to read these lines and +remember the circumstances--contingencies equally remote--he will spend +his life without surmising. + + + +THE HAUNTED YACHT. + + +A YARN. + + +If any one cares to buy the yawl _Siren_, he may have her for +200 pounds, or a trifle less than the worth of her ballast, as lead goes +nowadays. For sufficient reasons--to be disclosed in the course of this +narrative--I am unable to give her builder's name, and for reasons quite +as sufficient I must admit the figures of her registered tonnage +(29.56), cut on the beam of her forecastle, to be a fraud. I will be +perfectly frank; there is a mystery about the yacht. But I gave +400 pounds for her in the early summer of 1890, and thought her dirt +cheap. She was built under the old "Thames rule," that is, somewhere +between 1875 and 1880, and was therefore long and narrow to begin with. +She has been lengthened since. Nevertheless, though nobody could call +her a dry boat, she will behave herself in any ordinary sea, and come +about quicker than most of her type. She is fast, has sound timbers and +sheathing that fits her like a skin, and her mainmast and bowsprit are +particularly fine spars of Oregon pine; her mizzen doesn't count for +much. Let me mention the newest of patent capstans--I put this into her +myself--cabins panelled in teak and pitch-pine and cushioned with red +morocco, two suits of sails, besides a big spinnaker that does not +belong to her present rig, a serviceable dinghy--well, you can see for +yourselves without my saying more, that, even to break up, she is worth +quite double the money. + +In what follows I shall take leave here and there to alter a name or +suppress it. With these exceptions you shall hear precisely how the +_Siren_ came into my hands. + +Early in 1890 I determined, for the sake of my health, to take a longer +holiday than usual, and spend the months of July, August, and September +in a cruise about the Channel. My notion was to cross over to the +French coast, sail down as far as Cherbourg, recross to Salcombe, and +thence idle westward to Scilly, and finish up, perhaps, with a run over +to Ireland. This, I say, was my notion: you could not call it a plan, +for it left me free to anchor in any port I chose, and to stay there +just as long as it amused me. One fixed intention I had, and one only-- +to avoid the big regattas. Money had to be considered, and I thought at +first of hiring. I wanted something between twenty-five and forty tons, +small enough to be worked by myself and a crew of three or at most three +men and a boy, and large enough to keep us occupied while at sea. + +Of course, I studied the advertisement columns, and for some time found +nothing that seemed even likely to suit. But at last in _The Field_, +and in the left-hand bottom corner--where it had been squeezed by the +lists of the usual well-known agencies--I came on the following:-- + + "YAWL, 35 tons. For immediate SALE, that fast and comfortable + cruiser _Siren_. Lately refitted and now in perfect condition + throughout. Rigging, etc., as good as new. Cabin appointments of + unusual richness and taste. 400 pounds. Apply, Messrs. Dewy and + Moss, Agents and Surveyors, Portside Street, F--." + +On reading this I took Lloyd's _Yacht Register_ from its shelf, and +hunted for further details. _Sirens_ crowd pretty thickly in the +Register; only a little less thickly than _Undines_. Including +_Sirenes_ and _Sirenas_, I found some fourteen--and not a yawl amongst +them, nor anything of her tonnage. There were two more in Lloyd's _List +of American Yachts_--one a centre-board schooner, the other a +centre-board sloop; and, in a further list, I came upon a _Siren_ that +had changed her name to _Mirage_--a screw-schooner of one hundred and +ninety tons, owned by no less a person than the Marquis of Ormonde. +On the whole it seemed pretty clear that Lloyd knew not of the existence +of this "fast and comfortable cruiser" of thirty-five tons. + +However, if half the promises of the advertisement were genuine, the +chance ought not to be lost for lack of further inquiry. So I sat down +there and then and wrote a letter to the poetically-named Dewy and Moss, +asking some questions in detail about the boat, and, in particular, +where she was to be seen. + +The answer came by return of post. The boat had been laid up since the +autumn in a sheltered creek of the F-- River, about three-quarters of a +mile up from the harbour side, where Messrs. Dewy and Moss transacted +business. The keys lay at their office, and she could be inspected at +any time. Her sails, gear, and movable furniture were stored in a roomy +loft at the back of Messrs, Dewy and Moss's own premises. Their client +was a lady who wished to keep her name concealed--at any rate during the +preliminaries; but they had full power to conduct the sale. The yacht +was a bargain. The lady wished to be rid of it at once; but they might +mention that she would not take a penny less than the quoted price of +400 pounds. They would be happy to deal with me in that or any other +line of business; and they enclosed their card. + +The card bore witness to the extraordinary versatility of Messrs. Dewy +and Moss, if to nothing else. Here is the digest of it:-- +"Auctioneers; Practical Valuers; House and Estate Agents; Business +Brokers; Ship Brokers; Accountants and Commission Merchants; Servants' +Registry Office; Fire, Life, Accident, and Plate Glass Insurance +Effected; Fire Claims prepared and adjusted; Live Stock Insured; Agents +for Gibson's Non-Slipping Cycles; Agents for Packington's Manures, the +best and cheapest for all crops; Valuations for Probate; Emigration +Agents; Private Arrangements negotiated with Creditors; Old Violins +cleaned and repaired; Vice-Consulate for Norway and Sweden." + +I cannot say this card produced quite the impression which its composers +no doubt desired. It seemed to me that Messrs. Dewy and Moss had +altogether too many strings to their bow. And the railway journey to +F-- was a long one. So I hesitated for two days; and on the late +afternoon of the third found myself some three hundred miles from home, +standing in a windy street full of the blown odours of shipping, and +pulling at a bell which sounded with terrifying alacrity just on the +other side of the door. A window was thrown up, right above me, and a +head appeared (of Dewy, as it turned out), and invited me to come +upstairs. + +Mr. Dewy met me on the landing, introduced himself, and led me into his +office, where a fat young woman sat awkwardly upon a wooden chair +several inches too high for her. Hastily reviewing the many +professional capacities in which Mr. Dewy could serve her, I decided +that she must be a cook in search of a place. The agent gave me the +only other chair in the room--it was clear that in their various feats +of commercial dexterity the firm depended very little upon furniture-- +and balanced himself on the edge of his knee-hole table. He was a +little, round man, and his feet dangled three inches from the floor. +He looked honest enough, and spoke straightforwardly. + +"You have come about the yacht, sir. You would wish to inspect her at +once? This is most unfortunate! Your letter only reached us this +afternoon. The fact is, my partner, Mr. Moss, has gone off for the day +to N-- to attend a meeting of the Amateur Bee-keepers' Association--my +partner is an enthusiast upon bee-culture." + +The versatility of Moss began to grow bewildering. "--and will not be +back until late to-night. As for me," he consulted his watch, +"I am due in half an hour's time to conduct the rehearsal of a service +of song at the Lady Huntingdon's Chapel, down the street, where I play +the harmonium." + +The diversity of Dewy dazed me. + +"You are staying the night at F--?" he said. + +"Why, yes. I sleep at the Ship Inn, but hoped to leave early +to-morrow." + +"Of course you could inspect the sails and gear at once; they are in the +loft behind." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. + +"So I understand, but it would be better to see the boat first." + +"Naturally, naturally. I hope you see how I am placed? You would not +desire me, I feel sure, to disappoint the chapel members who will be +waiting presently for their rehearsal. Stay . . . perhaps you would not +greatly object to rowing up and inspecting the yacht by yourself? +Here are the keys, and my boat is at your disposal; or, if you prefer +it, a waterman--" + +"Nothing would suit me better, if you don't mind my using the boat." + +"It will be a favour, sir, your using her, I assure you. This way, if +you please." + +He jumped down from the table and led the way downstairs, and through +some very rickety back premises to the quay door, where his boat lay +moored to a frape. As I climbed down and cast off, Mr. Dewy pulled out +his watch again. + +"The evenings are lengthening, and you will have plenty of time. +Half an hour to high water; you will have the tide with you each way. +The keys will open everything on board. By the way, you can't miss +her--black, with a tarnished gilt line, moored beside a large white +schooner, just three-quarters of a mile up. You can tie up the boat to +the frape on your return; to-morrow will do for the keys; at your +service any time after nine a.m. Good evening, sir!" + +Mr. Dewy turned and hurried back to his client, whose presence during +our interview he had completely ignored. + +The sun had dropped behind the tall hills that line the western shore of +the beautiful F-- River; but a soft yellow light, too generously spread +to dazzle, suffused the whole sky, and was reflected on the tide that +stole up with scarcely a ripple. A sharp bend of the stream brought me +in sight of the two yachts, not fifty yards away--their inverted +reflections motionless as themselves; I rested on my oars and drifted up +towards them, conning the black yawl carefully. + +She struck me as too big for a 35-tonner, fore-shortened though she +lay--a wall-sided narrow boat, but a very pretty specimen of her type. +Her dismantled masts were painted white, and her upper boards had been +removed, of course. + +Hullo! + +There was a man standing on her deck. + +She lay with her nose pointing up the river and her stern towards me. +The man stood by her wheel (for some idiotic reason, best known to +himself, her builder had given her a wheel instead of a tiller), which +was covered up with tarpaulin. He stood with a hand on this tarpaulin +case, and looked back over his shoulder towards me--a tall fellow with a +reddish beard and a clean-shaven upper lip. I was drifting close by +this time--he looking curiously at me--and I must have been studying his +features for half a minute before I hailed him. + +"Yacht ahoy!" I called out. "Is that the _Siren?_" + +Getting no answer, I pulled the boat close under the yacht's side, made +her fast, and climbed on board by way of the channels. + +"This is the _Siren_, eh?" I said, looking down her deck towards the +wheel. + +There was no man to be seen. + +I stared around for a minute or so; ran to the opposite side and looked +over; ran aft and leaned over her taffrail; ran forward and peered over +her bows. Her counter was too short to conceal a man, and her stem had +absolutely no overhang at all; yet no man was to be seen, nor boat nor +sign of a man. I tried the companion: it was covered and padlocked. +The sail-hatch and fore-hatch were also fastened and padlocked, and the +skylights covered with tarpaulin and screwed firmly down. A mouse could +not have found its way below, except perhaps by the stove-pipe or the +pipe leading down to the chain-locker. + +I was no believer in ghosts, but I had to hit on some theory there and +then. My nerves had been out of order for a month or two, and the long +railway journey must have played havoc with them. The whole thing was a +hallucination. So I told myself while pulling the coverings off the +skylights, but somehow got mighty little comfort out of it; and I will +not deny that I fumbled a bit with the padlock on the main hatchway, or +that I looked down a second time before setting foot on the companion +ladder. + +She was a sweet ship; and the air below, though stuffy, had no taste of +bilge in it. I explored main cabin, sleeping cabins, forecastle. +The movable furniture had been taken ashore, as I had been told; but the +fixtures were in good order, the decorations in good taste. Not a panel +had shrunk or warped, nor could I find any leakage. At the same time I +could find no evidence that she had been visited lately by man or ghost. +The only thing that seemed queer was the inscription "29.56" on the beam +in the forecastle. It certainly struck me that the surveyor must have +under-registered her, but for the moment I thought little about it. + +Passing back through the main cabin I paused to examine one or two of +the fittings--particularly a neat glass-fronted bookcase, with a small +sideboard below it, containing three drawers and a cellaret. +The bookcase was empty and clean swept; so also were the drawers. +At the bottom of the cellaret I found a couple of flags stowed--a +tattered yellow quarantine-signal tightly rolled into a bundle, and a +red ensign neatly folded. As I lifted out the latter, there dropped +from its folds and fell upon the cabin floor--a book. + +I picked it up--a thin quarto bound in black morocco, and rather the +worse for wear. On its top side it bore the following inscription in +dingy gilt letters:-- + + JOB'S HOTEL, PENLEVEN, + + VISITORS' BOOK. + + J. JOB, _Proprietor_. + +Standing there beneath the skylight I turned its pages over, wondering +vaguely how the visitors' book of a small provincial hotel had found its +way into that drawer. It contained the usual assortment of conventional +praise and vulgar jocosity:-- + + _Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Smith of Huddersfield, + cannot speak too highly of Mrs. Job's ham and + eggs.--September 15, 1881_. + + _Arrived wet through after a 15-mile tramp + along the coast; but thanks to Mr. and Mrs. + Job were soon steaming over a comfortable + fire.--John and Annie Watson, March, 1882._ + +Note appended by a humorist: + + _Then you sat on the hob, I suppose._ + +There was the politely patronising entry: + + _Being accustomed to Wolverhampton, I am + greatly pleased with this coast.--F. B. W._ + +The poetical effusion: + + _Majestic spot! Say, doth the sun in heaven + Behold aught to equal thee, wave-washed + Penleven?_ etc. + +Lighter verse: + + _Here I came to take my ease, + Agreeably disappointed to find no fl-- + Mrs. Job, your bread and butter + Is quite too utterly, utterly utter!_ + + _J. Harper, June 3rd, 1883._ + +The contemplative man's ejaculation: + + _It is impossible, on viewing these Cyclopean cliffs, + to repress the thought, How great is Nature, + how little Man!_ + (A note: _So it is, old chap!_ and a reproof + in another hand: _Shut up! can't you see + he's suffering?)_ + +The last entry was a brief one: + + _J. MacGuire, Liverpool. September 2nd, 1886._ + +Twilight forced me to close the book and put it back in its place. +As I did so, I glanced up involuntarily towards the skylight, as if I +half expected to find a pair of eyes staring down on me. Yet the book +contained nothing but these mere trivialities. Whatever my +apprehension, I was (as "J. Harper" would have said) "agreeably +disappointed." I climbed on deck again, relocked the hatch, replaced +the tarpaulins, jumped into the boat and rowed homewards. Though the +tide favoured me, it was dark before I reached Mr. Dewy's quay-door. +Having, with some difficulty, found the frape, I made the boat fast. +I groped my way across his back premises and out into the gaslit street; +and so to the Ship Inn, a fair dinner, and a sound night's sleep. + +At ten o'clock next morning I called on Messrs. Dewy and Moss. +Again Mr. Dewy received me, and again he apologised for the absence of +his partner, who had caught an early train to attend a wrestling match +at the far end of the county. Mr. Dewy showed me the sails, gear, +cushions, etc., of the _Siren_--everything in surprising condition. +I told him that I meant business, and added-- + +"I suppose you have all the yacht's papers?" + +He stroked his chin, bent his head to one side, and asked, "Shall you +require them?" + +"Of course," I said; "the transfer must be regular. We must have her +certificate of registry, at the very least." + +"In that case I had better write and get them from my client." + +"Is she not a resident here?" + +"I don't know," he said, "that I ought to tell you. But I see no harm-- +you are evidently, sir, a _bona fide_ purchaser. The lady's name is +Carlingford--a widow--residing at present in Bristol." + +"This is annoying," said I; "but if she lives anywhere near the Temple +Mead Station, I might skip a train there and call on her. She herself +desired no delay, and I desire it just as little. But the papers are +necessary." + +After some little demur, he gave me the address, and we parted. +At the door I turned and asked, "By the way, who was the fellow on board +the _Siren_ last night as I rowed up to her?" + +He gave me a stare of genuine surprise. "A man on board? Whoever he +was, he had no business there. I make a point of looking after the +yacht myself." + +I hurried to the railway station. Soon after six that evening I knocked +at Mrs. Carlingford's lodgings in an unattractive street of Bedminster, +that unattractive suburb. A small maid opened the door, took my card, +and showed me into a small sitting-room on the ground floor. I looked +about me--a round table, a horsehair couch, a walnut sideboard with +glass panels, a lithograph of John Wesley being rescued from the flames +of his father's rectory, a coloured photograph-- + +As the door opened behind me and a woman entered, I jumped back almost +into her arms. The coloured photograph, staring at me from the opposite +wall above the mantelshelf, was a portrait--a portrait of the man I had +seen on board the _Siren!_ + +"Who is that?" I demanded, wheeling round without ceremony. + +But if I was startled, Mrs. Carlingford seemed ready to drop with +fright. The little woman--she was a very small, shrinking creature, +with a pallid face and large nervous eyes--put out a hand against the +jamb of the door, and gasped out-- + +"Why do you ask? What do you want?" + +"I beg your pardon," I said; "it was merely curiosity. I thought I had +seen the face somewhere." + +"He was my husband." + +"He is dead, then?" + +"Oh, why do you ask? Yes; he died abroad." She touched her widow's cap +with a shaking finger, and then covered her face with her hands. +"I was there--I saw it. Why do you ask?" she repeated. + +"I beg your pardon sincerely," I said; "it was only that the portrait +reminded me of somebody--But my business here is quite different. +I am come about the yacht _Siren_ which you have advertised for sale." + +She seemed more than ever inclined to run. Her voice scarcely rose +above a whisper. + +"My agents at F-- have full instructions about the sale." + +"Yes, but they tell me you have the papers. I may say that I have seen +the yacht and gear and am ready to pay the price you ask for immediate +possession. I said as much to Mr. Dewy. But the papers, of course--" + +"Are they necessary?" + +"Certainly they are. At least the certificate of registry or, failing +that, some reference to the port of registry, if the transfer is to be +made. I should also like to see her warrant if she has one, and her +sailmaker's certificate. Messrs. Dewy and Moss could draw up the +inventory." + +She still hesitated. At length she said, "I have the certificate; I +will fetch it. The other papers, if she had any, have been lost or +destroyed. She never had a warrant. I believe my husband belonged to +no Yacht Club. I understand very little of these matters." + +She left the room, and returned in five minutes or so with the open +document in her hand. + +"But," said I, looking over it, "this is a certificate of a vessel +called the _Wasp_." + +"Ah, I must explain that. I wished the boat to change her name with the +new owner. Her old name--it has associations--painful ones--I should +not like anyone else to know her as the _Wasp_." + +"Well," I admitted, "I can understand that. But, see here, she is +entered as having one mast and carrying a cutter rig." + +"She was a cutter originally. My husband had her lengthened, in 1886, I +think by five feet, and turned her into a yawl. It was abroad, at +Malaga--" + +"A curious port to choose." + +"She was built, you see, as long ago as 1875. My husband used to say +she was a broad boat for those days, and could be lengthened +successfully and turned into quite a new-looking vessel. He gave her an +entirely new sheathing, too, and all her spars are new. She was not +insured, and, being in a foreign port, it was understood he would have +her newly registered when he returned, which he fully intended. +So no alterations were made in the certificate here, and, I believe, her +old tonnage is still carved up somewhere inside her." + +This was true enough. The figures on the certificate, 29.56, were those +I had seen on the beam in the forecastle. + +"My husband never lived to reach England, and when she came back to F--, +though she was visited, of course, by the Custom House officer and +coastguard, nobody asked for her certificate, and so the alterations in +her were never explained. She was laid up at once in the F-- River, and +there she has remained." + +Certain structural peculiarities in the main cabin--scarcely noted at +the time, but now remembered--served to confirm Mrs. Carlingford's +plainly told story. On my return to London that night I hunted up some +back volumes of Hunt, and satisfied myself on the matter of the _Wasp_ +and her owner, William Carlingford. And, to be short, the transfer was +made on a fresh survey, the cheque sent to Mrs. Carlingford, and the +yawl _Siren_ passed into my hands. + +All being settled, I wrote to my old acquaintance, Mr. Dewy, asking him +to fit the vessel out, and find me a steady skipper and crew--not +without some apprehension of hearing by return of post that Dewy and +Moss were ready and willing to sign articles with me to steer and sail +the yacht in their spare moments. Perhaps the idea did not occur to +them. At any rate they found me a crew, and a good one; and I spent a +very comfortable three months, cruising along the south-western coast, +across to Scilly, from Scilly to Cork and back to Southampton, where on +September 29, 1891, I laid the yacht up for the winter. + +Thrice since have I applied to Messrs. Dewy and Moss for a crew, and +always with satisfactory results. But I must pass over 1892 and 1893 +and come to the summer of 1894; or, to be precise, to Wednesday, the +11th of July. We had left Plymouth that morning for a run westward; +but, the wind falling light towards noon, we found ourselves drifting, +or doing little more, off the entrance of the small fishing haven of +Penleven. Though I had never visited Penleven I knew, on the evidence +of many picture-shows, that the place was well worth seeing. +Besides, had I not the assurances of the Visitors' Book in my cabin? +It occurred to me that I would anchor for an hour or two in the entrance +of the haven, and eat my lunch ashore at Mr. Job's hotel. Mr. Job would +doubtless be pleased to recover his long-lost volume, and I had no more +wish than right to retain it. + +Job's hotel was unpretending. Mrs. Job offered me ham and eggs and, as +an alternative, a cut off a boiled silver-side of beef, if I did not +mind waiting for ten minutes or so, when her husband would be back to +dinner. I said that I would wait, and added that I should be pleased to +make Mr. Job's acquaintance on his return, as I had a trifling message +for him. + +About ten minutes later, while studying a series of German lithographs +in the coffee-room, I heard a heavy footstep in the passage and a knock +at the door; and Mr. Job appeared, a giant of a man, with a giant's +girth and red cheeks, which he sufflated as a preliminary of speech. + +"Good day, Mr. Job," said I. "I won't keep you from your dinner, but +the fact is, I am the unwilling guardian of a trifle belonging to you." +And I showed him the Visitors' Book. + +I thought the man would have had an apoplectic fit there on the spot. +He rolled his eyes, dropped heavily upon a chair, and began to breathe +hard and short. + +"Where--where--?" he gasped, and began to struggle again for breath. + +I said, "For some reason or other the sight of this book distresses you, +and I think you had better not try to speak for a bit. I will tell you +exactly how the book came into my possession, and afterwards you can let +me have your side of the story, if you choose." And I told him just +what I have told the reader. + +At the conclusion, Mr. Job loosed his neckcloth and spoke-- + +"That book, sir, ought to be lyin' at the bottom of the sea. It was +lost on the evening of September the 3rd, 1886, on board a yacht that +went down with all hands. Now I'll tell you all about it. There was a +gentleman called Blake staying over at Port William that summer--that's +four miles up the coast, you know." + +I nodded. + +". . . staying with his wife and one son, a tall young fellow, aged +about twenty-one, maybe. They came from Liverpool--and they had a yacht +with them, that they kept in Port William harbour, anchored just below +the bridge. She would be about thirty tons--a very pretty boat. +They had only one hired hand for crew; used to work her themselves for +the most part; the lady was extraordinary clever at the helm, or at the +sheets either. Very quiet people they were. You might see them most +days that summer, anchored out on the whiting grounds. What was she +called? The _Queen of Sheba_--cutter-rigged-quite a new boat. +It was said afterwards that the owner, Mr. Blake, designed her himself. +She used often to drop anchor off Penleven. Know her? Why of course +I'd know her; 'specially considerin' what happened. + +"'What was that?' A very sad case; it made a lot of talk at the time. +One day--it was the third of September, '86--Mr. and Mrs. Blake and the +son, they anchored off the haven and came up here to tea. I supposed at +the time they'd left their paid hand, Robertson, on board; but it turned +out he was left home at Port William that day, barkin' a small mainsail +that Mr. Blake had bought o' purpose for the fishin'. Well, Mrs. Blake +she ordered tea, and while my missus was layin' the cloth young Mr. +Blake he picks up that very book, sir, that was lyin' on the sideboard, +and begins readin' it and laffin'. My wife, she goes out of the room +for to cut the bread-and-butter, and when she comes back there was the +two gentlemen by the window studyin' the book with their backs to the +room, and Mrs. Blake lyin' back in the chair I'm now sittin' on, an' her +face turned to the wall--so. The young Mr. Blake he turns round and +says, 'This here's a very amusin' book, Mrs. Job. Would you mind my +borrowing it for a day or two to copy out some of the poetry? +I'll bring it back next time we put into Penleven.' Of course my wife +says, 'No, she didn't mind.' Then the elder Mr. Blake he says, +'I see you had a visitor here yesterday--a Mr. MacGuire. Is he in the +house?' My wife said, 'No; the gentleman had left his traps, but he'd +started that morning to walk to Port William to spend the day.' +Nothing more passed. They had their tea, and paid for it, and went off +to their yacht. I saw that book in the young man's hand as he went down +the passage. + +"Well, sir, it was just dusking in as they weighed and stood up towards +Port William, the wind blowing pretty steady from the south'ard. +At about ten minutes to seven o'clock it blew up in a sudden little +squall--nothing to mention; the fishing-boats just noticed it, and that +was all. But it was reckoned that squall capsized the _Queen of Sheba_. +She never reached Port William, and no man ever clapped eyes on her +after twenty minutes past six, when Dick Crego declares he saw her off +the Blowth, half-way towards home, and going steady under all canvas. +The affair caused a lot of stir, here and at Port William, and in the +newspapers. Short-handed as they were, of course they'd no business to +carry on as they did--'specially as my wife declares from her looks that +Mrs. Blake was feelin' faint afore they started. She always seemed to +me a weak, timmersome woman at the best; small and ailin' to look at." + +"And Mr. Blake?" + +"Oh, he was a strong-made gentleman: tall, with a big red beard." + +"The son?" + +"Took after his father, only he hadn't any beard; a fine upstanding +pair." + +"And no trace was ever found of them?" + +"Not a stick nor a shred." + +"But about this Visitors' Book? You'll swear they took it with them? +See, there's not a stain of salt-water upon it." + +"No, there isn't; but I'll swear young Mr. Blake had it in his hand as +he went from my door." + +I said, "Mr. Job, I've kept you already too long from your dinner. +Go and eat, and ask them to send in something for me. Afterwards, I +want you to come with me and take a look at my yacht, that is lying just +outside the haven." + +As we started from the shore Mr. Job, casting his eyes over the _Siren_, +remarked, "That's a very pretty yawl of yours, sir." As we drew nearer, +he began to eye her uneasily. + +"She has been lengthened some five or six feet," I said; "she was a +cutter to begin with." + +"Lord help us!" then said Mr. Job, in a hoarse whisper. "She's the +_Queen of Sheba_. I'd swear to her run anywhere--ay, or to that queer +angle of her hawse-holes." + +A close examination confirmed Mr. Job that my yacht was no other than +the lost _Queen of Sheba_, lengthened and altered in rig. It persuaded +me, too. I turned back to Plymouth, and, leaving the boat in +Cattewater, drove to the Millbay Station and took a ticket for Bristol. +Arriving there just twenty-four hours after my interview with Mr. Job, I +made my way to Mrs. Carlingford's lodgings. + +She had left them two years before; nothing was known of her +whereabouts. The landlady could not even tell me whether she had moved +from Bedminster: And so I had to let the matter rest. + +But just fourteen days ago I received the following letter, dated from a +workhouse in one of the Midland counties:-- + + + "DEAR SIR,--I am a dying woman, and shall probably be dead before + this reaches you. The doctor says he cannot give me forty-eight + hours. It is _angina pectoris_, and I suffer horribly at times. + The yacht you purchased of me is not the _Wasp_, but the _Queen of + Sheba_. My husband designed her. He was a man of some property + near Limerick; and he and my son were involved in some of the + Irish troubles between 1881 and 1884. It was said they had joined + one of the brotherhoods, and betrayed their oaths. This I am sure + was not true. But it is certain we had to run for fear of + assassination. After a year in Liverpool we were forced to fly + south to Port William, where we brought the yacht and lived for + some time in quiet, under our own names. But we knew this could + not last, and had taken measures to escape when need arose. + My husband had chanced, while at Liverpool, upon an old yacht, + dismantled and rotting in the Mersey--but of about the same size as + his own and still, of course, upon the register. He bought her + of her owner--a Mr. Carlingford, and a stranger--for a very few + pounds, and with her--what he valued far more--her papers; but he + never completed the transfer at the Custom House. His plan was, if + pressed, to escape abroad, and pass his yacht off as the _Wasp_, and + himself as Mr. Carlingford. All the while we lived at Port William + the _Queen of Sheba_ was kept amply provisioned for a voyage of at + least three weeks, when the necessity overtook us, quite suddenly-- + the name of a man, MacGuire, in the Visitors' Book of a small inn at + Penleven. We left Penleven at dusk that evening, and held steadily + up the coast until darkness. Then we turned the yacht's head, and + ran straight across for Morlaix; but the weather continuing fine for + a good fortnight (our first night at sea was the roughest in all + this time), we changed our minds, cleared Ushant, and held right + across for Vigo; thence, after re-victualling, we cruised slowly + down the coast and through the Straits, finally reaching Malaga. + There we stayed and had the yacht lengthened. My husband had sold + his small property before ever we came to Port William, and had + managed to invest the whole under the name of Carlingford. + There was no difficulty about letters of credit. At each port on the + way we had shown the Wasp's papers, and used the name of + Carlingford; and at Lisbon we read in an English newspaper about the + supposed capsizing of the _Queen of Sheba_. Still, we had not only + to persuade the officials at the various ports that our boat was the + _Wasp_. We knew that our enemies were harder to delude, and our + next step was to make her as unlike the _Wasp_ or the _Queen of + Sheba_ as possible. This we did by lengthening her and altering her + rig. But it proved useless, as I had always feared it would. + The day after we sailed from Malaga, a Spanish-speaking seaman, whom + we had hired there as extra hand, came aft as if to speak to my + husband (who stood at the wheel), and, halting a pace or two from + him, lifted a revolver, called him by name, and shot him dead. + Before he could turn, my son had knocked him senseless, and in + another minute had tumbled him overboard. We buried my husband + in the sea, next day. We held on, we two alone, past Gibraltar-- + I steering and my son handling all the sails--and ran up for Cadiz. + There we made deposition of our losses, inventing a story to account + for them, and my son took the train for Paris, for we knew that our + enemies had tracked the yacht, and there would be no escape for him + if he clung to her. I waited for six days, and then engaged a crew + and worked the yacht back to F--. I have never since set eyes on my + son; but he is alive, and his hiding is known to myself and to one + man only--a member of the brotherhood, who surprised the secret. + To keep that man silent I spent all my remaining money; to quiet him + I had to sell the yacht; and now that money, too, is gone, and I am + dying in a workhouse. God help my son now! I deceived you, and yet + I think I did you no great wrong. The yacht I sold you was my own, + and she was worth the money. The figures on the beam were cut there + by my husband before we reached Vigo, to make the yacht correspond + with the _Wasp's_ certificate. If I have wronged you, I implore + your pardon.--Yours truly, + + "CATHERINE BLAKE." + + +Well, that is the end of the story. It does not, I am aware, quite +account for the figure I saw standing by the _Siren's_ wheel. As for +the _Wasp_, she has long since rotted to pieces on the waters of the +Mersey. But the question is, Have I a right to sell the _Siren?_ +I certainly have a right to keep her, for she is mine, sold to me in due +form by her rightful owner, and honestly paid for. But then I don't +want to keep her! + + + +PARSON JACK'S FORTUNE. + + + +I. + + +From Langona church tower you see nothing of the Atlantic but a wedge +between two cliffs of a sandy creek. The cottages--thirty in all, +perhaps--huddle in a semicircle of the hills about a spring of clear +water, which overflows and leaps as from a platform into the hollow +coombe, its conduit down to the sands. But Langona Church stands out +more boldly, on a high grassy meadow thrust forward like a bastion over +the stream's right flank. It has no tree, no habitation between it and +the ocean: it breaks the northerly gales for the cottages behind and +under its lee, and these gales have given its tamarisk hedge and even +its gravestones so noticeable a slant inland that, by a trick of +eyesight, the church itself seems tilted perilously forward. + +Forward, in fact--that is to say, seaward--the tower does lean; though +but by a foot or so, and now not perilously; the salt winds, impotent +against its masonry, having bitten with more effect into the earth +around its base. But the church has been restored, the mischief +arrested, and the danger no longer haunts its vicar as it haunted the +Rev. John Flood on a bright September morning in 1885. + +He sat on a thyme-covered hummock by the valley stream, with knees drawn +up and palms pressed against his aching head: sat as he had been sitting +for half an hour past, a shovel beside him and an empty sack, which he +had brought down to fill with clean river-sand. A chaffinch, fresh from +his bath, flitted incessantly between the rail of the footbridge, a +dozen yards below, and the boughs of a tamarisk beside it. He paid no +attention to Parson Jack. Few living creatures ever did. + +Even his parishioners--those who knew of it--felt no great concern that +Parson Jack had been drunk again last night. There was no harm in the +man. "He had this failing, to be sure: with a little liquor he talked +silly, though not so silly as you might suppose. Let him alone, and +he'll find his way home somehow. Scandalous? Oh, no doubt! But you +might easily go farther and find a worse parson than Flood." + +It never occurred to them that he felt any special remorse. His agonies +were private, and his chance of redemption lay in this, that they +neither ceased nor eased with time; perhaps in this, too, that he wasted +no breath in apologetics or self-pity, but blamed himself squarely like +a man. + +Yet a sentimentalist in his place might have run up a long and tearful +account against Providence, fate, circumstances--whatever +sentimentalists choose to arraign rather than themselves. +Five-and-twenty years before, Jack Flood had been a rowdy +undergraduate of Brasenose College, Oxford; in his third year of +residence, with more than a fair prospect of being ploughed--or, in the +language of that generation, "plucked"--at the end of it; a member of +the Phoenix Wine Club, owner of a brute which he not only called a +"hunter" but made to do duty for one at least twice a week; and debtor +among various Oxford tradesmen to the tune of something like 500 pounds. +At this point his father--a Berkshire rector--died suddenly of a +paralytic stroke, leaving Jack and his elder brother Lionel (then abroad +in the new Indian Civil Service) to realise and divide an estate of 1200 +pounds. + +Six hundred pounds is a fair equipment for starting a young man in life; +but not when he already owes five hundred, and has few brains, no +decided bent, and only a little of the most useless learning. +Jack surrendered two-thirds of his patrimony to his pressing creditors, +sold his hunter, read hard for a term, scrambled into his degree, and +was received, a month or two later, into Holy Orders. His father had +sent him to Brasenose College as a step to this, and Jack had looked +forward to being a parson some day--a sporting parson, be it understood. + +For the moment, however, he was almost penniless; and he had answered in +vain some dozen advertisements of curacies, when a college friend came +to the rescue and prevailed on a distant kinsman to offer him the living +of Langona, with a net annual stipend of 51 pounds eighteen shillings +and sixpence. There are such "livings." + +It was offered, of course, and accepted, merely as a stopgap. +But twenty-five years had passed, and at Langona Parson Flood remained. +It had cost him twenty of these to wipe off his Oxford debts, with +interest; but he had managed to retain the small remnant of his capital, +and this with his benefice yielded an income better than a day +labourer's. That he was still a bachelor goes without saying. +In the summer he fished; in the winter he followed, afoot, a pack of +harriers kept by his patron, Sir Harry Vyell of Carwithiel. These were +his recreations. He could not afford to travel, and cared little for +reading. His library consisted of his Bible, two or three small +Divinity Handbooks, a _Pickwick, Stonehenge on the Dog_, and a couple of +"Handley Cross" novels, with coloured illustrations by John Leech. +Twice a year or thereabouts a letter reached him from his brother in +Calcutta, who was apparently prospering, and had a wife and three +children--though for some years the letters had brought no news of them. + +"Something was wrong," Parson Jack decided after a while, finding that +his messages to them met with no answer; and he felt a delicacy in +asking questions. He believed that the children had been sent home to +England--he did not know where--and would have liked to pay them a +visit. But for him a journey was out of the question. So he lived on, +alone and forgotten. + +On Sundays he wore a black suit, which had lasted him for ten years, and +would have to last for another five at least. On week-days he dressed +in blue guernsey and corduroys, and smoked a clay pipe. His +broad-brimmed clerical hat alone distinguished him from the +farm-labourers in his parish; but when at work upon the church--patching +its shingle roof, or pouring mortar into its gaping wounds--he discarded +this for a maroon-coloured cap, not unlike a biretta, which offered less +surface to the high winds. + +He knew nothing of architecture: could not, in fact, distinguish Norman +work from Perpendicular; and at first had taken to these odd jobs of +masonry as a handy way of killing time. He had wit enough, however, to +learn pretty soon that the whole fabric was eaten with rot and in danger +from every gale; and by degrees (he could not explain how) the ruin had +set up a claim on him. In his worst dreams he saw it toppling, falling; +during the winter gales he lay awake listening, imagining the throes and +shudders of its old beams, and would be abroad before daybreak, waiting +for the light to assure him that it yet stood. A casual tourist, +happening on him at work, some summers before, had mistaken him for a +hired mason, and discoursed learnedly on the beauties of the edifice and +the pity of its decay. "That's a vile job you have in hand, my friend-- +a bit of sheer vandalism," said the tourist; "but I suppose the Parson +who employs you knows no better." Parson Jack had been within an ace of +revealing himself, but now changed his mind and asked humbly enough what +was amiss. Whereupon the tourist pulled out a pencil and an old +envelope, and explained. "But there," he broke off, "it would take me a +week to go into these matters, and you a deal longer to understand. +I'd enjoy twenty minutes' talk with your Parson. The church wants +restoration from beginning to end, and by a first-class man. +It deserves no less, for it's interesting throughout; in some points +unique." "That would cost money now?" suggested Parson Jack, pitching +his voice to the true Langona sing-song. "Two thousand pounds would go +a long way."--The tourist scanned the waggon-roof critically, and +lowering his eyes, at length observed the Parson's smile. "Ah, I see! a +sum that would take some collecting hereabouts. Parson's none too well +off, eh?" "Fifty pounds a year or so." "Scandalous! Who's the lay +impropriator?" He was told. "Well, but wouldn't he help?" Parson Jack +shook his head; he had never asked a penny from Sir Harry Vyell, who was +a notorious Gallio in all that concerned religion. He had a further +reason, too. He suspected that Sir Harry chafed a little in a careless +way at his continuing to hold the living, and would be glad to see him +replaced by an incumbent with private means and no failings to be +apologised for with a shrug of the shoulders. Sir Harry, he knew, was +aware of these hateful lapses, though too delicate to allude to them, +and far too charitable to use them (unless under compulsion) as a lever +for getting rid of him. And this knowledge was perhaps the worst of his +shame. Yet what could he do? since to surrender Langona was to starve. +"Your Parson might at least make a beginning," pursued the tourist. +"A box, now, inviting donations--that would cost nothing, and might +relieve a visitor here and there of a spare sovereign. He could put up +a second box for himself: it's quite a usual thing in churches when the +parish priest is poor. You might make the suggestion, if he's not too +proud." + +"I will," said Parson Jack, and after the tourist had gone he thought +much of these two boxes. Indeed, he made and fixed up the first that +same week, though he labelled it "For Church Repairs," fighting shy of +"Restoration" as too magniloquent. The second cost him long searchings +of heart, and he walked over and laid the case before Parson Kendall, +Rector of the near parish of St. Cadox, a good Christian and a good +fellow, with whom he sometimes smoked a pipe. "Why not?" answered +Parson Kendall; "it's the most ordinary thing in the world." "But Sir +Harry may not like it." The Rector chuckled. "If he doesn't, he'll +consult me; and I shall ask him why he hunts a pack by subscription." + +So the second box was nailed beside the first, and excited little +discussion. Indeed, the pair hung in so obscure a corner--behind the +font--that at the first service only Parson Jack and the Widow Copping +were aware of them. The Parson stumbled and hesitated so badly over the +prayers that one or two worshippers felt sure he had been drinking; +which was not the fact. The Widow Copping took no interest in +collecting-boxes; and, besides, she could not read. So the innovation +missed fire. Moreover, it suggested neither popery nor priestcraft, and +only a fool would suspect Parson Flood of either. + +The "Parson's Box" remained, provoking no criticism. He himself had a +little plan for its contents. He would spend the money on a journey to +his nephew and nieces, if they were anywhere in England. He would find +out. There was no hurry, he told himself, with a queer smile. + +There was not. The box provoked neither ill-criticism nor effusive +charity. On Trinity Sunday, when he opened it and counted out one +shilling in silver and sevenpence in coppers, Parson Jack pulled a wry +face and then laughed aloud. + + + +II. + + +_Toot--toot--toot!_ + +The postman's horn in the village street above him shook the Parson out +of his idleness, if not out of his dark thoughts. He sprang up, gripped +his shovel, and began spading the white river-sand into his sack. + +"It is useless, after all," said he to himself. "The crack on the south +of the tower stands still, but the smaller and more dangerous one--the +one on the weather side--is widening fast. This winter, even, may +finish matters." + +He took up a few more shovelfuls. "Anyhow, it will not last my time; +and since it will not--" He paused, as a thought rose before him like a +blank wall. If the church fell--nay, _when_ it fell--this comrade which +had taken possession of his purposes, his fears, his fate--this +enigmatic building of which he knew neither the history nor the +founder's name, but only its wounds--why, then his occupation was gone! +He might outlive it for years, perhaps a third of a lifetime; but he had +no hopes beyond. In imagination he saw it fall, and after that-- +nothing. And he laughed--not the laugh with which he had counted out +the money in his collecting-box, but one of sheer self-contempt, and +passing bitter. + +The impression had been so sharp that he flung a glance up at the grey +tower topping the grey-green rise; and with that was aware of the +postman swinging, with long strides, down the slope towards him. + +He turned in confusion and resumed his shovelling. Why was the man +coming this way, by a path out of his daily beat? Parson Jack stooped +over his work. He wished to avoid greeting him. There was talk, no +doubt, up at the village. . . . + +But the postman was not to be denied. He stopped and hailed across the +stream. + +"Hulloa, Parson! I've just left a letter for you up at the Parsonage: a +long blue letter, and important, by the look of it, with a seal--a man's +hand coming out of a castle. Do you know it?" + +"No," answered Parson Jack. "Did you come out of your way to tell me +this?" + +"Not quite; though I'd do as much for 'ee any day, out of friendliness. +But, tell 'ee the truth, I was sent to seek you with a message." + +"A message?" + +"Sir Harry has ridden over from Carwithiel, and wants you up to church. +He's there waitin' with his nephew, a narra-chested slip of a chap with +a square-cut collar and a Popish sort of face." + +Parson Jack lifted his shovel and passed his palm over its blade, which +the sand had already polished. "Thank you," said he, "I'll be going at +once." + +But he made no motion to start while the postman stood eyeing him. +A sudden selfish fear paralysed him. Had Sir Harry heard? And was this +the end of his patron's forbearance? No; the news could not have +reached Carwithiel so quickly. He had no enemy to arise early and carry +it; to no living creature were even his follies of such importance. + +"Don't forget your letter," the postman reminded him, moving off towards +the foot-bridge. + +Parson Jack watched him as he crossed it, and until he had scaled the +western slope and disappeared over its shoulder. Then, kneeling by the +stream, he dipped his head, and let the icy water run past his temples. +When he raised it again his plain face was glowing, for hard fare and +life in the open weather kept his complexion clear and ruddy. But the +hand gripping the sack on his shoulder shook as he climbed the hill. + +By the lych-gate he found two saddle-horses tethered, and just outside +the porch stood Sir Harry Vyell--a strikingly handsome man with a +careless thoroughbred look; in fact, well over sixty, but apparently ten +years younger. By habit he dressed well, and was scrupulously careful +of his person; by habit, too, he remained sweet of temper and kindly of +speech. But beneath this mask of habit the heart had withered, a while +ago, to dust, and lay in the grave of his only son. + +"Ah? Good morning, Flood!" cried Sir Harry genially. Parson Jack, +reassured, felt the colour rushing into his face. "I've brought over my +nephew Clem to introduce to you--he's in Orders, you know--scholar of +Balliol, Fellow of All Souls, and what not. High Anglican, too--he'll +be a bishop one of these days, if money doesn't make him lazy. +He's inside, dancing with delight in front of your chancel-screen--or, +rather, the remains of it. Church architecture is his craze just now-- +that and Church History. Between ourselves"--Sir Harry glanced over his +shoulder--"he has a bee or two in his bonnet; but that's as it should +be. Every lad at his age wants to eat up the world." + +Parson Jack could remember no such ambition. They passed into the +church together. + +Now the surprise which awaits you in Langona Church is its chancel, +which stands high above the level of the nave, and, rising suddenly +beneath a fine Early English arch, carries the eye upward to the altar +with a strange illusion of distance. Even in those days the first +impression was one of rare, almost singular, beauty--an impression lost +in a series of small pangs as your eye rested on the ruinous details one +by one. For of the great screen nothing remained but two tall uprights, +surmounted by hideous knops--the addition of some local carpenter. +Between the lozenge-shaped shafts of the choir arches, the worm-riddled +parclose screens dripped sawdust in little heaps. Down in the nave, +bench-ends leaned askew or had been broken up, built as panels into deal +pews, and daubed with paint; the floor was broken and ran in uneven +waves; the walls shed plaster, and a monstrous gallery blocked the +belfry arch. Upon this gallery Parson Jack had spent most of his +careful, unsightly carpentry, for the simple reason that it had been +unsafe; and, for the simple reason that they had let in the rain, he had +provided half a dozen windows with new panes, solid enough, but in +appearance worthy only to cover cucumbers. + +As he entered with Sir Harry, the Rev. Clement Vyell swung round upon +him eagerly, but paused with a just perceptible start at sight of his +unclerical garb. + +"Let me introduce you, Clem. This is Mr. Flood." + +Parson Jack bowed, and let his eyes travel around the church, which he +had often enough pitied, but of which he now for the first time felt +ashamed. + +"We're in a sad mess, I'm afraid," he muttered. + +"It's most interesting, nevertheless," Clement Vyell answered. He was a +thin-faced youth with a high pedagogic voice. "Better a church in this +condition than one restored out of all whooping--though I read on the +box yonder that you are collecting towards a restoration." + +Parson Jack blushed hotly. + +"You have made a start, eh? What are your funds in hand?" + +"Two pounds four shillings--as yet." + +Sir Harry laughed outright; and after a moment Parson Jack laughed too-- +he could not help it. But Clement Vyell frowned, having no sense of +humour. + +"I patch it up, you know--after a fashion." Parson Jack's tone was +humble enough and propitiatory; nevertheless, he glanced at his +handiwork with something like pride. "The windows, for instance--" + +The younger man turned with a shudder. "I suppose now," he said +abruptly, staring up at an arch connecting the choir-stalls with the +southern transept, "this bit of Norman work will be as old as anything +you have?" + +That it was Norman came as news to Parson Jack. He, too, stared up at +it, resting a palm on a crumbling bench-end. + +"Well," said he ingenuously, "I'm no judge of these things, you know; +but I always supposed the tower was the oldest bit." + +He broke off in confusion--not at his speech, but because Clement +Vyell's eyes were resting on the back of his hand, which shook with a +tell-tale palsy. + +"The tower," said the young man icily, "is Perpendicular, and later than +1412, at all events, when a former belfry fell in, destroyed the nave, +and cracked the pavement, as you see. All this is matter of record, as +you may learn, sir, from the books which, I feel sure, my uncle will be +pleased to lend you. I need not ask, perhaps, if in the course of +your--ah--excavations you have come on any traces of the original +pre-Augustine Oratory, or of the conventual buildings which existed here +till, we are told, the middle of the thirteenth century." + +He turned away, obviously expecting no answer, addressed himself +henceforward to Sir Harry, and ignored Parson Jack, who followed him +abashed, yet secretly burning to hear more, and wondering where all this +knowledge could be obtained. + +"But it is inconceivable!" Clement Vyell protested to his uncle, half an +hour later, as they rode back towards Carwithiel. "The man has had the +cure of that parish for--how long, do you say?--twenty-five years, and +has never had the curiosity to discover the most rudimentary facts in +its history." + +"A hard case," assented Sir Harry. "He lifts his elbow, too." + +"Eh?" + +"Drinks." Sir Harry illustrated the idiom, lifting an imaginary glass +to his mouth. "Oh, it's notorious. But what the deuce can we do? +Kick him out?--not so easy; and, besides, he'd die under a hedge. +You're hard on him, Clem. He has his notions of duty. Why"--the +Baronet laughed--"I've seen him on the roof with a tar-bucket, caulking +the leaks for dear life. He's a gentleman, too." + +Clement Vyell tightened his lips and rode on in silence. + + +Left alone, Parson Jack stared around his church. His repairs, in which +he had taken pride before now, seemed nakedly, hideously mean at this +moment. But a new sense fought with his dejection--a sense altogether +new to him--that his church had a history, a meaning into which he had +never penetrated. The aisles seemed to expand, the chancel to reach up +into a distance in which space and time were confused; and, following +it, his eye rested on a patch of colour in the east window between the +wooden tablets of the Law--a cluster of fragments of stained glass, +rescued by some former vicar and set amid the clear panes--the legs and +scarlet robe of a saint, an angel's wing, a broken legend on a scroll, +part of a coat-of-arms, azure with a fesse,--wavy of gold--all thrown +together as by a kaleidoscope gone mad. Each of these scraps had once a +meaning: so this church held meanings, too long ignored by him, partly +intelligible yet, soon to be mixed inextricably in a common downfall. +For Clement Vyell might be wise in the history of architecture, but his +eye had not read the one plain warning which stared a common workman in +the face--that the days of this building were surely numbered, and were +probably few. + +Parson Jack had a mind to run after him. He must learn, and speedily, +all about the church, its builders, this old colony of monks. +But where? In books doubtless. Where could those books be found? + +He had almost reached the door, when his eye fell on the two +collecting-boxes. With a sudden thought he paused, drew a key from the +pocket of his corduroys, and unlocked his own--the Parson's box. +A sovereign lay within. + +He picked up the coin and considered it, a dark flush growing on his +face. Parson Jack had a temper, though few guessed it. With an effort +he controlled it now, dropped the sovereign into the box labelled +"Church Repairs," and walked slowly out. + +He had no longer a mind to run after Clement Vyell. Instead, he bent +his steps towards the four-roomed cottage which he called the Parsonage +and found too large for his needs. + +On the sitting-room table lay a letter, in a large blue envelope with a +red seal. + + + +III. + + +That same day, and soon after three o'clock in the afternoon, Parson +Jack knocked at the door of St. Cadox Rectory. + +The Rector, a widower, usually ate his dinner in the middle of the day, +and immediately afterwards retired to his study (with a glass of hot +brandy-and-water), presumably to meditate. At Parson Jack's entrance he +started up from his arm-chair with a flushed face and a somewhat +incoherent greeting, in the middle of which he suddenly observed that +his friend's face, too, was agitated. + +"But what brings you? Nothing wrong, I hope?" + +"No--o," answered Parson Jack dubiously. Then, "Oh no; on the contrary, +I came to ask if you have any books bearing on this part of the world-- +county histories, ecclesiastical histories, and the like--especially +ecclesiastical histories. I want to read up about Langona." + +The Rector's eyes twinkled. "This is rather sudden, eh?" + +"After five-and-twenty years? I suppose it is." Parson Jack blushed +like a schoolboy; but he laughed, nevertheless, for he held news, and it +bubbled within him. + +"Preparing a lecture?" + +"No; the fact is"--he straightened his face--"I've just learnt of my +brother Lionel's death in India. I've never seen him since we were +boys," he added apologetically. + +"H'm, h'm." The Rector paid his respect to Death in a serious little +cough. "Still, I don't quite understand--" + +"He has left me five thousand pounds." + +"Ah? A very tidy sum--my dear Flood, I congratulate you; with all my +heart I do. You have the prospect now of many happy days." He shook +his friend's hand warmly. "But--excuse me--what has this to do with +reading ecclesiastical history, of Langona or any other place?" + +"Well," Parson Jack answered shyly, sitting down and filling his pipe, +"I thought of restoring the church." + +"My dear fellow, don't be a fool--if I may speak profanely. +Five thousand pounds is a tidy sum, no doubt, in Langona especially. +But you'll be leaving Langona. You can buy yourself a decent little +living, or retire and set up comfortably as a bachelor on two hundred +and fifty pounds a year, with a cob, and a gig as you grow older." + +Parson Jack shook his head. "I've been paying debts all my life, with +the help of Langona," said he, puffing slowly. "And now I see that I +owe the place repayment. But it isn't _that_ exactly," he went on with +a quickening voice and another of his shy blushes, "and I don't want you +to mistake that for the real reason. The fact is, I'm attached to the +place--to the church especially. It seems a silly thing to say, when I +haven't troubled to learn ten words of its history, and don't know +Norman work from--well, from any but my own." He laughed grimly, biting +on his pipe-stem. "But that can be mended, I suppose--and the old barn +has become a sort of companion--and that's about the long and short of +it." + +The Rector leaned forward and tapped the bowl of his pipe reflectively +on the fender-bars. + +"You are the residuary legatee, I take it. Your brother was unmarried?" + +"Oh dear, no! Lionel was married, and had three children--two girls and +a boy: 'has,' I should say, for I imagine they're all alive--the widow, +too. I don't know where they are. The lawyers merely speak of my five +thousand as a legacy; they say nothing of the rest of the will." + +"That's queer." The Rector reached for his tobacco-jar. + +"Eh? You mean my not knowing the whereabouts of the family? Between +ourselves, I believe there was a screw loose in Lionel's domestic +affairs. I know nothing definite--positively. We corresponded now and +then," continued Parson Jack--"say twice a year--and of late years he +dropped all mention of them, and I gathered that questions were not +wanted. But the wife and children are provided for, you may depend; and +there's the pension." + +"You are not an executor even?" + +"No; it seems there were two; but one died. The survivor, a Major +Bromham, lives in Plymouth--retired, apparently, and I suppose an old +friend of Lionel's. It's through his solicitors that I had the news." + +"And with it the first announcement of your brother's death. It seems +queer to me that this Major Bromham didn't send you a line of his own. +How do the lawyers put it?" + +"Oh, the barest announcement. Here it is; you can read for yourself: +'On the instruction of our client, Major Bromham, late 16th Bengal +Lancers, we have to inform you of the death, by syncope, at Calcutta, on +the 5th of July last, of your brother, Lionel Flood, Esq., late of the +Indian Civil Service, Assistant-Commissioner; and also that by the terms +of his will, executed'--so-and-so--'of which our client is the surviving +executor,' etc.--all precious formal and cold-blooded. No doubt his +death was telegraphed home to the newspapers, and they take it for +granted that I heard or read of it." + +"Perhaps." The Rector rose. "Shall we have a stroll through the +stables? Afterwards you shall have a book or two to carry off." + +"But look here, Kendall; I came to you as a friend, you know. It seems +to me all plain sailing enough. But you seem to imply--" + +"Do I? Then I am doubtless an ass." + +"You think this Major Bromham should have written to me direct--I see +that you do. Well, he lives no farther away than Plymouth. I might run +up and call on him. Why, to be sure"--Parson Jack's brow cleared--"and +he can give me the address of the wife and children." + + + +IV. + + +Parson Jack walked home with a volume of Gilbert's _Survey_ and another +of the _Parochial History of Cornwall_ under his arm, and Parker's +_Glossary_ in his skirt pocket. He began that evening with the +_Parochial History_, article "Langona," and smoked his pipe over it till +midnight in a sort of rapture it would be hard to analyse. In fact, no +doubt it was made up of that childish delight which most men feel on +reading in print what they know perfectly well already. "The eastern +end of the north aisle is used as a vestry, and the eastern end of the +south aisle is impropriated to the church-warden's use." Yes, that was +right. And the inscription on the one marble tablet was correctly +given, and the legend over the south porch: "_Ego sum Janua, per me qui +intrabit Servabitur_" But the delight of recognition was mixed with +that of discovery. The lower part of the tower was Early English, the +upper Perpendicular (a pause here, and a reference to Parker); the nave, +too, Perpendicular. Ah, then, it could only have been the upper part-- +the belfry--which fell in and destroyed the nave. What was the date?-- +1412. And they both had been rebuilt together--on the call of Edmund +Stafford, Bishop of Exeter--in the August of that year. He read on, the +familiar at each step opening new bypaths into the unguessed. But the +delight of delights was to hug, while he read, his purpose to change all +this story of ruin, to give it a new and happier chapter, to stand out +eminent among the forgotten Vicars of Langona. . . . + +The book slid from his knee to the floor with a crash. He picked it up +carefully, turned down the lamp, laughed to himself, and went off to +bed, shivering but happy. + +He awoke to fresh day-dreams. Day-dreams filled the next week with +visions of the church in all its destined beauty. To be sure, they were +extravagant enough, fantasies in which flying buttresses and flamboyant +traceries waltzed around solid Norman and rigid Perpendicular, +nightmares of undigested Parker. But they kept Parson Jack happy. + +He had not forgotten to answer Messrs. Cudmore's letter, thanking them +for their information, and adding that he proposed to pay a visit to +Plymouth, and would call upon Major Bromham, with that gentleman's +leave, and discuss the legacy. They replied that their client was just +then in the north of Devon on a shooting-party, but would return to +Plymouth by an afternoon train on the following Wednesday and grant Mr. +Flood an interview. + +The tone of this letter, as of the previous one, was unmistakably cold, +but Parson Jack read nothing more in it than professional formality. +On the Wednesday, however, when he reached Plymouth, he presented +himself at Messrs. Cudmore's office, and was admitted to see the head of +the firm, the manner of his reception began to puzzle him. + +"Mr.--ah--Flood?" began Mr. Cudmore senior, with the faintest possible +bow. "Our client, Major Bromham, is not returning until late this +afternoon--by the four-forty train, in fact. I myself dictated the +letter in reply to yours, and fancied I had made it explicit." + +"Oh, quite. I called merely in the hope that you would give me some +further information about my brother's will; since, apart from this +legacy, I know nothing." + +"You must excuse me, but I prefer to leave that to the Major. In any +case, the will is to be proved without delay, and may then, as you know, +be inspected for a shilling." + +Parson Jack, guileless man that he was, had a way of putting a straight +question. "I want to know," said he quietly, "why on earth you are +treating me like this?" + +"My dear sir--" began the lawyer. But Parson Jack cut him short. + +"I, for my part, will be plain with you. I ask to see the will simply +because I know nothing of my brother's property, and wish to see how his +wife and children are provided for. There is nothing extraordinary in +that, surely?" + +"H'm"--the lawyer pondered, eyeing him. Clearly there was something in +this shabbily dressed clergyman which countered his expectations. +"The person who could best satisfy you on this point would be Mrs. +Flood herself; but I take it you have no desire to see her personally." + +"Mrs. Flood? Do you mean my brother's wife?" + +"Certainly." + +"But--but is she here--in Plymouth?" Parson Jack's eyes opened wide. + +"I presume so. Hoe Terrace, she informs me, has been her address for +these eight years. But of course you are aware--" + +"Aware, sir? I am aware of nothing. Least of all am I aware of any +reason why I should not call upon her. Hoe Terrace, did you say? +What number?" + +"Thirty-four. You will bear in mind that I have not advised--" + +"Oh, dear me, no; you have advised nothing. Good-morning, Mr. Cudmore!" +And Parson Jack, fuming, found himself in the street. + +He filled and lit his pipe, to soothe his humour. But he forgot that +the clergy of Plymouth do not as a rule smoke clay pipes in the public +streets, and the attention he excited puzzled and angered him yet +further. He set it down to his threadbare coat and rustic boots. +It was in no sweet mood that he strode up Hoe Terrace, eyeing the +numbers above the doors, and halted at length to knock out his pipe +before a house with an unpainted area-railing, to which a small boy in +ragged knickerbockers was engaged in attaching with a string the tail of +a protesting puppy. + +"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said Parson Jack, rapping the bowl +of his pipe against his boot-heel. + +"I don't suppose you would," retorted the small boy. "But then there's +some parsons wouldn't smoke a clay." + +Before Parson Jack could discover a repartee the door opened and a young +man with a weak chin and bright yellow boots came out laughing, followed +by a good-looking girl, who turned on the step to close the door behind +her. Although in black, she was outrageously over-dressed. An enormous +black feather nodded above her "picture" hat, and with one hand she held +up her skirt, revealing a white embroidered petticoat deplorably stained +with mud. + +In the act of turning she caught sight of the small boy, and at once +began to rate him. + +"Haven't I told you fifty times to let that dog alone? Go indoors this +instant and get yourself cleaned! For my part, I don't know what +Tillotson means, letting you out of school so early." + +"I haven't been to school," the boy announced, catching at a dirty sheet +of newspaper which fluttered against the railing, and nonchalantly +folding it into a cocked hat. + +"Your mumps have been all right for a week. There's not the slightest +risk of infection, and you know it. You don't tell me you've persuaded +mother--" + +"I haven't said a word to her," the boy interrupted. "It isn't mumps; +it's these breeches. If you can't find time to darn 'em, I'm not going +to school till somebody can." + +The young man tittered, and the girl--with a toss of her head and a +glance at Parson Jack, who was pretending to tie his boot-lace--accepted +defeat. + +"Where did you pick up that puppy?" asked Parson Jack, after watching +the pair up the street. + +"What's that to you?" + +"Nothing at all; only I'm a judge of wire-haired terriers, and he has a +touch of breed somewhere. Well, if you won't answer that question, I'll +try you with another. Is that Gertrude--or Ada?" He nodded up the +street. + +"That's Ada. Gertrude is indoors, trimming a hat. You seem to know a +heap about us." + +"Not much; but I'm going to call and find out more if I can. You're +Richard, I suppose?" + +"Dick, for short. Ring the bell, if you like, and I'll run round and +open the door. Only don't say I didn't warn you." This sounded like an +absurd echo of the lawyer, and set Parson Jack smiling. "We don't +subscribe to anything, or take any truck in parsons; and the slavey has +a whitlow on her finger, and mother's having fits over the cooking. +But come in, if you want to." + +"Thank you, I will." + +While Parson Jack ascended to the front door and rang at the bell, Dick +skipped down the area steps, and presently opened to him with a mock +start of surprise. "Beg your pardon," said he, "but I took you for the +rates, or the broker's man." He winked as he ushered in the visitor. +The running click of a sewing-machine sounded above stairs, and up from +the basement floated an aroma of fried onions, and filled the passage. + +"First turning to the right!" admonished the boy, and stepping past him, +to the head of the basement stairs, called down: "Mother! I say, +mother, here's a gentleman to see you!" + +"Then," came the answer, "tell Gerty to step down and find out what he +wants. I'm busy." + +Parson Jack discreetly shut the door, and fell to studying the not +over-clean drawing-room, which was tricked out with muslin draperies, +cheap Japanese fans, photographs--mostly of officers in the uniform of +the Royal Marines--and such artistic trifles as painted tambourines, +sabots, drain-pipes, and milking-stools. In one wicker-chair--the +wicker daubed with royal-red enamel--lay a banjo; in another was curled +a sleeping terrier--indubitable mother of the puppy outside. Near the +door stood a piano with a comic opera score on the music-rest, open at +No. 12, "I'm a Cheery Fusileery--O!" and on its rosewood top an ash-tray +full of cigarette-ends and a shaded lamp the base of which needed +wiping. + +The terrier awoke, yawned, and was waddling down from its couch to make +friends, when Master Dick returned. + +"Mother wants to know who you are and what's your business. +Gerty wouldn't come down when she heard you weren't Jack Phillips." + +"Then tell your mother that I am your uncle, John Flood. That will +satisfy her, perhaps." + +"Whe--ew!" Dick took him in from top to toe, in a long incredulous +stare; but turned and went without another word. + +It may have been five minutes before the door opened and Mrs. Flood +entered, with an air nicely balanced between curiosity, _hauteur_, and +injured innocence--a shabby-genteel woman, in a widow's cap and a black +cashmere gown which had been too near the frying-pan. + +"Good morning." + +Mrs. Flood bowed stiffly, not to say stonily, folded her wrists +accurately in front of her, over her waistband, and waited. + +"I am John Flood, you know--poor Lionel's brother. I have just come +from Cudmore & Cudmore's, the solicitors, to talk with you, if I may, +about this will. It seems that I have a legacy, but beyond this I know +nothing, and indeed until Messrs. Cudmore wrote I wasn't even aware of +an illness." + +Mrs. Flood's eyes seemed to answer, if such a thing could be said in a +ladylike way, that he might tell that to the Marines. But, without +relenting their hostility, she took occasion to mop them. + +"It was a cruel will," she murmured. "My husband and I had differences; +in fact, we have lived apart for many years. Still--" She broke off. +"You know, of course, that he went wrong--took to living with natives +and adopted their horrible ways--in the end, I believe, turned Hindu." + +"God bless my soul! But he used to write regularly--up to the end." + +"No doubt." The two words were full of spiteful meaning, though what +that meaning was Parson Jack could not guess. + +"His letters gave no hint of--of this." + +Again Mrs. Flood's bitter smile gave him--politely--the lie. + +"He drank, too," she went on, after a cold pause. "I had always +supposed it was the one thing those natives didn't do. We thought of +contesting the will on the ground of undue influence and his mind being +gone." + +"Did Lionel leave them much, then?" + +"'Them'?" she queried. + +"His friends over there--the natives." + +"He left nothing but this legacy of five thousand pounds, and the +residue in equal shares to his poor family." Here her handkerchief came +into play again. "Only, as it turns out, there isn't any residue-- +scarcely a penny more when all is realised--except the pension, of +course." Unmasking her batteries with sudden spite, she added, "Even +between you I couldn't be robbed of _that!_" + +Parson Jack controlled himself. He was genuinely sorry for the woman. +But either cheek showed a red spot and his voice shook a little as he +answered, "This is a trifle gratuitous, then--your talk about undue +influence." + +"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," replied Mrs. Flood, with a +small and vicious titter; not because she believed him to be guilty or +that it would do any good, but simply because her instinct told her it +would hurt. + +"That seems to close the discussion." Parson Jack bowed with honest, if +clumsy, dignity. "I am sorry, madam, for what you have told me; but my +regrets had better be expressed to Major Bromham." + +"_Regrets_, indeed!" sniffed Mrs. Flood. + +And these were the last words he ever heard from her. A minute later he +found himself in the street, walking towards the Hoe and drawing deep +breaths as his lungs felt the sea-breeze. He had not the least notion +of his direction; but as he went he muttered to himself; and for a +parson's his words sounded deplorably like swearing. + +"Hi! hi!" called a shrill voice behind him. He swung right about and +found himself frowning down upon Master Dick. + +"How did you like it?" inquired that youngster, panting. "She's a +caution, the mater; but it wasn't a patch on what I've heard her promise +to give you if ever she sets eyes on you." + +"Indeed? How do you know, pray?" + +"Why, I listened at the door, of course," was the unabashed reply. +"But I don't believe a word of it, you know," he added reassuringly. + +"A word of what?" + +"That rot about undue influence." + +"I thank you. Did you follow me to tell me this?" + +"Well, I dunno. Yes, I guess I did. You're a white man; I saw that at +once, though you _do_ smoke a clay pipe." + +"Thank you again for the reminder." Parson Jack pulled out his clay and +filled it. "So I'm a white man?" + +Dick nodded. "I'm not saying anything about the legacy. That's hard +lines on us, of course; but I believe you. There's no chance of my +being a gentleman now, like you; but"--with a wry grin--"I'm not the +sort of chap to bear malice." + +They had walked on through the gate leading to the Hoe, and were in full +view now of the splendid panorama of the Sound. + +"And why shouldn't you be a gentleman?" asked Parson Jack, halting and +cocking down an eye upon this queer urchin. + +"Well, there's a goodish bit against it, you'll allow. You saw what +we're like at home." He looked up at Parson Jack frankly enough, but +into his speech there crept a strange embarrassment, too old for his +years. "I mean, you saw enough without my telling you; and I mustn't +give the show away." + +"No, to be sure," assented Parson Jack. "Dick, you've the makings of a +good fellow," he added musingly. + +But the boy's eyes had wandered to the broad sheet of water below. +"Crikey, there she goes!" he cried, and jerked his arm towards an +unwieldy battle-ship nosing her way out of the Hamoaze, her low bows +tracing a thin line of white. For half a minute they stood watching +her. + +"She's ugly enough, in all conscience," commented Parson Jack. + +"She's a holy terror. But perhaps you don't believe in turrets. Nor do +I, to _that_ extent. It's tempting Providence." + +"In what way?" + +"Top-hamper," said Dick shortly. "But she's a terror all the same." + +"What's her name, I wonder?" + +"Sakes! You don't say you don't know the old _Devastation?_ Why, it's +fifteen years or so since they launched her at Portsmouth, and I hear +tell she'll have to be reconstructed, though even then I guess they +won't trust her far at sea. She has no speed, either, for these days. +Oh, she's a holy fraud!" And Master Dick poured in a broadside of +expert criticism as the monster felt her way and slowly headed around +the Winter Buoy into the Smeaton Pass. + +"Nevertheless, you wouldn't object to be on board of her?" + +"Don't!" The boy's eyes had filled on a sudden. "You mayn't mean it, +but it--it hurts." + + +Four hours later, in the early dusk, Parson Jack stepped into the +street, after shaking hands with Major Bromham at the door. What is +more, the Major stood bareheaded in the doorway for some moments, and +stared after him. Dick had echoed Lawyer Cudmore once that day; it was +now the Major's turn to echo Dick. + +"That's a white man," he muttered to himself. "Curiously like his +brother, too--in the days before he went wrong. But Lionel Flood had a +soft strake in him, and India found it out. This parson seems tougher-- +result of hard work and plain living, no doubt." + +His musings at this point grew involved, and he frowned. "Says he knew +nothing of Lionel's affairs--offers to show me all the letters to prove +it; but this behaviour of his is proof enough. Deuced handsome +behaviour, too. I wonder if he can afford it? Gad, what a pack of +falsehoods that woman has poured into me! She always had a gift of +circumstantial lying. I believe, if Lionel had kept a tight rein on her +and shown her the whip now and then--but what's the use of speculating? +Anyway, it's rough on the Parson, and if I hadn't to consider Dick and +the girls--" + + +Dusk had given way to gaslight, and Parson Jack still paced the streets, +intending but still deferring to find a dinner and a night's lodging. +He had shaken hands with Major Bromham in a mood of curious exaltation. +He had decided almost without a struggle. To his mind the question was +a clear one of right and wrong, and no argument helped it. Still, a man +does not renounce five thousand pounds every day of his life; and, when +he does, has some right to pat his conscience on the back. He derived +some pleasure, too, from picturing the pretty gratitude with which his +beneficiaries would hear Major Bromham's message. He did not know Mrs. +Flood. + +But . . . his church? He had forgotten it, or almost forgotten; and the +recollection came upon him like a blow. He halted beneath a gas-lamp in +dismay; not in resentment at the shattering of his dream, for he +scarcely thought of himself; not in doubt, for he had done rightly, and +his church could not be restored at the expense of right; but in sheer +dismay before the blank certainty that now his church must fall. +Nothing could save it. He must go home to it, live with it, watch it to +the inevitable end. He put out a hand against the iron pillar, and of a +sudden felt faint, almost sick. As a matter of fact, he had eaten +nothing since his early breakfast. + +A few doors down the street the bright lamp of a tavern--the Sword and +Flag--caught his eye. He tottered in and asked for a glass of brandy. +It did him good, and he called for another. Some soldiers entering, +with a girl or two, and finding a clergyman seated with his glass in +this not over-reputable den, began to chaff. He answered gently and +good-naturedly, but with a slight stutter--enough to hint at fun ahead; +and they improved upon the hint. By nine o'clock Parson Jack was silly +drunk; at eleven, when the premises were closed, the police found him +speechless; and the rest of the night he spent in the borough lock-up. + + + +V. + + +It appeared in the newspapers, of course. "Deplorable story: A +clergyman fined for drunkenness." This was more than even Sir Harry +could stand. + +"I'm sorry for you, Flood," said he, when, three days later, Parson Jack +appeared at Carwithiel to resign his living. "But you've taken the only +proper course. Otherwise, you'd have driven us to an inquiry, +sequestration, no end of a scandal. I've had to keep my eyes shut once +or twice in the past, as you probably guess." + +"You have shown me all the kindness you could," answered Parson Jack. +"I won't disgust you with thanks, and there are no excuses." He picked +up his hat and turned to go. + +"Well, but look here; don't be in a hurry. What about your prospects? +They're none too healthy, I'm afraid. Still, if a few pounds could give +you a fresh start somewhere--" + +"I have no prospects, but for the moment I wasn't thinking of myself. +I was thinking of Langona and the old church." + +"Oh, the church is all right! Clem--my nephew--has a fad in his head. +He asked me yesterday for the living--in case you resigned. I tell him +it's folly; a youngster oughtn't to play with his chances. But he +insists that it will do him good to fling up Oxford and play +parish-priest for a year or two. He has taken a fancy to your church, +and wants to restore it. He can pay for his whims: the money's all in +his branch of the family." + +"Restore it! The church--restored!" + +Sir Harry looked up sharply, for the words came in a whisper of awe, +almost of terror; and looking up, he saw Parson Jack's eyes dilated as a +man's who stares on a vision; but while they stared there grew in them a +slow, beatific surmise. + +"The Lord taketh away," said Parson Jack. "Blessed be the name of the +Lord!" + +Six weeks later the Rev. Clement Vyell was inducted into the living of +Langona, vacant by the resignation of the Rev. John Flood. His first +sermon announced that the church was to be restored without delay; that +plans were even now being prepared by an eminent architect, and that, as +soon as they arrived and were approved, tenders would be invited. + +Mr. Vyell was in no hurry to take possession of the Parsonage; indeed, +bachelor though he was, and professed ascetic, he decided that, to be +habitable, it needed a wing and a new kitchen at the back. For the +present he accepted his uncle's invitation to use the hospitality, and +the library, of Carwithiel. Parson Jack might give up possession at his +own convenience. Nevertheless he gave it up at once, packed his few +belongings, and hired a bedroom at the Widow Copping's. It appeared +that he, too, needed time to look about him. + +And so he loitered about Langona until the architect's plans were +received, discussed, approved, and submitted to tender. A Bristol +builder secured the contract. + +The day after it was signed Parson Jack walked over to Carwithiel again, +and asked leave to speak with Mr. Vyell. He wore his old working suit. + +"I have come to ask a favour, sir," said he, speaking humbly. "I hear +that the contract for the church has been given to Miles & Co., of +Bristol; and I would take it kindly if you recommended me to them as a +workman." + +The new Vicar was taken by surprise, and showed it. + +"I have picked up some knowledge of the work in these years," Parson +Jack explained timidly. "And I know the weak points in the old fabric +better than most men. As for steadiness," he wound up, "I only ask to +be given a trial. You must discharge me the first time I give cause of +complaint." + +"What on earth could I say to the man?" Mr. Vyell demanded that evening, +when he discussed the application with his uncle. + +"I hope you accepted?" said Sir Harry sharply. + +"Ye-es, though I fear it was imprudent." + +"Fiddlestick! Speak a word for him to Miles; he won't find a better +workman." + + +So Parson Jack stayed at Langona, and beheld his best dream take shape, +though not at his command, and yet in part by his fashioning. Nay, even +some measure of that personal pride for which he had once bargained was +restored to him during the second year, on the day when the contractor-- +who shared the common knowledge of his past, but respected his +unequalled knowledge of the old fabric and its weakness, his gentle +ardour in learning, and his mild authority among the men--appointed him +clerk of the works. In those days Parson Jack needed no man's pity, for +all day long he redeemed a debt and wrought into substance an ambition +that yet grew purer--as few ambitions do--in taking substance. And with +it he wove another dream which, in the intervals of labour, would draw +him out of the churchyard and hold him at gaze there, with his eyes on +the wedge of blue sea beyond the coombe. + +From the hour of his fall no strong drink passed his lips. His was an +almost desperate case, but he fought with two strong allies. It was as +though the old church, rallying under his eyes for a new lease of life, +put new blood into him, repaying his love. Also he had Dick's letters. + +"Upon my word," said Sir Harry to his nephew, "I've a mind to put Flood +into the living again when this business is over and you tire of your +whim. I suppose there's nothing to prevent it?" + +There was nothing to prevent it; but as a reward it lay outside Parson +Jack's speculation, perhaps beyond his desire. His reward came to him +on the afternoon when, having mounted a ladder beside the new east +window, he looked over his shoulder and saw Parson Kendall entering the +churchyard by the lych-gate, and ushering in a youngster--a mere boy +still, but splendid in the uniform of a freshly blown naval cadet. + +Parson Jack can scarcely be said to have risen to the occasion. +"Hullo, Dick!" he said, descending the ladder and holding out his hand. + +But the Rector, standing aside, made a better speech; though this, too, +was short enough. + +"God fulfils Himself in many ways," said the Rector to himself. + + + +THE BURGLARY CLUB. + + +"Yes," said the Judge, "I ought by this time to know something of +Cornish juries. They acquit oftener than other juries, to be sure; and +the general notion is that they incline more towards mercy. +Privately, I believe that mercy has very little to do with it." + +"Stupidity," said the High Sheriff sententiously, and sipped his wine. +His own obtuseness on the Bench was notorious, and had kept adding for +thirty years to the Duchy's stock of harmless merriment. + +"Nothing of the sort," snapped his lordship. "You can convict a man, I +presume, as stupidly as you can acquit him. No: with other juries a +crime is a crime, and a misdemeanour is a misdemeanour. You tell them +so and they accept it. But with Cornishmen you have first to explain +that the alleged offence is illegal; next, you must satisfy them that it +ought to be illegal; and then, if you choose, you can proceed to prove +that the prisoner committed it. They will finally discharge him on the +ground that he never had the advantage of such a clear exposition of the +law as they have just enjoyed." + +"Well, but isn't that stupidity?" persisted the High Sheriff. + +The Judge turned impatiently and addressed a grey-headed man on his +left. "Did I ever tell you, Mr.--, how I once enjoyed the hospitality +of a Cornish village, through the simple accident of being mistaken for +a burglar?" + +The grey-headed man--an eminent Q.C. and leader of the Western Circuit-- +dropped an olive into his glass of sherry. He had been dozing. +Two or three guests and members of the Junior Bar drew their chairs +closer. + +"It was in 1845," the Judge began, "just after I had taken my degree, +and I had been walking through Cornwall with a knapsack--no small +adventure, I can tell you, in those days. The inhabitants declined to +believe that anyone could walk and carry a pack for the fun of the +thing, and I left a trail of suspicion behind me. The folks were +invariably hospitable, though convinced that I was pursuing no good. +You remember, Mr.--, that when Telemachus visited Gerenia he was +generously entertained, and afterwards politely asked if he happened to +be a pirate. My case was pretty similar, only my Cornish hosts did not +ask, but took it for granted. + +"In the first week of August--to be precise, on the 4th--I reached +Polreen Cove, and found lodging at the small inn. The spot and the +people so pleased me that I engaged my rooms for a week. At the week's +end I had decided to stay for a month. I stayed for almost two months. + +"Well, as luck would have it, I had not been in Polreen three nights +before there happened the first burglary within the memory of its oldest +inhabitant--if burglary it was. I incline to think that Mrs. Giddy, the +general dealer, had left her shop-door unbolted, and that the culprit, +after removing the bell--the door had two flaps, and the bell, hung on a +half-coil of metal, was fitted to a socket inside the lower flap--had +quietly walked in and made his choice. This choice was a peculiar one-- +six bars of yellow soap, a cullender, some tallow candles, a pair of +alpaca boots, a pair of braces, several boxes of matches, an uncertain +amount of cheese, a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs, a coloured almanack, +three of Mrs. Giddy's brass weights, and the bell. He was detected two +months later at Bristol, in the act of using one of the handkerchiefs, +which illustrated the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai; and four other +handkerchiefs were found in his possession, together with Mrs. Giddy's +brass weights. He had disposed of the rest of the booty, and proved to +be a stowaway who had been turned out of a Cardiff schooner on Penzance +quay, penniless and starving. Nothing further was proved against him, +and it still puzzles me how he made his way through the length of +Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset, on the not very nutritious spoils of Mrs. +Giddy's shop. + +"For the moment he got clear away. Not a soul in Polreen had set eyes +on him, and as he entered the village by night so he departed. + +"I know now that the excitement in the Cove was intense; that for weeks +afterwards the women carried their silver teaspoons and chinaware to bed +with them; and I should explain that the housewives of Polreen are +inordinately proud of their teaspoons and chinaware--heirlooms which +mark the only degrees of social importance recognised among the +inhabitants of that happy Cove. A family there counts its teaspoons as +our old nobility counted its quarterings; a girl is judged to have made +a good, bad, or indifferent match by the number of teaspoons she +'marries into'; and the extreme act of disinheritance is symbolised, not +by the testamentary shilling, nor by erasing a name from the Family +Bible, but by alienating the family plate-basket. In short, teaspoons +are to the Covers what the salt-cellar was to the ancient Latin races. + +"But at the time, though I could not help observing symptoms of +suppressed excitement, the Cove behaved with an outward calm which +struck me as highly creditable. To be sure, the men seemed to spend an +extravagant amount of their time in the tap-room of the inn, which +happened to be immediately beneath my sitting-room. Hour after hour the +sound of their muffled conversation ascended to me through the +planching, as I sat and studied--Dumas, I think. Low, monotonous, +untiring, it lasted from breakfast-time until nine o'clock at night, +when it ceased abruptly, the company dispersed, and each man went home +to reassure and protect his wife. I suppose some liquor was required to +start this conversation and keep it going, just as seamen use a +bucketful of water to start a ship's pump; but I must admit that during +my whole stay at Polreen I never saw an inhabitant who could be +described as the worse for drink. + +"I did not know that this assemblage in the tap-room was unusual and +clean contrary to the men's habits, and therefore may be excused for not +guessing its significance. Nor was I familiar enough with Polreen to +note an even more frequent change in the atmosphere and routine of its +daily life. When the weather is fine, down there, the men put out to +sea and the women go about their work with smiles. When it blows, the +women go about their work, but resignedly and in a temper, which the men +avoid by ranging up shoulder to shoulder along the wall by the lifeboat +house, and gazing with approval at the weather; with approval, because +it relieves them of the fatigue of argument. But should the day break +doubtfully, and the men incline to give themselves the benefit of the +doubt, then, indeed, you will learn who are masters of the Cove. For in +extreme cases the women will even invade the 'randivoo,' and shrill is +the noise of battle until the weather declares unmistakably for one side +or the other. Does it refuse to declare itself? Then I can promise you +that half an hour will see the men routed and straggling down the beach +to their boats, arching their backs and ducking their heads, may be, +under the parting volley. + +"But, as I say, I did not know Polreen and its ways. It awoke no wonder +in me to see the bulk of its male population ranged like statues, day +after day, and from dawn till eve, against the wall by the lifeboat +house, talking little (or ceasing, at any rate, to talk when I +approached), smoking much, conning a serene sky, and the dimples spread +on the sea by a gentle nor'-westerly breeze. At intervals one or two +would leisurely fall out of the line and saunter towards the inn, +leaving their places to others as leisurely sauntering from the inn. +It did, indeed, occur to me to wonder how they earned their living, for +during the first fortnight, beyond the occasional hauling of a crab-pot, +I saw no evidence at all of labour. It was on the tip of my tongue, +once or twice, to question them; but, though polite, they clearly had no +wish to be communicative. + +"I found great difficulty in hiring a boat and the services of its +owner. I wished to be rowed along the coast; to try for pollack; to +inspect some of Polreen's famous caves. The men were polite again; but +one boat leaked badly, another had been pulled up for the carpenter to +insert a new strake, a third was too heavy, the owner of a fourth could +not leave his business--it wouldn't pay him! At length I patched up a +bargain with an old fisherman named Udy--or rather Old Tom Udy, to +distinguish him from his son, who was Young Tom. He owned the most +ramshackle old boat in the Cove: if the others were out of repair, his +was manifestly beyond it. I took my life in my hands and struck the +bargain. + +"'When do 'ee want her?' + +"'Now, at once,' said I; 'or as soon as you have had your dinner.' + +"He went back to the company by the lifeboat house. He reminded me of +some ancient king consulting a company of stone gods. They looked at +him, and he looked at them. I suppose a word or two was said; half a +dozen of them spat reflectively; nobody moved. Old Tom Udy came down +the beach again; we embarked and pushed off, and the row of +expressionless faces watched us from the shore. + +"In silence we visited the famous caverns. As we emerged from the last +of these I essayed some casual talk. To tell the truth, I was +beginning to feel the want of it, and of course I began on the first +topic of local interest--the burglary. + +"'The odd thing to me,' said I, 'is that you seem to have no particular +suspicions.' + +"'I'd rather you didn' talk of it,' said Old Tom Udy. 'I got my living +to get, and 'tis a day's journey to Bodmin. Tho' you musn' think,' he +added, 'that we bear any gridge.' + +"'It seems to me that you men in the Cove treat the whole affair very +lightly.' + +"'Iss, tha's of it,' he assented. 'Mind you, tisn' _right_, Seemin' to +me 'tis a terrible thought. Here you be, for the sake of argument, a +Christian man, and in beauty next door to the angels, and the only use +you make of it is to steal groceries. You don't think I'm putting it +too strong?' + +"' Not a bit.' + +"'Well, I'm glad o' that, because, since you ask me, as a professing +Christian, I cudn' say any less. But you musn' think we bear any +gridge.' + +"'I'm sure I wonder you don't. And the police still have no clue?' + +"'The police? You mean Sammy Crego, the constable? Why, I've knawed en +from a boy--pretty thing if any person in Polreen listened to he! +No: us han't failed so low yet as to mind anything the constable says.' + +"'Then the whole affair is as much a mystery as ever?' + +"'Now, look 'ee here; I don't want to tell nothin' more about it. +A still tongue makes a wise head; an' there's a pollack on the end of +your line.' + +"The wind stuck in the north-west, and day after day the regal summer +weather continued. I grew tired of hauling in pollack, and determined +to have a try for the more exciting conger. The fun of this, as you +know, does not begin till night-fall, and it was seven o'clock in the +evening, or thereabouts, when we pushed off from the beach. By eight we +had reached the best grounds and begun operations. An hour passed, or a +little more, and then Old Tom Udy asked when I thought of returning. + +"'Why, bless the man,' said I, 'we've not had a bite yet!' + +"He glanced at me furtively while he lit a pipe. 'I reckoned, maybe, +you might have business ashore, so to speak.' + +"'What earthly business should I have in Polreen at this hour?' + +"'Aw, well . . . you know best . . . no affair o' mine. 'Tis a dark +night, too.' + +"'All the better for conger, eh?' + +"'So 'tis.' He seemed about to say more, but at that moment I felt a +long pull on the line, and for an hour or two the conger kept us busy. + +"It must have been a week later, at least (for the moon was drawing to +the full), that I pulled up the blind of my sitting-room a little before +mid-night, and, ravished by the beauty of the scene (for, I tell you, +Polreen can be beautiful by moonlight), determined to stroll down to the +beach and smoke my last pipe there before going to bed. The door of the +inn was locked, no doubt; but, the house standing on the steep slope of +the main street, I could step easily on to the edge of the water-barrel +beneath my window and lower myself to the ground. + +"I did so. Just as I touched solid earth I heard footsteps. +They paused suddenly, and, glancing up the moonlit road, I descried the +gigantic figure of Wesley Truscott, the coxswain of the lifeboat. +He must have seen me, for the light on the whitewashed front of the inn +was almost as brilliant as day. But, whatever his business, he had no +wish to meet me, for he dodged aside into the shadow of a porch, and +after a few seconds I heard him tip-toeing up the hill again. + +"I began to have my doubts about Polreen's primitive virtues. +Certainly the village, as it lay bathed in moonlight, its whitewashed +terraces and glimmering roofs embowered in dark clusters of fuchsia and +tamarisk, seemed to harbour nothing but peace and sleeping innocence. +An ebbing tide lapped the pebbles on the beach, each pebble distinct and +glistening as the water left it. Far in the quiet offing the lights of +a fishing-fleet twinkled like a line of jewels through the haze. + +"Half-way down the beach I turned for a backward look at the village. + +"Now the wall by the lifeboat house looks on the Cove. Its front is +turned from the village and the village street, and can only be seen +from the beach. You may imagine my surprise, then, as I turned and +found myself face to face with a dozen tall men, standing there upright +and silent. + +"'Good Heavens!' I cried, 'what is the matter? What brings you all here +at this time of night?' + +"If I was surprised, they were obviously embarrassed. They drew +together a little, as if to avoid observation. But the moon shone full +on the wall, affording them not a scrap of shadow. + +"For a moment no one answered. Then I heard mutterings, and, as I +stepped up, one of the elder men, Archelaus Warne by name, was pushed +forward. + +"'We wasn' expectin' of you down here,' he stammered, after clearing his +throat. + +"'No reason why you should,' said I. + +"'We done our best to keep out o' your way--never thinkin' you'd be +after the boats,'--he nodded towards the boats drawn up on the beach at +our feet. + +"'I'm afraid I don't understand you in the least.' + +"'Well, you see, 'tis a kind o' club.' + +"'Indeed?' said I, not in the least enlightened. + +"'Iss;' he turned to his companions. 'I s'pose I'd better tell en?' +They nodded gravely, and he resumed. 'You see, 'tis this way: ever +since that burglary there's no resting for the women. My poor back is +blue all over with the cloam my missus takes to bed. And ha'f a dozen +times a night 'tis, '_Arch'laus, I'm sartin I hear some person movin'-- +Arch'laus, fit an' take a light and have a look downstairs, that's a +dear!_' An' these fellows'll tell 'ee 'tis every bit so bad with they. +'Tis right enough in the daytime, so long as the women got us 'ithin +hail, but by night there's no peace nor rest.' + +"One or two husbands corroborated. + +"'Well, now--I think 'twas the third night after this affair happened-- +I crep' downstairs for the fifth time or so just to ease the old woman's +mind, and opens the door, when what do I see but Billy Polkinghorne +here, sittin' on his own doorstep like a lost dog. 'Aw,' says I, 'so +thee'rt feelin' of it, too!' 'Feelin' of it!' says he, 'durned if +this isn' the awnly place I can get a wink o' sleep!' 'Come'st way +long to Wall-end and tetch pipe,' says I. Tha's how it began. An' now, +ever since Billy thought 'pon the plan of settin' someone, turn an' +turn, to watch your window, there's nothin' to hurry us. Why, only just +as you came along, Billy was saying, 'Burglary!' he says, 'why, I han't +been so happy in mind since the _Indian Queen_ came ashore!'' + +"'Watch my window? Why the--' And then, as light broke on me, +'Look here,' I said, 'you don't mean to tell me you've been suspecting +_me_ of the burglary all this time!' + +"'You musn' think,' said Archelaus Warne, 'that we bear any gridge.'" + + +"Well," the Judge concluded, "as I told you, the thief was apprehended a +week or two later, and my innocence established. But, oddly enough, +some thirty years after I had to try a case at the Assizes here, in +which Archelaus Warne (very old and infirm) appeared as a witness, I +recognised him at once, and, when I sent for him afterwards and inquired +after my friends at Polreen, his first words were, 'There now--I wasn' +so far wrong, after all! I knawed you must be mixed up with these +things, wan way or 'nother.'" + + + +CONCERNING ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. + + +Let those who know my affection for Troy consider what my feelings were, +the other day, when on my return from a brief jaunt to London I alighted +at the railway station amid all the tokens of a severe and general +catastrophe. The porter who opened the door for me had a bandaged head. +George the 'bus driver carried his right arm in a sling, but professed +himself able to guide his vehicle through our tortuous streets +left-handed. I had declined the offer, and was putting some +sympathetic question, when a procession came by. Four children of +serious demeanour conveyed a groaning comrade on a stretcher, while a +couple more limped after in approved splints. I stopped them, of +course. The rearmost sufferer--who wore on his shin-bone a wicker +trellis of the sort used for covering flower-plots, and a tourniquet, +contrived with a pebble and a handkerchief, about his femoral artery-- +informed me that it was a case of First Aid to the Injured, which he was +rendering at some risk to his own (compound) fracture. + +"It's wonderful," said George, with a grin, "what crazes the youngsters +will pick up." + +Thereupon the truth came out. It appeared that during my absence a +member of the Ambulance Association of St. John of Jerusalem had +descended upon the town with a course of lectures, and the town had +taken up the novelty with its usual spirit. + +I said a course of lectures; but in Troy we are nothing if not +thoroughgoing, and by this time (so George informed me) three courses +were in full swing. The railway servants and jetty-men (our +instructor's earliest pupils) had arrived at restoring animation to the +apparently drowned; while a mixed class, drawn from the townsfolk +generally, were learning to bandage, and the members of our Young +Women's Christian Association had attended but two lectures and still +dallied with the wonders of the human frame. + +George told me all about it on our way through the town--for I had +consented to be driven on condition that he removed his arm from the +sling, and he could not deny this to an old friend (as I make free to +call myself). Besides, he was bursting to talk. To be sure, he slipped +it back for a few moments as we breasted the hill beyond the post-office +and his horses dropped to a walk. I fancy that he glanced at me +apologetically; but since there was comparatively little danger +hereabouts I thought it more delicate to look the other way. + +"And the Chamber of Commerce has not protested?" I asked. + +We call it the "Chamber of Commerce" for euphony's sake. It is in fact +an association which keeps an eye upon the Parish Council, Harbour +Board, and Great Western Railway, and incites these bodies to make our +town more attractive to visitors. It consists mainly of lodging-house +keepers, and has this summer prevailed on the Railway Company to issue +cheap Saturday market tickets to Plymouth--a boon which the visitor will +soon learn (if we may take our own experience as a test) to rank high +among the minor comforts of life. + +No; the Chamber of Commerce had not protested. And yet it occurred to +me more than once during the next few days that strangers attracted to +Troy by its reputation as a health resort must have marvelled as they +walked our streets, where cases of sunstroke, frost-bite, snake-bite, +and incipient croup challenged their pity at every corner. The very +babies took their first steps in splints, and when they tumbled were +examined by their older playmates, and pronounced to be suffering from +apoplexy or alcoholic poisoning, as fancy happened to suggest. +I believe that a single instruction in the Association's Handbook-- +carefully italicised there, I must admit--alone saved our rising +generation. It ran: "_Unless perfectly sure that the patient is +intoxicated, do not give the emetic_." + +To be sure, we left these extravagances to the children. But childhood, +after all, is a relative term, and in Troy we pass through it to sober +age by nice gradations; which take time. Already a foreign sailor who +had committed the double imprudence of drinking heavily at the Crown and +Anchor, and falling asleep afterwards on the foreshore while waiting for +his boat, was complaining vigorously, through his Vice-Consul, of the +varieties of treatment practised upon his insensible body; and only the +difficulty of tracing five Esmarch bandages in a town where five hundred +had been sold in a fortnight averted a prosecution. I was even prepared +for a visit from Sir Felix Felix-Williams, our worthy Squire, who seldom +misses an opportunity of turning our local enthusiasms to account, and +sometimes does me the honour to enlist my help; but scarcely for the +turn his suggestions took. + +"You are, of course, interested in this movement?" he began. + +"I have to be, seeing that I live in the midst of it." + +"You have joined the Ambulance Class, I hear." + +"Do you think I would neglect a precaution so obvious? Until their +enthusiasm abates, I certainly shall range myself among the First-Aiders +rather than the Injured." + +"My idea was, to strike while the iron is hot." + +"Oh," said I, "a town with so many in the fire--" + +"And I thought, perhaps, if we could manage to connect it in some way +with the Primrose League--" + +"But what can it have to do with the Primrose League?" I asked stiffly. +I will admit now to a slight prejudice against the Ambulance business-- +due perhaps to the lecturer's having chosen to start it in my absence. + +Sir Felix was disappointed, and showed it. "Why, it was you," he +reminded me, "who helped us last year by setting the widows to race for +a leg of mutton." + +"I was a symbolist in those days. And, excuse me, Sir Felix, it was not +last year, but the year before. Last year we had the surrender of +Cronje at Paardeberg, with the widows dressed up as Boer women." + +"Is that so? I thought we had Cronje two years ago, but no doubt you +are right. Now I thought that, with our Primrose fete coming on, and +everybody just now taking such an interest in the Empire--" + +"To be sure!" I cried. "'First Aid to the Empire'--it will look well on +the bills." + +Sir Felix rubbed his hands together--a trick of his when he is pleased. +"It's an idea, eh?" + +"A brilliant one." + +"Well, but you haven't heard all." He looked at me almost slyly. +"It occurred to me, that while--er--associating this enthusiasm of ours +with the imperial idea, we might at the same time do a good turn for +ourselves. You think that permissible?" + +"Permissible? For what else does an empire exist?" + +"Quite so. As I was saying to Lady Williams, only this morning, we must +bring _home_ to less thoughtful persons a sense of its beneficence. +Now it occurs to me: why go on subscribing to these great public Nursing +Funds, in which our mite is a mere drop in the ocean, when by sending up +a nurse from our own town--she would, of course, be a member of the +League--not only should we have the satisfaction of knowing that our +help is effective, but the young woman would be earning a salary and +supporting herself?" + +"Admirable!" said I. "It would look so much better in the papers too." + +"You see, we have at this moment a score of young women, all natives of +the town and members of the League, undergoing instruction from our +lecturer. After the course there will be an examination; and then, with +the lecturer's help--and the advice, if I might suggest it, of Lady +Williams, who can tell him if the candidate's family be respectable and +deserving--we can surely select a young person to do us credit." + + +Sir Felix took his departure in the cheerfullest temper, and I record +his suggestion as one eminently worthy of his head and his heart, +although subsequent events have, alas! brought it to nought. I doubt if +we shall send up a nurse from Troy; indeed, I doubt if there will even +be an examination. + + +Last evening the Young Women's Christian Association attended its sixth +Ambulance lecture. The subject--roller bandaging--being a practical +one, a small boy was had in, set on the platform, and bandaged in sight +of the audience--plain bandaged, reverse bandaged, figure-of-eight +bandaged, bandaged on forefinger, thumb, hand, wrist and forearm, elbow, +shoulder, knee, ankle, foot. He declares that he enjoyed himself +thoroughly. After each demonstration the young women took a turn and +practised with such assiduity that an hour slipped pleasantly away. +The bandages were applied, the spirals neatly stitched, and the stitches +promptly snipped for the next pupil to begin. An occasional prick with +the needle evoked no more than a playful remonstrance from the boy and a +ripple of laughter from the fair executants. At length, alas! Miss +Sophy Rabling, in snipping her bandage from the boy's foot, fumbled and +drove a point of the scissors sharply into his toe. + +With a howl he caught at his foot, from which one or two drops of blood +were trickling. And the sight of it so affected Miss Sophy that she +dropped upon the platform in a swoon. A class-mate in the body of the +hall almost instantly followed her example. + +The lecturer, I am bound to say, behaved admirably. So far was he from +losing his head, that he instantly seized on the accident to turn it to +account. + +"First aid!" he cried. "Subject: Fainting. Patient No. 1, head to be +pressed down below her knees and kept there for a few minutes. +Patient No. 2, to be extended on the floor, care being taken to keep +head and body level. A form being handy, we could, as an alternative, +have hung Patient No. 1 over it, head downwards." + +But at this point, unfortunately, the humour of the situation became too +much for Miss Gertrude Hansombody, another of the students. She began +to titter, went on to laugh uncontrollably, then to clench her hands and +sob. + +"Subject: Hysterics!" called the lecturer. "Treatment: Be firm with +the patient, hold her firmly by the wrists and threaten her with cold +water--" + +He spoke to empty benches. The rest of his pupils had escaped from the +room and were now on their way home, and running for dear life. + +I do not expect that St. John of Jerusalem will figure prominently in +our Primrose fete. My reason for saying so is an urgent letter just +received from Sir Felix, who wishes to confer with me in the course of +the day. + + + +COX _VERSUS_ PRETYMAN. + + +We are not litigious in Troy, and we obey the laws of England cheerfully +if we sometimes claim to interpret them in our own way. I leave others +to determine whether the Chief Constable's decision, that one policeman +amply suffices for us, be an effect or a cause, but certain it is that +we rarely trouble any court, and almost never that of Assize. + +This accounts in part for the popular interest awakened by the suit of +Cox _versus_ Pretyman, heard a few days ago at the Bodmin Assizes. I +say "in part," because the case presented (as the newspapers phrase it) +some unusual features, and differed noticeably from the ordinary Action +for Breach of Promise. "No harm in that," you will say? Indeed no; and +we should have regarded it as no more than our due but for an +apprehension that the conduct alleged against the defendant concerned us +all by compromising the good name of our town. + +At any rate, last Wednesday found the streets full of citizens hurrying +to the railway station, and throughout the morning our stationmaster had +difficulty in handling the traffic. The journey to Bodmin is not a long +one as the crow flies, but, as our carpenter, Mr. Hansombody, put it, +"we are not crows, and, that being the case, naturally resent being +packed sixteen in a compartment." Mr. Hansombody taxed the Great +Western Company with lack of foresight in not running excursion trains, +and appealed to me to support his complaint. I argued (with the general +approval of our fellow-travellers) that there was something heartless in +the idea of an excursion to listen to the recital of a woman's wrongs, +especially of Miss Cox's, whom we had known so long and esteemed. +Driven from this position, Mr. Hansombody took a fresh stand on the +superiority of the old broad-gauge carriages; and this, since it raised +no personal question, we discussed in very good humour while we unpacked +and ate our luncheons. + +In the midst of our meal a lady at the far end of the compartment heaved +a sigh and ejaculated "Poor thing!"--which at once set us off discussing +the case anew. We agreed that such conduct as Pretyman's was +fortunately rare amongst us. We tried to disclaim him--no easy matter, +since his father and mother had been natives of Troy, and he had spent +all his life in our midst. The lady in the corner challenged Mr. +Hansombody to deny that our town was deteriorating--the rising +generation more mischievous than its parents, and given to mitching from +school, and cigarette smoking, if not to worse. + +Now this was a really damaging attack, for Mr. Hansombody not only +presides over our School Board, but has a son in the tobacco business. +He met it magnificently. "He would dismiss (he said) the cigarette +question as one upon which--Heaven knew with how little justice!--he +might be suspected of private bias; but on the question of truancy he +had something to say, and he would say it. To begin with, he would +admit that the children in Troy played truant; the percentage of school +attendance was abnormally low. Yes, he admitted the fact, and thanked +the lady for having called attention to it, since it bore upon the +subject now uppermost in our minds. He had here"--and he drew from his +pocket a magazine article--"some statistics to which he would invite our +attention. They showed the average school attendance in Cornwall to be +lower than in any county of England or Wales. _But_"--and Mr. +Hansombody raised his forefinger--"the same statistician in the very +same paper proves the average of criminal prosecutions in Cornwall to be +the lowest in England and Wales." + +"And you infer--" I began as he paused triumphantly. + +"I infer nothing, sir. I leave the inference to be drawn by our +faddists in education, and I only hope they'll enjoy it." + +Well, apart from its bearing on Mr. Hansombody's position as Chairman of +our Board (which we forbore to examine), this discovery consoled us +somewhat and amused us a great deal until we reached Bodmin, when we +hurried at once to the Assize Court. + +I have said that the action, Cox _v._ Pretyman, was for damages for +Breach of Promise of Marriage. Both parties are natives and +parishioners of Fowey, and attend the same place of worship. +The plaintiff, Miss Rebecca Cox, earns her living as a dressmaker's +assistant; the defendant is our watch-maker, and opened a shop of his +own but a few months before approaching Miss Cox with proposals of +marriage. This was fifteen years ago. I may mention that some kind of +counter-claim was put in "for goods delivered"; the goods in question +being a musical-box and sundry small articles for parlour amusement, +such as a solitaire-tray, two packs of "Patience" cards, a race-game, +and the like. But the defendant did not allege that these had been sent +or accepted as whole or partial quittance of his contract to marry, and +I can only suppose that he pleaded them in mitigation of damages. +Miss Cox asked for one hundred and fifty pounds. + +Her evidence was given in quiet but resolute tones, and for some time +disclosed nothing sensational. The circumstances in which Mr. Pretyman +had sued for and obtained the promise of her hand differed in no +important particular from those which ordinarily attend the +_fiancailles_ of respectable young persons in Troy; and for twelve years +his courtship ran an even course. "After this," asserted Miss Cox, +"his attentions cooled. He was friendly and kind enough when we met, +and still talked of enlarging his shop-front and marrying in the near +future. But his visits were not frequent enough to be called courting." +Of late, though living in the same street, she had only seen him on +Sundays; and even so he would be occupied almost all the day and evening +with services, Sunday school, prayer-meetings, and occasional addresses. +At length she taxed him with indifference, and, finding his excuses +unsatisfactory, was persuaded by her friends to bring the present +action. She liked the man well enough; but for the last two or three +years "his heart hadn't been in it. He didn't do any proper courting." + +Defendant's counsel (a young man) attempted in cross-examination to lead +Miss Cox to reveal herself as an exacting young woman. + +"Do you assert that at length you came to see nothing of defendant +during the week?" + +"Only through the shop window as I went by to my work. And of late, +when he saw me coming, he would screw a magnifying glass in his eye and +pretend to be busy with his watch-making. I believe he did it to avoid +looking at me, and also because he knew I couldn't bear him with his +face screwed up. It makes such a difference to his appearance." + +"Gently, gently, Miss Cox! You must not give us your mere suppositions. +Now, did he never pay you a visit, or take you for a walk, say on +Wednesdays? That would be early-closing day, I believe." + +"Never for the last three years, sir, after he became a Freemason. +Wednesdays was lodge-night." + +"Well then, on Saturday, after shop hours?" + +"Yes, he used to come on Saturdays, till he was made a Forester. +The Foresters meet every Saturday evening." + +"Mondays then, or Tuesdays? We haven't exhausted the week yet, Miss +Cox." + +"No, sir. Mondays he was a Rechabite and went to tent. Tuesdays he +would be an Ancient Druid--" + +"Gently! On Mondays, you say, he was a Rechabite and went to tent. +What is a Rechabite? And what does he do in a tent?" + +_Plaintiff_ (dissolving in tears): "Ah, sir, if I only knew!" + +Here the Judge interposed. A Rechabite, he believed, went to a tent, or +habitation, for the purpose (among others) of abstaining from alcoholic +drinks. + +_Plaintiff_ (briskly): "But, my lord, you wouldn't call that proper +courting!" + +Defendant's counsel had taken this opportunity to resume his seat. +But counsel for the plaintiff now arose, with a smile, to re-examine. + +"Did Mr. Pretyman walk out with you on Thursday evenings?" + +"Oh no, sir. On Thursday evenings Mr. Pretyman was an Oddfellow." + +"I think we have only to account for Fridays," said his lordship, after +consulting his notes. + +"On Fridays, my lord, Mr. Pretyman was an Ancient Buffalo." + +"An Ancient Buffalo?" + +"Yes, my lord (sobbing). I don't know what it means, but that was the +last straw." + + +"The first question for the jury to determine," said his lordship, a +little later, "is whether an affianced young woman, as such, has a right +to expect from her betrothed such attentions as may reasonably be taken +as earnest of his desire to fulfil his contract within a reasonable +time. In the present instance, the fact that the contract was made does +not stand in doubt; it is not disputed. Now arises a second question. +Can a man who is on weekdays a Freemason, a Rechabite, an Oddfellow, a +Forester, an Ancient Druid, and an Ancient Buffalo, and on +Sundays (as I gather) a Yarmouth Bloater--" + +"Plymouth Brother, my lord," plaintiff's counsel corrected. + +"I beg your pardon--a Plymouth Brother. I say, can a man who after his +betrothal voluntarily preoccupies himself with these multifarious +functions be held--I will not say to have disqualified himself for that +willing exchange of confidence which is the surest guarantee of lasting +happiness between man and wife--but to have raised such obstacles to the +fulfilment of the original contract as reasonably warrant the accusation +of _mala fides?_" + +Well, the jury held that he could; for without troubling to leave the +box they gave their verdict for the plaintiff, and assessed the damages +at one hundred pounds. + +Towards the close of the case we all felt ashamed of Pretyman. +His defence had been weak; it struck us as almost derisory; and Mr. +Hansombody agreed with me in a whisper that under similar circumstances +he or I could have made a better fight for it. The fellow had shown no +sport. We blushed for our town. + +But Troy has a knack of winning its races on the post. Judgment, as the +phrase goes, was on the point of being entered accordingly, when the +defendant looked up towards the Bench with a sudden, happy smile. + +"Here, wait a minute!" he said. "I have a question to put to his +lordship." + +"Eh?" said the Judge. "Certainly. What is it?" + +"I want to know, my lord, if I can claim the benefit of the First +Offenders Act?" + + +The train on the return journey was worse crowded than ever; but nobody +minded. For we had managed to give plaintiff and defendant a +compartment to themselves. + + + +THE BRIDALS OF YSSELMONDE. + + +When the Grand Duke Ferdinand of Carinthia travelled in state to wed the +Princess Sophia of Ysselmonde, he did so by land, and for two reasons; +the first being that this was the shortest way, and the second that he +possessed no ships. These, at any rate, were the reasons alleged by his +Chancellor, to whom he left all arrangements. For himself, he took very +little interest in the marriage beyond inquiring the age of his bride. +"Six years," was the answer, and this seemed to him very young, for he +had already passed his tenth birthday. + +The Pope, however, had contrived and blessed the match; so Ferdinand +raised no serious objection, but in due course came to Ysselmonde with +his bodyguard of the famous Green Carinthian Archers, and two hundred +halberdiers and twelve waggons--four to carry his wardrobe, and the +remaining eight piled with wedding presents. On the way, while +Ferdinand looked for birds' nests, the Chancellor sang the praises of +the Princess Sophia, who (he declared) was more beautiful than the day. +"But you have never seen her," objected Ferdinand. "No, your Highness, +and that is why I contented myself with a purely conventional phrase;" +and the Chancellor, who practised _finesse_ in his odd moments, began to +talk of the sea, the sight of which awaited them at Ysselmonde. +"And what is the sea like?" "Well, your Highness, the sea is somewhat +difficult to describe, for in fact there is nothing to compare with it." +"You have seen it, I suppose?" "Sire, I have done more; for once, while +serving as Ambassador at Venice, I had the honour to be upset in it." + +With such converse they beguiled the road until they reached Ysselmonde, +and found the sea completely hidden by flags and triumphal arches. +And there, after three days' feasting, the little Grand Duke and the +still smaller Princess were married in the Cathedral by the Cardinal +Archbishop, and the Pope's legate handed them his master's blessing in a +morocco-covered case, and as they drove back to the Palace the Dutchmen +waved their hats and shouted "Boo-mp!" but the Carinthian Archers cried +"Talassio!" which not only sounded better, but proved (when they +obligingly explained what it meant) that the ancestors of the Grand Duke +of Carinthia had lived in Rome long before any Pope. + +On reaching the Palace the bride and bridegroom were taken to a gilded +drawing-room, and there left to talk together, while the guests filled +up the time before the banquet by admiring the presents and calculating +their cost. Ferdinand said, "Well, _that's_ over;" and the Princess +said, "Yes,"--for this was their first opportunity of conversing alone. + +"You're a great deal better than I expected," said Ferdinand +reassuringly. Indeed, in her straight dress sewn with seed-pearls and +her coif of Dutch lace surmounted with a little crown of diamonds, the +Princess looked quite beautiful; and he in his white satin suit, crossed +with the blue ribbon of St. John Nepomuc, was the handsomest boy she had +ever seen. "Besides," he added, "my Chancellor says you are hereditary +High Admiral of the Ocean--it's in the marriage settlement; and that +would make up for a lot. Where is it?" + +"The Ocean?" She felt very shy still. "I have never seen it, but I +believe it's somewhere at the bottom of the garden." + +"Suppose we go and have a look at it?" She was about to say that she +must ask leave of her governess, but he looked so masterful and +independent that she hadn't the courage. It gave her quite a thrill as +he took her hand and led her out through the low window to the great +stone terrace. They passed down the terrace steps into a garden ablaze +with tulip beds in geometrical patterns; at the foot ran a yew hedge, +and beyond it, in a side-walk, they came upon a scullion boy chasing a +sulphur-yellow butterfly. The Grand Duke forgot his fine manners, and +dropped his bride's hand to join in the chase; but the boy no sooner +caught sight of him than he fled with a cry of dismay and popped into an +arbour. There, a minute later, the bride and bridegroom found him +stooping over a churn and stirring with might and main. + +"What are you stirring, boy?" asked Ferdinand. + +"Praised be the Virgin!" said the boy, "I _believe_ it's an ice-pudding +for the banquet. But they shouldn't have put the ice-puddings in the +same arbour as the fireworks; for, if your Highness will +allow me to say so, you can't expect old heads on young shoulders." + +"Are the fireworks in our honour too?" + +"Why, of course," the scullion answered; "everything is in your honour +to-day." + +This simplified matters wonderfully. The children passed on through a +gate in the garden wall and came upon a clearing beside a woodstack; and +there stood a caravan with its shafts in the air. A woman sat on the +tilt at the back, reading, and every now and then glancing towards two +men engaged in deadly combat in the middle of the clearing, who shouted +as they thrust at one another with long swords. + +The little Princess, who, except when driven in her state-coach to the +Cathedral, had never before strayed outside the garden, turned very pale +and caught at her husband's hand. But he stepped forward boldly. + +"Now yield thee, caitiff, or thine hour has come!" shouted one of the +fighters and flourished his blade. + +"Sooner I'll die than tum te tum te tum!" the other answered quite as +fiercely. + +"Slave of thine become," said the woman from the caravan. + +"Thank you. Sooner I'll die than slave of thine become!" He laid about +him with fresh vigour. + +"Put down your swords," commanded Ferdinand. + +"And now tell me who you are." + +"We are Valentine and Orson," they answered. + +"Indeed?" Ferdinand had heard of them, and shook hands affably. +"Then I'm very glad to make your acquaintance." + +"And," said they, "we are rehearsing for the performance at the Palace +to-night in your Highnesses' honour." + +"Oh, so this is in our honour too?" + +"To be sure," said the woman; "and I am to dress up as Hymen and speak +the Epilogue in a saffron robe. It has some good lines; for instance--" + + 'Ye Loves and Genial Hours, conspire + To gratify this Royal Pair + With Sons impetuous as their Sire, + And Daughters as their Mother fair!' + +"Thank you," said Ferdinand. "But we are very busy to-day and must take +one thing at a time. Can you tell us the way to the sea, please?" + +The woman pointed along a path which led to a moss-covered gate and an +orchard where the apple-blossom piled itself in pink clouds against the +blue sky: as they followed the path they heard her laughing, and looked +back to see her still staring after them and laughing merrily, while +Valentine and Orson leaned on their swords and laughed too. + +The orchard was the prettiest in the whole world. Blackbirds played +hide-and-seek beneath the boughs, blue and white violets hid in the tall +grass around the boles, and the spaces between were carpeted with +daisies to the edge of a streamlet. Over the streamlet sang thrushes +and goldfinches and bull-finches innumerable, and their voices shook +down the blossom like a fall of pink snow, which threatened to cover +even the daisies. The Grand Duke and the Princess believed that all +this beauty was in their honour, no less than the chorus of the bells +floating across the tree-tops from the city. + +"This is the best of all," said Ferdinand as they seated themselves by +the stream. "I had no idea marriage was such fun. And they haven't +even forgotten the trout!" he cried, peering over the brink. + +"Can you make daisy-chains?" asked the Princess timidly. + +He could not; so she taught him, feeling secretly proud that there was +something he could learn of her. When the chain was finished he flung +it over his neck and kissed her. "Though I don't like kissing, as a +rule," he explained. + +"And this shall be my wedding present," said she. + +"Why, I brought you six waggon-loads!--beauties--all chosen by my +Chancellor." + +"But he didn't make or choose this one," said Sophia, "and I like this +one best." They sat silent for a moment. "Dear me," she sighed, +"what a lot we have to learn of each other's ways!" + +"Hullo!" Ferdinand was staring down the glade. "What's that line at the +end there, across the sky?" + +Sophia turned. "I think that's the sea--yes, there is a ship upon it." + +"But why have they hung a blue cloth in front of it?" + +"I expect that's in our honour too." + +They took hands and trotted to the end of the orchard; and there, beyond +the hedge, ran a canal, and beyond the canal a wide flat country +stretched away to the sea,--a land dotted with windmills and cattle and +red-and-white houses with weathercocks,--a land, too, criss-crossed with +canals, whereon dozens of boats, and even some large ships, threaded +their way like dancers in and out of the groups of cattle, or sailed +past a house so closely as almost to poke a bowsprit through the front +door. The weather-cocks spun and glittered, the windmills waved their +arms, the boats bowed and curtseyed to the children. Never was such a +salutation. Even the blue cloth in the distance twinkled, and Ferdinand +saw at a glance that it was embroidered with silver. + +But the finest flash of all came from a barge moored in the canal just +below them, where a middle-aged woman sat scouring a copper pan. + +"Good-day!" cried Ferdinand across the hedge. "Why are you doing that?" + +"Why, in honour of the wedding, to be sure. 'Must show one's best at +such times, if only for one's own satisfaction." Then, as he climbed +into view and helped Sophia over the hedge, she recognised them, and, +dropping her pan with a clatter, called on the saints to bless them and +keep them always. The bridal pair clambered down to the towpath, and +from the towpath to her cabin, where she fed them (for they were hungry +by this time) with bread and honey from a marvellous cupboard painted +all over with tulips: in short, they enjoyed themselves immensely. + +"Only," said Ferdinand, "I wish they hadn't covered up the sea, for I +wanted a good look at it." + +"The sea?" said the barge-woman, all of a shiver. Then she explained +that her two sons had been drowned in it. "Though, to be sure," said +she, "they died for your Majesty's honour, and, if God should give them +back to me, would do so again." + +"For me?" exclaimed Sophia, opening her eyes very wide. + +"Ay, to be sure, my dear. So it's no wonder--eh?--that I should love +you." + + +By the time they said good-bye to her and hurried back through the +orchard, a dew was gathering on the grass and a young moon had poised +herself above the apple-boughs. The birds here were silent; but high on +the stone terrace, when they reached it, a solitary one began to sing. +From the bright windows facing the terrace came the clatter of plates +and glasses, with loud outbursts of laughter. But this bird had chosen +his station beneath a dark window at the corner, and sang there unseen. +It was the nightingale. + +They could not understand what he sang. "It is my window," whispered +Sophia, and began to weep in the darkness, without knowing why; for she +was not miserable in the least, but, on the contrary, very, very happy. +They listened, hand in hand, by a fountain on the terrace. Through the +windows they could see the Papal legate chatting at table with the King, +Sophia's father, and the Chancellor hobnobbing with the Cardinal +Archbishop. Only the Queen of Ysselmonde sat at the table with her +wrists on the arms of her throne and her eyes looking out into the +darkness, as though she caught some whisper of the bird's song. But the +children knew that he sang for them, not for her; for he told of all the +adventures of the day, and he told not as I am telling them, but so +beautifully that the heart ached to hear. Yet his song was of two words +only. "Young--young--young! Love love--love!"--the same words over and +over. + +A courtier came staggering out from the banqueting-hall, and the bird +flew away. The children standing by the fountain watched him as he +found the water and dipped his face in it, with a groan. He was +exceedingly drunk; but as he lifted his head he caught sight of them in +the moonlight and excused himself. + +"In your Highnesses' honour," he assured them: "'been doing my best." + +"Poor man!" said Sophia. "But how loyal!" + + + +ENGLAND! + + +At Madeira seven of us were added to the first-class passengers of the +_Cambuscan_, homeward bound from Cape Town; and even so the company made +a poor muster in the saloon, which required a hundred and seventy feet +of hurricane-deck for covering. Those were days--long before the South +African War, before the Jameson Raid even--when every ship carried out a +load of miners for the Transvaal, and returned comparatively empty, +though as a rule with plenty of obviously rich men and be-diamonded +ladies. + +But every tide has its backwash; and it so happened that the _Cambuscan_ +held as many second and third-class passengers as she could stow. +They were--their general air proclaimed it--the failures of South +African immigration; men and women who had gone out too early and given +up the struggle just when the propitious moment arrived. Seediness +marked the second-class; the third-class came from all parts, from the +Cape to Pietermaritzburg, but they might have conspired to assemble on +the _Cambuscan_ as a protest against high hopes and dreams of a promised +land. The protest, let me add, was an entirely passive one. They stood +aloof, watching the flashy gaieties of the hurricane-deck from their own +sad penumbra--a dejected, wistful, whispering throng. "They simply +don't occur," one of the be-diamonded ladies remarked to me, and went on +to praise the U-- Line for arranging it so. With nightfall--or a trifle +later--they vanished; and at most, when the time came for my last pipe +before turning in, two or three figures would be left pacing there +forward, pacing and turning and pacing again. I wondered who these +figures were, and what their thoughts. They and the sleepers hived +beneath them belonged to another world--a world driven with ours through +wave and darkness, urged by the same propellers, controlled by the same +helmsman, separated only by thin partitions which the touch of a rock +would tear down like paper; yet, while the partitions stood, separated +as no city separates its rich and poor. Only on Sundays did these two +worlds consent to meet. They had, it appeared, a common God, and joined +for a few minutes once a week in worshipping Him. + +The be-diamonded lady, however, was not quite accurate. Once, and once +only--it was the second day out from Madeira--the third-class passengers +did "occur," to the extent of organising athletic sports, and even (with +the captain's leave) of levying prize-money from the saloon-deck. +Some four or five of us, when their delegate approached, were lounging +beneath the great awning and listening, or pretending to listen, to the +discourse of our only millionaire, Mr. Olstein. As usual, he recited +his wrongs; and, as usual, the mere recital caused him to perspire. +The hairs on the back of his expostulatory hand bristled with +indignation, the diamonds on his fingers flashed with it. We had known +him but two days and were passing weary of him, but allowed him to talk. +He apostrophised the British Flag--his final Court of Appeal, he termed +it--while we stared out over the waters. + +"We love it," he insisted. "We never see it without a lump in our +throats. But we ask ourselves, How long is this affection to count for +nothing? What are we to get in return?" + +No one answered, perhaps because no one knew. My thoughts had flown +forward to a small riverside church in England, and a memorial window to +one whose body had been found after Isandlwhana with the same flag +wrapped around it beneath the tunic. This was _his_ reward. + +"Hey? What's this?" Mr. Olstein took the subscription list, fitted his +gold-rimmed glasses and eyed the delegate over the paper. +"Athletic sports? Not much in your line, I should say." + +"No, sir;" and while the delegate bent his eyes a bright spot showed on +either cheek. He was a weedy, hollow-chested man, about six feet in +height, with tell-tale pits at the back of the neck, and a ragged beard +evidently grown on the voyage. "I'm only a collector, with the +captain's permission." + +"I see." Mr. Olstein pulled out a sovereign. "I don't put this on +_you_, mind; I can tell a consumptive with half an eye. See here"--he +appealed to us--"this is just what we suffer from. You fellows with +lung trouble flock to a tepid hole like Madeira, while the Cape would +cure you in half the time: why, the voyage itself only begins to be +decent after you get south! But you won't see it; and the people who +_do_ see it are just the sort who don't pay us when they come, and +damage us when they go back,--hard cases, sent out to pick up a living +as well as their health, who get stranded and hurry home half-cured." + +A young Briton in the deck-chair next to mine rose and walked off +abruptly, while I fumbled for a coin, ashamed to meet the collector's +eye. + +"Hullo!" Mr. Olstein grinned at me. "Our friend's in a hurry to dodge +the subscription list." + +But the young Briton turned and intercepted the collector as he moved +towards the next group. + +"It's _your_ sovereign," said I, "that seems to be overlooked." + +Mr. Olstein saw it at his elbow and re-pocketed it. "Well, if he hasn't +the sense to pick it up, I've some more than to whistle him back. +But that'll show you the sort of fool we send out to compete with +Germans and suchlike. It's enough to make a man ashamed of his +country." + +This happened on a Saturday morning, and in the afternoon we attended +the sports--a depressing ceremony. The performers went through their +contests, so to speak, with bated breath and a self-consciousness which, +try as we might, poisoned our applause and made it insufferably +patronising. Their backers would pluck up heart and encourage them +loudly with Whitechapel catch-words, and anon would hush their voices in +uneasy shame. Our collector, brave by fits in his dignity as steward, +would catch the eye of a saloon-deck passenger and shrink behind the +enormous rosette which some wag had pinned upon him. + +Next day I made an opportunity to speak with him, after service. +It needed no pressing to extract his story, and he told it with entire +simplicity. He was a Cockney, and by trade had been a baker in +Bermondsey. "A wearing trade," he said. "The most of us die before +forty. You'd be surprised." But he had started with a sound +constitution, and somehow persuaded himself, in spite of warnings, that +he was immune. At thirty-two he had married. "A deal later than most," +he explained--and had scarcely been married three months before lung +trouble declared itself. "I had a few pounds put by, having married so +late; and it seemed a duty to Emily to give myself every chance: so we +packed up almost at once and started for South Africa. It was a wrench +to her, but the voyage out did us both all the good in the world, she +being in a delicate state of health, and the room in Bermondsey not fit +for a woman in that condition." The baby was born in Cape Town, five +months after their landing. "But they've no employment for bakers out +there," he assured me. "We found trade very low altogether, and what I +picked up wasn't any healthier than in London. Emily disliked the +place, too; though she'd have stayed gladly if it had been doing me any +good. And so back we're going. There's one thing: I'm safe of work. +My old employer in Bermondsey has promised that all right. And the +child, you see, sir, won't suffer. There's no consumption, that I know +of, in either of our families; and Emily, you may be sure, will see he's +not brought up to be a baker." + +He announced it in the most matter-of-fact way. He was going back to +England to die--to die speedily--and he knew it. "I should like you to +see our baby, sir," he added. "He weighs extraordinary, for his age. +My wife comes from the North of England--a very big-boned family; and +he's British, every ounce of him, though he _was_ born in South Africa." + +But the wife took a chill on entering the Bay, and remained below with +the child; nor was it until the day we sighted England that I saw the +whole family together. + + +We were to pick up the Eddystone; and as this was calculated to happen +at sunset, or a little after, the usual sweepstake on the saloon-deck +aroused a little more than the usual excitement. For the first glimpse, +whether of lighthouse or light, would give the prize to the nearest +guesser. If we anticipated sunset, the clearness of the weather would +decide between two pretty close shots: if we ran it fine, the lamp +(which carries for seventeen miles and more) might upset those who +staked on daylight even at that distance from the mark. Our guesses had +been tabulated, and the paper pinned up in the smoking-room. + +They allowed a margin of some twenty-five knots on the twenty-four +hours' run--ranging, as nearly as I can recollect, from three hundred +and thirty-five to three hundred and sixty; and the date being the last +week of March, and sunset falling close on half-past six, a whole nebula +of guesses surrounded that hour, one or two divided only by a few +seconds. + +A strong head-wind met us in the Channel, and the backers of daylight +had almost given up hope; but it dropped in the late afternoon, and by +the log we were evidently in for a close finish. Mr. Olstein had set +his watch by the ship's chronometer, and consulted it from minute to +minute. He stood by me, binocular in hand, and grew paler with +excitement as sunset drew on and the minutes scored off the guesses one +by one from the list. His guess was among the last, but not actually +the last by half a dozen. + +We had reached a point when five minutes disposed of no less than nine +guesses. The weather was dull: no one could tell precisely if the sun +had sunk or not. We were certainly within twenty miles of the rock, and +by the Nautical Almanack, unless our chronometer erred, the light ought +to flash out within sixty seconds. If within forty the man sang out +from the crow's-nest, Mr. Olstein would lose; after forty he had a whole +minute and a half for a clear win. + +The forty seconds passed. Mr. Olstein drew a long breath of relief. +"But why the devil don't they light up?" he demanded after a moment. +"I call you to witness what the time is by our chronometer. I'll have +it tested as soon as I step ashore, and if it's wrong I'll complain to +the Company; if it's not, I'll send the Trinity House a letter'll lay +those lighthouse fellows by the heels! Punctuality, sir, in the case of +shipping--life or death--" + +The cry of the man in the crow's-nest mingled with ours as a spark +touched the north-eastern horizon almost ahead of us--trembled and +died--shone out, as it seemed, more steadily--and again was quenched. + +Mr. Olstein slapped his thigh. He had won something like ten pounds and +was a joyous millionaire. "That makes twice in four voyages," he +proclaimed. + +I congratulated him and strode forward. A group of third-class +passengers had gathered by the starboard bow. They, too, had heard the +cry. To all appearance they might have been an ordinary Whitechapel +crowd, and even now they scarcely lifted their voices; but they +whispered and pointed. + +"The Eddystone!" + +I singled out my friend the baker. Before I could reach him he had +broken from the group. I hailed him. Without seeming to hear, he +disappeared down the fore-companion. But by and by he emerged again, +and with a baby in his arms. Evidently he had torn it from its cot. +His wife followed, weak and protesting. + +The child, too, raised a wail of querulous protest; but he hugged it to +him, and running to the ship's side held it aloft. + +"England, baby!" + +It turned its head, seeking the pillow or its mother; and would not +look, but broke into fresh and louder wailing. + +"England!" + +He hugged it afresh. God knows of what feeling sprang the tears that +fell on its face and baptized it. But he hushed his voice, and, lifting +the child again, coaxed it to look--coaxed it with tears streaming now, +and with a thrill that would not be denied-- + +"England, baby--England!" + + + +JOHN AND THE GHOSTS. + + +In the kingdom of Illyria there lived, not long ago, a poor wood-cutter +with three sons, who in time went forth to seek their fortunes. At the +end of three years they returned by agreement, to compare their progress +in the world. The eldest had become a lawyer, and the second a +merchant, and each of these had won riches and friends; but John, the +youngest, who had enlisted in the army, could only show a cork leg and a +medal. + +"You have made a bad business of it," said his brothers. "Your medal is +worthless except to a collector of such things, and your leg a positive +disadvantage. Fortunately we have influence, and since you are our +brother we must see what we can do for you." + +Now the King of Illyria lived at that time in his capital, in a brick +palace at the end of the great park. He kept this park open to all, and +allowed no one to build in it. But the richest citizens, who were so +fond of their ruler that they could not live out of his sight, had their +houses just beyond the park, in the rear of the Palace, on a piece of +ground which they called Palace Gardens. The name was a little +misleading, for the true gardens lay in front of the Palace, where +children of all classes played among the trees and flower-beds and +artificial ponds, and the King sat and watched them, because he took +delight in children, and because the sight of them cheered his only +daughter, who had fallen into a deep melancholy. But the rich citizens +clung to it, for it gave a pleasant neighbourly air to their roadway, +and showed what friendliness there was between the monarch of Illyria +and his people. + +At either end you entered the roadway (if you were allowed) by an iron +gate, and each gate had a sentry-box beside it, and a tall beadle, and a +notice-board to save him the trouble of explanation. The notice ran-- + + PRIVATE.--_The Beadle has orders to refuse + admittance to all Waggons, Tradesmen's + Carts, Hackney Coaches, Donkeys, Beggars, + Disorderly Characters, or Persons carrying + Burdens_. + +A sedentary life had told so severely upon one of the two beadles that +he could no longer enter his box with dignity or read his newspaper +there with any comfort. He resigned, and John obtained the post by his +brothers' interest, in spite of his cork leg. + +He had now a bright green suit with scarlet pipings, a gold-laced hat, a +fashionable address, and very little to do. But the army had taught him +to be active, and for lack of anything better he fell into deep +thinking. This came near to bringing him into trouble. One evening he +looked out of his sentry-box and saw a mild and somewhat sad-featured +old gentleman approaching the gate. + +"No admittance," said John. + +"Tut, tut!" said the old gentleman. "I'm the King." + +John looked at the face on his medal, and sure enough there was a +resemblance. "But, all the same, your Majesty carries a burden,"--here +he pointed to the notice-board,--"and the folks along this road are +mighty particular." + +The King smiled and then sighed heavily. + +"It's about the Princess, my daughter," said he; "she has not smiled for +a whole year." + +"I'll warrant I'd make her," said John. + +"I'll warrant you could not," said the King. "She will never smile +again until she is married." + +"Then," answered John, "speaking in a humble way, as becomes me, why the +dickens alive don't you marry her up and get done with it?" + +The King shook his head. + +"There's a condition attached," said he. "Maybe you have heard of the +famous haunted house in Puns'nby Square?" + +"I've always gone by the spelling, and pronounced it Ponsonby," said +John. + +"Well, the condition is that every suitor for my daughter's hand must +spend a night alone in that house; and if he survives and is ready to +persevere with his wooing, he must return a year later with his bride +and spend the night of his marriage there." + +"And very handy," said John, "for there's a wedding-cake shop at the +corner." + +The King sighed again. + +"Unhappily, none survive. One hundred and fifty-five have undertaken +the adventure, and not a man of them but has either lost his wits or run +for it." + +"Well," said John, "I've been afraid of a great many men--" + +"That's a poor confession for a soldier," put in the King. + +"--when they all happened to come at me together. But I've never yet +met the ghost that could frighten me; and if your Majesty will give me +the latch-key I'll try my luck this very night." + +It could not be done in this free-and-easy way; but at eight o'clock, +after John had visited the Palace and taken an oath in the Princess's +presence (which was his first sight of her), he was driven down to the +house beside the Lord Chamberlain, who admitted him to the black front +hall, and, slamming the door upon him, scuttled out of the porch as +quickly as possible and into his brougham. + +John struck a match, and as he did so heard the carriage roll away. +The walls were bare, and the floor and great staircase ahead of him +carpetless. As the match flickered out he caught a glimpse of a pair of +feet moving up the stairs; that was all--only feet. + +"I'll catch up with the calves on the landing, maybe," said he; and, +striking another match, he followed them up. + +The feet turned aside on the landing and led him into a room on the +right. He paused on the threshold, drew a candle from his pocket, lit +it, and stared about him. The room was of great size, bare and dusty, +with crimson hangings, gilt panels, and one huge gilt chandelier, from +which and from the ceiling and cornice long cobwebs trailed down like +creeping plants. Beneath the chandelier a dark smear ran along the +boards. The feet crossed it towards the fireplace; and as they did so, +John saw them stained with blood. They reached the fire-place and +vanished. + +Scarcely had this happened, before the end of the room opposite the +window began to glow with an unearthly light. John, whose poverty had +taught him to be economical, promptly blew out his candle. A moment +later two men entered, bearing a coffin between them. They rested it +upon the floor and, seating themselves upon it, began to cast dice. +"Your soul!" "My soul!" they kept saying in hollow tones, according as +they won or lost. At length one of them--a tall man in a powdered wig, +with a face extraordinarily pale--flung a hand to his brow, rose and +staggered from the room. The other sat waiting and twirling his black +moustache, with an evil smile. John, who by this time had found a seat +in a far corner, thought him the most poisonous-looking villain he had +ever seen; but as the minutes passed and nothing happened, he turned his +back to the light and pulled out a penny-dreadful. His literary taste +was shocking, and when it came to romance he liked the incidents to +follow one another with great rapidity. + +He was interrupted by a blood-curdling groan, and the first ruffian +broke into the room, dragging by its grey locks the body of an old man. +A young girl followed, weeping and protesting, with dishevelled hair, +and behind her entered a priest with a brazier full of glowing charcoal. +The girl cast herself forward on the old man's body, but the two +scoundrels dragged her from it by force. "The money!" demanded the dark +one; and she drew from her bosom a small key and cast it at his feet. +"My promise!" demanded the other, and seized her by the wrist as the +priest stepped forward. "Quick! over this coffin--man and wife!" +She wrenched her hand away and thrust him backward. The priest +retreated to the brazier and drew out a red-hot iron. + +John thought it about time to interfere. + +"I beg your pardon," said he, stepping forward; "but I suppose you +really _are_ ghosts?" + +"We are unhallowed souls," answered the dark man impressively, +"who return to blight the living with the spectacle of our awful +crimes." + +"Meaning me?" asked John. + +"Ay, sir; and to destroy you to-night if you contract not, upon your +soul, to return with your bride and meet us here a twelvemonth hence." + +"H'm!" said John to himself, "they are three to one; and, after all, +it's what I came for. I suppose," he added aloud, "some form of +document is usual in these cases?" + +The dark man drew out pen and parchment. + +"Hold forth your hand," he commanded; and as John held it out, thinking +he meant to shake it over the bargain, the fellow drove the pen into his +wrist until the blood spurted. "Now sign!" + +"Sign!" said the other villain. + +"Sign!" said the lady. + +"Oh, very well, miss. If you're in the swindle too, my mind is easier," +said John, and signed his name with a flourish. "But a bargain is a +bargain, and what security have I for your part in it?" + +"Our signature!" said the priest terribly, at the same moment pressing +his branding-iron into John's ankle. A smell of burnt cork arose as +John stooped and clapped his hand over the scorched stocking. When he +looked up again his visitors had vanished; and a moment later the +strange light, too, died away. + +But the coffin remained for evidence that he had not been dreaming. +John lit a candle and examined it. + +"Just the thing for me," he exclaimed, finding it to be a mere shell of +pine-boards, loosely nailed together and painted black. "I was +beginning to shiver." He knocked the coffin to pieces, crammed them +into the fireplace, and very soon had a grand fire blazing, before which +he sat and finished his penny-dreadful, and so dropped off into a sound +sleep. + +The Lord Chamberlain arrived early in the morning, and, finding him +stretched there, at first broke into lamentations over the fate of yet +another personable young man; but soon changed his tune when John sat +up, and, rubbing his eyes, demanded to be told the time. + +"But are you really alive? We must drive back and tell his Majesty at +once!" + +"Stay a moment," said John. "There's a brother of mine, a lawyer, in +the city. He will be arriving at his office about this time, and you +must drive me there; for I have a document here of a sort, and must have +it stamped, to be on the safe side." + +So into the city he was driven beside the Lord Chamberlain, and there +had his leg stamped and filed for reference; and, having purchased +another, was conveyed to the Palace, where the King received him with +open arms. + +He was now a favoured guest at Court, and had frequent opportunities of +seeing and conversing with the Princess, with whom he soon fell deeply +in love. But as the months passed and the time drew near for their +marriage, he grew silent and thoughtful, for he feared to expose her, +even in his company, to the sights he had witnessed in the haunted +house. + +He thought and thought, until one fine afternoon he snapped his fingers +suddenly, and after that went about whistling. A fortnight before the +day fixed for the wedding he drove into the city again--but this time to +the office of his other brother, the merchant. + +"I want," he said, "a loan of a thousand pounds." + +"Nothing easier," said his brother. "Here are eight hundred and fifty. +Of the remainder I shall keep fifty as interest for the first year at +five per cent., and the odd hundred should purchase a premium of +insurance for two thousand pounds, which I will retain as security +against accidents." + +This seemed not only fair but brotherly. John pocketed his eight +hundred and fifty pounds, shook his creditor affectionately by the hand, +and hurried westward. + + +The marriage was celebrated with great pomp; and in the evening the +King, who had been shedding tears at intervals throughout the +ceremonies, accompanied his daughter to the haunted house. The Princess +was pale. John, on the contrary, who sat facing her father in the +state-coach, smiled with a cheerfulness which, under the circumstances, +seemed a trifle ill-bred. The wedding-guests followed in twenty-four +chariots. Their cards of invitation had said "Two to five-thirty p.m.," +and it was now eight o'clock; but they could not resist the temptation +to see the last of "the poor dear thing," as they agreed to call the +bride. + +The King sat silent during the drive; he was preparing his farewell +speech, which he meant to deliver in the porch. But arriving and +perceiving a crowd about it, and also, to his vast astonishment, a red +baize carpet on the perron, and a butler bowing in the doorway with two +footmen behind him, he coughed down his exordium, and led his daughter +into the hall amid showers of rice and confetti. The bridegroom +followed; and so did the wedding-guests, since no one opposed them. + +The hall and staircase were decorated with palms and pot-plants, flags +and emblems of Illyria; and in the great drawing-room--which they +entered while John persuaded the King to a seat--they found many rows of +morocco-covered chairs, a miniature stage with a drop representing the +play-scene in _Hamlet_, a row of footlights, a boudoir-grand piano, and +a man seated at the keyboard whom they recognised as a performer in much +demand at suburban dances. + +The company had scarcely seated itself, before a strange light began to +illuminate that end of the room at which the stage stood, and +immediately the curtain rose to the overture of M. Offenbach's _Orphee +aux Enfers_, the pianist continuing with great spirit until a round of +applause greeted the entrance of the two spectral performers. + +Its effect upon them was in the highest degree disconcerting. They set +down the coffin, and, after a brief and hurried conference in an +undertone, the black-mustachioed ghost advanced to the footlights, +singled out John from the audience, and with a terrific scowl demanded +to know the reason of this extraordinary gathering. + +"Come, come, my dear sir," answered John, "our contract, if you will +study it, allows me to invite whom I choose; it merely insists that my +bride and I must be present, as you see we are. Pray go on with your +part, and assure yourself it is no use to try the high horse with me." + +The dark ghost looked at his partner, who shuffled uneasily. + +"I told you," said he, "we should have trouble with this fellow. +I had a presentiment of it when he came to spend the night here without +bringing a bull-dog. That frightening of the bull-dog out of his wits +has always been our most effective bit of business." + +Hereupon the dark ghost took another tone. + +"Our fair but unfortunate victim has a sore throat to-night," he +announced. "The performance is consequently postponed;" and he seated +himself sulkily upon the coffin, when the limelight-man from the wings +promptly bathed him in a flood of the most beautiful rose-colour. +"Oh, this is intolerable!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet. + +"It is not first-rate, I agree," said John, "but, such as it is, we had +better go through with it. Should the company doubt its genuineness, I +can go around afterwards and show the brand on the cork." Here he +tapped the leg, which he had been careful to bring with him. + +Before this evidence of contract the ghosts' resistance collapsed. +They seated themselves on the coffin and began the casting of dice; the +performance proceeded, but in a half-hearted and perfunctory manner, +notwithstanding the vivacious efforts of the limelight-man. + +The tall ghost struck his brow and fled from the stage. There were +cries of "Call him back!" But John explained that this was part of the +drama, and no encores would be allowed; whereupon the audience fell to +hissing the villain, who now sat alone with the most lifelike expression +of malignity. + +"Oh, hang it!" he expostulated after a while, "I am doing this under +protest, and you need not make it worse for a fellow. I draw the line +at hissing." + +"It's the usual thing," explained John affably. + +But when the ghostly lady walked on, and in the act of falling on her +father's body was interrupted by the pianist, who handed up an immense +bouquet, the performers held another hurried colloquy. + +"Look here," said the dark-browed villain, stepping forward and +addressing John; "what will you take to call it quits?" + +"I'll take," said John, "the key which the lady has just handed you. +And if the treasure is at all commensurate with the fuss you have been +making about it, we'll let bygones be bygones." + +Well, it did; and John, having counted it out behind the curtain, came +forward and asked the pianist to play "God save the King"; and so, +having bowed his guests to the door, took possession of the haunted +house and lived in it many years with his bride, in high renown and +prosperity. + + + +THREE PHOTOGRAPHS. + + +"Photograph all the prisoners? But why?" demanded Sir Felix +Felix-Williams. Old Canon Kempe shrugged his shoulders; Admiral +Trewbody turned the pages of the Home Secretary's letter. They sat at +the baize-covered table in the Magistrates' Room--the last of the +Visiting Justices who met, under the old _regime_, to receive the +Governor's report and look after the welfare of the prisoners in +Tregarrick County Gaol. + +"But why, in the name of common-sense?" Sir Felix persisted. + +"I suppose," hazarded the Admiral, "it helps the police in identifying +criminals." + +"But the letter says '_all_ the prisoners.' You don't seriously tell me +that anyone wants a photograph to identify Poacher Tresize, whom I've +committed a score of times if I've committed him once? And perhaps +you'll explain to me this further demand for a 'Composite Photograph' of +all the prisoners, male and female. A 'Composite Photograph!'--have you +ever seen one?" + +"No," the Admiral mused; "but I see what the Home Office is driving at. +Someone has been persuading them to test these new theories in +criminology the doctors are so busy with, especially in Italy." + +"In Italy!" pish'd Sir Felix Felix-Williams. + +"My dear Sir Felix, science has no nationality." The Admiral was a +Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and kept a microscope to amuse +his leisure. + +"It has _some_ proper limits, I should hope," Sir Felix retorted. +It annoyed him--a Chairman of Quarter Sessions for close upon twenty +years--to be told that the science of criminology was yet in its +infancy; and he glanced mischievously at the Canon, who might be +supposed to have a professional quarrel with scientific men. But the +Canon was a wary fighter and no waster of powder and shot. + +"Well, well," said he, "I don't see what harm it can do, or what good. +If the Home Secretary wants his Composite Photograph, let him have it. +The only question is, Have we a photographer who knows how to make one? +Or must we send the negatives up to Whitehall?" + + +So the Visiting Justices sent for the local photographer and consulted +him. And he, being a clever fellow, declared it was easy enough-- +a mere question of care in superimposing the negatives. He had never +actually made the experiment; his clients (so he called his customers) +preferring to be photographed singly or in family groups. But he asked +to be given a trial, and suggested (to be on the safe side) preparing +two or three of these composite prints, between which the Justices might +choose at their next meeting. + + +This was resolved, and the resolution entered in the minutes; and next +day the photographer set to work. Some of the prisoners resisted and +"made faces" in front of the camera, squinting and pulling the most +horrible mouths. A female shoplifter sat under protest, because she was +not allowed to send home for an evening gown. But the most consented +obediently, and Jim Tresize even asked for a copy to take home to his +wife. + +The Admiral (who had married late in life) resided with his wife and +young family in a neat villa just outside the town, where his hobby was +to grow pelargoniums. The photographer passed the gate daily on his way +to and from the prison, and was usually hailed and catechised on his +progress. + +His patience with the recalcitrant prisoners delighted the Admiral, who +more than once assured his wife that Smithers was an intelligent fellow +and quite an artist in his way. "I wonder how he manages it," said Mrs. +Trewbody. "He told baby last autumn that a little bird would fly out of +the camera when he took off the cap, and everyone allows that the result +is most lifelike. But I don't like the idea, and I think it may injure +his trade." + +The Admiral could not always follow his wife's reasoning. "What is it +you dislike?" he asked. + +"Well, it's not nice to think of oneself going into the same camera he +has been using on those wretched prisoners. It's sentiment, I daresay; +but I had the same feeling when he stuck up Harry's photograph in his +showcase at the railway station, among all kinds of objectionable +persons, and I requested him to remove it." + +The Admiral laughed indulgently, being one of those men who find a +charm, even a subtle flattery, in their wives' silliness. + +"I agree with you," he said, "that it's not pleasant to be exposed to +public gaze among a crowd of people one would never think of knowing. +I don't suppose it would actually encourage familiarity; at the same +time there's an air of promiscuity about it--I won't say disrespect-- +which, ahem! jars. But with the prisoners it's different,--my attitude +to them is scientific, if I may say so. I look upon them as a race +apart, almost of another world, and as such I find them extremely +interesting. The possibility of mixing with them on any terms of +intimacy doesn't occur. I am aware, my dear," he wound up graciously, +"that you women seldom understand this mental detachment, being by +nature unscientific, and all the more charming for your prejudices." + + +At the next meeting of Justices Smithers the photographer presented +himself, and produced his prints with a curious air of diffidence. + +"I have," he explained, "brought three for your Worships' selection, and +can honestly assure your Worships that my pains have been endless. +What puzzles me, however, is that although in all three the same +portraits have been imposed, and in the same order, the results are +surprisingly different. The cause of these differences I cannot detect, +though I have gone over the process several times and step by step; but +out of some two dozen experiments I may say that all the results answer +pretty closely to one or another of these three types." Mr. Smithers, +who had spent much time in rehearsing this little speech, handed up +photograph No. 1; and Sir Felix adjusted his spectacles. + +"Villainous!" he exclaimed, recoiling. + +The Canon and the Admiral bent over it together. + +"Most repulsive!" said the Admiral. + +"Here indeed,"--the Canon was more impressive,--"here indeed is an +object-lesson in the effects of crime! Is it possible that to _this_ +Man's passions can degrade his divinely inherited features? Were it not +altogether too horrible, I would have this picture framed and glazed and +hung up in every cottage home in the land." + +"My dear fellow," interrupted Sir Felix, "we cannot possibly let this +monstrosity go up to Whitehall as representative of the inmates of +Tregarrick Gaol! It would mean an inquiry on the spot. It would even +reflect upon _us_. Ours is a decent county, as counties go, and I +protest it shall not, with my consent, be injured by any such libel." + +Mr. Smithers handed up photograph No. 2. + +"This looks better," began Sir Felix; and with that he gave a slight +start, and passed the photograph to the Canon. The Canon, too, started, +and stole a quick glance at Sir Felix: their eyes met. + +"It certainly is singular"--stammered Sir Felix. "I fancied--without +irreverence--But you detected it too?" he wound up incoherently. + +"May I have a look?" The Admiral peered over the Canon's hand, who, +however, did not relinquish the photograph but turned on Smithers +with sudden severity. + +"I presume, sir, this is not an audacious joke?" + +"I assure your Worship--" protested the photographer. "I had some +thoughts of tearing it up, but thought it wouldn't be honest." + +"You did rightly," the Canon answered; "but, now that we have seen it, I +have no such scruple." He tore the print across, and across again. +"Even in this," he said, with a glance at the Admiral, who winced, +"we may perhaps read a lesson, or at least a warning, that man's +presumption in extending the bounds of his knowledge--or, as I should +prefer to call it, his curiosity--may--er--bring him face to face +with--" + +But the Canon's speech tailed off as he regarded the torn pieces of +cardboard in his hand. He felt that the others had been seriously +perturbed and were not listening: he himself was conscious of a shock +too serious for that glib emollient--usually so efficacious--the sound +of his own voice. He perceived that it did not impose even on the +photographer. An uncomfortable silence fell on the room. + +Sir Felix was the first to recover. "Put it in the waste-paper basket: +no, in the fire!" he commanded, and turned to Smithers. "Surely between +these two extremes--" + +"I was on the point of suggesting that your Worships would find No. 3 +more satisfactory," the photographer interrupted, forgetting his manners +in his anxiety to restore these three gentlemen to their ease. +His own discomfort was acute, and he overacted, as a man will who has +unwittingly surprised a State secret and wishes to assure everyone of +his obtuseness. + +Sir Felix studied No. 3. "This appears to me a very ordinary +photograph. Without being positively displeasing, the face is one you +might pass in the street any day, and forget." + +"I hope it suggests no--no well-known features?" put in the Canon +nervously. + +"None at all, I think: but see for yourself. To me it seems--although +hazy, of course--the kind of thing the Home Office might find helpful." + +"It is less distinct than the others." The Admiral pulled his whiskers. + +"And for that reason the more obviously composite--which is what we are +required to furnish. No, indeed, I can find nothing amiss with it, and +I think, gentlemen, if you are agreed, we will forward this print." + + +No. 3 was passed accordingly, the photographer withdrew, and the three +Justices turned to other business, which occupied them for a full two +hours. + +But, I pray you, mark the sequel. + +Mr. Smithers, in his relief and delight at the Magistrates' approbation, +hurried home, fished out a copy of No. 3, exposed it proudly in his shop +window, and went off to the Packhorse Inn for a drink. + +Less than an hour later, Mrs. Trewbody, having packed her family into +the jingle for their afternoon's ride with Miss Platt, the governess, +strolled down into the town to do some light shopping; and, happening to +pass the photographer's window, came to a standstill with a little gasp. + +A moment later she entered the shop; and Mrs. Smithers, answering the +shop bell, found that she had taken the photograph from the window and +was examining it eagerly. + +"This is quite a surprise, Mrs. Smithers. A capital photograph! May I +ask how many copies my husband ordered?" + +"I'm not aware, ma'am, that the Admiral has ordered any as yet; though I +heard Smithers say only this morning as he hoped he'd be pleased with +it." + +"I think I can answer for that, although he _is_ particular. But I +happen to know he disapproves of these things being exposed in the +window. I'll take this copy home with me, if I may. Has your husband +printed any more?" + +"Well no, ma'am. There was one other copy; but Lady Felix-Williams +happened to be passing just now, and spied it, and nothing would do but +she must take it away with her." + +"Lady Felix-Williams?" Mrs. Trewbody stiffened with sudden distrust. +"Now, what would Lady Felix-Williams want with this?" + +"I'm sure I can't tell you, ma'am: but she was delighted. 'A capital +likeness,' she said; 'I've never seen a photograph before that caught +just that expression of his.'" + +"I should very much like to know what _she_ has to do with his +expression," Mrs. Trewbody murmured to herself, between wonder and +incipient alarm. But she concealed her feelings, good lady; and, having +paid for her purchase, carried it home in her muff and stuck it upright +against one of the Sevres candlesticks on her boudoir mantel-shelf. + +And there the Admiral discovered it three-quarters of an hour later. +He came home wanting his tea; and, finding the boudoir empty, advanced +to ring the bell. At that moment his eyes fell on Smithers' replica of +the very photograph he had passed for furtherance to the Home Secretary. +He picked it up and gave vent to a long whistle. + +"Now, how the dickens--" + +His wife appeared in the doorway, with Harry, Dicky, and Theophila +clinging to her skirts, fresh from their ride, and boisterous. + +"My dear Emily, where in the world did you get hold of this?" + +He held the photograph towards her at arm's length, and the children +rushed forward to examine it. + +"Papa! papa!" they shouted together, capering around it. "Oh, mammy, +isn't it him _exactly?_" + + + +THE TALKING SHIPS. + + +He was a happy boy, for he lived beside a harbour, and just below the +last bend where the river swept out of steep woodlands into view of the +sea. A half-ruined castle, with a battery of antiquated guns, still +made-believe to protect the entrance to the harbour, and looked across +it upon a ridge of rocks surmounted by a wooden cross, which the Trinity +pilots kept in repair. Between the cross and the fort, for as long as +he could remember, a procession of ships had come sailing in to anchor +by the great red buoy immediately beneath his nursery window. +They belonged to all nations, and hailed from all imaginable ports; and +from the day his nurse had first stood him upon a chair to watch them, +these had been the great interest of his life. He soon came to know +them all--French brigs and _chasse-marees_, Russian fore-and-afters, +Dutch billyboys, galliots from the East coast, and Thames hay-barges +with vanes and wind-boards. He could tell you why the Italians were +deep in the keel, why the Danes were manned by youngsters, and why these +youngsters deserted, although their skippers looked, and indeed were, +such good-natured fellows; what food the French crews hunted in the +seaweed under the cliff, and when the Baltic traders would be driven +southward by the ice. Once acquainted with a vessel, he would recognise +her at any distance, though by what signs he could no more tell than we +why we recognise a friend. + +On his seventh birthday he was given a sailing boat, on condition that +he learned to read; but, although he kept by the bargain honestly, at +the end of a month he handled her better than he was likely to handle +his book in a year. He had a companion and instructor, of course-- +a pensioner who had left the Navy to become in turn fisherman, +yachtsman, able seaman on board a dozen sailing vessels, and now +yachtsman again. His name was Billy, and he taught the boy many +mysteries, from the tying of knots to the reading of weather-signs; +how to beach a boat, how to take a conger off the hook, how to gaff a +cuttle and avoid its ink. . . . In return the boy gave him his heart, +and even something like worship. + +One fine day, as they tacked to and fro a mile and more from the +harbour's mouth, whiffing for mackerel, the boy looked up from his seat +by the tiller. "I say, Billy, did you speak?" + +Billy, seated on the thwart and leaning with both arms on the weather +gunwale, turned his head lazily. "Not a word this half-hour," he +answered. + +"Well now, I thought not; but somebody, or something--spoke just now." +The boy blushed, for Billy was looking at him quizzically. "It's not +the first time I've heard it, either," he went on; "sometimes it sounds +right astern, and sometimes close beside me." + +"What does it say?" asked Billy, re-lighting his pipe. + +"I don't know that it _says_ anything, and yet it seems to speak out +quite clearly. Five or six times I've heard it, and usually on smooth +days like this, when the wind's steady." + +Billy nodded. "That's right, sonny; I've heard it scores of times. +And they say. . . . But, there, I don't believe a word of it." + +"What do they say?" + +"They say that 'tis the voice of drowned men down below, and that they +hail their names whenever a boat passes." + +The boy stared at the water. He knew it for a floor through which he +let down his trammels and crab-pots into wonderland--a twilight with +forests and meadows of its own, in which all the marvels of all the +fairy-books were possible; but the terror of it had never clouded his +delight. + +"Nonsense, Billy; the voice I hear is always quite cheerful and +friendly--not a bit like a dead man's." + +"I tell what I'm told," answered Billy, and the subject dropped. + +But the boy did not cease thinking about the voice; and some time after +he came, as it seemed, upon a clue. His father had set him to read +Shakespeare; and, taking down the first of twelve volumes from the +shelf, he began upon the first play, _The Tempest_. He was prepared to +yawn, but the first scene flung open a door to him, and he stepped into +a new world, a childish Ferdinand roaming an Isle of Voices. +He resigned Miranda to the grown-up prince, for whom (as he saw at a +glance, being wise in the ways of story-books) she was eminently fitted. +It was in Ariel, perched with harp upon the shrouds of the king's ship, +that he recognised the unseen familiar of his own voyaging. "O spirit, +be my friend--speak to me often!" As children will, he gave Prospero's +island a local habitation in the tangled cliff-garden, tethered Caliban +in the tool-shed, and watched the white surf far withdrawn, or listened +to its murmur between the lordly boles of the red-currant bushes. +For the first time he became aware of some limitations in Billy. + +He had long been aware of some serious limitations in his nurse: she +could not, for instance, sail a boat, and her only knot was a "granny." +He never dreamed of despising her, being an affectionate boy; but more +and more he went his own way without consulting her. Yet it was she +who--unconsciously and quite as if it were nothing out of the way-- +handed him the clue. + +A flagstaff stood in the garden on a grassy platform, half-way down the +cliff-side, and the boy at his earnest wish had been given charge of it. +On weekdays, as a rule he hoisted two flags--an ensign on the gaff, and +a single code-flag at the mast-head; but on Sundays he usually ran up +three or four, and with the help of the code-book spelt out some message +to the harbour. Sometimes, too, if an old friend happened to take up +her moorings at the red buoy below, he would have her code-letters +hoisted to welcome her, or would greet and speed her with such signals +as K.T.N., "Glad to see you," and B.R.D., or B.Q.R., meaning "Good-bye," +"A pleasant passage." Skippers fell into the habit of dipping their +flags to him as they were towed out to sea, and a few amused themselves +while at anchor by pulling out their bags of bunting and signalling +humorous conversations, though their topmasts reached so near to the +boy's platform that they might with less labour have talked through a +speaking-trumpet. + +One morning before Christmas six vessels lay below at the buoy, moored +stem to stem in two tiers of three; and, after hoisting his signal +(C.P.B.H. for "Christmas Eve"), he ran indoors with the news that all +six were answering with bushes of holly at their topmast heads, while +one--a Danish barquentine--had rove stronger halliards and carried a +tall fir-tree at the main, its branches reaching many feet above her +truck. + +"Christmas is Christmas," said his nurse. "When I was young, at such +times there wouldn't be a ship in the harbour without its talking-bush." + +"What is a talking-bush?" the boy asked. + +"And you pretend to be a sailor! Well, well--not to know what happens +on Christmas night when the clocks strike twelve!" + +The boy's eyes grew round. "Do--the--ships--talk?" + +"Why, of course they do! For my part, I wonder what Billy teaches you." + + +Late that evening, when the household supposed him to be in bed, the boy +crept down through the moonlit garden to the dinghy which Billy had left +on its frape under the cliff. But for their riding-lights, the vessels +at the buoy lay asleep. The crews of the foreigners had turned in; the +_Nubian_, of Runcorn, had no soul on board but a night-watchman, now +soundly dozing in the forecastle; and the _Touch-me-not_ was deserted. +The _Touch-me-not_ belonged to the port, and her skipper, Captain +Tangye, looked after her in harbour when he had paid off all hands. +Usually he slept on board; but to-night, after trimming his lamp, he had +rowed ashore to spend Christmas with his family--for which, since he +owned a majority of the shares, no one was likely to blame him. He had +even left the accommodation-ladder hanging over her side, to be handy +for boarding her in the morning. + +All this the boy had noted; and accordingly, having pushed across in the +dinghy, he climbed the _Touch-me-not's_ ladder and dropped upon deck +with a bundle of rugs and his father's greatcoat under his arm. + +He looked about him and listened. There was no sound at all but the lap +of tide between the ships, and the voice of a preacher travelling over +the water from a shed far down the harbour, where the Salvation Army was +holding a midnight service. Captain Tangye had snugged down his ship +for the night: ropes were coiled, deckhouses padlocked, the spokes of +the wheel covered against dew and frost. The boy found the slack of a +stout hawser coiled beneath the taffrail--a circular fort into which he +crept with his rugs, and nestled down warmly; and then for half an hour +lay listening. But only the preacher's voice broke the silence of the +harbour. On--on it went, rising and falling. . . . + +Away in the little town the church clock chimed the quarter. "It must +have missed striking the hour," thought the boy, and he peered over the +edge of his shelter. The preacher's voice had ceased; but another was +speaking, and close beside him. + +"You'd be surprised," it said, "how simple one's pleasures grow with +age. This is the twelfth Christmas I've spent at home, and I assure you +I quite look forward to it: that's a confession, eh?--from one who has +sailed under Nelson and smelt powder in his time." The boy knew that he +must be listening to the _Touch-me-not_, whose keelson came from an old +line-of-battle ship. "To be sure," the voice went on graciously, +"a great deal depends on one's company." + +"Talking of powder," said the _Nubian_, creaking gently on her +stern-moorings, "reminds me of a terrible adventure. My very first +voyage was to the mouth of a river on the West Coast of Africa, where +two native tribes were at war. Somehow, my owner--a scoundrelly fellow +in the Midlands--had wind of the quarrel, and that the tribe nearest the +coast needed gunpowder. We sailed from Cardiff with fifteen hundred +barrels duly labelled, and the natives came out to meet us at the +river-mouth and rafted them ashore; but the barrels, if you will believe +me, held nothing but sifted coal-dust. Off we went before the trick was +discovered, and with six thousand pounds' worth of ivory in my hold. +But the worst villainy was to come; for my owner, pretending that he had +opened up a profitable trade, and having his ivory to show for it, sold +me to a London firm, who loaded me with real gunpowder and sent me out, +six months later, to the same river, but with a new skipper and a +different crew. The natives knew me at once, and came swarming out in +canoes as soon as we dropped anchor. The captain, who of course +suspected nothing, allowed them to crowd on board; and I declare that +within five minutes they had clubbed him and every man of the crew and +tossed their bodies to the sharks. Then they cut my hawsers and towed +me over the river-bar; and, having landed a good half of my barrels, +they built and lit a fire around them in derision. I can hear the +explosion still; my poor upper-works have been crazy ever since. +It destroyed almost all the fighters of the tribe, who had formed a ring +to dance around the fire. The rest fled inland, and I never saw them +again, but lay abandoned for months as they had anchored me, between the +ruined huts and a sandy spit alive with mosquitoes--until somehow a +British tramp-steamer heard of me at one of the trading stations up the +coast. She brought down a crew to man and work me home. But my owner +could not pay the salvage; so the parties who owned the steamer-- +a Runcorn firm--paid him fifty pounds and kept me for their services. +A surveyor examined me, and reported that I should never be fit for +much: the explosion had shaken me to pieces. I might do for the +coasting trade--that was all; and in that I've remained." + +"Owners are rogues, for the most part," commented the Danish +barquentine, rubbing against the _Touch-me-nots_ fender as if to nudge +her. "There's the _Maria Stella Maris_ yonder can tell us a tale of the +food they store us with. She went through a mutiny once, I've heard." + +"I'd rather not talk of it," put in the Italian hastily, and a shudder +ran through her timbers. "It's a dreadful recollection, and I have that +by my mizzen-mast which all the holystone in the world can never scour." + +"But I've had a mutiny, too!" said the Dutch galliot, with a voice of +great importance; and this time the boy felt sure that the vessels +nudged one another. + +"It happened," the galliot went on, "between my skipper and his _vrauw_, +who was to all purpose our mate, and as good a mate as ever I sailed +with. But she would not believe the world was round. The skipper took +a Dutch cheese and tried to explain things: he moved the cheese round, +as it might be, from west to east, and argued and argued, until at last, +being a persevering man, he did really persuade her, but it took a whole +voyage, and by the time he succeeded we were near home again, and in the +North Sea Canal. The moment she was convinced, what must the woman do +but go ashore to an aunt of hers who lived at Zaandam, and refuse to +return on board, though her man went on his bended knees to her! +'I will not,' she said; 'and _that's_ flat, at any rate.' The poor man +had to start afresh, undo every one of his arguments, and prove the +earth flat again, before she would trust herself to travel. It cost us +a week, but for my part I didn't grudge it. Your cliffs and deep-water +harbours don't appeal to me. Give me a canal with windmills and +summer-houses where you can look in on the families drinking tea as you +sail by; give me, above all, a canal on Sundays, when the folks walk +along the towing-path in their best clothes, and you feel as if you were +going to church with them." + +"Give me rather," said the Norwegian barque from Christiansund, +"a fiord with forests running straight up to the snow mountains, and +water so deep that no ship's anchor can reach it." + +"I have seen most waters," the Dane announced calmly and proudly. +"As you see, I am very particular about my paint, for a ship ought to +keep up her beauty and look as young as she can. But I have an ice-mark +around my breast which is usually taken for a proof of experience, and +as a philosopher I say that all waters are tolerable enough if one +carries the talisman." + +"But can a ship be beautiful?" and "What is the talisman?" asked the +Italian and the _Nubian_ together. + +"One at a time, please. My dear," she addressed the Italian, +"the point is, that men, whom we serve, think us beautiful indeed. +It seems strange to us, who carry the thought of the forests we have +left; and on warm days, when the sap awakes in us and tries to climb +again, forgetting its weakness, we miss the green boughs and the moss at +our feet and the birds overhead. But I have studied my reflection often +enough in calm weather, and begin to see what men have in mind when they +admire us." + +"And the talisman?" asked the _Nubian_ again. + +"The talisman? There is no one cure for useless regret, but each must +choose his own. With me it is the thought of the child after whom I was +christened. The day they launched me was her first birthday, and she a +small thing held in the crook of her mother's arm: when the bottle swung +against my stem the wine spurted, and some drops of it fell on her face. +The mother did not see me take the water--she was too busy wiping the +drops away. But it was a successful launch, and I have brought the +family luck, while she has brought them happiness. Because of it, and +because our names are alike, her parents think of us together; and +sometimes, when one begins to talk of 'Thekla,' the other will not know +for a moment which of us is meant. They drink my health, too, on her +birthday, which is the fourteenth of May; and you know King Solomon's +verse for the fourteenth--'She is like the merchants' ships, she +bringeth her food from afar.' This is what I have done while she was +growing; for King Solomon wrote it for a wife, of course. But now I +shall yield up my trust, for when I return she is to be married. She +shall bind that verse upon her with a coral necklace I carry for my +gift, and it shall dance on her white throat when her husband leads her +out to open the wedding-ball." + +"Since you are so fond of children," said the _Touch-me-not_, "tell me, +what shall we do for the one I have on my deck? He is the small boy who +signalled Christmas to us from the garden above; and he dreams of +nothing but the sea, though his parents wish him to stick to his books +and go to college." + +The Dane did not answer for a moment. She was considering. "Wherever +he goes," she said at length, "and whatever he does, he will find that +to serve much is to renounce much. Let us show him that what is +renounced may yet come back in beautiful thoughts." + +And it seemed to the boy that, as she ceased, a star dropped out of the +sky and poised itself above the fir-tree on her maintopmast; and that +the bare mast beneath it put forth branches, while upon every branch, as +it spread, a globe of fire dropped from the star, until a gigantic +Christmas-tree soared from the deck away up to heaven. In the blaze of +it the boy saw the miracle run from ship to ship--the timber bursting +into leaf with the song of birds and the scent of tropical plants. +Across the avenue of teak which had been the _Nubian's_ bulwarks he saw +the Dutchman's galley, now a summer-house set in parterres of tulips. +Beyond it the sails of the _Maria Stella Maris_, shaken from the yards, +were piling themselves into snowy mountains, their foot-ropes and braces +trailing down and breaking into leaves and clusters of the vine. +He heard the murmur of streams flowing, the hum of bees, the whetting of +the scythes--even the stir of insects' wings among the grasses. +From truck to keelson the ships were wavering, dissolving part from part +into remote but unforgotten hiding-places whence the mastering +adventurer had torn them to bind and yoke them in service. Divine the +service, but immortal also the longing to return! "But there the +glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; +wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass +thereby." + +The boy heard the words; but before he understood them a hand was on his +shoulder, and another voice speaking above him. + +"God bless us! it's you, is it? Here's a nice tale to tell your father, +I must say!" He opened his eyes, and above Captain Tangye's shoulder +the branches faded, the lights died out, and the masts stood stripped +and bare for service against the cold dawn. + + + +THE KEEPERS OF THE LAMP. + + +It was in a purple twilight of May that I first saw the lamp shining. +For me, a child of seven, the voyage had been a tiring one: it seemed +many hours since, with a ringing of bells, and hearts adventurously +throbbing with the screw of our small steamboat, we had backed and +swung, casting our wash in waves along the quay-walls, and so, after a +pause during which we held our breath and drifted from the line of +watching faces, had headed away for the great empty sky-line beyond +which the islands lay. I knew that they lay yonder; for, the evening +before, my father had led me up a tall hill and pointed them out to me-- +black specks in the red ball of the sun. But to-day, as hour after hour +went by with the pant of the engines, the lift and slide of the Atlantic +swell, the tonic wind humming against the stays, my eyes grew heavy, and +at length my head dropped against my father's shoulder. And then--to me +it seemed the next instant--he woke me up and pointed towards the +islands as they rose out of the indigo sea. At first they looked rather +like low-lying clouds, but after a minute or two there was no mistaking +them; for, as if they had just discovered _us_, they hung out lamp after +lamp, some steady, some intermittent, but all of them gleaming yellow +along the floor of the sea save one, a crimson light which hid and +showed itself again northward of the rest. Crimson was my favourite +colour in those days, and even as I dropped back into sleep I decided +that I liked this lamp the best of all. + +I awoke again to the sound of voices. We were passing a pilot-boat out +there on the watch for ships. Her crew hailed us as we went by, and I +saw their faces in the green radiance of our starboard light--gaunt, +dark faces, altogether foreign. One of the men, the oldest, was +bareheaded, with long grey locks, and wore a yellow neckcloth with his +shirt open below it, and his naked chest showing. Their voices as they +answered our skipper were clear and gay like the voices of children. + +And, next, we were alongside a quay. Our seats, our bulwarks, even our +decks, shone with dew. A crowd stood on the dim quay-edge and looked +down on us, and chattered, but in soft voices. There was a policeman +too, and I wondered how _he_ came there. Above this shadowy moving +crowd rode the stars I had known at home. I took my father's hand. At +the head of the gangway he stooped, hoisted me on his shoulders, and +carried me up and up through narrow mysterious streets, around dark +corners, past belated islanders hurrying down to the steamer; but always +upward, until he pushed open a door and set me down blinking in a +whitewashed bedroom lit by a couple of candles: and with that came +sleep. + +Happy days followed: blue and white days--days vaulted and floored with +blue, flashing with white granite, with the rush of white water beneath +the shadow of the leaning sail, with white cirrus clouds, with white +wings of seabirds. It was the height of the nesting season, and the +birds had brought us to the islands; my father with paint-box and +camera--though, our time being short, he relied almost wholly on the +latter. A naturalist, and by temper the gentlest of men, in his methods +he was a born pioneer. You can hardly imagine how cumbrous and +well-nigh hopeless a business it was in those days, not so long past, to +pursue after wild life with a camera; but a thousand disheartening +failures left him still grasping the inviolable shade, still confident +that in photography, if it could only be given with rapidity and +precision, lay the naturalist's hope. Blurred negatives were all the +spoil, and, sorry enough, we bore back after long days of tossing and +climbing among the Outer Islands; but we had the reward of living among +the birds. They filled our thoughts, our lives for the time:--great +cormorants and northern divers, flitting red-legged oyster-catchers, +shags spreading their wings to the wind and sun, sea-parrots, murrs, +razor-bills, gannets questing by ones and twos--now poised, now dropping +like plummets with a resounding splash; sandpipers and curlews dotting +the beaches, and wading; tern, common gulls, herring-gulls, and +kittiwakes, and, at nightfall, shearwaters popping from their holes and +swimming and skimming around our boat as we headed for home. And then, +the nests we discovered!--nay, the nests that at times we walked among, +picking our steps like egg-dancers!--nests boldly planted on the bare +rock ledges; nests snugly hidden among the clusters of blue thrift and +the massed sea-pinks. They bloomed everywhere, these sea-pinks; sheet +upon sheet of pale rose-colour, soon to show paler and fade before the +rosy splendours of the mesembryanthemum. But the thrift had no rival to +fear, condensing blue heaven and blue sea in the flower it lifted +against both; and to lie prone and make a frame of it for some winding +channel when the tide-rip flashed and tossed was to send the eye +plunging into blue like an Eastern diver after pearls. + +But when after sunset the blue deepened to violet, always in the heart +of it glowed the crimson light upon Off Island. Night after night I +watched it from my window, and wondered what manner of people they were +who tended it, living out yonder on a rock where no grass grew, and in a +roar of tide which the inhabitants of the greater islands heard on still +days in the few inland valleys where it was possible to lose sight of +the sea. I knew that thousands of puffins bred there, and we were to +visit the rock some day; but, what with the tides and an all but +ceaseless ground swell, our opportunity was long in coming, and Old Seth +(our boatman) kept putting it off until I began to disbelieve in it +altogether. + +It came, though, at last, with a cloudless morning and a north-easterly +breeze, brisk and steady, the clearest day in a fortnight of clear days. +We were heading northward close-hauled through a sound dividing two of +the greater islands--Old Seth at the tiller, my father tending the +sheet, and I perched on the weather gunwale and peering over and down on +the purple reefs we seemed to avoid so narrowly--when Seth lifted his +voice in a shout, and then, with a word of warning, paid out sheet, +brought the boat's nose round and ran her in towards a silver-white +beach on our left. As we downed sail, I saw a girl on the bank above +the beach, leaning on a hoe and gazing at us over a low hedge of +veronica. + +Seth hailed her again, and she came running to the waterside. There she +stood and eyed us shyly: a dark-haired girl, bare-headed, and with the +dust of the potato-patch on her shoes and ankles. + +"Any message for Reub Hicks, my dear? We'm bound over to Off Island." + +She hesitated, looking from Seth to us; and while she hesitated a flush +mounted to her tanned face and deepened there. + +"Come," Old Seth coaxed her, "you needn' be afeard to trust us with your +little secrets." + +She seemed, at all events, to have made up her mind to trust us. +From the pocket of her skirt she drew a tattered, paper-covered book, +opened it, and was about to tear out a couple of pages, but paused. + +"I'd like to send it," said she; but still paused, and at length passed +the open book to Seth. + +"I see." He nodded. "Seems a pity--don't it?--to tear up good printed +stuff. Tell 'ee what," he suggested: "you leave me take the book over +as 'tis, and this evenin', if you'll be waitin' here, I'll bring it back +safe." + +She brightened at once. "That'll do brave. Tell 'en I hope he's +keepin' well, and give my love to the others." + +"Right you are," promised Seth cheerfully, pushing off. + +"And don't you forget!" she called after us. + +Seth laughed. "That's a very good girl, now," he commented as he +settled himself to the tiller again. "Must be a poor job courtin' with +a light-house man: not much walkin' together for they. No harm, I +s'pose, in your seem' the maid's book." He handed it to my father, who +shook his head. + +"Aw," went on Seth, guessing why he hesitated, "there's no writin' in +it--only print." He held the book open. It was a nautical almanack, +and night by night the girl had pencilled out the hour of sunset. +Night by night the first flash of the Off Island lamp carried her +lover's message to her, and, as Seth explained (but it needed no +explanation), at that signal she blotted out yet one more of the days +between her and the marriage day. + +Off Island rose from the sea a sheer mass of granite, about a hundred +and fifty feet in height, and all but inaccessible had it not been for a +rock stair-way hewn out by the Brethren of the Trinity House. +The keepers had spied our boat, and a tall young man stood on one of the +lower steps to welcome us: not Reuben, but Reuben's younger brother Sam. +Reuben met us at the top of the staircase, where the puffins built so +thickly that a false step would almost certainly send the foot crashing +through the roof of one of their oddly shaped houses. He too was a tall +youth; an inch or two taller, maybe, than his brother, whom we had left +in charge of the boat. It would have puzzled you to guess their ages. +Young they surely were, but much gazing in the face of the salt wind had +creased the corners of their eyes, and their faces wore a beautiful +gravity, as though they had been captured young and dedicated to some +priestly service. + +Reuben touched his cap, and, taking the book from Seth without a word, +led us to the cottage, where his mother stood scouring a deal table: a +little woman with dark eyes like beads, and thin grey hair tucked within +a grey muslin cap. She had kilted her gown high and tucked up her +sleeves, and looked to me, for all the world, like a doll on a penwiper. +But her hands were busy continually; the small room shone and gleamed +with her tireless cleansing and polishing; and in the midst of it her +eyes sparkled with expectation of news from the outer world. + +Seth understood her, and rattled at once into a recital of all the +happenings on the islands: births, marriages, and deaths, sickness, +courtship, and boat-building, the price of market-stuff, and the names +of vessels newly arrived in the roads. But after a minute she turned +from him to my father. + +"'Tis all so narrow, sir--Seth's news. I want to know what's happenin' +in the world." + +Now, much was happening in those May weeks--much all over Europe, but +much indeed in France, where Paris was passing through the sharp agonies +of the Commune. The latest my father had to tell was almost a week old; +but two days before we set sail for the islands the Versaillais troops +had swept the boulevards, and every steamer had brought newspapers from +the mainland. Mrs. Hicks' eyes grew bigger and rounder as she listened; +but she had listened a very short while before she cried-- + +"Father must hear this! He's up polishin' the lantern, sir. Begging +your pardon, but he must hear you tell it; he must indeed." With +immense pride she added, "He was over to France, one time." + +She marched us off to the lantern, up the winding stairway, up the +ladder, and into the great glass cage, where stood an old man busily +polishing the brass reflector. + +"Father, here's a gentleman come, with news from France!" + +As the old man came forward with a fumbling step, my father drew a thick +bundle from his coat pocket. "I've brought you some newspapers," said +he; "they will tell you more than I can." + +He held them out, but the wife interposed hurriedly. "Not to him, sir. +Give them to Reuben, if you please, and thank you. But he, sir--he's +blind." + +I looked, as my father looked. A film covered both pupils of the old +man's eyes. + +"He've been blind these seven years," Reuben explained in a low voice. +"Me and Sam are the regular keepers now; but the Board lets him live on +here, and he's terrible clever at polishing." + +"He knows the lamp so well as ever he did," broke in the old woman; +"the leastest little scratch, he don't miss it. How he doesn' break his +poor neck is more'n I can tell; but he don't--though 'tis a sore trial." + +While they explained, the old man's hand went out to caress the lamp, +but stopped within an inch of the sparkling lenses. + +"Iss," said he musingly, "with this here cataract I misses a brave lot. +There's a lot to be seen up here, for a man with eyesight. Will 'ee +tell me, please sir, what's the news from France? I was over there, one +time." + +It turned out he had once paid a visit to one of the small Breton ports: +Roscoff I think it was, and have a suspicion that smuggling lay at the +bottom of the business there. + +"Well now," he commented as my father told something of his tale, +"I wouldn' have thought it of the Johnnies. They treated me very +pleasant, and I speak of a man as I find en." He turned his sightless +eyes on the family he had brought up to think well of Frenchmen. + +"They are different folk in Paris." + +"Iss, that's a big place. Cherbourg's a big place, too, they tell me. +I came near going there, one time; but my travellin's over. It _do_ +give a man something to think over, though. I wish my son here could +have travelled a bit before settlin' down." + +But Reuben, on the far side of the lantern, was turning the pages of the +tattered almanack. + +"Well-a-well!" said the old woman. "A body must be thankful for good +sons, and mine be that. But I'd love to end my days settin' in a window +and watchin' folks go by to church." + + +It was past seven o'clock when we hoisted sail again, and as we drew +near the greater islands a crimson flash shot out over the sea in our +wake. On a dim beach ahead stood a girl waiting. + + + +TWO BOYS. + + +I daresay they never saw, and perhaps never will see, one another. +I met them on separate railway journeys, and the dates are divided by +five years almost. One boy was travelling third-class, the other first. +The age of each when I made his very slight acquaintance (with the one I +did not even exchange a word) was about fourteen. Almost certainly +their lives and their stories have no connection outside of my thoughts. +But I think of them often, and together. They have grown up; the +younger will be a man by this time; if I met them now, their altered +faces would probably be quite strange to me. Yet the two boys remain my +friends, and that is why I take leave to include them among these +stories of my friends. + + +I. + + +The first boy (I never heard his name) was seated in the third-class +smoking-carriage when I joined my train at Plymouth; seated beside his +mother, an over-heated countrywoman in a state of subsiding fussiness. +We had a good five minutes to wait, but, as such women always will, she +had made a bolt for the first door within reach. Of course she found +herself in a smoking compartment, and of course she disliked tobacco, +but could not, although she made two false starts, make up her mind to +change. She had dropped upon one of the middle seats and dragged her +boy down into the next, thus leaving me the only vacant corner. +The others were occupied by a couple of drovers and a middle-aged man +with a newspaper, which he read column by column, advertisements and +all, without raising his eyes for a moment. + +The guard just outside the carriage door had his whistle to his lips, +and his green flag lifted ready to wave, when the woman asked-- +"Can anyone tell me if this train goes to London?" + +The drovers and I assured her that it did. + +"It stops at Bristol, doesn't it? My ticket is for Bristol." + +The train was in motion by this time. We set her mind at ease. +She opened a limp basket (called a "frail" I believe), produced an apple +and offered it to the boy. He shook his head. + +He was a passably good-looking coltish boy, in a best suit which he had +outgrown, and a hard black hat, the brim of which annoyed him when he +leaned back. A binding of black braid advertised what it was meant to +conceal--that the cuffs of his jacket had been lengthened; yet as he sat +with his hands crossed in his lap he displayed a deal of wrist. + +His eyes took my liking at once; eyes of a good grey-black--or, shall I +say, of a grey with fine glooms in it. They looked at you straight but +without staring; neither furtively nor with embarrassment, nor +curiously, nor again sleepily, but with that rare blend of candour and +reserve which allowed you to see that he was thinking his own thoughts, +and had no reason to be ashamed of them. Having taken stock of us, he +gazed thoughtfully out of window. His mother sighed from time to time, +and searched her basket to make sure that this, that, or the other +trifle had not been left behind. The drovers conversed apart; the +middle-aged man (who sat facing the engine) read away pertinaciously at +his newspaper, which he kept folded small by reason of the strong +southerly breeze playing in through the open window; and I divided my +attention between the landscape and the map at the beginning of +Stevenson's _Kidnapped_--then barely a week old, a delight to be +approached with trepidation. + +So we were sitting when the train crawled over the metals beyond +Teignmouth Station, gathered speed, and swung into full view of the open +sea. As the first strong breath of it came rushing in at the window I +heard a shuffle of feet. The boy had risen, and with his eyes was +asking our leave to stand by the door. I drew in my knees to make way +for him, and so, after a moment, did the middle-aged man. He did not +thank us, but stepped past politely enough and stood with his hand on +the leathern window-strap. I stared out of the little side window, +wondering what had caught his attention. + +And while I wondered, suddenly the child broke into song! + +It was the queerest artless performance: it had no tune in it, no +intelligible words--it was just a chant rising and falling as the surf +at the base of the sea-wall boomed and tossed its spray on the wind +fanning his face. And while he chanted, his serious eyes devoured the +blue leagues right away to the horizon. + +The drovers at the far end of the compartment turned their faces inward +and grinned. The middle-aged man looked across at me behind the boy's +back with half a smile and resumed his reading. The mother laughed +apologetically-- + +"'Tis his way. He won't be so crazed for it in a few weeks' time, I +reckon. He's goin' up to Bristol to be bound apprentice to his uncle. +His uncle's master of a sailing ship." + +But the boy did not hear. There are four or five tunnels in the red +sandstone between Teignmouth and Dawlish, and through these he sang on +in a low repressed voice, which broke out high and clear and strong as +we swept again into the large wind and sunshine. At Dawlish Station we +drew up for a minute, and a porter on the up platform nodded to one of +the drovers and asked, "What's the matter with 'ee, in there?" +"Nothin', nothin'; we've got a smokin'-concert on," said the drover. +Across the rails a group waiting for the down train stood and stared at +the boy, whispered, and smiled; and I can still recall the fascinated +gaze of a plump urchin of six as he gripped with one hand a wooden spade +and with the other his mother's skirt. + +But the boy sang on heedless, and still sang on as we left Dawlish +behind. There was no jubilation in his chant, but through it all there +ran and rang out from time to time a note of high challenge. Perhaps I +read too much in it, for in the heart of a boy many thoughts sing +together before they come to birth,--and to the destinies we see so +distinctly he marches through a haze, drawn onward by incommunicable +yearnings. But as, unseen by him, I glanced up at his blown hair and +eager parted lips, the chant seemed to grow articulate-- + +"O Sea, I am coming! O fate, waiting and waited for, I salute you! +Friend or adversary, we meet to try each other: for your wonders I have +eyes, for your trials a heart. Use me, for I am ready!" + +As we turned inland and ran beside the shore of the Exe, his song died +down and ceased. For a while he stood conning the river, the boats, the +red cliffs and whitewashed towns on the farther bank; and so, as we came +in sight of the cathedral towers, stepped back and dropped into his +seat. + +"Well now," said his mother, "you _be_ a funny boy!" + +For a moment he did not seem to hear; then started and came out of his +day-dream with a furious blush. I looked away. + + +II. + + +The second boy wore a well-cut Eton suit, and sat in the smoking +compartment of a padded corridor carriage, with a silk-lined overcoat +beside him and a silver-mounted suit-case in the rack above. He was not +smoking, nor was he reading; but he sat on a great pile of papers and +magazines, and stared straight in front of him--that is to say, straight +at me. + +His stare, though constant and unrelenting, was not in the least +offensive--it had no curiosity in it: he had obviously been +contemplating the cushions before I intruded, and since I had chosen to +occupy his field of vision he contemplated me. + +I had no speaking acquaintance with the boy; but he bore the features of +his family, and his initials were on the suit-case above. So I knew him +for the only son of a man who had once shown me civility, the youngest +and least extravagantly wealthy of three rich brothers. Since one of +these brothers had never married and now was not likely to, it lay +beyond guessing what wealth the boy would inherit some day. + +He was by no means ill-looking, and quite certainly no fool. His face +carried the stamp of his father's ability. It puzzled me what he could +be doing with that pile of papers and magazines; or why, having burdened +himself with them, he should choose to sit and stare instead of reading +them. For his station lay but a twenty minutes' run below mine, and it +was impossible that in the time he could have glanced through the half +of them. + +He had been staring at me, or through me, maybe for half an hour, when +our train slowed down and came to a standstill above the steep valley +between Bodmin Road and Doublebois. After a couple of minutes' wait, +the boy rose and went to the window in the corridor to see what was +happening; and I took this opportunity to glance across at the papers +scattered on the vacant seat. They included three or four sixpenny and +threepenny magazines; a large illustrated paper (_Black and White_, I +think); half a dozen penny weeklies--_Tit-bits_, _Answers_, _Pearson's +Weekly_, _Cassell's Saturday Journal_; I forget what others: halfpenny +papers in a heap--all kinds of _Cuts_, _Snippets_, _Siftings_, _Echoes_, +_Snapshots_, and _Side-lights_; _Pars about People_, _Christian +Sweepings_, _Our Happy Fireside_, and _The Masher_. Many lay face +downward, coyly hiding their titles but disclosing such headlines as +"Facts about the Flag," "Books which have influenced the Bishop of +London," "He gave 'em Fits!" "Our Unique Competition," "Mr. Cecil +Rhodes: a Powerful Personality," "What becomes of old Stage Scenery." + +In the midst of my survey the train began to move forward again, and the +boy came back to his seat. + +"It's only some platelayers on the viaduct," he explained. "They held +up their flag against us. I suppose they were just finishing a job." + +"Nasty place to leave the rails," said I, glancing over the parapet upon +the green tree-tops fifty feet below us." + +"I was thinking that," said he, and a queer tremor in his young voice +made me glance at him sharply. Then suddenly I understood--or thought I +did. + +"You, at any rate, are pretty well insured," said I. + +"Twenty thousand pounds, and a little over: the coupons cost four and +twopence altogether, and then at the end of the journey you can use up +all the reading." + +"Wonderful!" I kept a serious face. "And I suppose all this time you've +been staring at me, amazed by the recklessness of your elders." + +He flushed slightly. "Have I been staring? I beg your pardon, I'm +sure: it's a trick I have. I begin thinking of things, and then--" + +"Thinking, I suppose, of how it would feel to be in a collision, or what +it would be like to leap such a parapet as that and find ourselves +dropping--dropping--into space? But you shouldn't, really. It isn't +healthy in a boy like you: and if you'll listen to one who has known +what nerves are, it may too easily grow to mean something worse." + +"But it isn't that--exactly," he protested; "though of course all that +comes into it. I'm not a--a funk, sir! I was thinking more of the +--of what would come _afterwards_, you know." + +"Oh dear!" I groaned to myself. "It's worse than ever: here's a little +prig worrying about his soul. I shouldn't advise you to trouble about +that, either," I said aloud. + +"But I don't _trouble_ about it." He hesitated, and stumbled into a +burst of confidence. "You see, I'm no good at games--athletics and that +sort of thing--" + +Again he stopped, and I nodded to encourage him. + +"And I'm no swell at schoolwork, either. I went to school late, and +after home it all seems so _young_--if you understand?" + +I thought I did. With his polite grown-up manner I could understand his +isolation among the urchins, the masters, and all the interests of +an ordinary school. + +"But my father--you know him, don't you?--he's disappointed about it. +He'd like me to bring home prizes or cups. I don't think he'd mind what +it was, so long as he could be proud about it. Of course he never +_says_ anything: but a fellow gets to know." + +"I daresay you're right," I said. "But what has this to do with +insuring yourself for twenty thousand pounds?" + +"Well, you see, I'm to go into the Bank some day: and I expect my father +thinks I shall be just as big a duffer at that. I know he does. +But I'm not, if he'd only trust me a bit. So now if we were to smash +up--collide, go off the rails, run over a bridge, or something of that +sort--just think how he'd feel when he found out I'd cleared twenty +thousand by it!" + +"So that's what you were picturing to yourself?" + +He nodded. "That, and the smash, and all. I kept saying, 'Now--if it +comes this moment?' And I wondered a little how it would take _you_ +suddenly: whether you'd start up or fall forward--and if you would say +anything." + +"You are a cheerful companion!" + +He grinned politely. "And afterwards--just before the train stopped I +had a splendid idea. I began making my will. You see, I know +something about investments. I read about them every day." + +"In the _Boy's Own Paper?_" + +"We take in the _Standard_ in our school library, and I have it all to +myself unless there's a war on. I've heard my father say often that +it's a very reliable paper, and so it is, for I've tried it for two +years now. So if I left a will telling just how the twenty thousand +ought to be invested, it would open my father's eyes more than ever." + +"My dear sir," said I, "don't be in a hurry. Serve out your time among +the barbarians at school, and I'll promise you in time your father's +respectful astonishment." + + +These were my two boys; and you may wonder why I always think of them +together. I do, though: and, what is more, I find that together they +help to explain to me my country's greatness. + + + +THE SENIOR FELLOW. + + +There is at Oxford a small college, with a small bursar's garden that in +spring is ablaze with laburnum and scented with lilac; and in the old +wall of this garden, just beneath the largest laburnum-tree, you may +still find a stone with this inscription: "_Jesus have mercy on Miles +Tonken, Fellow. Anno 1545._" + +This college, in the days when I knew it, had three marks of +distinction:--It turned out, on hunting mornings, more "pinks" for its +size than any other in Oxford; its boat was head of the river; and its +Senior Fellow was the Rev. Theobald Pumfrey, who knew more of Athenaeus +than any man in the world. He seldom lectured; but day by day, year +after year, sat in the window above this same small garden, and +accumulated notes for the great edition of his pet author that some +day--nobody quite knew when--was to make him famous. He was the son of +a Cumberland farmer; had come up to the University from a local +grammar-school; and since then (it was said) had revisited his native +village twice only--to bury his father and mother. His mother's death-- +and that had happened five-and-twenty years before--left him without a +single relative on earth: nor could he be said to have a friend, even +among the dons. He rose early, took a solitary walk in the parks, and +would spend the rest of the day at his desk by the window. People +marvelled sometimes why he had taken Holy Orders. It was hinted that +his scout knew, perhaps; but, if so, his scout never divulged the +reasons. + +The scholar was a man, nevertheless; had a humorously wrinkled mouth, +and an eye that twinkled responsive to a jest; and was the best judge of +wine in Oxford. On the strength of this undeniable gift the dons had +long since elected him steward of Common-room; and he valued the +responsibility, abstaining from tobacco--which he loved--to keep pure +his taste for vintages, and preserve a discriminating palate among +sweets. An utterance of his would hint that even his avoidance of +physical exercise was a matter of duty. + +"A man," he said, "may work his body, may work his head, and may enjoy +his dinner. Any two of these things he may do, but not all three. +For me, I wish to work my head, and _must_ enjoy my dinner." And once, +when I dined with him, it was made clear to me that his life was ordered +after a plan. It was a summer evening, and he held a glass of claret +against the sunset. "Wife and children!" he cried suddenly, "wife and +children!" Then, with a wave of his left hand from the claret to the +still lawn below us and the lilacs, "These are my wife and children!" + +It was whispered at length that his commentary on the first book of the +Deipnosophists was all but ready. All through a golden summer and a +quiet Long Vacation it had been maturing, and on the first night of the +October term he arranged his piles of notes about him, set a quire of +clean manuscript paper on his table, dipped pen in inkpot, and began to +muse on the first sentence. + + +An hour passed, and the page was not soiled. Across the still garden +came the sound of cab-wheels rattling over the distant streets. +The undergraduates were coming up for a fresh term. He had heard the +sound a hundred times, almost; and it did not concern him. He had no +lectures to prepare. + +Another hour passed, and another. The noise of the cabs had died out, +and over him was creeping a sick fear, a certainty, that he could not +write a word. The subject was too immense. He had given his life to +Athenaeus, and now Athenaeus was a monster that one man's life and +knowledge would not suffice for. Having withheld his pen till he might +write adequately, he awoke to find that writing was impossible. +A horror took him as he pushed back his chair among the litter of +note-books, and, stepping to the window, threw the sash open. + +Many stars were shining; and between them and the sleeping garden echoed +the clamour of a distant supper-party. He heard no words, only the +noise; but it filled his brain with a sense of the many thousand +supper-parties that the garden had listened to, of the generations that +had come and gone since his own first term, of the boys who had grown +into men while he was working at Athenaeus--always Athenaeus. +His forehead was burning, and as he pushed his hand across it, he seemed +to read in the darkness under the laburnum-tree, "_Jesus have mercy on +Miles Tonken, Fellow. Anno 1545," and found a new meaning--an irony--in +the words. + +Then, because more and more the task of his life became a hopeless +weight, he gave a look at his notebooks and escaped out of the room, +downstairs into the fresh air of the quad, and across it towards the +porter's lodge. He found the porter napping, and, having a private key, +he let himself through the big gate and out into the street. No soul +was abroad: only the gas-lamps threw queer shadows of him on the +pavement, and the night-breeze struck coldly into him as he hurried +along, hating whatever he saw. + +Soon, under a window in St. Giles's, he pulled up. There was a party of +young men inside--perhaps the same supper-party whose voices he had +heard just now. The light from the room flared across the street; but +by keeping close under the sill he stood in darkness, and he paused, +listening eagerly. Above, they were singing a chorus, noted in those +days-- + + +It was pale dawn, and the sun was touching St. Mary's spire into flame +when the heavy-eyed porter heard a key turn in the wicket. It was the +Senior Fellow, and in about half an hour he appeared again at the lodge, +carrying a small bag, and handed the porter a letter addressed to the +President of the College. He then stepped out into the street, and +hurried off towards the railway station. + +For a fortnight we heard nothing of him. Then suddenly he appeared +again--on an evening when the College, having won the "Fours," was +commemorating its success by a bonfire in the big quad. A certain +freshman, stealing down his staircase with a can of colza oil to feed +the flames, was confronted by our missing Senior Fellow. + +"No," said the great scholar, "don't be afraid, and don't seek to hide +that oil-can; but come in here." And he led the way to his room. + +This much is mere rumour; for the freshman was always reticent on the +encounter, and what followed. But many who were present that night can +bear witness that a big portmanteau appeared suddenly on the summit of +the bonfire, and blazed merrily to ashes, having clearly been saturated +with oil. Not until long after were its contents divined. + + +The Senior Fellow went back to his window above the bursar's garden, +though henceforward he dined but rarely in Common-room; and year by year +scholars expected his edition of Athenaeus, until he died and left his +desk full of notebooks to the youth who had carried the oil-can, and who +in course of years had become junior don. Also his will expressed a +wish that this, his favourite pupil, might be elected to succeed him as +steward of Common-room. + +The new steward, eager to fulfil his duties, made it his first business +to inspect the college cellars. He found there abundance of old port, +much fair claret, a bin of inestimable Madeira, several casks of more +curious wines, and among them one labelled "For the Poor." + +It struck him as a pleasant trait in his dead friend, thus to have +dispensed in charity that wine which doubtless had gone beyond its age, +and become unfit for the Fellows' palates. He drew a glassful and +tasted it. + +The first sip was a revelation. He returned to his rooms, wrote a score +of letters inviting to dinner all the acknowledged connoisseurs of other +colleges. When they had dined with him, and fallen into easy attitudes +around the table, he introduced this wine casually among half a dozen +others, and watched the result. + +Not a man who tasted it would taste any other. + +As for the notebooks--those priceless materials for the final edition of +Athenaeus--they were empty, mere blank pages! Only in that labelled +"No. 1" was there a scrap of the old scholar's handwriting, and it +began-- + + "Dulce cum sodalibus + Sapit vinum bonum: + Osculari virgines + Dulcius est donum: + Donum est dulcissimum + Musica tironum-- + Qui tararaboomdeat, + Spernit regis thronum!" + + + +BALLAST. + + +Under the green shore that faces the port, and at a point that, as the +meeting-place of river and harbour, may be called indifferently by +either name, lay a slim-waisted barque at anchor, with a sand-barge +alongside. The time was a soft and sunny morning in early January-- +a day that was Nature's breathing space after a week of sleet and +boisterous winds. The gulls were back again from their inland shelters. +Across the upland above the cliff a ploughman drove leisurably forth and +back, and always close behind his heels the earth was white with these +birds inspecting the fresh-turned furrow. The furze-bushes below him +were braided with cobwebs, and the stays, lifts, and braces of the +barque might have passed also for threads of gossamer spun from her +masts and yards, so delicately were the lines indicated against the +hillside. In the sand-barge, three men were chanting as they worked; +and their song, travelling across still sky and water, rose audibly +above the stir of traffic even in the narrow streets of the town. + +The barque was taking in ballast; and the three men sang as they +shovelled,--for three reasons. It helped them to keep time; it kept +each from shirking his share of the work; and lastly, perhaps, the song +cheered them. They knew it as "The Long Hundred," and it ran-- + + "There goes one. + One there is gone. + Oh, the rare one! + And many more to come + For to make up the sum + Of the hundred so long." + + "There goes two--" + +--and so on, up to twenty. With each line, a shovelful of ballast was +pitched on board by every man; so that, when the twenty six-line stanzas +were ended, each man had thrown one hundred and twenty (a "long +hundred") shovelfuls of sand. Thereupon they paused, "touched pipe" for +a minute or two, and, brushing the back of the hand across their +foreheads to wring off the sweat, started afresh. + +Along the barque's side ran a narrow line of blue paint, signifying that +the vessel was in mourning, that somebody belonging to captain or owner +was lately dead. But in this case it was the captain and owner himself: +and his chief mourner was a bright-eyed woman with a complexion of cream +and roses, who now leant over the bulwarks and looked down +contemplatively upon the three labourers. She was a Canadian, and her +husband, too, had been a Canadian--rich, more than twice her age, and +luxurious. Since his marriage she had accompanied him on all his +voyages. Three months ago his vessel had brought him, sick and +suffering from congestion of the lungs, into this harbour, where his +cargo of timber was to be unloaded: and in this harbour, a week later, +he had died, without a doubt of his wife's affection. From the deck +where she stood she could see between the elms on the hill above the +port the white wall of the cemetery where he lay. The vessel was hers, +and a snug little fortune in Quebec: and she was going back to enjoy it. +For the homeward voyage she had deputed the captain's responsibilities +to the first mate, and had raised his pay slightly, but the captain's +dignity she reserved for herself. + +She wore a black gown, of course, but not a widow's cap: and, though in +fact a widow of twenty-five, had very much more the appearance of a maid +of nineteen as she looked down over the barque's side. Her lips were +parted as if to smile at the first provocation. On either side of her +temples a short brown curl had rebelled and was kissing her cheek. +The sparkle in her eyes told of capacity to enjoy life. Behind her a +coil of smoke rose from the deck-house chimney. She had left the midday +meal she was cooking, and ought to be back looking after it. +Instead, she lingered and looked upon the three men at work below. + +Two of them were old, round-shouldered with labour, their necks burnt +brown with stooping in the sun. The third was a young giant--tall, +fair, and straight--with yellowish hair that curled up tightly at the +back of his head, and lumbar muscles that swelled and sank in a pretty +rhythm as he pitched his ballast and sang-- + + "There goes nine. + Nine there is gone . . ." + +It was upon this man that the woman gazed as she lingered. +His shirt-collar was cut low at the back, and his freckled neck was +shining with sweat. She wanted him to look up, and yet she was afraid +of his looking up. She wondered if he were married--"at his age," she +phrased it to herself--and, if so, what manner of wife he had. She told +herself after a while that she really dreaded extremely being caught +observing these three labourers; that she hated even in seeming to lose +dignity. And still she bent and heard the song to the twentieth and +last verse. + +The young giant, when the spell was over, leant on his shovel for a +moment and then reached out a hand for the cider-keg. One of his +comrades passed it to him. He wiped the orifice, tilted his head back +and drank as a man drinks at midday after a long morning. Some of the +cider trickled down his crisp yellow beard and he shook his head, +scattering the drops off. Then the keg was tilted again, and suddenly +lowered as he was on the point of drinking. His eyes had encountered +those of the woman on deck. + +As they did so, the woman recovered all her boldness. Without in the +least knowing what prompted her, she bent a little further forward and +asked-- + +"What is your name, young man?" + +"William Udy, ma'am." + +"Do you mind breaking off work for a moment and stepping up here?" + +"Cert'nly, ma'am." William Udy laid down his shovel at once. + +A shiver of fear went through the young widow. Why had she asked him +up? Why, on a mere impulse; because she wanted to see him closer-- +nothing more. What possible excuse could she give? She heard the sound +of his heavy boots on the ship's ladder: he would be before her in a +moment, expecting, of course, to be set to work on some odd job or +other. She cast about wildly and could think of no job that wanted +doing. It was appalling: she could not possibly explain-- + +As has happened before now to women, her very weakness saved her in +extremity. William Udy, clambering heavily over the ship's side, found +her leaning against the deck-house, with a face as white as the painted +boards against which her palm rested. + +"What be I to do, ma'am?" he inquired, after a pause, and then added +slowly, "Beggin' your pardon, but be you taken unwell?" + +"Yes," she panted, speaking very faintly, "I was over there--by the +bulwarks, and suddenly--I felt queer--a faintness--I looked over and saw +you--I called the first person I saw. I wanted help." + +William Udy was puzzled. He had not noticed any pallor in the face that +had looked down on him from the ship's side. On the contrary, he seemed +to remember that it struck him as remarkably fresh and rosy. But he saw +no reason for doubting he had been mistaken. + +"Can I do aught for 'ee? Fetch a doctor?" + +"If you wouldn't mind helping me down--down to my cabin--" + +William took her arm gently and led her aft to the companion ladder. +At the top of it she put out a hand vaguely and closed her eyes. + +"I don't think," she murmured, "that I can walk. My head is going round +so. Could you--would it be too heavy--if you carried me?" + +At any other time William would have considered this a good joke. +As it was he took her up like a feather in his arms and carried her down +to the cabin. There he set her down on the sofa and was about to +withdraw, blushing. He was a very shy youth and had never carried a +woman before, let alone one who was his superior in station. + +"Thank you," she said in a voice that was little above a whisper. +"How easily you carried me. It's plain to see you're a married man." + +William started. "There you're wrong, ma'am, pardon me for sayin' it." + +"No? You were so gentle: so gentle although so big"--she smiled +faintly. "Would you mind stepping to the cupboard there and pouring me +out a wineglassful of sherry? It's in the decanter just inside." + +William poured out a glassful and set it on the table in front of her. +She put it to her lips, and having scarcely moistened them, set it down +again. + +"A glass for yourself," she said. "Come now--do! I see you are shocked +at the number of bottles I keep here. But they were my husband's. +He died, you know, a week after we came into harbour." + +William's face worked to express mute sympathy. + +"It's a fearful responsibility," she went on, "being left alone like +this with a vessel to look after, and all his property waiting over +there, on the other side of the water; and I daresay the lawyers, there, +waiting, too, to take advantage of me. I think it's having all this +on my mind that makes my head so giddy at times. . ." + +William stood opposite to her, and thought. It is not known at what +moment the brilliant idea struck him, that as a husband he might be a +tower of strength to the fragile young creature on the sofa. +His comrades after waiting some time for him began their chant again-- + + "There goes one. + One there is gone . . ." + +And while they sang it William began that courtship which ended, three +weeks later, in his sailing for Canada. He went as a bridegroom; or +perhaps (if we must reckon him as part of the ship's equipment), as +ballast. + + + +The End. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales +by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHITE WOLF AND OTHERS *** + +***** This file should be named 14817.txt or 14817.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/8/1/14817/ + +Produced by Lionel Sear + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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