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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/16000-0.txt b/16000-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7100f4e --- /dev/null +++ b/16000-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9250 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ship of Stars, by Arthur Thomas +Quiller-Couch + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The Ship of Stars + +Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +Release Date: June 7, 2005 [eBook #16000] +Last Updated: July 3, 2023 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Lionel Sear + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIP OF STARS *** + + + + +THE SHIP OF STARS. + +by + +Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q) + +1899 + + + + + + + +To THE RIGHT HON. LEONARD HENRY COURTNEY, M.P. + + +My Dear Mr. Courtney, + +It is with a peculiar pleasure and, I dare to hope, with some +appropriateness that I dedicate to you this story of the West +Country, which claims you with pride. To be sure, the places here +written of will be found in no map of your own or any neighbouring +constituency. A visitor may discover Nannizabuloe, but only to +wonder what has become of the lighthouse, or seek along the +sand-hills without hitting on Tredinnis. Yet much of the tale is +true in a fashion, even to fact. One or two things which happen to +Sir Harry Vyell did actually happen to a better man, who lived and +hunted foxes not a hundred miles from the “model borough” of +Liskeard, and are told of him in my friend Mr. W. F. Collier’s memoir +of Harry Terrell, a bygone Dartmoor hero: and a true account of what +followed the wreck of the Samaritan will be found in a chapter of +Remembrances by that true poet and large-hearted man, Robert Stephen +Hawker. + +But a novel ought to be true to more than fact: and if this one come +near its aim, no one will need to be told why I dedicate it to you. +If it do not (and I wish the chance could be despised!), its author +will yet hold that among the names of living Englishmen he could have +chosen none fitter to be inscribed above a story which in the telling +has insensibly come to rest upon the two texts, “Lord, make men as +towers!” and “All towers carry a light.” Although for you Heaven has +seen fit to darken the light, believe me it shines outwards over the +waters and is a help to men: a guiding light tended by brave hands. +We pray, sir--we who sail in little boats--for long life to the tower +and the unfaltering lamp. + +A. T. Q. C. +St. John’s Eve, 1899. + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE BOY IN THE GATE-HOUSE. + +II. MUSIC IN THE TOWN SQUARE. + +III. PASSENGER’S BY JOBY’S VAN. + +IV. THE RUNNING SANDS. + +V. TAFFY RINGS THE CHURCH BELL. + +VI. A COCK-FIGHT. + +VII. GEORGE. + +VIII. THE SQUIRE’S SOUL. + +IX. ENTER THE KING’S POSTMAN. + +X. A HAPPY DAY. + +XI. LIZZIE REDEEMS HER DOLL AND HONORIA THROWS A STONE. + +XII. TAFFY’S CHILDHOOD COMES TO AN END. + +XIII. THE BUILDERS. + +XIV. VOICES FROM THE SEA. + +XV. TAFFY’S APPRENTICESHIP. + +XVI. LIZZIE AND HONORIA. + +XVII. THE SQUIRE’S WEIRD. + +XVIII. THE BARRIERS FALL. + +XIX. OXFORD. + +XX. TAFFY GIVES A PROMISE. + +XXI. HONORIA’S LETTERS. + +XXII. MEN AS TOWERS. + +XXIII. THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP. + +XXIV. FACE TO FACE. + +XXV. THE WRECK OF THE “SAMARITAN”. + +XXVI. SALVAGE. + +XXVII. HONORIA. + +XXVIII. A L’OUTRANCE. + +XXIX. THE SHIP OF STARS. + + + + +THE SHIP OF STARS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +THE BOY IN THE GATE-HOUSE. + +Until his ninth year the boy about whom this story is written lived +in a house which looked upon the square of a county town. The house +had once formed part of a large religious building, and the boy’s +bedroom had a high groined roof, and on the capstone an angel carved, +with outspread wings. Every night the boy wound up his prayers with +this verse which his grandmother had taught him: + + “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, + Bless the bed that I lie on. + Four corners to my bed, + Four angels round my head; + One to watch, one to pray, + Two to bear my soul away.” + +Then he would look up to the angel and say: “Only Luke is with me.” +His head was full of queer texts and beliefs. He supposed the three +other angels to be always waiting in the next room, ready to bear +away the soul of his grandmother (who was bed-ridden), and that he +had Luke for an angel because he was called Theophilus, after the +friend for whom St. Luke had written his Gospel and the Acts of the +Holy Apostles. His name in full was Theophilus John Raymond, but +people called him Taffy. + +Of his parents’ circumstances he knew very little, except that they +were poor, and that his father was a clergyman attached to the parish +church. As a matter of fact, the Reverend Samuel Raymond was senior +curate there, with a stipend of ninety-five pounds a year. Born at +Tewkesbury, the son of a miller, he had won his way to a servitorship +at Christ Church, Oxford; and somehow, in the course of one Long +Vacation, had found money for travelling expenses to join a reading +party under the Junior Censor. The party spent six summer weeks at a +farmhouse near Honiton, in Devon. The farm belonged to an invalid +widow named Venning, who let it be managed by her daughter Humility +and two paid labourers, while she herself sat by the window in her +kitchen parlour, busied incessantly with lace-work of that beautiful +kind for which Honiton is famous. He was an unassuming youth; and +although in those days servitors were no longer called upon to black +the boots of richer undergraduates, the widow and her daughter soon +divined that he was lowlier than the others, and his position an +awkward one, and were kind to him in small ways, and grew to like +him. Next year, at their invitation, he travelled down to Honiton +alone, with a box of books; and, at twenty-two, having taken his +degree, he paid them a third visit, and asked Humility to be his +wife. At twenty-four, soon after his admission to deacon’s orders, +they were married. The widow sold the small farm, with its stock, +and followed to live with them in the friary gate-house; this having +been part of Humility’s bargain with her lover, if the word can be +used of a pact between two hearts so fond. + +About ten years had gone since these things happened, and their child +Taffy was now past his eighth birthday. + +It seemed to him that, so far back as he could remember, his mother +and grandmother had been making lace continually. At night, when his +mother took the candle away with her and left him alone in the dark, +he was not afraid; for, by closing his eyes, he could always see the +two women quite plainly; and always he saw them at work, each with a +pillow on her lap, and the lace upon it growing, growing, until the +pins and bobbins wove a pattern that was a dream, and he slept. +He could not tell what became of all the lace, though he had a collar +of it which he wore to church on Sundays, and his mother had once +shown him a parcel of it, wrapped in tissue-paper, and told him it +was his christening robe. + +His father was always reading, except on Sundays, when he preached +sermons. In his thoughts nine times out of ten Taffy associated his +father with a great pile of books; but the tenth time with something +totally different. One summer--it was in his sixth year--they had +all gone on a holiday to Tewkesbury, his father’s old home; and he +recalled quite clearly the close of a warm afternoon which he and his +mother had spent there in a green meadow beyond the abbey church. +She had brought out a basket and cushion, and sat sewing, while Taffy +played about and watched the haymakers at their work. Behind them, +within the great church, the organ was sounding; but by-and-by it +stopped, and a door opened in the abbey wall, and his father came +across the meadow toward them with his surplice on his arm. And then +Humility unpacked the basket and produced a kettle, a spirit-lamp, +and a host of things good to eat. The boy thought the whole +adventure splendid. When tea was done, he sprang up with one of +those absurd notions which come into children’s heads: + +“Now let’s feed the poultry,” he cried, and flung his last scrap of +bun three feet in air toward the gilt weather-cock on the abbey +tower. While they laughed, “Father, how tall is the tower?” he +demanded. + +“A hundred and thirty-two feet, my boy, from ground to battlements.” + +“What are battlements?” + +He was told. + +“But people don’t fight here,” he objected. + +Then his father told of a battle fought in the very meadow in which +they were sitting; of soldiers at bay with their backs to the abbey +wall; of crowds that ran screaming into the church; of others chased +down Mill Street and drowned; of others killed by the Town Cross; and +how--people said in the upper room of a house still standing in the +High Street--a boy prince had been stabbed. + +Humility laid a hand on his arm. + +“He’ll be dreaming of all this. Tell him it was a long time ago, and +that these things don’t happen now.” + +But her husband was looking up at the tower. + +“See it now with the light upon it!” he went on. “And it has seen it +all. Eight hundred years of heaven’s storms and man’s madness, and +still foursquare and as beautiful now as when the old masons took +down their scaffolding. When I was a boy--” + +He broke off suddenly. “Lord, make men as towers,” he added quietly +after a while, and nobody spoke for many minutes. + +To Taffy this had seemed a very queer saying; about as queer as that +other one about “men as trees walking.” Somehow--he could not say +why--he had never asked any questions about it. But many times he +had perched himself on a flat tombstone under the church tower at +home, and tilted his head back and stared up at the courses and +pinnacles, wondering what his father could have meant, and how a man +could possibly be like a tower. It ended in this--that whenever he +dreamed about his father, these two towers, or a tower which was more +or less a combination of both, would get mixed up with the dream as +well. + + +The gate-house contained a sitting-room and three bedrooms (one +hardly bigger than a box-cupboard); but a building adjoined it which +had been the old Franciscans’ refectory, though now it was divided by +common planking into two floors, the lower serving for a feoffee +office, while the upper was supposed to be a muniment-room, in charge +of the feoffees’ clerk. The clerk used it for drying his +garden-seeds and onions, and spread his hoarding apples to ripen on +the floor. So when Taffy grew to need a room of his own, and his +father’s books to cumber the very stairs of the gate-house, the money +which Humility and her mother made by their lace-work, and which +arrived always by post, came very handy for the rent which the clerk +asked for his upper chamber. + +Carpenters appeared and partitioned it off into two rooms, +communicating with the gate-house by a narrow doorway pierced in the +wall. All this, whilst it was doing, interested Taffy mightily; and +he announced his intention of being a carpenter one of these days. + +“I hope,” said Humility, “you will look higher, and be a preacher of +God’s Word, like your father.” + +His father frowned at this and said: “Jesus Christ was both.” + +Taffy compromised: “Perhaps I’ll make pulpits.” + +This was how he came to have a bedroom with a vaulted roof and a +window that reached down below the floor. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +MUSIC IN THE TOWN SQUARE. + +This window looked upon the Town Square, and across it to the +Mayoralty. The square had once been the Franciscans’ burial-ground, +and was really no square at all, but a semicircle. The townspeople +called it Mount Folly. The chord of the arc was formed by a large +Assize Hall, with a broad flight of granite steps, and a cannon +planted on either side of the steps. The children used to climb +about these cannons, and Taffy had picked out his first letters from +the words _Sevastopol_ and _Russian Trophy_, painted in white on +their lead-coloured carriages. + +Below the Assize Hall an open gravelled space sloped gently down to a +line of iron railings and another flight of granite steps leading +into the main street. The street curved uphill around the base of +this open ground, and came level with it just in front of the +Mayoralty, a tall stuccoed building where the public balls were +given, and the judges had their lodgings in assize time, and the +Colonel his quarters during the militia training. + +Fine shows passed under Taffy’s window. Twice a year came the +judges, with the sheriff in uniform and his chaplain, and his coach, +and his coachman and lackeys in powder and plush and silk stockings, +white or flesh-coloured; and the barristers with their wigs, and the +javelin men and silver trumpets. Every spring, too, the Royal +Rangers Militia came up for training. Suddenly one morning, in the +height of the bird-nesting season, the street would swarm with +countrymen tramping up to the barracks on the hill, and back, with +bundles of clothes and unblackened boots dangling. For the next six +weeks the town would be full of bugle calls, and brazen music, and +companies marching and parading in suits of invisible green, and +clanking officers in black, with little round forage caps, and silver +badges on their side-belts; and, towards evening, with men lounging +and smoking, or washing themselves in public before the doors of +their billets. + +Usually too, Whitsun Fair fell at the height of the militia training; +and then for two days booths and caravans, sweet-standings and +shooting-galleries lined the main street, and Taffy went out with a +shilling in his pocket to enjoy himself. But the bigger shows--the +menagerie, the marionettes, and the travelling Theatre Royal--were +pitched on Mount Folly, just under his window. Sometimes the theatre +would stay a week or two after the fair was over, until even the boy +grew tired of the naphtha-lamps and the voices of the tragedians, and +the cornet wheezing under canvas, and began to long for the time when +they would leave the square open for the boys to come and play at +prisoners’ bars in the dusk. + +One evening, a fortnight before Whitsun Fair, he had taken his book +to the open window, and sat there with it. Every night he had to +learn a text which he repeated next morning to his mother. Already, +across the square, the Mayoralty house was brightly lit, and the +bandsmen had begun to arrange their stands and music before it; for +the Colonel was receiving company. Every now and then a carriage +arrived, and set down its guests. + +After a while Taffy looked up and saw two persons crossing the +square--an old man and a little girl. He recognised them, having +seen them together in church the day before, when his father had +preached the sermon. The old man wore a rusty silk hat, cocked a +little to one side, a high stock collar, black cutaway coat, breeches +and gaiters of grey cord. He stooped as he walked, with his hands +behind him and his walking-stick dangling like a tail--a very +positive old fellow, to look at. The girl’s face Taffy could not +see; it was hidden by the brim of her Leghorn hat. + +The pair passed close under the window. Taffy heard a knock at the +door below, and ran to the head of the stairs. Down in the passage +his mother was talking to the old man, who turned to the girl and +told her to wait outside. + +“But let her come in and sit down,” urged Humility. + +“No, ma’am; I know my mind. I want one hour with your husband.” + +Taffy heard the door shut, and went back to his window-seat. + +The little girl had climbed the cannon opposite, and sat there +dangling her feet and eyeing the house. + +“Boy,” said she, “what a funny window-seat you’ve got! I can see +your legs under it.” + +“That’s because the window reaches down to the floor, and the bench +is fixed across by the transom here.” + +“What’s your name?” + +“Theophilus; but they call me Taffy.” + +“Why?” + +“Father says it’s an imperfect example of Grimm’s Law.” + +“Oh! Then, I suppose you’re quite the gentleman? My name’s +Honoria.” + +“Is that your father downstairs?” + +“Bless the boy! What age do you take me for? He’s my grandfather. +He’s asking your father about his soul. He wants to be saved, and +says if he’s not saved before next Lady-day, he’ll know the reason +why. What are you doing up there?” + +“Reading.” + +“Reading what?” + +“The Bible.” + +“But, I say, can you really?” + +“You listen.” Taffy rested the big Bible on the window-frame; it just +had room to lie open between the two mullions--“_Now when they had +gone throughout Phrygia and Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy +Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia they +assayed to go into Bithynia; but the Spirit suffered them not. +And they, passing by Mysia, came down to Troas. And a vision +appeared to Paul in the night_....” + +“I don’t wonder at it. Did you ever have the whooping-cough?” + +“Not yet.” + +“I’ve had it all the winter. That’s why I’m not allowed in to play +with you. Listen!” + +She coughed twice, and wound up with a terrific whoop. + +“Now, if you’d only put on your nightshirt and preach, I’d be the +congregation and interrupt you with coughing.” + +“Very well,” said Taffy, “let’s do it.” + +“No; you didn’t suggest it. I hate boys who have to be told.” + +Taffy was huffed, and pretended to return to his book. By-and-by she +called up to him: + +“Tell me, what’s written on this gun of yours?” + +“Sevastopol--that’s a Russian town. The English took it by storm.” + +“What! the soldiers over there?” + +“No, they’re only bandsmen; and they’re too young. But I expect the +Colonel was there. He’s upstairs in the Mayoralty, dining. +He’s quite an old man, but I’ve heard father say he was as brave as a +lion when the fighting happened.” + +The girl climbed off the gun. + +“I’m going to have a look at him,” she said; and turning her back on +Taffy, she sauntered off across the square, just as the band struck +up the first note of the overture from _Semiramide_. A waltz of +Strauss followed, and then came a cornet solo by the bandmaster, and +a medley of old English tunes. To all of these Taffy listened. +It had fallen too dark to read, and the boy was always sensitive to +music. Often when he played alone broken phrases and scraps of +remembered tunes came into his head and repeated themselves over and +over. Then he would drop his game and wander about restlessly, +trying to fix and complete the melody; and somehow in the process the +melody always became a story, or so like a story that he never knew +the difference. Sometimes his uneasiness lasted for days together. +But when the story came complete at last--and this always sprang on +him quite suddenly--he wanted to caper and fling his arms about and +sing aloud; and did so, if nobody happened to be looking. + +The bandmaster, too, had music, and a reputation for imparting it. +Famous regimental bands contained pupils of his; and his old pupils, +when they met, usually told each other stories of his atrocious +temper. But he kept his temper to-night, for his youngsters were +playing well, and the small crowd standing quiet. + +The English melodies had scarcely closed with “Come, lasses and +lads,” when across in Mayoralty a blind was drawn, and a window +thrown open, and Taffy saw the warm room within, and the officers and +ladies standing with glasses in their hands. The Colonel was giving +the one toast of the evening: + +“Ladies and gentlemen--The Queen!” + +The adjutant leaned out and lifted his hand for signal, and the band +crashed out with the National Anthem. Then there was silence for a +minute. The window remained open. Taffy still caught glimpses of +jewels and uniforms, and white necks bending, and men leaning back in +their chairs, with their mess-jackets open, and the candle-light +flashing on their shirt-fronts. Below, in the dark street, the +bandmaster trimmed the lamp by his music-stand. In the rays of it he +drew out a handkerchief and polished the keys of his cornet; then +passed the cornet over to his left hand, took up his baton, and +nodded. + +What music was that, stealing, rippling, across the square? +The bandmaster knew nothing of the tale of Tannhauser, but was +wishing that he had violins at his beck, instead of stupid flutes and +reeds. And Taffy had never heard so much as the name of Tannhauser. +Of the meaning of the music he knew nothing--nothing beyond its +wonder and terror. But afterward he made a tale of it to himself. + +In the tale it seemed that a vine shot up and climbed on the shadows +of the warm night; and the shadows climbed with it and made a trellis +for it right across the sky. The vine thrust through the trellis +faster and faster, dividing, throwing out little curls and tendrils; +then leaves and millions of leaves, each leaf unfolding about a drop +of dew, which trickled and fell and tinkled like a bird’s song. + +The beauty and scent of the vine distressed him. He wanted to cry +out, for it was hiding the sky. Then he heard the tramp of feet in +the distance, and knew that they threatened the vine, and with that +he wanted to save it. But the feet came nearer and nearer, tramping +terribly. + +He could not bear it. He ran to the stairs, stole down them, opened +the front door cautiously, and slipped outside. He was half-way +across the square before it occurred to him that the band had ceased +to play. Then he wondered why he had come, but he did not go back. +He found Honoria standing a little apart from the crowd, with her +hands clasped behind her, gazing up at the window of the +banqueting-room. + +She did not see him at once. + +“Stand on the steps, here,” he whispered, “then you can see him. +That’s the Colonel--the man at the end of the table, with the big, +grey moustache.” + +He touched her arm. She sprang away and stamped her foot. + +“Keep off with you! Who _told_ you?--Oh! you bad boy!” + +“Nobody. I thought you hated boys who wait to be told.” + +“And now you’ll get the whooping-cough, and goodness knows what will +happen to you, and you needn’t think I’ll be sorry!” + +“Who wants you to be sorry! As for you,” Taffy went on sturdily, “I +think your grandfather might have more sense than to keep you waiting +out here in the cold, and giving your cough to the whole town!” + +“Ha! you do, do you?” + +It was not the girl who said this. Taffy swung round, and saw an old +man staring down on him. There was just light enough to reveal that +he had very formidable grey eyes. But Taffy’s blood was up. + +“Yes, I do,” he said, and wondered at himself. + +“Ha! Does your father whip you sometimes?” + +“No, sir.” + +“I should if you were my boy. I believe in it. Come, Honoria!” + +The child threw a glance at Taffy as she was led away. He could not +be sure whether she took his side or her grandfather’s. + +That night he had a very queer dream. + +His grandmother had lost her lace-pillow, and after searching for +some time, he found it lying out in the square. But the pins and +bobbins were darting to and fro on their own account, at an +incredible rate, and the lace as they made it turned into a singing +beanstalk, and rose and threw out branches all over the sky. +Very soon he found himself climbing among those branches, up and up +until he came to a Palace, which was really the Assize Hall, with a +flight of steps before it and a cannon on either side of the steps. +Within sat a giant, asleep, with his head on the table and his face +hidden; but his neck bulged at the back just like the bandmaster’s +during a cornet solo. A harp stood on the table. Taffy caught this +up, and was stealing downstairs with it, but at the third stair the +harp--which had Honoria’s head and face--began to cough, and wound up +with a _whoop!_ This woke the giant--he turned out to be Honoria’s +grandfather--who came roaring after him. Glancing down below as he +ran, Taffy saw his mother and the bandmaster far below with axes, +hacking at the foot of the beanstalk. He tried to call out and +prevent them, but they kept smiting. And the worst of it was, that +down below, too, his father was climbing into a pulpit, quite as if +nothing was happening. The pulpit grew and became a tower, and his +father kept calling, “Be a tower! Be a tower, like me!” + +But Taffy couldn’t for the life of him see how to manage it. +The beanstalk began to totter; he felt himself falling, and leapt for +the tower.... And awoke in his bed shuddering, and, for the first +time in his life, afraid of the dark. He would have called for his +mother, but just then down by the turret clock in Fore Street the +buglers began to sound the “Last Post,” and he hugged himself and +felt that the world he knew was still about him, companionable and +kind. + +Twice the buglers repeated their call, in more distant streets, each +time more faintly; and the last flying notes carried him into sleep +again. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +PASSENGERS BY JOBY’S VAN. + +At breakfast next morning he saw by his parents’ faces that something +unusual had happened. Nothing was said to him about it, whatever it +might be. But once or twice after this, coming into the parlour +suddenly, he found his father and mother talking low and earnestly +together; and now and then they would go up to his grandmother’s room +and talk. + +In some way he divined that there was a question of leaving home. +But the summer passed and these private talks became fewer. +Toward August, however, they began again; and by-and-by his mother +told him. They were going to a parish on the North Coast, right away +across the Duchy, where his father had been presented to a living. +The place had an odd name--Nannizabuloe. + +“And it is lonely,” said Humility, “the most of it sea-sand, so far +as I can hear.” + +It was by the sea, then. How would they get there? + +“Oh, Joby’s van will take us most of the way.” + +Of all the vans which came and went in the Fore Street, none could +compare for romance with Joby’s. People called it the Wreck Ashore; +but its real name, “Vital Spark, J. Job, Proprietor,” was painted on +its orange-coloured sides in letters of vivid blue, a blue not often +seen except on ship’s boats. It disappeared every Tuesday and +Saturday over the hill and into a mysterious country, from which it +emerged on Mondays and Fridays with a fine flavour of the sea renewed +upon it and upon Joby. No other driver wore a blue guernsey, or +rings in his ears, as Joby did. No other van had the same mode of +progressing down the street in a series of short tacks, or brought +such a crust of brine on its panes, or such a mixture of mud and fine +sand on its wheels, or mingled scraps of dry sea-weed with the straw +on its floor. + +“Will there be ships?” Taffy asked. + +“I dare say we shall see a few, out in the distance. It’s a poor, +outlandish place. It hasn’t even a proper church.” + +“If there’s no church, father can get into a boat and preach; just +like the Sea of Galilee, you know.” + +“Your father is too good a man to mimic the Scriptures in any such +way. There is a church, I believe, though it’s a tumble-down one. +Nobody has preached in it for years. But Squire Moyle may do +something now. He’s a rich man.” + +“Is that the old gentleman who came to ask father about his soul?” + +“Yes; he says no preaching ever did him so much good as your +father’s. That’s why he came and offered the living.” + +“But he can’t go to heaven if he’s rich.” + +“I don’t know, Taffy, wherever you pick up such wicked thoughts.” + +“Why, it’s in the Bible!” + +Humility would not argue about it; but she told her husband that +night what the child had said. “My dear,” he answered, “the boy must +think of these things.” + +“But he ought not to be talking disrespectfully,” contended she. + + +One Tuesday, towards the end of September, Taffy saw his father off +by Joby’s van; and the Friday after, walked down with his mother to +meet him on his return. Almost at once the household began to pack. +The packing went on for a week, in the midst of which his father +departed again, a waggon-load of books and furniture having been sent +forward on the road that same morning. Then followed a day or two +during which Taffy and his mother took their meals at the +window-seat, sitting on corded boxes; and an evening when he went out +to the cannon in the square, and around the little back garden, +saying good-bye to the fixtures and the few odds and ends which were +to be left behind--the tool-shed (Crusoe’s hut, Cave of Adullam, and +Treasury of the Forty Thieves), the stunted sycamore-tree which he +had climbed at different times as Zacchaeus, Ali Baba, and Man Friday +with the bear behind him; the clothes’ prop, which, on the strength +of its forked tail, had so often played Dragon to his St. George. +When he returned to the empty house, he found his mother in the +passage. She had been for a walk alone. The candle was lit, and he +saw she had been crying. This told him where she had been; for, +although he remembered nothing about it, he knew he had once +possessed a small sister, who lived with him less than two months. +He had, as a rule, very definite notions of death and the grave; but +he never thought of her as dead and buried, partly because his mother +would never allow him to go with her to the cemetery, and partly +because of a picture in a certain book of his, called _Child’s Play_. +It represented a little girl wading across a pool among water-lilies. +She wore a white nightdress, kilted above her knees, and a dark +cloak, which dragged behind in the water. She let it trail, while +she held up a hand to cover one of her eyes. Above her were trees +and an owl, and a star shining under the topmost branch; and on the +opposite page this verse: + + “I have a little sister, + They call her Peep-peep, + She wades through the waters, + Deep, deep, deep; + She climbs up the mountains, + High, high, high; + This poor little creature + She has but one eye.” + +For years Taffy believed that this was his little sister, one-eyed, +and always wandering; and that his mother went out in the dusk to +persuade her to return; but she never would. + +When he woke next morning his mother was in the room; and while he +washed and dressed she folded his bed-clothes and carried them down +to a waggon which stood by the door, with horses already harnessed. +It drove away soon after. He found breakfast laid on the +window-seat. A neighbour had lent the crockery, and Taffy was +greatly taken with the pattern on the cups and saucers. He wanted to +run round again and repeat his good-byes to the house, but there was +no time. By-and-by the door opened, and two men, neighbours of +theirs, entered with an invalid’s litter; and, Humility directing, +brought down old Mrs. Venning. She wore the corner of a Paisley +shawl over her white cap, and carried a nosegay of flowers in place +of her lace-pillow; but otherwise looked much as usual. + +“Quite the traveller, you see!” she cried gaily to Taffy. + +Then the woman who had lent the breakfast-ware came running to say +that Joby was getting impatient. Humility handed the door-key to +her, and so the little procession passed out and down across Mount +Folly. + +Joby had drawn his van up close to the granite steps. They were the +only passengers, it seemed. The invalid was hoisted in and laid with +her couch across the seats, so that her shoulders rested against one +side of the van and her feet against the other. Humility climbed in +after her; but Taffy, to his joy, was given a seat outside the box. + +“C’k!”--they were off. + +As they crawled up the street a few townspeople paused on the +pavement and waved farewells. At the top of the town they overtook +three sailor-boys, with bundles, who climbed up and perched +themselves a-top of the van, on the luggage. + +On they went again. There were two horses--a roan and a grey. +Taffy had never before looked down on the back of a horse, and +Joby’s horses astonished him; they were so broad behind, and so +narrow at the shoulders. He wanted to ask if the shape were at all +common, but felt shy. He stole a glance at the silver ring in Joby’s +left ear, and blushed when Joby turned and caught him. + +“Here, catch hold!” said Joby handing him the whip. “Only you +mustn’t use it too fierce.” + +“Thank you.” + +“I suppose you’ll be a scholar, like your father? Can ee spell?” + +“Yes.” + +“Cipher?” + +“Yes.” + +“That’s more than I can. I counts upon my fingers. When they be +used up, I begins upon my buttons. I ha’n’t got no buttons--visible +that is--’pon my week-a-day clothes; so I keeps the long sums for +Sundays, and adds ’em up and down my weskit during sermon. +Don’t tell any person.” + +“I won’t.” + +“That’s right. I don’t want it known. Ever see a gipsy?” + +“Oh, yes--often.” + +“Next time you see one you’ll know why he wears so many buttons. +You’ve a lot to learn.” + +The van zigzagged down one hill and up another, and halted at a +turnpike. An old woman in a pink sun-bonnet bustled out and handed +Joby a pink ticket. A little way beyond they passed the angle of a +mining district, with four or five engine-houses high up like castles +on the hillside, and rows of stamps clattering and working up and +down like ogres’ teeth. Next they came to a church town, with a +green and a heap of linen spread to dry (for it was Tuesday), and a +flock of geese that ran and hissed after the van, until Joby took the +whip and, leaning out, looped the gander by the neck and pulled him +along in the dust. The sailor-boys shouted with laughter and struck +up a song about a fox and a goose, which lasted all the way up a long +hill and brought them to a second turnpike, on the edge of the moors. +Here lived an old woman in a blue sun-bonnet; and she handed Joby a +yellow-ticket. + +“But why does she wear a blue bonnet and give yellow tickets?” Taffy +asked, as they drove on. + +Joby considered for a minute. “Ah, you’re one to take notice, I see. +That’s right, keep your eyes skinned when you travel.” + +Taffy had to think this out. The country was changing now. They had +left stubble fields and hedges behind, and before them the granite +road stretched like a white ribbon, with moors on either hand, dotted +with peat-ricks and reedy pools and cropping ponies, and rimmed in +the distance with clay-works glistening in the sunny weather. + +“What sort of place is Nannizabuloe?” + +“I don’t go on there. I drop you at Indian Queens.” + +“But what sort of place is it?” + +“Well, I’ll tell you what folks say of it:” + + ‘All sea and san’s, + Out of the world and into St. Ann’s.’ + +“That’s what they say, and if I’m wrong you may call me a liar.” + +“And Squire Moyle?” Taffy persevered. “What kind of man is he?” + +Joby turned and eyed him severely. “Look here, sonny. I got my +living to get.” + +This silenced Taffy for a long while, but he picked up his courage +again by degrees. There was a small window at his back, and he +twisted himself round, and nodded to his mother and grandmother +inside the van. He could not hear what they answered, for the +sailor-boys were singing at the top of their voices: + + “I will sing you One, O! + What is your One, O? + Number One sits all alone, and ever more shall be-e so.” + +“They’re home ’pon leave,” said Joby. The song went on and reached +Number Seven: + + “I will sing you Seven, O! + What is your Seven, O? + Seven be seven stars in the ship a-sailing round in Heaven, O!” + +One of the boys leaned from the roof and twitched Taffy by the hair. +“Hullo, nipper! Did you ever see a ship of stars?” He grinned and +pulled open his sailor’s jumper and singlet; and there, on his naked +breast, Taffy saw a ship tattooed, with three masts, and a +half-circle of stars above it, and below it the initials W. P. + +“D’ee think my mother’ll know me again?” asked the boy, and the other +two began to laugh. + +“Yes, I think so,” said Taffy gravely; which made them laugh more +than ever. + +“But why is he painted like that?” he asked Joby, as they took up +their song again. + +“Ah, you’ll larn over to St. Ann’s, being one to notice things.” +The nearer he came to it, the more mysterious this new home of +Taffy’s seemed to grow. By-and-by Humility let down the window and +handed out a pasty. Joby searched under his seat and found a pasty, +twice the size of Taffy’s, in a nose-bag. They ate as they went, +holding up their pasties from time to time and comparing progress. +Late in the afternoon they came to hedges again, and at length to an +inn; and in front of it Taffy spied his father waiting with a +farm-cart. While Joby baited his horses, the sailor-boys helped to +lift out the invalid and trans-ship the luggage; after which they +climbed on the roof again, and were jogged away northward in the +dusk, waving their caps and singing. + +The most remarkable thing about the inn was its signboard. This bore +on either side the picture of an Indian queen and two blackamoor +children, all with striped parasols, walking together across a +desert. The queen on one side wore a scarlet turban and a blue robe; +but the queen on the other side wore a blue turban and a scarlet +robe. Taffy dodged from side to side, comparing them, and had not +made up his mind which he liked best when Humility called him indoors +to tea. + +They had ham and eggs with their tea, which they took in a great +hurry; and then his grandmother was lifted into the cart and laid on +a bed of clean straw beside the boxes, and he and his mother +clambered up in front. So they started again, his father walking at +the horse’s head. They took the road toward the sunset. As the dusk +fell closer around, Mr. Raymond lit a horn lantern and carried it +before them. The rays of it danced and wheeled upon the hedges and +gorse bushes. Taffy began to feel sleepy, though it was long before +his usual bedtime. The air seemed to weigh his eyelids down. Or was +it a sound lulling him? He looked up suddenly. His mother’s arm was +about him. Stars flashed above, and a glimmer fell on her gentle +face--a dew of light, as it were. Her dark eyes appeared darker than +usual as she leaned and drew her shawl over his shoulder. + +Ahead, the rays of the lantern kept up their dance, but they flared +now and again upon stone hedges built in zigzag layers, and upon +unknown feathery bushes, intensely green and glistening like metal. + +The cart jolted and the lantern swung to a soundless tune that filled +the night. When Taffy listened it ceased; when he ceased listening, +it began again. + +The lantern stopped its dance and stood still over a ford of black +water. The cart splashed into it and became a ship, heaving and +lurching over a soft, irregular floor that returned no sound. +But suddenly the ship became a cart again, and stood still before a +house with a narrow garden-path and a light streaming along it from +an open door. + +His father lifted him down; his mother took his hand. They seemed to +wade together up that stream of light. Then came a staircase and +room with a bed in it, which, oddly enough, turned out to be his own. +He stared at the pink roses on the curtains. Yes; certainly it was +his own bed. And satisfied of this, he nestled down in the pillows +and slept, to the long cadence of the sea. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +THE RUNNING SANDS. + +He awoke to find the sun shining in at his window. At first he +wondered what had happened. The window seemed to be in the ceiling, +and the ceiling sloped down to the walls, and all the furniture had +gone astray into wrong positions. Then he remembered, jumped out of +bed, and drew the blind. + +He saw a blue line of sea, so clearly drawn that the horizon might +have been a string stretched from the corner eaves to the snow-white +light-house standing on the farthest spit of land; blue sea and +yellow sand curving round it, with a white edge of breakers; inshore, +the sand rising to a cliff ridged with grassy hummocks; farther +inshore, the hummocks united and rolling away up to inland downs, but +broken here and there on their way with scars of sand; over all, +white gulls wheeling. He could hear the nearest ones mewing as they +sailed over the house. + +Taffy had seen the sea once before, at Dawlish, on the journey to +Tewkesbury; and again on the way home. But here it was bluer +altogether, and the sands were yellower. Only he felt disappointed +that no ship was in sight, nor any dwelling nearer than the +light-house and the two or three white cottages behind it. +He dressed in a hurry and said his prayers, repeating at the close, +as he had been taught to do, the first and last verses of the Morning +Hymn: + + “Awake, my soul, and with the sun + Thy daily stage of duty run; + Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise + To pay thy morning sacrifice. + + “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; + Praise Him, all creatures here below; + Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, + Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” + +He ran downstairs. In this queer house the stairs led right down +into the kitchen. The front door, too, opened into the kitchen, +which was really a slate-paved hall, with a long table set between +the doorway and the big open hearth. The floor was always strewn +with sand; there was no trouble about this, for the wind blew plenty +under the door. + +Taffy found the table laid, and his mother busily slicing bread for +his bread and milk. He begged for a hot cake from the hearth, and +ran out of doors to eat it. Humility lifted the latch for him, for +the cake was so hot that he had to pass it from hand to hand. + +Outside, the wind came upon him with a clap on the shoulder, quite +as if it had been a comrade waiting. + +Taffy ran down the path and out upon the sandy hummocks, setting his +face to the wind and the roar of the sea, keeping his head low, and +still shifting the cake from hand to hand. By-and-by he fumbled and +dropped it; stooped to pick it up, but saw something which made him +kneel and peer into the ground. + +The whole of the sand was moving; not by fits and starts, but +constantly; the tiny particles running over each other and drifting +in and out of the rushes, like little creatures in a dream. While he +looked, they piled an embankment against the edge of his cake. +He picked it up, ran forward a few yards, and peered again. +Yes, here too; here and yonder, and over every inch of that long +shore. + +He ate his cake and climbed to the beach, and ran along it, watching +the sandhoppers that skipped from under his boots at every step, and +were lost on the instant. The beach here was moist and firm. +He pulled off his boots and stockings, and ran on, conning his +footprints and the driblets of sand split ahead from his bare toes. +By-and-by he came to the edge of the surf. The strand here was +glassy wet, and each curving wave sent a shadow flying over it, and +came after the shadow, thundering and hissing, and chased it up the +shore, and fell back, leaving for a second or two an edge of delicate +froth which reminded the boy of his mother’s lace-work. + +He began a sort of game with the waves, choosing one station after +another, and challenging them to catch him there. If the edge of +froth failed to reach his toes, he won. But once or twice the water +caught him fairly, and ran rippling over his instep and about his +ankles. + +He was deep in this game when he heard a horn blown somewhere high on +the towans behind him. + +He turned. No one was in sight. The house lay behind the +sand-banks, the first ridge hiding even its chimney-smoke. He gazed +along the beach, where the perpetual haze of spray seemed to have +removed the light-house to a vast distance. A sense of desolation +came over him with a rush, and with something between a gasp and a +sob he turned his back to the sea and ran, his boots dangling from +his shoulders by their knotted laces. + +He pounded up the first slope and looked for the cottage. No sign of +it! An insane fancy seized him. These silent moving sands were +after _him_. + +He was panting along in real distress when he heard the baying of +dogs, and at the same instant from the top of a hummock caught sight +of a figure outlined against the sky, and barely a quarter of a mile +away; the figure of a girl on horseback--a small girl on a very tall +horse. + +Just as Taffy recognised her, she turned her horse, walked him down +into the hollow beyond, and disappeared. Taffy ran towards the spot, +gained the ridge where she had been standing, and looked down. + +In a hollow about twenty feet deep and perhaps a hundred wide were +gathered a dozen riders, with five or six couples of hounds and two +or three dirty terriers. Two of the men had dismounted. One of +these, stripped to his shirt and breeches, was leaning on a +long-handled spade and laughing. The other--a fellow in a shabby +scarlet coat--held up what Taffy guessed to be a fox, though it +seemed a very small one. It was bleeding. The hounds yapped and +leapt at it, and fell back a-top of each other snarling, while the +Whip grinned and kept them at bay. A knife lay between his +wide-planted feet, and a visgy[1] close behind him on a heap of +disturbed sand. + +The boy came on them from the eastward, and his shadow fell across +the hollow. + +“Hullo!” said one of the riders, looking up. It was Squire Moyle +himself. “Here’s the new Passon’s boy!” + +All the riders looked up. The Whip looked up too, and turned to the +old Squire with a wider grin than before. + +“Shall I christen en, maister?” + +The Squire nodded. Before Taffy knew what it meant, the man was +climbing toward him with a grin, clutching the rush bents with one +hand, and holding out the blood-dabbled mask with the other. +The child turned to run, but a hand clutched his ankle. He saw the +man’s open mouth and yellow teeth; and, choking with disgust and +terror, slung his boots at them with all his small force. At the +same instant he was jerked off his feet, the edge of the bank +crumbled and broke, and the two went rolling down the sandy slope in +a heap. He heard shouts of laughter, caught a glimpse of blue sky, +felt a grip of fingers on his throat, and smelt the verminous odour +of the dead cub, as the Whip thrust the bloody mess against his face +and neck. Then the grip relaxed, and--it seemed to him, amid dead +silence--Taffy sprang to his feet, spitting sand and fury. + +“You--you devils!” He caught up the visgy and stood, daring all to +come on. “You devils!” He tottered forward with the visgy lifted--it +was all he could manage--at Squire Moyle. The old man let out an +oath, and the curve of his whip-thong took the boy across the eyes +and blinded him for a moment, but did not stop him. The grey horse +swerved, and half-wheeled, exposing his flank. In another moment +there would have been mischief; but the Whip, as he stood wiping his +mouth, saw the danger and ran in. He struck the visgy out of the +child’s grasp, set his foot on it, and with an open-handed cuff sent +him floundering into a sand-heap. + +“Nice boy, that!” said somebody, and the whole company laughed as +they walked their horses slowly out of the hollow. + +They passed before Taffy in a blur of tears; and the last rider to go +was the small girl Honoria on her tall sorrel. She moved up the +broad shelving path, but reined up just within sight, turned her +horse, and came slowly back to him. + +“If I were you, I’d go home.” She pointed in its direction. + +Taffy brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. “Go away. +I hate you--I hate you all!” + +She eyed him while she smoothed the sorrel’s mane with her +riding-switch. + +“They did it to me three years ago, when I was six. Grandfather +called it ‘entering’ me.” + +Taffy kept his eyes sullenly on the ground. Finding that he would +not answer, she turned her horse again and rode slowly after the +others. Taffy heard the soft footfalls die away, and when he looked +up she had vanished. + +He picked up his boots and started in the direction to which she had +pointed. Every now and then a sob shook him. By-and-by the chimneys +of the house hove in sight among the ridges, and he ran toward it. +But within a gunshot of the white garden-wall his breast swelled +suddenly and he flung himself on the ground and let the big tears +run. They made little pits in the moving sand; and more sand drifted +up and covered them. + +“Taffy! Taffy! Whatever has become of the child?” + +His mother was standing by the gate in her print frock. He scrambled +up and ran toward her. She cried out at the sight of him, but he hid +his blood-smeared face against her skirts. + +[1] Mattock. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +TAFFY RINGS THE CHURCH BELL. + +They were in the church--Squire Moyle, Mr. Raymond, and Taffy close +behind. The two men were discussing the holes in the roof and other +dilapidations. + +“One, two, three,” the Squire counted. “I’ll send a couple of men +with tarpaulin and rick-ropes. That’ll tide us over next Sunday, +unless it blows hard.” + +They passed up three steps under the belfry arch. Here a big bell +rested on the flooring. Its rim was cracked, but not badly. A long +ladder reached up into the gloom. + +“What’s the beam like?” the Squire called up to someone aloft. + +“Sound as a bell,” answered a voice. + +“I said so. We’ll have en hoisted by Sunday, I’ll send a waggon over +to Wheel Gooniver for a tackle and winch. Damme, up there! +Don’t keep sheddin’ such a muck o’ dust on your betters!” + +“I can’t help no other, Squire!” said the voice overhead; “such a +cauch o’ pilm an’ twigs, an’ birds’ droppins’! If I sneeze I’m a +lost man.” + +Taffy, staring up as well as he could for the falling rubbish, could +just spy a white smock above the beam, and a glint of daylight on the +toe-scutes of two dangling boots. + +“I’ll dam soon make you help it. _Is_ the beam sound?” + +“Ha’n’t I told ’ee so?” said the voice querulously. + +“Then come down off the ladder, you son of a--” + +“Gently, Squire!” put in Mr. Raymond. + +The Squire groaned. “There I go again--an’ in the House of God +itself! Oh! ’tis a case with me! I’ve a heart o’ stone--a heart o’ +stone.” He turned and brushed his rusty hat with his coat-cuff. +Suddenly he faced round again. “Here, Bill Udy,” he said to the old +labourer who had just come down the ladder, “catch hold of my hat an’ +carry en fore to porch. I keep forgettin’ I’m in church, an’ then on +he goes.” + +The building stood half a mile from the sea, surrounded by the +rolling towans and rabbit burrows, and a few lichen-spotted +tombstones slanting inland. Early in the seventeenth century a +London merchant had been shipwrecked on the coast below Nannizabuloe +and cast ashore, the one saved out of thirty. He asked to be shown a +church in which to give thanks for his preservation, and the people +led him to a ruin bedded in the sands. It had lain since the days of +Arundel’s Rebellion. The Londoner vowed to build a new church there +on the towans, where the songs of prayer and praise should mingle +with the voice of the waves which God had baffled for him. +The people warned him of the sand; but he would not listen to reason. +He built his church--a squat Perpendicular building of two aisles, +the wider divided into nave and chancel merely by a granite step in +the flooring; he saw it consecrated, and returned to his home and +died. And the church steadily decayed. He had mixed his mortar with +sea-sand. The stonework oozed brine, the plaster fell piece-meal; +the blown sand penetrated like water; the foundations sank a foot on +the south side, and the whole structure took a list to leeward. +The living passed into the hands of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, +and from them, in 1730, to the Moyles. Mr. Raymond’s predecessor was +a kinsman of theirs by marriage, a pluralist, who lived and died at +the other end of the Duchy. He had sent curates from time to time; +the last of whom was dead, three years since, of solitude and drink. +But he never came himself, Squire Moyle having threatened to set the +dogs on him if ever he set foot in Nannizabuloe; for there had been +some dispute over a dowry. The result was that nobody went to +church, though a parson from the next parish held an occasional +service. The people were Wesleyan Methodists or Bryanites. +Each sect had its own chapel in the fishing village of Innis, on the +western side of the parish; and the Bryanites a second one, at the +cross-roads behind the downs, for the miners and warreners and +scattered farmfolk. + + +_Ding--ding--ding--ding--ding_. + +It was Sunday morning, and Taffy was sounding the bell, by a thin +rope tied to its clapper. The heavy bell-rope would be ready next +week; but Humility must first contrive a woollen binding for it, to +prevent its chafing the ringer’s hands. + +Out on the towans the rabbits heard the sound, and ran scampering. +Others, farther away, paused in their feeding, and listened with +cocked ears. + +_Ding--ding--ding_. + +Mr. Raymond stood in the belfry at the boy’s elbow. He wore his +surplice, and held his prayer-book, with a finger between the pages. +Glancing down toward the nave, he saw Humility sitting in the big +vicarage pew--no other soul in church. + +He took the cord from Taffy, “Run to the door, and see if anyone is +coming.” + +Taffy ran, and after a minute came back. + +“There’s Squire Moyle coming along the path, and the little girl with +him, and some servants behind--five or six of them. Bill Udy’s one.” + +“Nobody else?” + +“I expect the people don’t hear the bell,” said Taffy. “They live +too far away.” + +“God hears. Yes, and God sees the lamp is lit.” + +“What lamp?” Taffy looked up at his father’s face, wondering. + +“All towers carry a lamp of some kind. For what else are they +built?” + +It was exactly the tone in which he had spoken that afternoon at +Tewkesbury about men being like towers. Both these sentences puzzled +the boy; and yet Taffy never felt so near to understanding him as he +had then, and did again now. He was shy of his father. He did not +know that his father was just as shy of him. He began to ring with +all his soul--ding--ding-ding, ding-ding. + +The old Squire entered the church, paused, and blew his nose +violently, and taking Honoria by the hand, marched her up to the end +of the south aisle. The door of the great pew was shut upon them, +and they disappeared. Before Honoria vanished Taffy caught a glimpse +of a grey felt hat with pink ribbons. + +The servants scattered and found seats in the body of the church. +He went on ringing, but no one else came. After a minute or two +Mr. Raymond signed to him to stop and go to his mother, which he did, +blushing at the noise of his shoes on the slate pavement. +Mr. Raymond followed, walked slowly past, and entered the +reading-desk. + +“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath +committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save +his soul alive....” + +Taffy looked towards the Squire’s pew. The bald top of the Squire’s +head was just visible above the ledge. He looked up at his mother, +but her eyes were fastened on her prayer-book. He felt--he could not +help it--that they were all gathered to save this old man’s soul, and +that everybody knew it and secretly thought it a hopeless case. +The notion dogged him all through the service, and for many Sundays +after. Always that bald head above the ledge, and his father and the +congregation trying to call down salvation on it. He wondered what +Honoria thought, boxed up with it and able to see its face. + +Mr. Raymond mounted an upper pulpit to preach his sermon. He chose +his text from Saint Matthew, Chapter vii., verses 26 and 27: + +“_And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them +not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon +the sand_; + +“_And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, +and beat upon that house; and it fell; and great was the fall of +it_.” + +Taffy never followed his father’s sermons closely. He would listen +to a sentence or two, now and again, and then let his wits wander. + +“You think this church is built upon the sands. The rain has come, +the winds have blown and beaten on it; the foundations have sunk and +it leans to leeward.... By the blessing of God we will shore it +up, and upon a foundation of rock. Upon what rock, you ask?... +Upon that rock which is the everlasting foundation of the Church +spiritual.... Hear what comfortable words our Lord spake to Peter. +... Our foundation must be faith, which is God’s continuing +Presence on earth, and which we shall recognise hereafter as God +Himself.... Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the +evidence of things not seen.... In other words, it is the rock we +search for.... Draw near it, and you will know yourself in God’s +very shadow--the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.... As +with this building, so with you, O man, cowering from wrath, as these +walls are cowering....” + +The benediction was pronounced, the pew-door opened, and the old man +marched down the aisle, looking neither to right nor to left, with +his jaw set like a closed gin. Honoria followed. She had not so +much as a glance for Taffy; but in passing she gazed frankly at +Humility, whom she had not seen before. + +Humility was rather ostentatiously cheerful at dinner that day; a +sure sign that at heart she was disappointed. She had looked for a +bigger congregation. Mrs. Venning, who had been carried downstairs +for the meal, saw this and asked few questions. Both the women stole +glances at Mr. Raymond when they thought he was not observing them. +He at least pretended to observe nothing, but chatted away +cheerfully. + + +“Taffy,” he said, after dinner, “I want you to run up to Tredinnis +with a note from me. Maybe I will follow later, but I must go to the +village first.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A COCK-FIGHT. + +A footpath led Taffy past the church, and out at length upon a high +road, in face of two tall granite pillars with an iron gate between. +The gate was surmounted with a big iron lantern, and the lantern with +a crest--two snakes’ heads intertwined. The gate was shut, but the +fence had been broken down on either side, and the gap, through which +Taffy passed, was scored with wheel-ruts. He followed these down an +ill-kept road bordered with furze-whins, tamarisks, and clumps of +bannel broom. By-and-by he came to a ragged plantation of stone +pines, backed by a hedge of rhododendrons, behind which the hounds +were baying in their kennels. It put him in mind of the “Pilgrim’s +Progress.” He heard the stable clock strike three, and caught a +glimpse, over the shrubberies, of its cupola and gilt weather-cock. +And then a turn of the road brought him under the gloomy northern +face of the house, with its broad carriage sweep and sunless portico. +Half the windows on this side had been blocked up and painted black, +with white streaks down and across to represent framework. + +He pulled at an iron bell-chain which dangled by the great door. +The bell clanged far within and a dozen dogs took up the note, +yelping in full peal. He heard footsteps coming; the door was +opened, and the dogs poured out upon him--spaniels, terriers, +lurchers, greyhounds, and a big Gordon setter--barking at him, +leaping against him, sniffing his calves. Taffy kept them at bay as +best he could and waved his letter at a wall-eyed man in a dirty +yellow waistcoat, who looked down from the doorstep but did not offer +to call them off. + +“Any answer?” asked the wall-eyed man. + +Taffy could not say. The man took the letter and went to inquire, +leaving him alone with the dogs. + +It seemed an age before he reappeared, having in the interval slipped +a dirty livery coat over his yellow waistcoat. “The Squire says +you’re to come in.” Taffy and the dogs poured together into a high, +stone-flagged hall; then through a larger hall and a long dark +corridor. The footman’s coat, for want of a loop, had been hitched +on a peg by its collar, and stuck out behind his neck in the most +ludicrous manner; but he shuffled ahead so fast that Taffy, tripping +and stumbling among the dogs, had barely time to observe this before +a door was flung open and he stood blinking in a large room full of +sunlight. + +“Hallo! Here’s the parson’s bantam!” + +The room had four high, bare windows through which the afternoon +sunshine streamed on the carpet. The carpet had a pattern of pink +peonies on a delicate buff ground, and was shamefully dirty. And the +vast apartment, with its white paint and gilding and Italian sketches +in water-colour and statuettes under glass, might have been a lady’s +drawing-room. But paint and gilding were tarnished; the chintz +chair-covers soiled and torn; the pictures hung askew; and a smell of +dog filled the air. + +Squire Moyle sat huddled in a deep chair beside the fire-place, +facing the middle of the room, where a handsome, high-complexioned +gentleman, somewhat past middle age, lounged on a settee and dangled +a gold-mounted riding crop. A handsome boy knelt at the back of the +settee and leaned over the handsome gentleman’s shoulder. On the +floor, between the two men, lay a canvas bag; and something moved +inside it. At the end of the room, by the farthest window, Honoria +knelt over a big portfolio. She wore the grey frock and pink sash +which Taffy had seen in church that morning, and she tossed her dark +hair back from her eyes as she looked up. + +The Squire crumpled up the letter in his hand. + +“Put the bag away,” he said to the handsome gentleman. “’Tis Sunday, +I tell ’ee, and Parson will be here in an hour. This is young +six-foot I was telling about.” He turned to Taffy-- + +“Boy, go and shake hands with Sir Harry Vyell.” + +Taffy did as he was bidden. “This is my son George,” said Sir Harry; +and Taffy shook hands with him, too, and liked his face. + +“Put the bag away, Harry,” said the Squire. + +“Just to comfort ’ee, now!” + +“I tell ’ee I won’t look at en.” + +Sir Harry untied the neck of the bag, and drew out a smaller one; +untied this, and out strutted a game-cock. + +The old Squire eyed it. “H’m, he don’t seem flourishing.” + +“Don’t abuse a bird that’s come twelve miles in a bag on purpose to +cheer you up. He’s a match for anything you can bring.” + +“Tuts, man, he’s dull--no colour nor condition. Get along with ’ee; +I wouldn’ ask a bird of mine to break the Sabbath for a wastrel like +that.” + +Sir Harry drew out a shagreen-covered case and opened it. Within, on +a lining of pale blue velvet, lay two small sharp instruments of +steel, very highly polished. He lifted one, felt its point, replaced +it, set down the case on the carpet, and fell to toying with the ears +of the Gordon setter, which had come sniffing out of curiosity. + +“You’re a very obstinate man,” said Squire Moyle. After a long pause +he added, “I suppose you’re wanting odds?” + +“Evens will do,” said Sir Harry. + +The old man turned and rang the bell. + +“Tell Jim to fetch in the red cock,” he shouted to the wall-eyed +footman--who must have been waiting in the corridor, so promptly he +appeared. + +“And Jim won’t be long about it either,” whispered Honoria. She had +come forward quietly, and stood at Taffy’s elbow. + +Sir Harry shook a finger at her and laid it on his lips. But the old +Squire did not hear. He sat glum, pulling a whisker and keeping a +sour eye on the bird, which was strutting about in rather foolish +bewilderment at the pink peonies on the carpet. + +“I’m giving you every chance,” he grumbled at length. + +“Oh, as for that,” Sir Harry replied, equably, “have it out in the +yard, if you please, on your own dunghill.” + +“No. Indoors is bad enough.” + +Jim appeared just then, and turned out to be Taffy’s old enemy, the +Whip, bearing the Squire’s game-cock in a basket. He took it out; a +very handsome bird, with a hackle in which gold, purple and the +richest browns shone and were blended. + +Sir Harry had picked up his bird and was heeling it with the long +steel spurs; a very delicate process, to judge by the time occupied +and the pucker on his good-tempered brow. + +“Ready?” he asked at length. + +Jim, who had been heeling the Squire’s bird, nodded and the pair were +set down. They ruffled and flew at each other without an instant’s +hesitation. The visitor, which five minutes before had been staring +at the carpet so foolishly, was prompt enough now. For a moment they +paused, beak to beak, eye to eye, furious, with necks outstretched +and hackles stiff with the rage of battle. They began to rise and +fall like two feathers tossing in the air, very quietly. But for the +soft whir of wings there was no sound in the room. Taffy could +scarcely believe they were fighting in earnest. For a moment they +seemed to touch--to touch and no more, and for a moment only--but in +that moment the stroke was given. The home champion fluttered down, +stood on his legs for a moment, as if nothing had happened, then +toppled over and lay twitching, as his conqueror strutted over him +and lifted his throat to crow. + +Squire Moyle rose, clutching the corner of his chair. His mouth +opened and shut, but no words came. Sir Harry caught up his bird, +whipped off his spurs, and thrust him back into the bag. The old man +dropped back, letting his chin sink on his high stock-collar. + +“It serves me right. Who shall deliver me from the wrath to come?” + +“Oh! as for that--” Sir Harry finished tying the neck of the bag, and +lazily fell to fingering the setter’s ear. + +The old man was muttering to himself. Taffy looked at the dead bird, +then at Honoria. She was gazing at it too, with untroubled eyes. + +“But I _will_ be saved! I tell you, Harry, I _will!_ Take those +birds away. Honoria, hand me my Bible. It’s all here”--he tapped +the heavy book--“miracles, redemption, justification by faith--I +_will_ have faith. I _will_ believe, every damned word of it!” + +Sir Harry broke in with a peal of laughter. Taffy had never heard a +laugh so musical. + +The old man was adjusting his spectacles; but he took them off and +laid them down, his hands shaking with rage. + +“You came here to taunt me”--his voice shook as his hand--“me, an +old man, with no son to my house. You think, because I’m seeking +higher things, there’s no fight left in us or in the parish. I tell +you what; make that boy of yours strip and stand up, and I’ll back +the Parson’s youngster for doubles or quits. Off with your coat, my +son, and stand up to him!” + +Taffy turned round in a daze. He did not understand. His eyes met +Honoria’s, and they were fastened on him curiously. He was white in +the face; the sight of the murdered game-cock had sickened him. + +“He doesn’t look flourishing.” Sir Harry mimicked the Squire’s recent +manner. + +Taffy turned with the look of a hunted animal. He did not want to +fight. He hated this house and its inhabitants. The other boy was +stripping off his jacket with a good-humoured smile. + +“I--I don’t want--” Taffy began fumbling with a button. “Please--” + +“Off with your coat, boy! You were game enough t’other day. If you +lick en, I’ll put a new roof on your father’s church.” + +Taffy was still fumbling with his jacket-button when a bell sounded, +clanging through the house. + +“The parson!” + +Squire Moyle clutched at his Bible like a child who has been caught +playing in school. Sir Harry stepped to the window and flung up the +sash. “Out you tumble, youngsters--you too, Miss, if you like. +Pick up your coat, George--cut and run to the stables; I’ll be round +in a minute--quick, out you go!” + +The children scrambled over the sill and dropped on to the stone +terrace. As his father closed the sash behind him, George Vyell +laughed out. Then Taffy began to laugh; he laughed all the way as +they ran. When they reached the stables he was swaying with +laughter. There was a hepping-stock by the stable-wall, and he flung +himself on to the slate steps. He could not stop laughing. +The two others stared at him. They thought he had gone mad. + +“Here comes Dad!” cried George Vyell. + +This sobered Taffy. He sat up and brushed his eyes. Sir Harry +whistled for Jim, and told him to saddle the horses. + +George and Honoria stood by the stable-door and watched the saddling. +The horses were led out; Sir Harry’s, a tall grey, George’s, a roan +cob. + +“Look here!” Sir Harry said to Jim; “you take my bird, and comfort +your master with him. I don’t want him any more.” + +The two rode out of the yard and away up the avenue. Honoria planted +herself in front of Taffy. + +“Would you have fought just now?” she asked. + +“I--I don’t know. That’s my father calling.” + +“But, would you have fought?” + +“I must go to him.” He would not look her in the face. + +“Tell me.” + +“Don’t bother! I don’t know.” + +He ran out of the yard. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +GEORGE. + +It appeared that Honoria and Taffy were to do lessons together, and +Mr. Raymond was to teach them. This had been the meaning of his +visit to Tredinnis House. They began the very next day in the +library at Tredinnis--a deserted room carpeted with badgers’ skins, +and lined with undusted books--works on farriery, veterinary surgery, +and sporting subjects, long rows of the _Annual Register_, the +_Arminian Magazine_. + +Taffy began by counting the badgers’ skins. There were eighteen, and +the moths had got into them, so that the draught under the door +puffed little drifts of hair over the polished boards. Then he +settled down to the first Latin declension--_Musa_, a muse; vocative, +_Musa_, O muse!; genitive, Musae, of a muse. Honoria began upon the +ABC. + +Mr. Raymond brought a pile of his own books, and worked at them, +scribbling notes in the margin or on long slips of paper, while the +children learnt. A servant came in with a message from Squire Moyle, +and he left them for a while. + +“I call this nonsense,” said Honoria. “How am I to get these silly +letters into my head?” + +Taffy was glad of the chance to show off. “Oh, that’s easy. You +make up a tale about them. See here. A is the end of a house; it’s +just like one with a beam across. B is a cat with his tail curled +under him--watch me drawing it. C is an old woman stooping; and D is +another cat, only his back is more rounded. Once upon a time, there +lived in a cottage an old woman who went about with two cats, one on +each side of her--that’s how you go on.” + +“But I can’t go on. You must do it for me.” + +“Well, each of these cats had a comb, and was combed every Saturday +night. One was a good cat, and kept his comb properly--like E, you +see. But the other had broken a tooth out of his--that’s F--” + +“I expect he was a fulmart,” said Honoria. + +Taffy agreed. He didn’t know what a fulmart was, but he was not +going to confess it. So he went on hurriedly, and Honoria thought +him a wonder. They came to W. + +“So they got into a ship (I’ll show you how to make one out of paper, +exactly like W), and sailed up into the sky, for the ship was a Ship +of Stars--you make X’s for stars; but that’s a witch-ship; so it +stuck fast in Y, which is a cleft ash-stick, and then came a stroke +of lightning, Z, and burnt them all up!” He stopped, out of breath. + +“I don’t understand the ending at all,” said Honoria. “What is a +Ship of Stars?” + +“Haven’t you ever seen one?” + +“No.” + +“I have. There’s a story about it--” + +“Tell me about it.” + +“I’ll tell you lots of stories afterwards; about the Frog-king and +Aladdin and Man Friday and The Girl who trod on a Loaf.” + +“And the Ship of Stars?” + +“N--no.” Taffy felt himself blushing. “That’s one of the stories +that won’t come--and they’re the loveliest of all,” he added, in a +burst of confidence. + +Honoria thought for a moment, but did not understand in the least. +All she said was, “what funny words you use!” She went back to her +alphabet--A, house; B, cat. It came more easily now. + +After lessons she made him tell her a story; and Taffy, who wished to +be amusing, told her about the “Valiant Tailor who killed Seven at a +Blow.” To his disgust, it scarcely made her smile. But after this +she was always asking for stories, and always listened solemnly, with +her dark eyes fixed on his face. She never seemed to admire him at +all for his gift, but treated it with a kind of indulgent wonder, as +if he were some queer animal with uncommon tricks. This dashed Taffy +a bit, for he liked to be thought a fine fellow. But he went on +telling his stories, and sometimes invented new ones for her. +George Vyell was much more appreciative. Sir Harry had heard of the +lessons, and wrote to beg that his son might join the class. +So George rode over three times a week to learn Latin, which he did +with uncommon slowness. But he thought Taffy’s stories stunning, and +admired him without a shade of envy. The two boys liked each other; +and when they were alone Taffy stood an inch or two higher in +self-conceit than when Honoria happened to be by. But he took more +pains with his stories if she was listening. As for her lessons, +Honoria got through them by honest plodding. She never quite saw the +use of them, but she liked Mr. Raymond. She learnt more steadily +than either of the boys. + +One day George rode over with two pairs of boxing-gloves dangling +from his saddle. After lessons he and Taffy had a try with them, in +a clearing behind the shrubberies where the gardener had heaped his +sweepings of dry leaves to rot down for manure. + +“But, look here,” said George, after the first round; “you’ll never +learn if you hit so wild as that. You must keep your head up, and +watch my eyes and feint.” + +Taffy couldn’t help it. As soon as ever he struck out, he forgot +that it was not real fighting. And he felt ashamed to look George +straight in the face, for his own eyes were full of tears of +excitement. At the end of the bout, when George said, “Now we must +shake hands; it’s the proper thing to do,” he looked bewildered for a +moment. It made George laugh in his easy way, and then Taffy laughed +too. + +After this they had a bout almost every day; and he was soon able to +hold his own and treat it as sport. But somehow he always felt a +passion behind it, whispering to him to put some nastiness into his +blows, especially when Honoria came to look on. And yet he liked +George far better than he liked Honoria. Indeed, he adored George, +and the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings when George appeared +were the bright spots in his week. Lessons were over at twelve +o’clock; by one o’clock Taffy had to be home for dinner. Loneliness +filled the afternoons, but the child peopled them with extravagant +fancies. He and George were crusaders sworn to defend the Holy +Sepulchre, and bound by an oath of brotherhood, though George was a +Red Cross Knight and he a plain squire; and after the most surprising +adventures Taffy received the barbed and poisoned arrow intended for +his master, and died most impressively, with George and Honoria, and +Richard Coeur de Lion, and most of the characters from “Ivanhoe,” +sobbing round his bed. There was a Blondel variant too, with George +imprisoned in a high tower; and a monstrous conglomerate tale in +which most of the heroes of history and romance played second fiddle +to George, whose pre-eminence, though occasionally challenged by +Achilles, Sir Lancelot, or the Black Prince, was regularly vindicated +by Taffy’s timely help. + +This tale, with endless variations, actually lasted him for two good +years. The scene of it never lay among the towans, but round about +his old home or the well-remembered meadow at Tewkesbury. That was +his plain of Troy, his Field of Cressy, his lists of Ashby de la +Zouche. The high road at the back of the towans crossed a stream, by +a ford and a footbridge; and the travelling postman, if he had any +letters for the Parsonage, would stop by the footbridge and blow a +horn. He little guessed what challenges it sounded to the small boy +who came running for the post. + +The postman came by, as a rule, at two o’clock or thereabouts. +One afternoon in early spring Mr. Raymond happened to be starting for +a walk when the horn was blown, and he and Taffy went to meet the +post together. There were three or four letters which the Vicar +opened; and one for Humility, which he put in his pocket. In the +midst of his reading, he looked up, smiled over his spectacles, and +said: + +“Oxford has won the boat-race.” + +Taffy had been deep in the Fifth Aeneid for some weeks, and +boat-racing ran much in his mind. + +“Who is Oxford?” he asked. + +Mr. Raymond took off his spectacles and wiped them. It came on him +suddenly that this child, whom he loved, was shut out from many of +his dearest thoughts. + +“Oxford is a city,” he answered; and added, “the most beautiful city +in the world.” + +“Shall I ever go there?” Taffy asked. + +Mr. Raymond walked off without seeming to hear the question. +But that evening after supper he told the most wonderful tales of +Oxford, while Taffy listened and hoped his mother would forget his +bedtime; and Humility listened too, bending over her _guipure_. +The love with which he looked back to Oxford was the second passion +of Samuel Raymond’s life; and Humility was proud of it, not jealous +at all. He forgot all the struggle, all the slights, all the grip of +poverty. To him those years had become an heroic age, and men +Homeric men. And so he made them appear to Taffy, to whom it was +wonderful that his father should have moved among such giants. + +“And shall I go there too?” + +Humility glanced up quickly, and met her husband’s eyes. + +“Some day, please God!” she said. Mr. Raymond stared at the embers +of wreck-wood on the hearth. + +From that night Oxford became the main scene of Taffy’s imaginings; a +wholly fictitious Oxford, pieced together of odds and ends from +picture-books, and peopled with all the old heroes. And so, with +contests on the models of the Fifth Aeneid, the story went forward +gallantly for many months. + +But the afternoons were long; and at times the interminable +sand-hills and everlasting roar of the sea oppressed the child with a +sense of loneliness beyond words. The rabbits and gulls would not +make friends with him, and he ached for companionship. Of that ache +was born his half-crazy adoration of George Vyell. There were hours +when he lay in some nook of the towans, peering into the ground, +seeing pictures in the sand--pictures of men and regiments and +battles, shifting with the restless drift; until, unable to bear it, +he flung out his hands to efface them, and hid his face in the sand, +sobbing, “George! George!” + +At night he would creep out of bed to watch the lighthouse winking +away in the north-east. George lived somewhere beyond. And again it +would be “George! George!” + +And when the happy mornings came, and George with them, Taffy was as +shy as a lover. So George never guessed. It might have surprised +that very careless young gentleman, when he looked up from his verbs +which govern the dative, and caught Taffy’s eye, could he have seen +himself in his halo there. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +THE SQUIRE’S SOUL. + +Two years passed, and a third winter. The church was now well on its +way to restoration. The roof had been repaired, the defective +timbers removed and sound ones inserted, the south wall strengthened +with three buttresses, the foundations on that side examined and +shored up. The old Squire did not halt here. Furniture arrived for +the interior; a handsome altar cloth, a small gilt cross, a dozen +hanging lamps, an oaken lectern, cushions, hymn-books, a big new +Bible with purple book-markers. He promised to take out the east +window--which was just a patchwork of common glass, like a cucumber +frame--and replace it with sound mullions and stained glass, in +memory of his only daughter, Honoria’s mother. She had run away from +Tredinnis House, and married a penniless captain; and Honoria’s +surname was Callastair, though nobody uttered it in the old man’s +hearing. Husband and wife had died in India, of cholera, within +three years of their marriage; and the old man had sent for the +child. Having relented so far, he went on to do it thoroughly, in +his own fashion. He neglected Honoria; but she might have anything +she wanted for the asking. It seemed, though, that she wanted very +little. + +He allowed Mr. Raymond to choose the design for this window. He only +stipulated that the subject should be Jonah and the whale. +“There’s no story’ll compare with it for trying a man’s faith.” + +When the window came, and was erected, he complained that it left out +most of the whale, of which the jaws and one wicked little red eye +were all that appeared. “It looks half-hearted. Why didn’t they +swim en all in? ’Tis neck or nothin’ wi’ that story; but they’ve +made it neck _and_ nothin’. An’ after colouring en violet too!” + +In return, the Vicar had hunted up some county histories and heraldic +works in the library at Tredinnis, and was now busy re-emblazoning +with his own hand the devices carved on the Moyle pew. + +Little by little, too, the congregation had grown. The people came +shyly at first. They mistrusted the Established Church. But they +treated the Vicar with politeness when he visited them. And seeing +him so awkward, and how with all his book-learning he listened to +their opinions and blushed when he offered any small service, they +grew to like him, being shy themselves. They pitied him too, knowing +the old Squire better than he did. So from Sunday to Sunday Taffy, +pulling at his rope in the belfry, counted the new-comers, and +Humility talked about them on the way home and at dinner. They were +fisher folk for the most part; the men in blue guernseys and corduroy +trousers, and some with curled black beards and rings in their ears; +the women, in gayer colours than you see in an up-country church; a +southern-seeming race, with southern-sounding names--Santo, Jose, +Hugo, Bennet, Cara. They belonged--so Mr. Raymond often told +himself--to the class which Christ called His Apostles. Sometimes, +scanning an olive-coloured face, he would be minded of the Sea of +Gennesareth; and, a minute later, the sight of the grey coast-line +with its whirled spray would chill the fancy. + +The congregation always lingered outside the porch after service; and +then one would say to another: “Wall, there’s more in the man than +you’d think. See you up to the meetin’ this evenin’ I s’pose? +So long!” + +But having come once, they came again. And the family at the +Parsonage were full of hope, though Taffy longed sometimes for a +play-fellow, and sometimes for he knew not what, and Humility bent +over her lace pillow and thought of green lanes and of Beer Village +and women at work by sunshiny doorways; and wondered if their faces +had changed. + + “O, that I were where I would be! + Then would I be where I am not; + But where I am, there I must be, + And where I would be, I cannot.” + +She never told a soul of her home thoughts. Her husband never +guessed them. But Taffy (without knowing why), whenever this verse +from his old playbook came into his head, connected it with his +mother. + +But the old Squire was getting impatient. He took quite a feudal +view of the saving of his soul, and would have dragged the whole +parish to church by main force, had it been possible. + +Late one afternoon, Taffy was lying in one of his favourite nooks in +the lee of the towans, when he heard voices and looked up. And there +sat the old gentleman gazing down on him from horseback, with Bill +Udy at his side. The Squire was in hunting dress. + +“What be doin’ down there?” he asked. “Praying?” + +“No, sir.” + +“I wish you would. I wish you’d pray for me. I’ve heerd that a +child’ll do good sometimes when grown folk can’t. I doubt your +father isn’t goin’ to do the good I looked for from en. He don’t +believe in sudden conversion. Here, Bill, take the mare and lead her +home.” + +He dismounted, and seated himself with a groan on the edge of the +sand-pit. + +“Look here; I’ve got convictions of sin, but I can’t get no forrader. +What’s to be done?” + +“I don’t know, sir,” Taffy stammered, with his eyes on the Squire’s +spurs. + +“You can pray for me, I suppose?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Well, do it. Do it to-night. I’ve got convictions, boy; but my +heart’s like a stone. I’ve had a wisht day of it. If the weather +holds back, we’ll kill a May fox this year. But where’s the comfort? +All the time to-day ’twas ‘_Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked! +Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked!_’ I couldn’t stand it; I came +away. You’ll do it, won’t ’ee?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Is your father at home? I’ll call an’ speak to en. He does me +good; but he can’t melt what I carry here.” + +He tapped his breast and rising without another word strode off +across the sand-hills with his head down and his hands clasped +beneath his coat-tails, which flapped in the wind as he went. + +Taffy ran and overtook Bill Udy and the mare. + +“He’s in a wisht poor state, id’n a’?” said Bill Udy, who was parish +clerk. “Bless ’ee, tidn’ no manner of use. His father before en was +took in just the same way. Turned religious late in life. What +d’ee think he did? Got his men together one Sunday mornin’, marched +them up to Meetin’ house, up to Four Turnin’s; slipped his ridin’ +crop through the haps o’ the door, an’ ‘Now my Billies,’ says he, +through the key-hole, ‘not a man or woman of ’ee leaves the place +till you’ve said that Amazin’ Creed. Come along,’ he says, +‘_Whosoever will be saved_ an’ the sooner ’tis over, the sooner +you gets home to dinner.’ A fine talk there was! Squire, he’s just +such another. Funny things he’ve a-done. Married a poor soul from +Roseland way--a Miss Trevanion--quite a bettermost lady. When Miss +Susannah was born--that’s Miss Honoria’s mother--she went to be +churched. What must he do, to show his annoyance that ’twasn’t a +boy, but drive a she-ass into church? Very stiff behaviour. +He drove the beast right fore an’ into the big pew. The Moyles, you +see, ’ve got a mule for their shield of arms. He’ve had his own way +too much; that’s of it. + +“One day he dropped into church just before sarmon-time. There was a +rabbit squattin’ outside ’pon his father’s tombstone. Squire crep’ +up an’ clapped his Sunday hat ’pon top of en. Took en into church. +One o’ the curate chaps was preachin’--a timorous little fellah. +By-’n’-by Squire slips out his rabbit. ‘Wirroo, boys! Coorse en, +coorse en--we’ll have en for dinner!’ Aw, a pretty dido! The curate +fellah ran out to door an’ the rabbit after en. Folks did say the +rabbit was the old Squire’s soul, an’ that he’d turned black inside +the young Squire’s hat. Very stiff behaviour. + +“He’ve had his own way too much; that’s what it is. When he was +pricked for sheriff, he hired a ramshackle po’shay, painted a mule +’pon the panel, an’ stuffed the footmen’s stockings with bran till it +looked a case of dropsy. He was annoyed at bein’ put to the expense. +The judge lost his temper at bein’ met in such a way, an’ pitched +into en in open court, specially about the mule. He didn’t know +’twas the Squire’s shield of arms. Squire stood it for some time; +but at last he ups an’ says, ‘If you was an old woman of _mine_, I’d +dress ’ee different; an’ if you was an old woman of mine an’ kep’ +scolding like that, I’d have ’ee in the duckin’-stool for your +sauce!’ He almost went to gaol for that. But they put it on the +ground the judge had insulted his shield of arms, an’ so he got off. + +“Well, wish-’ee-well! Don’t you trouble about _he_. He’ve had his +own way too much, but he won’t get it this time.” + +That night Taffy dreamt that he met Squire Moyle walking along the +shore; but the sand clogged him, and his spurs sank in it and his +riding-boots. When he was ankle deep he began to call out, “Pray for +me!” Then Taffy saw a black rabbit running on the firm sand to the +breakers; and the Squire cried “Pray for me! I must catch en! +’Tis my father’s soul running off!” and put his hand into his breast +and drew out a stone and flung it. But the stone, as soon as it +touched the sand, turned into another rabbit, and the pair ran off +together along the shore. The old man tried to follow, but the sand +held him; and the tide was rising.... + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +ENTER THE KING’S POSTMAN. + +A faint south wind murmured beneath the eaves. It died away, and for +an hour there was peace on the towans. Then the sands began to +trickle again, and the rushes to whisper and bend away from the sea, +toward the high moors over which the gulls had flown yesterday and +disappeared. By-and-by a spit or two of rain came flying out of the +black north-west. The drops fell in the path of the sand, but the +sand drove over and covered them, racing faster and faster. + +Day rose, and Taffy awoke. The house walls were shaking. With each +blow the wind ran up a scale of notes and ended with a howl. +He looked out. Sea and sky had melted into one; only now and then +white surf line heaved into sight, and melted back into grey. +After breakfast he and his father started to battle their way to +Tredinnis House, while Humility barricaded the door behind them. +Taffy wore a suit of oilers, of which he was mightily proud. + +They made their way under the lee of the towans to escape the +stinging sand. Within Tredinnis Gates they found a couple of +pine-trees blown down across the road, and scrambled over their +trunks. Before lessons, Taffy boasted a lot of his journey to +Honoria, and almost forgot to be sorry that George did not appear, +though it was Wednesday. + +They had no trouble in reaching home. The gale hurled them along. +Taffy, leaning his back against it, could scarcely feel his feet +touching ground. Humility unfastened the door, looking white and +anxious. Before they could close it again, the wind swept a big dish +off the dresser with a crash. + +Taffy slept soundly that night. He did not hear a knocking which +sounded on the house-door, soon after eleven o’clock. The man who +knocked came from Tresedder, one of the moor farms. “Oh, sir! did +’ee see the rockets go up over Innis? There’ll be dead men down ’pon +the Island rocks.” + +Taffy slept on. When he came downstairs next morning there was a +stranger in the kitchen--a little old man, huddled in a blanket +before the great fireplace, where a line of clothes hung drying. +Humility was stooping to wedge a sand-bag under the door. She looked +up at Taffy with a wan little smile. + +“There has been a wreck,” she said. + +“Glory be!” exclaimed the stranger from the fire-place. + +Taffy glanced at him, but could see little more than the back of a +bald head above the blankets. + +“Where’s the ship?” he asked. + +“Gone,” answered the Vicar, coming at that moment from the inner room +where his books were. “She must have broken up in less than ten +minutes after she struck the Island--parted and gone down in six +fathoms of water.” + +“And the men? Was father there?” It bewildered Taffy that all this +should have happened while he was sleeping. + +“There was no time to fix the rocket apparatus. She was late in +making her distress signals. But I doubt if anything could have been +done. She went down too quickly.” + +“But--” Taffy’s gaze wandered to the bald head. + +“He was washed clean over the ridge where she struck, and swept into +Innis Pool--one big wave carried him into safety--one man out of +six.” + +“Hallelujah!” cried the rescued man facing round in his chair. +“Might ha’ been scat like an egg-shell, and here I be shoutin’ +praises!” Taffy saw that he was a clean-shaven little fellow, with +puckered cheeks and two wisps of grey hair curling forward from his +ears. + +Mr. Raymond frowned. “I am sure,” said he, “you ought not to be +talking so much.” + +“I will sing and give praise, sir, beggin’ you pardon, with the best +member that I have. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended +and I burn not? Hallelujah! A-men!” + +He took his basin of bread and milk from Humility’s hand, and ate by +the fire. She had wrung his clothes through fresh water, and as soon +as they were thoroughly dry he retired upstairs to change. He came +back to his seat by the fire. + +“Now, I be like ’Possel Paul,” he said, rubbing his hands, and +stretching them out to the blaze. “After his shipwreck, you know, +when the folks ’pon the island showed en kindness. This is the +Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in your eyes. + + “‘Not fearing nor doubting, + With Christ by my side, + I hopes to die shouting, + The Lord will provide!’” + +Humility thought that for certain the shipwreck had turned his head. + +“But where do you come from?” she asked. + +“They call me Jacky Pascoe, ma’am; but I calls myself the King’s +Postman-- + + “‘Jacky Pascoe is my name, + Wendron is my nation, + Nowhere is my dwelling-place, + For Christ is my salvation--’ + +“I was brought to a miner, over to Wheal Jewel, in Illogan Parish; +but got conversion fifteen years since, an’ now I go about praising +the Name. I’ve been miner, cafender, cooper, mason, seaman, +scissor-grinder, umbrella-mender, holli-bubber, all by turns. +I sticks my hands in my pockets, an’ waits on the Lord; an’ what he +tells me to do, I do. This day week I was up to Fowey, working on +the tip.[2] There was a little schooner there, the _Garibaldi_, of +Newport, discharging coal. The Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go in that +there schooner!’ I sought out the skipper, and said, ‘Where be bound +for next?’ ‘Back to Newport,’ says he. ‘That’ll suit me,’ I says, +an’ persuaded en to take me. But the Lord knew where she were bound +better’n the skipper; and here I be!” + +It seemed to his hearers that this man took little thought of his +drowned shipmates. Mr. Raymond looked up as he strapped his books +together. + +“You were not the only man in that schooner,” he said, rather +severely. + +“Glory be! Who be I, to question the Lord’s ways? One day I picked +up a map, an’ seed a place on it called ‘Little Sins.’ ‘Little Sins +wants great Deliverance,’ says I, an’ I started clane off an’ walked +to the place, though I’d never so much as heard of it till then. +’Twas harvest-time there, an’ I danced into the field, shouting +‘Glory, glory. The harvest is plenty, but the labourers be few!’ +The farmer was moved to give me a job ’pon the spot. I bided there +two year, an’ built them a chapel an’ preached the Word in it. +They offered me money to stop an’ preach; and I laid it before the +Lord. But He said, ‘You’re the King’s Postman. Keep moving, keep on +moving!’ I’ve built two more chapels since then.” + +Late that afternoon three bodies were recovered from the sea--the +captain, the mate, and a boy of about sixteen; and were buried in the +churchyard next day, as soon as the inquest was over. Pascoe +followed the coffins, and pointed the service at the grave-side with +interjaculations of his own. “Glory be!” “A-men!” “Hallelujah!” +“Great Redemption!” To the Vicar’s surprise the small crowd after a +minute began to follow the man’s lead, until at length he could +scarcely read for these interruptions. + +At supper that night Pascoe sprang a question on the Vicar. + +“Be you convarted?” he asked, looking up with his mouth full of bread +and cheese. + +“I hope so.” + +“Aw, you _hopes!_ ’Tis a bad case with ’ee, then. When a man’s +convarted, he _knows_. Seemin’ to me, you baint. You don’t show +enough of the bright side. Now, as I go along, my very toes keep +ticking salvation. Down goes one foot, ‘Glory be!’ Down goes the +other, ‘A-men!’ Aw! I must dance for joy!” + +He got up and danced around the kitchen. + +“I wish the man would go,” Humility thought to herself. + +His very next words answered her wish. “I’ll be leavin’ to-morrow, +friends. I’ve got a room down to the village, an’ I’ve borreyed a +razor. I’m goin’ to tramp round the mines at the back here, an’ +shave the miners at a ha’penny a chin. That’ll pay my way. There’s +a new preacher planned to the Bible Christians, down to Innis, an’ +I’m goin’ to help he. My dears, don’t ’ee tell me the Lord didn’ +know what He was about when He cast the _Garibaldi_ ashore!” + +He left the Parsonage next day. “Ma’am,” he said to Humility on +leaving, “I salute this here house. Peace be on this here house, for +it is worthy. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet +shall receive a prophet’s reward.” + +Two mornings later, Taffy, looking out from his bedroom window soon +after daybreak, saw the prophet trudging along the road. He had a +clean white bag slung across his shoulder; it carried his soap and +razors, no doubt. And every now and then he waved his walking-stick +and skipped as he went. + +[2] Loading vessels from the jetties. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +A HAPPY DAY. + +A volley of sand darkened and shook the pane. Taffy, sponging +himself in his tub and singing between his gasps, looked up hastily, +then flung a big towel about him and ran to the window. + +Honoria was standing below; and Comedy, her gray pony, with a creel +and a couple of fishing rods strapped to his canvas girth. + +“Wake up! I’ve come to take you fishing.” + +Mr. Raymond had started off at daybreak to walk to Truro on business; +so there would be no lessons that morning, and Taffy had been looking +forward to a lonely whole holiday. + +“I’ve brought two pasties,” said Honoria, “and a bottle of milk. +We’ll go over to George’s country and catch trout. He is to meet us +at Vellingey Bridge. We arranged it all yesterday, only I kept it +for a surprise.” + +Taffy could have leapt for joy. “Go in and speak to mother,” he +said; “she’s in the kitchen.” + +Honoria hitched Comedy’s bridle over the gate, walked up the barren +little garden, and knocked at the door. When Mrs. Raymond opened it +she held out a hand politely. + +“How do you do?” she said, “I have come to ask if Taffy may go +fishing with me.” + +Except in church, and outside the porch for a formal word or two, +Humility and Honoria had never met. This was Honoria’s first visit +to the Parsonage, and the sight of the clean kitchen and shining pots +and pans filled her with wonder. Humility shook hands and made a +silent note of the child’s frock, which was torn and wanted brushing. + +“He may go, and thank you. It’s lonely for him here, very often.” + +“I suppose,” said Honoria gravely, “I ought to have called before. +I wish--” She was about to say that she wished Humility would come +to Tredinnis. But her eyes wandered to the orderly dresser and the +scalding-pans by the fireplace. + +“I mean--if Taffy had a sister it would be different.” + +Humility bent to lift a kettle off the fire. When she faced round +again, her eyes were smiling though her lip trembled a little. + +“How bright you keep everything here!” said Honoria. + +“There’s plenty of sand to scour with; it’s bad for the garden +though.” + +“Don’t you grow any flowers?” + +“I planted a few pansies the first year; they came from my home up in +Devonshire. But the sand covered them. It covers everything.” +She smiled, and asked suddenly, “May I kiss you?” + +“Of course you may,” said Honoria. But she blushed as Humility did +it, and they both laughed shyly. + +“Hullo!” cried Taffy from the foot of the stairs. Honoria moved to +the window. She heard the boy and his mother laughing and making +pretence to quarrel, while he chose the brownest of the hot cakes +from the wood-ashes. She stared out upon Humility’s buried pansies. +It was strange--a minute back she had felt quite happy. + +Humility set them off, and watched them till they disappeared in the +first dip of the towans; and then sat down in the empty kitchen and +wept a little before carrying up her mother’s breakfast. + +Honoria rode in silence for the first mile; but Taffy sang and +whistled by turns as he skipped alongside. The whole world flashed +and glittered around the boy and girl; the white gulls fishing, the +swallows chasing one another across the dunes, the lighthouse on the +distant spit, the white-washed mine-chimneys on the ridge beside the +shore. Away on the rises of the moor one hill-farm laughed to +another in a steady flame of furze blossom--laughed with a tinkling +of singing larks. And beyond the last rise lay the land of wonders, +George’s country. “Hark!” Honoria reined up. “Isn’t that the +cuckoo?” Taffy listened. Yes, somewhere among the hillocks seaward +its note was dinning. + +“Count!” + + “Cuckoo, cherry-tree, + Be a good bird and tell to me + How many years before I die?” + +“Ninety-six!” Taffy announced. + +“Ninety-two,” said Honoria, “but we won’t quarrel about it. +Happy month to you!” + +“Eh?” + +“It is the first of May. Come along; perhaps we shall meet the +Mayers, though we’re too late, I expect. Hullo! there’s a miner-- +let’s ask him.” + +The miner came upon them suddenly--footsteps make no sound among the +towans; a young man in a suit stained orange-tawny, with a tallow +candle stuck with a lump of clay in the brim of his hat, and a +striped tulip stuck in another lump of clay at the back and nodding. + +“Good-morning, miss. You’ve come a day behind the fair.” + +“Is the Maying over?” Honoria asked. + +“Iss, fay. I’ve just been home to shift myself.” + +He walked along with them and told them all about it in the +friendliest manner. It had been a grand Maying--all the boys and +girls in the parish--with the hal-an-tow, of course--such dancing! +Fine and tired some of the maids must be--he wouldn’t give much for +the work they’d do to-day. Two May mornings in one year would make a +grass-captain mad, as the saying was. But there--’twas a poor spirit +that never rejoiced. + +“Which do you belong to?” Taffy nodded toward the mine-chimneys on +the sky-line high on their left, which hid the sea, though it lay +less than half a mile away and the roar of it was in their ears--just +such a roar as the train makes when rushing through a tunnel. + +“Bless you, I’m a tinner. I belong to Wheal Gooniver, up the valley. +Wheal Vlo there, ’pon the cliff, he’s lead. And the next to him, +Wheal Penhale, he’s iron. I came a bit out of my way with you for +company.” + +Soon after parting from him they crossed the valley-stream (Taffy had +to wade it), and here they happened on a dozen tall girls at work +“spalling” the tin-ore, but not busy. The most of them leaned on +their hammers or stood with hands on hips, their laughter drowning +the _thud, thud_ of the engine-house and the rattle of the stamps up +the valley. And the cause of it all seemed to be a smaller girl who +stood by with a basket in her arms. + +“Here you be, Lizzie!” cried one. “Here’s a young lady and gentleman +coming with money in their pockets.” + +Lizzie turned. She was a child of fourteen, perhaps; brown skinned, +with shy, wild eyes. Her stockings were torn, her ragged clothes +decorated with limp bunches of bluebells, and her neck and wrists +with twisted daisy chains. She skipped up to Honoria and held out a +basket. Within it, in a bed of fern, lay a May-doll among a few +birds’ eggs--a poor wooden thing in a single garment of pink calico. + +“Give me something for my doll, miss!” she begged. + +“Aw, that’s too tame,” one of the girls called out, and pitched her +voice to the true beggar’s whine: “Spare a copper! My only child, +dear kind lady, and its only father broke his tender neck in a +blasting accident, and left me twelve to maintain!” + +All the girls began laughing again. Honoria did not laugh. She was +feeling in her pocket. + +“What is your name?” she asked. + +“Lizzie Pezzack. My father tends the lighthouse. Give me something +for my doll, miss!” + +Honoria held out a half-crown piece. + +“Hand it to me.” + +The child did not understand. “Give me something--” she began again +in her dull, level voice. + +Honoria stamped her foot. “Give it to me!” She snatched up the doll +and thrust it into the fishing creel, tossed the coin into Lizzie’s +basket, and taking Comedy by the bridle, moved up the path. + +“She’ve adopted en!” They laughed and called out to Lizzie that she +was in luck’s way. But Taffy saw the child’s face as she stared into +the empty basket, and that it was perplexed and forlorn. + +“Why did you do that?” he asked, as he caught up with Honoria. +She did not answer. + +And now they turned away from the sea, and struck a high road which +took them between upland farms and across the ridge of cultivated +land to a valley full of trees. A narrow path led inland up this +valley. They had followed it under pale green shadows, in Indian +file, the pony at Honoria’s heels and Taffy behind, and stepped out +into sunlight again upon a heathery moor where a trout stream +chattered and sparkled. And there by a granite bridge they found +George fishing, with three small trout shining on the turf beside +him. + +This was a day which Taffy remembered all his life, and yet most +confusedly. Indeed there was little to remember it by--little to be +told except that all the while the stream talked, the larks sang, and +in the hollow of the hills three children were happy. George landed +half a dozen trout before lunch-time; but Taffy caught none, partly +because he knew nothing about fishing, partly because the chatter of +the stream set him telling tales to himself and he forgot the rod in +his hand. And Honoria, after hooking a tiny fish and throwing it +back into the water, wandered off in search of larks’ nests. +She came slowly back when George blew a whistle announcing lunch. + +“Hullo! What’s this?” he asked, as he dived a hand into her creel. +“Ugh! a doll! I say, Taffy, let’s float her down the river. +What humbug, Honoria!” + +But she had snatched the doll and crammed it back roughly into the +creel. A minute later, when they were not looking, she lifted the +lid again and disposed the poor thing more gently. + +“Why don’t you talk, one of you?” George demanded, with his mouth +full. + +Taffy shook himself out of his waking dream--“I was wondering where +it goes to,” he said, and nodded toward the running water. + +“It goes down to Langona,” said George, “and that’s just a creek full +of sand, with a church right above it in a big grass meadow--the +queerest small church you ever saw. But I’ve heard my father tell +that hundreds of years back a big city stood there, with seven fine +churches and quays, and deep water alongside and above, so that ships +could sail right up to the ford. They came from all parts of the +world for tin and lead, and the people down in the city had nothing +to do but sit still and grow rich.” + +“Somebody must have worked,” interrupted Honoria; “on the buildings +and all that.” + +“The building was done by convicts. The story is that convicts were +transported here from all over the kingdom.” + +“Did they live in the city?” + +“No; they had a kind of camp across the creek. They dug out the +harbour too, and kept it clear of sand. You can still see the marks +of their pickaxes along the cliffs; I’ll show them to you some day. +My father knows all about it, because his great-great-great-great-- +grandfather (and a heap more ‘greats,’ I don’t know how many) was the +only one saved when the city was buried.” + +“Was he from the city, or one of the convicts?” asked Honoria, who +had not forgiven George’s assault upon her doll. + +“He was a baby at the time, and couldn’t remember,” George answered, +with fine composure. “They say he was found high up the creek, just +where you cross it by the foot-bridge. The bridge is covered at high +water; and if you try to cross below, especially when the tide is +flowing, just you look out! Twice a day the sands become quick +there. They’ve swallowed scores. I’ll tell you another thing: +there’s a bird builds somewhere in the cliffs there--a crake, the +people call it--and they say that whenever he goes crying about the +sands, it means that a man will be drowned there.” + +“Rubbish! I don’t believe in your city.” + +“Very well, then, I’ll tell you something else. The fishermen have +seen it--five or six of them. You know the kind of haze that gets up +sometimes on hot days, when the sun’s drawing water? They say that +if you’re a mile or two out and this happens between you and Langona +Creek, you can see the city quite plain above the shore, with the +seven churches and all.” + +“_I_ can see it!” Taffy blurted this out almost without knowing that +he spoke; and blushed furiously when George laughed. “I mean--I’m +sure--” he began to explain. + +“If you can see it,” said Honoria, “you had better describe George’s +property for him.” She yawned. “He can’t tell the story himself-- +not one little bit.” + +“Right you are, miss,” George agreed. “Fire away, Taffy.” + +Taffy thought for a minute, then, still with a red face, began. +“It is all true, as George says. A fine city lies there, covered +with the sands; and this was what happened. The King of Langona had +a son, a handsome young Prince, who lived at home until he was +eighteen, and then went on his travels. That was the custom, you +know. The Prince took only his foster-brother, whose name was John, +and they travelled for three years. On their way back, as they came +to Langona Creek, they saw the convicts at work, and in one of the +fields was a girl digging alone. She had a ring round her ankle, +like the rest, with a chain and iron weight, but she was the most +beautiful girl the Prince had ever seen. So he pulled up his horse +and asked her who she was, and how she came to be wearing the chain. +She told him she was no convict, but the daughter of a convict, and +it was the law for the convict’s children to wear these things. +‘To-night,’ said the Prince, ‘you shall wear a ring of gold and be a +Princess,’ and he commanded John to file away the ring and take her +upon his horse. They rode across the creak and came to the palace; +and the Prince, after kissing his father and mother, said, ’I have +brought you all kinds of presents from abroad; but best of all I have +brought home a bride.’ His parents, who wondered at her beauty, and +never doubted but that she must be a king’s daughter, were full of +joy, and set the bells ringing in all the seven churches. So for a +year everybody was happy, and at the end of that time a son was +born.” + +“You’re making it up,” said Honoria. Taffy’s _own_ stories always +puzzled her, with hints and echoes from other stories she +half-remembered, but could seldom trace home. He had too cunning a +gift. + +George said, “Do be quiet! Of course he’s making it up, but who wants +to know _that?_” + +“Two days afterward,” Taffy went on, “the Prince was out hunting with +his foster-brother. The Princess in her bed at home complained to +her mother-in-law, ’Mother, my feet are cold. Bring me another rug +to wrap them in.’ The Queen did so, but as she covered the +Princess’s feet she saw the red mark left by the ankle ring, and knew +that her son’s wife was no true Princess, but a convict’s daughter. +And full of rage and shame she went away and mixed two cups. +The first she gave to the Princess to drink; and when it had killed +her (for it was poison) she dipped a finger into the dregs and rubbed +it inside the child’s lips, and very soon he was dead too. Then she +sent for two ankle-chains and weights--one larger and one very +small--and fitted them on the two bodies and had them flung into the +creek. When the Prince came home he asked after his wife. ’She is +sleeping,’ said the Queen, ’and you must be thirsty with hunting?’ +She held out the second cup, and the Prince drank and passed it to +John, who drank also. Now in this cup was a drug which took away all +memory. And at once the Prince forgot all about his wife and child; +and John forgot too. + +“For weeks after this the Prince complained that he felt unwell. +He told the doctors that there was an empty place in his head, and +they advised him to fill it by travelling. So he set out again, and +John went with him as before. On their journey they stayed for a +week with the King of Spain, and there the Prince fell in love with +the King of Spain’s daughter, and married her, and brought her home +at the end of a year, during which she, too, had brought him a son. + +“The night after their return, when the Prince and his second wife +slept, John kept watch outside the door. About midnight he heard the +noise of a chain dragging, but very softly, and up the stairs came a +lady in white with a child in her arms. John knew his former +mistress at once, and all his memory came back to him, but she put a +finger to her lips and went past him into the bed-chamber. She went +to the bed, laid a hand on her husband’s pillow, and whispered:” + + ’Wife and babe below the river, + Twice will I come and then come never.’ + +“Without another word she turned and went slowly past John and down +the stairs.” + +“I know _that_, anyhow,” Honoria interrupted. “That’s ‘East of the +Sun and West of the Moon,’ or else it’s the Princess whose brother +was changed into a Roebuck, or else--” But George flicked a pebble +at her, and Taffy went on, warming more and more to the story:-- + +“In the morning, when the Prince woke, his second wife saw his pillow +on the side farthest from her, and it was wet. ‘Husband,’ she said, +‘you have been weeping to-night.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘that is queer, +though, for I haven’t wept since I was a boy. It’s true, though, +that I had a miserable dream.’ But when he tried to remember it, he +could not. + +“The same thing happened on the second night, only the dead wife +said:” + + ‘Wife and babe below the river, + Once will I come and then come never.’ + +“And again in the morning there was a mark on the pillow where her wet +hand had rested. But the Prince in the morning could remember +nothing. On the third night she came and said:” + + ‘Wife and babe below the river, + Now I am gone and gone for ever,’ + +“And went down the stairs with such a reproachful look at John that +his heart melted and he ran after her. But at the outer door a flash +of lightning met him, and such a storm broke over the palace and city +as had never been before and never will be again. + +“John heard screams, and the noise of doors banging and feet running +throughout the palace; he turned back and met the Prince, his master, +coming downstairs with his child in his arms. The lightning stroke +had killed his second wife where she lay. John followed him out into +the streets, where the people were running to and fro, and through +the whirling sand to the ford which crossed the creek a mile above +the city. And there, as they stepped into the water, a woman rose +before John, with a child in her arms, and said: ‘Carry us.’ +The Prince, who was leading, did not see. John took them on his +back, but they were heavy because of the iron chains and weights on +their ankles, and the sands sank under him. Then, by-and-by, the +first wife put her child into John’s arms and said, ‘Save him,’ and +slipped off his back into the water. ‘What sound was that?’ asked +the Prince. ‘That was my heart cracking,’ said John. So they went +on till the sand rose half-way to their knees. Then the Prince +stopped and put his child into John’s arms. ‘Save him,’ he said, and +fell forward on his face; and John’s heart cracked again. But he +went forward in the darkness until the water rose to his waist, and +the sand to his knees. He was close to the farther shore now, but +could not reach it unless he dropped one of the children; and this he +would not do. He bent forward, holding out one in each arm, and +could just manage to push them up the bank and prop them there with +his open hand; and while he bent, the tide rose and his heart cracked +for the third time. Though he was dead, his stiff arms kept the +children propped against the bank. But just at the turning of the +tide the one with the ankle-weight slipped and was drowned. +The other was found next morning by the inland people, high and dry. +And some _do_ say,” Taffy wound up, “that his brother was not really +drowned, but turned into a bird, and that, though no one has seen +him, it is his voice that gives the ‘_crake_,’ imitating the sound +made by John’s heart when it burst; but others say it comes from John +himself, down there below the sands.” + +There was silence for a minute. Even Honoria had grown excited +toward the end. + +“But it was unfair!” she broke out. “It ought to have been the +convict-child that was saved.” + +“If so, I shouldn’t be here,” said George; “and it’s not very nice of +you to say it.” + +“I don’t care. It was unfair; and anyone but a boy”--with scorn--“would +see it.” She turned upon the staring Taffy--“I hate your tale; it was +horrid.” + +She repeated it, that evening, as they turned their faces homeward +across the heathery moor. Taffy had halted on the top of a hillock +to wave good-night to George. For years he remembered the scene--the +brown hollow of the hills; the clear evening sky, with the faint +purple arch, which is the shadow of the world, climbing higher and +higher upon it; and his own shadow stretching back with his heart +toward George, who stood fronting the level rays and waved his +glittering catch of fish. + +“What was that you said?” he asked, when at length he tore himself +away and caught up with Honoria. + +“That was a horrid story you told. It spoiled my afternoon, and I’ll +trouble you not to tell any more of the sort.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +LIZZIE REDEEMS HER DOLL AND HONORIA THROWS A STONE. + +A broad terrace ran along the southern front of Tredinnis House. +It had once been decorated with leaden statues, but of these only the +pedestals remained. + +Honoria, perched on the terraced wall, with her legs dangling, was +making imaginary casts with a trout-rod, when she heard footsteps. A +child came timidly round the angle of the big house--Lizzie Pezzack. + +“Hullo! What do you want?” + +“If you please, miss--” + +“Well?” + +“If you please, miss--” + +“You’ve said that twice.” + +Lizzie held out a grubby palm with a half-crown in it: “I wants my +doll back, if you please, miss.” + +“But you sold it.” + +“I didn’t mean to. You took me so sudden.” + +“I gave you ever so much more than it was worth. Why, I don’t +believe it cost you three ha’pence!” + +“Tuppence,” said Lizzie. + +“Then you don’t know when you’re well off. Go away.” + +“’Tisn’t that, miss--” + +“What is it, then?” + +Lizzie broke into a flood of tears. + +Honoria, the younger by a year or so, stood and eyed her scornfully; +then turning on her heel marched into the house. + +She was a just child. She went upstairs to her bedroom, unlocked her +wardrobe, and took out the doll, which was clad in blue silk, and +reposed in a dog-trough lined with the same material. Honoria had +recklessly cut up two handkerchiefs (for underclothing) and her +Sunday sash, and had made the garments in secret. They were +prodigies of bad needlework. With the face of a Medea she stripped +the poor thing, took it in her arms as if to kiss it, but checked +herself sternly. She descended to the terrace with the doll in one +hand and its original calico smock in the other. + +“There, take your twopenny baby!” + +Lizzie caught and strained it to her breast; covered its poor +nakedness hurriedly, and hugged it again with passionate kisses. + +“You silly! Did you come all this way by yourself?” + +Lizzie nodded. “Father thinks I’m home, minding the house. He’s off +duty this evening, and he walked over here to the Bryanite Chapel, up +to Four Turnings. There’s going to be a big Prayer Meeting to-night. +When his back was turned I slipped out after him, so as to keep him +in sight across the towans.” + +“Why?” + +“I’m terrible timid. I can’t bear to walk across the towans by +myself. You can’t see where you be--they’re so much alike--and it +makes a person feel lost. There’s so many bones, too.” + +“Dead rabbits.” + +“Yes, and dead folks, I’ve heard father say.” + +“Well, you’ll have to go back alone, any way.” + +Lizzie hugged the doll. “I don’t mind so much now. I’ll keep along +by the sea and run, and only open my eyes now and then. Here’s your +money, miss.” + +She went off at a run. Honoria pocketed the half-crown and went back +to her fly-fishing. But after a few casts she desisted, and took her +rod to pieces slowly. The afternoon was hot and sultry. She sat +down in the shadow of the balustrade and gazed at the long, blank +facade of the house baking in the sun; at the tall, uncurtained +windows; at the peacock stalking to and fro like a drowsy sentinel. + +“You are a beast of a house,” she said contemplatively; “and I hate +every stone of you!” + +She stood up and strolled toward the stables. The stable yard was +empty but for the Gordon setter dozing by the pump-trough. +Across from the kitchens came the sound of the servants’ voices +chattering. Honoria had never made friends with the servants. + +She tilted her straw hat further over her eyes, and sauntered up the +drive with her hands behind her; through the great gates and out upon +the towans. She had started with no particular purpose, and had none +in her mind when she came in sight of the Parsonage, and of Humility +seated in the doorway with her lace pillow across her knees. + +It had been the custom among the women of Beer Village to work in +their doorways on sunny afternoons, and Humility followed it. + +She looked up smiling. “Taffy is down by the shore, I think.” + +“I didn’t come to look for him. What beautiful work!” + +“It comes in handy. Won’t you step inside and let me make you a cup +of tea?” + +“No, I’ll sit here and watch you.” Humility pulled in her skirts, and +Honoria found room on the doorstep beside her. “Please don’t stop. +It’s wonderful. Now I know where Taffy gets his cleverness.” + +“You are quite wrong. This is only a knack. All his cleverness +comes from his father.” + +“Oh, books! Of course, Mr. Raymond knows all about books. +He’s writing one, isn’t he?” + +Mrs. Raymond nodded. + +“What about?” + +“It’s about St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews; in Greek, you know. +He has been working at it for years.” + +“And he’s indoors working at it now? What funny things men do!” +She was silent for a while, watching Humility’s bobbins. “But I +suppose it doesn’t matter just _what_ they do. The great thing is to +do it better than anyone else. Does Mr. Raymond think Taffy clever?” + +“He never talks about it.” + +“But he _thinks_ so. I know; because at lessons when he says +anything to Taffy it’s quite different from the way he talks to +George and me. He doesn’t favour him, of course; he’s much too fair. +But there’s a difference. It’s as if he _expected_ Taffy to +understand. Did Mr. Raymond teach him all those stories he knows?” + +“What stories?” + +“Fairy tales, and that sort of thing.” + +“Good gracious me, no!” + +“Then _you_ must have. And you _are_ clever, after all. Asking me +to believe you’re not, and making that beautiful lace all the while, +under my very eyes!” + +“I’m not a bit clever. Here’s the pattern, you see, and there’s the +thread, and the rest is only practice. I couldn’t make the pattern +out of my head. Besides, I don’t like clever women.” + +“A woman must try to be _something_.” Honoria felt that this was +vague, but wanted to argue. + +“A woman wants to be loved,” said Mrs. Raymond thoughtfully. +“There’s such a heap to be done about the house that she won’t find +time for much else. Besides, if she has children, she’ll be planning +for them.” + +“Isn’t that rather slow?” + +Humility wondered where the child had picked up the word. +“Slow?” she echoed, with her eyes on the horizon beyond the dunes. +“Most things are slow when you look forward to them.” + +“But these fairy-tales of yours?” + +“I’ll tell you about them. When my mother was a girl of sixteen she +went into service as a nursemaid in a clergyman’s family. +Every evening the clergyman used to come into the nursery and tell +the children a fairy-tale. That’s how it started. My mother left +service to marry a farmer--it was quite a grand match for her--and +when I was a baby she told the stories to me. She has a wonderful +memory still, and she tells them capitally. When I listen I believe +every word of them; I like them better than books, too, because they +always end happily. But I can’t repeat them a bit. As soon as I +begin they fall to pieces, and the pieces get mixed up, and, worst of +all, the life goes right out of them. But Taffy, he takes the pieces +and puts them together, and the tale is better than ever: quite +different, and new, too. That’s the puzzle. It’s not memory with +him; it’s something else.” + +“But don’t you ever make up a story of your own?” Honoria insisted. + +Now you might talk with Mrs. Raymond for ten minutes, perhaps, and +think her a simpleton; and then suddenly a cloud (as it were) parted, +and you found yourself gazing into depths of clear and beautiful +wisdom. + +She turned on Honoria with a shy, adorable smile: “Why, of course I +do--about Taffy. Come in and let me show you his room and his +books.” + +An hour later, when Taffy returned, he found Honoria seated at the +table and his mother pouring tea. They said nothing about their +visit to his room; and though they had handled every one of his +treasures, he never discovered it. But he did notice--or rather, he +felt--that the two understood each other. They did; and it was an +understanding he would never be able to share, though he lived to be +a hundred. + +Mr. Raymond came out from his study and drank his tea in silence. +Honoria observed that he blinked a good deal. He showed no surprise +at her visit, and after a moment seemed unaware of her presence. +At length he raised the cup to his lips, and finding it empty set it +down and rose to go back to his work. Humility interfered and +reminded him of a call to be paid at one of the upland farms. +The children might go too, she suggested. It would be very little +distance out of Honoria’s way. + +Mr. Raymond sighed, but went for his walking-stick; and they set out. + +When they reached the farmhouse he left the children outside. +The town-place was admirably suited for a game of “Follow-my-leader,” +which they played for twenty minutes with great seriousness, to the +disgust of the roosting poultry. Then Taffy spied a niche, high up, +where a slice had been cut out of a last year’s haystack. He fetched +a ladder. Up they climbed, drew the ladder after them, and played at +being Outlaws in a Cave, until the dusk fell. + +Still Mr. Raymond lingered indoors. “He thinks we have gone home,” +said Honoria. “Now the thing would be to creep down and steal one of +the fowls, and bring it back and cook it.” + +“We can make believe to do it,” Taffy suggested. + +Honoria considered for a moment. “I’ll tell you what: there’s a +great Bryanite meeting to-night, down at the Chapel. I expect +there’ll be a devil hunt.” + +“What’s that?” + +“They turn out the lights and hunt for him in the dark.” + +“But he isn’t _really_ there?” + +“I don’t know. Suppose we play at scouts and creep down the road? +If the Chapel is lit up we can spy in on them; and then you can +squeeze your nose on the glass and make a face, while I say ‘Boo!’ +and they’ll think the Old Gentleman is really come.” + +They stole down the ladder and out of the town-place. The Chapel +stood three-quarters of a mile away, on a turfed wastrel where two +high roads met and crossed. + +Long before they reached it they heard clamorous voices and groans. + +“I expect the devil hunt has begun,” said Honoria. But when they +came in sight of the building its windows were brightly lit. +The noise inside was terrific. + +The two children approached it with all the precaution proper to +scouts. Suddenly the clamour ceased and the evening fell so silent +that Taffy heard the note of an owl away in the Tredinnis plantations +to his left. This silence was daunting, but they crept on and soon +were standing in the illuminated ring of furze whins which surrounded +the Chapel. + +“Can you reach up to look in?” + +Taffy could not; so Honoria obligingly went on hands and knees, and +he stood on her back. + +“Can you see? What’s the matter?” + +Taffy gasped. “_He’s_ in there!” + +“What?--the Old Gentleman?” + +“Yes; no--your grandfather!” + +“What? Let me get up. Here, you kneel--” + +It was true. Under the rays of a paraffin lamp, in face of the +kneeling congregation, sat Squire Moyle; his body stiffly upright on +the bench, his jaws rigid, his eyes with horror in them fastened upon +the very window through which Honoria peered--fastened, it seemed to +her, upon her face. But, no; he saw nothing. The Bryanites were +praying; Honoria saw their lips moving. Their eyes were all on the +old man’s face. In the straining silence his mouth opened--but only +for a moment--while his tongue wetted his parched lips. + +A man by the pulpit-stairs shuffled his feet. A sigh passed through +the Chapel as he rose and relaxed the tension. It was Jacky Pascoe. +He stepped up to the Squire, and, laying a hand on his shoulder, +said, gently, persuasively, yet so clearly that Honoria could hear +every word: + +“Try, brother. Keep on trying. O, I’ve knowed cases--You can never +tell how near salvation is. One minute the heart’s like a stone, and +the next maybe ’tis melted and singing like fat in a pan. +’Tis working! ’tis working!” + +The congregation broke out with cries: “Amen!” “Glory, glory!” +The Squire’s lips moved and he muttered something. But stony despair +sat in his eyes. + +“Ay, glory, glory! You’ve been a doubter, and you doubt no longer. +Soon you’ll be a shouter. Man, you’ll dance like as David danced +before the Ark! You’ll feel it in your toes! Come along, friends, +while he’s resting a minute! Sing all together--oh, the blessed +peace of it!-- + + “‘I long to be there, His glory to share--’” + +He pitched the note, and the congregation took up the second line +with a rolling, gathering volume of song. It broke on the night like +the footfall of a regiment at charge. Honoria scrambled off Taffy’s +back, and the two slipped away to the high road. + +“Shall you tell your father?” + +“I--I don’t know.” + +She stooped and found a loose stone. “He shan’t find salvation +to-night,” she said heroically. + +As the stone crashed through the window the two children pelted off. +They ran on the soft turf by the wayside, and only halted to listen +when they reached Tredinnis’s great gates. The sound of feet running +far up the road set them off again, but now in opposite ways. +Honoria sped down the avenue, and Taffy headed for the Parsonage, +across the towans. Ordinarily this road at night would have been +full of terrors for him; but now the fear at his heels kept him +going, while his heart thumped on his ribs. He was just beginning to +feel secure, when he blundered against a dark figure which seemed to +rise straight out of the night. + +“Hullo!” + +Blessed voice! The wayfarer was his own father. + +“Taffy! I thought you were home an hour ago. Where on earth have you +been?” + +“With Honoria.” He was about to say more, but checked himself. +“I left her at the top of the avenue,” he explained. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +TAFFY’S CHILDHOOD COMES TO AN END. + +The summer passed. There was a talk in the early part of it that the +Bishop would be coming, next spring, to consecrate the restored +church and hold a confirmation service. Taffy and Honoria were to be +confirmed, and early in August Mr. Raymond began to set apart an hour +each day for preparing them. In a week or two the boy’s head was +full of religion. He spent much of his time in the church, watching +the carpenter at work upon the new seats; his mind ran on the story +of Samuel, and he wished his mother had followed Hannah’s example and +dedicated him to God; he had a suspicion that God would be angry with +her for not doing so. + +He did not observe that, as the autumn crept on, a shadow gathered on +Humility’s face. One Sunday the old Squire did not come to church; +and again on the next Wednesday, at the harvest festival, Honoria sat +alone in the Tredinnis pew. The shadow was on his mother’s face as +he chatted about this on their way home to the Parsonage; but the boy +did not perceive it. He loved his parents, but their lives lay +outside his own, and their sayings and doings passed him like a vain +show. He walked in the separate world of childhood, and it seemed an +enormous world yet, though a few weeks were to bring him abruptly to +the end of it. + +But just before he came to the precipice he was given a glimpse of +the real world--and of a world beyond that, far more splendid and +romantic than any region of his dreams. + +The children had no lessons during Christmas, or for three weeks +after. On the last morning before the holidays George brought a +letter for Mr. Raymond, who read it, considered for a while, and laid +it among his papers. + +“It’s an invitation,” George announced in a whisper. “I wonder if +he’ll let you come.” + +“Where?” whispered Taffy. + +“Up to Plymouth--to the Pantomime.” + +“What’s that?” + +“Oh--clowns, and girls dressed up like boys, and policemen on slides, +and that sort of thing.” + +Taffy sat bewildered. He vaguely remembered Plymouth as a mass of +roofs seen from the train, as it drew up for a minute or two on a +high bridge. Someone in the railway carriage had talked of an engine +called _Brutus_, which (it appeared) had lately run away and crashed +into the cloak-room at the end of the platform. He still thought of +railway engines as big, blundering animals, with wills of their own, +and of Plymouth as a town rendered insecure by their vagaries; but +the idea that its roofs covered girls dressed up like boys and +policemen on slides was new to him, and pleasant on the whole, though +daunting. + +“Will you give my thanks to Sir Harry,” said Mr. Raymond, after +lessons, “and tell him that Taffy may go.” + +So on New Year’s Day Taffy found himself in Plymouth. It was an +experience which he could never fit into his life except as a gaudy +interlude; for when he awoke and looked back upon it, he was no +longer the boy who had climbed up beside Sir Harry and behind Sir +Harry’s restless pair of bays. The whirl began with that drive to +the station; began again in the train; began again as they stepped +out on the pavement at Plymouth, just as a company of scarlet-coated +soldiers came down the roadway with a din of brazen music. +The crowd, the shops, the vast hotel, completely dazed him, and he +seriously accepted the waiter, in his black suit and big white +shirt-front, as a contribution to the fun of the entertainment. + +“We must dine early,” Sir Harry announced at lunch; “the Pantomime +begins at seven.” + +“Isn’t--isn’t this the Pantomime?” Taffy stammered. + +George giggled. Sir Harry set down his glass of claret, stared at +the boy, and broke into musical laughter. Taffy perceived he had +made some ridiculous mistake and blushed furiously. + +“God bless the child--the Pantomime’s at the theatre!” + +“Oh!” Taffy recalled the canvas booth and wheezy cornet of his early +days with a chill of disappointment. + +But with George at his side it was impossible to be anything but +happy. After lunch they sallied out, and it would have been hard to +choose the gayest of the three. Sir Harry’s radiant good-temper +seemed to gild the streets. He took the boys up to the Hoe and +pointed out the war-ships; he whisked them into the Camera Obscura; +thence to the Citadel, where they watched a squad of recruits at +drill; thence to the Barbican, where the trawling-fleet lay packed +like herring, and the shops were full of rope and oilskin suits and +marine instruments, and dirty children rolled about the roadway +between the legs of seabooted fishermen; and so up to the town again, +where he lingered in the most obliging manner while the boys stared +into the fishing-tackle shops and toy shops. On the way he led them +up a narrow passage and into a curious room, where fifteen or twenty +men were drinking, and talking at the top of their voices. The most +of them seemed to know Sir Harry well and greeted him with an odd +mixture of respect and familiarity. Their talk was full of +mysterious names and expressions, and Taffy thought at first they +must be Freemasons. “The Moor point-to-point was a walk-over for the +Milkman; Lapidary was scratched, which left it a soft thing, unless +Sir Harry fancied a fox-catcher like Nursery Governess, in which +case Billy behind the bar would do as much business as he liked at +six-to-one.” After a while Taffy discovered they were talking about +horses, and wondered why they should meet to discuss horses in a +dingy room up a back yard. “Youngster of yours is growin’, +Surrarry,” said a red-faced man. “Who’s his stable companion?” Taffy +was introduced, and to his embarrassment Sir Harry began to relate +his ridiculous mistake at lunch. The men roared with laughter. + +He made another, quite as ridiculous, at the pastry-cook’s where Sir +Harry ordered tea. “What’ll you take with it? Call for what you +like, only don’t poison yourselves.” Taffy referring his gaze from +the buns and confections on the counter to the card in his hands, +which was inscribed with words in unknown tongues, made a bold plunge +and announced that he would take a “_marasheno_.” + +This tickled Sir Harry mightily. He ordered the waitress with a wink +to “bring the young gentleman a _marasheno_”; and Taffy, who had +expected something in the shape of a macaroon, was confronted with a +tiny glass of a pale liquor, which, when tasted, in the most +surprising manner put sunshine into his stomach and brought tears +into his eyes. But under Sir Harry’s quizzical gaze he swallowed it +down bravely, and sat gasping and blinking. + +It may have been that the maraschino induced a haze upon the rest of +the afternoon. The gas-lamps were lit when they left the +pastry-cook’s and entered a haberdasher’s where Taffy, without +knowing why, was fitted with a pair of white kid gloves. Of dinner +at the hotel he remembered nothing except that the candles on the +tables had red shades, of which the silverware gave funny +reflections; that the same waiter flitted about in the penumbra; and +that Sir Harry, who was dressed like the waiter, said, “Wake up, +young Marasheno! Do you take your coffee black?” “It’s usually pale +brown at home,” answered Taffy; at which Sir Harry laughed again. +“Black will suit you better to-night,” he said, and poured out a +small cupful, which Taffy drank and found exceedingly nasty. And a +moment later he was wide awake, and the three were following a young +woman along a passage which seemed to run in a complete circle. +The young woman flung open a door; they entered a little room with a +balcony in front; and the first glorious vision broke on the child +with a blaze of light, a crash of music, and the murmur of hundreds +of voices. + +Faces, faces, faces!--faces mounting from the pit below him, up and +up to the sky-blue ceiling, where painted goddesses danced and +scattered pink roses around the enormous gasalier. Fauns piping on +the great curtain, fiddles sawing in the orchestra beneath, ladies in +gay silks and jewels leaning over the gilt balconies opposite--which +were real, and which a vision only? He turned helplessly to George +and Sir Harry. Yes, _they_ were real. But what of Nannizabuloe, and +the sand-hills, and the little parsonage to which that very morning +he had turned to wave his handkerchief? + +A bell rang, and the curtain rose upon a company of russet-brown +elves dancing in a green wood. The play was _Jack the Giant-killer_; +but Taffy, who knew the story in the book by heart, found the story +on the stage almost meaningless. That mattered nothing; it was the +world, the new and unimagined world, stretching deeper and still +deeper as the scenes were lifted--a world in which solid walls +crumbled, and forests melted, and loveliness broke through the ruins, +unfolding like a rose; it was this that seized on the child’s heart +until he could have wept for its mere beauty. Often he had sought +out the trout-pools on the moors behind the towans, and lying at full +length had watched the fish moving between the stones and +water-plants; and watching through a summer’s afternoon had longed to +change places with them and glide through their grottoes or anchor +among the reed-stalks and let the ripple run over him. As long back +as he could remember, all beautiful sights had awakened this ache, +this longing-- + + “O, that I were where I would be! + Then would I be where I am not; + For where I am I would not be, + And where I would be, I cannot.” + +It seemed to him that these bright beings on the stage had broken +through the barriers, had stepped beyond the flaming ramparts, and were +happy. Their horseplay, at which George laughed so immoderately, called +to Taffy to come and be happy, too; and when Jack the Giant-killer +changed to Jack in the Beanstalk, and when in the Transformation Scene +a real beanstalk grew and unfolded its leaves, and each leaf revealed +a fairy seated, with the limelight flashing on star and jewelled wand, +the longing became unbearable. The scene passed in a minute. The clown +and pantaloon came on, and presently Sir Harry saw Taffy’s shoulders +shaking, and set it down to laughter at the harlequinade. He could not +see the child’s face. + +But, perhaps, the queerest event of the evening (when Taffy came to +review his recollections) was this: He must have fallen into a stupor +on leaving the theatre, for when he awoke he found himself on a couch +in a gas-lit room, with George beside him, and Sir Harry was shaking +him by the collar, and saying, “God bless the children, I thought +they were in bed hours ago!” A man--the same who had talked about +racehorses that afternoon--was standing by the table, on which a +quantity of cards lay scattered among the drinking-glasses; and he +laughed at this, and his laugh sounded just like the rustling of +paper. “It’s all very well--” began Sir Harry, but checked himself +and lit a candle, and led the two boys off shivering to bed. + +The next morning, too, had its surprises. To begin with, Sir Harry +announced at breakfast that he must go and buy a horse. He might be +an hour or two over the business, and meanwhile the boys had better +go out into the town and enjoy themselves. Perhaps a sovereign +apiece might help them. + +Taffy, who had never in his life possessed more than a shilling, was +staring at the gold piece in his hand, when the door opened, and Sir +Harry’s horse-racing friend came in to breakfast and nodded +“Good-morning.” + +“Pity you’re leaving to-day,” he said, as he took his seat at a table +hard by them. + +“My revenge must wait,” Sir Harry answered. + +It seemed a cold-blooded thing to be said so carelessly. +Taffy wondered if Sir Harry’s search for a horse had anything to do +with this revenge, and the notion haunted him in the intervals of his +morning’s shopping. + +But how to lay out his sovereign? That was the first question. +George, who within ten minutes had settled his own problem by +purchasing a doubtful fox-terrier of the Boots of the hotel, saw no +difficulty. The Boots had another pup for sale--one of the same +litter. + +“But I want something for mother, and the others--and Honoria.” + +“Botheration! I’d forgotten Honoria, and now the money’s gone! + Never mind; she can have my pup.” + +“Oh!” said Taffy ruefully. “Then she won’t think much of my +present.” + +“Yes, she will. Suppose you buy a collar for him--you can get one +for five shillings.” + +They found a saddler’s and chose the dog-collar which came to four +shillings; and for eighteenpence the shopman agreed to have +“_Honoria from Taffy_,” engraved on it within an hour. Humility’s +present was chosen with surprising ease--a large, framed photograph +of the Bishop of Exeter; price, six shillings. + +“I don’t suppose,” objected George, “your mother cares much for the +Bishop of Exeter.” + +“Oh, yes, she does,” said Taffy; “he’s coming to confirm us next +spring. Besides,” he added, with one of those flashes of wisdom +which surely he derived from her, “mother won’t care what it is, so +long as she’s remembered. And it costs more than the collar.” + +This left him with eight-and-sixpence; and for three-and-sixpence he +bought a work-box for his grandmother, with a view of Plymouth Hoe on +the lid. But now came the crux. What should he get for his father? + +“It must be a book,” George suggested. + +“But what kind of a book? He has so many.” + +“Something in Latin.” + +The bookseller’s window was filled with yellow-backed novels and +toy-books, which obviously would not do. So they marched in and +demanded a book suitable for a clergyman who had a good many books +already--“a middle-aged clergyman,” George added. + +“You can’t go far wrong with this,” suggested the bookseller, +producing Crockford’s “Clerical Directory” for the current year. +But this was too expensive; “and,” said Taffy, “I think he would +rather have something in Latin.” The bookseller rubbed his chin, +went to his shelves, and took down a small _De Imitatione Christi_, +bound in limp calf. “You can’t go far wrong with this, either,” he +assured them. So Taffy paid down his money. + +Just as the boys reached the hotel, Sir Harry drove up in a cab; and +five minutes later they were all rattling off to the railway station. +Taffy eyed the cab-horse curiously, never doubting it to be Sir +Harry’s new purchase; and was extremely surprised when the cabman +whipped it up and trotted off--after receiving his money, too. +But in the bustle there was no time to ask questions. + +It was about three in the afternoon, and the sun already low in the +south-west, when they came in sight of the cross-roads and Sir Harry +pulled up his bays. And there, on the green by the sign-post, stood +Mrs. Raymond. She caught Taffy in her arms and hugged him till he +felt ashamed, and glanced around to see if the others were looking; +but the phaeton was bowling away down the road. + +“But why are _you_ here, mother?” + +Mrs. Raymond gazed a while after the carriage before speaking. +“Your father had to be at the church,” she said. + +“But there’s no service--” He broke off “See what I’ve brought for +you!” And he pulled out the portrait. “Do you know who it is?” + +Humility thanked him and kissed him passionately. There was +something odd with her this afternoon. + +“Don’t you like your present?” + +“Darling, it is beautiful,” she stooped and kissed him again, +passionately. + +“I’ve a present for father, too; a book. Why are you walking so +fast?” In a little while he asked again, “Why are you walking so +fast?” + +“I--I thought you would be wanting your tea.” + +“Mayn’t I take father his book first?” + +She did not answer. + +“But mayn’t I?” he persisted. + +They had reached the garden-gate. Humility seemed to hesitate. +“Yes; go,” she said at length; and he ran, with the _De Imitatione +Christi_ under his arm. + +As he came within view of the church he saw a knot of men gathered +about the door. They were pulling something out from the porch. +He heard the noise of hammering, and Squire Moyle, at the back of the +crowd, was shouting at the top of his voice: + +“The church is yours, is it? I’ll see about that! Pitch out the +furnitcher, my billies--_that’s_ mine, anyway!” + +Still the hammers sounded within the church. + +“Don’t believe in sudden convarsion, don’t ’ee? I reckon you will +when you look round your church. Bishop coming to consecrate it, is +he? Consecrate _my_ furnitcher? I’ll see you and your bishop to +blazes first!” + +A heap of shattered timber came flying through the porch. + +“_Your_ church, hey? _Your_ church?” + +The crowd fell back and Mr. Raymond stood in the doorway, between +Bill Udy and Jim the Huntsman. Bill Udy held a brazen ewer and +paten, and Jim a hammer; and Mr. Raymond had a hand on one shoulder +of each. + +For a moment there was silence. As Taffy came running through the +lych-gate a man who had been sitting on a flat tombstone and +watching, stood up and touched his arm. It was Jacky Pascoe, the +Bryanite. + +“Best go back,” he said, “’tis a wisht poor job of it.” + +Taffy halted for a moment. The Squire’s voice had risen to a sudden +scream--he sputtered as he pointed at Mr. Raymond. + +“There he is, naybours! Get behind the varmint, somebody, and stop +his earth! Calls hisself a minister of God! Calls it _his_ church!” + +Mr. Raymond took his hands off the men’s shoulders, and walked +straight up to him. “Not _my_ church,” he said, aloud and +distinctly. “God’s church!” + +He stretched out an arm. Taffy, running up, supposed it stretched +out to strike. “Father!” + +But Mr. Raymond’s palm was open as he lifted it over the Squire’s +head. “God’s church,” he repeated. “In whose service, sir, I defy +you. Go! or if you will, and have the courage, come and stand while +I kneel amid the ruin you have done and pray God to judge between +us.” + +He paused, with his eyes on the Squire’s. + +“You dare not, I see. Go, poor coward, and plan what mischief you +will. Only now leave me in peace a little.” + +He took the boy’s hand and they passed into the church together. +No one followed. Hand in hand they stood before the dismantled +chancel. Taffy heard the sound of shuffling feet on the walk +outside, and looked up into Mr. Raymond’s face. + +“Father!” + +“Kiss me, sonny.” + +The _De Imitatione Christi_ slipped from Taffy’s fingers and fell +upon the chancel step. + +So his childhood ended. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +THE BUILDERS. + +These things happened on a Friday. After breakfast next morning +Taffy went to fetch his books. He did so out of habit and without +thinking; but his father stopped him. + +“Put them away,” he said. “Some day we’ll go back to them, but not +yet.” + +Instead of books Humility packed their dinner in the satchel. +They reached the church and found the interior just as they had left +it. Taffy was set to work to pick up and sweep together the scraps +of broken glass which littered the chancel. His father examined the +wreckage of the pews. + +While the boy knelt at his task, his thoughts were running on the +Pantomime. He had meant, last night, to recount all its wonders and +the wonders of Plymouth; but somehow the words had not come. +After displaying his presents he could find no more to say: and +feeling his father’s hand laid on his shoulder, had burst into tears +and hidden his face in his mother’s lap. He wanted to console them, +and they were pitying _him_--why he could not say--but he knew it was +so. + +And now the Pantomime, Plymouth, everything, seemed to have slipped +away from him into a far past. Only his father and mother had drawn +nearer and become more real. He tried to tell himself one of the old +stories; but it fell into pieces like the fragments of coloured glass +he was handling, and presently he began to think of the glass in his +hands and let the story go. + +“On Monday we’ll set to work,” said his father. “I dare say Joel”-- +this was the carpenter down at Innis village--“will lend me a few +tools to start with. But the clearing up will take us all to-day.” + +They ate their dinner in the vestry. Taffy observed that his father +said: “_We_ will do this,” or “_Our_ best plan will be so-and-so,” +and spoke to him as to a grown man. On the whole, though the dusk +found them still at work, this was a happy day. + +“But aren’t you going to lock the door?” he asked, as they were +leaving. + +“No,” said Mr. Raymond. “We shall win, sonny; but not in that way.” + +On the morrow Taffy rang the bell for service as usual. To his +astonishment Squire Moyle was among the first-comers. He led Honoria +by the hand, entered the Tredinnis pew and shut the door with a slam. +It was the only pew left unmutilated. The rest of the congregation-- +and curiosity made it larger than usual--had to stand; but a wife of +one of the miners found a hassock and passed it to Humility, who +thanked her for it with brimming eyes. Mr. Raymond said afterward +that this was the first success of the campaign. + +Not willing to tire his audience, he preached a very short sermon; +but it was his manifesto, and all the better for being short. He +took his text from Nehemiah, Chapter II., verses 19 and 20-- +“_But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the +Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, +and despised us, and said: ‘What is this thing that ye do? Will ye +rebel against the King?_’” + +“_Then answered I them and said unto them, ‘The God of Heaven, He +will prosper us; therefore, we His servants will arise and build_.’ + +“Fellow-parishioners,” he said, “you see the state of this church. +Concerning the cause of it I require none of you to judge. I enter +no plea against any man. Another will judge, who said, ‘_Destroy +this temple and in three days I will rear it up_.’ But He spake of +the temple of His body; which was destroyed and is raised up; and its +living and irrevocable triumph I, or some other servant of God, +will celebrate at this altar, Sunday by Sunday, that whosoever will +may see, yes, and taste it. The state of this poor shell is but a +little matter to a God whose majesty once inhabited a stable; yet the +honour of this, too, shall be restored. You wonder how, perhaps. +_It may be the Lord will work for us; for there is no restraint to +the Lord to save by many or by few_. Go to your homes now and ponder +this; and having pondered, if you will, pray for us.” + +As the Raymonds left the church they found Squire Moyle waiting by +the porch. Honoria stood just behind him. The rest of the +congregation had drawn off a little distance to watch. The Squire +lifted his hat to Humility, and turned to Mr. Raymond with a sour +frown. + +“That means war?” + +“It means that I stay,” said the Vicar. “The war, if it comes, comes +from your side.” + +“I don’t think the worse of ’ee for fighting. You’re not going to +law then?” + +Mr. Raymond smiled. “I don’t doubt you’ve put yourself within the +reach of it. But if it eases your mind to know, I am not going to +law.” + +The Squire grunted, raised his hat again and strode off, gripping +Honoria by the hand. + +She had not glanced towards Taffy. Clearly she was not allowed to +speak to him. + +The meaning of the Vicar’s sermon became plain next morning, when he +walked down to the village and called on Joel Hugh, the carpenter. + +“I knows what thee’rt come after,” began Joel, “but ’tis no use, +parson dear. Th’ old fellow owns the roofs over us, and if I do a +day’s work for ’ee, out I goes, neck and crop.” + +Mr. Raymond had expected this. “It’s not for work I’m come,” said +he; “but to hire a few tools, if you’re minded to spare them.” + +Joel scratched his head. “Might manage that, now. But, Lord bless +’ee! thee’ll never make no hand of it.” He chose out saw, hammer, +plane and auger, and packed them up in a carpenter’s frail, with a +few other tools. “Don’t ’ee talk about payment, now; naybors must be +nayborly. Only, you see, a man must look after his own.” + +Mr. Raymond climbed the hill toward the towans with the carpenter’s +frail slung over his shoulder. As luck would have it, near the top +he met Squire Moyle descending on horseback. The Vicar nodded +“Good-morning” in passing, but had not gone a dozen steps when the +old man reined up and called after him. + +“Hi!” + +The Vicar halted. + +“Whose basket is that you’re carrying?” Then, getting no answer, +“Wait till next Saturday night, when Joel Hugh comes to thank you. +I suppose you know he rents his cottage by the week?” + +“No harm shall come to him through me,” said the Vicar, and retraced +his steps down the hill. The Squire followed at a foot-pace, +grinning as he went. + +That night Mr. Raymond went back to his beloved books, but not to +read; and early next morning was ready at the cross-roads for the van +which plied twice a week between Innis village and Truro. He had +three boxes with him--heavy boxes, as Calvin the van-driver remarked +when it came to lifting them on board. + +“Thee’rt not leaving us, surely?” said he. + +“No.” + +“But however didst get these lumping boxes up the hill?” + +“My son helped me.” + +He had modestly calculated on averaging a shilling a volume for his +books; but discovered on leaving the shop at Truro that it worked out +at one-and-threepence. He returned to Nannizabuloe that night with +one box only--but it was packed full of tools--and a copy of Fuller’s +“Holy State,” which at the last moment had proved too precious to be +parted with--at least, just yet. + +The woodwork of the old pews--painted deal for the most part, but +mixed with a few boards of good red pine and one or two of teak, +relics of some forgotten shipwreck--lay stacked in the belfry and +around the font under the west gallery. Mr. Raymond and Taffy spent +an hour in overhauling it, chose out the boards for their first pew, +and fell to work. + +At the end of another hour the pair broke off and looked at each +other. Taffy could not help laughing. His own knowledge of +carpentry had been picked up by watching Joel Hugh at work, and just +sufficed to tell him that his father was possibly the worst carpenter +in the world. + +“I think my fingers must be all thumbs,” declared Mr. Raymond. + +The puckers in his face set Taffy laughing afresh. They both laughed +and fell to work again, the boy explained his notions of the +difficult art of mortising. They were rudimentary, but sound as far +as they went, and his father recognised this. Moreover, when the boy +had a tool to handle he did it with a natural deftness, in spite of +his ignorance. He was Humility’s child, born with the skill-of-hand +of generations of lace-workers. He did a dozen things wrongly, but +he neither fumbled, nor hammered his fingers, nor wounded them with +the chisel--which was Humility’s husband’s way. + +At the end of four days of strenuous effort, they had their first pew +built. It was a recognisable pew, though it leaned to one side, and +the door (for it had a door) fell to with a bang if not cautiously +treated. The triumph was, the seat could be sat upon without risk. +Mr. Raymond and Taffy tested it with their combined weight on the +Saturday evening, and went home full of its praises. + +“But look at your clothes,” said Humility; and they looked. + +“This is serious,” said Mr. Raymond. “Dear, you must make us a +couple of working suits of corduroy or some such stuff: otherwise +this pew-making won’t pay.” + +Humility stood out against this for a day or two. That _her_ husband +and child should go dressed like common workmen! But there was no +help for it, and on the Monday week Taffy went forth to work in +moleskin breeches, blue guernsey, and loose white smock. As for Mr. +Raymond, the only badge of his calling was his round clerical hat; +and as all the miners in the neighbourhood wore hats of the same soft +felt and only a trifle higher in the crown, this hardly amounted to a +distinction. + +Humility’s eyes were full of tears as she watched them from the door +that morning. But Taffy felt as proud as Punch. A little before +noon he carried out a board that required sawing, and rested it on a +flat tombstone where, with his knee upon it, he could get a good +purchase. He was sawing away when he heard a dog barking, and looked +up to see Honoria coming along the path with George’s terrier +frisking at her heels. + +She halted outside the lych-gate, and Taffy, vain of his new clothes, +drew himself up and nodded. + +“Good-morning,” said Honoria. “I’m not allowed to speak to you and +I’m not going to, after this.” She swooped on the puppy and held +him. “See what George brought home from Plymouth for me. Isn’t he +a beauty?” + +Held so, by the scruff of his neck, he was not a beauty. Taffy had +it on the tip of his tongue to tell her about the collar. He wished +he had brought it. + +“I wonder,” she went on pensively, “your mother had the heart to +dress you out in that style. But I suppose now you’ll be growing up +into quite a common boy.” + +Taffy decided to say nothing about the collar. “I like the clothes,” +he declared defiantly. + +“Then you can’t have the common instincts of a gentleman. Well, +good-bye! Grandfather has salvation all right this time; he said +he’d put the stick about me if I dared to speak to you.” + +“He won’t know.” + +“Won’t know? Why I shall tell him, of course, when I get back.” + +“But--but he _mustn’t_ beat you!” + +She eyed him for a moment or two in silence. “Mustn’t he? I advise +you to go and tell him.” She walked away slowly, whistling; but +by-and-by broke into a run and was gone, the puppy scampering behind +her. + +As the days grew longer and the weather milder, Taffy and his father +worked late into the evenings; sometimes, if the job needed to be +finished, by the light of a couple of candles. + +One evening, about nine o’clock, the boy as he planed a bench paused +suddenly. “What’s that?” + +They listened. The door stood open, and after a second or two they +heard the sound of feet tiptoeing away up the path outside. + +“Spies, perhaps,” said his father. “If so, let them go in peace.” + +But he was not altogether easy. There had been strange doings up at +the Bryanite Chapel of late. He still visited a few of his +parishioners regularly--hill farmers and their wives for the most +part, who did not happen to be tenants of Squire Moyle, and on whom +his visits therefore could bring no harm; and one or two had hinted +of strange doings, now that the Bryanites had hold of the old Squire. +They themselves had been up--just to look; they confessed it +shamefacedly, much in the style of men who have been drinking +overnight. Without pressing them and showing himself curious, the +Vicar could get at no particulars. But as the summer grew he felt a +moral sultriness, as it were, growing with it. The people were off +their balance, restless; and behind their behaviour he had a sense, +now of something electric, menacing, now of a hand holding it in +check. Slowly in those days the conviction deepened in him that he +was an alien on this coast, that between him and the hearts of the +race he ministered to there stretched an impalpable, impenetrable +veil. And all this while the faces he passed on the road, though +shy, were kindlier than they had been in the days before his +self-confidence left him--it seemed not so long ago. + +On a Saturday night early in May, the footsteps were heard again, and +this time in the porch itself. While Mr. Raymond and Taffy listened +the big latch went up with a creak, and a dark figure slipped into +the church. + +“Who is there?” challenged Mr. Raymond from the chancel where he +stood peering out of the small circle of light. + +“A friend. Pass, friend, and all’s well!” answered a squeaky voice. +“Bless you, I’ve sarved in the militia before now.” + +It was Jacky Pascoe, with his coat-collar turned up high about his +ears. + +“What do you want?” Mr. Raymond demanded sharply. + +“A job.” + +“We can pay for no work here.” + +“Wait till thee’rt asked, Parson, dear. I’ve been spying in upon ’ee +these nights past. Pretty carpenters you be! T’other night, as I +was a-peeping, the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go, and for goodness’ +sake show them chaps how to do it fitty.’ ‘Dear Lord,’ I said, +‘Thou knowest I be a Bryanite.’ The Lord said to me, ‘None of your +back answers! Go and do as I tell ’ee.’ So here I be.” + +Mr. Raymond hesitated. “Squire Moyle is your friend, I hear, and the +friend of your chapel. What will he say if he discovers that you are +helping us?” + +Jacky scratched his head. “I reckon the Lord must have thought o’ +that, too. Suppose you put me to work in the vestry? There’s only +one window looks in on the vestry: you can block that up with a +curtain, and there I’ll be like a weevil in a biscuit.” + +When this screen was fixed, the little Bryanite looked round and +rubbed his hands. “Now I’ll tell ’ee a prabble,” he said--“a +prabble about this candle I’m holding. When God Almighty said +‘_let there be light_,’ He gave every man a candle--to some folks, +same as you, long sixes perhaps and best wax; to others, a farthing +dip. But they all helps to light up; and the beauty of it is, +Parson”--he laid a hand on Mr. Raymond’s cuff--“there isn’t one of +’em burns a ha’porth the worse for every candle that’s lit from en. +Now sit down, you and the boy, and I’ll larn ’ee how to join a board.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +VOICES FROM THE SEA. + +Before winter and the long nights came around again, Taffy had become +quite a clever carpenter. From the first his quickness fairly +astonished the Bryanite, who at the best was but a journeyman and +soon owned himself beaten. + +“I doubt,” said he, “if you’ll ever make so good a man as your +father; but you can’t help making a better workman.” He added, with +his eyes on the boy’s face, “There’s one thing in which you might +copy en. He hasn’t much of a gift: _but he lays it ’pon the altar_.” + +By this time Taffy had resumed his lessons. Every day he carried a +book or two in his satchel with his dinner, and read or translated +aloud while his father worked. Two hours were allowed for this in +the morning, and again two in the afternoon. Sometimes a day would +be set apart during which they talked nothing but Latin. +Difficulties in the text of their authors they postponed until the +evening, and worked them out at home, after supper, with the help of +grammar and dictionary. + +The boy was not unhappy, on the whole; though for weeks together he +longed for sight of George Vyell, who seemed to have vanished into +space, or into that limbo where his childhood lay like a toy in a +lumber room. Taffy seldom turned the key of that room. The stories +he imagined now were not about fairies or heroes, but about himself. +He wanted to be a great man and astonish the world. Just how the +world was to be astonished he did not clearly see; but the triumph, +in whatever shape it came, was to involve a new gown for his mother, +and for his father a whole library of books. + +Mr. Raymond never went back to his books now, except to help Taffy. +The Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews was laid aside. +“Some day!” he told Humility. The Sunday congregation had dwindled +to a very few, mostly farm people; Squire Moyle having threatened to +expel any tenant of his who dared to set foot within the church. + +In the autumn two things happened which set Taffy wondering. + +During the first three years at Nannizabuloe, old Mrs. Venning had +regularly been carried downstairs to dine with the family. +The sea-air (she said) had put new life into her. But now she seldom +moved from her room, and Taffy seldom saw her except at night, when-- +after the old childish custom--he knocked at her door to wish her +pleasant dreams and pull up the weights of the tall clock which stood +by her bed’s head. + +One night he asked carelessly, “What do you want with the clock? +Lying here you don’t need to know the time; and its ticking must keep +you awake.” + +“So it does, child; but bless you, I like it.” + +“Like being kept awake?” + +“Dear, yes! I have enough of rest and quiet up here. You mind the +litany I used to say over to you?--Parson Kempthorne taught it to us +girls when I was in service with him; ’twas made up, he said, by +another old Devonshire parson, years and years ago--” + + “‘When I lie within my bed + Sick in heart and sick in head, + And with doubts discomforted, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me! + When the house do sigh and weep--’” + +“That’s it. You wouldn’t think how quiet it is up here all day. +But at night, when you’re in bed and sleeping, all the house begins +to talk; little creakings of furniture, you know, and the wind in the +chimney and sometimes the rain in the gutter, running--it’s all talk +to me. Mostly it’s quite sociable, too; but sometimes, in rainy +weather, the tune changes and then it’s like some poor soul in bed +and sobbing to itself. That’s when the verse comes in:” + + “‘When the house do sigh and weep + And the world is drowned in sleep, + Yet my eyes the watch do keep, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me!’” + +“And then the clock’s ticking is a wonderful comfort. _Tick-tack, +tick-tack!_ and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing +up to be a man, and the minutes running and trickling away to my +deliverance--” + +“Granny!” + +“My dear, I’m as well off as most; but that isn’t saying I shan’t be +glad to go and take the pain in my joints to a better land. +Before we came here, in militia-time, I used to lie and listen for +the buglers, but now I’ve only the clock. No more bugles for me, I +reckon, till I hear them blown across Jordan.” + +Taffy remembered how he too had lain and listened to the bugles; and +with that he saw his childhood, as it were a small round globe set +within a far larger one and wrapped around with other folks’ +thoughts. He kissed his grandmother and went away wondering; and as +he lay down that night it still seemed wonderful to him that she +should have heard those bugles, and more wonderful, that night after +night for years she should have been thinking of him while he slept, +and he never have guessed it. + +One morning, some three weeks later, he and his father were putting on +their oil-skins before starting to work--for it had been blowing hard +through the night and the gale was breaking up in floods of rain--when +they heard a voice hallooing in the distance. Humility heard it too and +turned swiftly to Taffy. “Run upstairs, dear. I expect it’s someone +sent from Tresedder farm; and if so, he’ll want to see your father +alone.” + +Mr. Raymond frowned. “No,” he said; “the time is past for that.” + +A fist hammered on the door. Mr. Raymond threw it open. + +“Brigantine--on the sands! Half a mile this side of the light-house!” +Taffy saw across his father’s shoulder a gleam of yellow oilskins and a +flapping sou’-wester hat. The panting voice belonged to Sam Udy--son of +old Bill Udy--a labourer at Tresedder. + +“I’ll go at once,” said Mr. Raymond. “Run you for the coast-guard!” + +The oilskins went by the window; the side gate clashed to. + +“Is it a wreck?” cried Taffy. “May I go with you?” + +“Yes, there may be a message to run with.” + +From the edge of the towans, where the ground dipped steeply to the +long beach, they saw the wreck, about a mile up the coast, and as +well as they could judge a hundred or a hundred and twenty yards out. +She lay almost on her beam ends, with the waves sweeping high across +her starboard quarter and never less than six ranks of ugly breakers +between her and dry land. A score of watchers--in the distance they +looked like emmets--were gathered by the edge of the surf. But the +coast-guard had not arrived yet. + +“The tide is ebbing, and the rocket may reach. Can you see anyone +aboard?” + +Taffy spied through his hands, but could see no one. His father set +off running, and he followed, half-blinded by the rain, now +floundering in loose sand, now tripping in a rabbit hole. They had +covered three-fourths of the distance when Mr. Raymond pulled up and +waved his hat as the coast-guard carriage swept into view over a +ridge to the right and came plunging across the main valley of the +towans. It passed them close--the horses fetlock-deep in sand, with +heads down and heaving, smoking shoulders; the coast-guardsmen with +keen strong faces like heroes’--and the boy longed to copy his father +and send a cheer after them as they went galloping by. But something +rose in his throat. + +He ran after the carriage, and reached the shore just as the first +rocket shot singing out towards the wreck. By this time at least a +hundred miners had gathered, and between their legs he caught a +glimpse of two figures stretched at length on the wet sand. He had +never looked on a dead body before. The faces of these were hidden +by the crowd; and he hung about the fringe of it dreading, and yet +courting, a sight of them. + +The first rocket was swept down to leeward of the wreck. The chief +officer judged his second beautifully, and the line fell clean across +the vessel and all but amidships. A figure started up from the lee +of the deckhouse, and springing into the main shrouds, grasped it and +made it fast. The beach being too low for them to work the cradle +clear above the breakers, the coast-guardsmen carried the shore end +of the line up the shelving cliff and fixed it. Within ten minutes +the cradle was run out, and within twenty the first man came swinging +shoreward. + +Four men were brought ashore alive, the captain last. The rest of +the crew of six lay on the sands with Mr. Raymond kneeling beside +them. He had covered their faces, and now gave the order to lift +them into the carriage. Taffy noticed that he was obeyed without +demur or question. And there flashed on his memory a grey morning, +not unlike this one, when he had missed his father at breakfast: +“He had been called away suddenly,” Humility explained, “and there +would be no lessons that day,” and she kept the boy indoors all the +morning and busy with a netting-stitch he had been bothering her to +teach him. + +“Father,” he asked as they followed the cart, “does this often +happen?” + +“Your mother hasn’t thought it well for you to see these sights.” + +“Then it _has_ happened, often?” + +“I have buried seventeen,” said Mr. Raymond. + +That afternoon he showed Taffy their graves. “I know the names of +all but two. The bodies have marks about them--tattooed, you know-- +and that helps. And I write to their relatives or friends and +restore whatever small property may be found on them. I have often +wished to put up some gravestone, or a wooden cross at least, with +their names.” + +He went to his chest in the vestry and took out a book--a cheap +account book, ruled for figures. Taffy turned over the pages. + + Nov. 3rd, 187-. Brig “James and Maria”: J. D., fair-haired, + height 5 ft. 8 in., marked on chest with initials and cross + swords, tattooed, also anchor and coil of rope on right + fore-arm: large brown mole on right shoulder-blade. + Striped flannel drawers: otherwise naked: no property of any + kind. + + Ditto. Grown man, age 40 or thereabouts: dark; iron grey beard: + lovers’ knot tattooed on right forearm, with initials R. L., + E. W., in the loops: clad in flannel shirt, guernsey, trousers + (blue sea-cloth), socks (heather-mixture), all unmarked. + Silver chain in pocket, with Freemason’s token: a half-crown, a + florin, and fourpence-- + +And so on. On the opposite page were entered the full names and +details afterwards discovered, with notes of the Vicar’s +correspondence, and position of the grave. + +“They ought to have gravestones,” said Mr. Raymond. “But as it is, I +can only get about thirty shillings for the funeral from the county +rate. The balance has come out of my pocket--from two to three +pounds for each. From the beginning the Squire refused to help to +bury sailors. He took the ground that it wasn’t a local claim.” + +“Hullo!” said Taffy, for as he turned the leaves his eye fell on this +entry:-- + + Jan 30th, 187-. S.S. “Rifleman” (all hands). Cargo, China + clay: W. P., age about eighteen, fair skin, reddish hair, short + and curled, height 5ft. 10 and 3/4 in. Initials tattooed on + chest under a three-masted ship and semicircle of seven stars; + clad in flannel singlet and trousers (cloth): singlet marked + with same initials in red cotton: pockets empty-- + +“But he was in the Navy!” cried Taffy, with his finger on the entry. + +“Which one? Yes, he was in the Navy. You’ll see it on the opposite +page. He deserted, poor boy, in Cork Harbour, and shipped on board a +tramp steamer as donkey-man. She loaded at Fowey and was wrecked on +the voyage back. William Pellow he was called: his mother lives but +ten miles up the coast: she never heard of it until six weeks after.” + +“But we--I, I mean--knew him. He was one of the sailor boys on +Joby’s van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at +_Indian Queens’?_ He showed me his tattoo marks that day.” + +And again he saw his childhood as it were set about with an enchanted +hedge, across which many voices would have called to him, and some +from near, but all had hung muted and arrested. + +The inquest on the two drowned sailors was held next day at the +_Fifteen Balls_, down in Innis village. Later in the afternoon, the +four survivors walked up to the church, headed by the Captain. + +“We’ve been hearing,” said the Captain, “of your difficulties, sir: +likewise your kindness to other poor seafaring chaps. We’d have +liked to make ye a small offering for your church, but sixteen +shillings is all we can raise between us. So we come to say that if +you can put us on to a job, why we’re staying over the funeral, and a +day’s work or more after that won’t hurt us one way or another.” + +Mr. Raymond led them to the chancel and pointed out a new beam, on +which he and Jacky Pascoe had been working a week past, and over +which they had been cudgelling their brains how to get it lifted and +fixed in place. + +“I can send to one of the miners and borrow a couple of ladders.” + +“Ladders? Lord love ye, sir, and begging your pardon, we don’t want +ladders. With a sling, Bill, hey?--and a couple of tackles. +You leave it to we, sir.” + +He went off to turn over the gear salved from his vessel, and early +next forenoon had the apparatus rigged up and ready. He was obliged +to leave it at this point, having been summoned across to Falmouth to +report to his agents. His last words, before starting were addressed +to his crew. “I reckon you can fix it now, boys. There’s only one +thing more, and don’t you forget it: Hats off; and any man that wants +to spit must go outside.” + +That afternoon Taffy learnt for the first time what could be done +with a few ropes and pulleys. The seamen seemed to spin ropes out of +themselves like spiders. By three o’clock the beam was hoisted and +fixed; and they broke off their work to attend their shipmates’ +funeral. After the funeral they fell to again, though more silently, +and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat of varnish. + +They left early next morning, after a good deal of handshaking, and +Taffy looked after them wistfully as they turned to wave their caps +and trudged away over the rise towards the cross-roads. Away to the +left in the wintry sunshine a speck of scarlet caught his eye against +the blue-grey of the towans. He watched it as it came slowly towards +him, and his heart leapt--yet not quite as he had expected it to +leap. + +For it was George Vyell. George had lately been promoted to “pink” +and made a gallant figure on his strapping grey hunter. For the +first time Taffy felt ashamed of his working-suit, and would have +slipped back to the church. But George had seen him, and pulled up. + +“Hullo!” said he. + +“Hullo!” said Taffy; and, absurdly enough, could find no more to say. + +“How are you getting on?” + +“Oh, I’m all right.” There was another pause. “How’s Honoria?” + +“Oh, she’s all right. I’m riding over there now: they meet at +Tredinnis to-day.” He tapped his boot with his hunting crop. + +“Don’t you have any lessons now?” asked Taffy, after a while. + +“Dear me, yes; I’ve got a tutor. He’s no good at it. But what made +you ask?” + +Really Taffy could not tell. He had asked merely for the sake of +saying something. George pulled out a gold watch. + +“I must be getting on. Well, good-bye!” + +“Good-bye!” + +And that was all. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +TAFFY’S APPRENTICESHIP. + +They could manage the carpentering now. And Jacky Pascoe, who, in +addition to his other trades, was something of a glazier, had taken +the damaged east window in hand. For six months it had remained +boarded up, darkening the chancel. Mr. Raymond removed the boards +and fixed them up again on the outside, and the Bryanite worked +behind them night after night. He could only be spied upon through +two lancet windows at the west end of the church, and these they +curtained. + +But what continually bothered them was their ignorance of iron-work. +Staples, rivets, hinges were for ever wanted. At length, one +evening, toward the end of March, the Bryanite laid down his tools. + +“Tell ’ee what ’tis, Parson. You must send the boy to someone +that’ll teach en smithy-work. There’s no sense in this cold +hammering.” + +“Wheelwright Hocken holds his shop and cottage from the Squire.” + +“Why not put the boy to Mendarva the Smith, over to Benny Beneath? +He’s a first-rate workman.” + +“That is more than six miles away.” + +“No matter for that. There’s Joll’s Farm close by; Farmer Joll would +board and lodge en for nine shillings a week, and glad of the chance; +and he could come home for Sundays.” + +Mr. Raymond, as soon as he reached home, sat down and wrote a letter +to Mendarva the Smith and another to Farmer Joll. Within a week the +bargains were struck, and it was settled that Taffy should go at +once. + +“I may be calling before long, to look you up,” said the Bryanite, +“but mind you do no more than nod when you see me.” + +Joll’s Farm lay somewhere near Carwithiel, across the moor where +Taffy had gone fishing with George and Honoria. On the Monday +morning when he stepped through the white front gate, with his bag on +his shoulder, and paused for a good look at the building, it seemed +to him a very comfortable farmstead, and vastly superior to the +tumble-down farms around Nannizabuloe. The flagged path, which led +up to the front door between great bunches of purple honesty, was +swept as clean as a dairy. + +A dark-haired maid opened the door and led him to the great kitchen +at the back. Hams wrapped in paper hung from the rafters, and +strings of onions. The pans over the fire-place were bright as +mirrors, and through the open window he heard the voices of children +at play as well as the clacking of poultry in the town-place. + +“I’ll go and tell the mistress,” said the maid; but she paused at the +door. “I suppose you don’t remember me, now?” + +“No,” said Taffy truthfully. + +“My name’s Lizzie Pezzack. You was with the young lady, that day, +when she bought my doll. I mind you quite well. But I put my hair +up last Easter, and that makes a difference.” + +“Why, you were only a child!” + +“I was seventeen last week. And--I say, do you know the Bryanite, +over to St. Ann’s--Preacher Jacky Pascoe?” + +He nodded, remembering the caution given him. + +“I got salvation off him. Master and mis’-ess they’ve got salvation +too; but they take it very quiet. They’re very fond of one another; +if you please one, you’ll please ’em both. They let me walk over to +prayer-meetin’ once a week. But I don’t go by Mendarva’s shop-- +that’s where you work--though ’tis the shortest way; because there’s +a woman buried in the road there, with a stake through her, and I’m +a terrible coward for ghosts.” + +She paused as if expecting him to say something; but Taffy was +staring at a “neck” of corn, elaborately plaited, which hung above +the mantel-shelf. And just then Mrs. Joll entered the kitchen. + +Taffy--without any reason--had expected to see a middle-aged +housewife. But Mrs. Joll was hardly over thirty; a shapely woman, +with a plain, pleasant face and auburn hair, the wealth of which she +concealed by wearing it drawn straight back from the forehead and +plaited in the severest coil behind. She shook hands. + +“You’ll like a drink of milk before I show you your room?” + +Taffy was grateful for the milk. While he drank it, the voices of +the children outside rose suddenly to shouts of laughter. + +“That will be their father come home,” said Mrs. Joll, and going to +the side door called to him. “John, put the children down! +Mr. Raymond’s son is here.” + +Mr. Joll, who had been galloping round the farmyard with a small girl +of three on his back, and a boy of six tugging at his coat-tails, +pulled up, and wiped his good-natured face. + +“Kindly welcome,” said he, coming forward and shaking hands, while +the two children stared at Taffy. + +After a minute the boy said, “My name’s Bob. Come and play horses, +too.” + +Farmer Joll looked at Taffy with a shyness that was comic. +“Shall we?” + +“Mr. Raymond will be tired enough already,” his wife suggested. + +“Not a bit,” declared Taffy; and hoisting Bob on his back, he set off +furiously prancing after the farmer. + +By dinner-time he and the family were fast friends, and after dinner +the farmer took him off to be introduced to Mendarva the Smith. + +Mendarva’s forge stood on a triangle of turf beside the high-road, +where a cart-track branched off to descend to Joll’s Farm in the +valley. And Mendarva was a dark giant of a man with a beard like +those you see on the statues of Nineveh. On Sundays he parted his +beard carefully and tied the ends with little bows of scarlet ribbon; +but on week days it curled at will over his mighty chest. He had one +assistant whom he called “the Dane”; a red-haired youth as tall as +himself and straighter from the waist down. Mendarva’s knees had +come together with years of poising and swinging his great hammer. + +“He’s little, but he’ll grow,” said he, after eyeing Taffy up and +down. “Dane, come fore and tell me if we’ll make a workman of en.” + +The Dane stepped forward and passed his hands over the boy’s +shoulders and down his ribs. “He’s slight, but he’ll fill out. +Good pair o’ shoulders. Give’s hold o’ your hand, my son.” + +Taffy obeyed; not very well liking to be handled thus like a prize +bullock. + +“Hand like a lady’s. Tidy wrist, though. He’ll do, master.” + +So Taffy was passed, given a leathern apron, and set to his first +task of keeping the forge-fire raked and the bellows going, while the +hammers took up the music he was to listen to for a year to come. + +This music kept the day merry; and beyond the window along the +bright high-road there was usually something worth seeing-- +farm-carts, jowters’ carts, the doctor and his gig, pedlars and +Johnny-fortnights, the miller’s waggons from the valley-bottom below +Joll’s Farm, and on Tuesdays and Fridays the market-van going and +returning. Mendarva knew or speculated upon everybody, and with half +the passers-by broke off work and gave the time of day, leaning on +his hammer. But down at the farm all was strangely quiet, in spite +of the children’s voices; and at night the quietness positively kept +him awake, listening to the pur-r of the pigeons in their cote +against the house-wall, thinking of his grandmother awake at home and +harkening to the _tick-tack_ of her tall clock. Often when he awoke +to the early summer daybreak and saw through his attic-window the +grey shadows of the sheep still and long on the slope above the +farmstead, his ear was wanting something, asking for something; for +the murmur of the sea never reached this inland valley. And he would +lie and long for the chirruping of the two children in the next room +and the drawing of bolts and clatter of milk-pails below stairs. + +He had plenty to eat, and that plenty simple and good, and clean +linen to sleep between. The kitchen was his except on Saturday +nights, when Mrs. Joll and Lizzie tubbed the children there, and then +he would carry his books off to the best parlour or stroll around the +farm with Mr. Joll and discuss the stock. There were no loose rails +in Mr. Joll’s gates, no farm implements lying out in the weather to +rust. Mr. Joll worked early and late, and his shoulders had a +tell-tale stoop--for he was a man in the prime of life, perhaps some +five years older than his wife. + +One Saturday evening he unburdened his heart to Taffy. It happened +at the end of the hay-harvest, and the two were leaning over a gate +discussing the yet unthatched rick. + +“What I say is,” declared the farmer quite in-consequently, “a man +must be able to lay his troubles ’pon the Lord. I don’t mean his +work, but his troubles; and go home and shut the door and be happy +with his wife and children. Now, I tell you that for months--iss, +years--after Bob was born I kept plaguing myself in the fields, +thinking that some harm might have happened to the child. Why, I +used to make an excuse and creep home, and then if I see’d a blind +pulled down you wouldn’t think how my heart’d go thump; and I’d stand +wi’ my head on the door-hapse an’ say, ‘If so be the Lord have +took’n, I must go and comfort Susan--not my will, but Thine, Lord-- +but, Lord, don’t ’ee be cruel this time!’ And then find the cheeld +right as ninepence and the blind only pulled down to keep the sun off +the carpet. After a while my wife guessed what was wrong--I used to +make up such poor twiddling pretences. She said, ‘Look here, the +Lord and me’ll see after Bob; and if you can’t keep to your own work +without poking your nose into ours, then I married for worse and not +for better.’ Then it came upon me that by leaving the Lord to look +after my job I’d been treating Him like a farm labourer. It’s the +things you can’t help he looks after--not the work.” + +A few evenings later there came a knock at the door, and Lizzie, who +went to open it, returned with the Bryanite skipping behind her. + +“Blessings be upon this here house!” he cried, cutting a sort of +double shuffle on the threshold. He shook hands with the farmer and +his wife, and nodded toward Taffy. “So you’ve got Parson Raymond’s +boy here!” + +“Yes,” said Mrs. Joll; and turned to Taffy. “He’ve come to pray a +bit: perhaps you would rather be in the parlour?” + +Taffy asked to be allowed to stay; and presently Mr. Pascoe had them +all down on their knees. He began by invoking God’s protection on +the household; but his prayer soon ceased to be a prayer. It broke +into ejaculations of praise--“Friends, I be too happy to ask for +anything--Glory, glory! The blood! The precious blood! O deliverance! O +streams of redemption running!” The farmer and his wife began to chime +in--“Hallelujah!” “Glory!” and Lizzie Pezzack to sob. Taffy, kneeling +before a kitchen chair, peeped between his palms, and saw her shoulders +heaving. + +The Bryanite sprang to his feet, overturning the settle with a crash. +“Tid’n no use. I must skip! Who’ll dance wi’ me?” + +He held out his hands to Mrs. Joll. She took them, and skipped once +shamefacedly. Lizzie, with flaming cheeks, pushed her aside. +“Leave me try, mis’ess; I shall die if I don’t.” She caught the +preacher’s hands, and the two leapt about the kitchen. “I can dance +higher than mis’ess!” Farmer Joll looked on with a dazed face. +“Hallelujah!” “Amen!” he said at intervals, quite mechanically. +The pair stood under the bacon rack and began to whirl like +dervishes--hands clasped, toes together, bodies leaning back and +almost rigid. They whirled until Taffy’s brain whirled with them. + +With a louder sob Lizzie let go her hold and tottered back into a +chair, laughing hysterically. The Bryanite leaned against the table, +panting. + +There was a long pause. Mrs. Joll took a napkin from the dresser and +fell to fanning the girl’s face, then to slapping it briskly. +“Get up and lay the table,” she commanded; “the preacher’ll stay to +supper.” + +“Thank ’ee, ma’am, I don’t care if I do,” said he; and ten minutes +later they were all seated at supper and discussing the fall in wheat +in the most matter-of-fact voices. Only their faces twitched now and +again. + +“I hear you had the preacher down to Joll’s last night,” said +Mendarva the Smith. “What’st think of en?” + +“I can’t make him out,” was Taffy’s colourless but truthful answer. + +“He’s a bellows of a man. I do hear he’s heating up th’ old Squire +Moyle’s soul to knack an angel out of en. He’ll find that a job and +a half. You mark my words, there’ll be Dover over in your parish one +o’ these days.” + +During work-hours Mendarva bestowed most of his talk on Taffy. +The Dane seldom opened his lips except to join in the anvil chorus-- + + “Here goes one-- + Sing, sing, Johnny! + Here goes two-- + Sing, Johnny, sing! + Whack’n till he’s red, + Whack’n till he’s dead, + And whop! goes the widow with + A brand new ring!” + +And when the boy took a hammer and joined in he fell silent. +Taffy soon observed that a singular friendship knit these two men, +who were both unmarried. Mendarva had been a famous wrestler in his +day, and his great ambition now was to train the other to win the +County belt. Often after work the pair would try a hitch together on +the triangle of turf, with Taffy for stickler, Mendarva illustrating +and explaining, the Dane nodding seriously whenever he understood, +but never answering a word. Afterwards the boy recalled these bouts +very vividly--the clear evening sky, the shoulders of the two big men +shining against the level sun as they gripped and swayed, their long +shadows on the grass under which (as he remembered) the poor +self-murdered woman lay buried. + +He thought of her at night, sometimes, as he worked alone at the +forge; for Mendarva allowed him the keys and use of the smithy +overtime, in consideration of a small payment for coal. And then he +blew his fire and hammered, with a couple of candles on the bench and +a Homer between them; and beat the long hexameters into his memory. +The incongruity of it never struck him. He was going to be a great +man, and somehow this was going to be the way. These scraps of +iron--these tools of his forging--were to grow into the arms and +shield of Achilles. In its own time would come the magic moment, the +shield find its true circumference and swing to the balance of his +arm, proof and complete. + + en d etithei thotamoio mega stheuos okeanoio + antuga pad pumatev sakeos puka poietoi... + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +LIZZIE AND HONORIA. + +His apprenticeship lasted a year and six months, and all this while +he lived with the Jolls, walking home every Sunday morning and +returning every Sunday night, rain or shine. He carried his deftness +of hand into his new trade, and it was Mendarva who begged and +obtained an extension of the time agreed on, “Rather than lose the +boy I’ll tache en for love.” So Taffy stayed on for another six +months. He was now in his seventeenth year--a boy no longer. +One evening, as he blew up his smithy fire, the glow of it fell on +the form of a woman standing just outside the window and watching +him. He had no silly fears of ghosts: but the thought of the buried +woman flashed across his mind and he dropped his pincers with a +clatter. + +“’Tis only me,” said the woman. “You needn’t to be afeard.” And he +saw it was the girl Lizzie. + +She stepped inside the forge and seated herself on the Dane’s anvil. + +“I was walking back from prayer-meeting,” she said. “’Tis nigher +this way, but I don’t ever dare to come. Might, I dessay, if I’d +somebody to see me home.” + +“Ghosts?” asked Taffy, picking up the pincers and thrusting the bar +back into the hot cinders. + +“I dunno: I gets frightened o’ the very shadows on the road +sometimes. I suppose, now, you never walks out that way?” + +“Which way?” + +“Why, towards where your home is. That’s the way I comes.” + +“No, I don’t.” Taffy blew at the cinders until they glowed again. +“It’s only on Sundays I go over there.” + +“That’s a pity,” said Lizzie candidly. “I’m kept in, Sunday +evenings, to look after the children while farmer and mis’ess goes to +Chapel. That’s the agreement I came ’pon.” + +Taffy nodded. + +“It would be nice now, wouldn’t it--” She broke off, clasping her +knees and staring at the blaze. + +“What would be nice?” + +Lizzie laughed confusedly. “Aw, you make me say’t. I can’t abear +any of the young men up to the Chapel. If me and you--” + +Taffy ceased blowing. The fire died down, and in the darkness he +could hear her breathing hard. + +“They’re so rough,” she went on, “and t’other night I met young +Squire Vyell riding along the road, and he stopped me and wanted to +kiss me.” + +“George Vyell? Surely he didn’t?” Taffy blew up the fire again. + +“Iss he did. I don’t see why not, neither.” + +“Why he shouldn’t kiss you?” + +“Why he shouldn’t want to.” + +Taffy frowned, carried the white hot bar to his anvil, and began to +hammer. He despised girls, as a rule, and their ways. Decidedly +Lizzie annoyed him; and yet as he worked he could not help glancing +at her now and then, as she sat and watched him. By-and-by he saw +that her eyes were full of tears. + +“What’s the matter?” he asked abruptly. + +“I--I can’t walk home alone. I’m afeard!” He tossed his hammer +aside, raked out the fire, and reached his coat off its peg. As he +swung round in the darkness to put it on, he blundered against Lizzie +or Lizzie blundered against him. She clutched at him nervously. + +“Clumsy! can’t you see the doorway?” She passed out, and he +followed and locked the door. As they crossed the turf to the +high-road, she slipped her arm into his. “I feel safe, that way. +Let it stay, co!” After a few paces, she added, “You’re different +from the others--that’s why I like you.” + +“How?” + +“I dunno; but you _be_ diff’rent. You don’t think about girls, for +one thing.” + +Taffy did not answer. He felt angry, ashamed, uncomfortable. He did +not turn once to look at her face, dimly visible by the light of the +young moon--the hunter’s moon--now sinking over the slope of the +hill. Thick dust--too thick for the heavy dew to lay--covered the +cart-track down to the farm, muffling their footsteps. Lizzie paused +by the gate. + +“Best go in separate,” she said; paused again and whispered, “You may +if you like.” + +“May do what?” + +“What--what young Squire Vyell wanted.” + +They were face to face now. She held up her lips, and as she did so +they parted in an amorous little laugh. The moonlight was on her +face. Taffy bent swiftly and kissed her. + +“Oh, you hurt!” With another little laugh she slipped up the garden +path and into the house. + +Ten minutes later Taffy followed, hating himself. + + +For the next fortnight he avoided her; and then, late one evening she +came again. He was prepared for this, and had locked the door of the +smithy and let down the shutter while, he worked. She tapped upon +the outside of the shutter with her knuckles. + +“Let me in!” + +“Can’t you leave me alone?” he answered pettishly. “I want to work, +and you interrupt.” + +“I don’t want no love-making--I don’t indeed. I’ll sit quiet as a +mouse. But I’m afeard, out here.” + +“Nonsense!” + +“I’m afeard o’ the ghost. There’s something comin’--let me in, +co-o!” + +Taffy unlocked the door and held it half opened while he listened. + +“Yes, there’s somebody coming, on horseback. Now, look here--it’s no +ghost, and I can’t have you about here with people passing. +I--I don’t want you here at all; so make haste and slip away home, +that’s a good girl.” + +Lizzie glided like a shadow into the dark lane as the trample of +hoofs drew close, and the rider pulled up beside the door. + +“You’re working late, I see. Is it too late to make a shoe for +Aide-de-camp here?” + +It was Honoria. She dismounted and stood at the doorway, holding her +horse’s bridle. + +“No,” said Taffy: “that is, if you don’t mind the waiting.” + +With his leathern apron he wiped the Dane’s anvil for a seat, while +she hitched up Aide-de-camp and stepped into the glow of the +forge-fire. + +“The hounds took us three miles beyond Carwithiel: and there, just as +they lost, Aide-de-camp cast his off-hind shoe. I didn’t find it out +at first, and now I’ve had to walk him all the way back. Are you +alone here?” + +“Yes.” + +“Who was that I saw leaving as I came up?” + +“You saw someone?” + +“Yes.” She nodded, looking him straight in the face. “It looked like +a woman. Who was she?” + +“That was Lizzie Pezzack, the girl who sold you her doll, once. +She’s a servant down at the farm where I lodge.” + +Honoria said no more for the moment, but seated herself on the Dane’s +anvil, while Taffy chose a bar of iron and stepped out to examine +Aide-de-camp’s hoof. He returned and in silence began to blow up the +fire. + +“I dare say you were astonished to see me,” she remarked at length. + +“Yes.” + +“I’m still forbidden to speak to you. The last time I did it, +grandfather beat me.” + +“The old brute!” Taffy nipped the hot iron savagely in his pincers. + +“I wonder if he’ll do it again. Somehow I don’t think he will.” + +Taffy looked at her. She had drawn herself up, and was smiling. +In her close-fitting habit she seemed very slight, yet tall, and a +woman grown. He took the bar to the anvil and began to beat it flat. +His teeth were shut, and with every blow he said to himself “Brute!” + +“That’s beautiful,” Honoria went on. “I stopped Mendarva the other +day, and he told me wonders about you. He says he tried you with a +hard-boiled egg, and you swung the hammer and chipped the shell all +round without bruising the white a bit. Is that true?” + +Taffy nodded. + +“And your learning--the Latin and Greek, I mean; do you still go on +with it?” + +He nodded again, towards a volume of Euripides that lay open on the +workbench. + +“And the stories you used to tell George and me; do you go on telling +them to yourself?” + +He was obliged to confess that he never did. She sat for a while +watching the sparks as they flew. Then she said, “I should like to +hear you tell one again. That one about Aslog and Orm, who ran away +by night across the ice-fields and took a boat and came to an island +with a house on it, and found a table spread and the fire lit, but no +inhabitants anywhere--You remember? It began ‘Once upon a time, not +far from the city of Drontheim, there lived a rich man--’” + +Taffy considered a moment and began “Once upon a time, not far from +the city of Drontheim--” He paused, eyed the horse-shoe cooling +between the pincers, and shook his head. It was no use. Apollo had +been too long in service with Admetus, and the tale would not come. + +“At any rate,” Honoria persisted, “you can tell me something out of +your books: something you have just been reading.” + +So he began to tell her the story of Ion, and managed well enough in +describing the boy and how he ministered before the shrine at Delphi, +sweeping the temple and scaring the birds away from the precincts: +but when he came to the plot of the play and, looking up, caught +Honoria’s eyes, it suddenly occurred to him that all the rest of the +story was a sensual one, and he could not tell it to her. +He blushed, faltered, and finally broke down. + +“But it was beautiful,” said she, “so far as it went: and it’s just +what I wanted. I shall remember that boy Ion now, whenever I think +of you helping your father in the church at home. If the rest of the +story is not nice, I don’t want to hear it.” How had she guessed? +It was delicious, at any rate, to know that she thought of him; and +Taffy felt how delicious it was, while he fitted and hammered the +shoe on Aide-de-camp’s hoof, she standing by with a candle in either +hand, the flame scarcely quivering in the windless night. + +When all was done, she raised a foot for him to give her a mount. +“Good-night!” she called, shaking the reins. Half a minute later +Taffy stood by the door of the forge, listening to the echoes of +Aide-de-camp’s canter, and the palm of his hand tingled where her +foot had rested. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +THE SQUIRE’S WEIRD. + +He took leave of Mendarva and the Jolls just before Christmas. +The smith was unaffectedly sorry to lose him. “But,” said he, “the +Dane will be entered for the championship next summer, so I s’pose I +must look forward to that.” + +Every one in the Joll household gave him a small present on his +leaving. Lizzie’s was a New Testament, with her name on the flyleaf, +and under it, “Converted April 19, 187-.” Taffy did not want the +gift, but took it rather than hurt her feelings. + +Farmer Joll said, “Well, wish ’ee well! Been pretty comfiable, I +hope. Now you’m goin’, I don’t mind telling ’ee I didn’t like your +coming a bit. But now ’tis wunnerful to me you’ve been wi’ us less +than two year’; we’ve made such friends.” + +At home Taffy bought a small forge and set it up in the church at the +west end of the north aisle. Mr. Raymond, under his direction, had +been purchasing the necessary tools for some months past, and now the +main expense was the cost of coal, which pinched them a little. +But they managed to keep the fire alight, and the work went forward +briskly. Save that he still forbade the parish to lend them the +least help, the old Squire had ceased to interfere. + +Mr. Raymond’s hair was greyer, and Taffy might have observed--but did +not--how readily towards the close of a day’s laborious carpentry he +would drop work and turn to Dindorf’s _Poetae Scenici Graeci_, +through which they were reading their way. On Sundays the +congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that, as the end of +the Vicar’s task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church +receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, +Jacky Pascoe’s was queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night +and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as +anyone could see, and at length he took Mr. Raymond aside and made +confession. + +“I must go away; that’s what ’tis. My burden is too great for me to +bear.” + +“Why,” said Mr. Raymond, who had grown surprisingly tolerant during +the last twelve months, “what cause have you, of all men, to feel +dejected? You can set the folk here on fire like flax.” He sighed. + +“That’s azactly the reason--I can set ’em afire with a breath, but I +can’t hold ’em under. I make ’em too strong for me--_and I’m +afeard_. Parson, dear, it’s the gospel truth; for two years I’ve a +been strivin’ agen myself, wrastlin’ upon my knees, and all to hold +this parish in.” He mopped his face. “’Tis like fightin’ with +beasts at Ephesus,” he said. + +“Do you want to hold them in?” + +“I do, and I don’t. I’ve got to try, anyway. Sometimes I tell +mysel’ ’tis putting a hand to the plough and turning back; and then I +reckon I’ll go on. But when the time comes I can’t. I’m afeard, I +tell ’ee.” He paused. “I’ve laid it before the Lord, but He don’t +seem to help. There’s two voices inside o’ me. ’Tis a terrible +responsibility.” + +“But the people: what are you afraid of their doing?” + +“I don’t know. You don’t know what a runaway hoss will do, but +you’re afeared all the same.” He sank his voice. “There’s +wantonness, for one thing--six love-children born in the parish this +year, and more coming. They do say that Vashti Clemow destroyed her +child. And Old Man Johns--him they found dead on the rocks under the +Island--he didn’t go there by accident. ’Twas a calm day, too.” + +As often as not Taffy worked late and blew his forge-fire alone in +the church, the tap of his hammer making hollow music in the desolate +aisles. He was working thus one windy night in February, when the +door rattled open and in walked a totally unexpected visitor--Sir +Harry Vyell. + +“Good evening! I was riding by and saw your light in the windows +dancing up and down. I thought I would hitch up the mare and drop in +for a chat. But go on with your work.” + +Taffy wondered what had brought him so far from his home at that time +of night, but asked no questions. And Sir Harry placed a hassock on +one of the belfry steps, and taking his seat, watched for a while in +silence. He wore his long riding-boots and an overcoat with the +collar turned up about a neckcloth less nattily folded than usual. + +“I wish,” he said at length, “that my boy George was clever like you. +You were great friends once--you remember Plymouth, hey? But I dare +say you’ve not seen much of each other lately.” + +Taffy shook his head. + +“George is a bit wild. Oxford might have done something for him; +made a man of him, I mean. But he wouldn’t go. I believe in wild +oats to a certain extent. I have told him from the first he must +look after himself and decide for himself. That’s my theory. +It makes a youngster self-reliant. He goes and comes as he likes. +If he comes home late from hunting I ask no questions; I don’t wait +dinner. Don’t you agree with me?” + +“I don’t know,” Taffy answered, wondering why he should be consulted. + +“Self-reliance is what a man wants.” + +“Couldn’t he have learnt that at school?” + +Sir Harry fidgeted with the riding-crop in his hands. “Well, you +see, he’s an only son--I dare say it was selfish of me. You don’t +mind my talking about George?” + +Taffy laughed. “I like it. But--” + +Sir Harry laughed too, in an embarrassed way. “But you don’t suppose +I rode over from Carwithiel for that? Well, well! The fact is--one +gets foolish as one grows old--George went out hunting this morning, +and didn’t turn up for dinner. I kept to my rule and dined alone. +Nine o’clock came; half-past; no George. At ten Hoskins locked up as +usual, and off I went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. After a while +it struck me that he might be sleeping here over at Tredinnis; that +is, if no accident had happened. No sleep for me until I made sure; +so I jumped out, dressed, slipped down to the stables, saddled the +mare and rode over. I left the mare by Tredinnis great gates and +crept down to Moyle’s stables like a housebreaker, looked in through +the window, and sure enough there was George’s grey in the loose box +to the right. So George is sleeping there, and I’m easy in my mind. +No doubt you think me an old fool?” + +But Taffy was not thinking anything of the sort. + +“I couldn’t wish better than that. You understand?” + +“Not quite.” + +“He lost his mother early. He wants a woman to look after him, and +for him to think about. If he and Honoria would only make up a +match.... And Carwithiel would be quite a different house.” + +Taffy hesitated, with a hand on the forge-bellows. + +“I dare say it’s news to you, what I’m telling. But it has been in +my mind this long while. Why don’t you blow up the fire? I bet Miss +Honoria has thought of it too: girls are deep. She has a head on her +shoulders. I’ll warrant she sends half a dozen of my servants +packing within a week. As it is, they rob me to a stair. I know it, +and I haven’t the pluck to interfere.” + +“What does the old Squire say?” Taffy managed to ask. + +“It has never come to _saying_ anything. But I believe he thinks of +it, too, when he happens to think of anything but his soul. He’ll be +pleased; everyone will be pleased. The properties touch, you see.” + +“I see.” + +“To tell you the truth, he’s failing fast. This religion of his is a +symptom: all of his family have taken to it in the end. If he hadn’t +the constitution of a horse, he’d have been converted ten years before +this. What puzzles me is, he’s so quiet. You mark my words”--Sir Harry +rose, buttoned his coat and shook his riding-crop prophetically--“he’s +brewing up for something. There’ll be the devil of a flare-up before he +has done.” + + +It came with the Midsummer bonfires. At nine o’clock on St. John’s +Eve, Mr. Raymond read prayers in the church. It was his rule to +celebrate thus the vigils of all saints in the English calendar and +some few Cornish saints besides; and he regularly announced these +services on the preceding Sundays: but no parishioner dreamed of +attending them. + +To-night, as usual, he and Taffy had prayed alone: and the lad was +standing after service at the church door, with his surplice on his +arm (for he always wore a surplice and read the lessons on these +vigils), when the flame of the first bonfire shot up from the +headland over Innis village. + +Almost on the moment, a flame answered it from the point where the +lighthouse stood; and, within ten minutes, the horizon of the towans +was cressetted with these beacon-fires: surely (thought Taffy) with +many more than usual. And he remembered that Jacky Pascoe had thrown +out a hint of a great revival to be held on Baal-fire Night (as he +called it). + +The night was sultry and all but windless. For once the tormented +sands had rest. The flame of the bonfires shone yellow-- +orange-yellow--and steady. He could see the dark figures of men and +women, passing between him and the nearest, on the high wastrel in +front of Tredinnis great gates. Their voices reached him in a +confused murmur, broken now and then by a child’s scream of delight. +And yet a hush seemed to hang over sea and land: an expectant hush. +For weeks the sky had not rained. Day after day, a dull indigo blue +possessed it, deepening with night into duller purple, as if the +whole heavens were gathering into one big thundercloud, which menaced +but never broke. And in the hush of those nights a listener could +almost fancy he heard, between whiles, the rabbits stirring uneasily +in their burrows. + +By-and-by the bonfire on the wastrel appeared to be giving out sparks +of light which blazed independently; yet without decreasing its own +volume of flame. The sparks came dancing, nearer and larger: the +voices grew more distinct. The revellers had kindled torches and +were advancing in procession to visit other bonfires. The torches, +too, were supposed to bless the fields they passed across. Small +blessing had they ever brought to the barren towans. + +The procession rose and sank as it came over the uneven ridges like a +fiery snake; topped the nearest ridge and came pouring down past the +churchyard wall. At its head danced Lizzie Pezzack, shrieking like a +creature possessed, her hair loose and streaming while she whirled +her torch. Taffy knew these torches; bundles of canvas steeped in +tar and fastened in the middle to a stout stick or piece of chain. +Lizzie’s was fastened to a chain; and as he watched her uplifted arm +swinging the blazing mass he found time to wonder how she escaped +setting her hair on fire. Other torch-bearers tossed their arms and +shouted as they passed. The smoke was suffocating, and across the +patch of quiet graveyard the heat smote on Taffy’s face. But in the +crowd he saw two figures clearly--Jacky Pascoe and Squire Moyle; and +the Bryanite’s face was agitated and white in the infernal glare. +He had given an arm to the Squire, who was clearly the centre of the +procession and tottered forward with jaws working and cavernous eyes. + +“He’s saved!” a voice shouted. + +Others took up the cry. “Saved!” “The Squire’s saved!” “Saved +to-night--saved to glory!” + +The Squire paused, still leaning on the Bryanite’s arm. While the +procession swayed around him, he gazed across the gate as a man who had +lost his bearings. No glint of torchlight reached his cavernous eyes; +but the sight of Mr. Raymond’s surpliced figure standing behind Taff’s +shoulder in the full glare seemed to rouse him. He lifted a fist and +shook it slowly. + +“Com’st along, sir!” urged the Bryanite. But the Squire stood +irresolute, muttering to himself. + +“Com’st along, sir!” + +“Lev’ me be, I tell ’ee!” He laid both hands on the gate and spoke +across it to Mr. Raymond, his head nodding while his voice rose. + +“D’ee hear what they say? I’m saved. I’m the Squire of this parish, +and I’m goin’ to Heaven. I make no account of you and your church. +Old Satan’s the fellow I’m after, and I’m going to have him out o’ +this parish to-night or my name’s not Squire Moyle.” + +“That’s of it, Squire!” “Hunt ’en!” “Out with ’en!” + +He turned on the crowd. + +“Hunt ’en? Iss fay I will! Come along, boys--back to Tredinnis! +No, no”--this to the Bryanite--“we’ll go back. I’ll show ’ee sport-- +we’ll hunt th’ old Divvle by scent and view to-night. I’m Squire +Moyle, ain’t I? And I’ve a pack o’ hounds, ha’n’t I? Back, boys-- +back, I tell ’ee!” + +Lizzie Pezzack swung her torch. “Back--back to Tredinnis!” The +crowd took up the cry, “Back to Tredinnis!” The old man shook off +the Bryanite’s hand, and as the procession wheeled and reformed +itself confusedly, rushed to the head of it, waving his hat-- + +“Back!--Back to Tredinnis!” + +“God help them!” said Mr. Raymond; and taking Taffy by the arm, drew +him back into the church. + + +The shouting died away up the road. For three-quarters of an hour +father and son worked in silence. The reddened sky shed its glow +gently through the clear glass windows, suffusing the shadows beneath +the arched roof. And in the silence the lad wondered what was +happening up at Tredinnis. + + +Jim the Whip took oath afterward that it was no fault of his. He had +suspected three of the hounds for a day or two--Chorister, White Boy, +and Bellman--and had separated them from the pack. That very evening +he had done the same with Rifler, who was chewing at the straw in a +queer fashion and seemed quarrelsome. He had said nothing to the +Squire, whose temper had been ugly for a week past. He had hoped it +was a false alarm--had thought it better to wait, and so on. + +The Squire went down to the kennels with a lantern, Jim shivering +behind him. They had their horses saddled outside and ready, and the +crowd was waiting along the drive and up by the great gates. +The Squire saw at a glance that two couples were missing, and in two +seconds had their names on his tongue. He was like a madman. +He shouted to Jim to open the doors. “Better not, maister!” pleaded +Jim. The old man cursed, smote him across the neck with the butt-end +of his whip, and unlocked the doors himself. Jim, though half +stunned, staggered forward to prevent him, and took another blow, +which felled him. He dropped across the threshold of Chorister’s +kennel; the doors of all opened outwards, and the weight of his body +kept this one shut. But he saw the other three hounds run out, saw +the Squire turn with a ghastly face, drop the lantern, and run for it +as White Boy snapped at his boot. Jim heard the crash of the lantern +and the snap of teeth, and with that he fainted off in the darkness. +He had cut his forehead against the bars of the big kennel, and when +he came to himself one of the hounds was licking his face through the +grating. + + +Men told for years after how the old Squire came galloping up the +drive that night, hoof to belly, his chin almost on mare Nonsuch’s +neck, his face like a man’s who hears hell cracking behind him, and +of the three dusky hounds which followed (the tale said) with +clapping jaws and eyes like coach-lamps. + +Down in the quiet church Taffy heard the outcry, and, laying down his +plane, looked up and saw that his father had heard it too. +Mr. Raymond’s mild eyes, shining through his spectacles, asked as +plainly as words: “What was _that?_” + +“Listen!” + +For a minute--two minutes--they heard nothing more. Then out of the +silence broke a rapid, muffled beat of hoofs, and Mr. Raymond +clutched Taffy’s arm as a yell--a cry not human, or if human, +insane--ripped the night as you might rip linen, and fetched them to +their feet. Taffy gained the porch first; and just at that moment a +black shadow heaved itself on the churchyard wall and came hurling +over with a thud--a clatter of dropping stones--then a groan. + +Before they could grasp what was happening the old Squire had +extricated himself from the fallen mare, and came staggering across +the graves. + +“Hide me!--” + +He came with both arms outstretched, his face turned sideways. +Behind him, from the far side of the wall, came sounds--horrible +shuffling sounds--and in the dusk they saw the head of one of the +hounds above the coping and his forepaws clinging as he strained to +heave himself over. + +“Off! Keep ’en off!” + +They caught him by both hands, dragged him within, and slammed the +door. + +“Hide me! Hi--!” + +The word ended with a thud as he pitched headlong on the slate +pavement. Through the barred door the scream of the mare Nonesuch +answered it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +THE BARRIERS FALL. + +There were marks of teeth on his right boot, but no marks at all on +his body. Fright--or fright following on that evening’s frenzy--had +killed him. + +He was buried three days later, and Mr. Raymond read the service. +No rain had fallen, and the blood of the three hounds still stained +the gravel dividing the grave from the porch, where the crowd had +shot them down. + +For a while his death made small difference to the family at the +Parsonage. They had fought his enmity and proved it not formidable +for brave hearts. But they had scarcely realised their success, and +wondered why his death did not affect them more. + +About this time Taffy began to carry out a scheme which he and his +father had often discussed, but hitherto had found no leisure for-- +the setting up of wooden crosses on the graves of the drowned +sailormen. They had wished for slate, but good slate was expensive +and hard to come by, and Taffy had no skill in stone-cutting. +Since wood it must be, he resolved to put his best work into it. +The names, etc., should be engraved, not painted merely. Some of the +pew-fronts in the church had panels elaborately carved in flat and +shallow relief--fine Jacobean designs, all of them. He took careful +rubbings of their traceries, and set to work to copy them on the face +of his crosses. + +One afternoon, some three weeks after the Squire’s funeral, he +happened to return to the house for a tracing which he had forgotten, +and found Honoria seated in the kitchen and talking with his father +and mother. She was dressed in black, of course, and either this or +the solemnity of her visit gave her quite a grown-up look. But, to +be sure, she was mistress of Tredinnis now, and a child no longer. + +Taffy guessed the meaning of her visit at once. And no doubt this +act of formal reconciliation between Tredinnis House and the +Parsonage had cost her some nervousness. As Taffy entered his +parents stood up and seemed just as awkward as their visitor. +“Another time, perhaps,” he heard his father say. Honoria rose +almost at once, and would not stay to drink tea, though Humility +pressed her. + +“I suppose,” said Taffy next day, looking up from his Virgil, +“I suppose Miss Honoria wants to make friends now and help on the +restoration?” + +Mr. Raymond, who was on his knees fastening a loose hinge in a +pew-door, took a screw from between his lips. + +“Yes, she proposed that.” + +“It must be splendid for you, dad!” + +“I don’t quite see,” answered Mr. Raymond, with his head well inside +the pew. + +Taffy stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and took a turn up and +down the aisle. + +“Why,” said he, coming to a halt, “it means that you have won. +It’s victory, dad, and _I_ call it glorious!” His lip trembled. +He wanted to put a hand on his father’s shoulder; but his abominable +shyness stood between. + +“We won long ago, my boy.” And Mr. Raymond wheeled round on his +knees, pushed up his spectacles, and quoted the famous lines, very +solemnly and slowly: + + “‘And not by eastern windows only, + When daylight comes, comes in the light; + In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly! + But westward, look, the land is bright!’” + +“I see,” Taffy nodded. “And--I say, that’s jolly. Who wrote it?” + +“A man I used to see in the streets of Oxford and always turned to +stare after: a man with big ugly shaped feet and the face of a god--a +young tormented god. Those were days when young men’s thoughts +tormented them. Taffy,” he asked abruptly, “should you like to go to +Oxford?” + +“Don’t, father!” The boy bit his lip to keep back the tears. +“Talk of something else--something cheerful. It has been a splendid +fight, just splendid! And now it’s over I’m almost sorry.” + +“What is over?” + +“Well, I suppose--now that Honoria wants to help--we can hire workmen +and have the whole job finished in a month, or two at farthest: and +you--” + +Mr. Raymond stood up, and leaning against a bench-end, examined the +thread of the screw between his fingers. + +“That is one way of looking at it, no doubt,” he said slowly; “and I +hope God will forgive me if I have put my own pride before His +service. But a man desires to leave some completed work behind him-- +something to which people may point and say, ‘_he_ did it.’ +There was my book, now: for years I thought that was to be my work. +But God thought otherwise and (to correct my pride, perhaps) chose +this task instead. To set a small forsaken country church in order +and make it worthy of His presence--that is not the mission I should +have chosen. But so be it: I have accepted it. Only, to let others +step in at the last and finish even this--I say He must forgive me, +but I cannot.” + +“Your book--you can go back to it and finish it.” + +“I have burnt it.” + +“Dad!” + +“I burned it. I had to. It was a temptation to me, and until I +lifted it from the grate and the flakes crumbled in my hands the +surrender was not complete.” + +Taffy felt a sudden gush of pity. And as he pitied suddenly he +understood his father. + +“It had to be complete?” + +“Either the book or the surrender. My boy”--and in his voice there +echoed the aspiration and the despair of the true scholar, who abhors +imperfection and incompleteness in a world where nothing is either +perfect or complete; “it is different with you. I borrowed you, so +to say, for the time. Without you I must have failed; but this was +never your work. For myself, I have learnt my lessons; but, please +God, you shall be my Solomon and be granted a temple to build.” + +Taffy had lost his shyness now. He laid a hand on his father’s +sleeve. + +“We will go on then.” + +“Yes, we will go on.” + +“And Jacky? Where has he been? I haven’t seen him since the Squire +died.” + +Mr. Raymond searched in his coat-pocket and handed over a crumpled +letter. It ran:-- + + “Dear friend,--this is to say that you will not see me no more. + The dear Lord tells me that I have made a cauch of it. + He don’t say how, all He says is go and do better somewheres + else. + + “Seems to me a terrable thing to think _Religion_ can be bad for + any man. It have done me such powars of good. The late Moyle + esq he was like a dirty pan all the milk turned sour no matter + what. Dear friend I pored Praise into him and it come out + Prayer and all for him self. But the dear Lord says I was to + blame as much as Moyle esq so must do better next time but feel + terrable timid. + + “My respects to Masr Taffy. Dear friend I done my best I come + like _Nicodemus_ by night. Seeming to me when Christians fall + out tis over what they pray for. When they _praise God_ forget + diffnses and I cant think where the quaraling comes in and so + no more at present from + + “Yours respffly + + “J. Pascoe.” + +After supper that night, in the Parsonage kitchen Humility kept +rising from her chair, and laying her needlework aside to re-arrange +the pans and kettles on the hearth. This restlessness was so unusual +that Taffy, seated in the ingle with a book on his knee, had half +raised his head to twit her when he felt a hand laid softly on his +hair, and looked up into his mother’s eyes. + +“Taffy, should you like to go to Oxford?” + +“Don’t, mother!” + +“But you can.” The tears in her eyes answered his at once. +She turned to his father. “Tell him!” + +“Yes, my boy, you can go,” said Mr. Raymond; “that is, if you can win +a scholarship. Your mother and I have been talking it over.” + +“But--” Taffy began, and could get no further. + +“We have money enough--with care,” said Mr. Raymond. + +But the boy’s eyes were on his mother. Her cheeks, usually so pale, +were flushed; but she turned her face away and walked slowly back to +her chair. “The lace-work,” he heard her say: “I have been saving-- +from the beginning--” + +“For this?” He followed and took her hand. With the other she +covered her eyes; but nodded. + +“O mother--mother!” He knelt and let his brow drop on her lap. +She ceased to weep; her palms rested on his bowed head, but now and +then her body shook. And but for the ticking of the tall clock there +was silence in the room. + +It was wonderful; and the wonder of it grew when they recovered +themselves and fell to discussing their plans. In spite of his +idolatry, Mr. Raymond could not help remembering certain slights +which he, a poor miller’s son, had undergone at Christ Church. +He had chosen Magdalen, which Taffy knew to be the most beautiful of +all the colleges; and the news that his name had been entered on the +college books for years past gave him a delicious shock. It was now +July. He would matriculate in the October term, and in January enter +for a demyship. But (the marvels followed so fast on each other’s +heels) there would be an examination held in ten days’ time--actually +in ten days’ time--a “certificate” examination, Mr. Raymond called +it--which would excuse the boy not only the ordinary Matriculation +test, but Responsions too. And, in short, Taffy was to pack his box +and go. + +“But the subjects?” + +“You have been reading them and the prescribed books for four months +past. And I have had sets of the old papers by me for a guide. +Your mathematics are shaky--but I think you should do well enough.” + +It was now Humility’s turn, and the discussion plunged among shirts +and collars. Never had evening been so happy; and whether they +talked of mathematics or of collars, Taffy could not help observing +how from time to time his father’s and mother’s eyes would meet and +say, as plainly as words, “We have done rightly.” “Yes, we have done +rightly.” + +And the wonder of it remained next morning, when he awoke to a +changed world and took down his books with a new purpose. +Already his box had been carried into old Mrs. Venning’s room, and +his mother and grandmother were busy, the one packing and repacking, +the other making a new and important suggestion every minute. + +He was to go up alone, and to lodge in Trinity College, where an old +friend of Mr. Raymond’s, a resident fellow just then abroad and +spending his Long Vacation in the Tyrol, had placed his own room at +the boy’s service. + +To see Oxford--to be lodging in college! He had to hug his mother in +the midst of her packing. + +“You will be going by the Great Western,” she said. “You won’t be +seeing Honiton on your way.” + +When the great morning came, Mr. Raymond travelled with him in the +van to Truro, to see him off. Humility went upstairs to her mother’s +room, and the two women prayed together-- + + “They also serve who only stand and wait.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +OXFORD. + + “Know you her secret none can utter? + Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?” + +“Eight o’clock, sir!” + +Taffy heard the voice speaking above a noise which his dreams +confused with the rattle of yesterday’s journey. He was still in the +train, rushing through the rich levels of Somersetshire. He saw the +broad horizon, the cattle at pasture, the bridges and flagged pools +flying past the window--and sat up rubbing his eyes. Blenkiron, the +scout, stood between him and the morning sunshine emptying a can of +water into the tub beside his bed. + +Blenkiron wore a white waistcoat and a tie of orange and blue, the +colours of the College Servants’ Cricket Club. These were signs of +the Long Vacation. For the rest his presence would have become an +archdeacon; and he guided Taffy’s choice of a breakfast with an air +which suggested the hand of iron beneath the glove of velvet. + +“And begging your pardon, sir, but will you be lunching in?” + +Taffy would consult Mr. Blenkiron’s convenience. + +“The fact is, sir, we’ve arranged to play Teddy ’All this afternoon +at Cowley, and the drag starts at one-thirty sharp.” + +“Then I’ll get my lunch out of college,” said Taffy, wondering who +Teddy Hall might be. + +“I thank you, sir. I had, indeed, took the liberty of telling the +manciple that you was not a gentleman to give more trouble than you +could ’elp. Fried sole, pot of tea, toast, pot of blackberry jam, +commons of bread--” Mr. Blenkiron disappeared. + +Taffy sprang out of bed and ran to the open window in the next room. +The gardens lay below him--smooth turf flanked with a border of gay +flowers, flanked on the other side with yews, and beyond the yews +with an avenue of limes, and beyond these with tall elms. A straight +gravelled walk divided the turf. At the end of it two yews of +magnificent spread guarded a great iron gate. Beyond these the +chimneys and battlements of Wadham College stood grey against the +pale eastern sky, and over them the larks were singing. + +So this was Oxford; more beautiful than all his dreams! And since +his examination would not begin until to-morrow, he had a whole long +day to make acquaintance with her. Half a dozen times he had to +interrupt his dressing to run and gaze out of the window, skipping +back when he heard Blenkiron’s tread on the staircase. And at +breakfast again he must jump up and examine the door. Yes, there was +a second door outside--a heavy _oak_-just as his father had +described. What stories had he heard about these oaks! He was +handling this one almost idolatrously when Blenkiron appeared +suddenly at the head of the stairs. Blenkiron was good enough to +explain at some length how the door worked, while Taffy, who did not +need his instruction in the least, blushed to the roots of his hair. + +For, indeed, it was like first love, this adoration of Oxford; +shamefast, shy of its own raptures; so shy, indeed, that when he put +on his hat and walked out into the streets he could not pluck up +courage to ask his way. Some of the colleges he recognised from his +father’s description; of one or two he discovered the names by +peeping through their gateways and reading the notices pinned up by +the porters’ lodges, for it never occurred to him that he was free to +step inside and ramble through the quadrangles. He wondered where +the river lay, and where Magdalen, and where Christ Church. +He passed along the Turl and down Brasenose Lane; and at the foot of +it, beyond the great chestnut-tree leaning over Exeter wall, the +vision of noble square, the dome of the Radcliffe, and St. Mary’s +spire caught his breath and held him gasping. His feet took him by +the gate of Brasenose and across the High. On the farther pavement +he halted, round-eyed, held at gaze by the beauty of the Virgin’s +porch, with the creeper drooping like a veil over its twisted +pillars. + +High up, white pigeons wheeled round the spire or fluttered from +niche to niche, and a queer fancy took him that they were the souls +of the carved saints up there, talking to one another above the +city’s traffic. At length he withdrew his eyes, and reading the name +“Oriel Street” on an angle of the wall above him, passed down a +narrow by-lane in search of further wonders. + +The clocks were striking three when, after regaining the High and +lunching at a pastrycook’s, Taffy turned down into St. Aldates and +recognised Tom Tower ahead of him. The great gates were closed. +Through the open wicket he had a glimpse of green turf and an idle +fountain; and while he peered in, a jolly-looking porter stepped out +of the lodge for a breath of air and nodded in the friendliest +manner. + +“You can walk through if you want to. Were you looking for anyone?” + +“No,” said Taffy, and explained proudly, “My father used to be at +Christ Church.” + +The porter seemed interested. “What name?” he asked. + +“Raymond.” + +“That must have been before my time. I suppose you’ll be wanting to +see the Cathedral. That’s the door--right opposite.” + +Taffy thanked him and walked across the great empty quadrangle. +Within the Cathedral the organ was sounding and pausing, and from +time to time a boy’s voice broke in upon the music like a flute, the +pure treble rising to the roof as though it were the very voice of +the building, and every pillar sustained its petition, “_Lord have +mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law!_” +Neither organist nor chorister was visible, and Taffy tiptoed along +the aisles in dread of disturbing them. For the moment this voice +adoring in the noble building expressed to him the completest, the +most perfect thing in life. All his own boyish handiwork, remember, +under his father’s eye had been guided toward the worship of God. + +“... _And incline our hearts to keep this law_.” The music +ceased. He heard the organist speaking, up in the loft; criticising, +no doubt: and it reminded him somehow of the small sounds of home and +his mother moving about her housework in the hush between breakfast +and noon. + +He stepped out into the sunlight again, and wandering through archway +and cloister found himself at length beyond the college walls and at +the junction of two avenues of elms, between the trunks of which +shone the acres of a noble meadow, level and green. The avenues ran +at a right angle, east and south; the one old, with trees of +magnificent girth, the other new and interset with poplars. + +Taffy stood irresolute. One of these avenues, he felt sure, must +lead to the river; but which? + +Two old gentlemen stepped out from the wicket of the Meadow +Buildings, and passed him, talking together. The taller--a lean +man, with a stoop--was clearly a clergyman. The other wore cap and +gown, and Taffy remarked, as he went by, that his cap was of velvet; +and also that he walked with his arms crossed just above the wrists, +his right hand clutching his left cuff, and his left hand his right +cuff, his elbows hugged close to his sides. + +After a few paces the clergyman paused, said something to his +companion, and the two turned back towards the boy. + +“Were you wanting to know your way?” + +“I was looking for the river,” Taffy answered. He was thinking that +he had never in his life seen a face so full of goodness. + +“Then this is your first visit to Oxford? Suppose, now, you come +with us? and we will take you by the river and tell you the names of +the barges. There is not much else to see, I’m afraid, in Vacation +time.” + +He glanced at his companion in the velvet cap, who drew down an +extraordinary bushy pair of eyebrows (yet he, too, had a beautiful +face) and seemed to come out of a dream. + +“So much the better, boy, if you come up to Oxford to worship false +gods.” + +Taffy was taken aback. + +“Eight false gods in little blue caps, seated in a trough and tugging +at eight poles; and all to discover if they can get from Putney to +Mortlake sooner than eight others in little blue caps of a lighter +shade. What do they _do_ at Mortlake when they get there in such a +hurry? Eh, boy?” + +“I--I’m sure I don’t know,” stammered Taffy. + +The clergyman broke out laughing, and turned to him. “Are you going +to tell us your name?” + +“Raymond, sir. My father used to be at Christ Church.” + +“What? Are you Sam Raymond’s son?” + +“You knew my father?” + +“A very little. I was his senior by a year or two. But I know +something about him.” He turned to the other. “Let me introduce the +son of a man after your own heart--of a man fighting for God in the +wilds, and building an altar there with his own hands and by the lamp +of sacrifice.” + +“But how do you know all this?” cried Taffy. + +“Oh,” the old clergyman smiled, “we are not so ignorant up here as +you suppose.” + +They walked by the river bank, and there Taffy saw the college barges +and was told the name of each. Also he saw a racing eight go by: it +belonged to the Vacation Rowing Club. From the barges they turned +aside and followed the windings of the Cherwell. The clergyman did +most of the talking; but now and then the old gentleman in the velvet +cap interposed a question about the church at home, its architecture, +the materials it was built of, and so forth; or about Taffy’s own +work, his carpentry, his apprenticeship with Mendarva the Smith. +And to all these questions the boy found himself replying with an +ease which astonished him. + +Suddenly the old clergyman said, “There is your College!” + +And unperceived by Taffy a pair of kindly eyes watched his own as +they met the first vision of that lovely tower rising above the trees +and (so like a thing of life it seemed) lifting its pinnacles +exultantly into the blue heaven. + +“Well?” + +All three had come to a halt. The boy turned, blushing furiously. + +“This is the best of all, sir.” + +“Boy,” said old Velvet-cap, “do you know the meaning of ‘edification’? +There stands your lesson for four years to come, if you can learn it in +that time. Do you think it easy? Come and see how it has been learnt by +men who have spent their lives face to face with it.” + +They crossed the street by Magdalen bridge, and passed under Pugin’s +gateway, by the Chapel door and into the famous cloisters. All was +quiet here; so quiet that even the voices of the sparrows chattering in +the ivy seemed but a part of the silence. The shadow of the great tower +fell across the grass. + +“This is how one generation read the lesson. Come and see how another, +and a later, read it.” + +A narrow passage led them out of gloom into sudden sunlight; and the +sunlight spread itself on fair grass-plots and gravelled walks, +flower-beds and the pale yellow facade of a block of buildings in the +classical style, stately and elegant, with a colonnade which only +needed a few promenading figures in laced coats and tie-wigs to +complete the agreeable picture. + +“What do you make of that?” + +As a matter of fact Taffy’s thoughts had run back to the theatre at +Plymouth with its sudden changes of scenery. And he stood for a +moment while he collected them. + +“It’s different: I mean,” he added, feeling that this was intolerably +lame, “it means something different; I cannot tell what.” + +“It means the difference between godly fear and civil ease, between a +house of prayer and one of no prayer. It spells the moral change +which came over this University when religion, the spring and source +of collegiate life, was discarded. The cloisters behind you were +built for men who walked with God.” + +“But why,” objected Taffy, plucking up courage, “couldn’t they do +that in the sunlight?” + +Velvet-cap opened his mouth. The boy felt he was going to be +denounced; when a merry laugh from the old clergyman averted the +storm. + +“Be content,” he said to his companion; “we are Gothic enough in +Oxford nowadays. And the lad is right too. There was hope even for +eighteenth-century Magdalen while its buildings looked on sunlight +and on that tower. You and the rest of us lay too much stress on +prayer. The lesson of that tower (with all deference to your amazing +discernment and equally amazing whims) is not prayer, but praise. +And when all men unite to worship God, it’ll be praise, not prayer, +that brings them together. + + “‘Praise is devotion fit for noble minds, + The differing world’s agreeing sacrifice.’” + +“Oh, if you’re going to fling quotations from a tapster’s son at my +head.... Let me see... how does it go on?... Where-- something or +other--different faiths-- + + “‘Where Heaven divided faiths united finds....’” + +And in a moment the pair were in hot pursuit after the quotation, +tripping each other up like two schoolboys at a game. Taffy never +forgot the final stanza, the last line of which they recovered +exactly in the middle of the street, Velvet-cap standing between two +tram-lines, right in the path of an advancing car, while he +declaimed-- + + “‘By penitence when we ourselves forsake, + ’Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven; + In praise--’” + +(The gesture was magnificent) + + “‘In praise we nobly give what God may take, + And are without a beggar’s blush forgiven.’ + +“--Confound these trams!” + +The old clergyman shook hands with Taffy in some haste. “And when +you reach home give my respects to your father. Stay, you don’t know +my name. Here is my card, or you’ll forget it.” + +“Mine, too,” said Velvet-cap. + +Taffy stood staring after them as they walked off down the lane which +skirts the Botanical Gardens. The names on the two cards were famous +ones, as even he knew. He walked back toward Trinity a proud and +happy boy. Half-way up Queen’s Lane, finding himself between blank +walls, with nobody in sight, he even skipped. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +TAFFY GIVES A PROMISE. + +The postman halted by the foot-bridge and blew his horn. The sound +sent the rabbits scampering into their burrows; and just as they +began to pop out again, Taffy came charging across the slope. +Whereupon they drew back their noses in disgust, and to avoid the +sand scattered by his toes. + +The postman held up a blue envelope and waved it. “Here, ’tis come, +at last!” + +“It may not be good news,” said Taffy, clutching it, and then turning +it over in his hand. + +“Well, that’s true. And till you open it, it won’t be any news at +all.” + +“I wanted mother to be first to know.” + +“Oh, very well--only, as you say, it mightn’t be good news.” + +“If it’s bad news, I want to be alone. But why should they trouble +to write?” + +“True again. I s’pose now you’re sure it _is_ from them?” + +“I can tell by the seal.” + +“Take it home, then,” said the postman. “Only if you think ’tis for +the sake of a twiddling sixteen shilling a week that I traipse all +these miles every day--” + +Taffy fingered the seal. “If you would really like to know--” + +“Don’t ’ee mention it. Not on any account.” He waved his hand +magnanimously and trudged off toward Tredinnis. + +Taffy waited until he disappeared behind the first sand-hill, and +broke the seal. A slip of parchment lay inside the envelope. + +“_This is to certify_--” + +He had passed! He pulled off his cap and waved it round his head. +And once more the rabbits popped back into their burrows. + +Toot--toot--toot!--It was that diabolical postman. He had fetched a +circuit round the sand-hill, and was peeping round the north side of +it and grinning as he blew his horn. + +Taffy set off running, and never stopped until he reached the +Parsonage and burst into the kitchen. “Mother--It’s all right! +I’ve passed!” + + +Somebody was knocking at the door. Taffy jumped up from his knees, +and Humility made the lap of her apron smooth. + +“May I come in?” asked Honoria, and pushed the door open. She stepped +into the middle of the kitchen and dropped Taffy an elaborate courtesy. + +“A thousand congratulations, sir!” + +“Why, how did you know?” + +“Well, I met the postman; and I looked in through the window before +knocking.” + +Taffy bit his lip. “People seem to be taking a deal of interest in us +all of a sudden,” he said to his mother. + +Humility looked distressed, uncomfortable. Honoria ignored the snub. “I +am starting for Carwithiel to-day,” she said, “for a week’s visit, and +thought I would look in--after hearing what the postman told me-- and +pay my compliments.” + +She talked for a minute or two on matters of no importance, asked after +old Mrs. Venning’s health, and left, turning at the door and giving +Humility a cheerful little nod. + +“Taffy, you ought not to have spoken so.” Humility’s eyes were tearful. + +Taffy’s conscience was already accusing him. He snatched up his cap and +ran out. + +“Miss Honoria!” + +She did not turn. + +“Miss Honoria--I am sorry!” He overtook her, but she turned her face +away. “Forgive me!” + +She halted, and after a moment looked him in the eyes. He saw then that +she had been crying. + +“The first time I came to see you he whipped me,” she said slowly. + +“I am sorry; indeed I am.” + +“Taffy--” + +“Miss Honoria.” + +“I said--Taffy.” + +“Honoria, then.” + +“Do you know what it is to feel lonely here?” + +Taffy remembered the afternoons when he had roamed the sand-hills +longing for George’s company. “Why, yes,” said he; “it used to be +always lonely.” + +“I think we have been the loneliest children in the whole world--you +and I and George--only George didn’t feel it the same way. And now it’s +coming to an end with you. You are going up to Oxford, and soon you +will have heaps of friends. Can you not understand? Suppose there were +two prisoners, alone in the same prison, but shut in different cells, +and one heard that the other’s release had come. He would feel--would +he not?--that now he was going to be lonelier than ever. And yet he +might be glad of the other’s liberty, and if the chance were given, +might be the happier for shaking hands with the other and wishing him +joy.” + +Taffy had never heard her speak at all like this. + +“But you are going to Carwithiel, and George is famous company.” + +“I am going over to Carwithiel because I hate Tredinnis. I hate every +stone of it, and will sell the place as soon as ever I come of age. +And George is the best fellow in the world. Some day I shall marry him +(oh, it is all arranged!), and we shall live at Carwithiel and be quite +happy; for I like him, and he likes people to be happy. And we shall +talk of you. Being out of the world ourselves, we shall talk of you, +and the great things you are going to do, and the great things you are +doing. We shall say to each other, ‘It’s all very well for the world to +be proud of him, but we have the best right, for we grew up with him +and know the stories he used to tell us; and when the time came for his +going, it was we who waved from the door--” + +“Honoria--” + +“But there is one thing you haven’t told, and you shall now, if you +care to--about your examination and what you did at Oxford.” + +So he sat down beside her on a sand-hill and told her: about the long +low-ceiled room in the quadrangle of the Bodleian, the old marbles +which lined the walls, the examiner at the blue baize table, and the +little deal tables (all scribbled over with names and dates and verses +and ribald remarks) at which the candidates wrote; also of the _viva +voce_ examination in the antechamber of the Convocation House, He told +it all as if it were the great event he honestly felt it to be. + +“And the others,” said she, “those who were writing around you, and the +examiner--how did you feel towards them?” + +Taffy stared at her. “I don’t know that I thought much about them.” + +“Didn’t you feel as if it was a battle and you wanted to beat them all?” + +He broke out laughing. “Why, the examiner was an old man, as dry as a +stick! And I hardly remember what the others were like--except one, +a white-headed boy with a pimply face. I couldn’t help noticing him, +because whenever I looked up there he was at the next table, staring at +me and chewing a quill.” + +“I can’t understand,” she confessed. “Often and often I have tried to +think myself a man--a man with ambition. And to me that has always +meant fighting. I see myself a man, and the people between me and the +prize have all to be knocked down or pushed out of the way. But you +don’t even see them--all you see is a pimply-faced boy sucking a quill. +Taffy--” + +“Yes?” + +“I wish you would write to me when you get to Oxford. Write regularly. +Tell me all you do.” + +“You will like to hear?” + +“Of course I shall. So will George. But it’s not only that. You have +such an easy way of going forward; you take it for granted you’re going +to be a great man--” + +“I don’t.” + +“Yes, you do. You think it just lies with yourself, and it is nobody’s +business to interfere with you. You don’t even notice those who are on +the same path. Now a woman would notice every one, and find out all +about them.” + +“Who said I wanted to be a great man?” + +“Don’t be silly, that’s a good boy! There’s your father coming out of +the church porch, and you haven’t told him yet. Run to him, but promise +first.” + +“What?” + +“That you will write.” + +“I promise.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +HONORIA’S LETTERS. + +1. + + “CARWITHIEL, Oct. 25, 18--.” + + “MY DEAR TAFFY,--Your letter was full of news, and I read it + over twice: once to myself, and again after dinner to George + and Sir Harry. We pictured you dining in the college hall. + Thanks to your description, it was not very difficult: the long + tables, the silver tankards, the dark panels and the dark + pictures above, and the dons on the dais, aloof and very + sedate. It reminded me of Ivanhoe--I don’t know why; and no + doubt if ever I see Magdalen, it will not be like my fancy in + the least. But that’s how I see it; and you at a table near + the bottom of the hall, like the youthful squire in the + story-books--the one, you know, who sits at the feast below the + salt until he is recognised and forced to step up and take his + seat with honour at the high table. I began to explain all + this to George, but found that he had dropped asleep in his + chair. He was tired out after a long day with the pheasants.” + + “I shall stay here for a week or two yet, perhaps. You know how + I hate Tredinnis. On my way over, I called at the Parsonage + and saw your mother. She was writing that very day, she said, + and promised to send my remembrances, which I hope duly reached + you. The Vicar was away at the church, of course. There is + great talk of the Bishop coming in February, when all will be + ready. George sends his love; I saw him for a few minutes at + breakfast this morning, before he started for another day with + the pheasants.” + + “Your friend,” + “HONORIA.” + +2. + + “CARWITHIEL, Nov. 19, 18--.” + + “MY DEAR TAFFY,--Still here, you see! I am slipping this into a + parcel containing a fire-screen which I have worked with my + very own hands; and I trust you will be able to recognise the + shield upon it and the Magdalen lilies. I send it, first, as a + birthday present; and I chose the shield--well, I dare say that + going in for a demy-ship is a matter-of-fact affair to you, who + have grown so exceedingly matter-of-fact; but to me it seems a + tremendous adventure; and so I chose a shield--for I suppose + the dons would frown if you wore a cockade in your college cap. + I return to Tredinnis to-morrow; so your news, whatever it is, + must be addressed to me there. But it is safe to be good + news.” + + “Your friend,” + “HONORIA.” + +3. + + “TREDINNIS, Nov. 27, 18--.” + + “MOST HONOURED SCHOLAR,--Behold me, an hour ago, a great lady, + seated in lonely grandeur at the head of my own ancestral + table. This is the first time I have used the dining-room; + usually I take all my meals in the morning-room, at a small + table beside the fire. But to-night I had the great table + spread and the plate spread out, and wore my best gown, and + solemnly took my grandfather’s chair and glowered at the ghost + of a small girl shivering at the far end of the long white + cloth. When I had enough of this (which was pretty soon) I + ordered up some champagne and drank to the health of + Theophilus John Raymond, Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford. + I graciously poured out a second glass for the small ghost at + the other end of the table; and it gave her the courage to + confess that she, too, in a timid way, had taken an interest in + you for years, and hoped you were going to be a great man. + Having thus discovered a bond between us, we grew very + friendly; and we talked a great deal about you afterwards in + the drawing-room, where I lost her for a few minutes and found + her hiding in the great mirror over the fire-place--a habit of + hers.” + + “It is time for me to practise ceremony, for it seems that + George and I are to be married some time in the spring. For my + part I think my lord would be content to wait longer; for so + long as he is happy and sees others cheerful he is not one to + hurry or worry. But Sir Harry is the impatient one: and has + begun to talk of his decease. He doesn’t believe in it a bit, + and at times when he composes his features and attempts to be + lugubrious I have to take up a book and hide my smiles. But he + is clever enough to see that it worries George.” + + “I saw both your father and mother this morning. Mr. Raymond has + been kept to the house by a chill; nothing serious: but he is + fretting to be out again and at work in that draughty church. + He will accept no help; and the mistress of Tredinnis has no + right to press it on him. I shall never understand men and how + they fight. I supposed that the war lay between him and my + grandfather. But it seems he was fighting an idea all the + while; for here is my grandfather beaten and dead and gone; and + still the Vicar will give no quarter. If you had not assured + me that your demy-ship means eighty pounds a year, I could + believe that men fight for shadows only. Your mother and + grandmother are both well....” + + +It was a raw December afternoon--within a week of the end of term-- +and Taffy had returned from skating in Christ Church meadow, when he +found a telegram lying on his table. There was just time to see the +Dean, to pack, and to snatch a meal in hall, before rattling off to +his train. At Didcot he had the best part of an hour to wait for the +night-mail westward. + + “_Your father dangerously ill. Come at once_.” + +There was no signature. Yet Taffy knew who had ridden to the office +with that telegram. The flying dark held visions of her, and the +express throbbed westward to the beat of Aide-de-camp’s gallop. +Nor was he surprised at all to find her on the platform at Truro +Station. The Tredinnis phaeton was waiting outside. + +He seemed to her but a boy after all, as he stepped out of the train +in the chill dawn: a wan-faced boy, and sorely in need of comfort. + +“You must be brave,” said she, gathering up the reins as he climbed +to the seat beside her. + +Surely yes; he had been telling himself this very thing all night. +The groom hoisted in his portmanteau, and with a slam of the door +they were off. The cold air sang past Taffy’s ears. It put vigour +into him, and his courage rose as he faced his shattered prospects, +shattered dreams. He must be strong now for his mother’s sake; a man +to work and be leant upon. + +And so it was that whereas Honoria had found him a boy, Humility +found him a man. As her arms went about him in her grief, she felt +his body, that it was taller, broader; and knew in the midst of her +tears that this was not the child she had parted from seven short +weeks ago, but a man to act and give orders and be relied upon. + +“He called for you... many times,” was all she could say. + +For Taffy had come too late. Mr. Raymond was dead. He had +aggravated a slight chill by going back to his work too soon, and the +bitter draughts of the church had cut him down within sight of his +goal. A year before he might have been less impatient. The chill +struck into his lungs. On December 1st he had taken to his bed, and +he never rallied. + +“He called for me?” + +“Many times.” + +They went up the stairs together and stood beside the bed. The +thought uppermost in Taffy’s mind was--“He called for me. He wanted +me. He was my father and I never knew him.” + +But Humility in her sorrow groped amid such questions as these, +“What has happened? Who am I? Am I she who yesterday had a husband +and a child? To-day my husband is gone and my child is no longer the +same child.” + +In her room old Mrs. Venning remembered the first days of her own +widowhood, and life seemed to her a very short affair, after all. + +Honoria saw Taffy beside the grave. It was no season for out-of-door +flowers, and she had rifled her hothouses for a wreath. The exotics +shivered in the north-westerly wind; they looked meaningless, +impertinent, in the gusty churchyard. Humility, before the coffin +left the house, had brought the dead man’s old blue working-blouse, +and spread it for a pall. No flowers grew in the Parsonage garden; +but pressed in her Bible lay a very little bunch, gathered, years +ago, in the meadows by Honiton. This she divided and, unseen by +anyone, pinned the half upon the breast of the patched garment. + +On the evening after the funeral and for the next day or two she was +strangely quiet, and seemed to be waiting for Taffy to make some +sign. Dearly as mother and son loved one another, they had to find +their new positions, each toward each. Now Taffy had known nothing +of his parents’ income. He assumed that it was little enough, and +that he must now leave Oxford and work to support the household. +He knew some Latin and Greek; but without a degree he had little +chance of teaching what he knew. He was a fair carpenter, and a more +than passable smith.... He revolved many schemes, but chiefly +found himself wondering what it would cost to enter an architect’s +office. + +“I suppose,” said he, “father left no will?” + +“Oh yes, he did,” said Humility, and produced it: a single sheet of +foolscap signed on her wedding day. It gave her all her husband’s +property absolutely--whatever it might be. + +“Well,” said Taffy, “I’m glad. I suppose there’s enough for you to +rent a small cottage, while I look about for work?” + +“Who talks about your finding work? You will go back to Oxford, of +course.” + +“Oh, shall I?” said Taffy, taken aback. + +“Certainly; it was your father’s wish.” + +“But the money?” + +“With your scholarship there’s enough to keep you there for the four +years. After that, no doubt, you will be earning a good income.” + +“But--” He remembered what had been said about the lace-money, and +could not help wondering. + +“Taffy,” said his mother, touching his hand, “leave all this to me +until your degree is taken. You have a race to run and must not +start unprepared. If you could have seen _his_ joy when the news +came of the demy-ship!” + +Taffy kissed her and went up to his room. He found his books laid +out on the little table there. + + +4. + + “TREDINNIS, February 13, 18--.” + + “MY DEAR TAFFY,--I have a valentine for you, if you care to + accept it; but I don’t suppose you will, and indeed I hope in + my heart that you will not. But I must offer it. + Your father’s living is vacant, and my trustees (that is to + say, Sir Harry; for the other, a second cousin of mine who + lives in London, never interferes) can put in someone as a + stop-gap, thus allowing me to present you to it when the time + comes, if you have any thought of Holy Orders. You will + understand exactly why I offer it; and also, I hope, you will + know that I think it wholly unworthy of you. But turn it over + in your mind and give me your answer.” + + “George and I are to be married at the end of April. May is an + unlucky month. It shall be a week--even a fortnight--earlier, + if that fits in with your vacation, and you care to come. + See how obliging I am! I yield to you what I have refused to + Sir Harry. We shall try to persuade the Bishop to come and + open the church on the same day.” + + “Always your friend,” + “HONORIA.” + +5. + + “TREDINNIS, February 21. 18--.” + + “My Dear Taffy,--No, I am not offended in the least; but very + glad. I do not think you are fitted for the priesthood; but my + doubts have nothing to do with your doubts, which I don’t + understand, though you tried to explain them so carefully. + You will come through _them_, I expect. I don’t know that I + have any reasons that could be put on paper: only, somehow, I + cannot _see_ you in a black coat and clerical hat.” + + “You complain that I never write about George. You don’t + deserve to hear, since you refuse to come to our wedding. + But would _you_ talk, if you happened to be in love? There, I + have told you more than ever I told George, whose conceit has + to be kept down. Let this console you.” + + “Our new parson, when he comes, is to lodge down in Innis + Village. Your mother--but no doubt she has told you--stays in + the Parsonage while she pleases. She and your grandmother are + both well. I see her every day: I have so much to learn, and + she is so wise. Her beautiful eyes--but oh, Taffy, it must be + terrible to be a widow! She smiles and is always cheerful; but + the _look_ in them! How can I describe it? When I find her + alone with her lace-work, or sometimes (but it is not often) + with her hands in her lap, she seems to come out of her silence + with an effort, as others withdraw themselves from talk. + I wonder if she does talk in those silences of hers. + Another thing, it is only a few weeks now since she put on a + widow’s cap, and yet I cannot remember her--can scarcely + picture her--without it. I am sure that if I happened to call + one day when she had laid it aside, I should begin to talk + quite as if we were strangers.” + + “Believe me, yours sincerely,” + “HONORIA.” + +But the wedding, after all, did not take place until the beginning of +October, a week before the close of the Long Vacation; and Taffy, +after all, was present. The postponement had been enforced by many +delays in building and furnishing the new wing at Carwithiel; for Sir +Harry insisted that the young couple must live under one roof with +him, and Honoria (as we know) hated the very stones of Tredinnis. + +The Bishop came to spend a week in the neighbourhood; the first three +days as Honoria’s guest. On the Saturday he consecrated the work of +restoration in the church, and in the afternoon held a confirmation +service. Taffy and Honoria knelt together to receive his blessing. +It was the girl’s wish. The shadow of her responsibility to God and +man lay heavy on her during the few months before her marriage: and +Taffy, already weary and dispirited with his early doubtings, +suffered her mood of exaltation to overcome him like a wave and sweep +him back to rest for a while on the still waters of faith. +Together they listened while the Bishop discoursed on the dead +Vicar’s labours with fluency and feeling; with so much feeling, +indeed, that Taffy could not help wondering why his father had been +left to fight the battle alone. + +On the Sunday and Monday two near parishes claimed the Bishop. On the +Tuesday he sent his luggage over to Carwithiel, whither he was to +follow after the wedding service, to spend a day or two with Sir Harry. +It had been Honoria’s wish that George should choose Taffy for his +best man; but George had already invited one of his sporting friends, +a young Squire Philpotts from the eastern side of the Duchy; and as +the date fell at the beginning of the hunting season, he insisted on a +“pink” wedding. Honoria consulted the Bishop by letter. “Did he approve +of a ‘pink’ wedding so soon after the bride’s confirmation?” The Bishop +saw no harm in it. + +So a “pink” wedding it was, and the scarlet coats made a lively patch +of colour in the gray churchyard: but it gave Taffy a feeling that he +was left out in the cold. He escorted his mother to the church, and +left her for a few minutes in the Vicarage pew. The bridegroom and his +friends were gathered in a showy cluster by the chancel step, but the +bride had not arrived, and he stepped out to help in marshalling the +crowd of miners and mine-girls, fishermen, and mothers with unruly +children--a hundred or so in all, lining the path or straggling among +the graves. + +Close by the gate he came on a girl who stood alone. + +“Hullo, Lizzie--you here?” + +“Why not?” she asked, looking at him sullenly. + +“Oh, no reason at all.” + +“There might ha’ been a reason,” said she, speaking low and hurriedly. +“You might ha’ saved me from this, Mr. Raymond; and her too; one time, +you might.” + +“Why, what on earth is the matter?” He looked up. The Tredinnis +carriage and pair of grays came over the knoll at a smart trot, and +drew up before the gate. + +“Matter?” Lizzie echoed with a short laugh. “Oh, nuthin’. I’m goin’ to +lay the curse on her, that’s all.” + +“You shall not!” There was no time to lose. + +Honoria’s trustee--the second cousin from London, a tall, clean-shaven +man with a shiny bald head, and a shiny hat in his hand--had stepped +out and was helping the bride to alight. What Lizzie meant Taffy could +not tell; but there must be no scene. He caught her hand. “Mind--I say +you shall not!” he whispered. + +“Lemme go--you’re creamin’ my fingers.” + +“Be quiet then.” + +At that moment Honoria passed up the path. Her wedding gown almost +brushed him as he stood wringing Lizzie’s hand. She did not appear to +see him; but he saw her face beneath the bridal veil, and it was hard +and white. + +“The proud toad!” said Lizzie. “I’m no better’n dirt, I suppose, though +from the start she wasn’ above robbin’ me. Aw, she’s sly ... Mr. +Raymond, I’ll curse her as she comes out, see if I don’t!” + +“And I swear you shall not,” said Taffy. The scent of Honoria’s +orange-blossom seemed to cling about them as they stood. + +Lizzie looked at him vindictively. “You wanted her yourself, _I_ know. +You weren’t good enough, neither. Let go my fingers!” + +“Go home, now. See, the people have all gone in.” + +“Go’st way in too, then, and leave me here to wait for her.” + +Taffy shut his teeth, let go her hand, and taking her by the shoulders, +swung her round face toward the gate. + +“March!” he commanded, and she moved off whimpering. Once she looked +back. “March!” he repeated, and followed her down the road as one +follows and threatens a mutinous dog. + + +The scene by the church gate had puzzled Honoria, and in her first +letter (written from Italy) she came straight to the point, as her +custom was: + + “I hope there is nothing between you and that girl who used to + be at Joll’s. I say nothing about our hopes for you, but you + have your own career to look to; and as I know you are too + honourable to flatter an ignorant girl when you mean nothing, + so I trust you are too wise to be caught by a foolish fancy. + Forgive a staid matron (of one week’s standing) for writing so + plainly, but what I saw made me uneasy--without cause, no + doubt. Your future, remember, is not yours only. And now I + shall trust you, and never come back to this subject.” + + “We are like children abroad, George’s French is wonderful, but + not so wonderful as his Italian. When he goes to take a ticket + he first of all shouts the name of the station he wishes to + arrive at (for some reason he believes all foreigners to be + deaf), then he begins counting down francs one by one, very + slowly, watching the clerk’s face. When the clerk’s face tells + him he has doled out enough, he shouts ‘Hold hard!’ and + clutches the ticket. It takes time; but all the people here + are friends with him at once--especially the children, whom he + punches in the ribs and tells to ‘buck up.’ Their mothers nod + and smile and openly admire him; and I--well, I am happy and + want everyone else to be happy.” + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +MEN AS TOWERS. + +It was May morning, and Taffy made one of the group gathered on the +roof of Magdalen Tower. In the groves below and across the river +meadows all the birds were singing together. Beyond the glimmering +suburbs, St. Clement’s and Cowley St. John, over the dark rise by +Bullingdon Green, the waning moon seemed to stand still and wait, +poised on her nether horn. Below her the morning sky waited, clean +and virginal, letting her veil of mist slip lower and lower until it +rested in folds upon Shotover. While it dropped a shaft of light +tore through it and smote flashing on the vane high above Taffy’s +head, turning the dark side of the turrets to purple and casting +lilac shadows on the surplices of the choir. For a moment the whole +dewy shadow of the tower trembled on the western sky, and melted and +was gone as a flood of gold broke on the eastward-turned faces. +The clock below struck five and ceased. There was a sudden baring of +heads; a hush; and gently, borne aloft on boys’ voices, clear and +strong, rose the first notes of the hymn-- + + “Te Deum Patrem colimus, + Te laudibus prosequimur, + Qui corpus cibo reficis, + Coelesti mentem gratia.” + +In the pauses Taffy heard, faint and far below, the noise of cowhorns +blown by the street boys gathered at the foot of the tower and beyond +the bridge. Close beside him a small urchin of a chorister was +singing away with the face of an ecstatic seraph; whence that ecstasy +arose the urchin would have been puzzled to tell. There flashed into +Taffy’s brain the vision of the whole earth lauding and adoring-- +sun-worshippers and Christians, priests and small children; nation +after nation prostrating itself and arising to join the chant-- +“the differing world’s agreeing sacrifice.” Yes, it was Praise that +made men brothers; Praise, the creature’s first and last act of +homage to his Creator; Praise that made him kin with the angels. +Praise had lifted this tower; had expressed itself in its soaring +pinnacles; and he for the moment was incorporate with the tower and +part of its builder’s purpose. “Lord, make men as towers!”--he +remembered his father’s prayer in the field by Tewkesbury, and at +last he understood. “All towers carry a lamp of some kind”--why, of +course they did. He looked about him. The small chorister’s face +was glowing-- + + “Triune Deus, hominum + Salutis auctor optime, + Immensum hoc mysterium + Ovante lingua canimus!” + +Silence--and then with a shout the tunable bells broke forth, rocking +the tower. Someone seized Taffy’s college cap and sent it spinning +over the battlements. Caps? For a second or two they darkened the +sky like a flock of birds. A few gowns followed, expanding as they +dropped, like clumsy parachutes. The company--all but a few severe +dons and their friends--tumbled laughing down the ladder, down the +winding stair, and out into sunshine. The world was pagan after all. + + +At breakfast Taffy found a letter on his table, addressed in his +mother’s hand. As a rule she wrote twice a week, and this was not +one of the usual days for hearing from her. But nothing was too good +to happen that morning. He snatched up the letter and broke the +seal. + +“My dearest boy,” it ran, “I want you home at once to consult with +me. Something has happened (forgive me, dear, for not preparing you; +but the blow fell on me yesterday so suddenly)--something which makes +it doubtful, and more than doubtful, that you can continue at Oxford. +And something else _they say_ has happened which I will never believe +in unless I hear it from my boy’s lips. I have this comfort, at any +rate, that he will never tell me a falsehood. This is a matter which +cannot be explained by letter, and cannot wait until the end of term. +Come home quickly, dear; for until you are here I can have no peace +of mind.” + +So once again Taffy travelled homewards by the night mail. + + +“Mother, it’s a lie!” + +Taffy’s face was hot, but he looked straight into his mother’s eyes. +She too was rosy-red: being ever a shamefast woman. And to speak of +these things to her own boy-- + +“Thank God!” she murmured, and her fingers gripped the arms of her +chair. + +“It’s a lie! Where is the girl?” + +“She is in the workhouse, I believe. I don’t know who spread it, or +how many have heard. But Honoria believes it.” + +“Honoria! She cannot--” He came to a sudden halt. “But, mother, +even supposing Honoria believes it, I don’t see--” + +He was looking straight at her. Her eyes sank. Light began to break +in on him. + +“Mother!” + +Humility did not look up. + +“Mother! Don’t tell me that she--that Honoria--” + +“She made us promise--your father and me.... God knows it did no +more than repay what your father had suffered.... Your future was +everything to us....” + +“And I have been maintained at Oxford by her money,” he said, pausing +in his bitterness on every word. + +“Not by that only, Taffy! There was your scholarship... and it +was true about my savings on the lace-work....” + +But he brushed her feeble explanations away with a little gesture of +impatience. “Oh why, mother?--Oh why?” + +She heard him groan and stretched out her arms. + +“Taffy, forgive me--forgive us! We did wrongly, I see--I see it as +plain now as you. But we did it for your sake.” + +“You should have told me. I was not a child. Yes, yes, you should +have told me.” + +Yes; there lay the truth. They had treated him as a child when he +was no longer a child. They had swathed him round with love, +forgetting that boys grow and demand to see with their own eyes and +walk on their own feet. To every mother of sons there comes sooner +or later the sharp lesson which came to Humility that morning; and +few can find any defence but that which Humility stammered, sitting +in her chair and gazing piteously up at the tall youth confronting +her: “I did it for your sake.” Be pitiful, oh accusing sons, in that +hour! For, terrible as your case may be against them, your mothers +are speaking the simple truth. + +Taffy took her hand. “The money must be paid back, every penny of +it.” + +“Yes, dear.” + +“How much?” + +Humility kept a small account-book in the work-box beside her. +She opened the pages, but, seeing his outstretched hand, gave it +obediently to Taffy, who took it to the window. + +“Almost two hundred pounds.” He knit his brows and began to drum with +his fingers on the window-pane. “And we must put the interest at +five per cent.... With my first in Moderations I might find some +post as an usher in a small school.... There’s an agency which +puts you in the way of such things: I must look up the address.... +We will leave this house, of course.” + +“Must we?” + +“Why of course we must. We are living here by _her_ favour. +A cottage will do--only it must have four rooms, because of +grandmother.... I will step over and talk with Mendarva. +He may be able to give me a job. It will keep me going, at any rate, +until I hear from the agency.” + +“You forget that I have over forty pounds a year--or, rather, mother +has. The capital came from the sale of her farm, years ago.” + +“Did it?” said Taffy grimly. “You forget that I have never been +told. Well, that’s good, so far as it goes. But now I’ll step over +and see Mendarva. If only I could catch this cowardly lie somewhere +on my way!” + +He kissed his mother, caught up his cap, and flung out of the house. +The sea breeze came humming across the sandhills. He opened his +lungs to it, and it was wine to his blood; he felt strong enough to +slay dragons. “But who could the liar be? Not Lizzie herself, +surely! Not--” + +He pulled up short in a hollow of the towans. + +“Not--George?” + +Treachery is a hideous thing; and to youth so incomprehensibly +hideous that it darkens the sun. Yet every trusting man must be +betrayed. That was one of the lessons of Christ’s life on earth. +It is the last and severest test; it kills many, morally, and no man +who has once met and looked it in the face departs the same man, +though he may be a stronger one. + +“_Not George?_” + +Taffy stood there so still that the rabbits crept out and, catching +sight of him, paused in the mouths of their burrows. When at length +he moved on it was to take, not the path which wound inland to +Mendarva’s, but the one which led straight over the higher moors to +Carwithiel. + +It was between one and two o’clock when he reached the house and +asked to see Mr. and Mrs. George Vyell, They were not at home, the +footman said; had left for Falmouth the evening before to join some +friends on a yachting cruise. Sir Harry was at home; was, indeed, +lunching at that moment; but would no doubt be pleased to see Mr. +Raymond. + +Sir Harry had finished his lunch, and sat sipping his claret and +tossing scraps of biscuits to the dogs. + +“Hullo, Raymond!--thought you were in Oxford. Sit down, my boy; +delighted to see you. Thomas, a knife and fork for Mr. Raymond. +The cutlets are cold, I’m afraid; but I can recommend the cold +saddle, and the ham--it’s a York ham. Go to the sideboard and forage +for yourself. I wanted company. My boy and Honoria are at Falmouth +yachting, and have left me alone. What, you won’t eat? A glass of +claret, then, at any rate.” + +“To tell the truth, Sir Harry,” Taffy began awkwardly. “I’ve come on +a disagreeable business.” + +Sir Harry’s face fell. He hated disagreeable business. He flipped a +piece of biscuit at his spaniel’s nose and sat back, crossing his +legs. + +“Won’t it keep?” + +“To me it’s important.” + +“Oh, fire away then: only help yourself to the claret first.” + +“A girl--Lizzie Pezzack, living over at Langona--has had a child +born--” + +“Stop a moment. Do I know her?--Ah, to be sure--daughter of old +Pezzack, the light-keeper--a brown-coloured girl with her hair over +her eyes. Well, I’m not surprised. Wants money, I suppose? +Who’s the father?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“Well, but--damn it all!--somebody knows.” Sir Harry reached for the +bottle and refilled his glass. + +“The one thing I know is that Honoria--Mrs. George, I mean--has heard +about it, and suspects me.” + +Sir Harry lifted his glass and glanced at him over the rim. +“That’s the devil. Does she, now?” He sipped. “She hasn’t been +herself for a day or two--this explains it. I thought it was change +of air she wanted. She’s in the deuce of a rage, you bet.” + +“She is,” said Taffy grimly. + +“There’s no prude like your young married woman. But it’ll blow +over, my boy. My advice to you is to keep out of the way for a +while.” + +“But--but it’s a lie!” broke in the indignant Taffy. “As far as I am +concerned there’s not a grain of truth in it!” + +“Oh--I beg your pardon, I’m sure.” Here Honoria’s terrier (the one +which George had bought for her at Plymouth) interrupted by begging +for a biscuit, and Sir Harry balanced one carefully on its nose. +“On trust--good dog! What does the girl say herself?” + +“I don’t know. I’ve not seen her.” + +“Then, my dear fellow--it’s awkward, I admit--but I’m dashed if I see +what you expect me to do.” The baronet pulled out a handkerchief and +began flicking the crumbs off his knees. + +Taffy watched him for a minute in silence. He was asking himself why +he had come. Well, he had come in a hot fit of indignation, meaning +to face Honoria and force her to take back the insult of her +suspicion. But after all--suppose George were at the bottom of it? +Clearly Sir Henry knew nothing, and in any case could not be asked to +expose his own son. And Honoria? Let be that she would never +believe--that he had no proof, no evidence even--this were a pretty +way of beginning to discharge his debt to her! The terrier thrust a +cold muzzle against his hand. The room was very still. Sir Harry +poured out another glassful and held out the decanter. “Come, you +must drink; I insist!” + +Taffy looked up. “Thank you, I will.” + +He could now and with a clear conscience. In those quiet moments he +had taken the great resolution. The debt should be paid back, and +with interest; not at five per cent., but at a rate beyond the +creditor’s power of reckoning. For the interest to be guarded for +her should be her continued belief in the man she loved. Yes, +_but if George were innocent?_ Why, then the sacrifice would be +idle; that was all. + +He swallowed the wine, and stood up. + +“Must you be going? I wanted a chat with you about Oxford,” grumbled +Sir Harry; but noting the lad’s face, how white and drawn it was, he +relented, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take it too +seriously, my boy. It’ll blow over--it’ll blow over. Honoria likes +you, I know. We’ll see what the trollop says: and if I get a chance +of putting in a good word, you may depend on me.” + +He walked with Taffy to the door--good, easy man--and waved a hand +from the porch. On the whole, he was rather glad than not to see his +young friend’s back. + + +From his smithy window Mendarva spied Taffy coming along the road, +and stepped out on the green to shake hands with him. + +“Pleased to see your face, my son! You’ll excuse my not asking +’ee inside; but the fact is”--he jerked his thumb towards the +smithy--“we’ve a-got our troubles in there.” + +It came on our youth with something of a shock that the world had +room for any trouble beside his own. + +“’Tis the Dane. He went over to Truro yesterday to the wrastlin’, +an’ got thrawed. I tell’n there’s no call to be shamed. ’Twas Luke +the Wendron fella did it--in the treble play--inside lock backward, +and as pretty a chip as ever I see.” Mendarva began to illustrate it +with foot and ankle, but checked himself, and glanced nervously over +his shoulder. “Isn’ lookin’, I hope? He’s in a terrible pore about +it. Won’t trust hissel’ to spake, and don’t want to see nobody. +But, as I tell’n, there’s no call to be shamed; the fella took the +belt in the las’ round, and turned his man over like a tab. He’s a +proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank ’pon en both ends, and +he’ll rise up in the middle and look at ’ee. There was no one a +patch on en but the Dane; and I’ll back the Dane next time they +clinch. ’Tis a nuisance, though, to have’n like this--with a big job +coming on, too, over to the light-house.” + +Taffy looked steadily at the smith. “What’s doing at the +light-house?” + +“Ha’n’t ’ee heerd?” Mendarva began a long tale, the sum of which was +that the light-house had begun of late to show signs of age, to rock +at times in an ominous manner. The Trinity House surveyor had been +down and reported, and Mendarva had the contract for some immediate +repairs. “But ’tis patching an old kettle, my son. The foundations +be clamped down to the rock, and the clamps have worked loose. +The whole thing’ll have to come down in the end; you mark my words.” + +“But, these repairs?” Taffy interrupted: “You’ll be wanting hands.” + +“Why, o’ course.” + +“And a foreman--a clerk of the works--” + + +While Mendarva was telling his tale, over a hill two miles to the +westward a small donkey-cart crawled for a minute against the +sky-line and disappeared beyond the ridge which hid the towans. +An old man trudged at the donkey’s head; and a young woman sat in the +cart with a bundle in her arms. + +The old man trudged along so deep in thought that when the donkey +without rhyme or reason came to a halt, half-way down the hill, he +too halted, and stood pulling a wisp of grey side-whiskers. + +“Look here,” he said. “You ent goin’ to tell? That’s your las’ +word, is it?” + +The young woman looked down on the bundle and nodded her head. + +“There, that’ll do. If you weant, you weant; I’ve tek’n ’ee back, +an’ us must fit and make the best o’t. The cheeld’ll never be good +for much--born lame like that. But ’twas to be, I s’pose.” + +Lizzie sat dumb, but hugged the bundle closer. + +“’Tis like a judgment. If your mother’d been spared, ’twudn’ have +happened. But ’twas to be, I s’pose. The Lord’s ways be past +findin’ out.” + +He woke up and struck the donkey across the rump. + +“Gwan you! Gee up! What d’ee mean by stoppin’ like that?” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP. + +The Chief Engineer of the Trinity House was a man of few words. +He and Taffy had spent the afternoon clambering about the rocks below +the light-house, peering into its foundations. Here and there, where +weed coated the rocks and made foothold slippery, he took the hand +which Taffy held out. Now and then he paused for a pinch of snuff. +The round of inspection finished, he took an extraordinarily long +pinch. + +“What’s _your_ opinion?” he asked, cocking his head on one side and +examining the young man much as he had examined the light-house. +“You have one, I suppose?” + +“Yes, sir; but of course it doesn’t count for much.” + +“I asked for it.” + +“Well, then, I think, sir, we have wasted a year’s work; and if we go +on tinkering we shall waste more.” + +“Pull it down and rebuild, you say?” + +“Yes, sir; but not on the same rock.” + +“Why?” + +“This rock was ill-chosen. You see, sir, just here a ridge of elvan +crops up through the slate; the rock, out yonder, is good elvan, and +that is why the sea has made an island of it, wearing away the softer +stuff inshore. The mischief here lies in the rock, not in the +light-house.” + +“The sea has weakened our base?” + +“Partly: but the light-house has done more. In a strong gale the +foundations begin to work, and in the chafing the rock gets the worst +of it.” + +“What about concrete?” + +“You might fill up the sockets with concrete; but I doubt, sir, if +the case would hold for any time. The rock is a mere shell in +places, especially on the north-western side.” + +“H’m. You were at Oxford for a time, were you not?” + +“Yes, sir,” Taffy answered, wondering. + +“I’ve heard about you. Where do you live?” + +Taffy pointed to the last of a line of three whitewashed cottages +behind the light-house. + +“Alone?” + +“No, sir; with my mother and my grandmother. She is an invalid.” + +“I wonder if your mother would be kind enough to offer me a cup of +tea?” + +In the small kitchen, on the walls of which, and even on the dresser, +Taffy’s books fought for room with Humility’s plates and tin-ware, +the Chief Engineer proved to be a most courteous old gentleman. +Towards Humility he bore himself with an antique politeness which +flattered her considerably. And when he praised her tea she almost +forgave him for his detestable habit of snuff-taking. + +He had heard something (it appeared) from the President of Taffy’s +college, and also from--(he named Taffy’s old friend in the velvet +college-cap). In later days Taffy maintained not only that every man +must try to stand alone, but that he ought to try the harder because +of its impossibility; for in fact it was impossible to escape from +men’s helpfulness. And though his work was done in lonely places +where in the end fame came out to seek him, he remained the same boy +who, waking in the dark, had heard the bugles speaking comfort. + +As a matter of fact his college had generously offered him a chance +which would have cost him nothing or next to nothing, of continuing +to read for his degree. But he had chosen his line, and against +Humility’s entreaties he stuck to it. The Chief Engineer took a +ceremonious leave. He had to drive back to his hotel, and Taffy +escorted him to his carriage. + +“I shall run over again to-morrow,” he said at parting; “and we’ll +have a look at that island rock.” He was driven off, secretly a +little puzzled. + +Well, it puzzled Taffy at times why he should be working here with +Mendarva’s men for twenty shillings a week (it had been eighteen, to +begin with) when he might be reading for his degree and a fellowship. +Yet in his heart he knew the reason. _That_ would be building, after +all, on the foundations which Honoria had laid. + +Pride had helped chance to bring him here, to the very spot where +Lizzie Pezzack lived. He met her daily, and several times a day. +She, and his mother and grandmother, were all the women-folk in the +hamlet--if three cottages deserve that name. In the first cottage +Lizzie lived with her father, who was chief light-houseman, and her +crippled child; two under-keepers, unmarried men, managed together in +the second; and this accident allowed Taffy to rent the third from +the Brethren of the Trinity House and live close to his daily work. +Unless brought by business, no one visited that windy peninsula; no +one passed within sight of it; no tree grew upon it or could be seen +from it. At daybreak Taffy’s workmen came trudging along the track +where the short turf and gentians grew between the wheel-ruts; and in +the evening went trudging back, the level sun flashing on their empty +dinner-cans. The eight souls left behind had one common gospel-- +Cleanliness. Very little dust found its way thither; but the salt, +spray-laden air kept them constantly polishing window-panes and +brass-work. To wash, to scour, to polish, grew into the one +absorbing business of life. They had no gossip; even in their own +dwellings they spoke but little; their speech shrank and dwindled +away in the continuous roar of the sea. But from morning to night, +mechanically, they washed and scoured and polished. Paper was not +whiter than the deal table and dresser which Humility scrubbed daily +with soap and water, and once a week with lemon-juice as well. +Never was cleaner linen to sight and smell than that which she pegged +out by the furze-brake on the ridge. All the life of the small +colony, though lonely, grew wholesome as it was simple of purpose in +cottages thus sweetened and kept sweet by limewash and the salt wind. + +And through it moved the forlorn figure of Lizzie Pezzack’s child. +Somehow Lizzie had taught the boy to walk, with the help of a crutch, +as early as most children; but the wind made cruel sport with his +first efforts in the open, knocking the crutch from under him at +every third step, and laying him flat. The child had pluck, however; +and when autumn came round again, could face a fairly stiff breeze. + + +It was about this time that word came of the Trinity Board’s +intention to replace the old lighthouse with one upon the outer rock. +For the Chief Engineer had visited it and decided that Taffy was +right. To be sure no mention was made of Taffy in his report; but +the great man took the first opportunity to offer him the post of +foreman of the works, so there was certainly nothing to be grumbled +at. The work did not actually start until the following spring; for +the rock, to receive the foundations, had to be bored some feet below +high-water level, and this could only be attempted on calm days or +when a southerly wind blew from the high land well over the workmen’s +heads, leaving the inshore water smooth. On such days Taffy, looking +up from his work, would catch sight of a small figure on the +cliff-top leaning aslant to the wind and watching. + +For the child was adventurous and took no account of his lameness. +Perhaps if he thought of it at all, having no chance to compare +himself with other children, he accepted his lameness as a condition +of childhood--something he would grow out of. His mother could not +keep him indoors; he fidgeted continually. But he would sit or stand +quiet by the hour on the cliff-top watching the men as they drilled +and fixed the dynamite, and waiting for the bang of it. Best of all, +however, were the days when his grandfather allowed him inside the +light-house, to clamber about the staircase and ladders, to watch the +oiling and trimming of the great lantern, and the ships moving slowly +on the horizon. He asked a thousand questions about them. + +“I think,” said he one day before he was three years old, “that my +father is in one of those ships.” + +“Bless the child!” exclaimed old Pezzack. “Who says you have a +father?” + +“_Everybody_ has a father. Dicky Tregenza has one; they both work +down at the rock. I asked Dicky, and he told me.” + +“Told ’ee what?” + +“That everybody has a father. I asked him if mine was out in one of +those ships, and he said very likely. I asked mother, too, but she +was washing-up and wouldn’t listen.” + +Old Pezzack regarded the child grimly. “’Twas to be, I s’pose,” he +muttered. + +Lizzie Pezzack had never set foot inside the Raymonds’ cottage. +Humility, gentle soul as she was, could on some points be as +unchristian as other women. As time went on it seemed that not a +soul beside herself and Taffy knew of Honoria’s suspicion. She even +doubted, and Taffy doubted too, if Lizzie herself knew such an +accusation had been made. Certainly never by word or look had Lizzie +hinted at it. Yet Humility could not find it in her heart to +forgive her. “She may be innocent,” was the thought; “but through +her came the injury to my son.” Taffy by this time had no doubt at +all. It was George who poisoned Honoria’s ear; George’s shame and +Honoria’s pride would explain why the whisper had never gone +further; and nothing else would explain. + +Did his mother guess this? He believed so at times, but they never +spoke of it. + +The lame child was often in the Raymonds’ kitchen. Lizzie did not +forbid or resent this. And he liked Humility, and would talk to her +at length while he nibbled one of her dripping-cakes. “People don’t +tell the truth,” he observed sagely on one of these occasions. +(He pronounced it “troof,” by the way.) “_I_ know why we live here. +It’s because we’re near the sea. My father’s on the sea somewhere +looking for us, and grandfather lights the lamp every night to tell +him where we are. One night he’ll see it and bring his ship in and +take us all off together.” + +“Who told you all this?” + +“Nobody. People won’t tell me nothing (nofing). I has to make it +out in my head.” + +At times, when his small limbs grew weary (though he never +acknowledged this) he would stretch himself on the short turf of the +headland and lie staring up at the white gulls. No one ever came +near enough to surprise the look which then crept over the child’s +face. But Taffy, passing him at a distance, remembered another small +boy, and shivered to remember and compare-- + + “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, + And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” + +--But how when the boy is a cripple? + +One afternoon he was stooping to inspect an obstinate piece of boring +when the man at his elbow said: + +“Hullo! edn’ that young Joey Pezzack in diffities up there? Blest if +the cheeld won’t break his neck wan of these days!” + +Taffy caught up a coil of rope, sprang into a boat, and pushed across +to land. “Don’t move!” he shouted. At the foot of the cliff he +picked up Joey’s crutch and ran at full speed up the path worn by the +workmen. This led him round to the verge ten feet above the ledge +where the child clung white and silent. He looped the rope in a +running noose and lowered it. + +“Slip this under your arms. Can you manage, or shall I come down? +I’ll come if you’re hurt.” + +“I’ve twisted my foot. It’s all right, now you’re come,” said the +little man bravely; and slid the rope round himself in the most +business-like way. + +“The grass was slipper--” he began, as soon as his feet touched firm +earth: and with that he broke down and fell to sobbing in Taffy’s +arms. + +Taffy carried him--a featherweight--to the cottage where Lizzie stood +by her table washing up. She saw them at the gate and came running +out. + +“It’s all right. He slipped--out on the cliff. Nothing more than a +scratch or two, and perhaps a sprained ankle.” + +He watched while she set Joey in a chair and began to pull off his +stockings. He had never seen the child’s foot naked. She turned +suddenly, caught him looking, and pulled the stocking back over the +deformity. + +“Have you heard?” she asked. + +“What?” + +“_She_ has a boy! Ah!” she laughed harshly, “I thought that would +hurt you. Well, you _have_ been a silly!” + +“I don’t think I understand.” + +“You don’t think you understand!” she mimicked. “And you’re not fond +of her, eh? Never were fond of her, eh? You silly--to let him take +her, and never tell!” + +“Tell?” + +She faced him, hardening her gaze. “Yes, tell--” She nodded slowly; +while Joey, unobserved by either, looked up with wide, round eyes. + +“Men don’t fight like that.” The words were out before it struck him +that one man had, almost certainly, fought like that. Her face, +however, told him nothing. She could not know. “_You_ have never +told,” he added. + +“Because--” she began, but could not tell him the whole truth. +And yet what he said was true. “Because you would not let me,” she +muttered. + +“In the churchyard, you mean--on her wedding day?” + +“Before that.” + +“But before that I never guessed.” + +“All the same I knew what you were. You wouldn’ have let me. +It came to the same thing. And if I had told--Oh, you make it hard +for me!” she wailed. + +He stared at her, understanding this only--that somehow he could +control her will. + +“I will never let you tell,” he said gravely. + +“I hate her!” + +“You shall not tell.” + +“Listen”--she drew close and touched his arm. “He never cared for +her; it’s not his way to care. She cares for him now, I dessay--not +as she might have cared for _you_--but she’s his wife, and some women +are like that. There’s her pride, any way. Suppose--suppose he came +back to me?” + +“If I caught him--” Taffy began: but the poor child, who for two +minutes had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a +wail: + +“Oh, mother! my foot--it hurts so!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +FACE TO FACE. + +The first winter had interrupted all work upon the rock; but Taffy +and his men had used the calm days of the following spring and summer +to such purpose that before the end of July the foundations began to +show above high-water neaps, and in September he was able to report +that the building could be pushed forward in any ordinary weather. +The workmen were carried to and from the mainland by a wire hawser +and cradle, and the rising breastwork of masonry protected them from +the beat of the sea. Progress was slow, for each separate stone had +to be dovetailed above, below, and on all sides with the blocks +adjoining it, besides being cemented; and care to be taken that no +salt mingled with the fresh water, or found its way into the joints +of the building. Taffy studied the barometer hour by hour, and kept +a constant look-out to windward against sudden gales. + +On November 16th the men had finished their dinner, and sat smoking +under the lee of the wall, when Taffy, with his pocket-aneroid in his +hand, gave the order to snug down and man the cradle for shore. +They stared. The morning had been a halcyon one; and the northerly +breeze, which had sprung up with the turn of the tide and was +freshening, carried no cloud across the sky. Two vessels, +a brigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching +down-channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles’ +distance they could see distinctly the white foam running from her +bluff bows, and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as she +heeled to it. + +One or two grumbled. Half a day’s work meant half a day’s pay to +them. It was all very well for the Cap’n, who drew his by the week. + +“Come, look alive!” Taffy called sharply. He pinned his faith to +the barometer, and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the +brigantine and saw that her crew were busy with the braces, +flattening the forward canvas. “See there, boys. There’ll be a gale +from the west’ard before night.” + +For a minute the brigantine seemed to have run into a calm. +The schooner, half a mile behind her, came reaching along steadily. + +“That there two-master’s got a fool for a skipper,” grumbled a voice. +But almost at the moment the wind took her right aback--or would have +done so had the crew not been preparing for it. Her stern swung +slowly around into view, and within two minutes she was fetching away +from them on the port tack, her sails hauled closer and closer as she +went. Already the schooner was preparing to follow suit. + +“Snug down, boys! We must be out of this in half an hour.” + +And sure enough, by the time Taffy gained the cliff by the old +light-house, the sky had darkened, and a stiff breeze from the +north-west, crossing the tide, was beginning to work up a nasty sea +around the rock and lop it from time to time over the masonry and the +platforms where half an hour before his men had been standing. +The two vessels had disappeared in the weather; and as Taffy stared +in their direction a spit of rain--the first--took him viciously in +the face. + +He turned his back to it and hurried homeward. As he passed the +light-house door old Pezzack called out to him: + +“Hi! wait a bit! Would ’ee mind seein’ Joey home? I dunno what his +mother sent him over here for, not I. He’ll get hisself leakin’.” + +Joey came hobbling out, and put his right hand in Taffy’s with the +fist doubled. + +“What’s that in your hand?” + +Joey looked up shyly. “You won’t tell?” + +“Not if it’s a secret.” + +The child opened his palm and disclosed a bright half-crown piece. + +“Where on earth did you get that?” + +“The soldier gave it to me.” + +“The soldier? nonsense! What tale are you making up?” + +“Well, he had a red coat, so he _must_ be a soldier. He gave it to +me, and told me to be a good boy and run off and play.” + +Taffy came to a halt. “Is he here--up at the cottages?” + +“How funnily you say that! No, he’s just rode away. I watched him +from the light-house windows. He can’t be gone far yet.” + +“Look here, Joey--can you run?” + +“Yes, if you hold my hand; only you mustn’t go too fast. Oh, you’re +hurting!” + +Taffy took the child in his arms, and with the wind at his back went +up the hill with long stride. “There he is!” cried Joey as they +gained the ridge; and he pointed; and Taffy, looking along the ridge, +saw a speck of scarlet moving against the lead-coloured moors--half a +mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the +cottages were close by. “Run home, sonny. I’m going to have a look +at the soldier, too.” + +The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to +run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and +within a quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin. +So fiercely it went howling inland along the ridge that he half +expected to see the horse urged into a gallop before it. But the +rider, now standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went +plodding on. For a while horse and man disappeared over the rise; +but Taffy guessed that on hitting the cross-path beyond it they would +strike away to the left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he +began to slant his course to the left in anticipation. The tide, he +knew, would be running in strong; and with this wind behind it he +hoped--and caught himself praying--that it would be high enough to +cover the wooden foot-bridge and make the ford impassable; and if so, +the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and fetch a +circuit farther up the valley. + +By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other’s heels, and +the strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost +his hat, and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots. +But all he felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there +little by little for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his +silent thoughts as a reservoir by small mountain streams; and with so +tranquil a surface that at times--poor youth!--he had honestly +believed it reflected God’s calm, had been proud of his magnanimity, +and said “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass +against us.” Now as he ran he prayed to the same God to delay the +traitor at the ford. + +Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the +sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when the +small waves lapped against his mare’s fore-feet, he heard Taffy’s +shout for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a +second or two before he recognised the figure which came plunging +down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches +at the swaying elder boughs. + +“Hello!” he shouted cheerfully. “Looks nasty, doesn’t it?” + +Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare’s legs +were plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy’s face. + +“Get down,” he panted. + +“Hey?” + +“Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse and put up your fists!” + +“What the devil is the matter? Hello!... Keep off, I tell you! +Are you mad?” + +“Come off and fight.” + +“By God, I’ll break your head in if you don’t let go.... You +idiot!”--as the mare plunged and tore the stirrup-leather from +Taffy’s grip--“She’ll brain you, if you fool round her heels like +that!” + +“Come off, then.” + +“Very well.” George backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle +and faced him on the beach. “Now perhaps you’ll explain.” + +“You’ve come from the headland?” + +“Well?” + +“From Lizzie Pezzack’s.” + +“Well, and what then?” + +“Only this, that so sure as you’ve a wife at home, if you come to the +headland again I’ll kill you; and if you’re a man, you’ll put up your +fists now.” + +“Oh, that’s it? May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with +Lizzie Pezzack?” + +“Whose child is Lizzie’s?” + +“Not yours, is it?” + +“You said so once; you told your wife so; liar that you were.” + +“Very good, my gentleman. You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!” +He led her up the beach and sought for a branch to tie his reins to. +The mare hung back, terrified by the swishing of the whipped boughs +and the roar of the gale overhead: her hoofs, as George dragged her +forward, scuffled with the loose-lying stones on the beach. After a +minute he desisted and turned on Taffy again. + +“Look here; before we have this out there’s one thing I’d like to +know. When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you there?” + +“If you must know--yes.” + +“And when--when this happened, she stopped the supplies?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, then, I didn’t know it. She never told me.” + +“She never told _me_.” + +“You don’t say--” + +“I do. I never knew it until too late.” + +“Well, now, I’m going to fight you. I don’t swallow being called a +liar. But I tell you this first, that I’m damned sorry. I never +guessed that it injured your prospects.” + +At another time, in another mood, Taffy might have remembered that +George was George, and heir to Sir Harry’s nature. As it was, the +apology threw oil on the flame. + +“You cur! Do you think it was _that?_ And _you_ are Honoria’s +husband!” He advanced with an ugly laugh. “For the last time, put up +your fists.” + +They had been standing within two yards of each other; and even so, +shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above +the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip. +His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was +dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against +sudden attack. + +But as he did so his face and uplifted arm were suddenly painted +clear against the darkness. The mare plunged more wildly than ever. +Taffy dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him, the black +contour of the hill, the whole sky welled up a pale blue light which +gathered brightness while he stared. The very stones on the beach at +his feet shone separate and distinct. + +“What is it?” George gasped. + +“A ship on the rocks! Quick, man! Will the mare reach to Innis?” + +“She’ll have to.” George wheeled her round. She was fagged out with +two long gallops after hounds that day, but for the moment sheer +terror made her lively enough. + +“Ride, then! Call up the coast-guard. By the flare she must be +somewhere off the creek here. Ride!” + +A clatter of hoofs answered him as the mare pounded up the lane. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +THE WRECK OF THE “SAMARITAN.” + +Taffy stood for a moment listening. He judged the wreck to be +somewhere on the near side of the light-house, between it and the +mouth of the creek; that was, if she had already struck. If not, the +gale and the set of the tide together would be sweeping her eastward, +perhaps right across the mouth of the creek. And if he could +discover this his course would be to run back, intercept the +coast-guard, and send him around by the upper bridge. + +He waited for a second signal to guide him--a flare or a rocket: but +none came. The beach lay in the lew of the weather, deep in the +hills’ hollow and trebly land-locked by the windings of the creek, +but above him the sky kept its screaming as though the bare ridges of +the headland were being shelled by artillery. + +He resolved to keep along the lower slopes and search his way down to +the creek’s mouth, when he would have sight of any signal shown along +the coast for a mile or two to the east and north-east. The night +was now as black as a wolf’s throat, but he knew every path and +fence. So he scrambled up the low cliff and began to run, following +the line of stunted oaks and tamarisks which fenced it, and on the +ridges--where the blown hail took him in the face--crouching and +scuttling like a crab sideways, moving his legs only from the knees +down. + +In this way he had covered half a mile and more when his right foot +plunged in a rabbit hole and he was pitched headlong into the +tamarisks below. Their boughs bent under his weight, but they were +tough, and he caught at them, and just saved himself from rolling +over into the black water. He picked himself up and began to rub his +twisted ankle. And at that instant, in a lull between two gusts, his +ear caught the sound of splashing, yet a sound so unlike the lapping +of the driven tide that he peered over and down between the tamarisk +boughs. + +“Hullo there!” + +“Hullo!” a voice answered. “Is that someone alive? Here, mate--for +Christ’s sake!” + +“Hold on! Whereabouts are you?” + +“Down in this here cruel water.” The words ended in a shuddering +cough. + +“Right--hold on for a moment!” Taffy’s ankle pained him, but the +wrench was not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down, +clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. “Where are +you? I can’t see.” + +“Here!” The voice was not a dozen yards away. + +“Swimming?” + +“No--I’ve got a water-breaker--can’t hold on much longer.” + +“I believe you can touch bottom there.” + +“Hey? I can’t hear.” + +“Try to touch bottom. It’s firm sand hereabouts.” + +“So I can.” The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close. +Taffy stretched out a hand. A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it +in the darkness. + +“Christ! Where’s a place to lie down?” + +“Here, on this rock.” They peered at each other, but could not see. +The man’s teeth chattered close to Taffy’s ear. + +“Warm my hands, mate--there’s a good chap.” He lay on the rock and +panted. Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly. + +“Where’s the ship?” + +“Where’s the ship?” He seemed to turn over the question in his mind, +and then stretched himself with a sigh. “How the hell should I +know?” + +“What’s her name?” Taffy had to ask the question twice. + +“The _Samaritan_, of Newport, brigantine. Coals she carried. +Ha’n’t you such a thing as a match? It seems funny to me, talkin’ +here like this, and me not knowin’ you from Adam.” + +He panted between the words, and when he had finished lay back and +panted again. + +“Hurt?” asked Taffy after a while. + +The man sat up and began to feel his limbs, quite as though they +belonged to some other body. “No, I reckon not.” + +“Then we’d best be starting. The tide’s rising. My house is just +above here.” + +He led the way along the slippery foreshore until he found what he +sought, a foot-track slanting up the cliff. Here he gave the sailor +a hand and they mounted together. On the grass slope above they met +the gale and were forced to drop on their hands and knees and crawl, +Taffy leading and shouting instructions, the sailor answering each +with “Ay, ay, mate!” to show that he understood. + +But about half-way up these answers ceased, and Taffy, looking round +and calling, found himself alone. He groped his way back for twenty +yards, and found the man stretched on his face and moaning. + +“I can’t... I can’t! My poor brother! I can’t!” + +Taffy knelt beside him on the soaking turf. “Your brother? Had you +a brother on board?” + +The man bowed his face again upon the turf. Taffy, upright on both +knees, heard him sobbing like a child in the roaring darkness. + +“Come,” he coaxed, and putting out a hand, touched his wet hair. +“Come.” They crept forward again, but still as he followed the +sailor cried for his drowned brother, up the long slope to the ridge +of the headland, where, with the light-house and warm cottage windows +in view, all speech and hearing were drowned by stinging hail and the +blown grit of the causeway. + +Humility opened the door to them. + +“Taffy! Where have you been?” + +“There has been a wreck.” + +“Yes, yes--the coast-guard is down by the light-house. The men there +saw her before she struck. They kept signalling till it fell dark. +They had sent off before that.” + +She drew back, shrinking against the dresser as the lamplight fell on +the stranger. Taffy turned and stared too. The man’s face was +running with blood; and looking at his own hands he saw that they +also were scarlet. + +He helped the poor wretch to a chair. + +“Bandages: can you manage?” She nodded, and stepped to a cupboard. +The sailor began to wail again like an infant. + +“See--above the temple here: the cut isn’t serious.” Taffy took down +a lantern and lit it. The candle shone red through the smears his +fingers left on the horn panes. “I must go and help, if you can +manage.” + +“I can manage,” she answered quietly. + +He strode out, and closing the door behind him with an effort, faced +the gale again. Down in the lee of the light-house the lamps of the +coast-guard carriage gleamed foggily through the rain. The men were +there discussing, George among them. He had just galloped up. + +The Chief Officer went off to question the survivor, while the rest +began their search. They searched all that night; they burned flares +and shouted; their torches dotted the cliffs. After an hour the Chief +Officer returned. He could make nothing of the sailor, who had fallen +silly from exhaustion or the blow on his head; but he divided his men +into three parties, and they began to hunt more systematically. Taffy +was told off to help the westernmost gang and search the rocks below +the light-house. Once or twice he and his comrades paused in their +work, hearing, as they thought, a cry for help. But when they listened, +it was only one of the other parties hailing. + +The gale began to abate soon after midnight, and before dawn had blown +itself out. Day came, filtered slowly through the wrack of it to the +south-east; and soon they heard a whistle blown, and there on the cliff +above them was George Vyell on horseback, in his red coat, with an arm +thrown out and pointing eastward. He turned and galloped off in that +direction. + +They scrambled up and followed. To their astonishment, after following +the cliffs for a few hundred yards, he headed inland, down and across +the very slope up which Taffy had crawled with the sailor. + +They lost sight of his red coat among the ridges. Two or three-- Taffy +amongst them--ran along the upper ground for a better view. + +“Well, this beats all!” panted the foremost. + +Below them George came into view again, heading now at full gallop for +a group of men gathered by the shore of the creek, a good half-mile +from its mouth. And beyond--midway across the sandy bed where the +river wound--lay the hull of a vessel, high and dry; her deck, naked +of wheelhouse and hatches, canted toward them as if to cover from the +morning the long wounds ripped by her uprooted masts. + +The men beside him shouted and ran on, but Taffy stood still. It was +monstrous--a thing inconceivable--that the seas should have lifted +a vessel of three hundred tons and carried her half a mile up that +shallow creek. Yet there she lay. A horrible thought seized him. Could +she have been there last night when he had drawn the sailor ashore? And +had he left four or five others to drown close by, in the darkness? No, +the tide at that hour had scarcely passed half-flood. He thanked God +for that. + +Well, there she lay, high and dry, with plenty to attend to her. It was +time for him to discover the damage done to the light-house plant and +machinery, perhaps to the building itself. In half an hour the workmen +would be arriving. + +He walked slowly back to the house, and found Humility preparing +breakfast. + +“Where is he?” Taffy asked, meaning the sailor. “In bed?” + +“Didn’t you meet him? He went out five minutes ago--I couldn’t keep +him--to look for his brother, he said.” + +Taffy drank a cupful of tea, took up a crust, and made for the door. + +“Go to bed, dear,” his mother pleaded. “You must be worn out.” + +“I must see how the works have stood it.” + +On the whole, they had stood it well. The gale, indeed, had torn away +the wire table and cage, and thus cut off for the time all access +to the outer rock; for while the sea ran at its present height the +scramble out along the ridge could not be attempted even at low water. +But from the cliff he could see the worst. The waves had washed over +the building, tearing off the temporary covers, and churning all +within. Planks, scaffolding--everything floatable--had gone, and +strewed the rock with matchwood; and--a marvel to see--one of his two +heaviest winches had been lifted from inside, hurled clean over the +wall, and lay collapsed in the wreckage of its cast-iron frame. But, +so far as he could see, the dovetailed masonry stood intact. A voice +hailed him. + +“What a night! What a night!” + +It was old Pezzack, aloft on the gallery of the light-house in his +yellow oilers, already polishing the lantern panes. + +Taffy’s workmen came straggling and gathered about him. They discussed +the damage together but without addressing Taffy; until a little +pock-marked fellow, the wag of the gang, nudged a mate slily and said +aloud-- + +“By God, Bill, we _can_ build a bit--you and me and the boss!” + +All the men laughed; and Taffy laughed too, blushing. Yes; this had +been in his mind. He had measured his work against the sea in its fury, +and the sea had not beaten him. + +A cry broke in upon their laughter. It came from the base of the cliff +to the right: a cry so insistent that they ran toward it in a body. + +Far below them, on the edge of a great boulder which rose from the +broken water and seemed to overhang it, stood the rescued sailor. He +was pointing. + +Taffy was the first to reach him! + +“It’s my brother! It’s my brother Sam!” + +Taffy flung himself full length on the rock and peered over. A tangle +of ore-weed awash rose and fell about its base; and from under this, as +the frothy waves drew back, he saw a man’s ankle protruding, and a foot +still wearing a shoe. + +“It’s my brother!” wailed the sailor again. “I can swear to the shoe of +en!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +SALVAGE. + +One of the masons lowered himself into the pool, and thrusting an arm +beneath the ore-weed, began to grope. + +“He’s pinned here. The rock’s right on top of him.” + +Taffy examined the rock. It weighed fifteen tons if an ounce; but there +were fresh and deep scratches upon it. He pointed these out to the men, +who looked and felt them with their hands and stared at the subsiding +waves, trying to bring their minds to the measure of the spent gale. + +“Here, I must get out of this!” said the man in the pool, as a small +wave dashed in and sent its spray over his bowed shoulders. + +“You ban’t going to leave en?” wailed the sailor. “You ban’t going to +leave my brother Sam?” + +He was a small, fussy man, with red whiskers; and even his sorrow gave +him little dignity. The men were tender with him. + +“Nothing to be done till the tide goes back.” + +“But you won’t leave en? Say you won’t leave en! He’ve a wife and three +children. He was a saved man, sir, a very religious man; not like me, +sir. He was highly respected in the neighbourhood of St. Austell. I +shouldn’t wonder if the newspapers had a word about en...” The tears +were running down his face. + +“We must wait for the tide,” said Taffy gently, and tried to lead him +away, but he would not go. So they left him to watch and wait while +they returned to their work. + +Before noon they recovered and fixed the broken wire cable. The iron +cradle had disappeared, but to rig up a sling and carry out an endless +line was no difficult job, and when this was done Taffy crossed over +to the island rock and began to inspect damages. His working gear had +suffered heavily, two of his windlasses were disabled, scaffolding, +platforms, hods, and loose planks had vanished; a few small tools only +remained, mixed together in a mash of puddled lime. But the masonry +stood unhurt, all except a few feet of the upper course on the seaward +side, where the gale, giving the cement no time to set, had shaken the +dove-tailed stones in their sockets--a matter easily repaired. + +Shortly before three a shout recalled them to the mainland. The tide +was drawing towards low water, and three of the men set to work at once +to open a channel and drain off the pool about the base of the big +rock. While this was doing, half a dozen splashed in with iron bars and +pickaxes; the rest rigged two stout ropes with tackles, and hauled. +The stone did not budge. For more than an hour they prised and levered +and strained. And all the while the sailor ran to and fro, snatching +up now a pick and now a crowbar, now lending a hand to haul, and again +breaking off to lament aloud. + +The tide turned, the winter dark came down, and at half-past four Taffy +gave the word to desist. They had to hold back the sailor, or he would +have jumped in and drowned beside his brother. + +Taffy slept little that night, though he needed sleep. The salving of +this body had become almost a personal dispute between the sea and him. +The gale had shattered two of his windlasses; but two remained, and by +one o’clock next day he had both slung over to the mainland and fixed +beside the rock. The news spreading inland fetched two or three score +onlookers before ebb of tide--miners for the most part, whose help +could be counted on. The men of the coast-guard had left the wreck, to +bear a hand if needed. George had come too. And happening to glance +upwards while he directed his men, Taffy saw a carriage with two horses +drawn up on the grassy edge of the cliff: a groom at the horses’ heads +and in the carriage a figure seated, silhouetted there high against +the clear blue heaven. Well he recognised, even at that distance, the +poise of her head, though for almost four years he had never set eyes +on her,--nor had wished to. + +He knew that her eyes were on him now. He felt like a general on the +eve of an engagement. By the almanac the tide would not turn until +4.35. At four, perhaps, they could begin; but even at four the winter +twilight would be on them, and he had taken care to provide torches and +distribute them among the crowd. His own men were making the most of +the daylight left, drilling holes for dear life in the upper surface of +the boulder, and fixing the Lewis-wedges and rings. They looked to him +for every order, and he gave it in a clear, ringing voice which he knew +must carry to the cliff top. He did not look at George. + +He felt sure in his own mind that the wedges and rings would hold; +but to make doubly sure he gave orders to loop an extra chain under +the jutting base of the boulder. The mason who fixed it, standing +waist-high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched +it round the ankle of the dead man. The dead man’s brother jumped down +beside him and grasped the slack of it. + +At a signal from Taffy the crowd began to light their torches. He +looked at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the +windlasses. Then with a glance towards the cliff he started the +working chant--“_Ayee-ho, Ayee-ho!_” The two gangs--twenty men to each +windlass--took it up with one voice, and to the deep intoned chant the +chains tautened, shuddered for a moment, and began to lift. + +“_Ayee-ho!_” + +Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed. To Taffy +it seemed an endless time, to the crowd but a few moments before the +brute mass swung clear. A few thrust their torches down towards the pit +where the sailor knelt. Taffy did not look, but gave the word to pass +down the coffin which had been brought in readiness. A clergyman--his +father’s successor, but a stranger to him--climbed down after it: and +he stood in the quiet crowd watching the light-house above and the +lamps which the groom had lit in Honoria’s carriage, and listening to +the bated voices of the few at their dreadful task below. + +It was five o’clock and past before the word came up to lower the +tackle and draw the coffin up. The Vicar clambered out to wait it, and +when it came, borrowed a lantern and headed the bearers. The crowd fell +in behind. + +“I am the resurrection and the life....” + +They began to shuffle forwards and up the difficult track; but +presently came to a halt with one accord, the Vicar ceasing in the +middle of a sentence. + +Out of the night, over the hidden sea, came the sound of men’s voices +lifted, thrilling the darkness thrice: the sound of three British +cheers. + +Whose were the voices? They never knew. A few had noticed as twilight +fell a brig in the offing, standing inshore as she tacked down channel. +She, no doubt, as they worked in their circle of torchlight, had sailed +in close before going about, her crews gathered forward, her master +perhaps watching through his night-glass had guessed the act, saluted +it, and passed on her way unknown to her own destiny. + +They strained their eyes. A man beside Taffy declared he could see +something--the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away. Taffy +could see nothing. The voice ahead began to speak again. The Vicar, +pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page +which he held close to his lantern. + + “Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold + the land that is very far off. + + “Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech + than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou + canst not understand. + + “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. + + “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord + is our king; he will save us. + + “Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their + mast, they could not spread the sail; then is the prey of a + great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.” + +Here the Vicar turned back a page, and his voice rang higher: + + “Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall + rule in judgment. + + “And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a + covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as + the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. + + “And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of + them that hear shall hearken.” + +Now Taffy walked behind, thinking his own thoughts; for the cheers of +those invisible sailors had done more than thrill his heart. A finger, +as it were, had come out of the night and touched his brain, unsealing +the wells and letting in light upon things undreamt of. Through the +bright confusion of this sudden vision the Vicar’s sentences sounded +and fell on his ears unheeded. And yet while they faded that happened +which froze and bit each separate word into his memory, to lose +distinctness only when death should interfere, stop the active brain, +and wipe the slate. + +For while the procession halted and broke up its formation for a moment +on the brow of the cliff, a woman came running into the torchlight. + +“Is my Joey there? Where’s he _to_, anybody? Hev anyone seen my Joey?” + +It was Lizzie Pezzack, panting and bareheaded, with a scared face. + +“He’s lame--you’d know en. Have ’ee got en there? He’s wandered off!” + +“Hush up, woman,” said a bearer. “Don’t keep such a pore!” + +“The cheeld’s right enough somewheres,” said another. “’Tis a man’s +body we’ve got. Stand out of the way, for shame!” + +But Lizzie, who as a rule shrank away from men and kept herself hidden, +pressed nearer, turning her tragical face upon each in turn. Her eyes +met George’s, but she appealed to him as to the others. + +“He’s wandered off. Oh, say you’ve seen en, somebody!” + +Catching sight of Taffy, she ran and gripped him by the arm. + +“_You’ll_ help! It’s my Joey. Help me find en!” + +He turned half about, and almost before he knew what he sought his eyes +met George’s. George stepped quietly to his side. + +“Let me get my mare,” said George, and walked away toward the +light-house railing where he had tethered her. + +“We’ll find the child. Our work’s done here, Mr. Saul!” Taffy turned to +the Chief Officer. “Spare us a man or two and some flares.” + +“I’ll come myself,” said the Chief Officer. “Go you back, my dear, and +we’ll fetch home your cheeld as right as ninepence. Hi, Rawlings, take +a couple of men and scatter along the cliffs there to the right. Lame, +you say? He can’t have gone far.” + +Taffy, with the Chief Officer and a couple of volunteers, moved off to +the left, and in less than a minute George caught them up, on horseback. + +“I say,” he asked, walking his mare close alongside of Taffy, “you +don’t think this serious, eh?” + +“I don’t know. Joey wasn’t in the crowd, or I should have noticed him. +He’s daring beyond his strength.” He pulled a whistle from his pocket, +blew it twice, and listened. This had been his signal when firing a +charge; he had often blown it to warn the child to creep away into +shelter. + +There was no answer. + +“Mr. Vyell had best trot along the upper slope,” the Chief Officer +suggested, “while we search down by the creek.” + +“Wait a moment,” Taffy answered. “Let’s try the wreck first.” + +“But the tide’s running. He’d never go there.” + +“He’s a queer child. I know him better than you.” + +They ran downhill toward the creek, calling as they went, but getting +no answer. + +“But the wreck!” exclaimed the Chief Officer. “It’s out of reason!” + +“Hi! What was that?” + +“Oh, my good Lord,” groaned one of the volunteers, “it’s the crake, +master! It’s Langona crake calling the drowned!” + +“Hush, you fool! Listen--I thought as much! Light a flare. Mr. +Saul--he’s out there calling!” + +The first match spluttered and went out. They drew close around the +Chief Officer while he struck the second to keep off the wind, and in +those few moments the child’s wail reached them distinctly across the +darkness. + +The flame leaped up and shone, and they drew back a pace, shading their +eyes from it and peering into the steel-blue landscape which sprang on +them out of the night. They had halted a few yards only from the cliff, +and the flare cast the shadow of its breast-high fence of tamarisks +forward and almost half-way across the creek, and there on the sands, a +little beyond the edge of this shadow, stood the child. + +They could even see his white face. He stood on an island of sand +around which the tide swirled in silence, cutting him off from the +shore, cutting him off from the wreck behind. + +He did not cry any more, but stood with his crutch planted by the edge +of the widening stream, and looked toward them. + +And Taffy looked at George. + +“I know,” said George quietly, and gathered up his reins. “Stand aside, +please.” + +As they drew aside, not understanding, he called to his mare. +One living creature, at any rate, could still trust all to George +Vyell. She hurtled past them and rose at the tamarisk-hedge blindly. +Followed silence--a long silence; then a thud on the beach below and +a scuffle of stones; silence again, and then the cracking of twigs as +Taffy plunged after, through the tamarisks, and slithered down the +cliff. + +The light died down as his feet touched the flat slippery stones; +died down, and was renewed again and showed up horse and rider scarce +twenty yards ahead, labouring forward, the mare sinking fetlock deep +at every plunge. + +At his fourth stride Taffy’s feet, too, began to sink, but at every +stride he gained something. The riding may be superb, but thirteen +stone is thirteen stone. Taffy weighed less than eleven. + +He caught up with George on the very edge of the water. “Make her +swim it!” he panted. “Her feet mustn’t touch here.” George grunted. +A moment later all three were in the water, the tide swirling them +sideways, sweeping Taffy against the mare. His right hand touched +her flank at every stroke. + +The tide swept them upwards--upwards for fifteen yards at least, +though the channel measured less than eight feet. The child, who had +been standing opposite the point where they took the water, hobbled +wildly along shore. The light on the cliff behind sank and rose +again. + +“The crutch,” Taffy gasped. The child obeyed, laying it flat on the +brink and pushing it toward them. Taffy gripped it with his left +hand, and with his right found the mare’s bridle. George was bending +forward. + +“No--not that way! You can’t get back! The wreck, man!--it’s +firmer--” + +But George reached out his hand and dragged the child towards him and +on to his saddle-bow. “Mine,” he said quietly, and twitched the +rein. The brave mare snorted, jerked the bridle from Taffy’s hand, +and headed back for the shore she had left. + +Rider, horse, and child seemed to fall away from him into the night. He +scrambled out, and snatching the crutch ran along the brink, staring +at their black shadows. By-and-by the shadows came to a standstill. He +heard the mare panting, the creaking of saddle-leather came across the +nine or ten feet of dark water. + +“It’s no go,” said George’s voice; then to the mare, “Sally, my dear, +it’s no go.” A moment later he asked more sharply: + +“How far can you reach?” + +Taffy stepped in until the waves ran by his knees. The sand held his +feet, but beyond this he could not stand against the current. He +reached forward holding the crutch at arm’s length. + +“Can you catch hold?” + +“All right.” Both knew that swimming would be useless now; they were +too near the upper apex of the sand-bank. + +“The child first. Here, Joey, my son! reach out and catch hold for your +life.” + +Taffy felt the child’s grip on the crutch-head, and drawing it +steadily toward him hauled the poor child through. The light from +the cliff sank and rose behind his scared face. + +“Got him?” + +“Yes.” The sand was closing around Taffy’s legs, but he managed to +shift his footing a little. + +“Quick, then; the bank’s breaking up.” + +George was sinking, knee-deep and deeper. But his outstretched +fingers managed to reach and hook themselves around the crutch-head. + +“Steady, now... must work you loose first. Get hold of the shaft +if you can: the head isn’t firm. Work your legs... that’s it.” + +George wrenched his left foot loose and planted it against the mare’s +flank. Hitherto she had trusted her master. The thrust of his heel +drove home her sentence, and with scream after scream--the sand +holding her past hope--she plunged and fought for her life. Still as +she screamed, George, silent and panting, thrust against her, thrust +savagely against the quivering body, once his pride for beauty and +fleetness. + +“Pull!” he gasped, freeing his other foot with a wrench which left +its heavy riding-boot deep in the sucking mud; and catching a new +grip on the crutch-head, flung himself forward. + +Taffy felt the sudden weight and pulled--and while he pulled felt in +a moment no grip, no weight at all. Between two hateful screams a +face slid by him, out of reach, silent, with parted lips; and as it +slipped away he fell back staggering, grasping the useless, headless +crutch. + +The mare went on screaming. He turned his back on her, and catching +Joey by the hand dragged him away across the melting island. At the +sixth step the child, hauled off his crippled foot, swung blundering +across his legs. He paused, lifted him in his arms and plunged +forward again. + +The flares on the cliff were growing in number. They cast long +shadows before him. On the far side of the island the tide flowed +swift and steady--a stream about fourteen yards wide--cutting him +from the farther sand-bank on which, not fifty yards above, lay the +wreck. He whispered to Joey, and plunged into it straight, turning +as the water swept him off his legs, and giving his back to it, his +hands slipped under the child’s armpits, his feet thrusting against +the tide in slow, rhythmical strokes. + +The child after the first gasp lay still, his head obediently thrown +back on Taffy’s breast. The mare had ceased to scream. The water +rippled in the ears as each leg-thrust drove them little by little +across the current. + +If George had but listened! It was so easy, after all. The +sand-bank still slid past them, but less rapidly. They were close to +it now, and had only to lie still and be drifted against the leaning +stanchions of the wreck. Taffy flung an arm about one and checked +his way quietly, as a man brings a boat alongside a quay. He hoisted +Joey first upon the stanchion, then up the tilted deck to the gap of +the main hatchway. Within this, with their feet on the steps and +their chests leaning on the side panel of the companion, they rested +and took breath. + +“Cold, sonny?” + +The child burst into tears. + +Taffy dragged off his own coat and wrapped him in it. The small body +crept close, sobbing, against his side. + +Across, on the shore, voices were calling, blue eyes moving. A pair +of yellow lights came towards these, travelling swiftly upon the +hillside. Taffy guessed what they were. + +The yellow lights moved more slowly. They joined the blue ones, and +halted. Taffy listened. But the voices were still now; he heard +nothing but the hiss of the black water, across which those two lamps +sought and questioned him like eyes. + +“God help her!” + +He bowed his face on his arms. A little while, and the sands would +be covered, the boats would put off; a little while.... Crouching +from those eyes he prayed God to lengthen it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +HONORIA. + +She was sitting there rigid, cold as a statue, when the rescuers +brought them ashore and helped them up the slope. A small crowd +surrounded the carriage. In the rays of their moving lanterns her +face altered nothing to all their furtive glances of sympathy +opposing the same white mask. Some one said, “There’s only two, +then!” Another, with a nudge and a nod at the carriage, told him to +hold his peace. She heard. Her lips hardened. + +Lizzie Pezzack had rushed down to the shore to meet the boat. +She was bringing her child along with a fond, wild babble of tender +names and sobs and cries of thankfulness. In pauses, choked and +overcome, she caught him to her, felt his limbs, pressed his wet face +against her neck and bosom. Taffy, supported by strong arms and +hurried in her wake, had a hideous sense of being paraded in her +triumph. The men around him who had raised a faint cheer sank their +voices as they neared the carriage; but the woman went forward, +jubilant and ruthless, flaunting her joy as it were a flag blown in +her eyes and blindfolding them to the grief she insulted. + +“Stay!” + +It was Honoria’s voice, cold, incisive, not to be disobeyed. He had +prayed in vain. The procession halted; Lizzie checked her babble and +stood staring, with an arm about Joey’s neck. + +“Let me see the child.” + +Lizzie stared, broke into a silly, triumphant laugh, and thrust the +child forward against the carriage step. The poor waif, drenched, +dazed, tottering without his crutch, caught at the plated handle for +support. Honoria gazed down on him with eyes which took slow and +pitiless account of the deformed little body, the shrunken, puny +limbs. + +“Thank you. So--this--is what my husband died for. Drive on, +please.” + +Her eyes, as she lifted them to give the order, rested for a moment +on Taffy--with how much scorn he cared not, could he have leapt and +intercepted Lizzie’s retort. + +“And why not? A son’s a son--curse you!--though he was your man!” + +It seemed she did not hear; or hearing, did not understand. Her eyes +hardened their fire on Taffy, and he, lapped in their scorn, thanked +God she had not understood. + +“Drive on, please.” + +The coachman lowered his whip. The horses moved forward at a slow +walk; the carriage rolled silently away into the darkness. She had +not understood. Taffy glanced at the faces about him. + +“Ah, poor lady!” said someone. But no one had understood. + + +They found George’s body next morning on the sands a little below the +foot-bridge. He lay there in the morning sunshine as though asleep, +with an arm flung above his head and on his face the easy smile for +which men and women had liked him throughout his careless life. + +The inquest was held next day, in the library at Carwithiel. Sir Harry +insisted on being present, and sat beside the coroner. During Taffy’s +examination his lips were pursed up as though whistling a silent tune. +Once or twice he nodded his head. + +Taffy gave his evidence discreetly. The child had been lost; had been +found in a perilous position. He and deceased had gone together to the +rescue. On reaching the child, deceased--against advice--had attempted +to return across the sands and had fallen into difficulties. In these +his first thought had been for the child, whom he had passed to witness +to drag out of danger. When it came to deceased’s turn the crutch, on +which all depended, had parted in two, and he had been swept away by +the tide. + +At the conclusion of the story Sir Harry took snuff and nodded twice. +Taffy wondered how much he knew. The jury, under the coroner’s +direction, brought in a verdict of “death by misadventure,” and added +a word or two in praise of the dead man’s gallantry. The coroner +complimented Taffy warmly and promised to refer the case to the Royal +Humane Society for public recognition. The jury nodded, and one or two +said “Hear, hear!” Taffy hoped fervently he would do nothing of the +sort. + +The funeral took place on the fourth day, at nine o’clock in the +morning. Such--in the day I write of--was the custom of the country. +Friends who lived at a distance rose and shaved by candle-light, and +daybreak found them horsed and well on their way to the house of +mourning, their errand announced by the long black streamers tied about +their hats. The sad business over and done with, these guests returned +to the house, where until noon a mighty breakfast lasted and all were +welcome. Their black habiliments and lowered voices alone marked the +difference between it and a hunting-breakfast. + +And indeed this morning Squire Willyams, who had taken over the hounds +after Squire Moyle’s death, had given secret orders to his huntsmen; +and the pack was waiting at Three-barrow Turnpike, a couple of miles +inland from Carwithiel. At half-past ten the mourners drained their +glasses, shook the crumbs off their riding-breeches, and took leave; +and after halting outside Carwithiel gates to unpin and pocket their +hat-bands, headed for the meet with one accord. + +A few minutes before noon Squire Willyams, seated on his grey by the +edge of Three-barrow Brake, and listening to every sound within the +covert, happened to glance an eye across the valley, and let out a low +whistle. + +“Well!” said one of a near group of horsemen catching sight of the +rider pricking toward them down the farther slope, “I knew en for +unbeliever; but this beats all!” + +“And his awnly son not three hours under the mould! Brought up in +France as a youngster he was, and this I s’pose is what comes of +reading Voltaire. My lord for manners, and no more heart than a wormed +nut--that’s Sir Harry, and always was.” + +Squire Willyams slewed himself round in his saddle. He spoke quietly at +fifteen yards’ distance, but each word reached the group of horsemen as +clear as a bell. + +“Rablin,” he said, “as a damned fool oblige me during the next few +minutes by keeping your mouth shut.” + +With this he resumed his old attitude and his business of watching the +covert side; removing his eyes for a moment to nod as Sir Harry rode up +and passed on to join the group behind him. + +He had scarcely done so when deep in the undergrowth of blackthorn a +hound challenged. + +“Spendigo for a fiver!--and well found, by the tune of it,” cried Sir +Harry. “See that patch of grey wall, Rablin--there, in a line beyond +the Master’s elbow? I lay you an even guinea that’s where my gentleman +comes over.” + +But honest reprobation mottled the face of Mr. Rablin, squireen; and as +an honest man he spoke out. Let it go to his credit, because as a rule +he was a snob and inclined to cringe. + +“I did not expect”--he cleared his throat--“to see you out to-day, Sir +Harry.” + +Sir Harry winced, and turned on them all a grey, woeful face. + +“That’s it,” he said. “I can’t bide home. I can’t bide home.” + + +Honoria bided home with her child and mourned for the dead. As a clever +woman--far cleverer than her husband--she had seen his faults while +he lived; yet had liked him enough to forgive without difficulty. But +now these faults faded, and by degrees memory reared an altar to him +as a man little short of divine. At the worst he had been amiable. +A kinder husband never lived. She reproached herself bitterly with +the half-heartedness of her response to his love; to his love while +it dwelt beside her, unvarying in cheerful kindness. For (it was the +truth, alas! and a worm that gnawed continually) passionate love she +had never rendered him. She had been content; but how poor a thing +was contentment! She had never divined his worth, had never given her +worship. And all the while he had been a hero, and in the end had died +as a hero. Ah, for one chance to redeem the wrong! for one moment to +bow herself at his feet and acknowledge her blindness! Her prayer was +ancient as widowhood, and Heaven, folding away the irreparable time, +returned its first and last and only solace--a dream for the groping +arms; waking and darkness, and an empty pillow for her tears. + +From the first her child had been dear to her; dearer (so her memory +accused her now) than his father; more demonstratively beloved, at any +rate. But in those miserable months she grew to love him with a double +strength. He bore George’s name, and was (as Sir Harry proclaimed) a +very miniature of George; repeated his shapeliness of limb, his firm +shoulders, his long lean thighs--the thighs of a born horseman; learned +to walk, and lo! within a week walked with his father’s gait; had +smiles for the whole of his small world, and for his mother a memory in +each. + +And yet--this was the strange part of it; a mystery she could not +explain because she dared not even acknowledge it--though she loved him +for being like his father, she regarded the likeness with a growing +dread; nay, caught herself correcting him stealthily when he developed +some trivial trait which she, and she alone, recognised as part of his +father’s legacy. It was what in the old days she would have called +“contradictions,” but there it was, and she could not help it; the +nearer George in her memory approached to faultlessness, the more +obstinately her instinct fought against her child’s imitation of him; +and yet, because the child was obstinately George’s, she loved him with +a double love. + +There came a day when he told her a childish falsehood. She did not +whip him, but stood him in front of her and began to reason with him +and explain the wickedness of an untruth. By-and-by she broke off in +the midst of a sentence, appalled by the shrillness of her own voice. +From argument she had passed to furious scolding. And the little fellow +quailed before her, his contrition beaten down under the storm of words +that whistled about his ears without meaning, his small faculties +disabled before this spectacle of wrath. Her fingers were closing and +unclosing. They wanted a riding-switch; they wanted to grip this small +body they had served and fondled, and to cut out-- what? The lie? +Honoria hated a lie. But while she paused and shook, a light flashed, +and her eyes were open and saw--that it was not the lie. + +She turned and ran, ran upstairs to her own room, flung herself on +her knees beside the bed, dragged a locket from her bosom and fell to +kissing George’s portrait, passionately crying it for pardon. She was +wicked, base; while he lived she had misprised him; and this was her +abiding punishment, that not even repentance could purge her heart +of dishonouring thoughts, that her love for him now could never be +stainless though washed with daily tears. “‘_He that is unjust, let +him be unjust still_.’ _Must_ that be true, Father of all mercies? I +misjudged him, and it is too late for atonement. But I repent and am +afflicted. Though the dead know nothing--though it can never reach or +avail him--give me back the power to be just!” + +Late that afternoon Honoria passed an hour piously in turning over the +dead man’s wardrobe, shaking out and brushing the treasured garments +and folding them, against moth and dust, in fresh tissue paper. It was +a morbid task, perhaps, but it kept George’s image constantly before +her, and this was what her remorseful mood demanded. Her nerves were +unstrung and her limbs languid after the recent tempest. By-and-by she +locked the doors of the wardrobe, and passing into her own bedroom, +flung herself on a couch with a bundle of papers--old bills, soiled and +folded memoranda, sporting paragraphs cut from the newspapers--scraps +found in his pockets months ago and religiously tied by her with a +silken ribbon. They were mementoes of a sort, and George had written +few letters while wooing--not half a dozen first and last. + +Two or three receipted bills lay together in the middle of the +packet--one a saddler’s, a second a nurseryman’s for pot-plants (kept +for the sake of its queer spelling), a third the reckoning for an +hotel luncheon. She was running over them carelessly when the date at +the head of this last one caught her eye. “August 3rd”--it fixed her +attention because it happened to be the day before her birthday. + +August 3rd--such and such a year--the August before his death; and the +hotel a well-known one in Plymouth--the hotel, in fact, at which he had +usually put up.... Without a prompting of suspicion she turned back +and ran her eye over the bill. A steak, a pint of claret, vegetables, +cheese, and attendance--never was a more innocent bill. + +Suddenly her attention stiffened on the date. George was in Plymouth +the day before her birthday. But no; as it happened, George had been in +Truro on that day. She remembered, because he had brought her a diamond +pendant, having written beforehand to the Truro jeweller to get a +dozen down from London to choose from. Yes, she remembered it clearly, +and how he had described his day in Truro. And the next morning--her +birthday morning--he had produced the pendant, wrapped in silver +paper. He had thrown away the case; it was ugly, and he would get her +another.... + +But the bill? She had stayed once or twice at this hotel with George, +and recognised the handwriting. The bookkeeper, in compliment perhaps +to a customer of standing, had written “George Vyell, Esq.” in full on +the bill-head, a formality omitted as a rule in luncheon-reckonings. +And if this scrap of paper told the truth-- why, _then George had lied!_ + +But why? Ah, if he had done this thing nothing else mattered, neither +the how nor the why! If George had lied?... And the pendant--had that +been bought in Plymouth and not (as he had asserted) in Truro? He had +thrown away the case. Jewellers print their names inside such cases. +The pendant was a handsome one. Perhaps his cheque-book would tell. + +She arose, stepped half-way to the door, but came back and flung +herself again upon the couch. No; she could not... this was the second +time to-day... she could not face the torture again. + +Yet... if George _had_ lied! + +She sat up; sat up with both hands pressed to her ears to shut out a +sudden voice clamouring through them-- + +“_And why not? A son’s a son--curse you!--though he was your man!_” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +A L’OUTRANCE. + +Lizzie Pezzack had put Joey to bed and was smoothing his coverlet when +she heard someone knocking. She passed out into the front room and +opened to the visitor. + +On the doorstep stood a lady in deep black--Honoria. Beyond the garden +wall the lamps of her carriage blazed in the late twilight. The turf +had muffled the sound of wheels, but now the jingle of shaken bits came +loud through the open door. + +“Ah!” said Lizzie, drawing her breath back through her teeth. + +“I must speak to you, please. May I come in? I have a question...” + +Lizzie turned her back, struck a match, and lit a candle. “What +question?” she asked with her back turned, her eyes on the flame as it +sank, warming the tallow, and grew bright again. + +“It’s... it’s a question,” Honoria began weakly; then shut the door +behind her and advanced into the room. “Turn round and look at me. Ah, +you hate me, I know!” + +“Yes,” Lizzie assented slowly, “I hate you.” + +“But you must answer me. You see, it isn’t for me alone ... it’s not a +question of our hating, in a way... it concerns others....” + +“Yes?” + +“But it’s cowardly of me to put it so, because it concerns me too. You +don’t know--” + +“Maybe I do.” + +“But if you did--” Honoria broke off and then plunged forward +desperately. “That child of yours--his father--alone here--by +ourselves.... Think before you refuse!” + +Lizzie set down the candle and eyed her. + +“And _you_,” she answered at length, dragging out each word-- “_you_ +can come here and ask me that question?” + +For a moment silence fell between them, and each could hear the other’s +breathing. Then Honoria drew herself up and faced her honestly, casting +out both hands. + +“Yes; I _had_ to.” + +“_You!_ a lady!” + +“Ah, but be honest with me! Lady or not, what has that to do with it? +We are two women--that’s where it all started, and we’re kept to that.” + +Lizzie bent her brows. “Yes, you are right,” she admitted. + +“And,” Honoria pursued eagerly, “if I come here to sue you for the +truth--it is you who force me.” + +“I?” + +“By what you said that night, when George--when my husband--was +drowned; when you cursed me. ‘A son’s a son,’ you said, ‘though he was +your man.’” + +“Did I say that?” Lizzie seemed to muse over the words. “You have +suffered?” she asked. + +“Yes, I have suffered.” + +“Ah, if I thought so! ... But you have not. You are a hypocrite, Mrs. +Vyell; and you are trying to cheat me now. You come here not to end +_that_ suffering, but to force a word from me that’ll put joy and hope +into you; that you’ll go home hugging to your heart. Oh, I know you!” + +“You do not.” + +“I do; because I know myself. From a child I’ve been dirt to your +pride, an item to your money. For years I’ve lived a shamed woman. But +one thing I bought with it--one little thing. Think the price high for +it--I dessay it is; but I bought and paid for it--and often when I turn +it over in my mind I don’t count the price too dear.” + +“I don’t understand.” + +“You may, if you try. What I bought was the power over you, my proud +lady. While I keep tight lips I have you at the end of a chain. You +come here to-night to break it; one little word and you’ll be free and +glad. But no, and no, and no! You may guess till you’re tired--you may +be sure in your heart; but it’s all no good without that little word +you’ll never get from me.” + +“You _shall_ speak!” + +Lizzie shrugged her shoulders and picked up the candle. + +“Simme,” she said, “you’d best go back to your carriage and horses. My +li’l boy’s in the next room, tryin’ to sleep; and ’tisn’ fit he heard +much of this.” + +She passed resolutely into the bedroom, leaving her visitor to +darkness. But Honoria, desperate now, pushed after her, scarcely +knowing what she did or meant to do. + +“You _shall_ speak!” + +The house-door opened and light footsteps came running through the +outer room. It was little George, and he pulled at her skirts. + +“Mummy, the horses are taking cold!” + +But Honoria still advanced. “You _shall_ speak!” + +Joey, catching sight of her from the bed, screamed and hid his face. To +him she was a thing of horror. From the night when, thrust beneath her +eyes, he had cowered by her carriage-step, she had haunted his worst +dreams. And now, black-robed and terrible of face, she had come to lay +hands on him and carry him straight to hell. + +“Mother! Take her away! take her away!” + +His screams rang through the room. “Hush, dear!” cried Lizzie, running +to him; and laid a hand on his shoulder. + +But the child, far too terrified to know whose hand it was, flung +himself from her with a wilder scream than any; flung himself all but +free of the bed-clothes. As Lizzie caught and tried to hold him the +thin night-shirt ripped in her fingers, laying bare the small back from +shoulder to buttock. + +They were woman to woman now; cast back into savagery and blindly +groping for its primitive weapons. Honoria crossed the floor not +knowing what she meant to do, or might do. Lizzie sprang to defence +against she knew not what. But when her enemy advanced, towering, +with a healthy boy dragging at her skirts, she did the one thing she +could--turned with a swift cry back upon her own crippled child and +caught at the bed-clothes to cover and hide his naked deformity. + +While she crouched and shielded him, silence fell on the room. She had +half expected Honoria to strike her; but no blow came, nor any sound. +By-and-by she looked up. Honoria had come to a standstill, with rigid +eyes. They were fastened on the bed. Then Lizzie understood. + +She had covered the child’s legs from sight; but not his back--nor +the brown mole on it--the large brown mole, ringed like Saturn, set +obliquely between the shoulder-blades. + +She rose from the bed slowly. Honoria turned on little George with a +gesture as if to fling off his velvet jacket. But Lizzie stamped her +foot. + +“No,” she commanded hoarsely; “let be. Mine is a cripple.” + +“So it is true....” Honoria desisted; but her eyes were wide and still +fixed on the bed. + +“Yes, it is true. You have all the luck. Mine is a cripple.” + +Still Honoria stared. Lizzie gulped down something in her throat; but +her voice, when she found it again, was still hoarse and strained. + +“And now--go! You have learnt what you came for. You have won, because +you stop at nothing. But go, before I try to kill you for the joy in +your heart!” + +“Joy?” Honoria put out a hand toward the bed’s foot, to steady herself. +It was her turn to be weak. + +“Yes--joy.” Lizzie stepped between her and the door, pointed a finger +at her, and held it pointing. “In your heart you are glad already. +Wait, and in a moment I shall see it in your eyes--glad, glad! Yes, +your man was worthless, and you are glad. But oh! You bitter fool!” + +“Let me go, please.” + +“Listen a bit; no hurry now. Plenty of time to be glad ’twas only your +husband, not the man of your heart. Look at me, and answer-- I don’t +count for much now, do I? Not much to hate in me, now you know the name +of my child’s father, and that ’tisn’ Taffy Raymond!” + +“Let me go.” But seeing that Lizzie would not, she stopped and kissed +her boy. “Run out to the carriage, dear, and say I’ll be coming in a +minute or two.” Little George clung to her wistfully, but her tone +meant obedience. Lizzie stepped aside to let him pass out. + +“Now,” said Honoria, “the next room is best, I think. Lead me there, +and I will listen.” + +“You may go if you like.” + +“No; I will listen. Between us two there is--there is--” + +“_That_.” Lizzie nodded towards the child huddling low in the bed. + +“That, and much more. We cannot stop at the point you’ve reached. +Besides, I have a question to ask.” + +Lizzie passed before her into the front room, lit two candles and drew +down the blind. + +“Ask it,” she said. + +“How did you know that I believed the other--Mr. Raymond--to be--” She +came to a halt. + +“I guessed.” + +“What? From the beginning?” + +“No; it was after a long while. And then, all of a sudden, something +seemed to make me clever.” + +“Did you know that, believing it, I had done him a great wrong-- +injured his life beyond repair?” + +“I knew something had happened: that he’d given up being a gentleman +and taken to builder’s work. I thought maybe you were at the bottom of +it. Who was it told you lies about en?” + +“Must I answer that?” + +“No; no need. George Vyell was a nice fellow; but he was a liar. +Couldn’t help it, I b’lieve. But a dirty trick like that--well, well!” + +Honoria stared at her, confounded. “You never loved my husband?” + +And Lizzie laughed--actually laughed; she was so weary. “No more than +you did, my dear. Perhaps a little less. Eh, what two fools we are +here, fending off the truth! Fools from the start--and now, simme, +playing foolish to the end; ay, when all’s said and naked atween us. +Lev’ us quit talkin’ of George Vyell. We knawed George Vyell, you and +me too; and here we be, left to rear children by en. But the man we +hated over wasn’ George Vyell.” + +“Yet if--as you say--you loved him--the other one--why, when you saw +his life ruined and guessed the lie that ruined it--when a word could +have righted him--if you loved him--” + +“Why didn’t I speak? Ladies are most dull, somehow; or else you don’t +try to see. Or else--Wasn’t he near me, passing my door ivery day? +Oh, I’m ignorant and selfish. But hadn’t I got him near? And wouldn’t +that word have lost him, sent him God knows where--to _you_ perhaps? +You--you’d had your chance, and squandered it like a fool. I never had +no chance. I courted en, but he wouldn’ look at me. He’d have come to +your whistle--once. Nothing to hinder but your money. And from what I +can see and guess, you piled up that money in his face like a hedge. +Oh, I could pity you, now!--for now you’ll never have en.” + +“God pity us both!” said Honoria, going; but she turned at the door. +“And after our marriage you took no more thought of my--of George?” +The question was an afterthought; she never thought to see it stab as +it did. But Lizzie caught at the table edge, held to it swaying over +a gulf of hysterics, and answered between a sob and a passing bitter +laugh. + +“At the last--just to try en. No harm done, as it happened. You needn’ +mind. He was worthless anyway.” + +Honoria stepped back, took her by the elbow as she swayed, and seated +her in a chair; and so stood regarding her as a doctor might a patient. +After a while she said-- + +“I think you will do me injustice, but you must believe as you like. I +am not glad. I am very far from glad or happy. I doubt if I shall ever +be happy again. But I do not hate you as I did.” + +She went out, closing the door softly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +THE SHIP OF STARS. + +Taffy guessed nothing of these passions in conflict, these weak +agonies. He went about his daily work, a man grown, thinking his own +thoughts; and these thoughts were of many things; but they held no +room for the problem which meant everything in life to Honoria and +Lizzie--yes, and to Humility, though it haunted her in less +disturbing shape. Humility pondered it quietly with a mind withdrawn +while her hands moved before her on the lace pillow; and pondering +it, she resigned the solution to time. But it filled her thoughts +constantly, none the less. + +One noon Taffy returned from the light-house for his dinner to find a +registered postal packet lying on the table. He glanced up and met +his mother’s gaze; but let the thing lie while he ate his meal, and +having done, picked it up and carried it away with him unopened. + +On the cliff-side, in a solitary place, he broke the seal. +He guessed well enough what the packet contained: the silver medal +procured for him by the too officious coroner. And the coroner, +finding him obstinate against a public presentation, had forwarded +the medal with an effusive letter. Taffy frowned over its opening +sentences, and without reading farther crumpled the paper into a +tight ball. He turned to examine the medal, holding it between +finger and thumb; or rather, his eyes examined it while his brain ran +back along the tangled procession of hopes and blunders, wrongs and +trials and lessons hardly learnt, of which this mocking piece of +silver symbolised the end and the reward. In that minute he saw +Honoria and George, himself and Lizzie Pezzack as figures travelling +on a road that stretched back to childhood; saw behind them the +anxious eyes of his parents, Sir Harry’s debonair smile, the sinister +face of old Squire Moyle, malevolent yet terribly afraid; saw that +the moving figures could not control their steps, that the watching +faces were impotent to warn; saw finally beside the road other ways +branching to left and right, and down these undestined and neglected +avenues the ghosts of ambitions unattempted, lives not lived, all +that might have been. + +Well, here was the end of it, this ironical piece of silver.... +With sudden anger he flung it from him; sent it spinning far out over +the waters. And the sea, his old sworn enemy, took the votive +offering. He watched it drop--drop; saw the tiny splash as it +disappeared. + +And with that he shut a door and turned a key. He had other thoughts +to occupy him--great thoughts. The light-house was all but built. +The Chief Engineer had paid a surprise visit, praised his work, and +talked about another sea light soon to be raised on the North Welsh +Coast; used words that indeed hinted, not obscurely, at promotion. +And Taffy’s blood tingled at the prospect. But, out of working +hours, his thoughts were not of light-houses. He bought maps and +charts. On Sundays he took far walks along the coast, starting at +daybreak, returning as a rule long after dark, mired and footsore, +and at supper too weary to talk with his mother, whose eyes watched +him always. + + +It was a still autumn evening when Honoria came riding to visit +Humility; the close of a golden day. Its gold lingered yet along the +west and fell on the whitewashed doorway where Humility sat with her +lace-work. Behind, in the east, purple and dewy, climbed the domed +shadow of the world. And over all lay that hush which the earth only +knows when it rests in the few weeks after harvest. Out here, on +barren cliffs above the sea, folks troubled little about harvest. +But even out here they felt and knew the hush. + +In sight of the whitewashed cottages Honoria slipped down from her +saddle, removed Aide-de-camp’s bridle, and turned him loose to +browse. With the bridle on her arm she walked forward alone. +She came noiselessly on the turf, and with the click of the gate her +shadow fell at Humility’s feet. Humility looked up and saw her +standing against the sunset, in her dark habit. Even in that instant +she saw also that Honoria’s face, though shaded, was more beautiful +than of old. “More dangerous” she told herself; and rose, knowing +that the problem was to be solved at last. + +“Good-evening!” she said, rising. “Oh yes--you must come inside, +please; but you will have to forgive our untidiness.” + +Honoria followed, wondering as of old at the beautiful manners which +dignified Humility’s simplest words. + +“I heard that you were to go.” + +“Yes; we have been packing for a week past. To North Wales it is-- +a forsaken spot, no better than this. But I suppose that’s the sort +of spot where light-houses are useful.” + +The sun slanted in upon the packed trunks and dismantled walls; but it +blazed also upon brass window-catches, fender-knobs, door-handles--all +polished and flashing like mirrors. + +“I am come,” said Honoria, “now at the last--to ask your pardon.” + +“At the last?” Humility seemed to muse, staring down at one of the +trunks; then went on as if speaking to herself. “Yes, yes, it has been +a long time.” + +“A long injury--a long mistake; you must believe it was an honest +mistake.” + +“Yes,” said Humility gravely. “I never doubted you had been misled. God +forbid I should ask or seek to know how.” + +Honoria bowed her head. + +“And,” Humility pursued, “we had put ourselves in the wrong by +accepting help. One sees now it is always best to be independent; +though at the time it seemed a fine prospect for him. The worst was +our not telling him. That was terribly unfair. As for the rest-- well, +after all, to know yourself guiltless is the great thing, is it not? +What others think doesn’t matter in comparison with that. And then of +course he knew that I, his mother, never believed the falsehood--no, +not for a moment.” + +“But it spoiled his life?” + +Now Humility had spoken, and still stood, with her eyes resting on the +trunk. Beneath its lid, she knew, and on top of Taffy’s books and other +treasures, lay a parcel wrapped in tissue paper--a dog collar with +the inscription “_Honoria from Taffy_.” So, by lifting the lid of her +thoughts a little--a very little--more, she might have given Honoria +a glimpse of something which her actual answer, truthful as it was, +concealed. + +“No. I wouldn’t say that. If it had spoilt his life--well, you have a +child of your own and can understand. As it is, it has strengthened +him, I think. He will make his mark--in a different way. Just now he is +only a foreman among masons; but he has a career opening. Yes, I can +forgive you at last.” + +And, being Humility, she had spoken the truth. But being a woman, even +in the act of pardon she could not forego a small thrust, and in giving +must withhold something. + +And Honoria, being a woman, divined that something was withheld. + +“And Taffy--your son--do you think that _he_--?” + +“He never speaks, if he thinks of it. He will be here presently. You +know--do you not? they are to light the great lantern on the new +lighthouse to-night for the first time. The men have moved in, and he +is down with them making preparations. You have seen the notices of the +Trinity Board? They have been posted for months. Taffy is as eager over +it as a boy; but he promised to be back before sunset to drink tea with +me in honour of the event; and afterwards I was to walk down to the +cliff with him to see.” + +“Would you mind if I stayed?” + +Humility considered before answering. “I had rather you stayed. He’s +like a boy over this business; but he’s a man, after all.” + +After this they fell into quite trivial talk, while Humility prepared +the tea things. + +“Your mother--Mrs. Venning--how does she face the journey?” + +“You must see her,” said Humility, smiling, and led her into the room +where the old lady reclined in bed, with a flush on each waxen cheek. +She had heard their voices. + +“Bless you”--she was quite cheerful--“I’m ready to go as far as they’ll +carry me! All I ask is that in the next place they’ll give me a window +where I can see the boy’s lamp when he’s built it.” + +Humility brought in the table and tea-things, and set them out by the +invalid’s bed. She went out into the kitchen to look to the kettle. +In that pause Honoria found it difficult to meet Mrs. Venning’s eyes; +but the old lady was wise enough to leave grudges to others. It was +enough, in the time left to her, to accept what happened and leave the +responsibility to Providence. + +Honoria, replying but scarcely listening to her talk, heard a footfall +at the outer door--Taffy’s footfall; then the click of a latch and +Humility’s voice saying, “There’s a visitor inside; come to take tea +with you.” + +“A visitor?” He was standing in the doorway. “_You?_” He blushed in his +surprise. + +Honoria rose. “If I may,” she said, and wondered if she might hold out +a hand. + +But he held out his, quite frankly, and laughed. “Why, of course. They +will be lighting up in half an hour. We must make haste.” + +Once or twice during tea he stole a glance from Honoria to his mother; +and each time fondly believed that it passed undetected. His talk was +all about the light-house and the preparations there, and he rattled on +in the highest spirits. Two of the women knew, and the third guessed, +that this chatter was with him unwonted. + +At length he too seemed to be struck by this. “But what nonsense I’m +talking!” he protested, breaking off midway in a sentence and blushing +again. “I can’t help it, though. I’m feeling just as big as the +light-house to-night, with my head wound up and turning round like the +lantern!” + +“And your wit occulting,” suggested Honoria, in her old light manner. +“What is it?--three flashes to the minute?” + +He laughed and hurried them from the tea-table. Mrs. Venning bade them +a merry good-bye as they took leave of her. + +“Come along, mother.” + +But Humility had changed her mind. “No,” said she. “I’ll wait in the +doorway. I can just see the lantern from the garden gate, you know. +You two can wait by the old light-house, and call to me when the time +comes.” + +She watched them from the doorway as they took the path toward the +cliff, toward the last ray of sunset fading across the dusk of the sea. +The evening was warm, and she sat bareheaded with her lace-work on her +knee; but presently she put it down. + +“I must be taking to spectacles soon,” she said to herself. “My eyes +are not what they used to be.” + + +Taffy and Honoria reached the old light-house and halted by its +white-painted railing. Below them the new pillar stood up in full view, +young and defiant. A full tide lapped its base, feeling this comely +and untried adversary as a wrestler shakes hands before engaging. And +from its base the column, after a gentle inward curve--enough to give +it a look of lissomeness and elastic strength-- sprang upright straight +and firm to the lantern, ringed with a gallery and capped with a +cupola of copper not yet greened by the weather; in outline as simple +as a flower, in structure to the understanding eye almost as subtly +organised, adapted and pieced into growth. + +“So that is your ambition now?” said Honoria, after gazing long. She +added, “I do not wonder.” + +“It does not stop there, I’m afraid.” There was a pause, as though her +words had thrown him into a brown study. + +“Look!” she cried. “There is someone in the lantern--with a light in +his hand. He is lighting up!” + +Taffy ran back a pace or two toward the cottage and shouted, waving his +hand. In a moment Humility appeared at the gate and waved in answer, +while the strong light flashed seaward. They listened; but if she +called, the waves at their feet drowned her voice. + +They turned and gazed at the light, counting, timing the flashes; two +short flashes with but five seconds between, then darkness for twenty +seconds, and after it a long steady stare. + +Abruptly he asked, “Would you care to cross over and see the lantern?” + +“What, in the cradle?” + +“I can work it easily. It’s not dangerous in the least; a bit daunting, +perhaps.” + +“But I’m not easily frightened, you know. Yes, I should like it +greatly.” + +They descended the cliff to the cable. The iron cradle stood ready as +Taffy had left it when he came ashore. She stepped in lightly, scarcely +touching for a second the hand he put out to guide her. + +“Better sit low,” he advised; and she obeyed, disposing her skirts on +the floor caked with dry mud from the workmen’s boots. He followed her, +and launched the cradle over the deep twilight. + +A faint breeze--there had been none perceptible on the ridge--played +off the face of the cliffs. The forward swing of the cradle, too, +raised a slight draught of air. Honoria plucked off her hat and veil +and let it fan her temples. + +Half-way across, she said, “Isn’t it like this--in mid-air over running +water--that the witches take their oaths?” + +Taffy ceased pulling on the rope. “The witches? Yes, I remember +something of the sort.” + +“And a word spoken so is an oath and lasts for ever. Very well; answer +me what I came to ask you to-night.” + +“What is that?” But he knew. + +“That when--you know--when I tell you I was deceived... you will +forgive.” Her voice was scarcely audible. + +“I forgive.” + +“Ah, but freely? It is only a word I want; but it has to last me like +an oath.” + +“I forgive you freely. It was all a mistake.” + +“And you have found other ambitions! And they satisfy you?” + +He laughed and pulled at the rope again. “They ought to,” he answered +gaily, “they’re big enough. Come and see.” + +The seaward end of the cable was attached to a doorway thirty feet +above the base of the lighthouse. One of the under-keepers met them +here with a lantern. He stared when he caught sight of the second +figure in the cradle, but touched his cap to the mistress of Carwithiel. + +“Here’s Mrs. Vyell, Trevarthen, come to do honour to our opening night.” + +“Proudly welcome, ma’am,” said Trevarthen. “You’ll excuse the litter +we’re in. This here’s our cellar, but you’ll find things more +ship-shape upstairs. Mind your head, ma’am, with the archway--better +let me lead the way perhaps.” + +The archway was indeed low, and they were forced to crouch and almost +crawl up the first short flight of steps. But after this Honoria, +following Trevarthen’s lantern round and up the spiral way, found the +roof heightening above her, and soon emerged into a gloomy chamber +fitted with cupboards and water-tanks--the provision room. From this +a ladder led straight up through a man-hole in the ceiling to the +light-room store, set round with shining oil-tanks and stocked with +paint-pots, brushes, cans, signalling flags, coils of rope, bags of +cotton waste, tool-chests.... A second ladder brought them to the +kitchen, and a third to the sleeping-room; and here the light of the +lantern streamed down on their heads through the open man-hole above +them. They heard, too, the roar of the ventilator, and the _ting-ting_, +regular and sharp, of the small bell reporting that the machinery +revolved. + +Above, in the blaze of the great lenses, old Pezzack and the second +under-keeper welcomed them. The pair had been watching and discussing +the light with true professional pride; and Taffy drew up at the head +of the ladder and stared at it, and nodded his slow approbation. The +glare forced Honoria back against the glass wall, and she caught at its +lattice for support. + +But she pulled herself together, ashamed of her weakness, and glad that +Taffy had not perceived it. + +“This satisfies you?” she whispered. + +He faced round on her with a slow smile. “No,” he said, “this +light-house is useless.” + +“Useless?” + +“You remember the wreck--that wreck--the _Samaritan?_ She came ashore +beneath here; right beneath our feet; by no fault or carelessness. A +light-house on a coast like this--a coast without a harbour--is a joke +set in a death-trap, to make game of dying men.” + + +“But since the coast has no harbour--” + +“I would build one. Look at this,” he pulled a pencil and paper from +his pocket and rapidly sketched the outlines of the Bristol Channel. +“What is that? A bag. Suppose a vessel taken in the mouth of it; a +bag with death along the narrowing sides and death waiting at the +end--no deep-water harbour--no chance anywhere. And the tides! +You know the rhyme--” + + “From Padstow Point to Lundy Light + Is a watery grave by day or night.” + +“Yes, there’s Lundy”--he jotted down the position of the island-- +“Hit off the lee of Lundy, if you can, and drop hook, and pray God it +holds!” + +“But this harbour? What would it cost?” + +“I dare say a million of money; perhaps more. But I work it out at +less--at Porthquin, for instance, or Lundy itself, or even at St. +Ives.” + +“A million!” she laughed. “Now I see the boy I used to know--the boy +of dreams.” + +He turned on her gravely. She was exceedingly beautiful, standing +there in her black habit, bareheaded in the glare of the lenses, +standing with head thrown back, with eyes challenging the past, and a +faint glow on either cheek. But he had no eyes for her beauty. + +He opened his lips to speak. Yes, he could overwhelm her with +statistics and figures, all worked out; of shipping and disasters to +shipping; of wealth and senseless waste of wealth. He could bury her +beneath evidence taken by Royal Commission and Parliamentary +Committee, commissioners’ reports, testimony of shipowners and +captains; calculated tables of tides, sets of currents, prevailing +winds; results of surveys hydrographical; all the mass of facts he +had been accumulating and brooding over for eighteen long months. +But the weight of it closed his lips, and when he opened them again +it was to say, “Yes, that is my dream.” + +At once he turned his talk upon the light revolving in their faces; +began to explain the lenses and their working in short, direct +sentences. She heard his voice, but without following. + +Pezzack and the under-keeper had drawn apart to the opposite side of +the cage and were talking together. The lantern hid them, but she +caught the murmur of their voices now and again. She was conscious +of having let something slip--slip away from her for ever. If she +could but recall him, and hold him to his dream! But this man, +talking in short sentences, each one so sharp and clear, was not the +Taffy she had known or could ever know. + +In the blaze of the lenses suddenly she saw the truth. He and she +had changed places. She who had used to be so practical--_she_ was +the dreamer now; had come thither following a dream, walking in a +dream. He, the dreaming boy, had become the practical man, firm, +clear-sighted, direct of purpose; with a dream yet in his heart, but +a dream of great action, a dream he hid from her, certainly a dream +in which she had neither part nor lot. And yet she had made him what +he was; not willingly, not by kindness, but by injustice. What she +had given he had taken; and was a stranger to her. + +Muffled wings and white breasts began to beat against the glass. +A low-lying haze--a passing stratum of sea-fog--had wrapped the +light-house for a while, and these were the wings and breasts of +sea-birds attracted by the light. To her they were the ghosts of +dead thoughts--stifled thoughts--thoughts which had never come to +birth--trying to force their way into the ring of light encompassing +and enwrapping her; trying desperately, but foiled by the transparent +screen. + +Still she heard his voice, level and masterful, sure of his subject. +In the middle of one of his sentences a sharp thud sounded on the +pane behind her, as sudden as the crack of a pebble and only a little +duller. + +“Ah, what is that?” she cried, and touched his arm. + +He thrust open one of the windows, stepped out upon the gallery, and +returned in less than a minute with a small dead bird in his hand. + +“A swallow,” he said. “They have been preparing to fly for days. +Summer is done, with our work here.” + +She shivered. “Let us go back,” she said. + +They descended the ladders. Trevarthen met them in the kitchen and +went before them with his lantern. In a minute they were in the +cradle again and swinging toward the cliff. The wisp of sea-fog had +drifted past the light-house to leeward, and all was clear again. +High over the cupola Cassiopeia leaned toward the pole, her breast +flashing its eternal badge--the star-pointed W. Low in the north--as +the country tale went--tied to follow her emotions, externally +separate, eternally true to the fixed star of her gaze, the Waggoner +tilted his wheels and drove them close and along and above the misty +sea. + +Taffy, pulling on the rope, looked down upon Honoria’s upturned face +and saw the glimmer of starlight in her eyes; but neither guessed her +thoughts nor tried to. + +It was only when they stood together on the cliff-side that she broke +the silence. “Look,” she said, and pointed upward. “Does that +remind you of anything?” + +He searched his memory. “No,” he confessed: “that is, if you mean +Cassiopeia up yonder.” + +“Think!--the Ship of Stars.” + +“The Ship of Stars?--Yes, I remember now. There was a young sailor-- +with a ship of stars tattooed on his chest. He was drowned on this +very coast.” + +“Was that a part of the story you were to tell me?” + +“What story? I don’t understand.” + +“Don’t you remember that day--the morning when we began lessons +together? You explained the alphabet to me, and when we came to W-- +you said it was a ship--a ship of stars. There was a story about it, +you said, and promised to tell me some day.” + +He laughed. “What queer things you remember!” + +“But what was the story?” + +“I wonder! If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten. I dare say I had +something in my head. Now I think of it, I was always making up some +foolish tale or other, in those days.” + +Yes; he had forgotten. “I have often tried to make up a story about +that ship,” she said gravely, “out of odds and ends of the stories +you used to tell. I don’t think I ever had the gift to invent +anything on my own account. But at last, after a long while--” + +“The story took shape? Tell it to me, please.” + +She hesitated, and broke into a bitter little laugh. “No,” said she, +“you never told me yours.” Again it came to her with a pang that he +and she had changed places. He had taken her forthrightness and left +her, in exchange, his dreams. They were hers now, the gaily coloured +childish fancies, and she must take her way among them alone. +Dreams only! but just as a while back he had started to confess his +dream and had broken down before her, so now in turn she knew that +her tongue was held. + +Humility rose as they entered the kitchen together. A glance as +Honoria held out her hand for good-bye told her all she needed to +know. + +“And you are leaving in a day or two?” Honoria asked. + +“Thursday next is the day fixed.” + +“You are very brave.” + +Again the two women’s eyes met, and this time the younger understood. +_Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; +thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God_--that which the +Moabitess said for a woman’s sake women are saying for men’s sakes by +thousands every day. + +Still holding her hand, Humility drew Honoria close. “God deal +kindly with you, my dear,” she whispered, and kissed her. + +At the gate Honoria blew a whistle, and after a few seconds +Aide-de-camp came obediently out of the darkness to be bridled. +This done, Taffy lent his hand and swung her into the saddle. + +“Good-night and good-bye!” + +Taffy was the first to turn back from the gate. The beat of +Aide-de-camp’s hoofs reminded him of something--some music he had +once heard; he could not remember where. + +Humility lingered a moment longer, and followed to prepare her son’s +supper. + +But Honoria, fleeing along the ridge, hugged one fierce thought in +her defeat. The warm wind sang by her ears, the rhythm of +Aide-de-camp’s canter thudded upon her brain; but her heart cried +back on them and louder than either-- + +“He is mine, mine, mine! He is mine, and always will be. He is lost +to me, but I possess him. For what he is I have made him, and at my +cost he is strong.” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIP OF STARS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Ship of Stars</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 7, 2005 [eBook #16000]<br> +Last Updated: July 3, 2023</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Lionel Sear</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIP OF STARS ***</div> + + +<h1>THE SHIP OF STARS.</h1> + +<p class="center p2">by<br> +<span class="big">Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)</span></p> + +<p class="center big p2">1899</p> + + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center big">To THE RIGHT HON. LEONARD HENRY COURTNEY, M.P.</p> +</div> + + +<p>My Dear Mr. Courtney,</p> + +<p>It is with a peculiar pleasure and, I dare to hope, with some +appropriateness that I dedicate to you this story of the West +Country, which claims you with pride. To be sure, the places here +written of will be found in no map of your own or any neighbouring +constituency. A visitor may discover Nannizabuloe, but only to +wonder what has become of the lighthouse, or seek along the +sand-hills without hitting on Tredinnis. Yet much of the tale is +true in a fashion, even to fact. One or two things which happen to +Sir Harry Vyell did actually happen to a better man, who lived and +hunted foxes not a hundred miles from the “model borough” of +Liskeard, and are told of him in my friend Mr. W. F. Collier’s memoir +of Harry Terrell, a bygone Dartmoor hero: and a true account of what +followed the wreck of the Samaritan will be found in a chapter of +Remembrances by that true poet and large-hearted man, Robert Stephen +Hawker.</p> + +<p>But a novel ought to be true to more than fact: and if this one come +near its aim, no one will need to be told why I dedicate it to you. +If it do not (and I wish the chance could be despised!), its author +will yet hold that among the names of living Englishmen he could have +chosen none fitter to be inscribed above a story which in the telling +has insensibly come to rest upon the two texts, “Lord, make men as +towers!” and “All towers carry a light.” Although for you Heaven has +seen fit to darken the light, believe me it shines outwards over the +waters and is a help to men: a guiding light tended by brave hands. +We pray, sir—we who sail in little boats—for long life to the tower +and the unfaltering lamp.</p> + +<p class="right">A. T. Q. C.<br> +St. John’s Eve, 1899.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +</div> +<table class="autotable"> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">I. THE BOY IN THE GATE-HOUSE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">II. MUSIC IN THE TOWN SQUARE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">III. PASSENGER’S BY JOBY’S VAN.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV. THE RUNNING SANDS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">V. TAFFY RINGS THE CHURCH BELL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI. A COCK-FIGHT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII. GEORGE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII. THE SQUIRE’S SOUL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX. ENTER THE KING’S POSTMAN.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">X. A HAPPY DAY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI. LIZZIE REDEEMS HER DOLL AND HONORIA THROWS A STONE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII. TAFFY’S CHILDHOOD COMES TO AN END.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII. THE BUILDERS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV. VOICES FROM THE SEA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV. TAFFY’S APPRENTICESHIP.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI. LIZZIE AND HONORIA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII. THE SQUIRE’S WEIRD.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII. THE BARRIERS FALL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX. OXFORD.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX. TAFFY GIVES A PROMISE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI. HONORIA’S LETTERS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII. MEN AS TOWERS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII. THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV. FACE TO FACE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV. THE WRECK OF THE “SAMARITAN”.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI. SALVAGE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII. HONORIA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII. A L’OUTRANCE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX. THE SHIP OF STARS.</a></td></tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center xbig">THE SHIP OF STARS.</p> + + +<hr class="r5"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br><span class="small">THE BOY IN THE GATE-HOUSE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>Until his ninth year the boy about whom this story is written lived +in a house which looked upon the square of a county town. The house +had once formed part of a large religious building, and the boy’s +bedroom had a high groined roof, and on the capstone an angel carved, +with outspread wings. Every night the boy wound up his prayers with +this verse which his grandmother had taught him:</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bless the bed that I lie on.</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Four corners to my bed,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Four angels round my head;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">One to watch, one to pray,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Two to bear my soul away.”</span><br></p> + +<p>Then he would look up to the angel and say: “Only Luke is with me.” +His head was full of queer texts and beliefs. He supposed the three +other angels to be always waiting in the next room, ready to bear +away the soul of his grandmother (who was bed-ridden), and that he +had Luke for an angel because he was called Theophilus, after the +friend for whom St. Luke had written his Gospel and the Acts of the +Holy Apostles. His name in full was Theophilus John Raymond, but +people called him Taffy.</p> + +<p>Of his parents’ circumstances he knew very little, except that they +were poor, and that his father was a clergyman attached to the parish +church. As a matter of fact, the Reverend Samuel Raymond was senior +curate there, with a stipend of ninety-five pounds a year. Born at +Tewkesbury, the son of a miller, he had won his way to a servitorship +at Christ Church, Oxford; and somehow, in the course of one Long +Vacation, had found money for travelling expenses to join a reading +party under the Junior Censor. The party spent six summer weeks at a +farmhouse near Honiton, in Devon. The farm belonged to an invalid +widow named Venning, who let it be managed by her daughter Humility +and two paid labourers, while she herself sat by the window in her +kitchen parlour, busied incessantly with lace-work of that beautiful +kind for which Honiton is famous. He was an unassuming youth; and +although in those days servitors were no longer called upon to black +the boots of richer undergraduates, the widow and her daughter soon +divined that he was lowlier than the others, and his position an +awkward one, and were kind to him in small ways, and grew to like +him. Next year, at their invitation, he travelled down to Honiton +alone, with a box of books; and, at twenty-two, having taken his +degree, he paid them a third visit, and asked Humility to be his +wife. At twenty-four, soon after his admission to deacon’s orders, +they were married. The widow sold the small farm, with its stock, +and followed to live with them in the friary gate-house; this having +been part of Humility’s bargain with her lover, if the word can be +used of a pact between two hearts so fond.</p> + +<p>About ten years had gone since these things happened, and their child +Taffy was now past his eighth birthday.</p> + +<p>It seemed to him that, so far back as he could remember, his mother +and grandmother had been making lace continually. At night, when his +mother took the candle away with her and left him alone in the dark, +he was not afraid; for, by closing his eyes, he could always see the +two women quite plainly; and always he saw them at work, each with a +pillow on her lap, and the lace upon it growing, growing, until the +pins and bobbins wove a pattern that was a dream, and he slept. +He could not tell what became of all the lace, though he had a collar +of it which he wore to church on Sundays, and his mother had once +shown him a parcel of it, wrapped in tissue-paper, and told him it +was his christening robe.</p> + +<p>His father was always reading, except on Sundays, when he preached +sermons. In his thoughts nine times out of ten Taffy associated his +father with a great pile of books; but the tenth time with something +totally different. One summer—it was in his sixth year—they had +all gone on a holiday to Tewkesbury, his father’s old home; and he +recalled quite clearly the close of a warm afternoon which he and his +mother had spent there in a green meadow beyond the abbey church. +She had brought out a basket and cushion, and sat sewing, while Taffy +played about and watched the haymakers at their work. Behind them, +within the great church, the organ was sounding; but by-and-by it +stopped, and a door opened in the abbey wall, and his father came +across the meadow toward them with his surplice on his arm. And then +Humility unpacked the basket and produced a kettle, a spirit-lamp, +and a host of things good to eat. The boy thought the whole +adventure splendid. When tea was done, he sprang up with one of +those absurd notions which come into children’s heads:</p> + +<p>“Now let’s feed the poultry,” he cried, and flung his last scrap of +bun three feet in air toward the gilt weather-cock on the abbey +tower. While they laughed, “Father, how tall is the tower?” he +demanded.</p> + +<p>“A hundred and thirty-two feet, my boy, from ground to battlements.”</p> + +<p>“What are battlements?”</p> + +<p>He was told.</p> + +<p>“But people don’t fight here,” he objected.</p> + +<p>Then his father told of a battle fought in the very meadow in which +they were sitting; of soldiers at bay with their backs to the abbey +wall; of crowds that ran screaming into the church; of others chased +down Mill Street and drowned; of others killed by the Town Cross; and +how—people said in the upper room of a house still standing in the +High Street—a boy prince had been stabbed.</p> + +<p>Humility laid a hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>“He’ll be dreaming of all this. Tell him it was a long time ago, and +that these things don’t happen now.”</p> + +<p>But her husband was looking up at the tower.</p> + +<p>“See it now with the light upon it!” he went on. “And it has seen it +all. Eight hundred years of heaven’s storms and man’s madness, and +still foursquare and as beautiful now as when the old masons took +down their scaffolding. When I was a boy—”</p> + +<p>He broke off suddenly. “Lord, make men as towers,” he added quietly +after a while, and nobody spoke for many minutes.</p> + +<p>To Taffy this had seemed a very queer saying; about as queer as that +other one about “men as trees walking.” Somehow—he could not say +why—he had never asked any questions about it. But many times he +had perched himself on a flat tombstone under the church tower at +home, and tilted his head back and stared up at the courses and +pinnacles, wondering what his father could have meant, and how a man +could possibly be like a tower. It ended in this—that whenever he +dreamed about his father, these two towers, or a tower which was more +or less a combination of both, would get mixed up with the dream as +well.</p> + + +<p>The gate-house contained a sitting-room and three bedrooms (one +hardly bigger than a box-cupboard); but a building adjoined it which +had been the old Franciscans’ refectory, though now it was divided by +common planking into two floors, the lower serving for a feoffee +office, while the upper was supposed to be a muniment-room, in charge +of the feoffees’ clerk. The clerk used it for drying his +garden-seeds and onions, and spread his hoarding apples to ripen on +the floor. So when Taffy grew to need a room of his own, and his +father’s books to cumber the very stairs of the gate-house, the money +which Humility and her mother made by their lace-work, and which +arrived always by post, came very handy for the rent which the clerk +asked for his upper chamber.</p> + +<p>Carpenters appeared and partitioned it off into two rooms, +communicating with the gate-house by a narrow doorway pierced in the +wall. All this, whilst it was doing, interested Taffy mightily; and +he announced his intention of being a carpenter one of these days.</p> + +<p>“I hope,” said Humility, “you will look higher, and be a preacher of +God’s Word, like your father.”</p> + +<p>His father frowned at this and said: “Jesus Christ was both.”</p> + +<p>Taffy compromised: “Perhaps I’ll make pulpits.”</p> + +<p>This was how he came to have a bedroom with a vaulted roof and a +window that reached down below the floor.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br><span class="small">MUSIC IN THE TOWN SQUARE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>This window looked upon the Town Square, and across it to the +Mayoralty. The square had once been the Franciscans’ burial-ground, +and was really no square at all, but a semicircle. The townspeople +called it Mount Folly. The chord of the arc was formed by a large +Assize Hall, with a broad flight of granite steps, and a cannon +planted on either side of the steps. The children used to climb +about these cannons, and Taffy had picked out his first letters from +the words <i>Sevastopol</i> and <i>Russian Trophy</i>, painted in white on +their lead-coloured carriages.</p> + +<p>Below the Assize Hall an open gravelled space sloped gently down to a +line of iron railings and another flight of granite steps leading +into the main street. The street curved uphill around the base of +this open ground, and came level with it just in front of the +Mayoralty, a tall stuccoed building where the public balls were +given, and the judges had their lodgings in assize time, and the +Colonel his quarters during the militia training.</p> + +<p>Fine shows passed under Taffy’s window. Twice a year came the +judges, with the sheriff in uniform and his chaplain, and his coach, +and his coachman and lackeys in powder and plush and silk stockings, +white or flesh-coloured; and the barristers with their wigs, and the +javelin men and silver trumpets. Every spring, too, the Royal +Rangers Militia came up for training. Suddenly one morning, in the +height of the bird-nesting season, the street would swarm with +countrymen tramping up to the barracks on the hill, and back, with +bundles of clothes and unblackened boots dangling. For the next six +weeks the town would be full of bugle calls, and brazen music, and +companies marching and parading in suits of invisible green, and +clanking officers in black, with little round forage caps, and silver +badges on their side-belts; and, towards evening, with men lounging +and smoking, or washing themselves in public before the doors of +their billets.</p> + +<p>Usually too, Whitsun Fair fell at the height of the militia training; +and then for two days booths and caravans, sweet-standings and +shooting-galleries lined the main street, and Taffy went out with a +shilling in his pocket to enjoy himself. But the bigger shows—the +menagerie, the marionettes, and the travelling Theatre Royal—were +pitched on Mount Folly, just under his window. Sometimes the theatre +would stay a week or two after the fair was over, until even the boy +grew tired of the naphtha-lamps and the voices of the tragedians, and +the cornet wheezing under canvas, and began to long for the time when +they would leave the square open for the boys to come and play at +prisoners’ bars in the dusk.</p> + +<p>One evening, a fortnight before Whitsun Fair, he had taken his book +to the open window, and sat there with it. Every night he had to +learn a text which he repeated next morning to his mother. Already, +across the square, the Mayoralty house was brightly lit, and the +bandsmen had begun to arrange their stands and music before it; for +the Colonel was receiving company. Every now and then a carriage +arrived, and set down its guests.</p> + +<p>After a while Taffy looked up and saw two persons crossing the +square—an old man and a little girl. He recognised them, having +seen them together in church the day before, when his father had +preached the sermon. The old man wore a rusty silk hat, cocked a +little to one side, a high stock collar, black cutaway coat, breeches +and gaiters of grey cord. He stooped as he walked, with his hands +behind him and his walking-stick dangling like a tail—a very +positive old fellow, to look at. The girl’s face Taffy could not +see; it was hidden by the brim of her Leghorn hat.</p> + +<p>The pair passed close under the window. Taffy heard a knock at the +door below, and ran to the head of the stairs. Down in the passage +his mother was talking to the old man, who turned to the girl and +told her to wait outside.</p> + +<p>“But let her come in and sit down,” urged Humility.</p> + +<p>“No, ma’am; I know my mind. I want one hour with your husband.”</p> + +<p>Taffy heard the door shut, and went back to his window-seat.</p> + +<p>The little girl had climbed the cannon opposite, and sat there +dangling her feet and eyeing the house.</p> + +<p>“Boy,” said she, “what a funny window-seat you’ve got! I can see +your legs under it.”</p> + +<p>“That’s because the window reaches down to the floor, and the bench +is fixed across by the transom here.”</p> + +<p>“What’s your name?”</p> + +<p>“Theophilus; but they call me Taffy.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Father says it’s an imperfect example of Grimm’s Law.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Then, I suppose you’re quite the gentleman? My name’s +Honoria.”</p> + +<p>“Is that your father downstairs?”</p> + +<p>“Bless the boy! What age do you take me for? He’s my grandfather. +He’s asking your father about his soul. He wants to be saved, and +says if he’s not saved before next Lady-day, he’ll know the reason +why. What are you doing up there?”</p> + +<p>“Reading.”</p> + +<p>“Reading what?”</p> + +<p>“The Bible.”</p> + +<p>“But, I say, can you really?”</p> + +<p>“You listen.” Taffy rested the big Bible on the window-frame; it just +had room to lie open between the two mullions—“<i>Now when they had +gone throughout Phrygia and Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy +Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia they +assayed to go into Bithynia; but the Spirit suffered them not. +And they, passing by Mysia, came down to Troas. And a vision +appeared to Paul in the night</i>....”</p> + +<p>“I don’t wonder at it. Did you ever have the whooping-cough?”</p> + +<p>“Not yet.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve had it all the winter. That’s why I’m not allowed in to play +with you. Listen!”</p> + +<p>She coughed twice, and wound up with a terrific whoop.</p> + +<p>“Now, if you’d only put on your nightshirt and preach, I’d be the +congregation and interrupt you with coughing.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Taffy, “let’s do it.”</p> + +<p>“No; you didn’t suggest it. I hate boys who have to be told.”</p> + +<p>Taffy was huffed, and pretended to return to his book. By-and-by she +called up to him:</p> + +<p>“Tell me, what’s written on this gun of yours?”</p> + +<p>“Sevastopol—that’s a Russian town. The English took it by storm.”</p> + +<p>“What! the soldiers over there?”</p> + +<p>“No, they’re only bandsmen; and they’re too young. But I expect the +Colonel was there. He’s upstairs in the Mayoralty, dining. +He’s quite an old man, but I’ve heard father say he was as brave as a +lion when the fighting happened.”</p> + +<p>The girl climbed off the gun.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to have a look at him,” she said; and turning her back on +Taffy, she sauntered off across the square, just as the band struck +up the first note of the overture from <i>Semiramide</i>. A waltz of +Strauss followed, and then came a cornet solo by the bandmaster, and +a medley of old English tunes. To all of these Taffy listened. +It had fallen too dark to read, and the boy was always sensitive to +music. Often when he played alone broken phrases and scraps of +remembered tunes came into his head and repeated themselves over and +over. Then he would drop his game and wander about restlessly, +trying to fix and complete the melody; and somehow in the process the +melody always became a story, or so like a story that he never knew +the difference. Sometimes his uneasiness lasted for days together. +But when the story came complete at last—and this always sprang on +him quite suddenly—he wanted to caper and fling his arms about and +sing aloud; and did so, if nobody happened to be looking.</p> + +<p>The bandmaster, too, had music, and a reputation for imparting it. +Famous regimental bands contained pupils of his; and his old pupils, +when they met, usually told each other stories of his atrocious +temper. But he kept his temper to-night, for his youngsters were +playing well, and the small crowd standing quiet.</p> + +<p>The English melodies had scarcely closed with “Come, lasses and +lads,” when across in Mayoralty a blind was drawn, and a window +thrown open, and Taffy saw the warm room within, and the officers and +ladies standing with glasses in their hands. The Colonel was giving +the one toast of the evening:</p> + +<p>“Ladies and gentlemen—The Queen!”</p> + +<p>The adjutant leaned out and lifted his hand for signal, and the band +crashed out with the National Anthem. Then there was silence for a +minute. The window remained open. Taffy still caught glimpses of +jewels and uniforms, and white necks bending, and men leaning back in +their chairs, with their mess-jackets open, and the candle-light +flashing on their shirt-fronts. Below, in the dark street, the +bandmaster trimmed the lamp by his music-stand. In the rays of it he +drew out a handkerchief and polished the keys of his cornet; then +passed the cornet over to his left hand, took up his baton, and +nodded.</p> + +<p>What music was that, stealing, rippling, across the square? +The bandmaster knew nothing of the tale of Tannhauser, but was +wishing that he had violins at his beck, instead of stupid flutes and +reeds. And Taffy had never heard so much as the name of Tannhauser. +Of the meaning of the music he knew nothing—nothing beyond its +wonder and terror. But afterward he made a tale of it to himself.</p> + +<p>In the tale it seemed that a vine shot up and climbed on the shadows +of the warm night; and the shadows climbed with it and made a trellis +for it right across the sky. The vine thrust through the trellis +faster and faster, dividing, throwing out little curls and tendrils; +then leaves and millions of leaves, each leaf unfolding about a drop +of dew, which trickled and fell and tinkled like a bird’s song.</p> + +<p>The beauty and scent of the vine distressed him. He wanted to cry +out, for it was hiding the sky. Then he heard the tramp of feet in +the distance, and knew that they threatened the vine, and with that +he wanted to save it. But the feet came nearer and nearer, tramping +terribly.</p> + +<p>He could not bear it. He ran to the stairs, stole down them, opened +the front door cautiously, and slipped outside. He was half-way +across the square before it occurred to him that the band had ceased +to play. Then he wondered why he had come, but he did not go back. +He found Honoria standing a little apart from the crowd, with her +hands clasped behind her, gazing up at the window of the +banqueting-room.</p> + +<p>She did not see him at once.</p> + +<p>“Stand on the steps, here,” he whispered, “then you can see him. +That’s the Colonel—the man at the end of the table, with the big, +grey moustache.”</p> + +<p>He touched her arm. She sprang away and stamped her foot.</p> + +<p>“Keep off with you! Who <i>told</i> you?—Oh! you bad boy!”</p> + +<p>“Nobody. I thought you hated boys who wait to be told.”</p> + +<p>“And now you’ll get the whooping-cough, and goodness knows what will +happen to you, and you needn’t think I’ll be sorry!”</p> + +<p>“Who wants you to be sorry! As for you,” Taffy went on sturdily, “I +think your grandfather might have more sense than to keep you waiting +out here in the cold, and giving your cough to the whole town!”</p> + +<p>“Ha! you do, do you?”</p> + +<p>It was not the girl who said this. Taffy swung round, and saw an old +man staring down on him. There was just light enough to reveal that +he had very formidable grey eyes. But Taffy’s blood was up.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do,” he said, and wondered at himself.</p> + +<p>“Ha! Does your father whip you sometimes?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I should if you were my boy. I believe in it. Come, Honoria!”</p> + +<p>The child threw a glance at Taffy as she was led away. He could not +be sure whether she took his side or her grandfather’s.</p> + +<p>That night he had a very queer dream.</p> + +<p>His grandmother had lost her lace-pillow, and after searching for +some time, he found it lying out in the square. But the pins and +bobbins were darting to and fro on their own account, at an +incredible rate, and the lace as they made it turned into a singing +beanstalk, and rose and threw out branches all over the sky. +Very soon he found himself climbing among those branches, up and up +until he came to a Palace, which was really the Assize Hall, with a +flight of steps before it and a cannon on either side of the steps. +Within sat a giant, asleep, with his head on the table and his face +hidden; but his neck bulged at the back just like the bandmaster’s +during a cornet solo. A harp stood on the table. Taffy caught this +up, and was stealing downstairs with it, but at the third stair the +harp—which had Honoria’s head and face—began to cough, and wound up +with a <i>whoop!</i> This woke the giant—he turned out to be Honoria’s +grandfather—who came roaring after him. Glancing down below as he +ran, Taffy saw his mother and the bandmaster far below with axes, +hacking at the foot of the beanstalk. He tried to call out and +prevent them, but they kept smiting. And the worst of it was, that +down below, too, his father was climbing into a pulpit, quite as if +nothing was happening. The pulpit grew and became a tower, and his +father kept calling, “Be a tower! Be a tower, like me!”</p> + +<p>But Taffy couldn’t for the life of him see how to manage it. +The beanstalk began to totter; he felt himself falling, and leapt for +the tower.... And awoke in his bed shuddering, and, for the first +time in his life, afraid of the dark. He would have called for his +mother, but just then down by the turret clock in Fore Street the +buglers began to sound the “Last Post,” and he hugged himself and +felt that the world he knew was still about him, companionable and +kind.</p> + +<p>Twice the buglers repeated their call, in more distant streets, each +time more faintly; and the last flying notes carried him into sleep +again.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br><span class="small">PASSENGERS BY JOBY’S VAN.</span></h2></div> + +<p>At breakfast next morning he saw by his parents’ faces that something +unusual had happened. Nothing was said to him about it, whatever it +might be. But once or twice after this, coming into the parlour +suddenly, he found his father and mother talking low and earnestly +together; and now and then they would go up to his grandmother’s room +and talk.</p> + +<p>In some way he divined that there was a question of leaving home. +But the summer passed and these private talks became fewer. +Toward August, however, they began again; and by-and-by his mother +told him. They were going to a parish on the North Coast, right away +across the Duchy, where his father had been presented to a living. +The place had an odd name—Nannizabuloe.</p> + +<p>“And it is lonely,” said Humility, “the most of it sea-sand, so far +as I can hear.”</p> + +<p>It was by the sea, then. How would they get there?</p> + +<p>“Oh, Joby’s van will take us most of the way.”</p> + +<p>Of all the vans which came and went in the Fore Street, none could +compare for romance with Joby’s. People called it the Wreck Ashore; +but its real name, “Vital Spark, J. Job, Proprietor,” was painted on +its orange-coloured sides in letters of vivid blue, a blue not often +seen except on ship’s boats. It disappeared every Tuesday and +Saturday over the hill and into a mysterious country, from which it +emerged on Mondays and Fridays with a fine flavour of the sea renewed +upon it and upon Joby. No other driver wore a blue guernsey, or +rings in his ears, as Joby did. No other van had the same mode of +progressing down the street in a series of short tacks, or brought +such a crust of brine on its panes, or such a mixture of mud and fine +sand on its wheels, or mingled scraps of dry sea-weed with the straw +on its floor.</p> + +<p>“Will there be ships?” Taffy asked.</p> + +<p>“I dare say we shall see a few, out in the distance. It’s a poor, +outlandish place. It hasn’t even a proper church.”</p> + +<p>“If there’s no church, father can get into a boat and preach; just +like the Sea of Galilee, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Your father is too good a man to mimic the Scriptures in any such +way. There is a church, I believe, though it’s a tumble-down one. +Nobody has preached in it for years. But Squire Moyle may do +something now. He’s a rich man.”</p> + +<p>“Is that the old gentleman who came to ask father about his soul?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; he says no preaching ever did him so much good as your +father’s. That’s why he came and offered the living.”</p> + +<p>“But he can’t go to heaven if he’s rich.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, Taffy, wherever you pick up such wicked thoughts.”</p> + +<p>“Why, it’s in the Bible!”</p> + +<p>Humility would not argue about it; but she told her husband that +night what the child had said. “My dear,” he answered, “the boy must +think of these things.”</p> + +<p>“But he ought not to be talking disrespectfully,” contended she.</p> + + +<p>One Tuesday, towards the end of September, Taffy saw his father off +by Joby’s van; and the Friday after, walked down with his mother to +meet him on his return. Almost at once the household began to pack. +The packing went on for a week, in the midst of which his father +departed again, a waggon-load of books and furniture having been sent +forward on the road that same morning. Then followed a day or two +during which Taffy and his mother took their meals at the +window-seat, sitting on corded boxes; and an evening when he went out +to the cannon in the square, and around the little back garden, +saying good-bye to the fixtures and the few odds and ends which were +to be left behind—the tool-shed (Crusoe’s hut, Cave of Adullam, and +Treasury of the Forty Thieves), the stunted sycamore-tree which he +had climbed at different times as Zacchaeus, Ali Baba, and Man Friday +with the bear behind him; the clothes’ prop, which, on the strength +of its forked tail, had so often played Dragon to his St. George. +When he returned to the empty house, he found his mother in the +passage. She had been for a walk alone. The candle was lit, and he +saw she had been crying. This told him where she had been; for, +although he remembered nothing about it, he knew he had once +possessed a small sister, who lived with him less than two months. +He had, as a rule, very definite notions of death and the grave; but +he never thought of her as dead and buried, partly because his mother +would never allow him to go with her to the cemetery, and partly +because of a picture in a certain book of his, called <i>Child’s Play</i>. +It represented a little girl wading across a pool among water-lilies. +She wore a white nightdress, kilted above her knees, and a dark +cloak, which dragged behind in the water. She let it trail, while +she held up a hand to cover one of her eyes. Above her were trees +and an owl, and a star shining under the topmost branch; and on the +opposite page this verse:</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“I have a little sister,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">They call her Peep-peep,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She wades through the waters,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Deep, deep, deep;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">She climbs up the mountains,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">High, high, high;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This poor little creature</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">She has but one eye.”</span><br></p> + +<p>For years Taffy believed that this was his little sister, one-eyed, +and always wandering; and that his mother went out in the dusk to +persuade her to return; but she never would.</p> + +<p>When he woke next morning his mother was in the room; and while he +washed and dressed she folded his bed-clothes and carried them down +to a waggon which stood by the door, with horses already harnessed. +It drove away soon after. He found breakfast laid on the +window-seat. A neighbour had lent the crockery, and Taffy was +greatly taken with the pattern on the cups and saucers. He wanted to +run round again and repeat his good-byes to the house, but there was +no time. By-and-by the door opened, and two men, neighbours of +theirs, entered with an invalid’s litter; and, Humility directing, +brought down old Mrs. Venning. She wore the corner of a Paisley +shawl over her white cap, and carried a nosegay of flowers in place +of her lace-pillow; but otherwise looked much as usual.</p> + +<p>“Quite the traveller, you see!” she cried gaily to Taffy.</p> + +<p>Then the woman who had lent the breakfast-ware came running to say +that Joby was getting impatient. Humility handed the door-key to +her, and so the little procession passed out and down across Mount +Folly.</p> + +<p>Joby had drawn his van up close to the granite steps. They were the +only passengers, it seemed. The invalid was hoisted in and laid with +her couch across the seats, so that her shoulders rested against one +side of the van and her feet against the other. Humility climbed in +after her; but Taffy, to his joy, was given a seat outside the box.</p> + +<p>“C’k!”—they were off.</p> + +<p>As they crawled up the street a few townspeople paused on the +pavement and waved farewells. At the top of the town they overtook +three sailor-boys, with bundles, who climbed up and perched +themselves a-top of the van, on the luggage.</p> + +<p>On they went again. There were two horses—a roan and a grey. +Taffy had never before looked down on the back of a horse, and +Joby’s horses astonished him; they were so broad behind, and so +narrow at the shoulders. He wanted to ask if the shape were at all +common, but felt shy. He stole a glance at the silver ring in Joby’s +left ear, and blushed when Joby turned and caught him.</p> + +<p>“Here, catch hold!” said Joby handing him the whip. “Only you +mustn’t use it too fierce.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ll be a scholar, like your father? Can ee spell?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Cipher?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“That’s more than I can. I counts upon my fingers. When they be +used up, I begins upon my buttons. I ha’n’t got no buttons—visible +that is—’pon my week-a-day clothes; so I keeps the long sums for +Sundays, and adds ’em up and down my weskit during sermon. +Don’t tell any person.”</p> + +<p>“I won’t.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right. I don’t want it known. Ever see a gipsy?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes—often.”</p> + +<p>“Next time you see one you’ll know why he wears so many buttons. +You’ve a lot to learn.”</p> + +<p>The van zigzagged down one hill and up another, and halted at a +turnpike. An old woman in a pink sun-bonnet bustled out and handed +Joby a pink ticket. A little way beyond they passed the angle of a +mining district, with four or five engine-houses high up like castles +on the hillside, and rows of stamps clattering and working up and +down like ogres’ teeth. Next they came to a church town, with a +green and a heap of linen spread to dry (for it was Tuesday), and a +flock of geese that ran and hissed after the van, until Joby took the +whip and, leaning out, looped the gander by the neck and pulled him +along in the dust. The sailor-boys shouted with laughter and struck +up a song about a fox and a goose, which lasted all the way up a long +hill and brought them to a second turnpike, on the edge of the moors. +Here lived an old woman in a blue sun-bonnet; and she handed Joby a +yellow-ticket.</p> + +<p>“But why does she wear a blue bonnet and give yellow tickets?” Taffy +asked, as they drove on.</p> + +<p>Joby considered for a minute. “Ah, you’re one to take notice, I see. +That’s right, keep your eyes skinned when you travel.”</p> + +<p>Taffy had to think this out. The country was changing now. They had +left stubble fields and hedges behind, and before them the granite +road stretched like a white ribbon, with moors on either hand, dotted +with peat-ricks and reedy pools and cropping ponies, and rimmed in +the distance with clay-works glistening in the sunny weather.</p> + +<p>“What sort of place is Nannizabuloe?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t go on there. I drop you at Indian Queens.”</p> + +<p>“But what sort of place is it?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I’ll tell you what folks say of it:”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">‘All sea and san’s,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Out of the world and into St. Ann’s.’</span><br></p> + +<p>“That’s what they say, and if I’m wrong you may call me a liar.”</p> + +<p>“And Squire Moyle?” Taffy persevered. “What kind of man is he?”</p> + +<p>Joby turned and eyed him severely. “Look here, sonny. I got my +living to get.”</p> + +<p>This silenced Taffy for a long while, but he picked up his courage +again by degrees. There was a small window at his back, and he +twisted himself round, and nodded to his mother and grandmother +inside the van. He could not hear what they answered, for the +sailor-boys were singing at the top of their voices:</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“I will sing you One, O!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What is your One, O?</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Number One sits all alone, and ever more shall be-e so.”</span><br> +</p> +<p>“They’re home ’pon leave,” said Joby. The song went on and reached +Number Seven:</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“I will sing you Seven, O!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What is your Seven, O?</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Seven be seven stars in the ship a-sailing round in Heaven, O!”</span><br> +</p> +<p>One of the boys leaned from the roof and twitched Taffy by the hair. +“Hullo, nipper! Did you ever see a ship of stars?” He grinned and +pulled open his sailor’s jumper and singlet; and there, on his naked +breast, Taffy saw a ship tattooed, with three masts, and a +half-circle of stars above it, and below it the initials W. P.</p> + +<p>“D’ee think my mother’ll know me again?” asked the boy, and the other +two began to laugh.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I think so,” said Taffy gravely; which made them laugh more +than ever.</p> + +<p>“But why is he painted like that?” he asked Joby, as they took up +their song again.</p> + +<p>“Ah, you’ll larn over to St. Ann’s, being one to notice things.” +The nearer he came to it, the more mysterious this new home of +Taffy’s seemed to grow. By-and-by Humility let down the window and +handed out a pasty. Joby searched under his seat and found a pasty, +twice the size of Taffy’s, in a nose-bag. They ate as they went, +holding up their pasties from time to time and comparing progress. +Late in the afternoon they came to hedges again, and at length to an +inn; and in front of it Taffy spied his father waiting with a +farm-cart. While Joby baited his horses, the sailor-boys helped to +lift out the invalid and trans-ship the luggage; after which they +climbed on the roof again, and were jogged away northward in the +dusk, waving their caps and singing.</p> + +<p>The most remarkable thing about the inn was its signboard. This bore +on either side the picture of an Indian queen and two blackamoor +children, all with striped parasols, walking together across a +desert. The queen on one side wore a scarlet turban and a blue robe; +but the queen on the other side wore a blue turban and a scarlet +robe. Taffy dodged from side to side, comparing them, and had not +made up his mind which he liked best when Humility called him indoors +to tea.</p> + +<p>They had ham and eggs with their tea, which they took in a great +hurry; and then his grandmother was lifted into the cart and laid on +a bed of clean straw beside the boxes, and he and his mother +clambered up in front. So they started again, his father walking at +the horse’s head. They took the road toward the sunset. As the dusk +fell closer around, Mr. Raymond lit a horn lantern and carried it +before them. The rays of it danced and wheeled upon the hedges and +gorse bushes. Taffy began to feel sleepy, though it was long before +his usual bedtime. The air seemed to weigh his eyelids down. Or was +it a sound lulling him? He looked up suddenly. His mother’s arm was +about him. Stars flashed above, and a glimmer fell on her gentle +face—a dew of light, as it were. Her dark eyes appeared darker than +usual as she leaned and drew her shawl over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>Ahead, the rays of the lantern kept up their dance, but they flared +now and again upon stone hedges built in zigzag layers, and upon +unknown feathery bushes, intensely green and glistening like metal.</p> + +<p>The cart jolted and the lantern swung to a soundless tune that filled +the night. When Taffy listened it ceased; when he ceased listening, +it began again.</p> + +<p>The lantern stopped its dance and stood still over a ford of black +water. The cart splashed into it and became a ship, heaving and +lurching over a soft, irregular floor that returned no sound. +But suddenly the ship became a cart again, and stood still before a +house with a narrow garden-path and a light streaming along it from +an open door.</p> + +<p>His father lifted him down; his mother took his hand. They seemed to +wade together up that stream of light. Then came a staircase and +room with a bed in it, which, oddly enough, turned out to be his own. +He stared at the pink roses on the curtains. Yes; certainly it was +his own bed. And satisfied of this, he nestled down in the pillows +and slept, to the long cadence of the sea.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br><span class="small">THE RUNNING SANDS.</span></h2></div> + +<p>He awoke to find the sun shining in at his window. At first he +wondered what had happened. The window seemed to be in the ceiling, +and the ceiling sloped down to the walls, and all the furniture had +gone astray into wrong positions. Then he remembered, jumped out of +bed, and drew the blind.</p> + +<p>He saw a blue line of sea, so clearly drawn that the horizon might +have been a string stretched from the corner eaves to the snow-white +light-house standing on the farthest spit of land; blue sea and +yellow sand curving round it, with a white edge of breakers; inshore, +the sand rising to a cliff ridged with grassy hummocks; farther +inshore, the hummocks united and rolling away up to inland downs, but +broken here and there on their way with scars of sand; over all, +white gulls wheeling. He could hear the nearest ones mewing as they +sailed over the house.</p> + +<p>Taffy had seen the sea once before, at Dawlish, on the journey to +Tewkesbury; and again on the way home. But here it was bluer +altogether, and the sands were yellower. Only he felt disappointed +that no ship was in sight, nor any dwelling nearer than the +light-house and the two or three white cottages behind it. +He dressed in a hurry and said his prayers, repeating at the close, +as he had been taught to do, the first and last verses of the Morning +Hymn:</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Awake, my soul, and with the sun</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy daily stage of duty run;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To pay thy morning sacrifice.</span><br> +</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Praise Him, all creatures here below;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”</span><br></p> + +<p>He ran downstairs. In this queer house the stairs led right down +into the kitchen. The front door, too, opened into the kitchen, +which was really a slate-paved hall, with a long table set between +the doorway and the big open hearth. The floor was always strewn +with sand; there was no trouble about this, for the wind blew plenty +under the door.</p> + +<p>Taffy found the table laid, and his mother busily slicing bread for +his bread and milk. He begged for a hot cake from the hearth, and +ran out of doors to eat it. Humility lifted the latch for him, for +the cake was so hot that he had to pass it from hand to hand.</p> + +<p>Outside, the wind came upon him with a clap on the shoulder, quite +as if it had been a comrade waiting.</p> + +<p>Taffy ran down the path and out upon the sandy hummocks, setting his +face to the wind and the roar of the sea, keeping his head low, and +still shifting the cake from hand to hand. By-and-by he fumbled and +dropped it; stooped to pick it up, but saw something which made him +kneel and peer into the ground.</p> + +<p>The whole of the sand was moving; not by fits and starts, but +constantly; the tiny particles running over each other and drifting +in and out of the rushes, like little creatures in a dream. While he +looked, they piled an embankment against the edge of his cake. +He picked it up, ran forward a few yards, and peered again. +Yes, here too; here and yonder, and over every inch of that long +shore.</p> + +<p>He ate his cake and climbed to the beach, and ran along it, watching +the sandhoppers that skipped from under his boots at every step, and +were lost on the instant. The beach here was moist and firm. +He pulled off his boots and stockings, and ran on, conning his +footprints and the driblets of sand split ahead from his bare toes. +By-and-by he came to the edge of the surf. The strand here was +glassy wet, and each curving wave sent a shadow flying over it, and +came after the shadow, thundering and hissing, and chased it up the +shore, and fell back, leaving for a second or two an edge of delicate +froth which reminded the boy of his mother’s lace-work.</p> + +<p>He began a sort of game with the waves, choosing one station after +another, and challenging them to catch him there. If the edge of +froth failed to reach his toes, he won. But once or twice the water +caught him fairly, and ran rippling over his instep and about his +ankles.</p> + +<p>He was deep in this game when he heard a horn blown somewhere high on +the towans behind him.</p> + +<p>He turned. No one was in sight. The house lay behind the +sand-banks, the first ridge hiding even its chimney-smoke. He gazed +along the beach, where the perpetual haze of spray seemed to have +removed the light-house to a vast distance. A sense of desolation +came over him with a rush, and with something between a gasp and a +sob he turned his back to the sea and ran, his boots dangling from +his shoulders by their knotted laces.</p> + +<p>He pounded up the first slope and looked for the cottage. No sign of +it! An insane fancy seized him. These silent moving sands were +after <i>him</i>.</p> + +<p>He was panting along in real distress when he heard the baying of +dogs, and at the same instant from the top of a hummock caught sight +of a figure outlined against the sky, and barely a quarter of a mile +away; the figure of a girl on horseback—a small girl on a very tall +horse.</p> + +<p>Just as Taffy recognised her, she turned her horse, walked him down +into the hollow beyond, and disappeared. Taffy ran towards the spot, +gained the ridge where she had been standing, and looked down.</p> + +<p>In a hollow about twenty feet deep and perhaps a hundred wide were +gathered a dozen riders, with five or six couples of hounds and two +or three dirty terriers. Two of the men had dismounted. One of +these, stripped to his shirt and breeches, was leaning on a +long-handled spade and laughing. The other—a fellow in a shabby +scarlet coat—held up what Taffy guessed to be a fox, though it +seemed a very small one. It was bleeding. The hounds yapped and +leapt at it, and fell back a-top of each other snarling, while the +Whip grinned and kept them at bay. A knife lay between his +wide-planted feet, and a visgy<span class="fnanchor" id="fna1"><a href="#fn1">[1]</a></span> close behind him on a heap of +disturbed sand.</p> + +<p>The boy came on them from the eastward, and his shadow fell across +the hollow.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” said one of the riders, looking up. It was Squire Moyle +himself. “Here’s the new Passon’s boy!”</p> + +<p>All the riders looked up. The Whip looked up too, and turned to the +old Squire with a wider grin than before.</p> + +<p>“Shall I christen en, maister?”</p> + +<p>The Squire nodded. Before Taffy knew what it meant, the man was +climbing toward him with a grin, clutching the rush bents with one +hand, and holding out the blood-dabbled mask with the other. +The child turned to run, but a hand clutched his ankle. He saw the +man’s open mouth and yellow teeth; and, choking with disgust and +terror, slung his boots at them with all his small force. At the +same instant he was jerked off his feet, the edge of the bank +crumbled and broke, and the two went rolling down the sandy slope in +a heap. He heard shouts of laughter, caught a glimpse of blue sky, +felt a grip of fingers on his throat, and smelt the verminous odour +of the dead cub, as the Whip thrust the bloody mess against his face +and neck. Then the grip relaxed, and—it seemed to him, amid dead +silence—Taffy sprang to his feet, spitting sand and fury.</p> + +<p>“You—you devils!” He caught up the visgy and stood, daring all to +come on. “You devils!” He tottered forward with the visgy lifted—it +was all he could manage—at Squire Moyle. The old man let out an +oath, and the curve of his whip-thong took the boy across the eyes +and blinded him for a moment, but did not stop him. The grey horse +swerved, and half-wheeled, exposing his flank. In another moment +there would have been mischief; but the Whip, as he stood wiping his +mouth, saw the danger and ran in. He struck the visgy out of the +child’s grasp, set his foot on it, and with an open-handed cuff sent +him floundering into a sand-heap.</p> + +<p>“Nice boy, that!” said somebody, and the whole company laughed as +they walked their horses slowly out of the hollow.</p> + +<p>They passed before Taffy in a blur of tears; and the last rider to go +was the small girl Honoria on her tall sorrel. She moved up the +broad shelving path, but reined up just within sight, turned her +horse, and came slowly back to him.</p> + +<p>“If I were you, I’d go home.” She pointed in its direction.</p> + +<p>Taffy brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. “Go away. +I hate you—I hate you all!”</p> + +<p>She eyed him while she smoothed the sorrel’s mane with her +riding-switch.</p> + +<p>“They did it to me three years ago, when I was six. Grandfather +called it ‘entering’ me.”</p> + +<p>Taffy kept his eyes sullenly on the ground. Finding that he would +not answer, she turned her horse again and rode slowly after the +others. Taffy heard the soft footfalls die away, and when he looked +up she had vanished.</p> + +<p>He picked up his boots and started in the direction to which she had +pointed. Every now and then a sob shook him. By-and-by the chimneys +of the house hove in sight among the ridges, and he ran toward it. +But within a gunshot of the white garden-wall his breast swelled +suddenly and he flung himself on the ground and let the big tears +run. They made little pits in the moving sand; and more sand drifted +up and covered them.</p> + +<p>“Taffy! Taffy! Whatever has become of the child?”</p> + +<p>His mother was standing by the gate in her print frock. He scrambled +up and ran toward her. She cried out at the sight of him, but he hid +his blood-smeared face against her skirts.</p> + +<p class="footnote" id="fn1"><a href="#fna1">[1]</a> Mattock.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br><span class="small">TAFFY RINGS THE CHURCH BELL.</span></h2></div> + +<p>They were in the church—Squire Moyle, Mr. Raymond, and Taffy close +behind. The two men were discussing the holes in the roof and other +dilapidations.</p> + +<p>“One, two, three,” the Squire counted. “I’ll send a couple of men +with tarpaulin and rick-ropes. That’ll tide us over next Sunday, +unless it blows hard.”</p> + +<p>They passed up three steps under the belfry arch. Here a big bell +rested on the flooring. Its rim was cracked, but not badly. A long +ladder reached up into the gloom.</p> + +<p>“What’s the beam like?” the Squire called up to someone aloft.</p> + +<p>“Sound as a bell,” answered a voice.</p> + +<p>“I said so. We’ll have en hoisted by Sunday, I’ll send a waggon over +to Wheel Gooniver for a tackle and winch. Damme, up there! +Don’t keep sheddin’ such a muck o’ dust on your betters!”</p> + +<p>“I can’t help no other, Squire!” said the voice overhead; “such a +cauch o’ pilm an’ twigs, an’ birds’ droppins’! If I sneeze I’m a +lost man.”</p> + +<p>Taffy, staring up as well as he could for the falling rubbish, could +just spy a white smock above the beam, and a glint of daylight on the +toe-scutes of two dangling boots.</p> + +<p>“I’ll dam soon make you help it. <i>Is</i> the beam sound?”</p> + +<p>“Ha’n’t I told ’ee so?” said the voice querulously.</p> + +<p>“Then come down off the ladder, you son of a—”</p> + +<p>“Gently, Squire!” put in Mr. Raymond.</p> + +<p>The Squire groaned. “There I go again—an’ in the House of God +itself! Oh! ’tis a case with me! I’ve a heart o’ stone—a heart o’ +stone.” He turned and brushed his rusty hat with his coat-cuff. +Suddenly he faced round again. “Here, Bill Udy,” he said to the old +labourer who had just come down the ladder, “catch hold of my hat an’ +carry en fore to porch. I keep forgettin’ I’m in church, an’ then on +he goes.”</p> + +<p>The building stood half a mile from the sea, surrounded by the +rolling towans and rabbit burrows, and a few lichen-spotted +tombstones slanting inland. Early in the seventeenth century a +London merchant had been shipwrecked on the coast below Nannizabuloe +and cast ashore, the one saved out of thirty. He asked to be shown a +church in which to give thanks for his preservation, and the people +led him to a ruin bedded in the sands. It had lain since the days of +Arundel’s Rebellion. The Londoner vowed to build a new church there +on the towans, where the songs of prayer and praise should mingle +with the voice of the waves which God had baffled for him. +The people warned him of the sand; but he would not listen to reason. +He built his church—a squat Perpendicular building of two aisles, +the wider divided into nave and chancel merely by a granite step in +the flooring; he saw it consecrated, and returned to his home and +died. And the church steadily decayed. He had mixed his mortar with +sea-sand. The stonework oozed brine, the plaster fell piece-meal; +the blown sand penetrated like water; the foundations sank a foot on +the south side, and the whole structure took a list to leeward. +The living passed into the hands of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, +and from them, in 1730, to the Moyles. Mr. Raymond’s predecessor was +a kinsman of theirs by marriage, a pluralist, who lived and died at +the other end of the Duchy. He had sent curates from time to time; +the last of whom was dead, three years since, of solitude and drink. +But he never came himself, Squire Moyle having threatened to set the +dogs on him if ever he set foot in Nannizabuloe; for there had been +some dispute over a dowry. The result was that nobody went to +church, though a parson from the next parish held an occasional +service. The people were Wesleyan Methodists or Bryanites. +Each sect had its own chapel in the fishing village of Innis, on the +western side of the parish; and the Bryanites a second one, at the +cross-roads behind the downs, for the miners and warreners and +scattered farmfolk.</p> + + +<p><i>Ding—ding—ding—ding—ding</i>.</p> + +<p>It was Sunday morning, and Taffy was sounding the bell, by a thin +rope tied to its clapper. The heavy bell-rope would be ready next +week; but Humility must first contrive a woollen binding for it, to +prevent its chafing the ringer’s hands.</p> + +<p>Out on the towans the rabbits heard the sound, and ran scampering. +Others, farther away, paused in their feeding, and listened with +cocked ears.</p> + +<p><i>Ding—ding—ding</i>.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond stood in the belfry at the boy’s elbow. He wore his +surplice, and held his prayer-book, with a finger between the pages. +Glancing down toward the nave, he saw Humility sitting in the big +vicarage pew—no other soul in church.</p> + +<p>He took the cord from Taffy, “Run to the door, and see if anyone is +coming.”</p> + +<p>Taffy ran, and after a minute came back.</p> + +<p>“There’s Squire Moyle coming along the path, and the little girl with +him, and some servants behind—five or six of them. Bill Udy’s one.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody else?”</p> + +<p>“I expect the people don’t hear the bell,” said Taffy. “They live +too far away.”</p> + +<p>“God hears. Yes, and God sees the lamp is lit.”</p> + +<p>“What lamp?” Taffy looked up at his father’s face, wondering.</p> + +<p>“All towers carry a lamp of some kind. For what else are they +built?”</p> + +<p>It was exactly the tone in which he had spoken that afternoon at +Tewkesbury about men being like towers. Both these sentences puzzled +the boy; and yet Taffy never felt so near to understanding him as he +had then, and did again now. He was shy of his father. He did not +know that his father was just as shy of him. He began to ring with +all his soul—ding—ding-ding, ding-ding.</p> + +<p>The old Squire entered the church, paused, and blew his nose +violently, and taking Honoria by the hand, marched her up to the end +of the south aisle. The door of the great pew was shut upon them, +and they disappeared. Before Honoria vanished Taffy caught a glimpse +of a grey felt hat with pink ribbons.</p> + +<p>The servants scattered and found seats in the body of the church. +He went on ringing, but no one else came. After a minute or two +Mr. Raymond signed to him to stop and go to his mother, which he did, +blushing at the noise of his shoes on the slate pavement. +Mr. Raymond followed, walked slowly past, and entered the +reading-desk.</p> + +<p>“When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath +committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save +his soul alive....”</p> + +<p>Taffy looked towards the Squire’s pew. The bald top of the Squire’s +head was just visible above the ledge. He looked up at his mother, +but her eyes were fastened on her prayer-book. He felt—he could not +help it—that they were all gathered to save this old man’s soul, and +that everybody knew it and secretly thought it a hopeless case. +The notion dogged him all through the service, and for many Sundays +after. Always that bald head above the ledge, and his father and the +congregation trying to call down salvation on it. He wondered what +Honoria thought, boxed up with it and able to see its face.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond mounted an upper pulpit to preach his sermon. He chose +his text from Saint Matthew, Chapter vii., verses 26 and 27:</p> + +<p>“<i>And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them +not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon +the sand</i>;</p> + +<p>“<i>And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, +and beat upon that house; and it fell; and great was the fall of +it</i>.”</p> + +<p>Taffy never followed his father’s sermons closely. He would listen +to a sentence or two, now and again, and then let his wits wander.</p> + +<p>“You think this church is built upon the sands. The rain has come, +the winds have blown and beaten on it; the foundations have sunk and +it leans to leeward.... By the blessing of God we will shore it +up, and upon a foundation of rock. Upon what rock, you ask?... +Upon that rock which is the everlasting foundation of the Church +spiritual.... Hear what comfortable words our Lord spake to Peter. +... Our foundation must be faith, which is God’s continuing +Presence on earth, and which we shall recognise hereafter as God +Himself.... Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the +evidence of things not seen.... In other words, it is the rock we +search for.... Draw near it, and you will know yourself in God’s +very shadow—the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.... As +with this building, so with you, O man, cowering from wrath, as these +walls are cowering....”</p> + +<p>The benediction was pronounced, the pew-door opened, and the old man +marched down the aisle, looking neither to right nor to left, with +his jaw set like a closed gin. Honoria followed. She had not so +much as a glance for Taffy; but in passing she gazed frankly at +Humility, whom she had not seen before.</p> + +<p>Humility was rather ostentatiously cheerful at dinner that day; a +sure sign that at heart she was disappointed. She had looked for a +bigger congregation. Mrs. Venning, who had been carried downstairs +for the meal, saw this and asked few questions. Both the women stole +glances at Mr. Raymond when they thought he was not observing them. +He at least pretended to observe nothing, but chatted away +cheerfully.</p> + + +<p>“Taffy,” he said, after dinner, “I want you to run up to Tredinnis +with a note from me. Maybe I will follow later, but I must go to the +village first.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.<br><span class="small">A COCK-FIGHT.</span></h2></div> + +<p>A footpath led Taffy past the church, and out at length upon a high +road, in face of two tall granite pillars with an iron gate between. +The gate was surmounted with a big iron lantern, and the lantern with +a crest—two snakes’ heads intertwined. The gate was shut, but the +fence had been broken down on either side, and the gap, through which +Taffy passed, was scored with wheel-ruts. He followed these down an +ill-kept road bordered with furze-whins, tamarisks, and clumps of +bannel broom. By-and-by he came to a ragged plantation of stone +pines, backed by a hedge of rhododendrons, behind which the hounds +were baying in their kennels. It put him in mind of the “Pilgrim’s +Progress.” He heard the stable clock strike three, and caught a +glimpse, over the shrubberies, of its cupola and gilt weather-cock. +And then a turn of the road brought him under the gloomy northern +face of the house, with its broad carriage sweep and sunless portico. +Half the windows on this side had been blocked up and painted black, +with white streaks down and across to represent framework.</p> + +<p>He pulled at an iron bell-chain which dangled by the great door. +The bell clanged far within and a dozen dogs took up the note, +yelping in full peal. He heard footsteps coming; the door was +opened, and the dogs poured out upon him—spaniels, terriers, +lurchers, greyhounds, and a big Gordon setter—barking at him, +leaping against him, sniffing his calves. Taffy kept them at bay as +best he could and waved his letter at a wall-eyed man in a dirty +yellow waistcoat, who looked down from the doorstep but did not offer +to call them off.</p> + +<p>“Any answer?” asked the wall-eyed man.</p> + +<p>Taffy could not say. The man took the letter and went to inquire, +leaving him alone with the dogs.</p> + +<p>It seemed an age before he reappeared, having in the interval slipped +a dirty livery coat over his yellow waistcoat. “The Squire says +you’re to come in.” Taffy and the dogs poured together into a high, +stone-flagged hall; then through a larger hall and a long dark +corridor. The footman’s coat, for want of a loop, had been hitched +on a peg by its collar, and stuck out behind his neck in the most +ludicrous manner; but he shuffled ahead so fast that Taffy, tripping +and stumbling among the dogs, had barely time to observe this before +a door was flung open and he stood blinking in a large room full of +sunlight.</p> + +<p>“Hallo! Here’s the parson’s bantam!”</p> + +<p>The room had four high, bare windows through which the afternoon +sunshine streamed on the carpet. The carpet had a pattern of pink +peonies on a delicate buff ground, and was shamefully dirty. And the +vast apartment, with its white paint and gilding and Italian sketches +in water-colour and statuettes under glass, might have been a lady’s +drawing-room. But paint and gilding were tarnished; the chintz +chair-covers soiled and torn; the pictures hung askew; and a smell of +dog filled the air.</p> + +<p>Squire Moyle sat huddled in a deep chair beside the fire-place, +facing the middle of the room, where a handsome, high-complexioned +gentleman, somewhat past middle age, lounged on a settee and dangled +a gold-mounted riding crop. A handsome boy knelt at the back of the +settee and leaned over the handsome gentleman’s shoulder. On the +floor, between the two men, lay a canvas bag; and something moved +inside it. At the end of the room, by the farthest window, Honoria +knelt over a big portfolio. She wore the grey frock and pink sash +which Taffy had seen in church that morning, and she tossed her dark +hair back from her eyes as she looked up.</p> + +<p>The Squire crumpled up the letter in his hand.</p> + +<p>“Put the bag away,” he said to the handsome gentleman. “’Tis Sunday, +I tell ’ee, and Parson will be here in an hour. This is young +six-foot I was telling about.” He turned to Taffy—</p> + +<p>“Boy, go and shake hands with Sir Harry Vyell.”</p> + +<p>Taffy did as he was bidden. “This is my son George,” said Sir Harry; +and Taffy shook hands with him, too, and liked his face.</p> + +<p>“Put the bag away, Harry,” said the Squire.</p> + +<p>“Just to comfort ’ee, now!”</p> + +<p>“I tell ’ee I won’t look at en.”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry untied the neck of the bag, and drew out a smaller one; +untied this, and out strutted a game-cock.</p> + +<p>The old Squire eyed it. “H’m, he don’t seem flourishing.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t abuse a bird that’s come twelve miles in a bag on purpose to +cheer you up. He’s a match for anything you can bring.”</p> + +<p>“Tuts, man, he’s dull—no colour nor condition. Get along with ’ee; +I wouldn’ ask a bird of mine to break the Sabbath for a wastrel like +that.”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry drew out a shagreen-covered case and opened it. Within, on +a lining of pale blue velvet, lay two small sharp instruments of +steel, very highly polished. He lifted one, felt its point, replaced +it, set down the case on the carpet, and fell to toying with the ears +of the Gordon setter, which had come sniffing out of curiosity.</p> + +<p>“You’re a very obstinate man,” said Squire Moyle. After a long pause +he added, “I suppose you’re wanting odds?”</p> + +<p>“Evens will do,” said Sir Harry.</p> + +<p>The old man turned and rang the bell.</p> + +<p>“Tell Jim to fetch in the red cock,” he shouted to the wall-eyed +footman—who must have been waiting in the corridor, so promptly he +appeared.</p> + +<p>“And Jim won’t be long about it either,” whispered Honoria. She had +come forward quietly, and stood at Taffy’s elbow.</p> + +<p>Sir Harry shook a finger at her and laid it on his lips. But the old +Squire did not hear. He sat glum, pulling a whisker and keeping a +sour eye on the bird, which was strutting about in rather foolish +bewilderment at the pink peonies on the carpet.</p> + +<p>“I’m giving you every chance,” he grumbled at length.</p> + +<p>“Oh, as for that,” Sir Harry replied, equably, “have it out in the +yard, if you please, on your own dunghill.”</p> + +<p>“No. Indoors is bad enough.”</p> + +<p>Jim appeared just then, and turned out to be Taffy’s old enemy, the +Whip, bearing the Squire’s game-cock in a basket. He took it out; a +very handsome bird, with a hackle in which gold, purple and the +richest browns shone and were blended.</p> + +<p>Sir Harry had picked up his bird and was heeling it with the long +steel spurs; a very delicate process, to judge by the time occupied +and the pucker on his good-tempered brow.</p> + +<p>“Ready?” he asked at length.</p> + +<p>Jim, who had been heeling the Squire’s bird, nodded and the pair were +set down. They ruffled and flew at each other without an instant’s +hesitation. The visitor, which five minutes before had been staring +at the carpet so foolishly, was prompt enough now. For a moment they +paused, beak to beak, eye to eye, furious, with necks outstretched +and hackles stiff with the rage of battle. They began to rise and +fall like two feathers tossing in the air, very quietly. But for the +soft whir of wings there was no sound in the room. Taffy could +scarcely believe they were fighting in earnest. For a moment they +seemed to touch—to touch and no more, and for a moment only—but in +that moment the stroke was given. The home champion fluttered down, +stood on his legs for a moment, as if nothing had happened, then +toppled over and lay twitching, as his conqueror strutted over him +and lifted his throat to crow.</p> + +<p>Squire Moyle rose, clutching the corner of his chair. His mouth +opened and shut, but no words came. Sir Harry caught up his bird, +whipped off his spurs, and thrust him back into the bag. The old man +dropped back, letting his chin sink on his high stock-collar.</p> + +<p>“It serves me right. Who shall deliver me from the wrath to come?”</p> + +<p>“Oh! as for that—” Sir Harry finished tying the neck of the bag, and +lazily fell to fingering the setter’s ear.</p> + +<p>The old man was muttering to himself. Taffy looked at the dead bird, +then at Honoria. She was gazing at it too, with untroubled eyes.</p> + +<p>“But I <i>will</i> be saved! I tell you, Harry, I <i>will!</i> Take those +birds away. Honoria, hand me my Bible. It’s all here”—he tapped +the heavy book—“miracles, redemption, justification by faith—I +<i>will</i> have faith. I <i>will</i> believe, every damned word of it!”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry broke in with a peal of laughter. Taffy had never heard a +laugh so musical.</p> + +<p>The old man was adjusting his spectacles; but he took them off and +laid them down, his hands shaking with rage.</p> + +<p>“You came here to taunt me”—his voice shook as his hand—“me, an +old man, with no son to my house. You think, because I’m seeking +higher things, there’s no fight left in us or in the parish. I tell +you what; make that boy of yours strip and stand up, and I’ll back +the Parson’s youngster for doubles or quits. Off with your coat, my +son, and stand up to him!”</p> + +<p>Taffy turned round in a daze. He did not understand. His eyes met +Honoria’s, and they were fastened on him curiously. He was white in +the face; the sight of the murdered game-cock had sickened him.</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t look flourishing.” Sir Harry mimicked the Squire’s recent +manner.</p> + +<p>Taffy turned with the look of a hunted animal. He did not want to +fight. He hated this house and its inhabitants. The other boy was +stripping off his jacket with a good-humoured smile.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t want—” Taffy began fumbling with a button. “Please—”</p> + +<p>“Off with your coat, boy! You were game enough t’other day. If you +lick en, I’ll put a new roof on your father’s church.”</p> + +<p>Taffy was still fumbling with his jacket-button when a bell sounded, +clanging through the house.</p> + +<p>“The parson!”</p> + +<p>Squire Moyle clutched at his Bible like a child who has been caught +playing in school. Sir Harry stepped to the window and flung up the +sash. “Out you tumble, youngsters—you too, Miss, if you like. +Pick up your coat, George—cut and run to the stables; I’ll be round +in a minute—quick, out you go!”</p> + +<p>The children scrambled over the sill and dropped on to the stone +terrace. As his father closed the sash behind him, George Vyell +laughed out. Then Taffy began to laugh; he laughed all the way as +they ran. When they reached the stables he was swaying with +laughter. There was a hepping-stock by the stable-wall, and he flung +himself on to the slate steps. He could not stop laughing. +The two others stared at him. They thought he had gone mad.</p> + +<p>“Here comes Dad!” cried George Vyell.</p> + +<p>This sobered Taffy. He sat up and brushed his eyes. Sir Harry +whistled for Jim, and told him to saddle the horses.</p> + +<p>George and Honoria stood by the stable-door and watched the saddling. +The horses were led out; Sir Harry’s, a tall grey, George’s, a roan +cob.</p> + +<p>“Look here!” Sir Harry said to Jim; “you take my bird, and comfort +your master with him. I don’t want him any more.”</p> + +<p>The two rode out of the yard and away up the avenue. Honoria planted +herself in front of Taffy.</p> + +<p>“Would you have fought just now?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know. That’s my father calling.”</p> + +<p>“But, would you have fought?”</p> + +<p>“I must go to him.” He would not look her in the face.</p> + +<p>“Tell me.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t bother! I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>He ran out of the yard.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.<br><span class="small">GEORGE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>It appeared that Honoria and Taffy were to do lessons together, and +Mr. Raymond was to teach them. This had been the meaning of his +visit to Tredinnis House. They began the very next day in the +library at Tredinnis—a deserted room carpeted with badgers’ skins, +and lined with undusted books—works on farriery, veterinary surgery, +and sporting subjects, long rows of the <i>Annual Register</i>, the +<i>Arminian Magazine</i>.</p> + +<p>Taffy began by counting the badgers’ skins. There were eighteen, and +the moths had got into them, so that the draught under the door +puffed little drifts of hair over the polished boards. Then he +settled down to the first Latin declension—<i>Musa</i>, a muse; vocative, +<i>Musa</i>, O muse!; genitive, Musae, of a muse. Honoria began upon the +ABC.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond brought a pile of his own books, and worked at them, +scribbling notes in the margin or on long slips of paper, while the +children learnt. A servant came in with a message from Squire Moyle, +and he left them for a while.</p> + +<p>“I call this nonsense,” said Honoria. “How am I to get these silly +letters into my head?”</p> + +<p>Taffy was glad of the chance to show off. “Oh, that’s easy. You +make up a tale about them. See here. A is the end of a house; it’s +just like one with a beam across. B is a cat with his tail curled +under him—watch me drawing it. C is an old woman stooping; and D is +another cat, only his back is more rounded. Once upon a time, there +lived in a cottage an old woman who went about with two cats, one on +each side of her—that’s how you go on.”</p> + +<p>“But I can’t go on. You must do it for me.”</p> + +<p>“Well, each of these cats had a comb, and was combed every Saturday +night. One was a good cat, and kept his comb properly—like E, you +see. But the other had broken a tooth out of his—that’s F—”</p> + +<p>“I expect he was a fulmart,” said Honoria.</p> + +<p>Taffy agreed. He didn’t know what a fulmart was, but he was not +going to confess it. So he went on hurriedly, and Honoria thought +him a wonder. They came to W.</p> + +<p>“So they got into a ship (I’ll show you how to make one out of paper, +exactly like W), and sailed up into the sky, for the ship was a Ship +of Stars—you make X’s for stars; but that’s a witch-ship; so it +stuck fast in Y, which is a cleft ash-stick, and then came a stroke +of lightning, Z, and burnt them all up!” He stopped, out of breath.</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand the ending at all,” said Honoria. “What is a +Ship of Stars?”</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you ever seen one?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“I have. There’s a story about it—”</p> + +<p>“Tell me about it.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you lots of stories afterwards; about the Frog-king and +Aladdin and Man Friday and The Girl who trod on a Loaf.”</p> + +<p>“And the Ship of Stars?”</p> + +<p>“N—no.” Taffy felt himself blushing. “That’s one of the stories +that won’t come—and they’re the loveliest of all,” he added, in a +burst of confidence.</p> + +<p>Honoria thought for a moment, but did not understand in the least. +All she said was, “what funny words you use!” She went back to her +alphabet—A, house; B, cat. It came more easily now.</p> + +<p>After lessons she made him tell her a story; and Taffy, who wished to +be amusing, told her about the “Valiant Tailor who killed Seven at a +Blow.” To his disgust, it scarcely made her smile. But after this +she was always asking for stories, and always listened solemnly, with +her dark eyes fixed on his face. She never seemed to admire him at +all for his gift, but treated it with a kind of indulgent wonder, as +if he were some queer animal with uncommon tricks. This dashed Taffy +a bit, for he liked to be thought a fine fellow. But he went on +telling his stories, and sometimes invented new ones for her. +George Vyell was much more appreciative. Sir Harry had heard of the +lessons, and wrote to beg that his son might join the class. +So George rode over three times a week to learn Latin, which he did +with uncommon slowness. But he thought Taffy’s stories stunning, and +admired him without a shade of envy. The two boys liked each other; +and when they were alone Taffy stood an inch or two higher in +self-conceit than when Honoria happened to be by. But he took more +pains with his stories if she was listening. As for her lessons, +Honoria got through them by honest plodding. She never quite saw the +use of them, but she liked Mr. Raymond. She learnt more steadily +than either of the boys.</p> + +<p>One day George rode over with two pairs of boxing-gloves dangling +from his saddle. After lessons he and Taffy had a try with them, in +a clearing behind the shrubberies where the gardener had heaped his +sweepings of dry leaves to rot down for manure.</p> + +<p>“But, look here,” said George, after the first round; “you’ll never +learn if you hit so wild as that. You must keep your head up, and +watch my eyes and feint.”</p> + +<p>Taffy couldn’t help it. As soon as ever he struck out, he forgot +that it was not real fighting. And he felt ashamed to look George +straight in the face, for his own eyes were full of tears of +excitement. At the end of the bout, when George said, “Now we must +shake hands; it’s the proper thing to do,” he looked bewildered for a +moment. It made George laugh in his easy way, and then Taffy laughed +too.</p> + +<p>After this they had a bout almost every day; and he was soon able to +hold his own and treat it as sport. But somehow he always felt a +passion behind it, whispering to him to put some nastiness into his +blows, especially when Honoria came to look on. And yet he liked +George far better than he liked Honoria. Indeed, he adored George, +and the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings when George appeared +were the bright spots in his week. Lessons were over at twelve +o’clock; by one o’clock Taffy had to be home for dinner. Loneliness +filled the afternoons, but the child peopled them with extravagant +fancies. He and George were crusaders sworn to defend the Holy +Sepulchre, and bound by an oath of brotherhood, though George was a +Red Cross Knight and he a plain squire; and after the most surprising +adventures Taffy received the barbed and poisoned arrow intended for +his master, and died most impressively, with George and Honoria, and +Richard Coeur de Lion, and most of the characters from “Ivanhoe,” +sobbing round his bed. There was a Blondel variant too, with George +imprisoned in a high tower; and a monstrous conglomerate tale in +which most of the heroes of history and romance played second fiddle +to George, whose pre-eminence, though occasionally challenged by +Achilles, Sir Lancelot, or the Black Prince, was regularly vindicated +by Taffy’s timely help.</p> + +<p>This tale, with endless variations, actually lasted him for two good +years. The scene of it never lay among the towans, but round about +his old home or the well-remembered meadow at Tewkesbury. That was +his plain of Troy, his Field of Cressy, his lists of Ashby de la +Zouche. The high road at the back of the towans crossed a stream, by +a ford and a footbridge; and the travelling postman, if he had any +letters for the Parsonage, would stop by the footbridge and blow a +horn. He little guessed what challenges it sounded to the small boy +who came running for the post.</p> + +<p>The postman came by, as a rule, at two o’clock or thereabouts. +One afternoon in early spring Mr. Raymond happened to be starting for +a walk when the horn was blown, and he and Taffy went to meet the +post together. There were three or four letters which the Vicar +opened; and one for Humility, which he put in his pocket. In the +midst of his reading, he looked up, smiled over his spectacles, and +said:</p> + +<p>“Oxford has won the boat-race.”</p> + +<p>Taffy had been deep in the Fifth Aeneid for some weeks, and +boat-racing ran much in his mind.</p> + +<p>“Who is Oxford?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond took off his spectacles and wiped them. It came on him +suddenly that this child, whom he loved, was shut out from many of +his dearest thoughts.</p> + +<p>“Oxford is a city,” he answered; and added, “the most beautiful city +in the world.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I ever go there?” Taffy asked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond walked off without seeming to hear the question. +But that evening after supper he told the most wonderful tales of +Oxford, while Taffy listened and hoped his mother would forget his +bedtime; and Humility listened too, bending over her <i>guipure</i>. +The love with which he looked back to Oxford was the second passion +of Samuel Raymond’s life; and Humility was proud of it, not jealous +at all. He forgot all the struggle, all the slights, all the grip of +poverty. To him those years had become an heroic age, and men +Homeric men. And so he made them appear to Taffy, to whom it was +wonderful that his father should have moved among such giants.</p> + +<p>“And shall I go there too?”</p> + +<p>Humility glanced up quickly, and met her husband’s eyes.</p> + +<p>“Some day, please God!” she said. Mr. Raymond stared at the embers +of wreck-wood on the hearth.</p> + +<p>From that night Oxford became the main scene of Taffy’s imaginings; a +wholly fictitious Oxford, pieced together of odds and ends from +picture-books, and peopled with all the old heroes. And so, with +contests on the models of the Fifth Aeneid, the story went forward +gallantly for many months.</p> + +<p>But the afternoons were long; and at times the interminable +sand-hills and everlasting roar of the sea oppressed the child with a +sense of loneliness beyond words. The rabbits and gulls would not +make friends with him, and he ached for companionship. Of that ache +was born his half-crazy adoration of George Vyell. There were hours +when he lay in some nook of the towans, peering into the ground, +seeing pictures in the sand—pictures of men and regiments and +battles, shifting with the restless drift; until, unable to bear it, +he flung out his hands to efface them, and hid his face in the sand, +sobbing, “George! George!”</p> + +<p>At night he would creep out of bed to watch the lighthouse winking +away in the north-east. George lived somewhere beyond. And again it +would be “George! George!”</p> + +<p>And when the happy mornings came, and George with them, Taffy was as +shy as a lover. So George never guessed. It might have surprised +that very careless young gentleman, when he looked up from his verbs +which govern the dative, and caught Taffy’s eye, could he have seen +himself in his halo there.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.<br><span class="small">THE SQUIRE’S SOUL.</span></h2></div> + +<p>Two years passed, and a third winter. The church was now well on its +way to restoration. The roof had been repaired, the defective +timbers removed and sound ones inserted, the south wall strengthened +with three buttresses, the foundations on that side examined and +shored up. The old Squire did not halt here. Furniture arrived for +the interior; a handsome altar cloth, a small gilt cross, a dozen +hanging lamps, an oaken lectern, cushions, hymn-books, a big new +Bible with purple book-markers. He promised to take out the east +window—which was just a patchwork of common glass, like a cucumber +frame—and replace it with sound mullions and stained glass, in +memory of his only daughter, Honoria’s mother. She had run away from +Tredinnis House, and married a penniless captain; and Honoria’s +surname was Callastair, though nobody uttered it in the old man’s +hearing. Husband and wife had died in India, of cholera, within +three years of their marriage; and the old man had sent for the +child. Having relented so far, he went on to do it thoroughly, in +his own fashion. He neglected Honoria; but she might have anything +she wanted for the asking. It seemed, though, that she wanted very +little.</p> + +<p>He allowed Mr. Raymond to choose the design for this window. He only +stipulated that the subject should be Jonah and the whale. +“There’s no story’ll compare with it for trying a man’s faith.”</p> + +<p>When the window came, and was erected, he complained that it left out +most of the whale, of which the jaws and one wicked little red eye +were all that appeared. “It looks half-hearted. Why didn’t they +swim en all in? ’Tis neck or nothin’ wi’ that story; but they’ve +made it neck <i>and</i> nothin’. An’ after colouring en violet too!”</p> + +<p>In return, the Vicar had hunted up some county histories and heraldic +works in the library at Tredinnis, and was now busy re-emblazoning +with his own hand the devices carved on the Moyle pew.</p> + +<p>Little by little, too, the congregation had grown. The people came +shyly at first. They mistrusted the Established Church. But they +treated the Vicar with politeness when he visited them. And seeing +him so awkward, and how with all his book-learning he listened to +their opinions and blushed when he offered any small service, they +grew to like him, being shy themselves. They pitied him too, knowing +the old Squire better than he did. So from Sunday to Sunday Taffy, +pulling at his rope in the belfry, counted the new-comers, and +Humility talked about them on the way home and at dinner. They were +fisher folk for the most part; the men in blue guernseys and corduroy +trousers, and some with curled black beards and rings in their ears; +the women, in gayer colours than you see in an up-country church; a +southern-seeming race, with southern-sounding names—Santo, Jose, +Hugo, Bennet, Cara. They belonged—so Mr. Raymond often told +himself—to the class which Christ called His Apostles. Sometimes, +scanning an olive-coloured face, he would be minded of the Sea of +Gennesareth; and, a minute later, the sight of the grey coast-line +with its whirled spray would chill the fancy.</p> + +<p>The congregation always lingered outside the porch after service; and +then one would say to another: “Wall, there’s more in the man than +you’d think. See you up to the meetin’ this evenin’ I s’pose? +So long!”</p> + +<p>But having come once, they came again. And the family at the +Parsonage were full of hope, though Taffy longed sometimes for a +play-fellow, and sometimes for he knew not what, and Humility bent +over her lace pillow and thought of green lanes and of Beer Village +and women at work by sunshiny doorways; and wondered if their faces +had changed.</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“O, that I were where I would be!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Then would I be where I am not;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But where I am, there I must be,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And where I would be, I cannot.”</span><br> +</p> +<p>She never told a soul of her home thoughts. Her husband never +guessed them. But Taffy (without knowing why), whenever this verse +from his old playbook came into his head, connected it with his +mother.</p> + +<p>But the old Squire was getting impatient. He took quite a feudal +view of the saving of his soul, and would have dragged the whole +parish to church by main force, had it been possible.</p> + +<p>Late one afternoon, Taffy was lying in one of his favourite nooks in +the lee of the towans, when he heard voices and looked up. And there +sat the old gentleman gazing down on him from horseback, with Bill +Udy at his side. The Squire was in hunting dress.</p> + +<p>“What be doin’ down there?” he asked. “Praying?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir.”</p> + +<p>“I wish you would. I wish you’d pray for me. I’ve heerd that a +child’ll do good sometimes when grown folk can’t. I doubt your +father isn’t goin’ to do the good I looked for from en. He don’t +believe in sudden conversion. Here, Bill, take the mare and lead her +home.”</p> + +<p>He dismounted, and seated himself with a groan on the edge of the +sand-pit.</p> + +<p>“Look here; I’ve got convictions of sin, but I can’t get no forrader. +What’s to be done?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know, sir,” Taffy stammered, with his eyes on the Squire’s +spurs.</p> + +<p>“You can pray for me, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Well, do it. Do it to-night. I’ve got convictions, boy; but my +heart’s like a stone. I’ve had a wisht day of it. If the weather +holds back, we’ll kill a May fox this year. But where’s the comfort? +All the time to-day ’twas ‘<i>Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked! +Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked!</i>’ I couldn’t stand it; I came +away. You’ll do it, won’t ’ee?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Is your father at home? I’ll call an’ speak to en. He does me +good; but he can’t melt what I carry here.”</p> + +<p>He tapped his breast and rising without another word strode off +across the sand-hills with his head down and his hands clasped +beneath his coat-tails, which flapped in the wind as he went.</p> + +<p>Taffy ran and overtook Bill Udy and the mare.</p> + +<p>“He’s in a wisht poor state, id’n a’?” said Bill Udy, who was parish +clerk. “Bless ’ee, tidn’ no manner of use. His father before en was +took in just the same way. Turned religious late in life. What +d’ee think he did? Got his men together one Sunday mornin’, marched +them up to Meetin’ house, up to Four Turnin’s; slipped his ridin’ +crop through the haps o’ the door, an’ ‘Now my Billies,’ says he, +through the key-hole, ‘not a man or woman of ’ee leaves the place +till you’ve said that Amazin’ Creed. Come along,’ he says, +‘<i>Whosoever will be saved</i> an’ the sooner ’tis over, the sooner +you gets home to dinner.’ A fine talk there was! Squire, he’s just +such another. Funny things he’ve a-done. Married a poor soul from +Roseland way—a Miss Trevanion—quite a bettermost lady. When Miss +Susannah was born—that’s Miss Honoria’s mother—she went to be +churched. What must he do, to show his annoyance that ’twasn’t a +boy, but drive a she-ass into church? Very stiff behaviour. +He drove the beast right fore an’ into the big pew. The Moyles, you +see, ’ve got a mule for their shield of arms. He’ve had his own way +too much; that’s of it.</p> + +<p>“One day he dropped into church just before sarmon-time. There was a +rabbit squattin’ outside ’pon his father’s tombstone. Squire crep’ +up an’ clapped his Sunday hat ’pon top of en. Took en into church. +One o’ the curate chaps was preachin’—a timorous little fellah. +By-’n’-by Squire slips out his rabbit. ‘Wirroo, boys! Coorse en, +coorse en—we’ll have en for dinner!’ Aw, a pretty dido! The curate +fellah ran out to door an’ the rabbit after en. Folks did say the +rabbit was the old Squire’s soul, an’ that he’d turned black inside +the young Squire’s hat. Very stiff behaviour.</p> + +<p>“He’ve had his own way too much; that’s what it is. When he was +pricked for sheriff, he hired a ramshackle po’shay, painted a mule +’pon the panel, an’ stuffed the footmen’s stockings with bran till it +looked a case of dropsy. He was annoyed at bein’ put to the expense. +The judge lost his temper at bein’ met in such a way, an’ pitched +into en in open court, specially about the mule. He didn’t know +’twas the Squire’s shield of arms. Squire stood it for some time; +but at last he ups an’ says, ‘If you was an old woman of <i>mine</i>, I’d +dress ’ee different; an’ if you was an old woman of mine an’ kep’ +scolding like that, I’d have ’ee in the duckin’-stool for your +sauce!’ He almost went to gaol for that. But they put it on the +ground the judge had insulted his shield of arms, an’ so he got off.</p> + +<p>“Well, wish-’ee-well! Don’t you trouble about <i>he</i>. He’ve had his +own way too much, but he won’t get it this time.”</p> + +<p>That night Taffy dreamt that he met Squire Moyle walking along the +shore; but the sand clogged him, and his spurs sank in it and his +riding-boots. When he was ankle deep he began to call out, “Pray for +me!” Then Taffy saw a black rabbit running on the firm sand to the +breakers; and the Squire cried “Pray for me! I must catch en! +’Tis my father’s soul running off!” and put his hand into his breast +and drew out a stone and flung it. But the stone, as soon as it +touched the sand, turned into another rabbit, and the pair ran off +together along the shore. The old man tried to follow, but the sand +held him; and the tide was rising....</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.<br><span class="small">ENTER THE KING’S POSTMAN.</span></h2></div> + +<p>A faint south wind murmured beneath the eaves. It died away, and for +an hour there was peace on the towans. Then the sands began to +trickle again, and the rushes to whisper and bend away from the sea, +toward the high moors over which the gulls had flown yesterday and +disappeared. By-and-by a spit or two of rain came flying out of the +black north-west. The drops fell in the path of the sand, but the +sand drove over and covered them, racing faster and faster.</p> + +<p>Day rose, and Taffy awoke. The house walls were shaking. With each +blow the wind ran up a scale of notes and ended with a howl. +He looked out. Sea and sky had melted into one; only now and then +white surf line heaved into sight, and melted back into grey. +After breakfast he and his father started to battle their way to +Tredinnis House, while Humility barricaded the door behind them. +Taffy wore a suit of oilers, of which he was mightily proud.</p> + +<p>They made their way under the lee of the towans to escape the +stinging sand. Within Tredinnis Gates they found a couple of +pine-trees blown down across the road, and scrambled over their +trunks. Before lessons, Taffy boasted a lot of his journey to +Honoria, and almost forgot to be sorry that George did not appear, +though it was Wednesday.</p> + +<p>They had no trouble in reaching home. The gale hurled them along. +Taffy, leaning his back against it, could scarcely feel his feet +touching ground. Humility unfastened the door, looking white and +anxious. Before they could close it again, the wind swept a big dish +off the dresser with a crash.</p> + +<p>Taffy slept soundly that night. He did not hear a knocking which +sounded on the house-door, soon after eleven o’clock. The man who +knocked came from Tresedder, one of the moor farms. “Oh, sir! did +’ee see the rockets go up over Innis? There’ll be dead men down ’pon +the Island rocks.”</p> + +<p>Taffy slept on. When he came downstairs next morning there was a +stranger in the kitchen—a little old man, huddled in a blanket +before the great fireplace, where a line of clothes hung drying. +Humility was stooping to wedge a sand-bag under the door. She looked +up at Taffy with a wan little smile.</p> + +<p>“There has been a wreck,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Glory be!” exclaimed the stranger from the fire-place.</p> + +<p>Taffy glanced at him, but could see little more than the back of a +bald head above the blankets.</p> + +<p>“Where’s the ship?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Gone,” answered the Vicar, coming at that moment from the inner room +where his books were. “She must have broken up in less than ten +minutes after she struck the Island—parted and gone down in six +fathoms of water.”</p> + +<p>“And the men? Was father there?” It bewildered Taffy that all this +should have happened while he was sleeping.</p> + +<p>“There was no time to fix the rocket apparatus. She was late in +making her distress signals. But I doubt if anything could have been +done. She went down too quickly.”</p> + +<p>“But—” Taffy’s gaze wandered to the bald head.</p> + +<p>“He was washed clean over the ridge where she struck, and swept into +Innis Pool—one big wave carried him into safety—one man out of +six.”</p> + +<p>“Hallelujah!” cried the rescued man facing round in his chair. +“Might ha’ been scat like an egg-shell, and here I be shoutin’ +praises!” Taffy saw that he was a clean-shaven little fellow, with +puckered cheeks and two wisps of grey hair curling forward from his +ears.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond frowned. “I am sure,” said he, “you ought not to be +talking so much.”</p> + +<p>“I will sing and give praise, sir, beggin’ you pardon, with the best +member that I have. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended +and I burn not? Hallelujah! A-men!”</p> + +<p>He took his basin of bread and milk from Humility’s hand, and ate by +the fire. She had wrung his clothes through fresh water, and as soon +as they were thoroughly dry he retired upstairs to change. He came +back to his seat by the fire.</p> + +<p>“Now, I be like ’Possel Paul,” he said, rubbing his hands, and +stretching them out to the blaze. “After his shipwreck, you know, +when the folks ’pon the island showed en kindness. This is the +Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in your eyes.</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘Not fearing nor doubting,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">With Christ by my side,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">I hopes to die shouting,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">The Lord will provide!’”</span><br> +</p> +<p>Humility thought that for certain the shipwreck had turned his head.</p> + +<p>“But where do you come from?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“They call me Jacky Pascoe, ma’am; but I calls myself the King’s +Postman—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘Jacky Pascoe is my name,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">Wendron is my nation,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Nowhere is my dwelling-place,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">For Christ is my salvation—’</span><br> +</p> +<p>“I was brought to a miner, over to Wheal Jewel, in Illogan Parish; +but got conversion fifteen years since, an’ now I go about praising +the Name. I’ve been miner, cafender, cooper, mason, seaman, +scissor-grinder, umbrella-mender, holli-bubber, all by turns. +I sticks my hands in my pockets, an’ waits on the Lord; an’ what he +tells me to do, I do. This day week I was up to Fowey, working on +the tip.<span class="fnanchor" id="fna2"><a href="#fn2">[2]</a></span> There was a little schooner there, the <i>Garibaldi</i>, of +Newport, discharging coal. The Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go in that +there schooner!’ I sought out the skipper, and said, ‘Where be bound +for next?’ ‘Back to Newport,’ says he. ‘That’ll suit me,’ I says, +an’ persuaded en to take me. But the Lord knew where she were bound +better’n the skipper; and here I be!”</p> + +<p>It seemed to his hearers that this man took little thought of his +drowned shipmates. Mr. Raymond looked up as he strapped his books +together.</p> + +<p>“You were not the only man in that schooner,” he said, rather +severely.</p> + +<p>“Glory be! Who be I, to question the Lord’s ways? One day I picked +up a map, an’ seed a place on it called ‘Little Sins.’ ‘Little Sins +wants great Deliverance,’ says I, an’ I started clane off an’ walked +to the place, though I’d never so much as heard of it till then. +’Twas harvest-time there, an’ I danced into the field, shouting +‘Glory, glory. The harvest is plenty, but the labourers be few!’ +The farmer was moved to give me a job ’pon the spot. I bided there +two year, an’ built them a chapel an’ preached the Word in it. +They offered me money to stop an’ preach; and I laid it before the +Lord. But He said, ‘You’re the King’s Postman. Keep moving, keep on +moving!’ I’ve built two more chapels since then.”</p> + +<p>Late that afternoon three bodies were recovered from the sea—the +captain, the mate, and a boy of about sixteen; and were buried in the +churchyard next day, as soon as the inquest was over. Pascoe +followed the coffins, and pointed the service at the grave-side with +interjaculations of his own. “Glory be!” “A-men!” “Hallelujah!” +“Great Redemption!” To the Vicar’s surprise the small crowd after a +minute began to follow the man’s lead, until at length he could +scarcely read for these interruptions.</p> + +<p>At supper that night Pascoe sprang a question on the Vicar.</p> + +<p>“Be you convarted?” he asked, looking up with his mouth full of bread +and cheese.</p> + +<p>“I hope so.”</p> + +<p>“Aw, you <i>hopes!</i> ’Tis a bad case with ’ee, then. When a man’s +convarted, he <i>knows</i>. Seemin’ to me, you baint. You don’t show +enough of the bright side. Now, as I go along, my very toes keep +ticking salvation. Down goes one foot, ‘Glory be!’ Down goes the +other, ‘A-men!’ Aw! I must dance for joy!”</p> + +<p>He got up and danced around the kitchen.</p> + +<p>“I wish the man would go,” Humility thought to herself.</p> + +<p>His very next words answered her wish. “I’ll be leavin’ to-morrow, +friends. I’ve got a room down to the village, an’ I’ve borreyed a +razor. I’m goin’ to tramp round the mines at the back here, an’ +shave the miners at a ha’penny a chin. That’ll pay my way. There’s +a new preacher planned to the Bible Christians, down to Innis, an’ +I’m goin’ to help he. My dears, don’t ’ee tell me the Lord didn’ +know what He was about when He cast the <i>Garibaldi</i> ashore!”</p> + +<p>He left the Parsonage next day. “Ma’am,” he said to Humility on +leaving, “I salute this here house. Peace be on this here house, for +it is worthy. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet +shall receive a prophet’s reward.”</p> + +<p>Two mornings later, Taffy, looking out from his bedroom window soon +after daybreak, saw the prophet trudging along the road. He had a +clean white bag slung across his shoulder; it carried his soap and +razors, no doubt. And every now and then he waved his walking-stick +and skipped as he went.</p> + +<p class="footnote" id="fn2"><a href="#fna2">[2]</a> Loading vessels from the jetties.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.<br><span class="small">A HAPPY DAY.</span></h2></div> + +<p>A volley of sand darkened and shook the pane. Taffy, sponging +himself in his tub and singing between his gasps, looked up hastily, +then flung a big towel about him and ran to the window.</p> + +<p>Honoria was standing below; and Comedy, her gray pony, with a creel +and a couple of fishing rods strapped to his canvas girth.</p> + +<p>“Wake up! I’ve come to take you fishing.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond had started off at daybreak to walk to Truro on business; +so there would be no lessons that morning, and Taffy had been looking +forward to a lonely whole holiday.</p> + +<p>“I’ve brought two pasties,” said Honoria, “and a bottle of milk. +We’ll go over to George’s country and catch trout. He is to meet us +at Vellingey Bridge. We arranged it all yesterday, only I kept it +for a surprise.”</p> + +<p>Taffy could have leapt for joy. “Go in and speak to mother,” he +said; “she’s in the kitchen.”</p> + +<p>Honoria hitched Comedy’s bridle over the gate, walked up the barren +little garden, and knocked at the door. When Mrs. Raymond opened it +she held out a hand politely.</p> + +<p>“How do you do?” she said, “I have come to ask if Taffy may go +fishing with me.”</p> + +<p>Except in church, and outside the porch for a formal word or two, +Humility and Honoria had never met. This was Honoria’s first visit +to the Parsonage, and the sight of the clean kitchen and shining pots +and pans filled her with wonder. Humility shook hands and made a +silent note of the child’s frock, which was torn and wanted brushing.</p> + +<p>“He may go, and thank you. It’s lonely for him here, very often.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” said Honoria gravely, “I ought to have called before. +I wish—” She was about to say that she wished Humility would come +to Tredinnis. But her eyes wandered to the orderly dresser and the +scalding-pans by the fireplace.</p> + +<p>“I mean—if Taffy had a sister it would be different.”</p> + +<p>Humility bent to lift a kettle off the fire. When she faced round +again, her eyes were smiling though her lip trembled a little.</p> + +<p>“How bright you keep everything here!” said Honoria.</p> + +<p>“There’s plenty of sand to scour with; it’s bad for the garden +though.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you grow any flowers?”</p> + +<p>“I planted a few pansies the first year; they came from my home up in +Devonshire. But the sand covered them. It covers everything.” +She smiled, and asked suddenly, “May I kiss you?”</p> + +<p>“Of course you may,” said Honoria. But she blushed as Humility did +it, and they both laughed shyly.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” cried Taffy from the foot of the stairs. Honoria moved to +the window. She heard the boy and his mother laughing and making +pretence to quarrel, while he chose the brownest of the hot cakes +from the wood-ashes. She stared out upon Humility’s buried pansies. +It was strange—a minute back she had felt quite happy.</p> + +<p>Humility set them off, and watched them till they disappeared in the +first dip of the towans; and then sat down in the empty kitchen and +wept a little before carrying up her mother’s breakfast.</p> + +<p>Honoria rode in silence for the first mile; but Taffy sang and +whistled by turns as he skipped alongside. The whole world flashed +and glittered around the boy and girl; the white gulls fishing, the +swallows chasing one another across the dunes, the lighthouse on the +distant spit, the white-washed mine-chimneys on the ridge beside the +shore. Away on the rises of the moor one hill-farm laughed to +another in a steady flame of furze blossom—laughed with a tinkling +of singing larks. And beyond the last rise lay the land of wonders, +George’s country. “Hark!” Honoria reined up. “Isn’t that the +cuckoo?” Taffy listened. Yes, somewhere among the hillocks seaward +its note was dinning.</p> + +<p>“Count!”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Cuckoo, cherry-tree,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Be a good bird and tell to me</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">How many years before I die?”</span><br></p> + +<p>“Ninety-six!” Taffy announced.</p> + +<p>“Ninety-two,” said Honoria, “but we won’t quarrel about it. +Happy month to you!”</p> + +<p>“Eh?”</p> + +<p>“It is the first of May. Come along; perhaps we shall meet the +Mayers, though we’re too late, I expect. Hullo! there’s a miner— +let’s ask him.”</p> + +<p>The miner came upon them suddenly—footsteps make no sound among the +towans; a young man in a suit stained orange-tawny, with a tallow +candle stuck with a lump of clay in the brim of his hat, and a +striped tulip stuck in another lump of clay at the back and nodding.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning, miss. You’ve come a day behind the fair.”</p> + +<p>“Is the Maying over?” Honoria asked.</p> + +<p>“Iss, fay. I’ve just been home to shift myself.”</p> + +<p>He walked along with them and told them all about it in the +friendliest manner. It had been a grand Maying—all the boys and +girls in the parish—with the hal-an-tow, of course—such dancing! +Fine and tired some of the maids must be—he wouldn’t give much for +the work they’d do to-day. Two May mornings in one year would make a +grass-captain mad, as the saying was. But there—’twas a poor spirit +that never rejoiced.</p> + +<p>“Which do you belong to?” Taffy nodded toward the mine-chimneys on +the sky-line high on their left, which hid the sea, though it lay +less than half a mile away and the roar of it was in their ears—just +such a roar as the train makes when rushing through a tunnel.</p> + +<p>“Bless you, I’m a tinner. I belong to Wheal Gooniver, up the valley. +Wheal Vlo there, ’pon the cliff, he’s lead. And the next to him, +Wheal Penhale, he’s iron. I came a bit out of my way with you for +company.”</p> + +<p>Soon after parting from him they crossed the valley-stream (Taffy had +to wade it), and here they happened on a dozen tall girls at work +“spalling” the tin-ore, but not busy. The most of them leaned on +their hammers or stood with hands on hips, their laughter drowning +the <i>thud, thud</i> of the engine-house and the rattle of the stamps up +the valley. And the cause of it all seemed to be a smaller girl who +stood by with a basket in her arms.</p> + +<p>“Here you be, Lizzie!” cried one. “Here’s a young lady and gentleman +coming with money in their pockets.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie turned. She was a child of fourteen, perhaps; brown skinned, +with shy, wild eyes. Her stockings were torn, her ragged clothes +decorated with limp bunches of bluebells, and her neck and wrists +with twisted daisy chains. She skipped up to Honoria and held out a +basket. Within it, in a bed of fern, lay a May-doll among a few +birds’ eggs—a poor wooden thing in a single garment of pink calico.</p> + +<p>“Give me something for my doll, miss!” she begged.</p> + +<p>“Aw, that’s too tame,” one of the girls called out, and pitched her +voice to the true beggar’s whine: “Spare a copper! My only child, +dear kind lady, and its only father broke his tender neck in a +blasting accident, and left me twelve to maintain!”</p> + +<p>All the girls began laughing again. Honoria did not laugh. She was +feeling in her pocket.</p> + +<p>“What is your name?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Lizzie Pezzack. My father tends the lighthouse. Give me something +for my doll, miss!”</p> + +<p>Honoria held out a half-crown piece.</p> + +<p>“Hand it to me.”</p> + +<p>The child did not understand. “Give me something—” she began again +in her dull, level voice.</p> + +<p>Honoria stamped her foot. “Give it to me!” She snatched up the doll +and thrust it into the fishing creel, tossed the coin into Lizzie’s +basket, and taking Comedy by the bridle, moved up the path.</p> + +<p>“She’ve adopted en!” They laughed and called out to Lizzie that she +was in luck’s way. But Taffy saw the child’s face as she stared into +the empty basket, and that it was perplexed and forlorn.</p> + +<p>“Why did you do that?” he asked, as he caught up with Honoria. +She did not answer.</p> + +<p>And now they turned away from the sea, and struck a high road which +took them between upland farms and across the ridge of cultivated +land to a valley full of trees. A narrow path led inland up this +valley. They had followed it under pale green shadows, in Indian +file, the pony at Honoria’s heels and Taffy behind, and stepped out +into sunlight again upon a heathery moor where a trout stream +chattered and sparkled. And there by a granite bridge they found +George fishing, with three small trout shining on the turf beside +him.</p> + +<p>This was a day which Taffy remembered all his life, and yet most +confusedly. Indeed there was little to remember it by—little to be +told except that all the while the stream talked, the larks sang, and +in the hollow of the hills three children were happy. George landed +half a dozen trout before lunch-time; but Taffy caught none, partly +because he knew nothing about fishing, partly because the chatter of +the stream set him telling tales to himself and he forgot the rod in +his hand. And Honoria, after hooking a tiny fish and throwing it +back into the water, wandered off in search of larks’ nests. +She came slowly back when George blew a whistle announcing lunch.</p> + +<p>“Hullo! What’s this?” he asked, as he dived a hand into her creel. +“Ugh! a doll! I say, Taffy, let’s float her down the river. +What humbug, Honoria!”</p> + +<p>But she had snatched the doll and crammed it back roughly into the +creel. A minute later, when they were not looking, she lifted the +lid again and disposed the poor thing more gently.</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you talk, one of you?” George demanded, with his mouth +full.</p> + +<p>Taffy shook himself out of his waking dream—“I was wondering where +it goes to,” he said, and nodded toward the running water.</p> + +<p>“It goes down to Langona,” said George, “and that’s just a creek full +of sand, with a church right above it in a big grass meadow—the +queerest small church you ever saw. But I’ve heard my father tell +that hundreds of years back a big city stood there, with seven fine +churches and quays, and deep water alongside and above, so that ships +could sail right up to the ford. They came from all parts of the +world for tin and lead, and the people down in the city had nothing +to do but sit still and grow rich.”</p> + +<p>“Somebody must have worked,” interrupted Honoria; “on the buildings +and all that.”</p> + +<p>“The building was done by convicts. The story is that convicts were +transported here from all over the kingdom.”</p> + +<p>“Did they live in the city?”</p> + +<p>“No; they had a kind of camp across the creek. They dug out the +harbour too, and kept it clear of sand. You can still see the marks +of their pickaxes along the cliffs; I’ll show them to you some day. +My father knows all about it, because his great-great-great-great— +grandfather (and a heap more ‘greats,’ I don’t know how many) was the +only one saved when the city was buried.”</p> + +<p>“Was he from the city, or one of the convicts?” asked Honoria, who +had not forgiven George’s assault upon her doll.</p> + +<p>“He was a baby at the time, and couldn’t remember,” George answered, +with fine composure. “They say he was found high up the creek, just +where you cross it by the foot-bridge. The bridge is covered at high +water; and if you try to cross below, especially when the tide is +flowing, just you look out! Twice a day the sands become quick +there. They’ve swallowed scores. I’ll tell you another thing: +there’s a bird builds somewhere in the cliffs there—a crake, the +people call it—and they say that whenever he goes crying about the +sands, it means that a man will be drowned there.”</p> + +<p>“Rubbish! I don’t believe in your city.”</p> + +<p>“Very well, then, I’ll tell you something else. The fishermen have +seen it—five or six of them. You know the kind of haze that gets up +sometimes on hot days, when the sun’s drawing water? They say that +if you’re a mile or two out and this happens between you and Langona +Creek, you can see the city quite plain above the shore, with the +seven churches and all.”</p> + +<p>“<i>I</i> can see it!” Taffy blurted this out almost without knowing that +he spoke; and blushed furiously when George laughed. “I mean—I’m +sure—” he began to explain.</p> + +<p>“If you can see it,” said Honoria, “you had better describe George’s +property for him.” She yawned. “He can’t tell the story himself— +not one little bit.”</p> + +<p>“Right you are, miss,” George agreed. “Fire away, Taffy.”</p> + +<p>Taffy thought for a minute, then, still with a red face, began. +“It is all true, as George says. A fine city lies there, covered +with the sands; and this was what happened. The King of Langona had +a son, a handsome young Prince, who lived at home until he was +eighteen, and then went on his travels. That was the custom, you +know. The Prince took only his foster-brother, whose name was John, +and they travelled for three years. On their way back, as they came +to Langona Creek, they saw the convicts at work, and in one of the +fields was a girl digging alone. She had a ring round her ankle, +like the rest, with a chain and iron weight, but she was the most +beautiful girl the Prince had ever seen. So he pulled up his horse +and asked her who she was, and how she came to be wearing the chain. +She told him she was no convict, but the daughter of a convict, and +it was the law for the convict’s children to wear these things. +‘To-night,’ said the Prince, ‘you shall wear a ring of gold and be a +Princess,’ and he commanded John to file away the ring and take her +upon his horse. They rode across the creak and came to the palace; +and the Prince, after kissing his father and mother, said, ’I have +brought you all kinds of presents from abroad; but best of all I have +brought home a bride.’ His parents, who wondered at her beauty, and +never doubted but that she must be a king’s daughter, were full of +joy, and set the bells ringing in all the seven churches. So for a +year everybody was happy, and at the end of that time a son was +born.”</p> + +<p>“You’re making it up,” said Honoria. Taffy’s <i>own</i> stories always +puzzled her, with hints and echoes from other stories she +half-remembered, but could seldom trace home. He had too cunning a +gift.</p> + +<p>George said, “Do be quiet! Of course he’s making it up, but who wants +to know <i>that?</i>”</p> + +<p>“Two days afterward,” Taffy went on, “the Prince was out hunting with +his foster-brother. The Princess in her bed at home complained to +her mother-in-law, ’Mother, my feet are cold. Bring me another rug +to wrap them in.’ The Queen did so, but as she covered the +Princess’s feet she saw the red mark left by the ankle ring, and knew +that her son’s wife was no true Princess, but a convict’s daughter. +And full of rage and shame she went away and mixed two cups. +The first she gave to the Princess to drink; and when it had killed +her (for it was poison) she dipped a finger into the dregs and rubbed +it inside the child’s lips, and very soon he was dead too. Then she +sent for two ankle-chains and weights—one larger and one very +small—and fitted them on the two bodies and had them flung into the +creek. When the Prince came home he asked after his wife. ’She is +sleeping,’ said the Queen, ’and you must be thirsty with hunting?’ +She held out the second cup, and the Prince drank and passed it to +John, who drank also. Now in this cup was a drug which took away all +memory. And at once the Prince forgot all about his wife and child; +and John forgot too.</p> + +<p>“For weeks after this the Prince complained that he felt unwell. +He told the doctors that there was an empty place in his head, and +they advised him to fill it by travelling. So he set out again, and +John went with him as before. On their journey they stayed for a +week with the King of Spain, and there the Prince fell in love with +the King of Spain’s daughter, and married her, and brought her home +at the end of a year, during which she, too, had brought him a son.</p> + +<p>“The night after their return, when the Prince and his second wife +slept, John kept watch outside the door. About midnight he heard the +noise of a chain dragging, but very softly, and up the stairs came a +lady in white with a child in her arms. John knew his former +mistress at once, and all his memory came back to him, but she put a +finger to her lips and went past him into the bed-chamber. She went +to the bed, laid a hand on her husband’s pillow, and whispered:”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">’Wife and babe below the river,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Twice will I come and then come never.’</span><br> +</p> +<p>“Without another word she turned and went slowly past John and down +the stairs.”</p> + +<p>“I know <i>that</i>, anyhow,” Honoria interrupted. “That’s ‘East of the +Sun and West of the Moon,’ or else it’s the Princess whose brother +was changed into a Roebuck, or else—” But George flicked a pebble +at her, and Taffy went on, warming more and more to the story:—</p> + +<p>“In the morning, when the Prince woke, his second wife saw his pillow +on the side farthest from her, and it was wet. ‘Husband,’ she said, +‘you have been weeping to-night.’ ‘Well,’ said he, ‘that is queer, +though, for I haven’t wept since I was a boy. It’s true, though, +that I had a miserable dream.’ But when he tried to remember it, he +could not.</p> + +<p>“The same thing happened on the second night, only the dead wife +said:”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">‘Wife and babe below the river,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Once will I come and then come never.’</span><br> +</p> +<p>“And again in the morning there was a mark on the pillow where her wet +hand had rested. But the Prince in the morning could remember +nothing. On the third night she came and said:”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">‘Wife and babe below the river,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Now I am gone and gone for ever,’</span><br> +</p> +<p>“And went down the stairs with such a reproachful look at John that +his heart melted and he ran after her. But at the outer door a flash +of lightning met him, and such a storm broke over the palace and city +as had never been before and never will be again.</p> + +<p>“John heard screams, and the noise of doors banging and feet running +throughout the palace; he turned back and met the Prince, his master, +coming downstairs with his child in his arms. The lightning stroke +had killed his second wife where she lay. John followed him out into +the streets, where the people were running to and fro, and through +the whirling sand to the ford which crossed the creek a mile above +the city. And there, as they stepped into the water, a woman rose +before John, with a child in her arms, and said: ‘Carry us.’ +The Prince, who was leading, did not see. John took them on his +back, but they were heavy because of the iron chains and weights on +their ankles, and the sands sank under him. Then, by-and-by, the +first wife put her child into John’s arms and said, ‘Save him,’ and +slipped off his back into the water. ‘What sound was that?’ asked +the Prince. ‘That was my heart cracking,’ said John. So they went +on till the sand rose half-way to their knees. Then the Prince +stopped and put his child into John’s arms. ‘Save him,’ he said, and +fell forward on his face; and John’s heart cracked again. But he +went forward in the darkness until the water rose to his waist, and +the sand to his knees. He was close to the farther shore now, but +could not reach it unless he dropped one of the children; and this he +would not do. He bent forward, holding out one in each arm, and +could just manage to push them up the bank and prop them there with +his open hand; and while he bent, the tide rose and his heart cracked +for the third time. Though he was dead, his stiff arms kept the +children propped against the bank. But just at the turning of the +tide the one with the ankle-weight slipped and was drowned. +The other was found next morning by the inland people, high and dry. +And some <i>do</i> say,” Taffy wound up, “that his brother was not really +drowned, but turned into a bird, and that, though no one has seen +him, it is his voice that gives the ‘<i>crake</i>,’ imitating the sound +made by John’s heart when it burst; but others say it comes from John +himself, down there below the sands.”</p> + +<p>There was silence for a minute. Even Honoria had grown excited +toward the end.</p> + +<p>“But it was unfair!” she broke out. “It ought to have been the +convict-child that was saved.”</p> + +<p>“If so, I shouldn’t be here,” said George; “and it’s not very nice of +you to say it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care. It was unfair; and anyone but a boy”—with scorn—“would +see it.” She turned upon the staring Taffy—“I hate your tale; it was +horrid.”</p> + +<p>She repeated it, that evening, as they turned their faces homeward +across the heathery moor. Taffy had halted on the top of a hillock +to wave good-night to George. For years he remembered the scene—the +brown hollow of the hills; the clear evening sky, with the faint +purple arch, which is the shadow of the world, climbing higher and +higher upon it; and his own shadow stretching back with his heart +toward George, who stood fronting the level rays and waved his +glittering catch of fish.</p> + +<p>“What was that you said?” he asked, when at length he tore himself +away and caught up with Honoria.</p> + +<p>“That was a horrid story you told. It spoiled my afternoon, and I’ll +trouble you not to tell any more of the sort.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.<br><span class="small">LIZZIE REDEEMS HER DOLL AND HONORIA THROWS A STONE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>A broad terrace ran along the southern front of Tredinnis House. +It had once been decorated with leaden statues, but of these only the +pedestals remained.</p> + +<p>Honoria, perched on the terraced wall, with her legs dangling, was +making imaginary casts with a trout-rod, when she heard footsteps. A +child came timidly round the angle of the big house—Lizzie Pezzack.</p> + +<p>“Hullo! What do you want?”</p> + +<p>“If you please, miss—”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“If you please, miss—”</p> + +<p>“You’ve said that twice.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie held out a grubby palm with a half-crown in it: “I wants my +doll back, if you please, miss.”</p> + +<p>“But you sold it.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to. You took me so sudden.”</p> + +<p>“I gave you ever so much more than it was worth. Why, I don’t +believe it cost you three ha’pence!”</p> + +<p>“Tuppence,” said Lizzie.</p> + +<p>“Then you don’t know when you’re well off. Go away.”</p> + +<p>“’Tisn’t that, miss—”</p> + +<p>“What is it, then?”</p> + +<p>Lizzie broke into a flood of tears.</p> + +<p>Honoria, the younger by a year or so, stood and eyed her scornfully; +then turning on her heel marched into the house.</p> + +<p>She was a just child. She went upstairs to her bedroom, unlocked her +wardrobe, and took out the doll, which was clad in blue silk, and +reposed in a dog-trough lined with the same material. Honoria had +recklessly cut up two handkerchiefs (for underclothing) and her +Sunday sash, and had made the garments in secret. They were +prodigies of bad needlework. With the face of a Medea she stripped +the poor thing, took it in her arms as if to kiss it, but checked +herself sternly. She descended to the terrace with the doll in one +hand and its original calico smock in the other.</p> + +<p>“There, take your twopenny baby!”</p> + +<p>Lizzie caught and strained it to her breast; covered its poor +nakedness hurriedly, and hugged it again with passionate kisses.</p> + +<p>“You silly! Did you come all this way by yourself?”</p> + +<p>Lizzie nodded. “Father thinks I’m home, minding the house. He’s off +duty this evening, and he walked over here to the Bryanite Chapel, up +to Four Turnings. There’s going to be a big Prayer Meeting to-night. +When his back was turned I slipped out after him, so as to keep him +in sight across the towans.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“I’m terrible timid. I can’t bear to walk across the towans by +myself. You can’t see where you be—they’re so much alike—and it +makes a person feel lost. There’s so many bones, too.”</p> + +<p>“Dead rabbits.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and dead folks, I’ve heard father say.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ll have to go back alone, any way.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie hugged the doll. “I don’t mind so much now. I’ll keep along +by the sea and run, and only open my eyes now and then. Here’s your +money, miss.”</p> + +<p>She went off at a run. Honoria pocketed the half-crown and went back +to her fly-fishing. But after a few casts she desisted, and took her +rod to pieces slowly. The afternoon was hot and sultry. She sat +down in the shadow of the balustrade and gazed at the long, blank +facade of the house baking in the sun; at the tall, uncurtained +windows; at the peacock stalking to and fro like a drowsy sentinel.</p> + +<p>“You are a beast of a house,” she said contemplatively; “and I hate +every stone of you!”</p> + +<p>She stood up and strolled toward the stables. The stable yard was +empty but for the Gordon setter dozing by the pump-trough. +Across from the kitchens came the sound of the servants’ voices +chattering. Honoria had never made friends with the servants.</p> + +<p>She tilted her straw hat further over her eyes, and sauntered up the +drive with her hands behind her; through the great gates and out upon +the towans. She had started with no particular purpose, and had none +in her mind when she came in sight of the Parsonage, and of Humility +seated in the doorway with her lace pillow across her knees.</p> + +<p>It had been the custom among the women of Beer Village to work in +their doorways on sunny afternoons, and Humility followed it.</p> + +<p>She looked up smiling. “Taffy is down by the shore, I think.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t come to look for him. What beautiful work!”</p> + +<p>“It comes in handy. Won’t you step inside and let me make you a cup +of tea?”</p> + +<p>“No, I’ll sit here and watch you.” Humility pulled in her skirts, and +Honoria found room on the doorstep beside her. “Please don’t stop. +It’s wonderful. Now I know where Taffy gets his cleverness.”</p> + +<p>“You are quite wrong. This is only a knack. All his cleverness +comes from his father.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, books! Of course, Mr. Raymond knows all about books. +He’s writing one, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raymond nodded.</p> + +<p>“What about?”</p> + +<p>“It’s about St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews; in Greek, you know. +He has been working at it for years.”</p> + +<p>“And he’s indoors working at it now? What funny things men do!” +She was silent for a while, watching Humility’s bobbins. “But I +suppose it doesn’t matter just <i>what</i> they do. The great thing is to +do it better than anyone else. Does Mr. Raymond think Taffy clever?”</p> + +<p>“He never talks about it.”</p> + +<p>“But he <i>thinks</i> so. I know; because at lessons when he says +anything to Taffy it’s quite different from the way he talks to +George and me. He doesn’t favour him, of course; he’s much too fair. +But there’s a difference. It’s as if he <i>expected</i> Taffy to +understand. Did Mr. Raymond teach him all those stories he knows?”</p> + +<p>“What stories?”</p> + +<p>“Fairy tales, and that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“Good gracious me, no!”</p> + +<p>“Then <i>you</i> must have. And you <i>are</i> clever, after all. Asking me +to believe you’re not, and making that beautiful lace all the while, +under my very eyes!”</p> + +<p>“I’m not a bit clever. Here’s the pattern, you see, and there’s the +thread, and the rest is only practice. I couldn’t make the pattern +out of my head. Besides, I don’t like clever women.”</p> + +<p>“A woman must try to be <i>something</i>.” Honoria felt that this was +vague, but wanted to argue.</p> + +<p>“A woman wants to be loved,” said Mrs. Raymond thoughtfully. +“There’s such a heap to be done about the house that she won’t find +time for much else. Besides, if she has children, she’ll be planning +for them.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that rather slow?”</p> + +<p>Humility wondered where the child had picked up the word. +“Slow?” she echoed, with her eyes on the horizon beyond the dunes. +“Most things are slow when you look forward to them.”</p> + +<p>“But these fairy-tales of yours?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you about them. When my mother was a girl of sixteen she +went into service as a nursemaid in a clergyman’s family. +Every evening the clergyman used to come into the nursery and tell +the children a fairy-tale. That’s how it started. My mother left +service to marry a farmer—it was quite a grand match for her—and +when I was a baby she told the stories to me. She has a wonderful +memory still, and she tells them capitally. When I listen I believe +every word of them; I like them better than books, too, because they +always end happily. But I can’t repeat them a bit. As soon as I +begin they fall to pieces, and the pieces get mixed up, and, worst of +all, the life goes right out of them. But Taffy, he takes the pieces +and puts them together, and the tale is better than ever: quite +different, and new, too. That’s the puzzle. It’s not memory with +him; it’s something else.”</p> + +<p>“But don’t you ever make up a story of your own?” Honoria insisted.</p> + +<p>Now you might talk with Mrs. Raymond for ten minutes, perhaps, and +think her a simpleton; and then suddenly a cloud (as it were) parted, +and you found yourself gazing into depths of clear and beautiful +wisdom.</p> + +<p>She turned on Honoria with a shy, adorable smile: “Why, of course I +do—about Taffy. Come in and let me show you his room and his +books.”</p> + +<p>An hour later, when Taffy returned, he found Honoria seated at the +table and his mother pouring tea. They said nothing about their +visit to his room; and though they had handled every one of his +treasures, he never discovered it. But he did notice—or rather, he +felt—that the two understood each other. They did; and it was an +understanding he would never be able to share, though he lived to be +a hundred.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond came out from his study and drank his tea in silence. +Honoria observed that he blinked a good deal. He showed no surprise +at her visit, and after a moment seemed unaware of her presence. +At length he raised the cup to his lips, and finding it empty set it +down and rose to go back to his work. Humility interfered and +reminded him of a call to be paid at one of the upland farms. +The children might go too, she suggested. It would be very little +distance out of Honoria’s way.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond sighed, but went for his walking-stick; and they set out.</p> + +<p>When they reached the farmhouse he left the children outside. +The town-place was admirably suited for a game of “Follow-my-leader,” +which they played for twenty minutes with great seriousness, to the +disgust of the roosting poultry. Then Taffy spied a niche, high up, +where a slice had been cut out of a last year’s haystack. He fetched +a ladder. Up they climbed, drew the ladder after them, and played at +being Outlaws in a Cave, until the dusk fell.</p> + +<p>Still Mr. Raymond lingered indoors. “He thinks we have gone home,” +said Honoria. “Now the thing would be to creep down and steal one of +the fowls, and bring it back and cook it.”</p> + +<p>“We can make believe to do it,” Taffy suggested.</p> + +<p>Honoria considered for a moment. “I’ll tell you what: there’s a +great Bryanite meeting to-night, down at the Chapel. I expect +there’ll be a devil hunt.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“They turn out the lights and hunt for him in the dark.”</p> + +<p>“But he isn’t <i>really</i> there?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Suppose we play at scouts and creep down the road? +If the Chapel is lit up we can spy in on them; and then you can +squeeze your nose on the glass and make a face, while I say ‘Boo!’ +and they’ll think the Old Gentleman is really come.”</p> + +<p>They stole down the ladder and out of the town-place. The Chapel +stood three-quarters of a mile away, on a turfed wastrel where two +high roads met and crossed.</p> + +<p>Long before they reached it they heard clamorous voices and groans.</p> + +<p>“I expect the devil hunt has begun,” said Honoria. But when they +came in sight of the building its windows were brightly lit. +The noise inside was terrific.</p> + +<p>The two children approached it with all the precaution proper to +scouts. Suddenly the clamour ceased and the evening fell so silent +that Taffy heard the note of an owl away in the Tredinnis plantations +to his left. This silence was daunting, but they crept on and soon +were standing in the illuminated ring of furze whins which surrounded +the Chapel.</p> + +<p>“Can you reach up to look in?”</p> + +<p>Taffy could not; so Honoria obligingly went on hands and knees, and +he stood on her back.</p> + +<p>“Can you see? What’s the matter?”</p> + +<p>Taffy gasped. “<i>He’s</i> in there!”</p> + +<p>“What?—the Old Gentleman?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; no—your grandfather!”</p> + +<p>“What? Let me get up. Here, you kneel—”</p> + +<p>It was true. Under the rays of a paraffin lamp, in face of the +kneeling congregation, sat Squire Moyle; his body stiffly upright on +the bench, his jaws rigid, his eyes with horror in them fastened upon +the very window through which Honoria peered—fastened, it seemed to +her, upon her face. But, no; he saw nothing. The Bryanites were +praying; Honoria saw their lips moving. Their eyes were all on the +old man’s face. In the straining silence his mouth opened—but only +for a moment—while his tongue wetted his parched lips.</p> + +<p>A man by the pulpit-stairs shuffled his feet. A sigh passed through +the Chapel as he rose and relaxed the tension. It was Jacky Pascoe. +He stepped up to the Squire, and, laying a hand on his shoulder, +said, gently, persuasively, yet so clearly that Honoria could hear +every word:</p> + +<p>“Try, brother. Keep on trying. O, I’ve knowed cases—You can never +tell how near salvation is. One minute the heart’s like a stone, and +the next maybe ’tis melted and singing like fat in a pan. +’Tis working! ’tis working!”</p> + +<p>The congregation broke out with cries: “Amen!” “Glory, glory!” +The Squire’s lips moved and he muttered something. But stony despair +sat in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Ay, glory, glory! You’ve been a doubter, and you doubt no longer. +Soon you’ll be a shouter. Man, you’ll dance like as David danced +before the Ark! You’ll feel it in your toes! Come along, friends, +while he’s resting a minute! Sing all together—oh, the blessed +peace of it!—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘I long to be there, His glory to share—’”</span><br> +</p> +<p>He pitched the note, and the congregation took up the second line +with a rolling, gathering volume of song. It broke on the night like +the footfall of a regiment at charge. Honoria scrambled off Taffy’s +back, and the two slipped away to the high road.</p> + +<p>“Shall you tell your father?”</p> + +<p>“I—I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>She stooped and found a loose stone. “He shan’t find salvation +to-night,” she said heroically.</p> + +<p>As the stone crashed through the window the two children pelted off. +They ran on the soft turf by the wayside, and only halted to listen +when they reached Tredinnis’s great gates. The sound of feet running +far up the road set them off again, but now in opposite ways. +Honoria sped down the avenue, and Taffy headed for the Parsonage, +across the towans. Ordinarily this road at night would have been +full of terrors for him; but now the fear at his heels kept him +going, while his heart thumped on his ribs. He was just beginning to +feel secure, when he blundered against a dark figure which seemed to +rise straight out of the night.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!”</p> + +<p>Blessed voice! The wayfarer was his own father.</p> + +<p>“Taffy! I thought you were home an hour ago. Where on earth have you +been?”</p> + +<p>“With Honoria.” He was about to say more, but checked himself. +“I left her at the top of the avenue,” he explained.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.<br><span class="small">TAFFY’S CHILDHOOD COMES TO AN END.</span></h2></div> + +<p>The summer passed. There was a talk in the early part of it that the +Bishop would be coming, next spring, to consecrate the restored +church and hold a confirmation service. Taffy and Honoria were to be +confirmed, and early in August Mr. Raymond began to set apart an hour +each day for preparing them. In a week or two the boy’s head was +full of religion. He spent much of his time in the church, watching +the carpenter at work upon the new seats; his mind ran on the story +of Samuel, and he wished his mother had followed Hannah’s example and +dedicated him to God; he had a suspicion that God would be angry with +her for not doing so.</p> + +<p>He did not observe that, as the autumn crept on, a shadow gathered on +Humility’s face. One Sunday the old Squire did not come to church; +and again on the next Wednesday, at the harvest festival, Honoria sat +alone in the Tredinnis pew. The shadow was on his mother’s face as +he chatted about this on their way home to the Parsonage; but the boy +did not perceive it. He loved his parents, but their lives lay +outside his own, and their sayings and doings passed him like a vain +show. He walked in the separate world of childhood, and it seemed an +enormous world yet, though a few weeks were to bring him abruptly to +the end of it.</p> + +<p>But just before he came to the precipice he was given a glimpse of +the real world—and of a world beyond that, far more splendid and +romantic than any region of his dreams.</p> + +<p>The children had no lessons during Christmas, or for three weeks +after. On the last morning before the holidays George brought a +letter for Mr. Raymond, who read it, considered for a while, and laid +it among his papers.</p> + +<p>“It’s an invitation,” George announced in a whisper. “I wonder if +he’ll let you come.”</p> + +<p>“Where?” whispered Taffy.</p> + +<p>“Up to Plymouth—to the Pantomime.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>“Oh—clowns, and girls dressed up like boys, and policemen on slides, +and that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>Taffy sat bewildered. He vaguely remembered Plymouth as a mass of +roofs seen from the train, as it drew up for a minute or two on a +high bridge. Someone in the railway carriage had talked of an engine +called <i>Brutus</i>, which (it appeared) had lately run away and crashed +into the cloak-room at the end of the platform. He still thought of +railway engines as big, blundering animals, with wills of their own, +and of Plymouth as a town rendered insecure by their vagaries; but +the idea that its roofs covered girls dressed up like boys and +policemen on slides was new to him, and pleasant on the whole, though +daunting.</p> + +<p>“Will you give my thanks to Sir Harry,” said Mr. Raymond, after +lessons, “and tell him that Taffy may go.”</p> + +<p>So on New Year’s Day Taffy found himself in Plymouth. It was an +experience which he could never fit into his life except as a gaudy +interlude; for when he awoke and looked back upon it, he was no +longer the boy who had climbed up beside Sir Harry and behind Sir +Harry’s restless pair of bays. The whirl began with that drive to +the station; began again in the train; began again as they stepped +out on the pavement at Plymouth, just as a company of scarlet-coated +soldiers came down the roadway with a din of brazen music. +The crowd, the shops, the vast hotel, completely dazed him, and he +seriously accepted the waiter, in his black suit and big white +shirt-front, as a contribution to the fun of the entertainment.</p> + +<p>“We must dine early,” Sir Harry announced at lunch; “the Pantomime +begins at seven.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t—isn’t this the Pantomime?” Taffy stammered.</p> + +<p>George giggled. Sir Harry set down his glass of claret, stared at +the boy, and broke into musical laughter. Taffy perceived he had +made some ridiculous mistake and blushed furiously.</p> + +<p>“God bless the child—the Pantomime’s at the theatre!”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” Taffy recalled the canvas booth and wheezy cornet of his early +days with a chill of disappointment.</p> + +<p>But with George at his side it was impossible to be anything but +happy. After lunch they sallied out, and it would have been hard to +choose the gayest of the three. Sir Harry’s radiant good-temper +seemed to gild the streets. He took the boys up to the Hoe and +pointed out the war-ships; he whisked them into the Camera Obscura; +thence to the Citadel, where they watched a squad of recruits at +drill; thence to the Barbican, where the trawling-fleet lay packed +like herring, and the shops were full of rope and oilskin suits and +marine instruments, and dirty children rolled about the roadway +between the legs of seabooted fishermen; and so up to the town again, +where he lingered in the most obliging manner while the boys stared +into the fishing-tackle shops and toy shops. On the way he led them +up a narrow passage and into a curious room, where fifteen or twenty +men were drinking, and talking at the top of their voices. The most +of them seemed to know Sir Harry well and greeted him with an odd +mixture of respect and familiarity. Their talk was full of +mysterious names and expressions, and Taffy thought at first they +must be Freemasons. “The Moor point-to-point was a walk-over for the +Milkman; Lapidary was scratched, which left it a soft thing, unless +Sir Harry fancied a fox-catcher like Nursery Governess, in which +case Billy behind the bar would do as much business as he liked at +six-to-one.” After a while Taffy discovered they were talking about +horses, and wondered why they should meet to discuss horses in a +dingy room up a back yard. “Youngster of yours is growin’, +Surrarry,” said a red-faced man. “Who’s his stable companion?” Taffy +was introduced, and to his embarrassment Sir Harry began to relate +his ridiculous mistake at lunch. The men roared with laughter.</p> + +<p>He made another, quite as ridiculous, at the pastry-cook’s where Sir +Harry ordered tea. “What’ll you take with it? Call for what you +like, only don’t poison yourselves.” Taffy referring his gaze from +the buns and confections on the counter to the card in his hands, +which was inscribed with words in unknown tongues, made a bold plunge +and announced that he would take a “<i>marasheno</i>.”</p> + +<p>This tickled Sir Harry mightily. He ordered the waitress with a wink +to “bring the young gentleman a <i>marasheno</i>”; and Taffy, who had +expected something in the shape of a macaroon, was confronted with a +tiny glass of a pale liquor, which, when tasted, in the most +surprising manner put sunshine into his stomach and brought tears +into his eyes. But under Sir Harry’s quizzical gaze he swallowed it +down bravely, and sat gasping and blinking.</p> + +<p>It may have been that the maraschino induced a haze upon the rest of +the afternoon. The gas-lamps were lit when they left the +pastry-cook’s and entered a haberdasher’s where Taffy, without +knowing why, was fitted with a pair of white kid gloves. Of dinner +at the hotel he remembered nothing except that the candles on the +tables had red shades, of which the silverware gave funny +reflections; that the same waiter flitted about in the penumbra; and +that Sir Harry, who was dressed like the waiter, said, “Wake up, +young Marasheno! Do you take your coffee black?” “It’s usually pale +brown at home,” answered Taffy; at which Sir Harry laughed again. +“Black will suit you better to-night,” he said, and poured out a +small cupful, which Taffy drank and found exceedingly nasty. And a +moment later he was wide awake, and the three were following a young +woman along a passage which seemed to run in a complete circle. +The young woman flung open a door; they entered a little room with a +balcony in front; and the first glorious vision broke on the child +with a blaze of light, a crash of music, and the murmur of hundreds +of voices.</p> + +<p>Faces, faces, faces!—faces mounting from the pit below him, up and +up to the sky-blue ceiling, where painted goddesses danced and +scattered pink roses around the enormous gasalier. Fauns piping on +the great curtain, fiddles sawing in the orchestra beneath, ladies in +gay silks and jewels leaning over the gilt balconies opposite—which +were real, and which a vision only? He turned helplessly to George +and Sir Harry. Yes, <i>they</i> were real. But what of Nannizabuloe, and +the sand-hills, and the little parsonage to which that very morning +he had turned to wave his handkerchief?</p> + +<p>A bell rang, and the curtain rose upon a company of russet-brown +elves dancing in a green wood. The play was <i>Jack the Giant-killer</i>; +but Taffy, who knew the story in the book by heart, found the story +on the stage almost meaningless. That mattered nothing; it was the +world, the new and unimagined world, stretching deeper and still +deeper as the scenes were lifted—a world in which solid walls +crumbled, and forests melted, and loveliness broke through the ruins, +unfolding like a rose; it was this that seized on the child’s heart +until he could have wept for its mere beauty. Often he had sought +out the trout-pools on the moors behind the towans, and lying at full +length had watched the fish moving between the stones and +water-plants; and watching through a summer’s afternoon had longed to +change places with them and glide through their grottoes or anchor +among the reed-stalks and let the ripple run over him. As long back +as he could remember, all beautiful sights had awakened this ache, +this longing—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“O, that I were where I would be!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Then would I be where I am not;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For where I am I would not be,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And where I would be, I cannot.”</span><br></p> + +<p>It seemed to him that these bright beings on the stage had broken +through the barriers, had stepped beyond the flaming ramparts, and were +happy. Their horseplay, at which George laughed so immoderately, called +to Taffy to come and be happy, too; and when Jack the Giant-killer +changed to Jack in the Beanstalk, and when in the Transformation Scene +a real beanstalk grew and unfolded its leaves, and each leaf revealed +a fairy seated, with the limelight flashing on star and jewelled wand, +the longing became unbearable. The scene passed in a minute. The clown +and pantaloon came on, and presently Sir Harry saw Taffy’s shoulders +shaking, and set it down to laughter at the harlequinade. He could not +see the child’s face.</p> + +<p>But, perhaps, the queerest event of the evening (when Taffy came to +review his recollections) was this: He must have fallen into a stupor +on leaving the theatre, for when he awoke he found himself on a couch +in a gas-lit room, with George beside him, and Sir Harry was shaking +him by the collar, and saying, “God bless the children, I thought +they were in bed hours ago!” A man—the same who had talked about +racehorses that afternoon—was standing by the table, on which a +quantity of cards lay scattered among the drinking-glasses; and he +laughed at this, and his laugh sounded just like the rustling of +paper. “It’s all very well—” began Sir Harry, but checked himself +and lit a candle, and led the two boys off shivering to bed.</p> + +<p>The next morning, too, had its surprises. To begin with, Sir Harry +announced at breakfast that he must go and buy a horse. He might be +an hour or two over the business, and meanwhile the boys had better +go out into the town and enjoy themselves. Perhaps a sovereign +apiece might help them.</p> + +<p>Taffy, who had never in his life possessed more than a shilling, was +staring at the gold piece in his hand, when the door opened, and Sir +Harry’s horse-racing friend came in to breakfast and nodded +“Good-morning.”</p> + +<p>“Pity you’re leaving to-day,” he said, as he took his seat at a table +hard by them.</p> + +<p>“My revenge must wait,” Sir Harry answered.</p> + +<p>It seemed a cold-blooded thing to be said so carelessly. +Taffy wondered if Sir Harry’s search for a horse had anything to do +with this revenge, and the notion haunted him in the intervals of his +morning’s shopping.</p> + +<p>But how to lay out his sovereign? That was the first question. +George, who within ten minutes had settled his own problem by +purchasing a doubtful fox-terrier of the Boots of the hotel, saw no +difficulty. The Boots had another pup for sale—one of the same +litter.</p> + +<p>“But I want something for mother, and the others—and Honoria.”</p> + +<p>“Botheration! I’d forgotten Honoria, and now the money’s gone! Never mind; she can have my pup.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!” said Taffy ruefully. “Then she won’t think much of my +present.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she will. Suppose you buy a collar for him—you can get one +for five shillings.”</p> + +<p>They found a saddler’s and chose the dog-collar which came to four +shillings; and for eighteenpence the shopman agreed to have +“<i>Honoria from Taffy</i>,” engraved on it within an hour. Humility’s +present was chosen with surprising ease—a large, framed photograph +of the Bishop of Exeter; price, six shillings.</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose,” objected George, “your mother cares much for the +Bishop of Exeter.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, she does,” said Taffy; “he’s coming to confirm us next +spring. Besides,” he added, with one of those flashes of wisdom +which surely he derived from her, “mother won’t care what it is, so +long as she’s remembered. And it costs more than the collar.”</p> + +<p>This left him with eight-and-sixpence; and for three-and-sixpence he +bought a work-box for his grandmother, with a view of Plymouth Hoe on +the lid. But now came the crux. What should he get for his father?</p> + +<p>“It must be a book,” George suggested.</p> + +<p>“But what kind of a book? He has so many.”</p> + +<p>“Something in Latin.”</p> + +<p>The bookseller’s window was filled with yellow-backed novels and +toy-books, which obviously would not do. So they marched in and +demanded a book suitable for a clergyman who had a good many books +already—“a middle-aged clergyman,” George added.</p> + +<p>“You can’t go far wrong with this,” suggested the bookseller, +producing Crockford’s “Clerical Directory” for the current year. +But this was too expensive; “and,” said Taffy, “I think he would +rather have something in Latin.” The bookseller rubbed his chin, +went to his shelves, and took down a small <i>De Imitatione Christi</i>, +bound in limp calf. “You can’t go far wrong with this, either,” he +assured them. So Taffy paid down his money.</p> + +<p>Just as the boys reached the hotel, Sir Harry drove up in a cab; and +five minutes later they were all rattling off to the railway station. +Taffy eyed the cab-horse curiously, never doubting it to be Sir +Harry’s new purchase; and was extremely surprised when the cabman +whipped it up and trotted off—after receiving his money, too. +But in the bustle there was no time to ask questions.</p> + +<p>It was about three in the afternoon, and the sun already low in the +south-west, when they came in sight of the cross-roads and Sir Harry +pulled up his bays. And there, on the green by the sign-post, stood +Mrs. Raymond. She caught Taffy in her arms and hugged him till he +felt ashamed, and glanced around to see if the others were looking; +but the phaeton was bowling away down the road.</p> + +<p>“But why are <i>you</i> here, mother?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raymond gazed a while after the carriage before speaking. +“Your father had to be at the church,” she said.</p> + +<p>“But there’s no service—” He broke off “See what I’ve brought for +you!” And he pulled out the portrait. “Do you know who it is?”</p> + +<p>Humility thanked him and kissed him passionately. There was +something odd with her this afternoon.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you like your present?”</p> + +<p>“Darling, it is beautiful,” she stooped and kissed him again, +passionately.</p> + +<p>“I’ve a present for father, too; a book. Why are you walking so +fast?” In a little while he asked again, “Why are you walking so +fast?”</p> + +<p>“I—I thought you would be wanting your tea.”</p> + +<p>“Mayn’t I take father his book first?”</p> + +<p>She did not answer.</p> + +<p>“But mayn’t I?” he persisted.</p> + +<p>They had reached the garden-gate. Humility seemed to hesitate. +“Yes; go,” she said at length; and he ran, with the <i>De Imitatione +Christi</i> under his arm.</p> + +<p>As he came within view of the church he saw a knot of men gathered +about the door. They were pulling something out from the porch. +He heard the noise of hammering, and Squire Moyle, at the back of the +crowd, was shouting at the top of his voice:</p> + +<p>“The church is yours, is it? I’ll see about that! Pitch out the +furnitcher, my billies—<i>that’s</i> mine, anyway!”</p> + +<p>Still the hammers sounded within the church.</p> + +<p>“Don’t believe in sudden convarsion, don’t ’ee? I reckon you will +when you look round your church. Bishop coming to consecrate it, is +he? Consecrate <i>my</i> furnitcher? I’ll see you and your bishop to +blazes first!”</p> + +<p>A heap of shattered timber came flying through the porch.</p> + +<p>“<i>Your</i> church, hey? <i>Your</i> church?”</p> + +<p>The crowd fell back and Mr. Raymond stood in the doorway, between +Bill Udy and Jim the Huntsman. Bill Udy held a brazen ewer and +paten, and Jim a hammer; and Mr. Raymond had a hand on one shoulder +of each.</p> + +<p>For a moment there was silence. As Taffy came running through the +lych-gate a man who had been sitting on a flat tombstone and +watching, stood up and touched his arm. It was Jacky Pascoe, the +Bryanite.</p> + +<p>“Best go back,” he said, “’tis a wisht poor job of it.”</p> + +<p>Taffy halted for a moment. The Squire’s voice had risen to a sudden +scream—he sputtered as he pointed at Mr. Raymond.</p> + +<p>“There he is, naybours! Get behind the varmint, somebody, and stop +his earth! Calls hisself a minister of God! Calls it <i>his</i> church!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond took his hands off the men’s shoulders, and walked +straight up to him. “Not <i>my</i> church,” he said, aloud and +distinctly. “God’s church!”</p> + +<p>He stretched out an arm. Taffy, running up, supposed it stretched +out to strike. “Father!”</p> + +<p>But Mr. Raymond’s palm was open as he lifted it over the Squire’s +head. “God’s church,” he repeated. “In whose service, sir, I defy +you. Go! or if you will, and have the courage, come and stand while +I kneel amid the ruin you have done and pray God to judge between +us.”</p> + +<p>He paused, with his eyes on the Squire’s.</p> + +<p>“You dare not, I see. Go, poor coward, and plan what mischief you +will. Only now leave me in peace a little.”</p> + +<p>He took the boy’s hand and they passed into the church together. +No one followed. Hand in hand they stood before the dismantled +chancel. Taffy heard the sound of shuffling feet on the walk +outside, and looked up into Mr. Raymond’s face.</p> + +<p>“Father!”</p> + +<p>“Kiss me, sonny.”</p> + +<p>The <i>De Imitatione Christi</i> slipped from Taffy’s fingers and fell +upon the chancel step.</p> + +<p>So his childhood ended.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.<br><span class="small">THE BUILDERS.</span></h2></div> + +<p>These things happened on a Friday. After breakfast next morning +Taffy went to fetch his books. He did so out of habit and without +thinking; but his father stopped him.</p> + +<p>“Put them away,” he said. “Some day we’ll go back to them, but not +yet.”</p> + +<p>Instead of books Humility packed their dinner in the satchel. +They reached the church and found the interior just as they had left +it. Taffy was set to work to pick up and sweep together the scraps +of broken glass which littered the chancel. His father examined the +wreckage of the pews.</p> + +<p>While the boy knelt at his task, his thoughts were running on the +Pantomime. He had meant, last night, to recount all its wonders and +the wonders of Plymouth; but somehow the words had not come. +After displaying his presents he could find no more to say: and +feeling his father’s hand laid on his shoulder, had burst into tears +and hidden his face in his mother’s lap. He wanted to console them, +and they were pitying <i>him</i>—why he could not say—but he knew it was +so.</p> + +<p>And now the Pantomime, Plymouth, everything, seemed to have slipped +away from him into a far past. Only his father and mother had drawn +nearer and become more real. He tried to tell himself one of the old +stories; but it fell into pieces like the fragments of coloured glass +he was handling, and presently he began to think of the glass in his +hands and let the story go.</p> + +<p>“On Monday we’ll set to work,” said his father. “I dare say Joel”— +this was the carpenter down at Innis village—“will lend me a few +tools to start with. But the clearing up will take us all to-day.”</p> + +<p>They ate their dinner in the vestry. Taffy observed that his father +said: “<i>We</i> will do this,” or “<i>Our</i> best plan will be so-and-so,” +and spoke to him as to a grown man. On the whole, though the dusk +found them still at work, this was a happy day.</p> + +<p>“But aren’t you going to lock the door?” he asked, as they were +leaving.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Mr. Raymond. “We shall win, sonny; but not in that way.”</p> + +<p>On the morrow Taffy rang the bell for service as usual. To his +astonishment Squire Moyle was among the first-comers. He led Honoria +by the hand, entered the Tredinnis pew and shut the door with a slam. +It was the only pew left unmutilated. The rest of the congregation— +and curiosity made it larger than usual—had to stand; but a wife of +one of the miners found a hassock and passed it to Humility, who +thanked her for it with brimming eyes. Mr. Raymond said afterward +that this was the first success of the campaign.</p> + +<p>Not willing to tire his audience, he preached a very short sermon; +but it was his manifesto, and all the better for being short. He +took his text from Nehemiah, Chapter II., verses 19 and 20— +“<i>But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the +Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, +and despised us, and said: ‘What is this thing that ye do? Will ye +rebel against the King?</i>’”</p> + +<p>“<i>Then answered I them and said unto them, ‘The God of Heaven, He +will prosper us; therefore, we His servants will arise and build</i>.’</p> + +<p>“Fellow-parishioners,” he said, “you see the state of this church. +Concerning the cause of it I require none of you to judge. I enter +no plea against any man. Another will judge, who said, ‘<i>Destroy +this temple and in three days I will rear it up</i>.’ But He spake of +the temple of His body; which was destroyed and is raised up; and its +living and irrevocable triumph I, or some other servant of God, +will celebrate at this altar, Sunday by Sunday, that whosoever will +may see, yes, and taste it. The state of this poor shell is but a +little matter to a God whose majesty once inhabited a stable; yet the +honour of this, too, shall be restored. You wonder how, perhaps. +<i>It may be the Lord will work for us; for there is no restraint to +the Lord to save by many or by few</i>. Go to your homes now and ponder +this; and having pondered, if you will, pray for us.”</p> + +<p>As the Raymonds left the church they found Squire Moyle waiting by +the porch. Honoria stood just behind him. The rest of the +congregation had drawn off a little distance to watch. The Squire +lifted his hat to Humility, and turned to Mr. Raymond with a sour +frown.</p> + +<p>“That means war?”</p> + +<p>“It means that I stay,” said the Vicar. “The war, if it comes, comes +from your side.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think the worse of ’ee for fighting. You’re not going to +law then?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond smiled. “I don’t doubt you’ve put yourself within the +reach of it. But if it eases your mind to know, I am not going to +law.”</p> + +<p>The Squire grunted, raised his hat again and strode off, gripping +Honoria by the hand.</p> + +<p>She had not glanced towards Taffy. Clearly she was not allowed to +speak to him.</p> + +<p>The meaning of the Vicar’s sermon became plain next morning, when he +walked down to the village and called on Joel Hugh, the carpenter.</p> + +<p>“I knows what thee’rt come after,” began Joel, “but ’tis no use, +parson dear. Th’ old fellow owns the roofs over us, and if I do a +day’s work for ’ee, out I goes, neck and crop.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond had expected this. “It’s not for work I’m come,” said +he; “but to hire a few tools, if you’re minded to spare them.”</p> + +<p>Joel scratched his head. “Might manage that, now. But, Lord bless +’ee! thee’ll never make no hand of it.” He chose out saw, hammer, +plane and auger, and packed them up in a carpenter’s frail, with a +few other tools. “Don’t ’ee talk about payment, now; naybors must be +nayborly. Only, you see, a man must look after his own.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond climbed the hill toward the towans with the carpenter’s +frail slung over his shoulder. As luck would have it, near the top +he met Squire Moyle descending on horseback. The Vicar nodded +“Good-morning” in passing, but had not gone a dozen steps when the +old man reined up and called after him.</p> + +<p>“Hi!”</p> + +<p>The Vicar halted.</p> + +<p>“Whose basket is that you’re carrying?” Then, getting no answer, +“Wait till next Saturday night, when Joel Hugh comes to thank you. +I suppose you know he rents his cottage by the week?”</p> + +<p>“No harm shall come to him through me,” said the Vicar, and retraced +his steps down the hill. The Squire followed at a foot-pace, +grinning as he went.</p> + +<p>That night Mr. Raymond went back to his beloved books, but not to +read; and early next morning was ready at the cross-roads for the van +which plied twice a week between Innis village and Truro. He had +three boxes with him—heavy boxes, as Calvin the van-driver remarked +when it came to lifting them on board.</p> + +<p>“Thee’rt not leaving us, surely?” said he.</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“But however didst get these lumping boxes up the hill?”</p> + +<p>“My son helped me.”</p> + +<p>He had modestly calculated on averaging a shilling a volume for his +books; but discovered on leaving the shop at Truro that it worked out +at one-and-threepence. He returned to Nannizabuloe that night with +one box only—but it was packed full of tools—and a copy of Fuller’s +“Holy State,” which at the last moment had proved too precious to be +parted with—at least, just yet.</p> + +<p>The woodwork of the old pews—painted deal for the most part, but +mixed with a few boards of good red pine and one or two of teak, +relics of some forgotten shipwreck—lay stacked in the belfry and +around the font under the west gallery. Mr. Raymond and Taffy spent +an hour in overhauling it, chose out the boards for their first pew, +and fell to work.</p> + +<p>At the end of another hour the pair broke off and looked at each +other. Taffy could not help laughing. His own knowledge of +carpentry had been picked up by watching Joel Hugh at work, and just +sufficed to tell him that his father was possibly the worst carpenter +in the world.</p> + +<p>“I think my fingers must be all thumbs,” declared Mr. Raymond.</p> + +<p>The puckers in his face set Taffy laughing afresh. They both laughed +and fell to work again, the boy explained his notions of the +difficult art of mortising. They were rudimentary, but sound as far +as they went, and his father recognised this. Moreover, when the boy +had a tool to handle he did it with a natural deftness, in spite of +his ignorance. He was Humility’s child, born with the skill-of-hand +of generations of lace-workers. He did a dozen things wrongly, but +he neither fumbled, nor hammered his fingers, nor wounded them with +the chisel—which was Humility’s husband’s way.</p> + +<p>At the end of four days of strenuous effort, they had their first pew +built. It was a recognisable pew, though it leaned to one side, and +the door (for it had a door) fell to with a bang if not cautiously +treated. The triumph was, the seat could be sat upon without risk. +Mr. Raymond and Taffy tested it with their combined weight on the +Saturday evening, and went home full of its praises.</p> + +<p>“But look at your clothes,” said Humility; and they looked.</p> + +<p>“This is serious,” said Mr. Raymond. “Dear, you must make us a +couple of working suits of corduroy or some such stuff: otherwise +this pew-making won’t pay.”</p> + +<p>Humility stood out against this for a day or two. That <i>her</i> husband +and child should go dressed like common workmen! But there was no +help for it, and on the Monday week Taffy went forth to work in +moleskin breeches, blue guernsey, and loose white smock. As for Mr. +Raymond, the only badge of his calling was his round clerical hat; +and as all the miners in the neighbourhood wore hats of the same soft +felt and only a trifle higher in the crown, this hardly amounted to a +distinction.</p> + +<p>Humility’s eyes were full of tears as she watched them from the door +that morning. But Taffy felt as proud as Punch. A little before +noon he carried out a board that required sawing, and rested it on a +flat tombstone where, with his knee upon it, he could get a good +purchase. He was sawing away when he heard a dog barking, and looked +up to see Honoria coming along the path with George’s terrier +frisking at her heels.</p> + +<p>She halted outside the lych-gate, and Taffy, vain of his new clothes, +drew himself up and nodded.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning,” said Honoria. “I’m not allowed to speak to you and +I’m not going to, after this.” She swooped on the puppy and held +him. “See what George brought home from Plymouth for me. Isn’t he +a beauty?”</p> + +<p>Held so, by the scruff of his neck, he was not a beauty. Taffy had +it on the tip of his tongue to tell her about the collar. He wished +he had brought it.</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” she went on pensively, “your mother had the heart to +dress you out in that style. But I suppose now you’ll be growing up +into quite a common boy.”</p> + +<p>Taffy decided to say nothing about the collar. “I like the clothes,” +he declared defiantly.</p> + +<p>“Then you can’t have the common instincts of a gentleman. Well, +good-bye! Grandfather has salvation all right this time; he said +he’d put the stick about me if I dared to speak to you.”</p> + +<p>“He won’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Won’t know? Why I shall tell him, of course, when I get back.”</p> + +<p>“But—but he <i>mustn’t</i> beat you!”</p> + +<p>She eyed him for a moment or two in silence. “Mustn’t he? I advise +you to go and tell him.” She walked away slowly, whistling; but +by-and-by broke into a run and was gone, the puppy scampering behind +her.</p> + +<p>As the days grew longer and the weather milder, Taffy and his father +worked late into the evenings; sometimes, if the job needed to be +finished, by the light of a couple of candles.</p> + +<p>One evening, about nine o’clock, the boy as he planed a bench paused +suddenly. “What’s that?”</p> + +<p>They listened. The door stood open, and after a second or two they +heard the sound of feet tiptoeing away up the path outside.</p> + +<p>“Spies, perhaps,” said his father. “If so, let them go in peace.”</p> + +<p>But he was not altogether easy. There had been strange doings up at +the Bryanite Chapel of late. He still visited a few of his +parishioners regularly—hill farmers and their wives for the most +part, who did not happen to be tenants of Squire Moyle, and on whom +his visits therefore could bring no harm; and one or two had hinted +of strange doings, now that the Bryanites had hold of the old Squire. +They themselves had been up—just to look; they confessed it +shamefacedly, much in the style of men who have been drinking +overnight. Without pressing them and showing himself curious, the +Vicar could get at no particulars. But as the summer grew he felt a +moral sultriness, as it were, growing with it. The people were off +their balance, restless; and behind their behaviour he had a sense, +now of something electric, menacing, now of a hand holding it in +check. Slowly in those days the conviction deepened in him that he +was an alien on this coast, that between him and the hearts of the +race he ministered to there stretched an impalpable, impenetrable +veil. And all this while the faces he passed on the road, though +shy, were kindlier than they had been in the days before his +self-confidence left him—it seemed not so long ago.</p> + +<p>On a Saturday night early in May, the footsteps were heard again, and +this time in the porch itself. While Mr. Raymond and Taffy listened +the big latch went up with a creak, and a dark figure slipped into +the church.</p> + +<p>“Who is there?” challenged Mr. Raymond from the chancel where he +stood peering out of the small circle of light.</p> + +<p>“A friend. Pass, friend, and all’s well!” answered a squeaky voice. +“Bless you, I’ve sarved in the militia before now.”</p> + +<p>It was Jacky Pascoe, with his coat-collar turned up high about his +ears.</p> + +<p>“What do you want?” Mr. Raymond demanded sharply.</p> + +<p>“A job.”</p> + +<p>“We can pay for no work here.”</p> + +<p>“Wait till thee’rt asked, Parson, dear. I’ve been spying in upon ’ee +these nights past. Pretty carpenters you be! T’other night, as I +was a-peeping, the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, go, and for goodness’ +sake show them chaps how to do it fitty.’ ‘Dear Lord,’ I said, +‘Thou knowest I be a Bryanite.’ The Lord said to me, ‘None of your +back answers! Go and do as I tell ’ee.’ So here I be.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond hesitated. “Squire Moyle is your friend, I hear, and the +friend of your chapel. What will he say if he discovers that you are +helping us?”</p> + +<p>Jacky scratched his head. “I reckon the Lord must have thought o’ +that, too. Suppose you put me to work in the vestry? There’s only +one window looks in on the vestry: you can block that up with a +curtain, and there I’ll be like a weevil in a biscuit.”</p> + +<p>When this screen was fixed, the little Bryanite looked round and +rubbed his hands. “Now I’ll tell ’ee a prabble,” he said—“a +prabble about this candle I’m holding. When God Almighty said +‘<i>let there be light</i>,’ He gave every man a candle—to some folks, +same as you, long sixes perhaps and best wax; to others, a farthing +dip. But they all helps to light up; and the beauty of it is, +Parson”—he laid a hand on Mr. Raymond’s cuff—“there isn’t one of +’em burns a ha’porth the worse for every candle that’s lit from en. +Now sit down, you and the boy, and I’ll larn ’ee how to join a board.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.<br><span class="small">VOICES FROM THE SEA.</span></h2></div> + +<p>Before winter and the long nights came around again, Taffy had become +quite a clever carpenter. From the first his quickness fairly +astonished the Bryanite, who at the best was but a journeyman and +soon owned himself beaten.</p> + +<p>“I doubt,” said he, “if you’ll ever make so good a man as your +father; but you can’t help making a better workman.” He added, with +his eyes on the boy’s face, “There’s one thing in which you might +copy en. He hasn’t much of a gift: <i>but he lays it ’pon the altar</i>.”</p> + +<p>By this time Taffy had resumed his lessons. Every day he carried a +book or two in his satchel with his dinner, and read or translated +aloud while his father worked. Two hours were allowed for this in +the morning, and again two in the afternoon. Sometimes a day would +be set apart during which they talked nothing but Latin. +Difficulties in the text of their authors they postponed until the +evening, and worked them out at home, after supper, with the help of +grammar and dictionary.</p> + +<p>The boy was not unhappy, on the whole; though for weeks together he +longed for sight of George Vyell, who seemed to have vanished into +space, or into that limbo where his childhood lay like a toy in a +lumber room. Taffy seldom turned the key of that room. The stories +he imagined now were not about fairies or heroes, but about himself. +He wanted to be a great man and astonish the world. Just how the +world was to be astonished he did not clearly see; but the triumph, +in whatever shape it came, was to involve a new gown for his mother, +and for his father a whole library of books.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond never went back to his books now, except to help Taffy. +The Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews was laid aside. +“Some day!” he told Humility. The Sunday congregation had dwindled +to a very few, mostly farm people; Squire Moyle having threatened to +expel any tenant of his who dared to set foot within the church.</p> + +<p>In the autumn two things happened which set Taffy wondering.</p> + +<p>During the first three years at Nannizabuloe, old Mrs. Venning had +regularly been carried downstairs to dine with the family. +The sea-air (she said) had put new life into her. But now she seldom +moved from her room, and Taffy seldom saw her except at night, when— +after the old childish custom—he knocked at her door to wish her +pleasant dreams and pull up the weights of the tall clock which stood +by her bed’s head.</p> + +<p>One night he asked carelessly, “What do you want with the clock? +Lying here you don’t need to know the time; and its ticking must keep +you awake.”</p> + +<p>“So it does, child; but bless you, I like it.”</p> + +<p>“Like being kept awake?”</p> + +<p>“Dear, yes! I have enough of rest and quiet up here. You mind the +litany I used to say over to you?—Parson Kempthorne taught it to us +girls when I was in service with him; ’twas made up, he said, by +another old Devonshire parson, years and years ago—”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘When I lie within my bed</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Sick in heart and sick in head,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">And with doubts discomforted,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Sweet Spirit, comfort me!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">When the house do sigh and weep—’”</span><br></p> + +<p>“That’s it. You wouldn’t think how quiet it is up here all day. +But at night, when you’re in bed and sleeping, all the house begins +to talk; little creakings of furniture, you know, and the wind in the +chimney and sometimes the rain in the gutter, running—it’s all talk +to me. Mostly it’s quite sociable, too; but sometimes, in rainy +weather, the tune changes and then it’s like some poor soul in bed +and sobbing to itself. That’s when the verse comes in:”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘When the house do sigh and weep</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">And the world is drowned in sleep,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Yet my eyes the watch do keep,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">Sweet Spirit, comfort me!’”</span><br></p> + +<p>“And then the clock’s ticking is a wonderful comfort. <i>Tick-tack, +tick-tack!</i> and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing +up to be a man, and the minutes running and trickling away to my +deliverance—”</p> + +<p>“Granny!”</p> + +<p>“My dear, I’m as well off as most; but that isn’t saying I shan’t be +glad to go and take the pain in my joints to a better land. +Before we came here, in militia-time, I used to lie and listen for +the buglers, but now I’ve only the clock. No more bugles for me, I +reckon, till I hear them blown across Jordan.”</p> + +<p>Taffy remembered how he too had lain and listened to the bugles; and +with that he saw his childhood, as it were a small round globe set +within a far larger one and wrapped around with other folks’ +thoughts. He kissed his grandmother and went away wondering; and as +he lay down that night it still seemed wonderful to him that she +should have heard those bugles, and more wonderful, that night after +night for years she should have been thinking of him while he slept, +and he never have guessed it.</p> + +<p>One morning, some three weeks later, he and his father were putting on +their oil-skins before starting to work—for it had been blowing hard +through the night and the gale was breaking up in floods of rain—when +they heard a voice hallooing in the distance. Humility heard it too and +turned swiftly to Taffy. “Run upstairs, dear. I expect it’s someone +sent from Tresedder farm; and if so, he’ll want to see your father +alone.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond frowned. “No,” he said; “the time is past for that.”</p> + +<p>A fist hammered on the door. Mr. Raymond threw it open.</p> + +<p>“Brigantine—on the sands! Half a mile this side of the light-house!” +Taffy saw across his father’s shoulder a gleam of yellow oilskins and a +flapping sou’-wester hat. The panting voice belonged to Sam Udy—son of +old Bill Udy—a labourer at Tresedder.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go at once,” said Mr. Raymond. “Run you for the coast-guard!”</p> + +<p>The oilskins went by the window; the side gate clashed to.</p> + +<p>“Is it a wreck?” cried Taffy. “May I go with you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, there may be a message to run with.”</p> + +<p>From the edge of the towans, where the ground dipped steeply to the +long beach, they saw the wreck, about a mile up the coast, and as +well as they could judge a hundred or a hundred and twenty yards out. +She lay almost on her beam ends, with the waves sweeping high across +her starboard quarter and never less than six ranks of ugly breakers +between her and dry land. A score of watchers—in the distance they +looked like emmets—were gathered by the edge of the surf. But the +coast-guard had not arrived yet.</p> + +<p>“The tide is ebbing, and the rocket may reach. Can you see anyone +aboard?”</p> + +<p>Taffy spied through his hands, but could see no one. His father set +off running, and he followed, half-blinded by the rain, now +floundering in loose sand, now tripping in a rabbit hole. They had +covered three-fourths of the distance when Mr. Raymond pulled up and +waved his hat as the coast-guard carriage swept into view over a +ridge to the right and came plunging across the main valley of the +towans. It passed them close—the horses fetlock-deep in sand, with +heads down and heaving, smoking shoulders; the coast-guardsmen with +keen strong faces like heroes’—and the boy longed to copy his father +and send a cheer after them as they went galloping by. But something +rose in his throat.</p> + +<p>He ran after the carriage, and reached the shore just as the first +rocket shot singing out towards the wreck. By this time at least a +hundred miners had gathered, and between their legs he caught a +glimpse of two figures stretched at length on the wet sand. He had +never looked on a dead body before. The faces of these were hidden +by the crowd; and he hung about the fringe of it dreading, and yet +courting, a sight of them.</p> + +<p>The first rocket was swept down to leeward of the wreck. The chief +officer judged his second beautifully, and the line fell clean across +the vessel and all but amidships. A figure started up from the lee +of the deckhouse, and springing into the main shrouds, grasped it and +made it fast. The beach being too low for them to work the cradle +clear above the breakers, the coast-guardsmen carried the shore end +of the line up the shelving cliff and fixed it. Within ten minutes +the cradle was run out, and within twenty the first man came swinging +shoreward.</p> + +<p>Four men were brought ashore alive, the captain last. The rest of +the crew of six lay on the sands with Mr. Raymond kneeling beside +them. He had covered their faces, and now gave the order to lift +them into the carriage. Taffy noticed that he was obeyed without +demur or question. And there flashed on his memory a grey morning, +not unlike this one, when he had missed his father at breakfast: +“He had been called away suddenly,” Humility explained, “and there +would be no lessons that day,” and she kept the boy indoors all the +morning and busy with a netting-stitch he had been bothering her to +teach him.</p> + +<p>“Father,” he asked as they followed the cart, “does this often +happen?”</p> + +<p>“Your mother hasn’t thought it well for you to see these sights.”</p> + +<p>“Then it <i>has</i> happened, often?”</p> + +<p>“I have buried seventeen,” said Mr. Raymond.</p> + +<p>That afternoon he showed Taffy their graves. “I know the names of +all but two. The bodies have marks about them—tattooed, you know— +and that helps. And I write to their relatives or friends and +restore whatever small property may be found on them. I have often +wished to put up some gravestone, or a wooden cross at least, with +their names.”</p> + +<p>He went to his chest in the vestry and took out a book—a cheap +account book, ruled for figures. Taffy turned over the pages.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +Nov. 3rd, 187-. Brig “James and Maria”: J. D., fair-haired, +height 5 ft. 8 in., marked on chest with initials and cross +swords, tattooed, also anchor and coil of rope on right +fore-arm: large brown mole on right shoulder-blade. +Striped flannel drawers: otherwise naked: no property of any +kind.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +Ditto. Grown man, age 40 or thereabouts: dark; iron grey beard: +lovers’ knot tattooed on right forearm, with initials R. L., +E. W., in the loops: clad in flannel shirt, guernsey, trousers +(blue sea-cloth), socks (heather-mixture), all unmarked. +Silver chain in pocket, with Freemason’s token: a half-crown, a +florin, and fourpence—</p> + +<p>And so on. On the opposite page were entered the full names and +details afterwards discovered, with notes of the Vicar’s +correspondence, and position of the grave.</p> + +<p>“They ought to have gravestones,” said Mr. Raymond. “But as it is, I +can only get about thirty shillings for the funeral from the county +rate. The balance has come out of my pocket—from two to three +pounds for each. From the beginning the Squire refused to help to +bury sailors. He took the ground that it wasn’t a local claim.”</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” said Taffy, for as he turned the leaves his eye fell on this +entry:—</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +Jan 30th, 187-. S.S. “Rifleman” (all hands). Cargo, China +clay: W. P., age about eighteen, fair skin, reddish hair, short +and curled, height 5ft. 10 and 3/4 in. Initials tattooed on +chest under a three-masted ship and semicircle of seven stars; +clad in flannel singlet and trousers (cloth): singlet marked +with same initials in red cotton: pockets empty— +</p> +<p>“But he was in the Navy!” cried Taffy, with his finger on the entry.</p> + +<p>“Which one? Yes, he was in the Navy. You’ll see it on the opposite +page. He deserted, poor boy, in Cork Harbour, and shipped on board a +tramp steamer as donkey-man. She loaded at Fowey and was wrecked on +the voyage back. William Pellow he was called: his mother lives but +ten miles up the coast: she never heard of it until six weeks after.”</p> + +<p>“But we—I, I mean—knew him. He was one of the sailor boys on +Joby’s van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at +<i>Indian Queens’?</i> He showed me his tattoo marks that day.”</p> + +<p>And again he saw his childhood as it were set about with an enchanted +hedge, across which many voices would have called to him, and some +from near, but all had hung muted and arrested.</p> + +<p>The inquest on the two drowned sailors was held next day at the +<i>Fifteen Balls</i>, down in Innis village. Later in the afternoon, the +four survivors walked up to the church, headed by the Captain.</p> + +<p>“We’ve been hearing,” said the Captain, “of your difficulties, sir: +likewise your kindness to other poor seafaring chaps. We’d have +liked to make ye a small offering for your church, but sixteen +shillings is all we can raise between us. So we come to say that if +you can put us on to a job, why we’re staying over the funeral, and a +day’s work or more after that won’t hurt us one way or another.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond led them to the chancel and pointed out a new beam, on +which he and Jacky Pascoe had been working a week past, and over +which they had been cudgelling their brains how to get it lifted and +fixed in place.</p> + +<p>“I can send to one of the miners and borrow a couple of ladders.”</p> + +<p>“Ladders? Lord love ye, sir, and begging your pardon, we don’t want +ladders. With a sling, Bill, hey?—and a couple of tackles. +You leave it to we, sir.”</p> + +<p>He went off to turn over the gear salved from his vessel, and early +next forenoon had the apparatus rigged up and ready. He was obliged +to leave it at this point, having been summoned across to Falmouth to +report to his agents. His last words, before starting were addressed +to his crew. “I reckon you can fix it now, boys. There’s only one +thing more, and don’t you forget it: Hats off; and any man that wants +to spit must go outside.”</p> + +<p>That afternoon Taffy learnt for the first time what could be done +with a few ropes and pulleys. The seamen seemed to spin ropes out of +themselves like spiders. By three o’clock the beam was hoisted and +fixed; and they broke off their work to attend their shipmates’ +funeral. After the funeral they fell to again, though more silently, +and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat of varnish.</p> + +<p>They left early next morning, after a good deal of handshaking, and +Taffy looked after them wistfully as they turned to wave their caps +and trudged away over the rise towards the cross-roads. Away to the +left in the wintry sunshine a speck of scarlet caught his eye against +the blue-grey of the towans. He watched it as it came slowly towards +him, and his heart leapt—yet not quite as he had expected it to +leap.</p> + +<p>For it was George Vyell. George had lately been promoted to “pink” +and made a gallant figure on his strapping grey hunter. For the +first time Taffy felt ashamed of his working-suit, and would have +slipped back to the church. But George had seen him, and pulled up.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” said he.</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” said Taffy; and, absurdly enough, could find no more to say.</p> + +<p>“How are you getting on?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m all right.” There was another pause. “How’s Honoria?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she’s all right. I’m riding over there now: they meet at +Tredinnis to-day.” He tapped his boot with his hunting crop.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you have any lessons now?” asked Taffy, after a while.</p> + +<p>“Dear me, yes; I’ve got a tutor. He’s no good at it. But what made +you ask?”</p> + +<p>Really Taffy could not tell. He had asked merely for the sake of +saying something. George pulled out a gold watch.</p> + +<p>“I must be getting on. Well, good-bye!”</p> + +<p>“Good-bye!”</p> + +<p>And that was all.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.<br><span class="small">TAFFY’S APPRENTICESHIP.</span></h2></div> + +<p>They could manage the carpentering now. And Jacky Pascoe, who, in +addition to his other trades, was something of a glazier, had taken +the damaged east window in hand. For six months it had remained +boarded up, darkening the chancel. Mr. Raymond removed the boards +and fixed them up again on the outside, and the Bryanite worked +behind them night after night. He could only be spied upon through +two lancet windows at the west end of the church, and these they +curtained.</p> + +<p>But what continually bothered them was their ignorance of iron-work. +Staples, rivets, hinges were for ever wanted. At length, one +evening, toward the end of March, the Bryanite laid down his tools.</p> + +<p>“Tell ’ee what ’tis, Parson. You must send the boy to someone +that’ll teach en smithy-work. There’s no sense in this cold +hammering.”</p> + +<p>“Wheelwright Hocken holds his shop and cottage from the Squire.”</p> + +<p>“Why not put the boy to Mendarva the Smith, over to Benny Beneath? +He’s a first-rate workman.”</p> + +<p>“That is more than six miles away.”</p> + +<p>“No matter for that. There’s Joll’s Farm close by; Farmer Joll would +board and lodge en for nine shillings a week, and glad of the chance; +and he could come home for Sundays.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond, as soon as he reached home, sat down and wrote a letter +to Mendarva the Smith and another to Farmer Joll. Within a week the +bargains were struck, and it was settled that Taffy should go at +once.</p> + +<p>“I may be calling before long, to look you up,” said the Bryanite, +“but mind you do no more than nod when you see me.”</p> + +<p>Joll’s Farm lay somewhere near Carwithiel, across the moor where +Taffy had gone fishing with George and Honoria. On the Monday +morning when he stepped through the white front gate, with his bag on +his shoulder, and paused for a good look at the building, it seemed +to him a very comfortable farmstead, and vastly superior to the +tumble-down farms around Nannizabuloe. The flagged path, which led +up to the front door between great bunches of purple honesty, was +swept as clean as a dairy.</p> + +<p>A dark-haired maid opened the door and led him to the great kitchen +at the back. Hams wrapped in paper hung from the rafters, and +strings of onions. The pans over the fire-place were bright as +mirrors, and through the open window he heard the voices of children +at play as well as the clacking of poultry in the town-place.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go and tell the mistress,” said the maid; but she paused at the +door. “I suppose you don’t remember me, now?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Taffy truthfully.</p> + +<p>“My name’s Lizzie Pezzack. You was with the young lady, that day, +when she bought my doll. I mind you quite well. But I put my hair +up last Easter, and that makes a difference.”</p> + +<p>“Why, you were only a child!”</p> + +<p>“I was seventeen last week. And—I say, do you know the Bryanite, +over to St. Ann’s—Preacher Jacky Pascoe?”</p> + +<p>He nodded, remembering the caution given him.</p> + +<p>“I got salvation off him. Master and mis’-ess they’ve got salvation +too; but they take it very quiet. They’re very fond of one another; +if you please one, you’ll please ’em both. They let me walk over to +prayer-meetin’ once a week. But I don’t go by Mendarva’s shop— +that’s where you work—though ’tis the shortest way; because there’s +a woman buried in the road there, with a stake through her, and I’m +a terrible coward for ghosts.”</p> + +<p>She paused as if expecting him to say something; but Taffy was +staring at a “neck” of corn, elaborately plaited, which hung above +the mantel-shelf. And just then Mrs. Joll entered the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Taffy—without any reason—had expected to see a middle-aged +housewife. But Mrs. Joll was hardly over thirty; a shapely woman, +with a plain, pleasant face and auburn hair, the wealth of which she +concealed by wearing it drawn straight back from the forehead and +plaited in the severest coil behind. She shook hands.</p> + +<p>“You’ll like a drink of milk before I show you your room?”</p> + +<p>Taffy was grateful for the milk. While he drank it, the voices of +the children outside rose suddenly to shouts of laughter.</p> + +<p>“That will be their father come home,” said Mrs. Joll, and going to +the side door called to him. “John, put the children down! +Mr. Raymond’s son is here.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Joll, who had been galloping round the farmyard with a small girl +of three on his back, and a boy of six tugging at his coat-tails, +pulled up, and wiped his good-natured face.</p> + +<p>“Kindly welcome,” said he, coming forward and shaking hands, while +the two children stared at Taffy.</p> + +<p>After a minute the boy said, “My name’s Bob. Come and play horses, +too.”</p> + +<p>Farmer Joll looked at Taffy with a shyness that was comic. +“Shall we?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Raymond will be tired enough already,” his wife suggested.</p> + +<p>“Not a bit,” declared Taffy; and hoisting Bob on his back, he set off +furiously prancing after the farmer.</p> + +<p>By dinner-time he and the family were fast friends, and after dinner +the farmer took him off to be introduced to Mendarva the Smith.</p> + +<p>Mendarva’s forge stood on a triangle of turf beside the high-road, +where a cart-track branched off to descend to Joll’s Farm in the +valley. And Mendarva was a dark giant of a man with a beard like +those you see on the statues of Nineveh. On Sundays he parted his +beard carefully and tied the ends with little bows of scarlet ribbon; +but on week days it curled at will over his mighty chest. He had one +assistant whom he called “the Dane”; a red-haired youth as tall as +himself and straighter from the waist down. Mendarva’s knees had +come together with years of poising and swinging his great hammer.</p> + +<p>“He’s little, but he’ll grow,” said he, after eyeing Taffy up and +down. “Dane, come fore and tell me if we’ll make a workman of en.”</p> + +<p>The Dane stepped forward and passed his hands over the boy’s +shoulders and down his ribs. “He’s slight, but he’ll fill out. +Good pair o’ shoulders. Give’s hold o’ your hand, my son.”</p> + +<p>Taffy obeyed; not very well liking to be handled thus like a prize +bullock.</p> + +<p>“Hand like a lady’s. Tidy wrist, though. He’ll do, master.”</p> + +<p>So Taffy was passed, given a leathern apron, and set to his first +task of keeping the forge-fire raked and the bellows going, while the +hammers took up the music he was to listen to for a year to come.</p> + +<p>This music kept the day merry; and beyond the window along the +bright high-road there was usually something worth seeing— +farm-carts, jowters’ carts, the doctor and his gig, pedlars and +Johnny-fortnights, the miller’s waggons from the valley-bottom below +Joll’s Farm, and on Tuesdays and Fridays the market-van going and +returning. Mendarva knew or speculated upon everybody, and with half +the passers-by broke off work and gave the time of day, leaning on +his hammer. But down at the farm all was strangely quiet, in spite +of the children’s voices; and at night the quietness positively kept +him awake, listening to the pur-r of the pigeons in their cote +against the house-wall, thinking of his grandmother awake at home and +harkening to the <i>tick-tack</i> of her tall clock. Often when he awoke +to the early summer daybreak and saw through his attic-window the +grey shadows of the sheep still and long on the slope above the +farmstead, his ear was wanting something, asking for something; for +the murmur of the sea never reached this inland valley. And he would +lie and long for the chirruping of the two children in the next room +and the drawing of bolts and clatter of milk-pails below stairs.</p> + +<p>He had plenty to eat, and that plenty simple and good, and clean +linen to sleep between. The kitchen was his except on Saturday +nights, when Mrs. Joll and Lizzie tubbed the children there, and then +he would carry his books off to the best parlour or stroll around the +farm with Mr. Joll and discuss the stock. There were no loose rails +in Mr. Joll’s gates, no farm implements lying out in the weather to +rust. Mr. Joll worked early and late, and his shoulders had a +tell-tale stoop—for he was a man in the prime of life, perhaps some +five years older than his wife.</p> + +<p>One Saturday evening he unburdened his heart to Taffy. It happened +at the end of the hay-harvest, and the two were leaning over a gate +discussing the yet unthatched rick.</p> + +<p>“What I say is,” declared the farmer quite in-consequently, “a man +must be able to lay his troubles ’pon the Lord. I don’t mean his +work, but his troubles; and go home and shut the door and be happy +with his wife and children. Now, I tell you that for months—iss, +years—after Bob was born I kept plaguing myself in the fields, +thinking that some harm might have happened to the child. Why, I +used to make an excuse and creep home, and then if I see’d a blind +pulled down you wouldn’t think how my heart’d go thump; and I’d stand +wi’ my head on the door-hapse an’ say, ‘If so be the Lord have +took’n, I must go and comfort Susan—not my will, but Thine, Lord— +but, Lord, don’t ’ee be cruel this time!’ And then find the cheeld +right as ninepence and the blind only pulled down to keep the sun off +the carpet. After a while my wife guessed what was wrong—I used to +make up such poor twiddling pretences. She said, ‘Look here, the +Lord and me’ll see after Bob; and if you can’t keep to your own work +without poking your nose into ours, then I married for worse and not +for better.’ Then it came upon me that by leaving the Lord to look +after my job I’d been treating Him like a farm labourer. It’s the +things you can’t help he looks after—not the work.”</p> + +<p>A few evenings later there came a knock at the door, and Lizzie, who +went to open it, returned with the Bryanite skipping behind her.</p> + +<p>“Blessings be upon this here house!” he cried, cutting a sort of +double shuffle on the threshold. He shook hands with the farmer and +his wife, and nodded toward Taffy. “So you’ve got Parson Raymond’s +boy here!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Joll; and turned to Taffy. “He’ve come to pray a +bit: perhaps you would rather be in the parlour?”</p> + +<p>Taffy asked to be allowed to stay; and presently Mr. Pascoe had them +all down on their knees. He began by invoking God’s protection on +the household; but his prayer soon ceased to be a prayer. It broke +into ejaculations of praise—“Friends, I be too happy to ask for +anything—Glory, glory! The blood! The precious blood! O deliverance! O +streams of redemption running!” The farmer and his wife began to chime +in—“Hallelujah!” “Glory!” and Lizzie Pezzack to sob. Taffy, kneeling +before a kitchen chair, peeped between his palms, and saw her shoulders +heaving.</p> + +<p>The Bryanite sprang to his feet, overturning the settle with a crash. +“Tid’n no use. I must skip! Who’ll dance wi’ me?”</p> + +<p>He held out his hands to Mrs. Joll. She took them, and skipped once +shamefacedly. Lizzie, with flaming cheeks, pushed her aside. +“Leave me try, mis’ess; I shall die if I don’t.” She caught the +preacher’s hands, and the two leapt about the kitchen. “I can dance +higher than mis’ess!” Farmer Joll looked on with a dazed face. +“Hallelujah!” “Amen!” he said at intervals, quite mechanically. +The pair stood under the bacon rack and began to whirl like +dervishes—hands clasped, toes together, bodies leaning back and +almost rigid. They whirled until Taffy’s brain whirled with them.</p> + +<p>With a louder sob Lizzie let go her hold and tottered back into a +chair, laughing hysterically. The Bryanite leaned against the table, +panting.</p> + +<p>There was a long pause. Mrs. Joll took a napkin from the dresser and +fell to fanning the girl’s face, then to slapping it briskly. +“Get up and lay the table,” she commanded; “the preacher’ll stay to +supper.”</p> + +<p>“Thank ’ee, ma’am, I don’t care if I do,” said he; and ten minutes +later they were all seated at supper and discussing the fall in wheat +in the most matter-of-fact voices. Only their faces twitched now and +again.</p> + +<p>“I hear you had the preacher down to Joll’s last night,” said +Mendarva the Smith. “What’st think of en?”</p> + +<p>“I can’t make him out,” was Taffy’s colourless but truthful answer.</p> + +<p>“He’s a bellows of a man. I do hear he’s heating up th’ old Squire +Moyle’s soul to knack an angel out of en. He’ll find that a job and +a half. You mark my words, there’ll be Dover over in your parish one +o’ these days.”</p> + +<p>During work-hours Mendarva bestowed most of his talk on Taffy. +The Dane seldom opened his lips except to join in the anvil chorus—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Here goes one—</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Sing, sing, Johnny!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Here goes two—</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Sing, Johnny, sing!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Whack’n till he’s red,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Whack’n till he’s dead,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And whop! goes the widow with</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">A brand new ring!”</span><br></p> + +<p>And when the boy took a hammer and joined in he fell silent. +Taffy soon observed that a singular friendship knit these two men, +who were both unmarried. Mendarva had been a famous wrestler in his +day, and his great ambition now was to train the other to win the +County belt. Often after work the pair would try a hitch together on +the triangle of turf, with Taffy for stickler, Mendarva illustrating +and explaining, the Dane nodding seriously whenever he understood, +but never answering a word. Afterwards the boy recalled these bouts +very vividly—the clear evening sky, the shoulders of the two big men +shining against the level sun as they gripped and swayed, their long +shadows on the grass under which (as he remembered) the poor +self-murdered woman lay buried.</p> + +<p>He thought of her at night, sometimes, as he worked alone at the +forge; for Mendarva allowed him the keys and use of the smithy +overtime, in consideration of a small payment for coal. And then he +blew his fire and hammered, with a couple of candles on the bench and +a Homer between them; and beat the long hexameters into his memory. +The incongruity of it never struck him. He was going to be a great +man, and somehow this was going to be the way. These scraps of +iron—these tools of his forging—were to grow into the arms and +shield of Achilles. In its own time would come the magic moment, the +shield find its true circumference and swing to the balance of his +arm, proof and complete.</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">en d etithei thotamoio mega stheuos okeanoio</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">antuga pad pumatev sakeos puka poietoi...</span><br> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.<br><span class="small">LIZZIE AND HONORIA.</span></h2></div> + +<p>His apprenticeship lasted a year and six months, and all this while +he lived with the Jolls, walking home every Sunday morning and +returning every Sunday night, rain or shine. He carried his deftness +of hand into his new trade, and it was Mendarva who begged and +obtained an extension of the time agreed on, “Rather than lose the +boy I’ll tache en for love.” So Taffy stayed on for another six +months. He was now in his seventeenth year—a boy no longer. +One evening, as he blew up his smithy fire, the glow of it fell on +the form of a woman standing just outside the window and watching +him. He had no silly fears of ghosts: but the thought of the buried +woman flashed across his mind and he dropped his pincers with a +clatter.</p> + +<p>“’Tis only me,” said the woman. “You needn’t to be afeard.” And he +saw it was the girl Lizzie.</p> + +<p>She stepped inside the forge and seated herself on the Dane’s anvil.</p> + +<p>“I was walking back from prayer-meeting,” she said. “’Tis nigher +this way, but I don’t ever dare to come. Might, I dessay, if I’d +somebody to see me home.”</p> + +<p>“Ghosts?” asked Taffy, picking up the pincers and thrusting the bar +back into the hot cinders.</p> + +<p>“I dunno: I gets frightened o’ the very shadows on the road +sometimes. I suppose, now, you never walks out that way?”</p> + +<p>“Which way?”</p> + +<p>“Why, towards where your home is. That’s the way I comes.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don’t.” Taffy blew at the cinders until they glowed again. +“It’s only on Sundays I go over there.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a pity,” said Lizzie candidly. “I’m kept in, Sunday +evenings, to look after the children while farmer and mis’ess goes to +Chapel. That’s the agreement I came ’pon.”</p> + +<p>Taffy nodded.</p> + +<p>“It would be nice now, wouldn’t it—” She broke off, clasping her +knees and staring at the blaze.</p> + +<p>“What would be nice?”</p> + +<p>Lizzie laughed confusedly. “Aw, you make me say’t. I can’t abear +any of the young men up to the Chapel. If me and you—”</p> + +<p>Taffy ceased blowing. The fire died down, and in the darkness he +could hear her breathing hard.</p> + +<p>“They’re so rough,” she went on, “and t’other night I met young +Squire Vyell riding along the road, and he stopped me and wanted to +kiss me.”</p> + +<p>“George Vyell? Surely he didn’t?” Taffy blew up the fire again.</p> + +<p>“Iss he did. I don’t see why not, neither.”</p> + +<p>“Why he shouldn’t kiss you?”</p> + +<p>“Why he shouldn’t want to.”</p> + +<p>Taffy frowned, carried the white hot bar to his anvil, and began to +hammer. He despised girls, as a rule, and their ways. Decidedly +Lizzie annoyed him; and yet as he worked he could not help glancing +at her now and then, as she sat and watched him. By-and-by he saw +that her eyes were full of tears.</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter?” he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>“I—I can’t walk home alone. I’m afeard!” He tossed his hammer +aside, raked out the fire, and reached his coat off its peg. As he +swung round in the darkness to put it on, he blundered against Lizzie +or Lizzie blundered against him. She clutched at him nervously.</p> + +<p>“Clumsy! can’t you see the doorway?” She passed out, and he +followed and locked the door. As they crossed the turf to the +high-road, she slipped her arm into his. “I feel safe, that way. +Let it stay, co!” After a few paces, she added, “You’re different +from the others—that’s why I like you.”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“I dunno; but you <i>be</i> diff’rent. You don’t think about girls, for +one thing.”</p> + +<p>Taffy did not answer. He felt angry, ashamed, uncomfortable. He did +not turn once to look at her face, dimly visible by the light of the +young moon—the hunter’s moon—now sinking over the slope of the +hill. Thick dust—too thick for the heavy dew to lay—covered the +cart-track down to the farm, muffling their footsteps. Lizzie paused +by the gate.</p> + +<p>“Best go in separate,” she said; paused again and whispered, “You may +if you like.”</p> + +<p>“May do what?”</p> + +<p>“What—what young Squire Vyell wanted.”</p> + +<p>They were face to face now. She held up her lips, and as she did so +they parted in an amorous little laugh. The moonlight was on her +face. Taffy bent swiftly and kissed her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you hurt!” With another little laugh she slipped up the garden +path and into the house.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later Taffy followed, hating himself.</p> + + +<p>For the next fortnight he avoided her; and then, late one evening she +came again. He was prepared for this, and had locked the door of the +smithy and let down the shutter while, he worked. She tapped upon +the outside of the shutter with her knuckles.</p> + +<p>“Let me in!”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you leave me alone?” he answered pettishly. “I want to work, +and you interrupt.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want no love-making—I don’t indeed. I’ll sit quiet as a +mouse. But I’m afeard, out here.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense!”</p> + +<p>“I’m afeard o’ the ghost. There’s something comin’—let me in, +co-o!”</p> + +<p>Taffy unlocked the door and held it half opened while he listened.</p> + +<p>“Yes, there’s somebody coming, on horseback. Now, look here—it’s no +ghost, and I can’t have you about here with people passing. +I—I don’t want you here at all; so make haste and slip away home, +that’s a good girl.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie glided like a shadow into the dark lane as the trample of +hoofs drew close, and the rider pulled up beside the door.</p> + +<p>“You’re working late, I see. Is it too late to make a shoe for +Aide-de-camp here?”</p> + +<p>It was Honoria. She dismounted and stood at the doorway, holding her +horse’s bridle.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Taffy: “that is, if you don’t mind the waiting.”</p> + +<p>With his leathern apron he wiped the Dane’s anvil for a seat, while +she hitched up Aide-de-camp and stepped into the glow of the +forge-fire.</p> + +<p>“The hounds took us three miles beyond Carwithiel: and there, just as +they lost, Aide-de-camp cast his off-hind shoe. I didn’t find it out +at first, and now I’ve had to walk him all the way back. Are you +alone here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Who was that I saw leaving as I came up?”</p> + +<p>“You saw someone?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” She nodded, looking him straight in the face. “It looked like +a woman. Who was she?”</p> + +<p>“That was Lizzie Pezzack, the girl who sold you her doll, once. +She’s a servant down at the farm where I lodge.”</p> + +<p>Honoria said no more for the moment, but seated herself on the Dane’s +anvil, while Taffy chose a bar of iron and stepped out to examine +Aide-de-camp’s hoof. He returned and in silence began to blow up the +fire.</p> + +<p>“I dare say you were astonished to see me,” she remarked at length.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I’m still forbidden to speak to you. The last time I did it, +grandfather beat me.”</p> + +<p>“The old brute!” Taffy nipped the hot iron savagely in his pincers.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if he’ll do it again. Somehow I don’t think he will.”</p> + +<p>Taffy looked at her. She had drawn herself up, and was smiling. +In her close-fitting habit she seemed very slight, yet tall, and a +woman grown. He took the bar to the anvil and began to beat it flat. +His teeth were shut, and with every blow he said to himself “Brute!”</p> + +<p>“That’s beautiful,” Honoria went on. “I stopped Mendarva the other +day, and he told me wonders about you. He says he tried you with a +hard-boiled egg, and you swung the hammer and chipped the shell all +round without bruising the white a bit. Is that true?”</p> + +<p>Taffy nodded.</p> + +<p>“And your learning—the Latin and Greek, I mean; do you still go on +with it?”</p> + +<p>He nodded again, towards a volume of Euripides that lay open on the +workbench.</p> + +<p>“And the stories you used to tell George and me; do you go on telling +them to yourself?”</p> + +<p>He was obliged to confess that he never did. She sat for a while +watching the sparks as they flew. Then she said, “I should like to +hear you tell one again. That one about Aslog and Orm, who ran away +by night across the ice-fields and took a boat and came to an island +with a house on it, and found a table spread and the fire lit, but no +inhabitants anywhere—You remember? It began ‘Once upon a time, not +far from the city of Drontheim, there lived a rich man—’”</p> + +<p>Taffy considered a moment and began “Once upon a time, not far from +the city of Drontheim—” He paused, eyed the horse-shoe cooling +between the pincers, and shook his head. It was no use. Apollo had +been too long in service with Admetus, and the tale would not come.</p> + +<p>“At any rate,” Honoria persisted, “you can tell me something out of +your books: something you have just been reading.”</p> + +<p>So he began to tell her the story of Ion, and managed well enough in +describing the boy and how he ministered before the shrine at Delphi, +sweeping the temple and scaring the birds away from the precincts: +but when he came to the plot of the play and, looking up, caught +Honoria’s eyes, it suddenly occurred to him that all the rest of the +story was a sensual one, and he could not tell it to her. +He blushed, faltered, and finally broke down.</p> + +<p>“But it was beautiful,” said she, “so far as it went: and it’s just +what I wanted. I shall remember that boy Ion now, whenever I think +of you helping your father in the church at home. If the rest of the +story is not nice, I don’t want to hear it.” How had she guessed? +It was delicious, at any rate, to know that she thought of him; and +Taffy felt how delicious it was, while he fitted and hammered the +shoe on Aide-de-camp’s hoof, she standing by with a candle in either +hand, the flame scarcely quivering in the windless night.</p> + +<p>When all was done, she raised a foot for him to give her a mount. +“Good-night!” she called, shaking the reins. Half a minute later +Taffy stood by the door of the forge, listening to the echoes of +Aide-de-camp’s canter, and the palm of his hand tingled where her +foot had rested.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.<br><span class="small">THE SQUIRE’S WEIRD.</span></h2></div> + +<p>He took leave of Mendarva and the Jolls just before Christmas. +The smith was unaffectedly sorry to lose him. “But,” said he, “the +Dane will be entered for the championship next summer, so I s’pose I +must look forward to that.”</p> + +<p>Every one in the Joll household gave him a small present on his +leaving. Lizzie’s was a New Testament, with her name on the flyleaf, +and under it, “Converted April 19, 187-.” Taffy did not want the +gift, but took it rather than hurt her feelings.</p> + +<p>Farmer Joll said, “Well, wish ’ee well! Been pretty comfiable, I +hope. Now you’m goin’, I don’t mind telling ’ee I didn’t like your +coming a bit. But now ’tis wunnerful to me you’ve been wi’ us less +than two year’; we’ve made such friends.”</p> + +<p>At home Taffy bought a small forge and set it up in the church at the +west end of the north aisle. Mr. Raymond, under his direction, had +been purchasing the necessary tools for some months past, and now the +main expense was the cost of coal, which pinched them a little. +But they managed to keep the fire alight, and the work went forward +briskly. Save that he still forbade the parish to lend them the +least help, the old Squire had ceased to interfere.</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond’s hair was greyer, and Taffy might have observed—but did +not—how readily towards the close of a day’s laborious carpentry he +would drop work and turn to Dindorf’s <i>Poetae Scenici Graeci</i>, +through which they were reading their way. On Sundays the +congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that, as the end of +the Vicar’s task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church +receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, +Jacky Pascoe’s was queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night +and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as +anyone could see, and at length he took Mr. Raymond aside and made +confession.</p> + +<p>“I must go away; that’s what ’tis. My burden is too great for me to +bear.”</p> + +<p>“Why,” said Mr. Raymond, who had grown surprisingly tolerant during +the last twelve months, “what cause have you, of all men, to feel +dejected? You can set the folk here on fire like flax.” He sighed.</p> + +<p>“That’s azactly the reason—I can set ’em afire with a breath, but I +can’t hold ’em under. I make ’em too strong for me—<i>and I’m +afeard</i>. Parson, dear, it’s the gospel truth; for two years I’ve a +been strivin’ agen myself, wrastlin’ upon my knees, and all to hold +this parish in.” He mopped his face. “’Tis like fightin’ with +beasts at Ephesus,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Do you want to hold them in?”</p> + +<p>“I do, and I don’t. I’ve got to try, anyway. Sometimes I tell +mysel’ ’tis putting a hand to the plough and turning back; and then I +reckon I’ll go on. But when the time comes I can’t. I’m afeard, I +tell ’ee.” He paused. “I’ve laid it before the Lord, but He don’t +seem to help. There’s two voices inside o’ me. ’Tis a terrible +responsibility.”</p> + +<p>“But the people: what are you afraid of their doing?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. You don’t know what a runaway hoss will do, but +you’re afeared all the same.” He sank his voice. “There’s +wantonness, for one thing—six love-children born in the parish this +year, and more coming. They do say that Vashti Clemow destroyed her +child. And Old Man Johns—him they found dead on the rocks under the +Island—he didn’t go there by accident. ’Twas a calm day, too.”</p> + +<p>As often as not Taffy worked late and blew his forge-fire alone in +the church, the tap of his hammer making hollow music in the desolate +aisles. He was working thus one windy night in February, when the +door rattled open and in walked a totally unexpected visitor—Sir +Harry Vyell.</p> + +<p>“Good evening! I was riding by and saw your light in the windows +dancing up and down. I thought I would hitch up the mare and drop in +for a chat. But go on with your work.”</p> + +<p>Taffy wondered what had brought him so far from his home at that time +of night, but asked no questions. And Sir Harry placed a hassock on +one of the belfry steps, and taking his seat, watched for a while in +silence. He wore his long riding-boots and an overcoat with the +collar turned up about a neckcloth less nattily folded than usual.</p> + +<p>“I wish,” he said at length, “that my boy George was clever like you. +You were great friends once—you remember Plymouth, hey? But I dare +say you’ve not seen much of each other lately.”</p> + +<p>Taffy shook his head.</p> + +<p>“George is a bit wild. Oxford might have done something for him; +made a man of him, I mean. But he wouldn’t go. I believe in wild +oats to a certain extent. I have told him from the first he must +look after himself and decide for himself. That’s my theory. +It makes a youngster self-reliant. He goes and comes as he likes. +If he comes home late from hunting I ask no questions; I don’t wait +dinner. Don’t you agree with me?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” Taffy answered, wondering why he should be consulted.</p> + +<p>“Self-reliance is what a man wants.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t he have learnt that at school?”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry fidgeted with the riding-crop in his hands. “Well, you +see, he’s an only son—I dare say it was selfish of me. You don’t +mind my talking about George?”</p> + +<p>Taffy laughed. “I like it. But—”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry laughed too, in an embarrassed way. “But you don’t suppose +I rode over from Carwithiel for that? Well, well! The fact is—one +gets foolish as one grows old—George went out hunting this morning, +and didn’t turn up for dinner. I kept to my rule and dined alone. +Nine o’clock came; half-past; no George. At ten Hoskins locked up as +usual, and off I went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. After a while +it struck me that he might be sleeping here over at Tredinnis; that +is, if no accident had happened. No sleep for me until I made sure; +so I jumped out, dressed, slipped down to the stables, saddled the +mare and rode over. I left the mare by Tredinnis great gates and +crept down to Moyle’s stables like a housebreaker, looked in through +the window, and sure enough there was George’s grey in the loose box +to the right. So George is sleeping there, and I’m easy in my mind. +No doubt you think me an old fool?”</p> + +<p>But Taffy was not thinking anything of the sort.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t wish better than that. You understand?”</p> + +<p>“Not quite.”</p> + +<p>“He lost his mother early. He wants a woman to look after him, and +for him to think about. If he and Honoria would only make up a +match.... And Carwithiel would be quite a different house.”</p> + +<p>Taffy hesitated, with a hand on the forge-bellows.</p> + +<p>“I dare say it’s news to you, what I’m telling. But it has been in +my mind this long while. Why don’t you blow up the fire? I bet Miss +Honoria has thought of it too: girls are deep. She has a head on her +shoulders. I’ll warrant she sends half a dozen of my servants +packing within a week. As it is, they rob me to a stair. I know it, +and I haven’t the pluck to interfere.”</p> + +<p>“What does the old Squire say?” Taffy managed to ask.</p> + +<p>“It has never come to <i>saying</i> anything. But I believe he thinks of +it, too, when he happens to think of anything but his soul. He’ll be +pleased; everyone will be pleased. The properties touch, you see.”</p> + +<p>“I see.”</p> + +<p>“To tell you the truth, he’s failing fast. This religion of his is a +symptom: all of his family have taken to it in the end. If he hadn’t +the constitution of a horse, he’d have been converted ten years before +this. What puzzles me is, he’s so quiet. You mark my words”—Sir Harry +rose, buttoned his coat and shook his riding-crop prophetically—“he’s +brewing up for something. There’ll be the devil of a flare-up before he +has done.”</p> + + +<p>It came with the Midsummer bonfires. At nine o’clock on St. John’s +Eve, Mr. Raymond read prayers in the church. It was his rule to +celebrate thus the vigils of all saints in the English calendar and +some few Cornish saints besides; and he regularly announced these +services on the preceding Sundays: but no parishioner dreamed of +attending them.</p> + +<p>To-night, as usual, he and Taffy had prayed alone: and the lad was +standing after service at the church door, with his surplice on his +arm (for he always wore a surplice and read the lessons on these +vigils), when the flame of the first bonfire shot up from the +headland over Innis village.</p> + +<p>Almost on the moment, a flame answered it from the point where the +lighthouse stood; and, within ten minutes, the horizon of the towans +was cressetted with these beacon-fires: surely (thought Taffy) with +many more than usual. And he remembered that Jacky Pascoe had thrown +out a hint of a great revival to be held on Baal-fire Night (as he +called it).</p> + +<p>The night was sultry and all but windless. For once the tormented +sands had rest. The flame of the bonfires shone yellow— +orange-yellow—and steady. He could see the dark figures of men and +women, passing between him and the nearest, on the high wastrel in +front of Tredinnis great gates. Their voices reached him in a +confused murmur, broken now and then by a child’s scream of delight. +And yet a hush seemed to hang over sea and land: an expectant hush. +For weeks the sky had not rained. Day after day, a dull indigo blue +possessed it, deepening with night into duller purple, as if the +whole heavens were gathering into one big thundercloud, which menaced +but never broke. And in the hush of those nights a listener could +almost fancy he heard, between whiles, the rabbits stirring uneasily +in their burrows.</p> + +<p>By-and-by the bonfire on the wastrel appeared to be giving out sparks +of light which blazed independently; yet without decreasing its own +volume of flame. The sparks came dancing, nearer and larger: the +voices grew more distinct. The revellers had kindled torches and +were advancing in procession to visit other bonfires. The torches, +too, were supposed to bless the fields they passed across. Small +blessing had they ever brought to the barren towans.</p> + +<p>The procession rose and sank as it came over the uneven ridges like a +fiery snake; topped the nearest ridge and came pouring down past the +churchyard wall. At its head danced Lizzie Pezzack, shrieking like a +creature possessed, her hair loose and streaming while she whirled +her torch. Taffy knew these torches; bundles of canvas steeped in +tar and fastened in the middle to a stout stick or piece of chain. +Lizzie’s was fastened to a chain; and as he watched her uplifted arm +swinging the blazing mass he found time to wonder how she escaped +setting her hair on fire. Other torch-bearers tossed their arms and +shouted as they passed. The smoke was suffocating, and across the +patch of quiet graveyard the heat smote on Taffy’s face. But in the +crowd he saw two figures clearly—Jacky Pascoe and Squire Moyle; and +the Bryanite’s face was agitated and white in the infernal glare. +He had given an arm to the Squire, who was clearly the centre of the +procession and tottered forward with jaws working and cavernous eyes.</p> + +<p>“He’s saved!” a voice shouted.</p> + +<p>Others took up the cry. “Saved!” “The Squire’s saved!” “Saved +to-night—saved to glory!”</p> + +<p>The Squire paused, still leaning on the Bryanite’s arm. While the +procession swayed around him, he gazed across the gate as a man who had +lost his bearings. No glint of torchlight reached his cavernous eyes; +but the sight of Mr. Raymond’s surpliced figure standing behind Taff’s +shoulder in the full glare seemed to rouse him. He lifted a fist and +shook it slowly.</p> + +<p>“Com’st along, sir!” urged the Bryanite. But the Squire stood +irresolute, muttering to himself.</p> + +<p>“Com’st along, sir!”</p> + +<p>“Lev’ me be, I tell ’ee!” He laid both hands on the gate and spoke +across it to Mr. Raymond, his head nodding while his voice rose.</p> + +<p>“D’ee hear what they say? I’m saved. I’m the Squire of this parish, +and I’m goin’ to Heaven. I make no account of you and your church. +Old Satan’s the fellow I’m after, and I’m going to have him out o’ +this parish to-night or my name’s not Squire Moyle.”</p> + +<p>“That’s of it, Squire!” “Hunt ’en!” “Out with ’en!”</p> + +<p>He turned on the crowd.</p> + +<p>“Hunt ’en? Iss fay I will! Come along, boys—back to Tredinnis! +No, no”—this to the Bryanite—“we’ll go back. I’ll show ’ee sport— +we’ll hunt th’ old Divvle by scent and view to-night. I’m Squire +Moyle, ain’t I? And I’ve a pack o’ hounds, ha’n’t I? Back, boys— +back, I tell ’ee!”</p> + +<p>Lizzie Pezzack swung her torch. “Back—back to Tredinnis!” The +crowd took up the cry, “Back to Tredinnis!” The old man shook off +the Bryanite’s hand, and as the procession wheeled and reformed +itself confusedly, rushed to the head of it, waving his hat—</p> + +<p>“Back!—Back to Tredinnis!”</p> + +<p>“God help them!” said Mr. Raymond; and taking Taffy by the arm, drew +him back into the church.</p> + + +<p>The shouting died away up the road. For three-quarters of an hour +father and son worked in silence. The reddened sky shed its glow +gently through the clear glass windows, suffusing the shadows beneath +the arched roof. And in the silence the lad wondered what was +happening up at Tredinnis.</p> + + +<p>Jim the Whip took oath afterward that it was no fault of his. He had +suspected three of the hounds for a day or two—Chorister, White Boy, +and Bellman—and had separated them from the pack. That very evening +he had done the same with Rifler, who was chewing at the straw in a +queer fashion and seemed quarrelsome. He had said nothing to the +Squire, whose temper had been ugly for a week past. He had hoped it +was a false alarm—had thought it better to wait, and so on.</p> + +<p>The Squire went down to the kennels with a lantern, Jim shivering +behind him. They had their horses saddled outside and ready, and the +crowd was waiting along the drive and up by the great gates. +The Squire saw at a glance that two couples were missing, and in two +seconds had their names on his tongue. He was like a madman. +He shouted to Jim to open the doors. “Better not, maister!” pleaded +Jim. The old man cursed, smote him across the neck with the butt-end +of his whip, and unlocked the doors himself. Jim, though half +stunned, staggered forward to prevent him, and took another blow, +which felled him. He dropped across the threshold of Chorister’s +kennel; the doors of all opened outwards, and the weight of his body +kept this one shut. But he saw the other three hounds run out, saw +the Squire turn with a ghastly face, drop the lantern, and run for it +as White Boy snapped at his boot. Jim heard the crash of the lantern +and the snap of teeth, and with that he fainted off in the darkness. +He had cut his forehead against the bars of the big kennel, and when +he came to himself one of the hounds was licking his face through the +grating.</p> + + +<p>Men told for years after how the old Squire came galloping up the +drive that night, hoof to belly, his chin almost on mare Nonsuch’s +neck, his face like a man’s who hears hell cracking behind him, and +of the three dusky hounds which followed (the tale said) with +clapping jaws and eyes like coach-lamps.</p> + +<p>Down in the quiet church Taffy heard the outcry, and, laying down his +plane, looked up and saw that his father had heard it too. +Mr. Raymond’s mild eyes, shining through his spectacles, asked as +plainly as words: “What was <i>that?</i>”</p> + +<p>“Listen!”</p> + +<p>For a minute—two minutes—they heard nothing more. Then out of the +silence broke a rapid, muffled beat of hoofs, and Mr. Raymond +clutched Taffy’s arm as a yell—a cry not human, or if human, +insane—ripped the night as you might rip linen, and fetched them to +their feet. Taffy gained the porch first; and just at that moment a +black shadow heaved itself on the churchyard wall and came hurling +over with a thud—a clatter of dropping stones—then a groan.</p> + +<p>Before they could grasp what was happening the old Squire had +extricated himself from the fallen mare, and came staggering across +the graves.</p> + +<p>“Hide me!—”</p> + +<p>He came with both arms outstretched, his face turned sideways. +Behind him, from the far side of the wall, came sounds—horrible +shuffling sounds—and in the dusk they saw the head of one of the +hounds above the coping and his forepaws clinging as he strained to +heave himself over.</p> + +<p>“Off! Keep ’en off!”</p> + +<p>They caught him by both hands, dragged him within, and slammed the +door.</p> + +<p>“Hide me! Hi—!”</p> + +<p>The word ended with a thud as he pitched headlong on the slate +pavement. Through the barred door the scream of the mare Nonesuch +answered it.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.<br><span class="small">THE BARRIERS FALL.</span></h2></div> + +<p>There were marks of teeth on his right boot, but no marks at all on +his body. Fright—or fright following on that evening’s frenzy—had +killed him.</p> + +<p>He was buried three days later, and Mr. Raymond read the service. +No rain had fallen, and the blood of the three hounds still stained +the gravel dividing the grave from the porch, where the crowd had +shot them down.</p> + +<p>For a while his death made small difference to the family at the +Parsonage. They had fought his enmity and proved it not formidable +for brave hearts. But they had scarcely realised their success, and +wondered why his death did not affect them more.</p> + +<p>About this time Taffy began to carry out a scheme which he and his +father had often discussed, but hitherto had found no leisure for— +the setting up of wooden crosses on the graves of the drowned +sailormen. They had wished for slate, but good slate was expensive +and hard to come by, and Taffy had no skill in stone-cutting. +Since wood it must be, he resolved to put his best work into it. +The names, etc., should be engraved, not painted merely. Some of the +pew-fronts in the church had panels elaborately carved in flat and +shallow relief—fine Jacobean designs, all of them. He took careful +rubbings of their traceries, and set to work to copy them on the face +of his crosses.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, some three weeks after the Squire’s funeral, he +happened to return to the house for a tracing which he had forgotten, +and found Honoria seated in the kitchen and talking with his father +and mother. She was dressed in black, of course, and either this or +the solemnity of her visit gave her quite a grown-up look. But, to +be sure, she was mistress of Tredinnis now, and a child no longer.</p> + +<p>Taffy guessed the meaning of her visit at once. And no doubt this +act of formal reconciliation between Tredinnis House and the +Parsonage had cost her some nervousness. As Taffy entered his +parents stood up and seemed just as awkward as their visitor. +“Another time, perhaps,” he heard his father say. Honoria rose +almost at once, and would not stay to drink tea, though Humility +pressed her.</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” said Taffy next day, looking up from his Virgil, +“I suppose Miss Honoria wants to make friends now and help on the +restoration?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond, who was on his knees fastening a loose hinge in a +pew-door, took a screw from between his lips.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she proposed that.”</p> + +<p>“It must be splendid for you, dad!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t quite see,” answered Mr. Raymond, with his head well inside +the pew.</p> + +<p>Taffy stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and took a turn up and +down the aisle.</p> + +<p>“Why,” said he, coming to a halt, “it means that you have won. +It’s victory, dad, and <i>I</i> call it glorious!” His lip trembled. +He wanted to put a hand on his father’s shoulder; but his abominable +shyness stood between.</p> + +<p>“We won long ago, my boy.” And Mr. Raymond wheeled round on his +knees, pushed up his spectacles, and quoted the famous lines, very +solemnly and slowly:</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘And not by eastern windows only,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">When daylight comes, comes in the light;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">But westward, look, the land is bright!’”</span><br></p> + +<p>“I see,” Taffy nodded. “And—I say, that’s jolly. Who wrote it?”</p> + +<p>“A man I used to see in the streets of Oxford and always turned to +stare after: a man with big ugly shaped feet and the face of a god—a +young tormented god. Those were days when young men’s thoughts +tormented them. Taffy,” he asked abruptly, “should you like to go to +Oxford?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t, father!” The boy bit his lip to keep back the tears. +“Talk of something else—something cheerful. It has been a splendid +fight, just splendid! And now it’s over I’m almost sorry.”</p> + +<p>“What is over?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I suppose—now that Honoria wants to help—we can hire workmen +and have the whole job finished in a month, or two at farthest: and +you—”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond stood up, and leaning against a bench-end, examined the +thread of the screw between his fingers.</p> + +<p>“That is one way of looking at it, no doubt,” he said slowly; “and I +hope God will forgive me if I have put my own pride before His +service. But a man desires to leave some completed work behind him— +something to which people may point and say, ‘<i>he</i> did it.’ +There was my book, now: for years I thought that was to be my work. +But God thought otherwise and (to correct my pride, perhaps) chose +this task instead. To set a small forsaken country church in order +and make it worthy of His presence—that is not the mission I should +have chosen. But so be it: I have accepted it. Only, to let others +step in at the last and finish even this—I say He must forgive me, +but I cannot.”</p> + +<p>“Your book—you can go back to it and finish it.”</p> + +<p>“I have burnt it.”</p> + +<p>“Dad!”</p> + +<p>“I burned it. I had to. It was a temptation to me, and until I +lifted it from the grate and the flakes crumbled in my hands the +surrender was not complete.”</p> + +<p>Taffy felt a sudden gush of pity. And as he pitied suddenly he +understood his father.</p> + +<p>“It had to be complete?”</p> + +<p>“Either the book or the surrender. My boy”—and in his voice there +echoed the aspiration and the despair of the true scholar, who abhors +imperfection and incompleteness in a world where nothing is either +perfect or complete; “it is different with you. I borrowed you, so +to say, for the time. Without you I must have failed; but this was +never your work. For myself, I have learnt my lessons; but, please +God, you shall be my Solomon and be granted a temple to build.”</p> + +<p>Taffy had lost his shyness now. He laid a hand on his father’s +sleeve.</p> + +<p>“We will go on then.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, we will go on.”</p> + +<p>“And Jacky? Where has he been? I haven’t seen him since the Squire +died.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Raymond searched in his coat-pocket and handed over a crumpled +letter. It ran:—</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“Dear friend,—this is to say that you will not see me no more. +The dear Lord tells me that I have made a cauch of it. +He don’t say how, all He says is go and do better somewheres +else. +<p class="blockquot"> +“Seems to me a terrable thing to think <i>Religion</i> can be bad for +any man. It have done me such powars of good. The late Moyle +esq he was like a dirty pan all the milk turned sour no matter +what. Dear friend I pored Praise into him and it come out +Prayer and all for him self. But the dear Lord says I was to +blame as much as Moyle esq so must do better next time but feel +terrable timid. +<p class="blockquot"> +“My respects to Masr Taffy. Dear friend I done my best I come +like <i>Nicodemus</i> by night. Seeming to me when Christians fall +out tis over what they pray for. When they <i>praise God</i> forget +diffnses and I cant think where the quaraling comes in and so +no more at present from +<p class="blockquot right"> +“Yours respffly</p> +<p class="blockquot right"> +“J. Pascoe.”</p> + +<p>After supper that night, in the Parsonage kitchen Humility kept +rising from her chair, and laying her needlework aside to re-arrange +the pans and kettles on the hearth. This restlessness was so unusual +that Taffy, seated in the ingle with a book on his knee, had half +raised his head to twit her when he felt a hand laid softly on his +hair, and looked up into his mother’s eyes.</p> + +<p>“Taffy, should you like to go to Oxford?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t, mother!”</p> + +<p>“But you can.” The tears in her eyes answered his at once. +She turned to his father. “Tell him!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, my boy, you can go,” said Mr. Raymond; “that is, if you can win +a scholarship. Your mother and I have been talking it over.”</p> + +<p>“But—” Taffy began, and could get no further.</p> + +<p>“We have money enough—with care,” said Mr. Raymond.</p> + +<p>But the boy’s eyes were on his mother. Her cheeks, usually so pale, +were flushed; but she turned her face away and walked slowly back to +her chair. “The lace-work,” he heard her say: “I have been saving— +from the beginning—”</p> + +<p>“For this?” He followed and took her hand. With the other she +covered her eyes; but nodded.</p> + +<p>“O mother—mother!” He knelt and let his brow drop on her lap. +She ceased to weep; her palms rested on his bowed head, but now and +then her body shook. And but for the ticking of the tall clock there +was silence in the room.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful; and the wonder of it grew when they recovered +themselves and fell to discussing their plans. In spite of his +idolatry, Mr. Raymond could not help remembering certain slights +which he, a poor miller’s son, had undergone at Christ Church. +He had chosen Magdalen, which Taffy knew to be the most beautiful of +all the colleges; and the news that his name had been entered on the +college books for years past gave him a delicious shock. It was now +July. He would matriculate in the October term, and in January enter +for a demyship. But (the marvels followed so fast on each other’s +heels) there would be an examination held in ten days’ time—actually +in ten days’ time—a “certificate” examination, Mr. Raymond called +it—which would excuse the boy not only the ordinary Matriculation +test, but Responsions too. And, in short, Taffy was to pack his box +and go.</p> + +<p>“But the subjects?”</p> + +<p>“You have been reading them and the prescribed books for four months +past. And I have had sets of the old papers by me for a guide. +Your mathematics are shaky—but I think you should do well enough.”</p> + +<p>It was now Humility’s turn, and the discussion plunged among shirts +and collars. Never had evening been so happy; and whether they +talked of mathematics or of collars, Taffy could not help observing +how from time to time his father’s and mother’s eyes would meet and +say, as plainly as words, “We have done rightly.” “Yes, we have done +rightly.”</p> + +<p>And the wonder of it remained next morning, when he awoke to a +changed world and took down his books with a new purpose. +Already his box had been carried into old Mrs. Venning’s room, and +his mother and grandmother were busy, the one packing and repacking, +the other making a new and important suggestion every minute.</p> + +<p>He was to go up alone, and to lodge in Trinity College, where an old +friend of Mr. Raymond’s, a resident fellow just then abroad and +spending his Long Vacation in the Tyrol, had placed his own room at +the boy’s service.</p> + +<p>To see Oxford—to be lodging in college! He had to hug his mother in +the midst of her packing.</p> + +<p>“You will be going by the Great Western,” she said. “You won’t be +seeing Honiton on your way.”</p> + +<p>When the great morning came, Mr. Raymond travelled with him in the +van to Truro, to see him off. Humility went upstairs to her mother’s +room, and the two women prayed together—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“They also serve who only stand and wait.”</span><br> +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.<br><span class="small">OXFORD.</span></h2></div> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Know you her secret none can utter?</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?”</span><br> +</p> +<p>“Eight o’clock, sir!”</p> + +<p>Taffy heard the voice speaking above a noise which his dreams +confused with the rattle of yesterday’s journey. He was still in the +train, rushing through the rich levels of Somersetshire. He saw the +broad horizon, the cattle at pasture, the bridges and flagged pools +flying past the window—and sat up rubbing his eyes. Blenkiron, the +scout, stood between him and the morning sunshine emptying a can of +water into the tub beside his bed.</p> + +<p>Blenkiron wore a white waistcoat and a tie of orange and blue, the +colours of the College Servants’ Cricket Club. These were signs of +the Long Vacation. For the rest his presence would have become an +archdeacon; and he guided Taffy’s choice of a breakfast with an air +which suggested the hand of iron beneath the glove of velvet.</p> + +<p>“And begging your pardon, sir, but will you be lunching in?”</p> + +<p>Taffy would consult Mr. Blenkiron’s convenience.</p> + +<p>“The fact is, sir, we’ve arranged to play Teddy ’All this afternoon +at Cowley, and the drag starts at one-thirty sharp.”</p> + +<p>“Then I’ll get my lunch out of college,” said Taffy, wondering who +Teddy Hall might be.</p> + +<p>“I thank you, sir. I had, indeed, took the liberty of telling the +manciple that you was not a gentleman to give more trouble than you +could ’elp. Fried sole, pot of tea, toast, pot of blackberry jam, +commons of bread—” Mr. Blenkiron disappeared.</p> + +<p>Taffy sprang out of bed and ran to the open window in the next room. +The gardens lay below him—smooth turf flanked with a border of gay +flowers, flanked on the other side with yews, and beyond the yews +with an avenue of limes, and beyond these with tall elms. A straight +gravelled walk divided the turf. At the end of it two yews of +magnificent spread guarded a great iron gate. Beyond these the +chimneys and battlements of Wadham College stood grey against the +pale eastern sky, and over them the larks were singing.</p> + +<p>So this was Oxford; more beautiful than all his dreams! And since +his examination would not begin until to-morrow, he had a whole long +day to make acquaintance with her. Half a dozen times he had to +interrupt his dressing to run and gaze out of the window, skipping +back when he heard Blenkiron’s tread on the staircase. And at +breakfast again he must jump up and examine the door. Yes, there was +a second door outside—a heavy <i>oak</i>-just as his father had +described. What stories had he heard about these oaks! He was +handling this one almost idolatrously when Blenkiron appeared +suddenly at the head of the stairs. Blenkiron was good enough to +explain at some length how the door worked, while Taffy, who did not +need his instruction in the least, blushed to the roots of his hair.</p> + +<p>For, indeed, it was like first love, this adoration of Oxford; +shamefast, shy of its own raptures; so shy, indeed, that when he put +on his hat and walked out into the streets he could not pluck up +courage to ask his way. Some of the colleges he recognised from his +father’s description; of one or two he discovered the names by +peeping through their gateways and reading the notices pinned up by +the porters’ lodges, for it never occurred to him that he was free to +step inside and ramble through the quadrangles. He wondered where +the river lay, and where Magdalen, and where Christ Church. +He passed along the Turl and down Brasenose Lane; and at the foot of +it, beyond the great chestnut-tree leaning over Exeter wall, the +vision of noble square, the dome of the Radcliffe, and St. Mary’s +spire caught his breath and held him gasping. His feet took him by +the gate of Brasenose and across the High. On the farther pavement +he halted, round-eyed, held at gaze by the beauty of the Virgin’s +porch, with the creeper drooping like a veil over its twisted +pillars.</p> + +<p>High up, white pigeons wheeled round the spire or fluttered from +niche to niche, and a queer fancy took him that they were the souls +of the carved saints up there, talking to one another above the +city’s traffic. At length he withdrew his eyes, and reading the name +“Oriel Street” on an angle of the wall above him, passed down a +narrow by-lane in search of further wonders.</p> + +<p>The clocks were striking three when, after regaining the High and +lunching at a pastrycook’s, Taffy turned down into St. Aldates and +recognised Tom Tower ahead of him. The great gates were closed. +Through the open wicket he had a glimpse of green turf and an idle +fountain; and while he peered in, a jolly-looking porter stepped out +of the lodge for a breath of air and nodded in the friendliest +manner.</p> + +<p>“You can walk through if you want to. Were you looking for anyone?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Taffy, and explained proudly, “My father used to be at +Christ Church.”</p> + +<p>The porter seemed interested. “What name?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Raymond.”</p> + +<p>“That must have been before my time. I suppose you’ll be wanting to +see the Cathedral. That’s the door—right opposite.”</p> + +<p>Taffy thanked him and walked across the great empty quadrangle. +Within the Cathedral the organ was sounding and pausing, and from +time to time a boy’s voice broke in upon the music like a flute, the +pure treble rising to the roof as though it were the very voice of +the building, and every pillar sustained its petition, “<i>Lord have +mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law!</i>” +Neither organist nor chorister was visible, and Taffy tiptoed along +the aisles in dread of disturbing them. For the moment this voice +adoring in the noble building expressed to him the completest, the +most perfect thing in life. All his own boyish handiwork, remember, +under his father’s eye had been guided toward the worship of God.</p> + +<p>“... <i>And incline our hearts to keep this law</i>.” The music +ceased. He heard the organist speaking, up in the loft; criticising, +no doubt: and it reminded him somehow of the small sounds of home and +his mother moving about her housework in the hush between breakfast +and noon.</p> + +<p>He stepped out into the sunlight again, and wandering through archway +and cloister found himself at length beyond the college walls and at +the junction of two avenues of elms, between the trunks of which +shone the acres of a noble meadow, level and green. The avenues ran +at a right angle, east and south; the one old, with trees of +magnificent girth, the other new and interset with poplars.</p> + +<p>Taffy stood irresolute. One of these avenues, he felt sure, must +lead to the river; but which?</p> + +<p>Two old gentlemen stepped out from the wicket of the Meadow +Buildings, and passed him, talking together. The taller—a lean +man, with a stoop—was clearly a clergyman. The other wore cap and +gown, and Taffy remarked, as he went by, that his cap was of velvet; +and also that he walked with his arms crossed just above the wrists, +his right hand clutching his left cuff, and his left hand his right +cuff, his elbows hugged close to his sides.</p> + +<p>After a few paces the clergyman paused, said something to his +companion, and the two turned back towards the boy.</p> + +<p>“Were you wanting to know your way?”</p> + +<p>“I was looking for the river,” Taffy answered. He was thinking that +he had never in his life seen a face so full of goodness.</p> + +<p>“Then this is your first visit to Oxford? Suppose, now, you come +with us? and we will take you by the river and tell you the names of +the barges. There is not much else to see, I’m afraid, in Vacation +time.”</p> + +<p>He glanced at his companion in the velvet cap, who drew down an +extraordinary bushy pair of eyebrows (yet he, too, had a beautiful +face) and seemed to come out of a dream.</p> + +<p>“So much the better, boy, if you come up to Oxford to worship false +gods.”</p> + +<p>Taffy was taken aback.</p> + +<p>“Eight false gods in little blue caps, seated in a trough and tugging +at eight poles; and all to discover if they can get from Putney to +Mortlake sooner than eight others in little blue caps of a lighter +shade. What do they <i>do</i> at Mortlake when they get there in such a +hurry? Eh, boy?”</p> + +<p>“I—I’m sure I don’t know,” stammered Taffy.</p> + +<p>The clergyman broke out laughing, and turned to him. “Are you going +to tell us your name?”</p> + +<p>“Raymond, sir. My father used to be at Christ Church.”</p> + +<p>“What? Are you Sam Raymond’s son?”</p> + +<p>“You knew my father?”</p> + +<p>“A very little. I was his senior by a year or two. But I know +something about him.” He turned to the other. “Let me introduce the +son of a man after your own heart—of a man fighting for God in the +wilds, and building an altar there with his own hands and by the lamp +of sacrifice.”</p> + +<p>“But how do you know all this?” cried Taffy.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” the old clergyman smiled, “we are not so ignorant up here as +you suppose.”</p> + +<p>They walked by the river bank, and there Taffy saw the college barges +and was told the name of each. Also he saw a racing eight go by: it +belonged to the Vacation Rowing Club. From the barges they turned +aside and followed the windings of the Cherwell. The clergyman did +most of the talking; but now and then the old gentleman in the velvet +cap interposed a question about the church at home, its architecture, +the materials it was built of, and so forth; or about Taffy’s own +work, his carpentry, his apprenticeship with Mendarva the Smith. +And to all these questions the boy found himself replying with an +ease which astonished him.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the old clergyman said, “There is your College!”</p> + +<p>And unperceived by Taffy a pair of kindly eyes watched his own as +they met the first vision of that lovely tower rising above the trees +and (so like a thing of life it seemed) lifting its pinnacles +exultantly into the blue heaven.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>All three had come to a halt. The boy turned, blushing furiously.</p> + +<p>“This is the best of all, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Boy,” said old Velvet-cap, “do you know the meaning of ‘edification’? +There stands your lesson for four years to come, if you can learn it in +that time. Do you think it easy? Come and see how it has been learnt by +men who have spent their lives face to face with it.”</p> + +<p>They crossed the street by Magdalen bridge, and passed under Pugin’s +gateway, by the Chapel door and into the famous cloisters. All was +quiet here; so quiet that even the voices of the sparrows chattering in +the ivy seemed but a part of the silence. The shadow of the great tower +fell across the grass.</p> + +<p>“This is how one generation read the lesson. Come and see how another, +and a later, read it.”</p> + +<p>A narrow passage led them out of gloom into sudden sunlight; and the +sunlight spread itself on fair grass-plots and gravelled walks, +flower-beds and the pale yellow facade of a block of buildings in the +classical style, stately and elegant, with a colonnade which only +needed a few promenading figures in laced coats and tie-wigs to +complete the agreeable picture.</p> + +<p>“What do you make of that?”</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact Taffy’s thoughts had run back to the theatre at +Plymouth with its sudden changes of scenery. And he stood for a +moment while he collected them.</p> + +<p>“It’s different: I mean,” he added, feeling that this was intolerably +lame, “it means something different; I cannot tell what.”</p> + +<p>“It means the difference between godly fear and civil ease, between a +house of prayer and one of no prayer. It spells the moral change +which came over this University when religion, the spring and source +of collegiate life, was discarded. The cloisters behind you were +built for men who walked with God.”</p> + +<p>“But why,” objected Taffy, plucking up courage, “couldn’t they do +that in the sunlight?”</p> + +<p>Velvet-cap opened his mouth. The boy felt he was going to be +denounced; when a merry laugh from the old clergyman averted the +storm.</p> + +<p>“Be content,” he said to his companion; “we are Gothic enough in +Oxford nowadays. And the lad is right too. There was hope even for +eighteenth-century Magdalen while its buildings looked on sunlight +and on that tower. You and the rest of us lay too much stress on +prayer. The lesson of that tower (with all deference to your amazing +discernment and equally amazing whims) is not prayer, but praise. +And when all men unite to worship God, it’ll be praise, not prayer, +that brings them together.</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘Praise is devotion fit for noble minds,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">The differing world’s agreeing sacrifice.’”</span><br> +</p> +<p>“Oh, if you’re going to fling quotations from a tapster’s son at my +head.... Let me see... how does it go on?... Where— something or +other—different faiths—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘Where Heaven divided faiths united finds....’”</span><br> +</p> +<p>And in a moment the pair were in hot pursuit after the quotation, +tripping each other up like two schoolboys at a game. Taffy never +forgot the final stanza, the last line of which they recovered +exactly in the middle of the street, Velvet-cap standing between two +tram-lines, right in the path of an advancing car, while he +declaimed—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘By penitence when we ourselves forsake,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">’Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven;</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">In praise—’”</span><br></p> + +<p>(The gesture was magnificent)</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“‘In praise we nobly give what God may take,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">And are without a beggar’s blush forgiven.’</span><br> +</p> +<p>“—Confound these trams!”</p> + +<p>The old clergyman shook hands with Taffy in some haste. “And when +you reach home give my respects to your father. Stay, you don’t know +my name. Here is my card, or you’ll forget it.”</p> + +<p>“Mine, too,” said Velvet-cap.</p> + +<p>Taffy stood staring after them as they walked off down the lane which +skirts the Botanical Gardens. The names on the two cards were famous +ones, as even he knew. He walked back toward Trinity a proud and +happy boy. Half-way up Queen’s Lane, finding himself between blank +walls, with nobody in sight, he even skipped.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.<br><span class="small">TAFFY GIVES A PROMISE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>The postman halted by the foot-bridge and blew his horn. The sound +sent the rabbits scampering into their burrows; and just as they +began to pop out again, Taffy came charging across the slope. +Whereupon they drew back their noses in disgust, and to avoid the +sand scattered by his toes.</p> + +<p>The postman held up a blue envelope and waved it. “Here, ’tis come, +at last!”</p> + +<p>“It may not be good news,” said Taffy, clutching it, and then turning +it over in his hand.</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s true. And till you open it, it won’t be any news at +all.”</p> + +<p>“I wanted mother to be first to know.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very well—only, as you say, it mightn’t be good news.”</p> + +<p>“If it’s bad news, I want to be alone. But why should they trouble +to write?”</p> + +<p>“True again. I s’pose now you’re sure it <i>is</i> from them?”</p> + +<p>“I can tell by the seal.”</p> + +<p>“Take it home, then,” said the postman. “Only if you think ’tis for +the sake of a twiddling sixteen shilling a week that I traipse all +these miles every day—”</p> + +<p>Taffy fingered the seal. “If you would really like to know—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t ’ee mention it. Not on any account.” He waved his hand +magnanimously and trudged off toward Tredinnis.</p> + +<p>Taffy waited until he disappeared behind the first sand-hill, and +broke the seal. A slip of parchment lay inside the envelope.</p> + +<p>“<i>This is to certify</i>—”</p> + +<p>He had passed! He pulled off his cap and waved it round his head. +And once more the rabbits popped back into their burrows.</p> + +<p>Toot—toot—toot!—It was that diabolical postman. He had fetched a +circuit round the sand-hill, and was peeping round the north side of +it and grinning as he blew his horn.</p> + +<p>Taffy set off running, and never stopped until he reached the +Parsonage and burst into the kitchen. “Mother—It’s all right! +I’ve passed!”</p> + + +<p>Somebody was knocking at the door. Taffy jumped up from his knees, +and Humility made the lap of her apron smooth.</p> + +<p>“May I come in?” asked Honoria, and pushed the door open. She stepped +into the middle of the kitchen and dropped Taffy an elaborate courtesy.</p> + +<p>“A thousand congratulations, sir!”</p> + +<p>“Why, how did you know?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I met the postman; and I looked in through the window before +knocking.”</p> + +<p>Taffy bit his lip. “People seem to be taking a deal of interest in us +all of a sudden,” he said to his mother.</p> + +<p>Humility looked distressed, uncomfortable. Honoria ignored the snub. “I +am starting for Carwithiel to-day,” she said, “for a week’s visit, and +thought I would look in—after hearing what the postman told me— and +pay my compliments.”</p> + +<p>She talked for a minute or two on matters of no importance, asked after +old Mrs. Venning’s health, and left, turning at the door and giving +Humility a cheerful little nod.</p> + +<p>“Taffy, you ought not to have spoken so.” Humility’s eyes were tearful.</p> + +<p>Taffy’s conscience was already accusing him. He snatched up his cap and +ran out.</p> + +<p>“Miss Honoria!”</p> + +<p>She did not turn.</p> + +<p>“Miss Honoria—I am sorry!” He overtook her, but she turned her face +away. “Forgive me!”</p> + +<p>She halted, and after a moment looked him in the eyes. He saw then that +she had been crying.</p> + +<p>“The first time I came to see you he whipped me,” she said slowly.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry; indeed I am.”</p> + +<p>“Taffy—”</p> + +<p>“Miss Honoria.”</p> + +<p>“I said—Taffy.”</p> + +<p>“Honoria, then.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know what it is to feel lonely here?”</p> + +<p>Taffy remembered the afternoons when he had roamed the sand-hills +longing for George’s company. “Why, yes,” said he; “it used to be +always lonely.”</p> + +<p>“I think we have been the loneliest children in the whole world—you +and I and George—only George didn’t feel it the same way. And now it’s +coming to an end with you. You are going up to Oxford, and soon you +will have heaps of friends. Can you not understand? Suppose there were +two prisoners, alone in the same prison, but shut in different cells, +and one heard that the other’s release had come. He would feel—would +he not?—that now he was going to be lonelier than ever. And yet he +might be glad of the other’s liberty, and if the chance were given, +might be the happier for shaking hands with the other and wishing him +joy.”</p> + +<p>Taffy had never heard her speak at all like this.</p> + +<p>“But you are going to Carwithiel, and George is famous company.”</p> + +<p>“I am going over to Carwithiel because I hate Tredinnis. I hate every +stone of it, and will sell the place as soon as ever I come of age. +And George is the best fellow in the world. Some day I shall marry him +(oh, it is all arranged!), and we shall live at Carwithiel and be quite +happy; for I like him, and he likes people to be happy. And we shall +talk of you. Being out of the world ourselves, we shall talk of you, +and the great things you are going to do, and the great things you are +doing. We shall say to each other, ‘It’s all very well for the world to +be proud of him, but we have the best right, for we grew up with him +and know the stories he used to tell us; and when the time came for his +going, it was we who waved from the door—”</p> + +<p>“Honoria—”</p> + +<p>“But there is one thing you haven’t told, and you shall now, if you +care to—about your examination and what you did at Oxford.”</p> + +<p>So he sat down beside her on a sand-hill and told her: about the long +low-ceiled room in the quadrangle of the Bodleian, the old marbles +which lined the walls, the examiner at the blue baize table, and the +little deal tables (all scribbled over with names and dates and verses +and ribald remarks) at which the candidates wrote; also of the <i>viva +voce</i> examination in the antechamber of the Convocation House, He told +it all as if it were the great event he honestly felt it to be.</p> + +<p>“And the others,” said she, “those who were writing around you, and the +examiner—how did you feel towards them?”</p> + +<p>Taffy stared at her. “I don’t know that I thought much about them.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you feel as if it was a battle and you wanted to beat them all?”</p> + +<p>He broke out laughing. “Why, the examiner was an old man, as dry as a +stick! And I hardly remember what the others were like—except one, +a white-headed boy with a pimply face. I couldn’t help noticing him, +because whenever I looked up there he was at the next table, staring at +me and chewing a quill.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t understand,” she confessed. “Often and often I have tried to +think myself a man—a man with ambition. And to me that has always +meant fighting. I see myself a man, and the people between me and the +prize have all to be knocked down or pushed out of the way. But you +don’t even see them—all you see is a pimply-faced boy sucking a quill. +Taffy—”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“I wish you would write to me when you get to Oxford. Write regularly. +Tell me all you do.”</p> + +<p>“You will like to hear?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I shall. So will George. But it’s not only that. You have +such an easy way of going forward; you take it for granted you’re going +to be a great man—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you do. You think it just lies with yourself, and it is nobody’s +business to interfere with you. You don’t even notice those who are on +the same path. Now a woman would notice every one, and find out all +about them.”</p> + +<p>“Who said I wanted to be a great man?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t be silly, that’s a good boy! There’s your father coming out of +the church porch, and you haven’t told him yet. Run to him, but promise +first.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“That you will write.”</p> + +<p>“I promise.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.<br><span class="small">HONORIA’S LETTERS.</span></h2> +</div> + + + +<h3>1.</h3> +<p class="blockquot"> + +“CARWITHIEL, Oct. 25, 18—.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“MY DEAR TAFFY,—Your letter was full of news, and I read it +over twice: once to myself, and again after dinner to George +and Sir Harry. We pictured you dining in the college hall. +Thanks to your description, it was not very difficult: the long +tables, the silver tankards, the dark panels and the dark +pictures above, and the dons on the dais, aloof and very +sedate. It reminded me of Ivanhoe—I don’t know why; and no +doubt if ever I see Magdalen, it will not be like my fancy in +the least. But that’s how I see it; and you at a table near +the bottom of the hall, like the youthful squire in the +story-books—the one, you know, who sits at the feast below the +salt until he is recognised and forced to step up and take his +seat with honour at the high table. I began to explain all +this to George, but found that he had dropped asleep in his +chair. He was tired out after a long day with the pheasants.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“I shall stay here for a week or two yet, perhaps. You know how +I hate Tredinnis. On my way over, I called at the Parsonage +and saw your mother. She was writing that very day, she said, +and promised to send my remembrances, which I hope duly reached +you. The Vicar was away at the church, of course. There is +great talk of the Bishop coming in February, when all will be +ready. George sends his love; I saw him for a few minutes at +breakfast this morning, before he started for another day with +the pheasants.”</p> +<p class="blockquot right"> +“Your friend,”<br> +“HONORIA.”</p> + +<h3>2.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot"> +“CARWITHIEL, Nov. 19, 18—.”</p> +<p class="blockquot"> + +“MY DEAR TAFFY,—Still here, you see! I am slipping this into a +parcel containing a fire-screen which I have worked with my +very own hands; and I trust you will be able to recognise the +shield upon it and the Magdalen lilies. I send it, first, as a +birthday present; and I chose the shield—well, I dare say that +going in for a demy-ship is a matter-of-fact affair to you, who +have grown so exceedingly matter-of-fact; but to me it seems a +tremendous adventure; and so I chose a shield—for I suppose +the dons would frown if you wore a cockade in your college cap. +I return to Tredinnis to-morrow; so your news, whatever it is, +must be addressed to me there. But it is safe to be good +news.”</p> +<p class="blockquot right"> + +“Your friend,”<br> +“HONORIA.”</p> + +<h3>3.</h3> + +<p class="blockquot"> +“TREDINNIS, Nov. 27, 18—.”</p> +<p class="blockquot"> + +“MOST HONOURED SCHOLAR,—Behold me, an hour ago, a great lady, +seated in lonely grandeur at the head of my own ancestral +table. This is the first time I have used the dining-room; +usually I take all my meals in the morning-room, at a small +table beside the fire. But to-night I had the great table +spread and the plate spread out, and wore my best gown, and +solemnly took my grandfather’s chair and glowered at the ghost +of a small girl shivering at the far end of the long white +cloth. When I had enough of this (which was pretty soon) I +ordered up some champagne and drank to the health of +Theophilus John Raymond, Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford. +I graciously poured out a second glass for the small ghost at +the other end of the table; and it gave her the courage to +confess that she, too, in a timid way, had taken an interest in +you for years, and hoped you were going to be a great man. +Having thus discovered a bond between us, we grew very +friendly; and we talked a great deal about you afterwards in +the drawing-room, where I lost her for a few minutes and found +her hiding in the great mirror over the fire-place—a habit of +hers.”</p> +<p class="blockquot"> + +“It is time for me to practise ceremony, for it seems that +George and I are to be married some time in the spring. For my +part I think my lord would be content to wait longer; for so +long as he is happy and sees others cheerful he is not one to +hurry or worry. But Sir Harry is the impatient one: and has +begun to talk of his decease. He doesn’t believe in it a bit, +and at times when he composes his features and attempts to be +lugubrious I have to take up a book and hide my smiles. But he +is clever enough to see that it worries George.”</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“I saw both your father and mother this morning. Mr. Raymond has +been kept to the house by a chill; nothing serious: but he is +fretting to be out again and at work in that draughty church. +He will accept no help; and the mistress of Tredinnis has no +right to press it on him. I shall never understand men and how +they fight. I supposed that the war lay between him and my +grandfather. But it seems he was fighting an idea all the +while; for here is my grandfather beaten and dead and gone; and +still the Vicar will give no quarter. If you had not assured +me that your demy-ship means eighty pounds a year, I could +believe that men fight for shadows only. Your mother and +grandmother are both well....”</p> + + +<p>It was a raw December afternoon—within a week of the end of term— +and Taffy had returned from skating in Christ Church meadow, when he +found a telegram lying on his table. There was just time to see the +Dean, to pack, and to snatch a meal in hall, before rattling off to +his train. At Didcot he had the best part of an hour to wait for the +night-mail westward.</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“<i>Your father dangerously ill. Come at once</i>.”</span><br> +</p> +<p>There was no signature. Yet Taffy knew who had ridden to the office +with that telegram. The flying dark held visions of her, and the +express throbbed westward to the beat of Aide-de-camp’s gallop. +Nor was he surprised at all to find her on the platform at Truro +Station. The Tredinnis phaeton was waiting outside.</p> + +<p>He seemed to her but a boy after all, as he stepped out of the train +in the chill dawn: a wan-faced boy, and sorely in need of comfort.</p> + +<p>“You must be brave,” said she, gathering up the reins as he climbed +to the seat beside her.</p> + +<p>Surely yes; he had been telling himself this very thing all night. +The groom hoisted in his portmanteau, and with a slam of the door +they were off. The cold air sang past Taffy’s ears. It put vigour +into him, and his courage rose as he faced his shattered prospects, +shattered dreams. He must be strong now for his mother’s sake; a man +to work and be leant upon.</p> + +<p>And so it was that whereas Honoria had found him a boy, Humility +found him a man. As her arms went about him in her grief, she felt +his body, that it was taller, broader; and knew in the midst of her +tears that this was not the child she had parted from seven short +weeks ago, but a man to act and give orders and be relied upon.</p> + +<p>“He called for you... many times,” was all she could say.</p> + +<p>For Taffy had come too late. Mr. Raymond was dead. He had +aggravated a slight chill by going back to his work too soon, and the +bitter draughts of the church had cut him down within sight of his +goal. A year before he might have been less impatient. The chill +struck into his lungs. On December 1st he had taken to his bed, and +he never rallied.</p> + +<p>“He called for me?”</p> + +<p>“Many times.”</p> + +<p>They went up the stairs together and stood beside the bed. The +thought uppermost in Taffy’s mind was—“He called for me. He wanted +me. He was my father and I never knew him.”</p> + +<p>But Humility in her sorrow groped amid such questions as these, +“What has happened? Who am I? Am I she who yesterday had a husband +and a child? To-day my husband is gone and my child is no longer the +same child.”</p> + +<p>In her room old Mrs. Venning remembered the first days of her own +widowhood, and life seemed to her a very short affair, after all.</p> + +<p>Honoria saw Taffy beside the grave. It was no season for out-of-door +flowers, and she had rifled her hothouses for a wreath. The exotics +shivered in the north-westerly wind; they looked meaningless, +impertinent, in the gusty churchyard. Humility, before the coffin +left the house, had brought the dead man’s old blue working-blouse, +and spread it for a pall. No flowers grew in the Parsonage garden; +but pressed in her Bible lay a very little bunch, gathered, years +ago, in the meadows by Honiton. This she divided and, unseen by +anyone, pinned the half upon the breast of the patched garment.</p> + +<p>On the evening after the funeral and for the next day or two she was +strangely quiet, and seemed to be waiting for Taffy to make some +sign. Dearly as mother and son loved one another, they had to find +their new positions, each toward each. Now Taffy had known nothing +of his parents’ income. He assumed that it was little enough, and +that he must now leave Oxford and work to support the household. +He knew some Latin and Greek; but without a degree he had little +chance of teaching what he knew. He was a fair carpenter, and a more +than passable smith.... He revolved many schemes, but chiefly +found himself wondering what it would cost to enter an architect’s +office.</p> + +<p>“I suppose,” said he, “father left no will?”</p> + +<p>“Oh yes, he did,” said Humility, and produced it: a single sheet of +foolscap signed on her wedding day. It gave her all her husband’s +property absolutely—whatever it might be.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Taffy, “I’m glad. I suppose there’s enough for you to +rent a small cottage, while I look about for work?”</p> + +<p>“Who talks about your finding work? You will go back to Oxford, of +course.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, shall I?” said Taffy, taken aback.</p> + +<p>“Certainly; it was your father’s wish.”</p> + +<p>“But the money?”</p> + +<p>“With your scholarship there’s enough to keep you there for the four +years. After that, no doubt, you will be earning a good income.”</p> + +<p>“But—” He remembered what had been said about the lace-money, and +could not help wondering.</p> + +<p>“Taffy,” said his mother, touching his hand, “leave all this to me +until your degree is taken. You have a race to run and must not +start unprepared. If you could have seen <i>his</i> joy when the news +came of the demy-ship!”</p> + +<p>Taffy kissed her and went up to his room. He found his books laid +out on the little table there.</p> + + +<h3>4.</h3> +<p class="blockquot"> +“TREDINNIS, February 13, 18—.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“MY DEAR TAFFY,—I have a valentine for you, if you care to +accept it; but I don’t suppose you will, and indeed I hope in +my heart that you will not. But I must offer it. +Your father’s living is vacant, and my trustees (that is to +say, Sir Harry; for the other, a second cousin of mine who +lives in London, never interferes) can put in someone as a +stop-gap, thus allowing me to present you to it when the time +comes, if you have any thought of Holy Orders. You will +understand exactly why I offer it; and also, I hope, you will +know that I think it wholly unworthy of you. But turn it over +in your mind and give me your answer.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“George and I are to be married at the end of April. May is an +unlucky month. It shall be a week—even a fortnight—earlier, +if that fits in with your vacation, and you care to come. +See how obliging I am! I yield to you what I have refused to +Sir Harry. We shall try to persuade the Bishop to come and +open the church on the same day.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot right"> +“Always your friend,”<br> +“HONORIA.”</p> + +<h3>5.</h3> +<p class="blockquot"> +“TREDINNIS, February 21. 18—.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“My Dear Taffy,—No, I am not offended in the least; but very +glad. I do not think you are fitted for the priesthood; but my +doubts have nothing to do with your doubts, which I don’t +understand, though you tried to explain them so carefully. +You will come through <i>them</i>, I expect. I don’t know that I +have any reasons that could be put on paper: only, somehow, I +cannot <i>see</i> you in a black coat and clerical hat.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“You complain that I never write about George. You don’t +deserve to hear, since you refuse to come to our wedding. +But would <i>you</i> talk, if you happened to be in love? There, I +have told you more than ever I told George, whose conceit has +to be kept down. Let this console you.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“Our new parson, when he comes, is to lodge down in Innis +Village. Your mother—but no doubt she has told you—stays in +the Parsonage while she pleases. She and your grandmother are +both well. I see her every day: I have so much to learn, and +she is so wise. Her beautiful eyes—but oh, Taffy, it must be +terrible to be a widow! She smiles and is always cheerful; but +the <i>look</i> in them! How can I describe it? When I find her +alone with her lace-work, or sometimes (but it is not often) +with her hands in her lap, she seems to come out of her silence +with an effort, as others withdraw themselves from talk. +I wonder if she does talk in those silences of hers. +Another thing, it is only a few weeks now since she put on a +widow’s cap, and yet I cannot remember her—can scarcely +picture her—without it. I am sure that if I happened to call +one day when she had laid it aside, I should begin to talk +quite as if we were strangers.” +</p> +<p class="blockquot right"> +“Believe me, yours sincerely,”<br> +“HONORIA.”</p> + +<p>But the wedding, after all, did not take place until the beginning of +October, a week before the close of the Long Vacation; and Taffy, +after all, was present. The postponement had been enforced by many +delays in building and furnishing the new wing at Carwithiel; for Sir +Harry insisted that the young couple must live under one roof with +him, and Honoria (as we know) hated the very stones of Tredinnis.</p> + +<p>The Bishop came to spend a week in the neighbourhood; the first three +days as Honoria’s guest. On the Saturday he consecrated the work of +restoration in the church, and in the afternoon held a confirmation +service. Taffy and Honoria knelt together to receive his blessing. +It was the girl’s wish. The shadow of her responsibility to God and +man lay heavy on her during the few months before her marriage: and +Taffy, already weary and dispirited with his early doubtings, +suffered her mood of exaltation to overcome him like a wave and sweep +him back to rest for a while on the still waters of faith. +Together they listened while the Bishop discoursed on the dead +Vicar’s labours with fluency and feeling; with so much feeling, +indeed, that Taffy could not help wondering why his father had been +left to fight the battle alone.</p> + +<p>On the Sunday and Monday two near parishes claimed the Bishop. On the +Tuesday he sent his luggage over to Carwithiel, whither he was to +follow after the wedding service, to spend a day or two with Sir Harry. +It had been Honoria’s wish that George should choose Taffy for his +best man; but George had already invited one of his sporting friends, +a young Squire Philpotts from the eastern side of the Duchy; and as +the date fell at the beginning of the hunting season, he insisted on a +“pink” wedding. Honoria consulted the Bishop by letter. “Did he approve +of a ‘pink’ wedding so soon after the bride’s confirmation?” The Bishop +saw no harm in it.</p> + +<p>So a “pink” wedding it was, and the scarlet coats made a lively patch +of colour in the gray churchyard: but it gave Taffy a feeling that he +was left out in the cold. He escorted his mother to the church, and +left her for a few minutes in the Vicarage pew. The bridegroom and his +friends were gathered in a showy cluster by the chancel step, but the +bride had not arrived, and he stepped out to help in marshalling the +crowd of miners and mine-girls, fishermen, and mothers with unruly +children—a hundred or so in all, lining the path or straggling among +the graves.</p> + +<p>Close by the gate he came on a girl who stood alone.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Lizzie—you here?”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” she asked, looking at him sullenly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no reason at all.”</p> + +<p>“There might ha’ been a reason,” said she, speaking low and hurriedly. +“You might ha’ saved me from this, Mr. Raymond; and her too; one time, +you might.”</p> + +<p>“Why, what on earth is the matter?” He looked up. The Tredinnis +carriage and pair of grays came over the knoll at a smart trot, and +drew up before the gate.</p> + +<p>“Matter?” Lizzie echoed with a short laugh. “Oh, nuthin’. I’m goin’ to +lay the curse on her, that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“You shall not!” There was no time to lose.</p> + +<p>Honoria’s trustee—the second cousin from London, a tall, clean-shaven +man with a shiny bald head, and a shiny hat in his hand—had stepped +out and was helping the bride to alight. What Lizzie meant Taffy could +not tell; but there must be no scene. He caught her hand. “Mind—I say +you shall not!” he whispered.</p> + +<p>“Lemme go—you’re creamin’ my fingers.”</p> + +<p>“Be quiet then.”</p> + +<p>At that moment Honoria passed up the path. Her wedding gown almost +brushed him as he stood wringing Lizzie’s hand. She did not appear to +see him; but he saw her face beneath the bridal veil, and it was hard +and white.</p> + +<p>“The proud toad!” said Lizzie. “I’m no better’n dirt, I suppose, though +from the start she wasn’ above robbin’ me. Aw, she’s sly ... Mr. +Raymond, I’ll curse her as she comes out, see if I don’t!”</p> + +<p>“And I swear you shall not,” said Taffy. The scent of Honoria’s +orange-blossom seemed to cling about them as they stood.</p> + +<p>Lizzie looked at him vindictively. “You wanted her yourself, <i>I</i> know. +You weren’t good enough, neither. Let go my fingers!”</p> + +<p>“Go home, now. See, the people have all gone in.”</p> + +<p>“Go’st way in too, then, and leave me here to wait for her.”</p> + +<p>Taffy shut his teeth, let go her hand, and taking her by the shoulders, +swung her round face toward the gate.</p> + +<p>“March!” he commanded, and she moved off whimpering. Once she looked +back. “March!” he repeated, and followed her down the road as one +follows and threatens a mutinous dog.</p> + + +<p>The scene by the church gate had puzzled Honoria, and in her first +letter (written from Italy) she came straight to the point, as her +custom was:</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“I hope there is nothing between you and that girl who used to +be at Joll’s. I say nothing about our hopes for you, but you +have your own career to look to; and as I know you are too +honourable to flatter an ignorant girl when you mean nothing, +so I trust you are too wise to be caught by a foolish fancy. +Forgive a staid matron (of one week’s standing) for writing so +plainly, but what I saw made me uneasy—without cause, no +doubt. Your future, remember, is not yours only. And now I +shall trust you, and never come back to this subject.”</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“We are like children abroad, George’s French is wonderful, but +not so wonderful as his Italian. When he goes to take a ticket +he first of all shouts the name of the station he wishes to +arrive at (for some reason he believes all foreigners to be +deaf), then he begins counting down francs one by one, very +slowly, watching the clerk’s face. When the clerk’s face tells +him he has doled out enough, he shouts ‘Hold hard!’ and +clutches the ticket. It takes time; but all the people here +are friends with him at once—especially the children, whom he +punches in the ribs and tells to ‘buck up.’ Their mothers nod +and smile and openly admire him; and I—well, I am happy and +want everyone else to be happy.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.<br><span class="small">MEN AS TOWERS.</span></h2></div> + +<p>It was May morning, and Taffy made one of the group gathered on the +roof of Magdalen Tower. In the groves below and across the river +meadows all the birds were singing together. Beyond the glimmering +suburbs, St. Clement’s and Cowley St. John, over the dark rise by +Bullingdon Green, the waning moon seemed to stand still and wait, +poised on her nether horn. Below her the morning sky waited, clean +and virginal, letting her veil of mist slip lower and lower until it +rested in folds upon Shotover. While it dropped a shaft of light +tore through it and smote flashing on the vane high above Taffy’s +head, turning the dark side of the turrets to purple and casting +lilac shadows on the surplices of the choir. For a moment the whole +dewy shadow of the tower trembled on the western sky, and melted and +was gone as a flood of gold broke on the eastward-turned faces. +The clock below struck five and ceased. There was a sudden baring of +heads; a hush; and gently, borne aloft on boys’ voices, clear and +strong, rose the first notes of the hymn—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Te Deum Patrem colimus,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Te laudibus prosequimur,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Qui corpus cibo reficis,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Coelesti mentem gratia.”</span><br></p> + +<p>In the pauses Taffy heard, faint and far below, the noise of cowhorns +blown by the street boys gathered at the foot of the tower and beyond +the bridge. Close beside him a small urchin of a chorister was +singing away with the face of an ecstatic seraph; whence that ecstasy +arose the urchin would have been puzzled to tell. There flashed into +Taffy’s brain the vision of the whole earth lauding and adoring— +sun-worshippers and Christians, priests and small children; nation +after nation prostrating itself and arising to join the chant— +“the differing world’s agreeing sacrifice.” Yes, it was Praise that +made men brothers; Praise, the creature’s first and last act of +homage to his Creator; Praise that made him kin with the angels. +Praise had lifted this tower; had expressed itself in its soaring +pinnacles; and he for the moment was incorporate with the tower and +part of its builder’s purpose. “Lord, make men as towers!”—he +remembered his father’s prayer in the field by Tewkesbury, and at +last he understood. “All towers carry a lamp of some kind”—why, of +course they did. He looked about him. The small chorister’s face +was glowing—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“Triune Deus, hominum</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Salutis auctor optime,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Immensum hoc mysterium</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Ovante lingua canimus!”</span><br></p> + +<p>Silence—and then with a shout the tunable bells broke forth, rocking +the tower. Someone seized Taffy’s college cap and sent it spinning +over the battlements. Caps? For a second or two they darkened the +sky like a flock of birds. A few gowns followed, expanding as they +dropped, like clumsy parachutes. The company—all but a few severe +dons and their friends—tumbled laughing down the ladder, down the +winding stair, and out into sunshine. The world was pagan after all.</p> + + +<p>At breakfast Taffy found a letter on his table, addressed in his +mother’s hand. As a rule she wrote twice a week, and this was not +one of the usual days for hearing from her. But nothing was too good +to happen that morning. He snatched up the letter and broke the +seal.</p> + +<p>“My dearest boy,” it ran, “I want you home at once to consult with +me. Something has happened (forgive me, dear, for not preparing you; +but the blow fell on me yesterday so suddenly)—something which makes +it doubtful, and more than doubtful, that you can continue at Oxford. +And something else <i>they say</i> has happened which I will never believe +in unless I hear it from my boy’s lips. I have this comfort, at any +rate, that he will never tell me a falsehood. This is a matter which +cannot be explained by letter, and cannot wait until the end of term. +Come home quickly, dear; for until you are here I can have no peace +of mind.”</p> + +<p>So once again Taffy travelled homewards by the night mail.</p> + + +<p>“Mother, it’s a lie!”</p> + +<p>Taffy’s face was hot, but he looked straight into his mother’s eyes. +She too was rosy-red: being ever a shamefast woman. And to speak of +these things to her own boy—</p> + +<p>“Thank God!” she murmured, and her fingers gripped the arms of her +chair.</p> + +<p>“It’s a lie! Where is the girl?”</p> + +<p>“She is in the workhouse, I believe. I don’t know who spread it, or +how many have heard. But Honoria believes it.”</p> + +<p>“Honoria! She cannot—” He came to a sudden halt. “But, mother, +even supposing Honoria believes it, I don’t see—”</p> + +<p>He was looking straight at her. Her eyes sank. Light began to break +in on him.</p> + +<p>“Mother!”</p> + +<p>Humility did not look up.</p> + +<p>“Mother! Don’t tell me that she—that Honoria—”</p> + +<p>“She made us promise—your father and me.... God knows it did no +more than repay what your father had suffered.... Your future was +everything to us....”</p> + +<p>“And I have been maintained at Oxford by her money,” he said, pausing +in his bitterness on every word.</p> + +<p>“Not by that only, Taffy! There was your scholarship... and it +was true about my savings on the lace-work....”</p> + +<p>But he brushed her feeble explanations away with a little gesture of +impatience. “Oh why, mother?—Oh why?”</p> + +<p>She heard him groan and stretched out her arms.</p> + +<p>“Taffy, forgive me—forgive us! We did wrongly, I see—I see it as +plain now as you. But we did it for your sake.”</p> + +<p>“You should have told me. I was not a child. Yes, yes, you should +have told me.”</p> + +<p>Yes; there lay the truth. They had treated him as a child when he +was no longer a child. They had swathed him round with love, +forgetting that boys grow and demand to see with their own eyes and +walk on their own feet. To every mother of sons there comes sooner +or later the sharp lesson which came to Humility that morning; and +few can find any defence but that which Humility stammered, sitting +in her chair and gazing piteously up at the tall youth confronting +her: “I did it for your sake.” Be pitiful, oh accusing sons, in that +hour! For, terrible as your case may be against them, your mothers +are speaking the simple truth.</p> + +<p>Taffy took her hand. “The money must be paid back, every penny of +it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear.”</p> + +<p>“How much?”</p> + +<p>Humility kept a small account-book in the work-box beside her. +She opened the pages, but, seeing his outstretched hand, gave it +obediently to Taffy, who took it to the window.</p> + +<p>“Almost two hundred pounds.” He knit his brows and began to drum with +his fingers on the window-pane. “And we must put the interest at +five per cent.... With my first in Moderations I might find some +post as an usher in a small school.... There’s an agency which +puts you in the way of such things: I must look up the address.... +We will leave this house, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Must we?”</p> + +<p>“Why of course we must. We are living here by <i>her</i> favour. +A cottage will do—only it must have four rooms, because of +grandmother.... I will step over and talk with Mendarva. +He may be able to give me a job. It will keep me going, at any rate, +until I hear from the agency.”</p> + +<p>“You forget that I have over forty pounds a year—or, rather, mother +has. The capital came from the sale of her farm, years ago.”</p> + +<p>“Did it?” said Taffy grimly. “You forget that I have never been +told. Well, that’s good, so far as it goes. But now I’ll step over +and see Mendarva. If only I could catch this cowardly lie somewhere +on my way!”</p> + +<p>He kissed his mother, caught up his cap, and flung out of the house. +The sea breeze came humming across the sandhills. He opened his +lungs to it, and it was wine to his blood; he felt strong enough to +slay dragons. “But who could the liar be? Not Lizzie herself, +surely! Not—”</p> + +<p>He pulled up short in a hollow of the towans.</p> + +<p>“Not—George?”</p> + +<p>Treachery is a hideous thing; and to youth so incomprehensibly +hideous that it darkens the sun. Yet every trusting man must be +betrayed. That was one of the lessons of Christ’s life on earth. +It is the last and severest test; it kills many, morally, and no man +who has once met and looked it in the face departs the same man, +though he may be a stronger one.</p> + +<p>“<i>Not George?</i>”</p> + +<p>Taffy stood there so still that the rabbits crept out and, catching +sight of him, paused in the mouths of their burrows. When at length +he moved on it was to take, not the path which wound inland to +Mendarva’s, but the one which led straight over the higher moors to +Carwithiel.</p> + +<p>It was between one and two o’clock when he reached the house and +asked to see Mr. and Mrs. George Vyell, They were not at home, the +footman said; had left for Falmouth the evening before to join some +friends on a yachting cruise. Sir Harry was at home; was, indeed, +lunching at that moment; but would no doubt be pleased to see Mr. +Raymond.</p> + +<p>Sir Harry had finished his lunch, and sat sipping his claret and +tossing scraps of biscuits to the dogs.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Raymond!—thought you were in Oxford. Sit down, my boy; +delighted to see you. Thomas, a knife and fork for Mr. Raymond. +The cutlets are cold, I’m afraid; but I can recommend the cold +saddle, and the ham—it’s a York ham. Go to the sideboard and forage +for yourself. I wanted company. My boy and Honoria are at Falmouth +yachting, and have left me alone. What, you won’t eat? A glass of +claret, then, at any rate.”</p> + +<p>“To tell the truth, Sir Harry,” Taffy began awkwardly. “I’ve come on +a disagreeable business.”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry’s face fell. He hated disagreeable business. He flipped a +piece of biscuit at his spaniel’s nose and sat back, crossing his +legs.</p> + +<p>“Won’t it keep?”</p> + +<p>“To me it’s important.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, fire away then: only help yourself to the claret first.”</p> + +<p>“A girl—Lizzie Pezzack, living over at Langona—has had a child +born—”</p> + +<p>“Stop a moment. Do I know her?—Ah, to be sure—daughter of old +Pezzack, the light-keeper—a brown-coloured girl with her hair over +her eyes. Well, I’m not surprised. Wants money, I suppose? +Who’s the father?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but—damn it all!—somebody knows.” Sir Harry reached for the +bottle and refilled his glass.</p> + +<p>“The one thing I know is that Honoria—Mrs. George, I mean—has heard +about it, and suspects me.”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry lifted his glass and glanced at him over the rim. +“That’s the devil. Does she, now?” He sipped. “She hasn’t been +herself for a day or two—this explains it. I thought it was change +of air she wanted. She’s in the deuce of a rage, you bet.”</p> + +<p>“She is,” said Taffy grimly.</p> + +<p>“There’s no prude like your young married woman. But it’ll blow +over, my boy. My advice to you is to keep out of the way for a +while.”</p> + +<p>“But—but it’s a lie!” broke in the indignant Taffy. “As far as I am +concerned there’s not a grain of truth in it!”</p> + +<p>“Oh—I beg your pardon, I’m sure.” Here Honoria’s terrier (the one +which George had bought for her at Plymouth) interrupted by begging +for a biscuit, and Sir Harry balanced one carefully on its nose. +“On trust—good dog! What does the girl say herself?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. I’ve not seen her.”</p> + +<p>“Then, my dear fellow—it’s awkward, I admit—but I’m dashed if I see +what you expect me to do.” The baronet pulled out a handkerchief and +began flicking the crumbs off his knees.</p> + +<p>Taffy watched him for a minute in silence. He was asking himself why +he had come. Well, he had come in a hot fit of indignation, meaning +to face Honoria and force her to take back the insult of her +suspicion. But after all—suppose George were at the bottom of it? +Clearly Sir Henry knew nothing, and in any case could not be asked to +expose his own son. And Honoria? Let be that she would never +believe—that he had no proof, no evidence even—this were a pretty +way of beginning to discharge his debt to her! The terrier thrust a +cold muzzle against his hand. The room was very still. Sir Harry +poured out another glassful and held out the decanter. “Come, you +must drink; I insist!”</p> + +<p>Taffy looked up. “Thank you, I will.”</p> + +<p>He could now and with a clear conscience. In those quiet moments he +had taken the great resolution. The debt should be paid back, and +with interest; not at five per cent., but at a rate beyond the +creditor’s power of reckoning. For the interest to be guarded for +her should be her continued belief in the man she loved. Yes, +<i>but if George were innocent?</i> Why, then the sacrifice would be +idle; that was all.</p> + +<p>He swallowed the wine, and stood up.</p> + +<p>“Must you be going? I wanted a chat with you about Oxford,” grumbled +Sir Harry; but noting the lad’s face, how white and drawn it was, he +relented, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take it too +seriously, my boy. It’ll blow over—it’ll blow over. Honoria likes +you, I know. We’ll see what the trollop says: and if I get a chance +of putting in a good word, you may depend on me.”</p> + +<p>He walked with Taffy to the door—good, easy man—and waved a hand +from the porch. On the whole, he was rather glad than not to see his +young friend’s back.</p> + + +<p>From his smithy window Mendarva spied Taffy coming along the road, +and stepped out on the green to shake hands with him.</p> + +<p>“Pleased to see your face, my son! You’ll excuse my not asking +’ee inside; but the fact is”—he jerked his thumb towards the +smithy—“we’ve a-got our troubles in there.”</p> + +<p>It came on our youth with something of a shock that the world had +room for any trouble beside his own.</p> + +<p>“’Tis the Dane. He went over to Truro yesterday to the wrastlin’, +an’ got thrawed. I tell’n there’s no call to be shamed. ’Twas Luke +the Wendron fella did it—in the treble play—inside lock backward, +and as pretty a chip as ever I see.” Mendarva began to illustrate it +with foot and ankle, but checked himself, and glanced nervously over +his shoulder. “Isn’ lookin’, I hope? He’s in a terrible pore about +it. Won’t trust hissel’ to spake, and don’t want to see nobody. +But, as I tell’n, there’s no call to be shamed; the fella took the +belt in the las’ round, and turned his man over like a tab. He’s a +proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank ’pon en both ends, and +he’ll rise up in the middle and look at ’ee. There was no one a +patch on en but the Dane; and I’ll back the Dane next time they +clinch. ’Tis a nuisance, though, to have’n like this—with a big job +coming on, too, over to the light-house.”</p> + +<p>Taffy looked steadily at the smith. “What’s doing at the +light-house?”</p> + +<p>“Ha’n’t ’ee heerd?” Mendarva began a long tale, the sum of which was +that the light-house had begun of late to show signs of age, to rock +at times in an ominous manner. The Trinity House surveyor had been +down and reported, and Mendarva had the contract for some immediate +repairs. “But ’tis patching an old kettle, my son. The foundations +be clamped down to the rock, and the clamps have worked loose. +The whole thing’ll have to come down in the end; you mark my words.”</p> + +<p>“But, these repairs?” Taffy interrupted: “You’ll be wanting hands.”</p> + +<p>“Why, o’ course.”</p> + +<p>“And a foreman—a clerk of the works—”</p> + + +<p>While Mendarva was telling his tale, over a hill two miles to the +westward a small donkey-cart crawled for a minute against the +sky-line and disappeared beyond the ridge which hid the towans. +An old man trudged at the donkey’s head; and a young woman sat in the +cart with a bundle in her arms.</p> + +<p>The old man trudged along so deep in thought that when the donkey +without rhyme or reason came to a halt, half-way down the hill, he +too halted, and stood pulling a wisp of grey side-whiskers.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” he said. “You ent goin’ to tell? That’s your las’ +word, is it?”</p> + +<p>The young woman looked down on the bundle and nodded her head.</p> + +<p>“There, that’ll do. If you weant, you weant; I’ve tek’n ’ee back, +an’ us must fit and make the best o’t. The cheeld’ll never be good +for much—born lame like that. But ’twas to be, I s’pose.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie sat dumb, but hugged the bundle closer.</p> + +<p>“’Tis like a judgment. If your mother’d been spared, ’twudn’ have +happened. But ’twas to be, I s’pose. The Lord’s ways be past +findin’ out.”</p> + +<p>He woke up and struck the donkey across the rump.</p> + +<p>“Gwan you! Gee up! What d’ee mean by stoppin’ like that?”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.<br><span class="small">THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP.</span></h2></div> + +<p>The Chief Engineer of the Trinity House was a man of few words. +He and Taffy had spent the afternoon clambering about the rocks below +the light-house, peering into its foundations. Here and there, where +weed coated the rocks and made foothold slippery, he took the hand +which Taffy held out. Now and then he paused for a pinch of snuff. +The round of inspection finished, he took an extraordinarily long +pinch.</p> + +<p>“What’s <i>your</i> opinion?” he asked, cocking his head on one side and +examining the young man much as he had examined the light-house. +“You have one, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; but of course it doesn’t count for much.”</p> + +<p>“I asked for it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I think, sir, we have wasted a year’s work; and if we go +on tinkering we shall waste more.”</p> + +<p>“Pull it down and rebuild, you say?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir; but not on the same rock.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“This rock was ill-chosen. You see, sir, just here a ridge of elvan +crops up through the slate; the rock, out yonder, is good elvan, and +that is why the sea has made an island of it, wearing away the softer +stuff inshore. The mischief here lies in the rock, not in the +light-house.”</p> + +<p>“The sea has weakened our base?”</p> + +<p>“Partly: but the light-house has done more. In a strong gale the +foundations begin to work, and in the chafing the rock gets the worst +of it.”</p> + +<p>“What about concrete?”</p> + +<p>“You might fill up the sockets with concrete; but I doubt, sir, if +the case would hold for any time. The rock is a mere shell in +places, especially on the north-western side.”</p> + +<p>“H’m. You were at Oxford for a time, were you not?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” Taffy answered, wondering.</p> + +<p>“I’ve heard about you. Where do you live?”</p> + +<p>Taffy pointed to the last of a line of three whitewashed cottages +behind the light-house.</p> + +<p>“Alone?”</p> + +<p>“No, sir; with my mother and my grandmother. She is an invalid.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder if your mother would be kind enough to offer me a cup of +tea?”</p> + +<p>In the small kitchen, on the walls of which, and even on the dresser, +Taffy’s books fought for room with Humility’s plates and tin-ware, +the Chief Engineer proved to be a most courteous old gentleman. +Towards Humility he bore himself with an antique politeness which +flattered her considerably. And when he praised her tea she almost +forgave him for his detestable habit of snuff-taking.</p> + +<p>He had heard something (it appeared) from the President of Taffy’s +college, and also from—(he named Taffy’s old friend in the velvet +college-cap). In later days Taffy maintained not only that every man +must try to stand alone, but that he ought to try the harder because +of its impossibility; for in fact it was impossible to escape from +men’s helpfulness. And though his work was done in lonely places +where in the end fame came out to seek him, he remained the same boy +who, waking in the dark, had heard the bugles speaking comfort.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact his college had generously offered him a chance +which would have cost him nothing or next to nothing, of continuing +to read for his degree. But he had chosen his line, and against +Humility’s entreaties he stuck to it. The Chief Engineer took a +ceremonious leave. He had to drive back to his hotel, and Taffy +escorted him to his carriage.</p> + +<p>“I shall run over again to-morrow,” he said at parting; “and we’ll +have a look at that island rock.” He was driven off, secretly a +little puzzled.</p> + +<p>Well, it puzzled Taffy at times why he should be working here with +Mendarva’s men for twenty shillings a week (it had been eighteen, to +begin with) when he might be reading for his degree and a fellowship. +Yet in his heart he knew the reason. <i>That</i> would be building, after +all, on the foundations which Honoria had laid.</p> + +<p>Pride had helped chance to bring him here, to the very spot where +Lizzie Pezzack lived. He met her daily, and several times a day. +She, and his mother and grandmother, were all the women-folk in the +hamlet—if three cottages deserve that name. In the first cottage +Lizzie lived with her father, who was chief light-houseman, and her +crippled child; two under-keepers, unmarried men, managed together in +the second; and this accident allowed Taffy to rent the third from +the Brethren of the Trinity House and live close to his daily work. +Unless brought by business, no one visited that windy peninsula; no +one passed within sight of it; no tree grew upon it or could be seen +from it. At daybreak Taffy’s workmen came trudging along the track +where the short turf and gentians grew between the wheel-ruts; and in +the evening went trudging back, the level sun flashing on their empty +dinner-cans. The eight souls left behind had one common gospel— +Cleanliness. Very little dust found its way thither; but the salt, +spray-laden air kept them constantly polishing window-panes and +brass-work. To wash, to scour, to polish, grew into the one +absorbing business of life. They had no gossip; even in their own +dwellings they spoke but little; their speech shrank and dwindled +away in the continuous roar of the sea. But from morning to night, +mechanically, they washed and scoured and polished. Paper was not +whiter than the deal table and dresser which Humility scrubbed daily +with soap and water, and once a week with lemon-juice as well. +Never was cleaner linen to sight and smell than that which she pegged +out by the furze-brake on the ridge. All the life of the small +colony, though lonely, grew wholesome as it was simple of purpose in +cottages thus sweetened and kept sweet by limewash and the salt wind.</p> + +<p>And through it moved the forlorn figure of Lizzie Pezzack’s child. +Somehow Lizzie had taught the boy to walk, with the help of a crutch, +as early as most children; but the wind made cruel sport with his +first efforts in the open, knocking the crutch from under him at +every third step, and laying him flat. The child had pluck, however; +and when autumn came round again, could face a fairly stiff breeze.</p> + + +<p>It was about this time that word came of the Trinity Board’s +intention to replace the old lighthouse with one upon the outer rock. +For the Chief Engineer had visited it and decided that Taffy was +right. To be sure no mention was made of Taffy in his report; but +the great man took the first opportunity to offer him the post of +foreman of the works, so there was certainly nothing to be grumbled +at. The work did not actually start until the following spring; for +the rock, to receive the foundations, had to be bored some feet below +high-water level, and this could only be attempted on calm days or +when a southerly wind blew from the high land well over the workmen’s +heads, leaving the inshore water smooth. On such days Taffy, looking +up from his work, would catch sight of a small figure on the +cliff-top leaning aslant to the wind and watching.</p> + +<p>For the child was adventurous and took no account of his lameness. +Perhaps if he thought of it at all, having no chance to compare +himself with other children, he accepted his lameness as a condition +of childhood—something he would grow out of. His mother could not +keep him indoors; he fidgeted continually. But he would sit or stand +quiet by the hour on the cliff-top watching the men as they drilled +and fixed the dynamite, and waiting for the bang of it. Best of all, +however, were the days when his grandfather allowed him inside the +light-house, to clamber about the staircase and ladders, to watch the +oiling and trimming of the great lantern, and the ships moving slowly +on the horizon. He asked a thousand questions about them.</p> + +<p>“I think,” said he one day before he was three years old, “that my +father is in one of those ships.”</p> + +<p>“Bless the child!” exclaimed old Pezzack. “Who says you have a +father?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Everybody</i> has a father. Dicky Tregenza has one; they both work +down at the rock. I asked Dicky, and he told me.”</p> + +<p>“Told ’ee what?”</p> + +<p>“That everybody has a father. I asked him if mine was out in one of +those ships, and he said very likely. I asked mother, too, but she +was washing-up and wouldn’t listen.”</p> + +<p>Old Pezzack regarded the child grimly. “’Twas to be, I s’pose,” he +muttered.</p> + +<p>Lizzie Pezzack had never set foot inside the Raymonds’ cottage. +Humility, gentle soul as she was, could on some points be as +unchristian as other women. As time went on it seemed that not a +soul beside herself and Taffy knew of Honoria’s suspicion. She even +doubted, and Taffy doubted too, if Lizzie herself knew such an +accusation had been made. Certainly never by word or look had Lizzie +hinted at it. Yet Humility could not find it in her heart to +forgive her. “She may be innocent,” was the thought; “but through +her came the injury to my son.” Taffy by this time had no doubt at +all. It was George who poisoned Honoria’s ear; George’s shame and +Honoria’s pride would explain why the whisper had never gone +further; and nothing else would explain.</p> + +<p>Did his mother guess this? He believed so at times, but they never +spoke of it.</p> + +<p>The lame child was often in the Raymonds’ kitchen. Lizzie did not +forbid or resent this. And he liked Humility, and would talk to her +at length while he nibbled one of her dripping-cakes. “People don’t +tell the truth,” he observed sagely on one of these occasions. +(He pronounced it “troof,” by the way.) “<i>I</i> know why we live here. +It’s because we’re near the sea. My father’s on the sea somewhere +looking for us, and grandfather lights the lamp every night to tell +him where we are. One night he’ll see it and bring his ship in and +take us all off together.”</p> + +<p>“Who told you all this?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody. People won’t tell me nothing (nofing). I has to make it +out in my head.”</p> + +<p>At times, when his small limbs grew weary (though he never +acknowledged this) he would stretch himself on the short turf of the +headland and lie staring up at the white gulls. No one ever came +near enough to surprise the look which then crept over the child’s +face. But Taffy, passing him at a distance, remembered another small +boy, and shivered to remember and compare—</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”</span><br> +</p> +<p>—But how when the boy is a cripple?</p> + +<p>One afternoon he was stooping to inspect an obstinate piece of boring +when the man at his elbow said:</p> + +<p>“Hullo! edn’ that young Joey Pezzack in diffities up there? Blest if +the cheeld won’t break his neck wan of these days!”</p> + +<p>Taffy caught up a coil of rope, sprang into a boat, and pushed across +to land. “Don’t move!” he shouted. At the foot of the cliff he +picked up Joey’s crutch and ran at full speed up the path worn by the +workmen. This led him round to the verge ten feet above the ledge +where the child clung white and silent. He looped the rope in a +running noose and lowered it.</p> + +<p>“Slip this under your arms. Can you manage, or shall I come down? +I’ll come if you’re hurt.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve twisted my foot. It’s all right, now you’re come,” said the +little man bravely; and slid the rope round himself in the most +business-like way.</p> + +<p>“The grass was slipper—” he began, as soon as his feet touched firm +earth: and with that he broke down and fell to sobbing in Taffy’s +arms.</p> + +<p>Taffy carried him—a featherweight—to the cottage where Lizzie stood +by her table washing up. She saw them at the gate and came running +out.</p> + +<p>“It’s all right. He slipped—out on the cliff. Nothing more than a +scratch or two, and perhaps a sprained ankle.”</p> + +<p>He watched while she set Joey in a chair and began to pull off his +stockings. He had never seen the child’s foot naked. She turned +suddenly, caught him looking, and pulled the stocking back over the +deformity.</p> + +<p>“Have you heard?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“<i>She</i> has a boy! Ah!” she laughed harshly, “I thought that would +hurt you. Well, you <i>have</i> been a silly!”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I understand.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t think you understand!” she mimicked. “And you’re not fond +of her, eh? Never were fond of her, eh? You silly—to let him take +her, and never tell!”</p> + +<p>“Tell?”</p> + +<p>She faced him, hardening her gaze. “Yes, tell—” She nodded slowly; +while Joey, unobserved by either, looked up with wide, round eyes.</p> + +<p>“Men don’t fight like that.” The words were out before it struck him +that one man had, almost certainly, fought like that. Her face, +however, told him nothing. She could not know. “<i>You</i> have never +told,” he added.</p> + +<p>“Because—” she began, but could not tell him the whole truth. +And yet what he said was true. “Because you would not let me,” she +muttered.</p> + +<p>“In the churchyard, you mean—on her wedding day?”</p> + +<p>“Before that.”</p> + +<p>“But before that I never guessed.”</p> + +<p>“All the same I knew what you were. You wouldn’ have let me. +It came to the same thing. And if I had told—Oh, you make it hard +for me!” she wailed.</p> + +<p>He stared at her, understanding this only—that somehow he could +control her will.</p> + +<p>“I will never let you tell,” he said gravely.</p> + +<p>“I hate her!”</p> + +<p>“You shall not tell.”</p> + +<p>“Listen”—she drew close and touched his arm. “He never cared for +her; it’s not his way to care. She cares for him now, I dessay—not +as she might have cared for <i>you</i>—but she’s his wife, and some women +are like that. There’s her pride, any way. Suppose—suppose he came +back to me?”</p> + +<p>“If I caught him—” Taffy began: but the poor child, who for two +minutes had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a +wail:</p> + +<p>“Oh, mother! my foot—it hurts so!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.<br><span class="small">FACE TO FACE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>The first winter had interrupted all work upon the rock; but Taffy +and his men had used the calm days of the following spring and summer +to such purpose that before the end of July the foundations began to +show above high-water neaps, and in September he was able to report +that the building could be pushed forward in any ordinary weather. +The workmen were carried to and from the mainland by a wire hawser +and cradle, and the rising breastwork of masonry protected them from +the beat of the sea. Progress was slow, for each separate stone had +to be dovetailed above, below, and on all sides with the blocks +adjoining it, besides being cemented; and care to be taken that no +salt mingled with the fresh water, or found its way into the joints +of the building. Taffy studied the barometer hour by hour, and kept +a constant look-out to windward against sudden gales.</p> + +<p>On November 16th the men had finished their dinner, and sat smoking +under the lee of the wall, when Taffy, with his pocket-aneroid in his +hand, gave the order to snug down and man the cradle for shore. +They stared. The morning had been a halcyon one; and the northerly +breeze, which had sprung up with the turn of the tide and was +freshening, carried no cloud across the sky. Two vessels, +a brigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching +down-channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles’ +distance they could see distinctly the white foam running from her +bluff bows, and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as she +heeled to it.</p> + +<p>One or two grumbled. Half a day’s work meant half a day’s pay to +them. It was all very well for the Cap’n, who drew his by the week.</p> + +<p>“Come, look alive!” Taffy called sharply. He pinned his faith to +the barometer, and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the +brigantine and saw that her crew were busy with the braces, +flattening the forward canvas. “See there, boys. There’ll be a gale +from the west’ard before night.”</p> + +<p>For a minute the brigantine seemed to have run into a calm. +The schooner, half a mile behind her, came reaching along steadily.</p> + +<p>“That there two-master’s got a fool for a skipper,” grumbled a voice. +But almost at the moment the wind took her right aback—or would have +done so had the crew not been preparing for it. Her stern swung +slowly around into view, and within two minutes she was fetching away +from them on the port tack, her sails hauled closer and closer as she +went. Already the schooner was preparing to follow suit.</p> + +<p>“Snug down, boys! We must be out of this in half an hour.”</p> + +<p>And sure enough, by the time Taffy gained the cliff by the old +light-house, the sky had darkened, and a stiff breeze from the +north-west, crossing the tide, was beginning to work up a nasty sea +around the rock and lop it from time to time over the masonry and the +platforms where half an hour before his men had been standing. +The two vessels had disappeared in the weather; and as Taffy stared +in their direction a spit of rain—the first—took him viciously in +the face.</p> + +<p>He turned his back to it and hurried homeward. As he passed the +light-house door old Pezzack called out to him:</p> + +<p>“Hi! wait a bit! Would ’ee mind seein’ Joey home? I dunno what his +mother sent him over here for, not I. He’ll get hisself leakin’.”</p> + +<p>Joey came hobbling out, and put his right hand in Taffy’s with the +fist doubled.</p> + +<p>“What’s that in your hand?”</p> + +<p>Joey looked up shyly. “You won’t tell?”</p> + +<p>“Not if it’s a secret.”</p> + +<p>The child opened his palm and disclosed a bright half-crown piece.</p> + +<p>“Where on earth did you get that?”</p> + +<p>“The soldier gave it to me.”</p> + +<p>“The soldier? nonsense! What tale are you making up?”</p> + +<p>“Well, he had a red coat, so he <i>must</i> be a soldier. He gave it to +me, and told me to be a good boy and run off and play.”</p> + +<p>Taffy came to a halt. “Is he here—up at the cottages?”</p> + +<p>“How funnily you say that! No, he’s just rode away. I watched him +from the light-house windows. He can’t be gone far yet.”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Joey—can you run?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if you hold my hand; only you mustn’t go too fast. Oh, you’re +hurting!”</p> + +<p>Taffy took the child in his arms, and with the wind at his back went +up the hill with long stride. “There he is!” cried Joey as they +gained the ridge; and he pointed; and Taffy, looking along the ridge, +saw a speck of scarlet moving against the lead-coloured moors—half a +mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the +cottages were close by. “Run home, sonny. I’m going to have a look +at the soldier, too.”</p> + +<p>The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to +run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and +within a quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin. +So fiercely it went howling inland along the ridge that he half +expected to see the horse urged into a gallop before it. But the +rider, now standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went +plodding on. For a while horse and man disappeared over the rise; +but Taffy guessed that on hitting the cross-path beyond it they would +strike away to the left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he +began to slant his course to the left in anticipation. The tide, he +knew, would be running in strong; and with this wind behind it he +hoped—and caught himself praying—that it would be high enough to +cover the wooden foot-bridge and make the ford impassable; and if so, +the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and fetch a +circuit farther up the valley.</p> + +<p>By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other’s heels, and +the strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost +his hat, and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots. +But all he felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there +little by little for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his +silent thoughts as a reservoir by small mountain streams; and with so +tranquil a surface that at times—poor youth!—he had honestly +believed it reflected God’s calm, had been proud of his magnanimity, +and said “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass +against us.” Now as he ran he prayed to the same God to delay the +traitor at the ford.</p> + +<p>Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the +sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when the +small waves lapped against his mare’s fore-feet, he heard Taffy’s +shout for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a +second or two before he recognised the figure which came plunging +down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches +at the swaying elder boughs.</p> + +<p>“Hello!” he shouted cheerfully. “Looks nasty, doesn’t it?”</p> + +<p>Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare’s legs +were plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy’s face.</p> + +<p>“Get down,” he panted.</p> + +<p>“Hey?”</p> + +<p>“Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse and put up your fists!”</p> + +<p>“What the devil is the matter? Hello!... Keep off, I tell you! +Are you mad?”</p> + +<p>“Come off and fight.”</p> + +<p>“By God, I’ll break your head in if you don’t let go.... You +idiot!”—as the mare plunged and tore the stirrup-leather from +Taffy’s grip—“She’ll brain you, if you fool round her heels like +that!”</p> + +<p>“Come off, then.”</p> + +<p>“Very well.” George backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle +and faced him on the beach. “Now perhaps you’ll explain.”</p> + +<p>“You’ve come from the headland?”</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“From Lizzie Pezzack’s.”</p> + +<p>“Well, and what then?”</p> + +<p>“Only this, that so sure as you’ve a wife at home, if you come to the +headland again I’ll kill you; and if you’re a man, you’ll put up your +fists now.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s it? May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with +Lizzie Pezzack?”</p> + +<p>“Whose child is Lizzie’s?”</p> + +<p>“Not yours, is it?”</p> + +<p>“You said so once; you told your wife so; liar that you were.”</p> + +<p>“Very good, my gentleman. You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!” +He led her up the beach and sought for a branch to tie his reins to. +The mare hung back, terrified by the swishing of the whipped boughs +and the roar of the gale overhead: her hoofs, as George dragged her +forward, scuffled with the loose-lying stones on the beach. After a +minute he desisted and turned on Taffy again.</p> + +<p>“Look here; before we have this out there’s one thing I’d like to +know. When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you there?”</p> + +<p>“If you must know—yes.”</p> + +<p>“And when—when this happened, she stopped the supplies?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I didn’t know it. She never told me.”</p> + +<p>“She never told <i>me</i>.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t say—”</p> + +<p>“I do. I never knew it until too late.”</p> + +<p>“Well, now, I’m going to fight you. I don’t swallow being called a +liar. But I tell you this first, that I’m damned sorry. I never +guessed that it injured your prospects.”</p> + +<p>At another time, in another mood, Taffy might have remembered that +George was George, and heir to Sir Harry’s nature. As it was, the +apology threw oil on the flame.</p> + +<p>“You cur! Do you think it was <i>that?</i> And <i>you</i> are Honoria’s +husband!” He advanced with an ugly laugh. “For the last time, put up +your fists.”</p> + +<p>They had been standing within two yards of each other; and even so, +shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above +the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip. +His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was +dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against +sudden attack.</p> + +<p>But as he did so his face and uplifted arm were suddenly painted +clear against the darkness. The mare plunged more wildly than ever. +Taffy dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him, the black +contour of the hill, the whole sky welled up a pale blue light which +gathered brightness while he stared. The very stones on the beach at +his feet shone separate and distinct.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” George gasped.</p> + +<p>“A ship on the rocks! Quick, man! Will the mare reach to Innis?”</p> + +<p>“She’ll have to.” George wheeled her round. She was fagged out with +two long gallops after hounds that day, but for the moment sheer +terror made her lively enough.</p> + +<p>“Ride, then! Call up the coast-guard. By the flare she must be +somewhere off the creek here. Ride!”</p> + +<p>A clatter of hoofs answered him as the mare pounded up the lane.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.<br><span class="small">THE WRECK OF THE “SAMARITAN.”</span></h2></div> + +<p>Taffy stood for a moment listening. He judged the wreck to be +somewhere on the near side of the light-house, between it and the +mouth of the creek; that was, if she had already struck. If not, the +gale and the set of the tide together would be sweeping her eastward, +perhaps right across the mouth of the creek. And if he could +discover this his course would be to run back, intercept the +coast-guard, and send him around by the upper bridge.</p> + +<p>He waited for a second signal to guide him—a flare or a rocket: but +none came. The beach lay in the lew of the weather, deep in the +hills’ hollow and trebly land-locked by the windings of the creek, +but above him the sky kept its screaming as though the bare ridges of +the headland were being shelled by artillery.</p> + +<p>He resolved to keep along the lower slopes and search his way down to +the creek’s mouth, when he would have sight of any signal shown along +the coast for a mile or two to the east and north-east. The night +was now as black as a wolf’s throat, but he knew every path and +fence. So he scrambled up the low cliff and began to run, following +the line of stunted oaks and tamarisks which fenced it, and on the +ridges—where the blown hail took him in the face—crouching and +scuttling like a crab sideways, moving his legs only from the knees +down.</p> + +<p>In this way he had covered half a mile and more when his right foot +plunged in a rabbit hole and he was pitched headlong into the +tamarisks below. Their boughs bent under his weight, but they were +tough, and he caught at them, and just saved himself from rolling +over into the black water. He picked himself up and began to rub his +twisted ankle. And at that instant, in a lull between two gusts, his +ear caught the sound of splashing, yet a sound so unlike the lapping +of the driven tide that he peered over and down between the tamarisk +boughs.</p> + +<p>“Hullo there!”</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” a voice answered. “Is that someone alive? Here, mate—for +Christ’s sake!”</p> + +<p>“Hold on! Whereabouts are you?”</p> + +<p>“Down in this here cruel water.” The words ended in a shuddering +cough.</p> + +<p>“Right—hold on for a moment!” Taffy’s ankle pained him, but the +wrench was not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down, +clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. “Where are +you? I can’t see.”</p> + +<p>“Here!” The voice was not a dozen yards away.</p> + +<p>“Swimming?”</p> + +<p>“No—I’ve got a water-breaker—can’t hold on much longer.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you can touch bottom there.”</p> + +<p>“Hey? I can’t hear.”</p> + +<p>“Try to touch bottom. It’s firm sand hereabouts.”</p> + +<p>“So I can.” The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close. +Taffy stretched out a hand. A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it +in the darkness.</p> + +<p>“Christ! Where’s a place to lie down?”</p> + +<p>“Here, on this rock.” They peered at each other, but could not see. +The man’s teeth chattered close to Taffy’s ear.</p> + +<p>“Warm my hands, mate—there’s a good chap.” He lay on the rock and +panted. Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly.</p> + +<p>“Where’s the ship?”</p> + +<p>“Where’s the ship?” He seemed to turn over the question in his mind, +and then stretched himself with a sigh. “How the hell should I +know?”</p> + +<p>“What’s her name?” Taffy had to ask the question twice.</p> + +<p>“The <i>Samaritan</i>, of Newport, brigantine. Coals she carried. +Ha’n’t you such a thing as a match? It seems funny to me, talkin’ +here like this, and me not knowin’ you from Adam.”</p> + +<p>He panted between the words, and when he had finished lay back and +panted again.</p> + +<p>“Hurt?” asked Taffy after a while.</p> + +<p>The man sat up and began to feel his limbs, quite as though they +belonged to some other body. “No, I reckon not.”</p> + +<p>“Then we’d best be starting. The tide’s rising. My house is just +above here.”</p> + +<p>He led the way along the slippery foreshore until he found what he +sought, a foot-track slanting up the cliff. Here he gave the sailor +a hand and they mounted together. On the grass slope above they met +the gale and were forced to drop on their hands and knees and crawl, +Taffy leading and shouting instructions, the sailor answering each +with “Ay, ay, mate!” to show that he understood.</p> + +<p>But about half-way up these answers ceased, and Taffy, looking round +and calling, found himself alone. He groped his way back for twenty +yards, and found the man stretched on his face and moaning.</p> + +<p>“I can’t... I can’t! My poor brother! I can’t!”</p> + +<p>Taffy knelt beside him on the soaking turf. “Your brother? Had you +a brother on board?”</p> + +<p>The man bowed his face again upon the turf. Taffy, upright on both +knees, heard him sobbing like a child in the roaring darkness.</p> + +<p>“Come,” he coaxed, and putting out a hand, touched his wet hair. +“Come.” They crept forward again, but still as he followed the +sailor cried for his drowned brother, up the long slope to the ridge +of the headland, where, with the light-house and warm cottage windows +in view, all speech and hearing were drowned by stinging hail and the +blown grit of the causeway.</p> + +<p>Humility opened the door to them.</p> + +<p>“Taffy! Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>“There has been a wreck.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes—the coast-guard is down by the light-house. The men there +saw her before she struck. They kept signalling till it fell dark. +They had sent off before that.”</p> + +<p>She drew back, shrinking against the dresser as the lamplight fell on +the stranger. Taffy turned and stared too. The man’s face was +running with blood; and looking at his own hands he saw that they +also were scarlet.</p> + +<p>He helped the poor wretch to a chair.</p> + +<p>“Bandages: can you manage?” She nodded, and stepped to a cupboard. +The sailor began to wail again like an infant.</p> + +<p>“See—above the temple here: the cut isn’t serious.” Taffy took down +a lantern and lit it. The candle shone red through the smears his +fingers left on the horn panes. “I must go and help, if you can +manage.”</p> + +<p>“I can manage,” she answered quietly.</p> + +<p>He strode out, and closing the door behind him with an effort, faced +the gale again. Down in the lee of the light-house the lamps of the +coast-guard carriage gleamed foggily through the rain. The men were +there discussing, George among them. He had just galloped up.</p> + +<p>The Chief Officer went off to question the survivor, while the rest +began their search. They searched all that night; they burned flares +and shouted; their torches dotted the cliffs. After an hour the Chief +Officer returned. He could make nothing of the sailor, who had fallen +silly from exhaustion or the blow on his head; but he divided his men +into three parties, and they began to hunt more systematically. Taffy +was told off to help the westernmost gang and search the rocks below +the light-house. Once or twice he and his comrades paused in their +work, hearing, as they thought, a cry for help. But when they listened, +it was only one of the other parties hailing.</p> + +<p>The gale began to abate soon after midnight, and before dawn had blown +itself out. Day came, filtered slowly through the wrack of it to the +south-east; and soon they heard a whistle blown, and there on the cliff +above them was George Vyell on horseback, in his red coat, with an arm +thrown out and pointing eastward. He turned and galloped off in that +direction.</p> + +<p>They scrambled up and followed. To their astonishment, after following +the cliffs for a few hundred yards, he headed inland, down and across +the very slope up which Taffy had crawled with the sailor.</p> + +<p>They lost sight of his red coat among the ridges. Two or three— Taffy +amongst them—ran along the upper ground for a better view.</p> + +<p>“Well, this beats all!” panted the foremost.</p> + +<p>Below them George came into view again, heading now at full gallop for +a group of men gathered by the shore of the creek, a good half-mile +from its mouth. And beyond—midway across the sandy bed where the +river wound—lay the hull of a vessel, high and dry; her deck, naked +of wheelhouse and hatches, canted toward them as if to cover from the +morning the long wounds ripped by her uprooted masts.</p> + +<p>The men beside him shouted and ran on, but Taffy stood still. It was +monstrous—a thing inconceivable—that the seas should have lifted +a vessel of three hundred tons and carried her half a mile up that +shallow creek. Yet there she lay. A horrible thought seized him. Could +she have been there last night when he had drawn the sailor ashore? And +had he left four or five others to drown close by, in the darkness? No, +the tide at that hour had scarcely passed half-flood. He thanked God +for that.</p> + +<p>Well, there she lay, high and dry, with plenty to attend to her. It was +time for him to discover the damage done to the light-house plant and +machinery, perhaps to the building itself. In half an hour the workmen +would be arriving.</p> + +<p>He walked slowly back to the house, and found Humility preparing +breakfast.</p> + +<p>“Where is he?” Taffy asked, meaning the sailor. “In bed?”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t you meet him? He went out five minutes ago—I couldn’t keep +him—to look for his brother, he said.”</p> + +<p>Taffy drank a cupful of tea, took up a crust, and made for the door.</p> + +<p>“Go to bed, dear,” his mother pleaded. “You must be worn out.”</p> + +<p>“I must see how the works have stood it.”</p> + +<p>On the whole, they had stood it well. The gale, indeed, had torn away +the wire table and cage, and thus cut off for the time all access +to the outer rock; for while the sea ran at its present height the +scramble out along the ridge could not be attempted even at low water. +But from the cliff he could see the worst. The waves had washed over +the building, tearing off the temporary covers, and churning all +within. Planks, scaffolding—everything floatable—had gone, and +strewed the rock with matchwood; and—a marvel to see—one of his two +heaviest winches had been lifted from inside, hurled clean over the +wall, and lay collapsed in the wreckage of its cast-iron frame. But, +so far as he could see, the dovetailed masonry stood intact. A voice +hailed him.</p> + +<p>“What a night! What a night!”</p> + +<p>It was old Pezzack, aloft on the gallery of the light-house in his +yellow oilers, already polishing the lantern panes.</p> + +<p>Taffy’s workmen came straggling and gathered about him. They discussed +the damage together but without addressing Taffy; until a little +pock-marked fellow, the wag of the gang, nudged a mate slily and said +aloud—</p> + +<p>“By God, Bill, we <i>can</i> build a bit—you and me and the boss!”</p> + +<p>All the men laughed; and Taffy laughed too, blushing. Yes; this had +been in his mind. He had measured his work against the sea in its fury, +and the sea had not beaten him.</p> + +<p>A cry broke in upon their laughter. It came from the base of the cliff +to the right: a cry so insistent that they ran toward it in a body.</p> + +<p>Far below them, on the edge of a great boulder which rose from the +broken water and seemed to overhang it, stood the rescued sailor. He +was pointing.</p> + +<p>Taffy was the first to reach him!</p> + +<p>“It’s my brother! It’s my brother Sam!”</p> + +<p>Taffy flung himself full length on the rock and peered over. A tangle +of ore-weed awash rose and fell about its base; and from under this, as +the frothy waves drew back, he saw a man’s ankle protruding, and a foot +still wearing a shoe.</p> + +<p>“It’s my brother!” wailed the sailor again. “I can swear to the shoe of +en!”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.<br><span class="small">SALVAGE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>One of the masons lowered himself into the pool, and thrusting an arm +beneath the ore-weed, began to grope.</p> + +<p>“He’s pinned here. The rock’s right on top of him.”</p> + +<p>Taffy examined the rock. It weighed fifteen tons if an ounce; but there +were fresh and deep scratches upon it. He pointed these out to the men, +who looked and felt them with their hands and stared at the subsiding +waves, trying to bring their minds to the measure of the spent gale.</p> + +<p>“Here, I must get out of this!” said the man in the pool, as a small +wave dashed in and sent its spray over his bowed shoulders.</p> + +<p>“You ban’t going to leave en?” wailed the sailor. “You ban’t going to +leave my brother Sam?”</p> + +<p>He was a small, fussy man, with red whiskers; and even his sorrow gave +him little dignity. The men were tender with him.</p> + +<p>“Nothing to be done till the tide goes back.”</p> + +<p>“But you won’t leave en? Say you won’t leave en! He’ve a wife and three +children. He was a saved man, sir, a very religious man; not like me, +sir. He was highly respected in the neighbourhood of St. Austell. I +shouldn’t wonder if the newspapers had a word about en...” The tears +were running down his face.</p> + +<p>“We must wait for the tide,” said Taffy gently, and tried to lead him +away, but he would not go. So they left him to watch and wait while +they returned to their work.</p> + +<p>Before noon they recovered and fixed the broken wire cable. The iron +cradle had disappeared, but to rig up a sling and carry out an endless +line was no difficult job, and when this was done Taffy crossed over +to the island rock and began to inspect damages. His working gear had +suffered heavily, two of his windlasses were disabled, scaffolding, +platforms, hods, and loose planks had vanished; a few small tools only +remained, mixed together in a mash of puddled lime. But the masonry +stood unhurt, all except a few feet of the upper course on the seaward +side, where the gale, giving the cement no time to set, had shaken the +dove-tailed stones in their sockets—a matter easily repaired.</p> + +<p>Shortly before three a shout recalled them to the mainland. The tide +was drawing towards low water, and three of the men set to work at once +to open a channel and drain off the pool about the base of the big +rock. While this was doing, half a dozen splashed in with iron bars and +pickaxes; the rest rigged two stout ropes with tackles, and hauled. +The stone did not budge. For more than an hour they prised and levered +and strained. And all the while the sailor ran to and fro, snatching +up now a pick and now a crowbar, now lending a hand to haul, and again +breaking off to lament aloud.</p> + +<p>The tide turned, the winter dark came down, and at half-past four Taffy +gave the word to desist. They had to hold back the sailor, or he would +have jumped in and drowned beside his brother.</p> + +<p>Taffy slept little that night, though he needed sleep. The salving of +this body had become almost a personal dispute between the sea and him. +The gale had shattered two of his windlasses; but two remained, and by +one o’clock next day he had both slung over to the mainland and fixed +beside the rock. The news spreading inland fetched two or three score +onlookers before ebb of tide—miners for the most part, whose help +could be counted on. The men of the coast-guard had left the wreck, to +bear a hand if needed. George had come too. And happening to glance +upwards while he directed his men, Taffy saw a carriage with two horses +drawn up on the grassy edge of the cliff: a groom at the horses’ heads +and in the carriage a figure seated, silhouetted there high against +the clear blue heaven. Well he recognised, even at that distance, the +poise of her head, though for almost four years he had never set eyes +on her,—nor had wished to.</p> + +<p>He knew that her eyes were on him now. He felt like a general on the +eve of an engagement. By the almanac the tide would not turn until +4.35. At four, perhaps, they could begin; but even at four the winter +twilight would be on them, and he had taken care to provide torches and +distribute them among the crowd. His own men were making the most of +the daylight left, drilling holes for dear life in the upper surface of +the boulder, and fixing the Lewis-wedges and rings. They looked to him +for every order, and he gave it in a clear, ringing voice which he knew +must carry to the cliff top. He did not look at George.</p> + +<p>He felt sure in his own mind that the wedges and rings would hold; +but to make doubly sure he gave orders to loop an extra chain under +the jutting base of the boulder. The mason who fixed it, standing +waist-high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched +it round the ankle of the dead man. The dead man’s brother jumped down +beside him and grasped the slack of it.</p> + +<p>At a signal from Taffy the crowd began to light their torches. He +looked at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the +windlasses. Then with a glance towards the cliff he started the +working chant—“<i>Ayee-ho, Ayee-ho!</i>” The two gangs—twenty men to each +windlass—took it up with one voice, and to the deep intoned chant the +chains tautened, shuddered for a moment, and began to lift.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ayee-ho!</i>”</p> + +<p>Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed. To Taffy +it seemed an endless time, to the crowd but a few moments before the +brute mass swung clear. A few thrust their torches down towards the pit +where the sailor knelt. Taffy did not look, but gave the word to pass +down the coffin which had been brought in readiness. A clergyman—his +father’s successor, but a stranger to him—climbed down after it: and +he stood in the quiet crowd watching the light-house above and the +lamps which the groom had lit in Honoria’s carriage, and listening to +the bated voices of the few at their dreadful task below.</p> + +<p>It was five o’clock and past before the word came up to lower the +tackle and draw the coffin up. The Vicar clambered out to wait it, and +when it came, borrowed a lantern and headed the bearers. The crowd fell +in behind.</p> + +<p>“I am the resurrection and the life....”</p> + +<p>They began to shuffle forwards and up the difficult track; but +presently came to a halt with one accord, the Vicar ceasing in the +middle of a sentence.</p> + +<p>Out of the night, over the hidden sea, came the sound of men’s voices +lifted, thrilling the darkness thrice: the sound of three British +cheers.</p> + +<p>Whose were the voices? They never knew. A few had noticed as twilight +fell a brig in the offing, standing inshore as she tacked down channel. +She, no doubt, as they worked in their circle of torchlight, had sailed +in close before going about, her crews gathered forward, her master +perhaps watching through his night-glass had guessed the act, saluted +it, and passed on her way unknown to her own destiny.</p> + +<p>They strained their eyes. A man beside Taffy declared he could see +something—the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away. Taffy +could see nothing. The voice ahead began to speak again. The Vicar, +pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was reading from a page +which he held close to his lantern.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold +the land that is very far off.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech +than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou +canst not understand.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“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.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord +is our king; he will save us.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their +mast, they could not spread the sail; then is the prey of a +great spoil divided; the lame take the prey.”</p> + +<p>Here the Vicar turned back a page, and his voice rang higher:</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall +rule in judgment. +<p class="blockquot"> +“And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a +covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as +the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.</p> +<p class="blockquot"> +“And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of +them that hear shall hearken.”</p> + +<p>Now Taffy walked behind, thinking his own thoughts; for the cheers of +those invisible sailors had done more than thrill his heart. A finger, +as it were, had come out of the night and touched his brain, unsealing +the wells and letting in light upon things undreamt of. Through the +bright confusion of this sudden vision the Vicar’s sentences sounded +and fell on his ears unheeded. And yet while they faded that happened +which froze and bit each separate word into his memory, to lose +distinctness only when death should interfere, stop the active brain, +and wipe the slate.</p> + +<p>For while the procession halted and broke up its formation for a moment +on the brow of the cliff, a woman came running into the torchlight.</p> + +<p>“Is my Joey there? Where’s he <i>to</i>, anybody? Hev anyone seen my Joey?”</p> + +<p>It was Lizzie Pezzack, panting and bareheaded, with a scared face.</p> + +<p>“He’s lame—you’d know en. Have ’ee got en there? He’s wandered off!”</p> + +<p>“Hush up, woman,” said a bearer. “Don’t keep such a pore!”</p> + +<p>“The cheeld’s right enough somewheres,” said another. “’Tis a man’s +body we’ve got. Stand out of the way, for shame!”</p> + +<p>But Lizzie, who as a rule shrank away from men and kept herself hidden, +pressed nearer, turning her tragical face upon each in turn. Her eyes +met George’s, but she appealed to him as to the others.</p> + +<p>“He’s wandered off. Oh, say you’ve seen en, somebody!”</p> + +<p>Catching sight of Taffy, she ran and gripped him by the arm.</p> + +<p>“<i>You’ll</i> help! It’s my Joey. Help me find en!”</p> + +<p>He turned half about, and almost before he knew what he sought his eyes +met George’s. George stepped quietly to his side.</p> + +<p>“Let me get my mare,” said George, and walked away toward the +light-house railing where he had tethered her.</p> + +<p>“We’ll find the child. Our work’s done here, Mr. Saul!” Taffy turned to +the Chief Officer. “Spare us a man or two and some flares.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll come myself,” said the Chief Officer. “Go you back, my dear, and +we’ll fetch home your cheeld as right as ninepence. Hi, Rawlings, take +a couple of men and scatter along the cliffs there to the right. Lame, +you say? He can’t have gone far.”</p> + +<p>Taffy, with the Chief Officer and a couple of volunteers, moved off to +the left, and in less than a minute George caught them up, on horseback.</p> + +<p>“I say,” he asked, walking his mare close alongside of Taffy, “you +don’t think this serious, eh?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Joey wasn’t in the crowd, or I should have noticed him. +He’s daring beyond his strength.” He pulled a whistle from his pocket, +blew it twice, and listened. This had been his signal when firing a +charge; he had often blown it to warn the child to creep away into +shelter.</p> + +<p>There was no answer.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Vyell had best trot along the upper slope,” the Chief Officer +suggested, “while we search down by the creek.”</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment,” Taffy answered. “Let’s try the wreck first.”</p> + +<p>“But the tide’s running. He’d never go there.”</p> + +<p>“He’s a queer child. I know him better than you.”</p> + +<p>They ran downhill toward the creek, calling as they went, but getting +no answer.</p> + +<p>“But the wreck!” exclaimed the Chief Officer. “It’s out of reason!”</p> + +<p>“Hi! What was that?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my good Lord,” groaned one of the volunteers, “it’s the crake, +master! It’s Langona crake calling the drowned!”</p> + +<p>“Hush, you fool! Listen—I thought as much! Light a flare. Mr. +Saul—he’s out there calling!”</p> + +<p>The first match spluttered and went out. They drew close around the +Chief Officer while he struck the second to keep off the wind, and in +those few moments the child’s wail reached them distinctly across the +darkness.</p> + +<p>The flame leaped up and shone, and they drew back a pace, shading their +eyes from it and peering into the steel-blue landscape which sprang on +them out of the night. They had halted a few yards only from the cliff, +and the flare cast the shadow of its breast-high fence of tamarisks +forward and almost half-way across the creek, and there on the sands, a +little beyond the edge of this shadow, stood the child.</p> + +<p>They could even see his white face. He stood on an island of sand +around which the tide swirled in silence, cutting him off from the +shore, cutting him off from the wreck behind.</p> + +<p>He did not cry any more, but stood with his crutch planted by the edge +of the widening stream, and looked toward them.</p> + +<p>And Taffy looked at George.</p> + +<p>“I know,” said George quietly, and gathered up his reins. “Stand aside, +please.”</p> + +<p>As they drew aside, not understanding, he called to his mare. +One living creature, at any rate, could still trust all to George +Vyell. She hurtled past them and rose at the tamarisk-hedge blindly. +Followed silence—a long silence; then a thud on the beach below and +a scuffle of stones; silence again, and then the cracking of twigs as +Taffy plunged after, through the tamarisks, and slithered down the +cliff.</p> + +<p>The light died down as his feet touched the flat slippery stones; +died down, and was renewed again and showed up horse and rider scarce +twenty yards ahead, labouring forward, the mare sinking fetlock deep +at every plunge.</p> + +<p>At his fourth stride Taffy’s feet, too, began to sink, but at every +stride he gained something. The riding may be superb, but thirteen +stone is thirteen stone. Taffy weighed less than eleven.</p> + +<p>He caught up with George on the very edge of the water. “Make her +swim it!” he panted. “Her feet mustn’t touch here.” George grunted. +A moment later all three were in the water, the tide swirling them +sideways, sweeping Taffy against the mare. His right hand touched +her flank at every stroke.</p> + +<p>The tide swept them upwards—upwards for fifteen yards at least, +though the channel measured less than eight feet. The child, who had +been standing opposite the point where they took the water, hobbled +wildly along shore. The light on the cliff behind sank and rose +again.</p> + +<p>“The crutch,” Taffy gasped. The child obeyed, laying it flat on the +brink and pushing it toward them. Taffy gripped it with his left +hand, and with his right found the mare’s bridle. George was bending +forward.</p> + +<p>“No—not that way! You can’t get back! The wreck, man!—it’s +firmer—”</p> + +<p>But George reached out his hand and dragged the child towards him and +on to his saddle-bow. “Mine,” he said quietly, and twitched the +rein. The brave mare snorted, jerked the bridle from Taffy’s hand, +and headed back for the shore she had left.</p> + +<p>Rider, horse, and child seemed to fall away from him into the night. He +scrambled out, and snatching the crutch ran along the brink, staring +at their black shadows. By-and-by the shadows came to a standstill. He +heard the mare panting, the creaking of saddle-leather came across the +nine or ten feet of dark water.</p> + +<p>“It’s no go,” said George’s voice; then to the mare, “Sally, my dear, +it’s no go.” A moment later he asked more sharply:</p> + +<p>“How far can you reach?”</p> + +<p>Taffy stepped in until the waves ran by his knees. The sand held his +feet, but beyond this he could not stand against the current. He +reached forward holding the crutch at arm’s length.</p> + +<p>“Can you catch hold?”</p> + +<p>“All right.” Both knew that swimming would be useless now; they were +too near the upper apex of the sand-bank.</p> + +<p>“The child first. Here, Joey, my son! reach out and catch hold for your +life.”</p> + +<p>Taffy felt the child’s grip on the crutch-head, and drawing it +steadily toward him hauled the poor child through. The light from +the cliff sank and rose behind his scared face.</p> + +<p>“Got him?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” The sand was closing around Taffy’s legs, but he managed to +shift his footing a little.</p> + +<p>“Quick, then; the bank’s breaking up.”</p> + +<p>George was sinking, knee-deep and deeper. But his outstretched +fingers managed to reach and hook themselves around the crutch-head.</p> + +<p>“Steady, now... must work you loose first. Get hold of the shaft +if you can: the head isn’t firm. Work your legs... that’s it.”</p> + +<p>George wrenched his left foot loose and planted it against the mare’s +flank. Hitherto she had trusted her master. The thrust of his heel +drove home her sentence, and with scream after scream—the sand +holding her past hope—she plunged and fought for her life. Still as +she screamed, George, silent and panting, thrust against her, thrust +savagely against the quivering body, once his pride for beauty and +fleetness.</p> + +<p>“Pull!” he gasped, freeing his other foot with a wrench which left +its heavy riding-boot deep in the sucking mud; and catching a new +grip on the crutch-head, flung himself forward.</p> + +<p>Taffy felt the sudden weight and pulled—and while he pulled felt in +a moment no grip, no weight at all. Between two hateful screams a +face slid by him, out of reach, silent, with parted lips; and as it +slipped away he fell back staggering, grasping the useless, headless +crutch.</p> + +<p>The mare went on screaming. He turned his back on her, and catching +Joey by the hand dragged him away across the melting island. At the +sixth step the child, hauled off his crippled foot, swung blundering +across his legs. He paused, lifted him in his arms and plunged +forward again.</p> + +<p>The flares on the cliff were growing in number. They cast long +shadows before him. On the far side of the island the tide flowed +swift and steady—a stream about fourteen yards wide—cutting him +from the farther sand-bank on which, not fifty yards above, lay the +wreck. He whispered to Joey, and plunged into it straight, turning +as the water swept him off his legs, and giving his back to it, his +hands slipped under the child’s armpits, his feet thrusting against +the tide in slow, rhythmical strokes.</p> + +<p>The child after the first gasp lay still, his head obediently thrown +back on Taffy’s breast. The mare had ceased to scream. The water +rippled in the ears as each leg-thrust drove them little by little +across the current.</p> + +<p>If George had but listened! It was so easy, after all. The +sand-bank still slid past them, but less rapidly. They were close to +it now, and had only to lie still and be drifted against the leaning +stanchions of the wreck. Taffy flung an arm about one and checked +his way quietly, as a man brings a boat alongside a quay. He hoisted +Joey first upon the stanchion, then up the tilted deck to the gap of +the main hatchway. Within this, with their feet on the steps and +their chests leaning on the side panel of the companion, they rested +and took breath.</p> + +<p>“Cold, sonny?”</p> + +<p>The child burst into tears.</p> + +<p>Taffy dragged off his own coat and wrapped him in it. The small body +crept close, sobbing, against his side.</p> + +<p>Across, on the shore, voices were calling, blue eyes moving. A pair +of yellow lights came towards these, travelling swiftly upon the +hillside. Taffy guessed what they were.</p> + +<p>The yellow lights moved more slowly. They joined the blue ones, and +halted. Taffy listened. But the voices were still now; he heard +nothing but the hiss of the black water, across which those two lamps +sought and questioned him like eyes.</p> + +<p>“God help her!”</p> + +<p>He bowed his face on his arms. A little while, and the sands would +be covered, the boats would put off; a little while.... Crouching +from those eyes he prayed God to lengthen it.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.<br><span class="small">HONORIA.</span></h2></div> + +<p>She was sitting there rigid, cold as a statue, when the rescuers +brought them ashore and helped them up the slope. A small crowd +surrounded the carriage. In the rays of their moving lanterns her +face altered nothing to all their furtive glances of sympathy +opposing the same white mask. Some one said, “There’s only two, +then!” Another, with a nudge and a nod at the carriage, told him to +hold his peace. She heard. Her lips hardened.</p> + +<p>Lizzie Pezzack had rushed down to the shore to meet the boat. +She was bringing her child along with a fond, wild babble of tender +names and sobs and cries of thankfulness. In pauses, choked and +overcome, she caught him to her, felt his limbs, pressed his wet face +against her neck and bosom. Taffy, supported by strong arms and +hurried in her wake, had a hideous sense of being paraded in her +triumph. The men around him who had raised a faint cheer sank their +voices as they neared the carriage; but the woman went forward, +jubilant and ruthless, flaunting her joy as it were a flag blown in +her eyes and blindfolding them to the grief she insulted.</p> + +<p>“Stay!”</p> + +<p>It was Honoria’s voice, cold, incisive, not to be disobeyed. He had +prayed in vain. The procession halted; Lizzie checked her babble and +stood staring, with an arm about Joey’s neck.</p> + +<p>“Let me see the child.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie stared, broke into a silly, triumphant laugh, and thrust the +child forward against the carriage step. The poor waif, drenched, +dazed, tottering without his crutch, caught at the plated handle for +support. Honoria gazed down on him with eyes which took slow and +pitiless account of the deformed little body, the shrunken, puny +limbs.</p> + +<p>“Thank you. So—this—is what my husband died for. Drive on, +please.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes, as she lifted them to give the order, rested for a moment +on Taffy—with how much scorn he cared not, could he have leapt and +intercepted Lizzie’s retort.</p> + +<p>“And why not? A son’s a son—curse you!—though he was your man!”</p> + +<p>It seemed she did not hear; or hearing, did not understand. Her eyes +hardened their fire on Taffy, and he, lapped in their scorn, thanked +God she had not understood.</p> + +<p>“Drive on, please.”</p> + +<p>The coachman lowered his whip. The horses moved forward at a slow +walk; the carriage rolled silently away into the darkness. She had +not understood. Taffy glanced at the faces about him.</p> + +<p>“Ah, poor lady!” said someone. But no one had understood.</p> + + +<p>They found George’s body next morning on the sands a little below the +foot-bridge. He lay there in the morning sunshine as though asleep, +with an arm flung above his head and on his face the easy smile for +which men and women had liked him throughout his careless life.</p> + +<p>The inquest was held next day, in the library at Carwithiel. Sir Harry +insisted on being present, and sat beside the coroner. During Taffy’s +examination his lips were pursed up as though whistling a silent tune. +Once or twice he nodded his head.</p> + +<p>Taffy gave his evidence discreetly. The child had been lost; had been +found in a perilous position. He and deceased had gone together to the +rescue. On reaching the child, deceased—against advice—had attempted +to return across the sands and had fallen into difficulties. In these +his first thought had been for the child, whom he had passed to witness +to drag out of danger. When it came to deceased’s turn the crutch, on +which all depended, had parted in two, and he had been swept away by +the tide.</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of the story Sir Harry took snuff and nodded twice. +Taffy wondered how much he knew. The jury, under the coroner’s +direction, brought in a verdict of “death by misadventure,” and added +a word or two in praise of the dead man’s gallantry. The coroner +complimented Taffy warmly and promised to refer the case to the Royal +Humane Society for public recognition. The jury nodded, and one or two +said “Hear, hear!” Taffy hoped fervently he would do nothing of the +sort.</p> + +<p>The funeral took place on the fourth day, at nine o’clock in the +morning. Such—in the day I write of—was the custom of the country. +Friends who lived at a distance rose and shaved by candle-light, and +daybreak found them horsed and well on their way to the house of +mourning, their errand announced by the long black streamers tied about +their hats. The sad business over and done with, these guests returned +to the house, where until noon a mighty breakfast lasted and all were +welcome. Their black habiliments and lowered voices alone marked the +difference between it and a hunting-breakfast.</p> + +<p>And indeed this morning Squire Willyams, who had taken over the hounds +after Squire Moyle’s death, had given secret orders to his huntsmen; +and the pack was waiting at Three-barrow Turnpike, a couple of miles +inland from Carwithiel. At half-past ten the mourners drained their +glasses, shook the crumbs off their riding-breeches, and took leave; +and after halting outside Carwithiel gates to unpin and pocket their +hat-bands, headed for the meet with one accord.</p> + +<p>A few minutes before noon Squire Willyams, seated on his grey by the +edge of Three-barrow Brake, and listening to every sound within the +covert, happened to glance an eye across the valley, and let out a low +whistle.</p> + +<p>“Well!” said one of a near group of horsemen catching sight of the +rider pricking toward them down the farther slope, “I knew en for +unbeliever; but this beats all!”</p> + +<p>“And his awnly son not three hours under the mould! Brought up in +France as a youngster he was, and this I s’pose is what comes of +reading Voltaire. My lord for manners, and no more heart than a wormed +nut—that’s Sir Harry, and always was.”</p> + +<p>Squire Willyams slewed himself round in his saddle. He spoke quietly at +fifteen yards’ distance, but each word reached the group of horsemen as +clear as a bell.</p> + +<p>“Rablin,” he said, “as a damned fool oblige me during the next few +minutes by keeping your mouth shut.”</p> + +<p>With this he resumed his old attitude and his business of watching the +covert side; removing his eyes for a moment to nod as Sir Harry rode up +and passed on to join the group behind him.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely done so when deep in the undergrowth of blackthorn a +hound challenged.</p> + +<p>“Spendigo for a fiver!—and well found, by the tune of it,” cried Sir +Harry. “See that patch of grey wall, Rablin—there, in a line beyond +the Master’s elbow? I lay you an even guinea that’s where my gentleman +comes over.”</p> + +<p>But honest reprobation mottled the face of Mr. Rablin, squireen; and as +an honest man he spoke out. Let it go to his credit, because as a rule +he was a snob and inclined to cringe.</p> + +<p>“I did not expect”—he cleared his throat—“to see you out to-day, Sir +Harry.”</p> + +<p>Sir Harry winced, and turned on them all a grey, woeful face.</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” he said. “I can’t bide home. I can’t bide home.”</p> + + +<p>Honoria bided home with her child and mourned for the dead. As a clever +woman—far cleverer than her husband—she had seen his faults while +he lived; yet had liked him enough to forgive without difficulty. But +now these faults faded, and by degrees memory reared an altar to him +as a man little short of divine. At the worst he had been amiable. +A kinder husband never lived. She reproached herself bitterly with +the half-heartedness of her response to his love; to his love while +it dwelt beside her, unvarying in cheerful kindness. For (it was the +truth, alas! and a worm that gnawed continually) passionate love she +had never rendered him. She had been content; but how poor a thing +was contentment! She had never divined his worth, had never given her +worship. And all the while he had been a hero, and in the end had died +as a hero. Ah, for one chance to redeem the wrong! for one moment to +bow herself at his feet and acknowledge her blindness! Her prayer was +ancient as widowhood, and Heaven, folding away the irreparable time, +returned its first and last and only solace—a dream for the groping +arms; waking and darkness, and an empty pillow for her tears.</p> + +<p>From the first her child had been dear to her; dearer (so her memory +accused her now) than his father; more demonstratively beloved, at any +rate. But in those miserable months she grew to love him with a double +strength. He bore George’s name, and was (as Sir Harry proclaimed) a +very miniature of George; repeated his shapeliness of limb, his firm +shoulders, his long lean thighs—the thighs of a born horseman; learned +to walk, and lo! within a week walked with his father’s gait; had +smiles for the whole of his small world, and for his mother a memory in +each.</p> + +<p>And yet—this was the strange part of it; a mystery she could not +explain because she dared not even acknowledge it—though she loved him +for being like his father, she regarded the likeness with a growing +dread; nay, caught herself correcting him stealthily when he developed +some trivial trait which she, and she alone, recognised as part of his +father’s legacy. It was what in the old days she would have called +“contradictions,” but there it was, and she could not help it; the +nearer George in her memory approached to faultlessness, the more +obstinately her instinct fought against her child’s imitation of him; +and yet, because the child was obstinately George’s, she loved him with +a double love.</p> + +<p>There came a day when he told her a childish falsehood. She did not +whip him, but stood him in front of her and began to reason with him +and explain the wickedness of an untruth. By-and-by she broke off in +the midst of a sentence, appalled by the shrillness of her own voice. +From argument she had passed to furious scolding. And the little fellow +quailed before her, his contrition beaten down under the storm of words +that whistled about his ears without meaning, his small faculties +disabled before this spectacle of wrath. Her fingers were closing and +unclosing. They wanted a riding-switch; they wanted to grip this small +body they had served and fondled, and to cut out— what? The lie? +Honoria hated a lie. But while she paused and shook, a light flashed, +and her eyes were open and saw—that it was not the lie.</p> + +<p>She turned and ran, ran upstairs to her own room, flung herself on +her knees beside the bed, dragged a locket from her bosom and fell to +kissing George’s portrait, passionately crying it for pardon. She was +wicked, base; while he lived she had misprised him; and this was her +abiding punishment, that not even repentance could purge her heart +of dishonouring thoughts, that her love for him now could never be +stainless though washed with daily tears. “‘<i>He that is unjust, let +him be unjust still</i>.’ <i>Must</i> that be true, Father of all mercies? I +misjudged him, and it is too late for atonement. But I repent and am +afflicted. Though the dead know nothing—though it can never reach or +avail him—give me back the power to be just!”</p> + +<p>Late that afternoon Honoria passed an hour piously in turning over the +dead man’s wardrobe, shaking out and brushing the treasured garments +and folding them, against moth and dust, in fresh tissue paper. It was +a morbid task, perhaps, but it kept George’s image constantly before +her, and this was what her remorseful mood demanded. Her nerves were +unstrung and her limbs languid after the recent tempest. By-and-by she +locked the doors of the wardrobe, and passing into her own bedroom, +flung herself on a couch with a bundle of papers—old bills, soiled and +folded memoranda, sporting paragraphs cut from the newspapers—scraps +found in his pockets months ago and religiously tied by her with a +silken ribbon. They were mementoes of a sort, and George had written +few letters while wooing—not half a dozen first and last.</p> + +<p>Two or three receipted bills lay together in the middle of the +packet—one a saddler’s, a second a nurseryman’s for pot-plants (kept +for the sake of its queer spelling), a third the reckoning for an +hotel luncheon. She was running over them carelessly when the date at +the head of this last one caught her eye. “August 3rd”—it fixed her +attention because it happened to be the day before her birthday.</p> + +<p>August 3rd—such and such a year—the August before his death; and the +hotel a well-known one in Plymouth—the hotel, in fact, at which he had +usually put up.... Without a prompting of suspicion she turned back +and ran her eye over the bill. A steak, a pint of claret, vegetables, +cheese, and attendance—never was a more innocent bill.</p> + +<p>Suddenly her attention stiffened on the date. George was in Plymouth +the day before her birthday. But no; as it happened, George had been in +Truro on that day. She remembered, because he had brought her a diamond +pendant, having written beforehand to the Truro jeweller to get a +dozen down from London to choose from. Yes, she remembered it clearly, +and how he had described his day in Truro. And the next morning—her +birthday morning—he had produced the pendant, wrapped in silver +paper. He had thrown away the case; it was ugly, and he would get her +another....</p> + +<p>But the bill? She had stayed once or twice at this hotel with George, +and recognised the handwriting. The bookkeeper, in compliment perhaps +to a customer of standing, had written “George Vyell, Esq.” in full on +the bill-head, a formality omitted as a rule in luncheon-reckonings. +And if this scrap of paper told the truth— why, <i>then George had lied!</i></p> + +<p>But why? Ah, if he had done this thing nothing else mattered, neither +the how nor the why! If George had lied?... And the pendant—had that +been bought in Plymouth and not (as he had asserted) in Truro? He had +thrown away the case. Jewellers print their names inside such cases. +The pendant was a handsome one. Perhaps his cheque-book would tell.</p> + +<p>She arose, stepped half-way to the door, but came back and flung +herself again upon the couch. No; she could not... this was the second +time to-day... she could not face the torture again.</p> + +<p>Yet... if George <i>had</i> lied!</p> + +<p>She sat up; sat up with both hands pressed to her ears to shut out a +sudden voice clamouring through them—</p> + +<p>“<i>And why not? A son’s a son—curse you!—though he was your man!</i>”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.<br><span class="small">A L’OUTRANCE.</span></h2></div> + +<p>Lizzie Pezzack had put Joey to bed and was smoothing his coverlet when +she heard someone knocking. She passed out into the front room and +opened to the visitor.</p> + +<p>On the doorstep stood a lady in deep black—Honoria. Beyond the garden +wall the lamps of her carriage blazed in the late twilight. The turf +had muffled the sound of wheels, but now the jingle of shaken bits came +loud through the open door.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” said Lizzie, drawing her breath back through her teeth.</p> + +<p>“I must speak to you, please. May I come in? I have a question...”</p> + +<p>Lizzie turned her back, struck a match, and lit a candle. “What +question?” she asked with her back turned, her eyes on the flame as it +sank, warming the tallow, and grew bright again.</p> + +<p>“It’s... it’s a question,” Honoria began weakly; then shut the door +behind her and advanced into the room. “Turn round and look at me. Ah, +you hate me, I know!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Lizzie assented slowly, “I hate you.”</p> + +<p>“But you must answer me. You see, it isn’t for me alone ... it’s not a +question of our hating, in a way... it concerns others....”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“But it’s cowardly of me to put it so, because it concerns me too. You +don’t know—”</p> + +<p>“Maybe I do.”</p> + +<p>“But if you did—” Honoria broke off and then plunged forward +desperately. “That child of yours—his father—alone here—by +ourselves.... Think before you refuse!”</p> + +<p>Lizzie set down the candle and eyed her.</p> + +<p>“And <i>you</i>,” she answered at length, dragging out each word— “<i>you</i> +can come here and ask me that question?”</p> + +<p>For a moment silence fell between them, and each could hear the other’s +breathing. Then Honoria drew herself up and faced her honestly, casting +out both hands.</p> + +<p>“Yes; I <i>had</i> to.”</p> + +<p>“<i>You!</i> a lady!”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but be honest with me! Lady or not, what has that to do with it? +We are two women—that’s where it all started, and we’re kept to that.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie bent her brows. “Yes, you are right,” she admitted.</p> + +<p>“And,” Honoria pursued eagerly, “if I come here to sue you for the +truth—it is you who force me.”</p> + +<p>“I?”</p> + +<p>“By what you said that night, when George—when my husband—was +drowned; when you cursed me. ‘A son’s a son,’ you said, ‘though he was +your man.’”</p> + +<p>“Did I say that?” Lizzie seemed to muse over the words. “You have +suffered?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have suffered.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, if I thought so! ... But you have not. You are a hypocrite, Mrs. +Vyell; and you are trying to cheat me now. You come here not to end +<i>that</i> suffering, but to force a word from me that’ll put joy and hope +into you; that you’ll go home hugging to your heart. Oh, I know you!”</p> + +<p>“You do not.”</p> + +<p>“I do; because I know myself. From a child I’ve been dirt to your +pride, an item to your money. For years I’ve lived a shamed woman. But +one thing I bought with it—one little thing. Think the price high for +it—I dessay it is; but I bought and paid for it—and often when I turn +it over in my mind I don’t count the price too dear.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“You may, if you try. What I bought was the power over you, my proud +lady. While I keep tight lips I have you at the end of a chain. You +come here to-night to break it; one little word and you’ll be free and +glad. But no, and no, and no! You may guess till you’re tired—you may +be sure in your heart; but it’s all no good without that little word +you’ll never get from me.”</p> + +<p>“You <i>shall</i> speak!”</p> + +<p>Lizzie shrugged her shoulders and picked up the candle.</p> + +<p>“Simme,” she said, “you’d best go back to your carriage and horses. My +li’l boy’s in the next room, tryin’ to sleep; and ’tisn’ fit he heard +much of this.”</p> + +<p>She passed resolutely into the bedroom, leaving her visitor to +darkness. But Honoria, desperate now, pushed after her, scarcely +knowing what she did or meant to do.</p> + +<p>“You <i>shall</i> speak!”</p> + +<p>The house-door opened and light footsteps came running through the +outer room. It was little George, and he pulled at her skirts.</p> + +<p>“Mummy, the horses are taking cold!”</p> + +<p>But Honoria still advanced. “You <i>shall</i> speak!”</p> + +<p>Joey, catching sight of her from the bed, screamed and hid his face. To +him she was a thing of horror. From the night when, thrust beneath her +eyes, he had cowered by her carriage-step, she had haunted his worst +dreams. And now, black-robed and terrible of face, she had come to lay +hands on him and carry him straight to hell.</p> + +<p>“Mother! Take her away! take her away!”</p> + +<p>His screams rang through the room. “Hush, dear!” cried Lizzie, running +to him; and laid a hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>But the child, far too terrified to know whose hand it was, flung +himself from her with a wilder scream than any; flung himself all but +free of the bed-clothes. As Lizzie caught and tried to hold him the +thin night-shirt ripped in her fingers, laying bare the small back from +shoulder to buttock.</p> + +<p>They were woman to woman now; cast back into savagery and blindly +groping for its primitive weapons. Honoria crossed the floor not +knowing what she meant to do, or might do. Lizzie sprang to defence +against she knew not what. But when her enemy advanced, towering, +with a healthy boy dragging at her skirts, she did the one thing she +could—turned with a swift cry back upon her own crippled child and +caught at the bed-clothes to cover and hide his naked deformity.</p> + +<p>While she crouched and shielded him, silence fell on the room. She had +half expected Honoria to strike her; but no blow came, nor any sound. +By-and-by she looked up. Honoria had come to a standstill, with rigid +eyes. They were fastened on the bed. Then Lizzie understood.</p> + +<p>She had covered the child’s legs from sight; but not his back—nor +the brown mole on it—the large brown mole, ringed like Saturn, set +obliquely between the shoulder-blades.</p> + +<p>She rose from the bed slowly. Honoria turned on little George with a +gesture as if to fling off his velvet jacket. But Lizzie stamped her +foot.</p> + +<p>“No,” she commanded hoarsely; “let be. Mine is a cripple.”</p> + +<p>“So it is true....” Honoria desisted; but her eyes were wide and still +fixed on the bed.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it is true. You have all the luck. Mine is a cripple.”</p> + +<p>Still Honoria stared. Lizzie gulped down something in her throat; but +her voice, when she found it again, was still hoarse and strained.</p> + +<p>“And now—go! You have learnt what you came for. You have won, because +you stop at nothing. But go, before I try to kill you for the joy in +your heart!”</p> + +<p>“Joy?” Honoria put out a hand toward the bed’s foot, to steady herself. +It was her turn to be weak.</p> + +<p>“Yes—joy.” Lizzie stepped between her and the door, pointed a finger +at her, and held it pointing. “In your heart you are glad already. +Wait, and in a moment I shall see it in your eyes—glad, glad! Yes, +your man was worthless, and you are glad. But oh! You bitter fool!”</p> + +<p>“Let me go, please.”</p> + +<p>“Listen a bit; no hurry now. Plenty of time to be glad ’twas only your +husband, not the man of your heart. Look at me, and answer— I don’t +count for much now, do I? Not much to hate in me, now you know the name +of my child’s father, and that ’tisn’ Taffy Raymond!”</p> + +<p>“Let me go.” But seeing that Lizzie would not, she stopped and kissed +her boy. “Run out to the carriage, dear, and say I’ll be coming in a +minute or two.” Little George clung to her wistfully, but her tone +meant obedience. Lizzie stepped aside to let him pass out.</p> + +<p>“Now,” said Honoria, “the next room is best, I think. Lead me there, +and I will listen.”</p> + +<p>“You may go if you like.”</p> + +<p>“No; I will listen. Between us two there is—there is—”</p> + +<p>“<i>That</i>.” Lizzie nodded towards the child huddling low in the bed.</p> + +<p>“That, and much more. We cannot stop at the point you’ve reached. +Besides, I have a question to ask.”</p> + +<p>Lizzie passed before her into the front room, lit two candles and drew +down the blind.</p> + +<p>“Ask it,” she said.</p> + +<p>“How did you know that I believed the other—Mr. Raymond—to be—” She +came to a halt.</p> + +<p>“I guessed.”</p> + +<p>“What? From the beginning?”</p> + +<p>“No; it was after a long while. And then, all of a sudden, something +seemed to make me clever.”</p> + +<p>“Did you know that, believing it, I had done him a great wrong— +injured his life beyond repair?”</p> + +<p>“I knew something had happened: that he’d given up being a gentleman +and taken to builder’s work. I thought maybe you were at the bottom of +it. Who was it told you lies about en?”</p> + +<p>“Must I answer that?”</p> + +<p>“No; no need. George Vyell was a nice fellow; but he was a liar. +Couldn’t help it, I b’lieve. But a dirty trick like that—well, well!”</p> + +<p>Honoria stared at her, confounded. “You never loved my husband?”</p> + +<p>And Lizzie laughed—actually laughed; she was so weary. “No more than +you did, my dear. Perhaps a little less. Eh, what two fools we are +here, fending off the truth! Fools from the start—and now, simme, +playing foolish to the end; ay, when all’s said and naked atween us. +Lev’ us quit talkin’ of George Vyell. We knawed George Vyell, you and +me too; and here we be, left to rear children by en. But the man we +hated over wasn’ George Vyell.”</p> + +<p>“Yet if—as you say—you loved him—the other one—why, when you saw +his life ruined and guessed the lie that ruined it—when a word could +have righted him—if you loved him—”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t I speak? Ladies are most dull, somehow; or else you don’t +try to see. Or else—Wasn’t he near me, passing my door ivery day? +Oh, I’m ignorant and selfish. But hadn’t I got him near? And wouldn’t +that word have lost him, sent him God knows where—to <i>you</i> perhaps? +You—you’d had your chance, and squandered it like a fool. I never had +no chance. I courted en, but he wouldn’ look at me. He’d have come to +your whistle—once. Nothing to hinder but your money. And from what I +can see and guess, you piled up that money in his face like a hedge. +Oh, I could pity you, now!—for now you’ll never have en.”</p> + +<p>“God pity us both!” said Honoria, going; but she turned at the door. +“And after our marriage you took no more thought of my—of George?” +The question was an afterthought; she never thought to see it stab as +it did. But Lizzie caught at the table edge, held to it swaying over +a gulf of hysterics, and answered between a sob and a passing bitter +laugh.</p> + +<p>“At the last—just to try en. No harm done, as it happened. You needn’ +mind. He was worthless anyway.”</p> + +<p>Honoria stepped back, took her by the elbow as she swayed, and seated +her in a chair; and so stood regarding her as a doctor might a patient. +After a while she said—</p> + +<p>“I think you will do me injustice, but you must believe as you like. I +am not glad. I am very far from glad or happy. I doubt if I shall ever +be happy again. But I do not hate you as I did.”</p> + +<p>She went out, closing the door softly.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.<br><span class="small">THE SHIP OF STARS.</span></h2></div> + +<p>Taffy guessed nothing of these passions in conflict, these weak +agonies. He went about his daily work, a man grown, thinking his own +thoughts; and these thoughts were of many things; but they held no +room for the problem which meant everything in life to Honoria and +Lizzie—yes, and to Humility, though it haunted her in less +disturbing shape. Humility pondered it quietly with a mind withdrawn +while her hands moved before her on the lace pillow; and pondering +it, she resigned the solution to time. But it filled her thoughts +constantly, none the less.</p> + +<p>One noon Taffy returned from the light-house for his dinner to find a +registered postal packet lying on the table. He glanced up and met +his mother’s gaze; but let the thing lie while he ate his meal, and +having done, picked it up and carried it away with him unopened.</p> + +<p>On the cliff-side, in a solitary place, he broke the seal. +He guessed well enough what the packet contained: the silver medal +procured for him by the too officious coroner. And the coroner, +finding him obstinate against a public presentation, had forwarded +the medal with an effusive letter. Taffy frowned over its opening +sentences, and without reading farther crumpled the paper into a +tight ball. He turned to examine the medal, holding it between +finger and thumb; or rather, his eyes examined it while his brain ran +back along the tangled procession of hopes and blunders, wrongs and +trials and lessons hardly learnt, of which this mocking piece of +silver symbolised the end and the reward. In that minute he saw +Honoria and George, himself and Lizzie Pezzack as figures travelling +on a road that stretched back to childhood; saw behind them the +anxious eyes of his parents, Sir Harry’s debonair smile, the sinister +face of old Squire Moyle, malevolent yet terribly afraid; saw that +the moving figures could not control their steps, that the watching +faces were impotent to warn; saw finally beside the road other ways +branching to left and right, and down these undestined and neglected +avenues the ghosts of ambitions unattempted, lives not lived, all +that might have been.</p> + +<p>Well, here was the end of it, this ironical piece of silver.... +With sudden anger he flung it from him; sent it spinning far out over +the waters. And the sea, his old sworn enemy, took the votive +offering. He watched it drop—drop; saw the tiny splash as it +disappeared.</p> + +<p>And with that he shut a door and turned a key. He had other thoughts +to occupy him—great thoughts. The light-house was all but built. +The Chief Engineer had paid a surprise visit, praised his work, and +talked about another sea light soon to be raised on the North Welsh +Coast; used words that indeed hinted, not obscurely, at promotion. +And Taffy’s blood tingled at the prospect. But, out of working +hours, his thoughts were not of light-houses. He bought maps and +charts. On Sundays he took far walks along the coast, starting at +daybreak, returning as a rule long after dark, mired and footsore, +and at supper too weary to talk with his mother, whose eyes watched +him always.</p> + + +<p>It was a still autumn evening when Honoria came riding to visit +Humility; the close of a golden day. Its gold lingered yet along the +west and fell on the whitewashed doorway where Humility sat with her +lace-work. Behind, in the east, purple and dewy, climbed the domed +shadow of the world. And over all lay that hush which the earth only +knows when it rests in the few weeks after harvest. Out here, on +barren cliffs above the sea, folks troubled little about harvest. +But even out here they felt and knew the hush.</p> + +<p>In sight of the whitewashed cottages Honoria slipped down from her +saddle, removed Aide-de-camp’s bridle, and turned him loose to +browse. With the bridle on her arm she walked forward alone. +She came noiselessly on the turf, and with the click of the gate her +shadow fell at Humility’s feet. Humility looked up and saw her +standing against the sunset, in her dark habit. Even in that instant +she saw also that Honoria’s face, though shaded, was more beautiful +than of old. “More dangerous” she told herself; and rose, knowing +that the problem was to be solved at last.</p> + +<p>“Good-evening!” she said, rising. “Oh yes—you must come inside, +please; but you will have to forgive our untidiness.”</p> + +<p>Honoria followed, wondering as of old at the beautiful manners which +dignified Humility’s simplest words.</p> + +<p>“I heard that you were to go.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; we have been packing for a week past. To North Wales it is— +a forsaken spot, no better than this. But I suppose that’s the sort +of spot where light-houses are useful.”</p> + +<p>The sun slanted in upon the packed trunks and dismantled walls; but it +blazed also upon brass window-catches, fender-knobs, door-handles—all +polished and flashing like mirrors.</p> + +<p>“I am come,” said Honoria, “now at the last—to ask your pardon.”</p> + +<p>“At the last?” Humility seemed to muse, staring down at one of the +trunks; then went on as if speaking to herself. “Yes, yes, it has been +a long time.”</p> + +<p>“A long injury—a long mistake; you must believe it was an honest +mistake.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Humility gravely. “I never doubted you had been misled. God +forbid I should ask or seek to know how.”</p> + +<p>Honoria bowed her head.</p> + +<p>“And,” Humility pursued, “we had put ourselves in the wrong by +accepting help. One sees now it is always best to be independent; +though at the time it seemed a fine prospect for him. The worst was +our not telling him. That was terribly unfair. As for the rest— well, +after all, to know yourself guiltless is the great thing, is it not? +What others think doesn’t matter in comparison with that. And then of +course he knew that I, his mother, never believed the falsehood—no, +not for a moment.”</p> + +<p>“But it spoiled his life?”</p> + +<p>Now Humility had spoken, and still stood, with her eyes resting on the +trunk. Beneath its lid, she knew, and on top of Taffy’s books and other +treasures, lay a parcel wrapped in tissue paper—a dog collar with +the inscription “<i>Honoria from Taffy</i>.” So, by lifting the lid of her +thoughts a little—a very little—more, she might have given Honoria +a glimpse of something which her actual answer, truthful as it was, +concealed.</p> + +<p>“No. I wouldn’t say that. If it had spoilt his life—well, you have a +child of your own and can understand. As it is, it has strengthened +him, I think. He will make his mark—in a different way. Just now he is +only a foreman among masons; but he has a career opening. Yes, I can +forgive you at last.”</p> + +<p>And, being Humility, she had spoken the truth. But being a woman, even +in the act of pardon she could not forego a small thrust, and in giving +must withhold something.</p> + +<p>And Honoria, being a woman, divined that something was withheld.</p> + +<p>“And Taffy—your son—do you think that <i>he</i>—?”</p> + +<p>“He never speaks, if he thinks of it. He will be here presently. You +know—do you not? they are to light the great lantern on the new +lighthouse to-night for the first time. The men have moved in, and he +is down with them making preparations. You have seen the notices of the +Trinity Board? They have been posted for months. Taffy is as eager over +it as a boy; but he promised to be back before sunset to drink tea with +me in honour of the event; and afterwards I was to walk down to the +cliff with him to see.”</p> + +<p>“Would you mind if I stayed?”</p> + +<p>Humility considered before answering. “I had rather you stayed. He’s +like a boy over this business; but he’s a man, after all.”</p> + +<p>After this they fell into quite trivial talk, while Humility prepared +the tea things.</p> + +<p>“Your mother—Mrs. Venning—how does she face the journey?”</p> + +<p>“You must see her,” said Humility, smiling, and led her into the room +where the old lady reclined in bed, with a flush on each waxen cheek. +She had heard their voices.</p> + +<p>“Bless you”—she was quite cheerful—“I’m ready to go as far as they’ll +carry me! All I ask is that in the next place they’ll give me a window +where I can see the boy’s lamp when he’s built it.”</p> + +<p>Humility brought in the table and tea-things, and set them out by the +invalid’s bed. She went out into the kitchen to look to the kettle. +In that pause Honoria found it difficult to meet Mrs. Venning’s eyes; +but the old lady was wise enough to leave grudges to others. It was +enough, in the time left to her, to accept what happened and leave the +responsibility to Providence.</p> + +<p>Honoria, replying but scarcely listening to her talk, heard a footfall +at the outer door—Taffy’s footfall; then the click of a latch and +Humility’s voice saying, “There’s a visitor inside; come to take tea +with you.”</p> + +<p>“A visitor?” He was standing in the doorway. “<i>You?</i>” He blushed in his +surprise.</p> + +<p>Honoria rose. “If I may,” she said, and wondered if she might hold out +a hand.</p> + +<p>But he held out his, quite frankly, and laughed. “Why, of course. They +will be lighting up in half an hour. We must make haste.”</p> + +<p>Once or twice during tea he stole a glance from Honoria to his mother; +and each time fondly believed that it passed undetected. His talk was +all about the light-house and the preparations there, and he rattled on +in the highest spirits. Two of the women knew, and the third guessed, +that this chatter was with him unwonted.</p> + +<p>At length he too seemed to be struck by this. “But what nonsense I’m +talking!” he protested, breaking off midway in a sentence and blushing +again. “I can’t help it, though. I’m feeling just as big as the +light-house to-night, with my head wound up and turning round like the +lantern!”</p> + +<p>“And your wit occulting,” suggested Honoria, in her old light manner. +“What is it?—three flashes to the minute?”</p> + +<p>He laughed and hurried them from the tea-table. Mrs. Venning bade them +a merry good-bye as they took leave of her.</p> + +<p>“Come along, mother.”</p> + +<p>But Humility had changed her mind. “No,” said she. “I’ll wait in the +doorway. I can just see the lantern from the garden gate, you know. +You two can wait by the old light-house, and call to me when the time +comes.”</p> + +<p>She watched them from the doorway as they took the path toward the +cliff, toward the last ray of sunset fading across the dusk of the sea. +The evening was warm, and she sat bareheaded with her lace-work on her +knee; but presently she put it down.</p> + +<p>“I must be taking to spectacles soon,” she said to herself. “My eyes +are not what they used to be.”</p> + + +<p>Taffy and Honoria reached the old light-house and halted by its +white-painted railing. Below them the new pillar stood up in full view, +young and defiant. A full tide lapped its base, feeling this comely +and untried adversary as a wrestler shakes hands before engaging. And +from its base the column, after a gentle inward curve—enough to give +it a look of lissomeness and elastic strength— sprang upright straight +and firm to the lantern, ringed with a gallery and capped with a +cupola of copper not yet greened by the weather; in outline as simple +as a flower, in structure to the understanding eye almost as subtly +organised, adapted and pieced into growth.</p> + +<p>“So that is your ambition now?” said Honoria, after gazing long. She +added, “I do not wonder.”</p> + +<p>“It does not stop there, I’m afraid.” There was a pause, as though her +words had thrown him into a brown study.</p> + +<p>“Look!” she cried. “There is someone in the lantern—with a light in +his hand. He is lighting up!”</p> + +<p>Taffy ran back a pace or two toward the cottage and shouted, waving his +hand. In a moment Humility appeared at the gate and waved in answer, +while the strong light flashed seaward. They listened; but if she +called, the waves at their feet drowned her voice.</p> + +<p>They turned and gazed at the light, counting, timing the flashes; two +short flashes with but five seconds between, then darkness for twenty +seconds, and after it a long steady stare.</p> + +<p>Abruptly he asked, “Would you care to cross over and see the lantern?”</p> + +<p>“What, in the cradle?”</p> + +<p>“I can work it easily. It’s not dangerous in the least; a bit daunting, +perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“But I’m not easily frightened, you know. Yes, I should like it +greatly.”</p> + +<p>They descended the cliff to the cable. The iron cradle stood ready as +Taffy had left it when he came ashore. She stepped in lightly, scarcely +touching for a second the hand he put out to guide her.</p> + +<p>“Better sit low,” he advised; and she obeyed, disposing her skirts on +the floor caked with dry mud from the workmen’s boots. He followed her, +and launched the cradle over the deep twilight.</p> + +<p>A faint breeze—there had been none perceptible on the ridge—played +off the face of the cliffs. The forward swing of the cradle, too, +raised a slight draught of air. Honoria plucked off her hat and veil +and let it fan her temples.</p> + +<p>Half-way across, she said, “Isn’t it like this—in mid-air over running +water—that the witches take their oaths?”</p> + +<p>Taffy ceased pulling on the rope. “The witches? Yes, I remember +something of the sort.”</p> + +<p>“And a word spoken so is an oath and lasts for ever. Very well; answer +me what I came to ask you to-night.”</p> + +<p>“What is that?” But he knew.</p> + +<p>“That when—you know—when I tell you I was deceived... you will +forgive.” Her voice was scarcely audible.</p> + +<p>“I forgive.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but freely? It is only a word I want; but it has to last me like +an oath.”</p> + +<p>“I forgive you freely. It was all a mistake.”</p> + +<p>“And you have found other ambitions! And they satisfy you?”</p> + +<p>He laughed and pulled at the rope again. “They ought to,” he answered +gaily, “they’re big enough. Come and see.”</p> + +<p>The seaward end of the cable was attached to a doorway thirty feet +above the base of the lighthouse. One of the under-keepers met them +here with a lantern. He stared when he caught sight of the second +figure in the cradle, but touched his cap to the mistress of Carwithiel.</p> + +<p>“Here’s Mrs. Vyell, Trevarthen, come to do honour to our opening night.”</p> + +<p>“Proudly welcome, ma’am,” said Trevarthen. “You’ll excuse the litter +we’re in. This here’s our cellar, but you’ll find things more +ship-shape upstairs. Mind your head, ma’am, with the archway—better +let me lead the way perhaps.”</p> + +<p>The archway was indeed low, and they were forced to crouch and almost +crawl up the first short flight of steps. But after this Honoria, +following Trevarthen’s lantern round and up the spiral way, found the +roof heightening above her, and soon emerged into a gloomy chamber +fitted with cupboards and water-tanks—the provision room. From this +a ladder led straight up through a man-hole in the ceiling to the +light-room store, set round with shining oil-tanks and stocked with +paint-pots, brushes, cans, signalling flags, coils of rope, bags of +cotton waste, tool-chests.... A second ladder brought them to the +kitchen, and a third to the sleeping-room; and here the light of the +lantern streamed down on their heads through the open man-hole above +them. They heard, too, the roar of the ventilator, and the <i>ting-ting</i>, +regular and sharp, of the small bell reporting that the machinery +revolved.</p> + +<p>Above, in the blaze of the great lenses, old Pezzack and the second +under-keeper welcomed them. The pair had been watching and discussing +the light with true professional pride; and Taffy drew up at the head +of the ladder and stared at it, and nodded his slow approbation. The +glare forced Honoria back against the glass wall, and she caught at its +lattice for support.</p> + +<p>But she pulled herself together, ashamed of her weakness, and glad that +Taffy had not perceived it.</p> + +<p>“This satisfies you?” she whispered.</p> + +<p>He faced round on her with a slow smile. “No,” he said, “this +light-house is useless.”</p> + +<p>“Useless?”</p> + +<p>“You remember the wreck—that wreck—the <i>Samaritan?</i> She came ashore +beneath here; right beneath our feet; by no fault or carelessness. A +light-house on a coast like this—a coast without a harbour—is a joke +set in a death-trap, to make game of dying men.”</p> + + +<p>“But since the coast has no harbour—”</p> + +<p>“I would build one. Look at this,” he pulled a pencil and paper from +his pocket and rapidly sketched the outlines of the Bristol Channel. +“What is that? A bag. Suppose a vessel taken in the mouth of it; a +bag with death along the narrowing sides and death waiting at the +end—no deep-water harbour—no chance anywhere. And the tides! +You know the rhyme—”</p> +<p class="poetry"> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">“From Padstow Point to Lundy Light</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Is a watery grave by day or night.”</span><br> +</p> +<p>“Yes, there’s Lundy”—he jotted down the position of the island— +“Hit off the lee of Lundy, if you can, and drop hook, and pray God it +holds!”</p> + +<p>“But this harbour? What would it cost?”</p> + +<p>“I dare say a million of money; perhaps more. But I work it out at +less—at Porthquin, for instance, or Lundy itself, or even at St. +Ives.”</p> + +<p>“A million!” she laughed. “Now I see the boy I used to know—the boy +of dreams.”</p> + +<p>He turned on her gravely. She was exceedingly beautiful, standing +there in her black habit, bareheaded in the glare of the lenses, +standing with head thrown back, with eyes challenging the past, and a +faint glow on either cheek. But he had no eyes for her beauty.</p> + +<p>He opened his lips to speak. Yes, he could overwhelm her with +statistics and figures, all worked out; of shipping and disasters to +shipping; of wealth and senseless waste of wealth. He could bury her +beneath evidence taken by Royal Commission and Parliamentary +Committee, commissioners’ reports, testimony of shipowners and +captains; calculated tables of tides, sets of currents, prevailing +winds; results of surveys hydrographical; all the mass of facts he +had been accumulating and brooding over for eighteen long months. +But the weight of it closed his lips, and when he opened them again +it was to say, “Yes, that is my dream.”</p> + +<p>At once he turned his talk upon the light revolving in their faces; +began to explain the lenses and their working in short, direct +sentences. She heard his voice, but without following.</p> + +<p>Pezzack and the under-keeper had drawn apart to the opposite side of +the cage and were talking together. The lantern hid them, but she +caught the murmur of their voices now and again. She was conscious +of having let something slip—slip away from her for ever. If she +could but recall him, and hold him to his dream! But this man, +talking in short sentences, each one so sharp and clear, was not the +Taffy she had known or could ever know.</p> + +<p>In the blaze of the lenses suddenly she saw the truth. He and she +had changed places. She who had used to be so practical—<i>she</i> was +the dreamer now; had come thither following a dream, walking in a +dream. He, the dreaming boy, had become the practical man, firm, +clear-sighted, direct of purpose; with a dream yet in his heart, but +a dream of great action, a dream he hid from her, certainly a dream +in which she had neither part nor lot. And yet she had made him what +he was; not willingly, not by kindness, but by injustice. What she +had given he had taken; and was a stranger to her.</p> + +<p>Muffled wings and white breasts began to beat against the glass. +A low-lying haze—a passing stratum of sea-fog—had wrapped the +light-house for a while, and these were the wings and breasts of +sea-birds attracted by the light. To her they were the ghosts of +dead thoughts—stifled thoughts—thoughts which had never come to +birth—trying to force their way into the ring of light encompassing +and enwrapping her; trying desperately, but foiled by the transparent +screen.</p> + +<p>Still she heard his voice, level and masterful, sure of his subject. +In the middle of one of his sentences a sharp thud sounded on the +pane behind her, as sudden as the crack of a pebble and only a little +duller.</p> + +<p>“Ah, what is that?” she cried, and touched his arm.</p> + +<p>He thrust open one of the windows, stepped out upon the gallery, and +returned in less than a minute with a small dead bird in his hand.</p> + +<p>“A swallow,” he said. “They have been preparing to fly for days. +Summer is done, with our work here.”</p> + +<p>She shivered. “Let us go back,” she said.</p> + +<p>They descended the ladders. Trevarthen met them in the kitchen and +went before them with his lantern. In a minute they were in the +cradle again and swinging toward the cliff. The wisp of sea-fog had +drifted past the light-house to leeward, and all was clear again. +High over the cupola Cassiopeia leaned toward the pole, her breast +flashing its eternal badge—the star-pointed W. Low in the north—as +the country tale went—tied to follow her emotions, externally +separate, eternally true to the fixed star of her gaze, the Waggoner +tilted his wheels and drove them close and along and above the misty +sea.</p> + +<p>Taffy, pulling on the rope, looked down upon Honoria’s upturned face +and saw the glimmer of starlight in her eyes; but neither guessed her +thoughts nor tried to.</p> + +<p>It was only when they stood together on the cliff-side that she broke +the silence. “Look,” she said, and pointed upward. “Does that +remind you of anything?”</p> + +<p>He searched his memory. “No,” he confessed: “that is, if you mean +Cassiopeia up yonder.”</p> + +<p>“Think!—the Ship of Stars.”</p> + +<p>“The Ship of Stars?—Yes, I remember now. There was a young sailor— +with a ship of stars tattooed on his chest. He was drowned on this +very coast.”</p> + +<p>“Was that a part of the story you were to tell me?”</p> + +<p>“What story? I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you remember that day—the morning when we began lessons +together? You explained the alphabet to me, and when we came to W— +you said it was a ship—a ship of stars. There was a story about it, +you said, and promised to tell me some day.”</p> + +<p>He laughed. “What queer things you remember!”</p> + +<p>“But what was the story?”</p> + +<p>“I wonder! If I ever knew, I’ve forgotten. I dare say I had +something in my head. Now I think of it, I was always making up some +foolish tale or other, in those days.”</p> + +<p>Yes; he had forgotten. “I have often tried to make up a story about +that ship,” she said gravely, “out of odds and ends of the stories +you used to tell. I don’t think I ever had the gift to invent +anything on my own account. But at last, after a long while—”</p> + +<p>“The story took shape? Tell it to me, please.”</p> + +<p>She hesitated, and broke into a bitter little laugh. “No,” said she, +“you never told me yours.” Again it came to her with a pang that he +and she had changed places. He had taken her forthrightness and left +her, in exchange, his dreams. They were hers now, the gaily coloured +childish fancies, and she must take her way among them alone. +Dreams only! but just as a while back he had started to confess his +dream and had broken down before her, so now in turn she knew that +her tongue was held.</p> + +<p>Humility rose as they entered the kitchen together. A glance as +Honoria held out her hand for good-bye told her all she needed to +know.</p> + +<p>“And you are leaving in a day or two?” Honoria asked.</p> + +<p>“Thursday next is the day fixed.”</p> + +<p>“You are very brave.”</p> + +<p>Again the two women’s eyes met, and this time the younger understood. +<i>Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; +thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God</i>—that which the +Moabitess said for a woman’s sake women are saying for men’s sakes by +thousands every day.</p> + +<p>Still holding her hand, Humility drew Honoria close. “God deal +kindly with you, my dear,” she whispered, and kissed her.</p> + +<p>At the gate Honoria blew a whistle, and after a few seconds +Aide-de-camp came obediently out of the darkness to be bridled. +This done, Taffy lent his hand and swung her into the saddle.</p> + +<p>“Good-night and good-bye!”</p> + +<p>Taffy was the first to turn back from the gate. The beat of +Aide-de-camp’s hoofs reminded him of something—some music he had +once heard; he could not remember where.</p> + +<p>Humility lingered a moment longer, and followed to prepare her son’s +supper.</p> + +<p>But Honoria, fleeing along the ridge, hugged one fierce thought in +her defeat. The warm wind sang by her ears, the rhythm of +Aide-de-camp’s canter thudded upon her brain; but her heart cried +back on them and louder than either—</p> + +<p>“He is mine, mine, mine! He is mine, and always will be. He is lost +to me, but I possess him. For what he is I have made him, and at my +cost he is strong.”</p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIP OF STARS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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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..ab1c679 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #16000 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16000) diff --git a/old/16000.txt b/old/16000.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f142ea --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16000.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9276 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Ship of Stars, 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 Ship of Stars + + +Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + +Release Date: June 7, 2005 [eBook #16000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIP OF STARS*** + + +E-text prepared by Lionel Sear + + + +THE SHIP OF STARS. + +by + +Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q) + +1899 + + + + + + + +To THE RIGHT HON. LEONARD HENRY COURTNEY, M.P. + + +My Dear Mr. Courtney, + +It is with a peculiar pleasure and, I dare to hope, with some +appropriateness that I dedicate to you this story of the West +Country, which claims you with pride. To be sure, the places here +written of will be found in no map of your own or any neighbouring +constituency. A visitor may discover Nannizabuloe, but only to +wonder what has become of the lighthouse, or seek along the +sand-hills without hitting on Tredinnis. Yet much of the tale is +true in a fashion, even to fact. One or two things which happen to +Sir Harry Vyell did actually happen to a better man, who lived and +hunted foxes not a hundred miles from the "model borough" of +Liskeard, and are told of him in my friend Mr. W. F. Collier's memoir +of Harry Terrell, a bygone Dartmoor hero: and a true account of what +followed the wreck of the Samaritan will be found in a chapter of +Remembrances by that true poet and large-hearted man, Robert Stephen +Hawker. + +But a novel ought to be true to more than fact: and if this one come +near its aim, no one will need to be told why I dedicate it to you. +If it do not (and I wish the chance could be despised!), its author +will yet hold that among the names of living Englishmen he could have +chosen none fitter to be inscribed above a story which in the telling +has insensibly come to rest upon the two texts, "Lord, make men as +towers!" and "All towers carry a light." Although for you Heaven has +seen fit to darken the light, believe me it shines outwards over the +waters and is a help to men: a guiding light tended by brave hands. +We pray, sir--we who sail in little boats--for long life to the tower +and the unfaltering lamp. + +A. T. Q. C. +St. John's Eve, 1899. + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE BOY IN THE GATE-HOUSE. + +II. MUSIC IN THE TOWN SQUARE. + +III. PASSENGER'S BY JOBY'S VAN. + +IV. THE RUNNING SANDS. + +V. TAFFY RINGS THE CHURCH BELL. + +VI. A COCK-FIGHT. + +VII. GEORGE. + +VIII. THE SQUIRE'S SOUL. + +IX. ENTER THE KING'S POSTMAN. + +X. A HAPPY DAY. + +XI. LIZZIE REDEEMS HER DOLL AND HONORIA THROWS A STONE. + +XII. TAFFY'S CHILDHOOD COMES TO AN END. + +XIII. THE BUILDERS. + +XIV. VOICES FROM THE SEA. + +XV. TAFFY'S APPRENTICESHIP. + +XVI. LIZZIE AND HONORIA. + +XVII. THE SQUIRE'S WEIRD. + +XVIII. THE BARRIERS FALL. + +XIX. OXFORD. + +XX. TAFFY GIVES A PROMISE. + +XXI. HONORIA'S LETTERS. + +XXII. MEN AS TOWERS. + +XXIII. THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP. + +XXIV. FACE TO FACE. + +XXV. THE WRECK OF THE "SAMARITAN". + +XXVI. SALVAGE. + +XXVII. HONORIA. + +XXVIII. A L'OUTRANCE. + +XXIX. THE SHIP OF STARS. + + + + + +THE SHIP OF STARS. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +THE BOY IN THE GATE-HOUSE. + +Until his ninth year the boy about whom this story is written lived +in a house which looked upon the square of a county town. The house +had once formed part of a large religious building, and the boy's +bedroom had a high groined roof, and on the capstone an angel carved, +with outspread wings. Every night the boy wound up his prayers with +this verse which his grandmother had taught him: + + "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, + Bless the bed that I lie on. + Four corners to my bed, + Four angels round my head; + One to watch, one to pray, + Two to bear my soul away." + +Then he would look up to the angel and say: "Only Luke is with me." +His head was full of queer texts and beliefs. He supposed the three +other angels to be always waiting in the next room, ready to bear +away the soul of his grandmother (who was bed-ridden), and that he +had Luke for an angel because he was called Theophilus, after the +friend for whom St. Luke had written his Gospel and the Acts of the +Holy Apostles. His name in full was Theophilus John Raymond, but +people called him Taffy. + +Of his parents' circumstances he knew very little, except that they +were poor, and that his father was a clergyman attached to the parish +church. As a matter of fact, the Reverend Samuel Raymond was senior +curate there, with a stipend of ninety-five pounds a year. Born at +Tewkesbury, the son of a miller, he had won his way to a servitorship +at Christ Church, Oxford; and somehow, in the course of one Long +Vacation, had found money for travelling expenses to join a reading +party under the Junior Censor. The party spent six summer weeks at a +farmhouse near Honiton, in Devon. The farm belonged to an invalid +widow named Venning, who let it be managed by her daughter Humility +and two paid labourers, while she herself sat by the window in her +kitchen parlour, busied incessantly with lace-work of that beautiful +kind for which Honiton is famous. He was an unassuming youth; and +although in those days servitors were no longer called upon to black +the boots of richer undergraduates, the widow and her daughter soon +divined that he was lowlier than the others, and his position an +awkward one, and were kind to him in small ways, and grew to like +him. Next year, at their invitation, he travelled down to Honiton +alone, with a box of books; and, at twenty-two, having taken his +degree, he paid them a third visit, and asked Humility to be his +wife. At twenty-four, soon after his admission to deacon's orders, +they were married. The widow sold the small farm, with its stock, +and followed to live with them in the friary gate-house; this having +been part of Humility's bargain with her lover, if the word can be +used of a pact between two hearts so fond. + +About ten years had gone since these things happened, and their child +Taffy was now past his eighth birthday. + +It seemed to him that, so far back as he could remember, his mother +and grandmother had been making lace continually. At night, when his +mother took the candle away with her and left him alone in the dark, +he was not afraid; for, by closing his eyes, he could always see the +two women quite plainly; and always he saw them at work, each with a +pillow on her lap, and the lace upon it growing, growing, until the +pins and bobbins wove a pattern that was a dream, and he slept. +He could not tell what became of all the lace, though he had a collar +of it which he wore to church on Sundays, and his mother had once +shown him a parcel of it, wrapped in tissue-paper, and told him it +was his christening robe. + +His father was always reading, except on Sundays, when he preached +sermons. In his thoughts nine times out of ten Taffy associated his +father with a great pile of books; but the tenth time with something +totally different. One summer--it was in his sixth year--they had +all gone on a holiday to Tewkesbury, his father's old home; and he +recalled quite clearly the close of a warm afternoon which he and his +mother had spent there in a green meadow beyond the abbey church. +She had brought out a basket and cushion, and sat sewing, while Taffy +played about and watched the haymakers at their work. Behind them, +within the great church, the organ was sounding; but by-and-by it +stopped, and a door opened in the abbey wall, and his father came +across the meadow toward them with his surplice on his arm. And then +Humility unpacked the basket and produced a kettle, a spirit-lamp, +and a host of things good to eat. The boy thought the whole +adventure splendid. When tea was done, he sprang up with one of +those absurd notions which come into children's heads: + +"Now let's feed the poultry," he cried, and flung his last scrap of +bun three feet in air toward the gilt weather-cock on the abbey +tower. While they laughed, "Father, how tall is the tower?" he +demanded. + +"A hundred and thirty-two feet, my boy, from ground to battlements." + +"What are battlements?" + +He was told. + +"But people don't fight here," he objected. + +Then his father told of a battle fought in the very meadow in which +they were sitting; of soldiers at bay with their backs to the abbey +wall; of crowds that ran screaming into the church; of others chased +down Mill Street and drowned; of others killed by the Town Cross; and +how--people said in the upper room of a house still standing in the +High Street--a boy prince had been stabbed. + +Humility laid a hand on his arm. + +"He'll be dreaming of all this. Tell him it was a long time ago, and +that these things don't happen now." + +But her husband was looking up at the tower. + +"See it now with the light upon it!" he went on. "And it has seen it +all. Eight hundred years of heaven's storms and man's madness, and +still foursquare and as beautiful now as when the old masons took +down their scaffolding. When I was a boy--" + +He broke off suddenly. "Lord, make men as towers," he added quietly +after a while, and nobody spoke for many minutes. + +To Taffy this had seemed a very queer saying; about as queer as that +other one about "men as trees walking." Somehow--he could not say +why--he had never asked any questions about it. But many times he +had perched himself on a flat tombstone under the church tower at +home, and tilted his head back and stared up at the courses and +pinnacles, wondering what his father could have meant, and how a man +could possibly be like a tower. It ended in this--that whenever he +dreamed about his father, these two towers, or a tower which was more +or less a combination of both, would get mixed up with the dream as +well. + + +The gate-house contained a sitting-room and three bedrooms (one +hardly bigger than a box-cupboard); but a building adjoined it which +had been the old Franciscans' refectory, though now it was divided by +common planking into two floors, the lower serving for a feoffee +office, while the upper was supposed to be a muniment-room, in charge +of the feoffees' clerk. The clerk used it for drying his +garden-seeds and onions, and spread his hoarding apples to ripen on +the floor. So when Taffy grew to need a room of his own, and his +father's books to cumber the very stairs of the gate-house, the money +which Humility and her mother made by their lace-work, and which +arrived always by post, came very handy for the rent which the clerk +asked for his upper chamber. + +Carpenters appeared and partitioned it off into two rooms, +communicating with the gate-house by a narrow doorway pierced in the +wall. All this, whilst it was doing, interested Taffy mightily; and +he announced his intention of being a carpenter one of these days. + +"I hope," said Humility, "you will look higher, and be a preacher of +God's Word, like your father." + +His father frowned at this and said: "Jesus Christ was both." + +Taffy compromised: "Perhaps I'll make pulpits." + +This was how he came to have a bedroom with a vaulted roof and a +window that reached down below the floor. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +MUSIC IN THE TOWN SQUARE. + +This window looked upon the Town Square, and across it to the +Mayoralty. The square had once been the Franciscans' burial-ground, +and was really no square at all, but a semicircle. The townspeople +called it Mount Folly. The chord of the arc was formed by a large +Assize Hall, with a broad flight of granite steps, and a cannon +planted on either side of the steps. The children used to climb +about these cannons, and Taffy had picked out his first letters from +the words _Sevastopol_ and _Russian Trophy_, painted in white on +their lead-coloured carriages. + +Below the Assize Hall an open gravelled space sloped gently down to a +line of iron railings and another flight of granite steps leading +into the main street. The street curved uphill around the base of +this open ground, and came level with it just in front of the +Mayoralty, a tall stuccoed building where the public balls were +given, and the judges had their lodgings in assize time, and the +Colonel his quarters during the militia training. + +Fine shows passed under Taffy's window. Twice a year came the +judges, with the sheriff in uniform and his chaplain, and his coach, +and his coachman and lackeys in powder and plush and silk stockings, +white or flesh-coloured; and the barristers with their wigs, and the +javelin men and silver trumpets. Every spring, too, the Royal +Rangers Militia came up for training. Suddenly one morning, in the +height of the bird-nesting season, the street would swarm with +countrymen tramping up to the barracks on the hill, and back, with +bundles of clothes and unblackened boots dangling. For the next six +weeks the town would be full of bugle calls, and brazen music, and +companies marching and parading in suits of invisible green, and +clanking officers in black, with little round forage caps, and silver +badges on their side-belts; and, towards evening, with men lounging +and smoking, or washing themselves in public before the doors of +their billets. + +Usually too, Whitsun Fair fell at the height of the militia training; +and then for two days booths and caravans, sweet-standings and +shooting-galleries lined the main street, and Taffy went out with a +shilling in his pocket to enjoy himself. But the bigger shows--the +menagerie, the marionettes, and the travelling Theatre Royal--were +pitched on Mount Folly, just under his window. Sometimes the theatre +would stay a week or two after the fair was over, until even the boy +grew tired of the naphtha-lamps and the voices of the tragedians, and +the cornet wheezing under canvas, and began to long for the time when +they would leave the square open for the boys to come and play at +prisoners' bars in the dusk. + +One evening, a fortnight before Whitsun Fair, he had taken his book +to the open window, and sat there with it. Every night he had to +learn a text which he repeated next morning to his mother. Already, +across the square, the Mayoralty house was brightly lit, and the +bandsmen had begun to arrange their stands and music before it; for +the Colonel was receiving company. Every now and then a carriage +arrived, and set down its guests. + +After a while Taffy looked up and saw two persons crossing the +square--an old man and a little girl. He recognised them, having +seen them together in church the day before, when his father had +preached the sermon. The old man wore a rusty silk hat, cocked a +little to one side, a high stock collar, black cutaway coat, breeches +and gaiters of grey cord. He stooped as he walked, with his hands +behind him and his walking-stick dangling like a tail--a very +positive old fellow, to look at. The girl's face Taffy could not +see; it was hidden by the brim of her Leghorn hat. + +The pair passed close under the window. Taffy heard a knock at the +door below, and ran to the head of the stairs. Down in the passage +his mother was talking to the old man, who turned to the girl and +told her to wait outside. + +"But let her come in and sit down," urged Humility. + +"No, ma'am; I know my mind. I want one hour with your husband." + +Taffy heard the door shut, and went back to his window-seat. + +The little girl had climbed the cannon opposite, and sat there +dangling her feet and eyeing the house. + +"Boy," said she, "what a funny window-seat you've got! I can see +your legs under it." + +"That's because the window reaches down to the floor, and the bench +is fixed across by the transom here." + +"What's your name?" + +"Theophilus; but they call me Taffy." + +"Why?" + +"Father says it's an imperfect example of Grimm's Law." + +"Oh! Then, I suppose you're quite the gentleman? My name's +Honoria." + +"Is that your father downstairs?" + +"Bless the boy! What age do you take me for? He's my grandfather. +He's asking your father about his soul. He wants to be saved, and +says if he's not saved before next Lady-day, he'll know the reason +why. What are you doing up there?" + +"Reading." + +"Reading what?" + +"The Bible." + +"But, I say, can you really?" + +"You listen." Taffy rested the big Bible on the window-frame; it just +had room to lie open between the two mullions--"_Now when they had +gone throughout Phrygia and Galatia, and were forbidden of the Holy +Ghost to preach the word in Asia, after they were come to Mysia they +assayed to go into Bithynia; but the Spirit suffered them not. +And they, passing by Mysia, came down to Troas. And a vision +appeared to Paul in the night_. . . ." + +"I don't wonder at it. Did you ever have the whooping-cough?" + +"Not yet." + +"I've had it all the winter. That's why I'm not allowed in to play +with you. Listen!" + +She coughed twice, and wound up with a terrific whoop. + +"Now, if you'd only put on your nightshirt and preach, I'd be the +congregation and interrupt you with coughing." + +"Very well," said Taffy, "let's do it." + +"No; you didn't suggest it. I hate boys who have to be told." + +Taffy was huffed, and pretended to return to his book. By-and-by she +called up to him: + +"Tell me, what's written on this gun of yours?" + +"Sevastopol--that's a Russian town. The English took it by storm." + +"What! the soldiers over there?" + +"No, they're only bandsmen; and they're too young. But I expect the +Colonel was there. He's upstairs in the Mayoralty, dining. +He's quite an old man, but I've heard father say he was as brave as a +lion when the fighting happened." + +The girl climbed off the gun. + +"I'm going to have a look at him," she said; and turning her back on +Taffy, she sauntered off across the square, just as the band struck +up the first note of the overture from _Semiramide_. A waltz of +Strauss followed, and then came a cornet solo by the bandmaster, and +a medley of old English tunes. To all of these Taffy listened. +It had fallen too dark to read, and the boy was always sensitive to +music. Often when he played alone broken phrases and scraps of +remembered tunes came into his head and repeated themselves over and +over. Then he would drop his game and wander about restlessly, +trying to fix and complete the melody; and somehow in the process the +melody always became a story, or so like a story that he never knew +the difference. Sometimes his uneasiness lasted for days together. +But when the story came complete at last--and this always sprang on +him quite suddenly--he wanted to caper and fling his arms about and +sing aloud; and did so, if nobody happened to be looking. + +The bandmaster, too, had music, and a reputation for imparting it. +Famous regimental bands contained pupils of his; and his old pupils, +when they met, usually told each other stories of his atrocious +temper. But he kept his temper to-night, for his youngsters were +playing well, and the small crowd standing quiet. + +The English melodies had scarcely closed with "Come, lasses and +lads," when across in Mayoralty a blind was drawn, and a window +thrown open, and Taffy saw the warm room within, and the officers and +ladies standing with glasses in their hands. The Colonel was giving +the one toast of the evening: + +"Ladies and gentlemen--The Queen!" + +The adjutant leaned out and lifted his hand for signal, and the band +crashed out with the National Anthem. Then there was silence for a +minute. The window remained open. Taffy still caught glimpses of +jewels and uniforms, and white necks bending, and men leaning back in +their chairs, with their mess-jackets open, and the candle-light +flashing on their shirt-fronts. Below, in the dark street, the +bandmaster trimmed the lamp by his music-stand. In the rays of it he +drew out a handkerchief and polished the keys of his cornet; then +passed the cornet over to his left hand, took up his baton, and +nodded. + +What music was that, stealing, rippling, across the square? +The bandmaster knew nothing of the tale of Tannhauser, but was +wishing that he had violins at his beck, instead of stupid flutes and +reeds. And Taffy had never heard so much as the name of Tannhauser. +Of the meaning of the music he knew nothing--nothing beyond its +wonder and terror. But afterward he made a tale of it to himself. + +In the tale it seemed that a vine shot up and climbed on the shadows +of the warm night; and the shadows climbed with it and made a trellis +for it right across the sky. The vine thrust through the trellis +faster and faster, dividing, throwing out little curls and tendrils; +then leaves and millions of leaves, each leaf unfolding about a drop +of dew, which trickled and fell and tinkled like a bird's song. + +The beauty and scent of the vine distressed him. He wanted to cry +out, for it was hiding the sky. Then he heard the tramp of feet in +the distance, and knew that they threatened the vine, and with that +he wanted to save it. But the feet came nearer and nearer, tramping +terribly. + +He could not bear it. He ran to the stairs, stole down them, opened +the front door cautiously, and slipped outside. He was half-way +across the square before it occurred to him that the band had ceased +to play. Then he wondered why he had come, but he did not go back. +He found Honoria standing a little apart from the crowd, with her +hands clasped behind her, gazing up at the window of the +banqueting-room. + +She did not see him at once. + +"Stand on the steps, here," he whispered, "then you can see him. +That's the Colonel--the man at the end of the table, with the big, +grey moustache." + +He touched her arm. She sprang away and stamped her foot. + +"Keep off with you! Who _told_ you?--Oh! you bad boy!" + +"Nobody. I thought you hated boys who wait to be told." + +"And now you'll get the whooping-cough, and goodness knows what will +happen to you, and you needn't think I'll be sorry!" + +"Who wants you to be sorry! As for you," Taffy went on sturdily, "I +think your grandfather might have more sense than to keep you waiting +out here in the cold, and giving your cough to the whole town!" + +"Ha! you do, do you?" + +It was not the girl who said this. Taffy swung round, and saw an old +man staring down on him. There was just light enough to reveal that +he had very formidable grey eyes. But Taffy's blood was up. + +"Yes, I do," he said, and wondered at himself. + +"Ha! Does your father whip you sometimes?" + +"No, sir." + +"I should if you were my boy. I believe in it. Come, Honoria!" + +The child threw a glance at Taffy as she was led away. He could not +be sure whether she took his side or her grandfather's. + +That night he had a very queer dream. + +His grandmother had lost her lace-pillow, and after searching for +some time, he found it lying out in the square. But the pins and +bobbins were darting to and fro on their own account, at an +incredible rate, and the lace as they made it turned into a singing +beanstalk, and rose and threw out branches all over the sky. +Very soon he found himself climbing among those branches, up and up +until he came to a Palace, which was really the Assize Hall, with a +flight of steps before it and a cannon on either side of the steps. +Within sat a giant, asleep, with his head on the table and his face +hidden; but his neck bulged at the back just like the bandmaster's +during a cornet solo. A harp stood on the table. Taffy caught this +up, and was stealing downstairs with it, but at the third stair the +harp--which had Honoria's head and face--began to cough, and wound up +with a _whoop!_ This woke the giant--he turned out to be Honoria's +grandfather--who came roaring after him. Glancing down below as he +ran, Taffy saw his mother and the bandmaster far below with axes, +hacking at the foot of the beanstalk. He tried to call out and +prevent them, but they kept smiting. And the worst of it was, that +down below, too, his father was climbing into a pulpit, quite as if +nothing was happening. The pulpit grew and became a tower, and his +father kept calling, "Be a tower! Be a tower, like me!" + +But Taffy couldn't for the life of him see how to manage it. +The beanstalk began to totter; he felt himself falling, and leapt for +the tower. . . . And awoke in his bed shuddering, and, for the first +time in his life, afraid of the dark. He would have called for his +mother, but just then down by the turret clock in Fore Street the +buglers began to sound the "Last Post," and he hugged himself and +felt that the world he knew was still about him, companionable and +kind. + +Twice the buglers repeated their call, in more distant streets, each +time more faintly; and the last flying notes carried him into sleep +again. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +PASSENGERS BY JOBY'S VAN. + +At breakfast next morning he saw by his parents' faces that something +unusual had happened. Nothing was said to him about it, whatever it +might be. But once or twice after this, coming into the parlour +suddenly, he found his father and mother talking low and earnestly +together; and now and then they would go up to his grandmother's room +and talk. + +In some way he divined that there was a question of leaving home. +But the summer passed and these private talks became fewer. +Toward August, however, they began again; and by-and-by his mother +told him. They were going to a parish on the North Coast, right away +across the Duchy, where his father had been presented to a living. +The place had an odd name--Nannizabuloe. + +"And it is lonely," said Humility, "the most of it sea-sand, so far +as I can hear." + +It was by the sea, then. How would they get there? + +"Oh, Joby's van will take us most of the way." + +Of all the vans which came and went in the Fore Street, none could +compare for romance with Joby's. People called it the Wreck Ashore; +but its real name, "Vital Spark, J. Job, Proprietor," was painted on +its orange-coloured sides in letters of vivid blue, a blue not often +seen except on ship's boats. It disappeared every Tuesday and +Saturday over the hill and into a mysterious country, from which it +emerged on Mondays and Fridays with a fine flavour of the sea renewed +upon it and upon Joby. No other driver wore a blue guernsey, or +rings in his ears, as Joby did. No other van had the same mode of +progressing down the street in a series of short tacks, or brought +such a crust of brine on its panes, or such a mixture of mud and fine +sand on its wheels, or mingled scraps of dry sea-weed with the straw +on its floor. + +"Will there be ships?" Taffy asked. + +"I dare say we shall see a few, out in the distance. It's a poor, +outlandish place. It hasn't even a proper church." + +"If there's no church, father can get into a boat and preach; just +like the Sea of Galilee, you know." + +"Your father is too good a man to mimic the Scriptures in any such +way. There is a church, I believe, though it's a tumble-down one. +Nobody has preached in it for years. But Squire Moyle may do +something now. He's a rich man." + +"Is that the old gentleman who came to ask father about his soul?" + +"Yes; he says no preaching ever did him so much good as your +father's. That's why he came and offered the living." + +"But he can't go to heaven if he's rich." + +"I don't know, Taffy, wherever you pick up such wicked thoughts." + +"Why, it's in the Bible!" + +Humility would not argue about it; but she told her husband that +night what the child had said. "My dear," he answered, "the boy must +think of these things." + +"But he ought not to be talking disrespectfully," contended she. + + +One Tuesday, towards the end of September, Taffy saw his father off +by Joby's van; and the Friday after, walked down with his mother to +meet him on his return. Almost at once the household began to pack. +The packing went on for a week, in the midst of which his father +departed again, a waggon-load of books and furniture having been sent +forward on the road that same morning. Then followed a day or two +during which Taffy and his mother took their meals at the +window-seat, sitting on corded boxes; and an evening when he went out +to the cannon in the square, and around the little back garden, +saying good-bye to the fixtures and the few odds and ends which were +to be left behind--the tool-shed (Crusoe's hut, Cave of Adullam, and +Treasury of the Forty Thieves), the stunted sycamore-tree which he +had climbed at different times as Zacchaeus, Ali Baba, and Man Friday +with the bear behind him; the clothes' prop, which, on the strength +of its forked tail, had so often played Dragon to his St. George. +When he returned to the empty house, he found his mother in the +passage. She had been for a walk alone. The candle was lit, and he +saw she had been crying. This told him where she had been; for, +although he remembered nothing about it, he knew he had once +possessed a small sister, who lived with him less than two months. +He had, as a rule, very definite notions of death and the grave; but +he never thought of her as dead and buried, partly because his mother +would never allow him to go with her to the cemetery, and partly +because of a picture in a certain book of his, called _Child's Play_. +It represented a little girl wading across a pool among water-lilies. +She wore a white nightdress, kilted above her knees, and a dark +cloak, which dragged behind in the water. She let it trail, while +she held up a hand to cover one of her eyes. Above her were trees +and an owl, and a star shining under the topmost branch; and on the +opposite page this verse: + + "I have a little sister, + They call her Peep-peep, + She wades through the waters, + Deep, deep, deep; + She climbs up the mountains, + High, high, high; + This poor little creature + She has but one eye." + +For years Taffy believed that this was his little sister, one-eyed, +and always wandering; and that his mother went out in the dusk to +persuade her to return; but she never would. + +When he woke next morning his mother was in the room; and while he +washed and dressed she folded his bed-clothes and carried them down +to a waggon which stood by the door, with horses already harnessed. +It drove away soon after. He found breakfast laid on the +window-seat. A neighbour had lent the crockery, and Taffy was +greatly taken with the pattern on the cups and saucers. He wanted to +run round again and repeat his good-byes to the house, but there was +no time. By-and-by the door opened, and two men, neighbours of +theirs, entered with an invalid's litter; and, Humility directing, +brought down old Mrs. Venning. She wore the corner of a Paisley +shawl over her white cap, and carried a nosegay of flowers in place +of her lace-pillow; but otherwise looked much as usual. + +"Quite the traveller, you see!" she cried gaily to Taffy. + +Then the woman who had lent the breakfast-ware came running to say +that Joby was getting impatient. Humility handed the door-key to +her, and so the little procession passed out and down across Mount +Folly. + +Joby had drawn his van up close to the granite steps. They were the +only passengers, it seemed. The invalid was hoisted in and laid with +her couch across the seats, so that her shoulders rested against one +side of the van and her feet against the other. Humility climbed in +after her; but Taffy, to his joy, was given a seat outside the box. + +"C'k!"--they were off. + +As they crawled up the street a few townspeople paused on the +pavement and waved farewells. At the top of the town they overtook +three sailor-boys, with bundles, who climbed up and perched +themselves a-top of the van, on the luggage. + +On they went again. There were two horses--a roan and a grey. +Taffy had never before looked down on the back of a horse, and +Joby's horses astonished him; they were so broad behind, and so +narrow at the shoulders. He wanted to ask if the shape were at all +common, but felt shy. He stole a glance at the silver ring in Joby's +left ear, and blushed when Joby turned and caught him. + +"Here, catch hold!" said Joby handing him the whip. "Only you +mustn't use it too fierce." + +"Thank you." + +"I suppose you'll be a scholar, like your father? Can ee spell?" + +"Yes." + +"Cipher?" + +"Yes." + +"That's more than I can. I counts upon my fingers. When they be +used up, I begins upon my buttons. I ha'n't got no buttons--visible +that is--'pon my week-a-day clothes; so I keeps the long sums for +Sundays, and adds 'em up and down my weskit during sermon. +Don't tell any person." + +"I won't." + +"That's right. I don't want it known. Ever see a gipsy?" + +"Oh, yes--often." + +"Next time you see one you'll know why he wears so many buttons. +You've a lot to learn." + +The van zigzagged down one hill and up another, and halted at a +turnpike. An old woman in a pink sun-bonnet bustled out and handed +Joby a pink ticket. A little way beyond they passed the angle of a +mining district, with four or five engine-houses high up like castles +on the hillside, and rows of stamps clattering and working up and +down like ogres' teeth. Next they came to a church town, with a +green and a heap of linen spread to dry (for it was Tuesday), and a +flock of geese that ran and hissed after the van, until Joby took the +whip and, leaning out, looped the gander by the neck and pulled him +along in the dust. The sailor-boys shouted with laughter and struck +up a song about a fox and a goose, which lasted all the way up a long +hill and brought them to a second turnpike, on the edge of the moors. +Here lived an old woman in a blue sun-bonnet; and she handed Joby a +yellow-ticket. + +"But why does she wear a blue bonnet and give yellow tickets?" Taffy +asked, as they drove on. + +Joby considered for a minute. "Ah, you're one to take notice, I see. +That's right, keep your eyes skinned when you travel." + +Taffy had to think this out. The country was changing now. They had +left stubble fields and hedges behind, and before them the granite +road stretched like a white ribbon, with moors on either hand, dotted +with peat-ricks and reedy pools and cropping ponies, and rimmed in +the distance with clay-works glistening in the sunny weather. + +"What sort of place is Nannizabuloe?" + +"I don't go on there. I drop you at Indian Queens." + +"But what sort of place is it?" + +"Well, I'll tell you what folks say of it:" + + 'All sea and san's, + Out of the world and into St. Ann's.' + +"That's what they say, and if I'm wrong you may call me a liar." + +"And Squire Moyle?" Taffy persevered. "What kind of man is he?" + +Joby turned and eyed him severely. "Look here, sonny. I got my +living to get." + +This silenced Taffy for a long while, but he picked up his courage +again by degrees. There was a small window at his back, and he +twisted himself round, and nodded to his mother and grandmother +inside the van. He could not hear what they answered, for the +sailor-boys were singing at the top of their voices: + + "I will sing you One, O! + What is your One, O? + Number One sits all alone, and ever more shall be-e so." + +"They're home 'pon leave," said Joby. The song went on and reached +Number Seven: + + "I will sing you Seven, O! + What is your Seven, O? + Seven be seven stars in the ship a-sailing round in Heaven, O!" + +One of the boys leaned from the roof and twitched Taffy by the hair. +"Hullo, nipper! Did you ever see a ship of stars?" He grinned and +pulled open his sailor's jumper and singlet; and there, on his naked +breast, Taffy saw a ship tattooed, with three masts, and a +half-circle of stars above it, and below it the initials W. P. + +"D'ee think my mother'll know me again?" asked the boy, and the other +two began to laugh. + +"Yes, I think so," said Taffy gravely; which made them laugh more +than ever. + +"But why is he painted like that?" he asked Joby, as they took up +their song again. + +"Ah, you'll larn over to St. Ann's, being one to notice things." +The nearer he came to it, the more mysterious this new home of +Taffy's seemed to grow. By-and-by Humility let down the window and +handed out a pasty. Joby searched under his seat and found a pasty, +twice the size of Taffy's, in a nose-bag. They ate as they went, +holding up their pasties from time to time and comparing progress. +Late in the afternoon they came to hedges again, and at length to an +inn; and in front of it Taffy spied his father waiting with a +farm-cart. While Joby baited his horses, the sailor-boys helped to +lift out the invalid and trans-ship the luggage; after which they +climbed on the roof again, and were jogged away northward in the +dusk, waving their caps and singing. + +The most remarkable thing about the inn was its signboard. This bore +on either side the picture of an Indian queen and two blackamoor +children, all with striped parasols, walking together across a +desert. The queen on one side wore a scarlet turban and a blue robe; +but the queen on the other side wore a blue turban and a scarlet +robe. Taffy dodged from side to side, comparing them, and had not +made up his mind which he liked best when Humility called him indoors +to tea. + +They had ham and eggs with their tea, which they took in a great +hurry; and then his grandmother was lifted into the cart and laid on +a bed of clean straw beside the boxes, and he and his mother +clambered up in front. So they started again, his father walking at +the horse's head. They took the road toward the sunset. As the dusk +fell closer around, Mr. Raymond lit a horn lantern and carried it +before them. The rays of it danced and wheeled upon the hedges and +gorse bushes. Taffy began to feel sleepy, though it was long before +his usual bedtime. The air seemed to weigh his eyelids down. Or was +it a sound lulling him? He looked up suddenly. His mother's arm was +about him. Stars flashed above, and a glimmer fell on her gentle +face--a dew of light, as it were. Her dark eyes appeared darker than +usual as she leaned and drew her shawl over his shoulder. + +Ahead, the rays of the lantern kept up their dance, but they flared +now and again upon stone hedges built in zigzag layers, and upon +unknown feathery bushes, intensely green and glistening like metal. + +The cart jolted and the lantern swung to a soundless tune that filled +the night. When Taffy listened it ceased; when he ceased listening, +it began again. + +The lantern stopped its dance and stood still over a ford of black +water. The cart splashed into it and became a ship, heaving and +lurching over a soft, irregular floor that returned no sound. +But suddenly the ship became a cart again, and stood still before a +house with a narrow garden-path and a light streaming along it from +an open door. + +His father lifted him down; his mother took his hand. They seemed to +wade together up that stream of light. Then came a staircase and +room with a bed in it, which, oddly enough, turned out to be his own. +He stared at the pink roses on the curtains. Yes; certainly it was +his own bed. And satisfied of this, he nestled down in the pillows +and slept, to the long cadence of the sea. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +THE RUNNING SANDS. + +He awoke to find the sun shining in at his window. At first he +wondered what had happened. The window seemed to be in the ceiling, +and the ceiling sloped down to the walls, and all the furniture had +gone astray into wrong positions. Then he remembered, jumped out of +bed, and drew the blind. + +He saw a blue line of sea, so clearly drawn that the horizon might +have been a string stretched from the corner eaves to the snow-white +light-house standing on the farthest spit of land; blue sea and +yellow sand curving round it, with a white edge of breakers; inshore, +the sand rising to a cliff ridged with grassy hummocks; farther +inshore, the hummocks united and rolling away up to inland downs, but +broken here and there on their way with scars of sand; over all, +white gulls wheeling. He could hear the nearest ones mewing as they +sailed over the house. + +Taffy had seen the sea once before, at Dawlish, on the journey to +Tewkesbury; and again on the way home. But here it was bluer +altogether, and the sands were yellower. Only he felt disappointed +that no ship was in sight, nor any dwelling nearer than the +light-house and the two or three white cottages behind it. +He dressed in a hurry and said his prayers, repeating at the close, +as he had been taught to do, the first and last verses of the Morning +Hymn: + + "Awake, my soul, and with the sun + Thy daily stage of duty run; + Shake off dull sloth, and joyful rise + To pay thy morning sacrifice. + + "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; + Praise Him, all creatures here below; + Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, + Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." + +He ran downstairs. In this queer house the stairs led right down +into the kitchen. The front door, too, opened into the kitchen, +which was really a slate-paved hall, with a long table set between +the doorway and the big open hearth. The floor was always strewn +with sand; there was no trouble about this, for the wind blew plenty +under the door. + +Taffy found the table laid, and his mother busily slicing bread for +his bread and milk. He begged for a hot cake from the hearth, and +ran out of doors to eat it. Humility lifted the latch for him, for +the cake was so hot that he had to pass it from hand to hand. + +Outside, the wind came upon him with a clap on the shoulder, quite +as if it had been a comrade waiting. + +Taffy ran down the path and out upon the sandy hummocks, setting his +face to the wind and the roar of the sea, keeping his head low, and +still shifting the cake from hand to hand. By-and-by he fumbled and +dropped it; stooped to pick it up, but saw something which made him +kneel and peer into the ground. + +The whole of the sand was moving; not by fits and starts, but +constantly; the tiny particles running over each other and drifting +in and out of the rushes, like little creatures in a dream. While he +looked, they piled an embankment against the edge of his cake. +He picked it up, ran forward a few yards, and peered again. +Yes, here too; here and yonder, and over every inch of that long +shore. + +He ate his cake and climbed to the beach, and ran along it, watching +the sandhoppers that skipped from under his boots at every step, and +were lost on the instant. The beach here was moist and firm. +He pulled off his boots and stockings, and ran on, conning his +footprints and the driblets of sand split ahead from his bare toes. +By-and-by he came to the edge of the surf. The strand here was +glassy wet, and each curving wave sent a shadow flying over it, and +came after the shadow, thundering and hissing, and chased it up the +shore, and fell back, leaving for a second or two an edge of delicate +froth which reminded the boy of his mother's lace-work. + +He began a sort of game with the waves, choosing one station after +another, and challenging them to catch him there. If the edge of +froth failed to reach his toes, he won. But once or twice the water +caught him fairly, and ran rippling over his instep and about his +ankles. + +He was deep in this game when he heard a horn blown somewhere high on +the towans behind him. + +He turned. No one was in sight. The house lay behind the +sand-banks, the first ridge hiding even its chimney-smoke. He gazed +along the beach, where the perpetual haze of spray seemed to have +removed the light-house to a vast distance. A sense of desolation +came over him with a rush, and with something between a gasp and a +sob he turned his back to the sea and ran, his boots dangling from +his shoulders by their knotted laces. + +He pounded up the first slope and looked for the cottage. No sign of +it! An insane fancy seized him. These silent moving sands were +after _him_. + +He was panting along in real distress when he heard the baying of +dogs, and at the same instant from the top of a hummock caught sight +of a figure outlined against the sky, and barely a quarter of a mile +away; the figure of a girl on horseback--a small girl on a very tall +horse. + +Just as Taffy recognised her, she turned her horse, walked him down +into the hollow beyond, and disappeared. Taffy ran towards the spot, +gained the ridge where she had been standing, and looked down. + +In a hollow about twenty feet deep and perhaps a hundred wide were +gathered a dozen riders, with five or six couples of hounds and two +or three dirty terriers. Two of the men had dismounted. One of +these, stripped to his shirt and breeches, was leaning on a +long-handled spade and laughing. The other--a fellow in a shabby +scarlet coat--held up what Taffy guessed to be a fox, though it +seemed a very small one. It was bleeding. The hounds yapped and +leapt at it, and fell back a-top of each other snarling, while the +Whip grinned and kept them at bay. A knife lay between his +wide-planted feet, and a visgy[1] close behind him on a heap of +disturbed sand. + +The boy came on them from the eastward, and his shadow fell across +the hollow. + +"Hullo!" said one of the riders, looking up. It was Squire Moyle +himself. "Here's the new Passon's boy!" + +All the riders looked up. The Whip looked up too, and turned to the +old Squire with a wider grin than before. + +"Shall I christen en, maister?" + +The Squire nodded. Before Taffy knew what it meant, the man was +climbing toward him with a grin, clutching the rush bents with one +hand, and holding out the blood-dabbled mask with the other. +The child turned to run, but a hand clutched his ankle. He saw the +man's open mouth and yellow teeth; and, choking with disgust and +terror, slung his boots at them with all his small force. At the +same instant he was jerked off his feet, the edge of the bank +crumbled and broke, and the two went rolling down the sandy slope in +a heap. He heard shouts of laughter, caught a glimpse of blue sky, +felt a grip of fingers on his throat, and smelt the verminous odour +of the dead cub, as the Whip thrust the bloody mess against his face +and neck. Then the grip relaxed, and--it seemed to him, amid dead +silence--Taffy sprang to his feet, spitting sand and fury. + +"You--you devils!" He caught up the visgy and stood, daring all to +come on. "You devils!" He tottered forward with the visgy lifted--it +was all he could manage--at Squire Moyle. The old man let out an +oath, and the curve of his whip-thong took the boy across the eyes +and blinded him for a moment, but did not stop him. The grey horse +swerved, and half-wheeled, exposing his flank. In another moment +there would have been mischief; but the Whip, as he stood wiping his +mouth, saw the danger and ran in. He struck the visgy out of the +child's grasp, set his foot on it, and with an open-handed cuff sent +him floundering into a sand-heap. + +"Nice boy, that!" said somebody, and the whole company laughed as +they walked their horses slowly out of the hollow. + +They passed before Taffy in a blur of tears; and the last rider to go +was the small girl Honoria on her tall sorrel. She moved up the +broad shelving path, but reined up just within sight, turned her +horse, and came slowly back to him. + +"If I were you, I'd go home." She pointed in its direction. + +Taffy brushed the back of his hand across his eyes. "Go away. +I hate you--I hate you all!" + +She eyed him while she smoothed the sorrel's mane with her +riding-switch. + +"They did it to me three years ago, when I was six. Grandfather +called it 'entering' me." + +Taffy kept his eyes sullenly on the ground. Finding that he would +not answer, she turned her horse again and rode slowly after the +others. Taffy heard the soft footfalls die away, and when he looked +up she had vanished. + +He picked up his boots and started in the direction to which she had +pointed. Every now and then a sob shook him. By-and-by the chimneys +of the house hove in sight among the ridges, and he ran toward it. +But within a gunshot of the white garden-wall his breast swelled +suddenly and he flung himself on the ground and let the big tears +run. They made little pits in the moving sand; and more sand drifted +up and covered them. + +"Taffy! Taffy! Whatever has become of the child?" + +His mother was standing by the gate in her print frock. He scrambled +up and ran toward her. She cried out at the sight of him, but he hid +his blood-smeared face against her skirts. + +[1] Mattock. + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +TAFFY RINGS THE CHURCH BELL. + +They were in the church--Squire Moyle, Mr. Raymond, and Taffy close +behind. The two men were discussing the holes in the roof and other +dilapidations. + +"One, two, three," the Squire counted. "I'll send a couple of men +with tarpaulin and rick-ropes. That'll tide us over next Sunday, +unless it blows hard." + +They passed up three steps under the belfry arch. Here a big bell +rested on the flooring. Its rim was cracked, but not badly. A long +ladder reached up into the gloom. + +"What's the beam like?" the Squire called up to someone aloft. + +"Sound as a bell," answered a voice. + +"I said so. We'll have en hoisted by Sunday, I'll send a waggon over +to Wheel Gooniver for a tackle and winch. Damme, up there! +Don't keep sheddin' such a muck o' dust on your betters!" + +"I can't help no other, Squire!" said the voice overhead; "such a +cauch o' pilm an' twigs, an' birds' droppins'! If I sneeze I'm a +lost man." + +Taffy, staring up as well as he could for the falling rubbish, could +just spy a white smock above the beam, and a glint of daylight on the +toe-scutes of two dangling boots. + +"I'll dam soon make you help it. _Is_ the beam sound?" + +"Ha'n't I told 'ee so?" said the voice querulously. + +"Then come down off the ladder, you son of a--" + +"Gently, Squire!" put in Mr. Raymond. + +The Squire groaned. "There I go again--an' in the House of God +itself! Oh! 'tis a case with me! I've a heart o' stone--a heart o' +stone." He turned and brushed his rusty hat with his coat-cuff. +Suddenly he faced round again. "Here, Bill Udy," he said to the old +labourer who had just come down the ladder, "catch hold of my hat an' +carry en fore to porch. I keep forgettin' I'm in church, an' then on +he goes." + +The building stood half a mile from the sea, surrounded by the +rolling towans and rabbit burrows, and a few lichen-spotted +tombstones slanting inland. Early in the seventeenth century a +London merchant had been shipwrecked on the coast below Nannizabuloe +and cast ashore, the one saved out of thirty. He asked to be shown a +church in which to give thanks for his preservation, and the people +led him to a ruin bedded in the sands. It had lain since the days of +Arundel's Rebellion. The Londoner vowed to build a new church there +on the towans, where the songs of prayer and praise should mingle +with the voice of the waves which God had baffled for him. +The people warned him of the sand; but he would not listen to reason. +He built his church--a squat Perpendicular building of two aisles, +the wider divided into nave and chancel merely by a granite step in +the flooring; he saw it consecrated, and returned to his home and +died. And the church steadily decayed. He had mixed his mortar with +sea-sand. The stonework oozed brine, the plaster fell piece-meal; +the blown sand penetrated like water; the foundations sank a foot on +the south side, and the whole structure took a list to leeward. +The living passed into the hands of the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, +and from them, in 1730, to the Moyles. Mr. Raymond's predecessor was +a kinsman of theirs by marriage, a pluralist, who lived and died at +the other end of the Duchy. He had sent curates from time to time; +the last of whom was dead, three years since, of solitude and drink. +But he never came himself, Squire Moyle having threatened to set the +dogs on him if ever he set foot in Nannizabuloe; for there had been +some dispute over a dowry. The result was that nobody went to +church, though a parson from the next parish held an occasional +service. The people were Wesleyan Methodists or Bryanites. +Each sect had its own chapel in the fishing village of Innis, on the +western side of the parish; and the Bryanites a second one, at the +cross-roads behind the downs, for the miners and warreners and +scattered farmfolk. + + +_Ding--ding--ding--ding--ding_. + +It was Sunday morning, and Taffy was sounding the bell, by a thin +rope tied to its clapper. The heavy bell-rope would be ready next +week; but Humility must first contrive a woollen binding for it, to +prevent its chafing the ringer's hands. + +Out on the towans the rabbits heard the sound, and ran scampering. +Others, farther away, paused in their feeding, and listened with +cocked ears. + +_Ding--ding--ding_. + +Mr. Raymond stood in the belfry at the boy's elbow. He wore his +surplice, and held his prayer-book, with a finger between the pages. +Glancing down toward the nave, he saw Humility sitting in the big +vicarage pew--no other soul in church. + +He took the cord from Taffy, "Run to the door, and see if anyone is +coming." + +Taffy ran, and after a minute came back. + +"There's Squire Moyle coming along the path, and the little girl with +him, and some servants behind--five or six of them. Bill Udy's one." + +"Nobody else?" + +"I expect the people don't hear the bell," said Taffy. "They live +too far away." + +"God hears. Yes, and God sees the lamp is lit." + +"What lamp?" Taffy looked up at his father's face, wondering. + +"All towers carry a lamp of some kind. For what else are they +built?" + +It was exactly the tone in which he had spoken that afternoon at +Tewkesbury about men being like towers. Both these sentences puzzled +the boy; and yet Taffy never felt so near to understanding him as he +had then, and did again now. He was shy of his father. He did not +know that his father was just as shy of him. He began to ring with +all his soul--ding--ding-ding, ding-ding. + +The old Squire entered the church, paused, and blew his nose +violently, and taking Honoria by the hand, marched her up to the end +of the south aisle. The door of the great pew was shut upon them, +and they disappeared. Before Honoria vanished Taffy caught a glimpse +of a grey felt hat with pink ribbons. + +The servants scattered and found seats in the body of the church. +He went on ringing, but no one else came. After a minute or two +Mr. Raymond signed to him to stop and go to his mother, which he did, +blushing at the noise of his shoes on the slate pavement. +Mr. Raymond followed, walked slowly past, and entered the +reading-desk. + +"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath +committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save +his soul alive. . . ." + +Taffy looked towards the Squire's pew. The bald top of the Squire's +head was just visible above the ledge. He looked up at his mother, +but her eyes were fastened on her prayer-book. He felt--he could not +help it--that they were all gathered to save this old man's soul, and +that everybody knew it and secretly thought it a hopeless case. +The notion dogged him all through the service, and for many Sundays +after. Always that bald head above the ledge, and his father and the +congregation trying to call down salvation on it. He wondered what +Honoria thought, boxed up with it and able to see its face. + +Mr. Raymond mounted an upper pulpit to preach his sermon. He chose +his text from Saint Matthew, Chapter vii., verses 26 and 27: + +"_And every one that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them +not, shall be likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon +the sand_; + +"_And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, +and beat upon that house; and it fell; and great was the fall of +it_." + +Taffy never followed his father's sermons closely. He would listen +to a sentence or two, now and again, and then let his wits wander. + +"You think this church is built upon the sands. The rain has come, +the winds have blown and beaten on it; the foundations have sunk and +it leans to leeward. . . . By the blessing of God we will shore it +up, and upon a foundation of rock. Upon what rock, you ask? . . . +Upon that rock which is the everlasting foundation of the Church +spiritual. . . . Hear what comfortable words our Lord spake to Peter. +. . . Our foundation must be faith, which is God's continuing +Presence on earth, and which we shall recognise hereafter as God +Himself. . . . Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the +evidence of things not seen. . . . In other words, it is the rock we +search for. . . . Draw near it, and you will know yourself in God's +very shadow--the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. . . . As +with this building, so with you, O man, cowering from wrath, as these +walls are cowering. . . ." + +The benediction was pronounced, the pew-door opened, and the old man +marched down the aisle, looking neither to right nor to left, with +his jaw set like a closed gin. Honoria followed. She had not so +much as a glance for Taffy; but in passing she gazed frankly at +Humility, whom she had not seen before. + +Humility was rather ostentatiously cheerful at dinner that day; a +sure sign that at heart she was disappointed. She had looked for a +bigger congregation. Mrs. Venning, who had been carried downstairs +for the meal, saw this and asked few questions. Both the women stole +glances at Mr. Raymond when they thought he was not observing them. +He at least pretended to observe nothing, but chatted away +cheerfully. + + + +"Taffy," he said, after dinner, "I want you to run up to Tredinnis +with a note from me. Maybe I will follow later, but I must go to the +village first." + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +A COCK-FIGHT. + +A footpath led Taffy past the church, and out at length upon a high +road, in face of two tall granite pillars with an iron gate between. +The gate was surmounted with a big iron lantern, and the lantern with +a crest--two snakes' heads intertwined. The gate was shut, but the +fence had been broken down on either side, and the gap, through which +Taffy passed, was scored with wheel-ruts. He followed these down an +ill-kept road bordered with furze-whins, tamarisks, and clumps of +bannel broom. By-and-by he came to a ragged plantation of stone +pines, backed by a hedge of rhododendrons, behind which the hounds +were baying in their kennels. It put him in mind of the "Pilgrim's +Progress." He heard the stable clock strike three, and caught a +glimpse, over the shrubberies, of its cupola and gilt weather-cock. +And then a turn of the road brought him under the gloomy northern +face of the house, with its broad carriage sweep and sunless portico. +Half the windows on this side had been blocked up and painted black, +with white streaks down and across to represent framework. + +He pulled at an iron bell-chain which dangled by the great door. +The bell clanged far within and a dozen dogs took up the note, +yelping in full peal. He heard footsteps coming; the door was +opened, and the dogs poured out upon him--spaniels, terriers, +lurchers, greyhounds, and a big Gordon setter--barking at him, +leaping against him, sniffing his calves. Taffy kept them at bay as +best he could and waved his letter at a wall-eyed man in a dirty +yellow waistcoat, who looked down from the doorstep but did not offer +to call them off. + +"Any answer?" asked the wall-eyed man. + +Taffy could not say. The man took the letter and went to inquire, +leaving him alone with the dogs. + +It seemed an age before he reappeared, having in the interval slipped +a dirty livery coat over his yellow waistcoat. "The Squire says +you're to come in." Taffy and the dogs poured together into a high, +stone-flagged hall; then through a larger hall and a long dark +corridor. The footman's coat, for want of a loop, had been hitched +on a peg by its collar, and stuck out behind his neck in the most +ludicrous manner; but he shuffled ahead so fast that Taffy, tripping +and stumbling among the dogs, had barely time to observe this before +a door was flung open and he stood blinking in a large room full of +sunlight. + +"Hallo! Here's the parson's bantam!" + +The room had four high, bare windows through which the afternoon +sunshine streamed on the carpet. The carpet had a pattern of pink +peonies on a delicate buff ground, and was shamefully dirty. And the +vast apartment, with its white paint and gilding and Italian sketches +in water-colour and statuettes under glass, might have been a lady's +drawing-room. But paint and gilding were tarnished; the chintz +chair-covers soiled and torn; the pictures hung askew; and a smell of +dog filled the air. + +Squire Moyle sat huddled in a deep chair beside the fire-place, +facing the middle of the room, where a handsome, high-complexioned +gentleman, somewhat past middle age, lounged on a settee and dangled +a gold-mounted riding crop. A handsome boy knelt at the back of the +settee and leaned over the handsome gentleman's shoulder. On the +floor, between the two men, lay a canvas bag; and something moved +inside it. At the end of the room, by the farthest window, Honoria +knelt over a big portfolio. She wore the grey frock and pink sash +which Taffy had seen in church that morning, and she tossed her dark +hair back from her eyes as she looked up. + +The Squire crumpled up the letter in his hand. + +"Put the bag away," he said to the handsome gentleman. "'Tis Sunday, +I tell 'ee, and Parson will be here in an hour. This is young +six-foot I was telling about." He turned to Taffy-- + +"Boy, go and shake hands with Sir Harry Vyell." + +Taffy did as he was bidden. "This is my son George," said Sir Harry; +and Taffy shook hands with him, too, and liked his face. + +"Put the bag away, Harry," said the Squire. + +"Just to comfort 'ee, now!" + +"I tell 'ee I won't look at en." + +Sir Harry untied the neck of the bag, and drew out a smaller one; +untied this, and out strutted a game-cock. + +The old Squire eyed it. "H'm, he don't seem flourishing." + +"Don't abuse a bird that's come twelve miles in a bag on purpose to +cheer you up. He's a match for anything you can bring." + +"Tuts, man, he's dull--no colour nor condition. Get along with 'ee; +I wouldn' ask a bird of mine to break the Sabbath for a wastrel like +that." + +Sir Harry drew out a shagreen-covered case and opened it. Within, on +a lining of pale blue velvet, lay two small sharp instruments of +steel, very highly polished. He lifted one, felt its point, replaced +it, set down the case on the carpet, and fell to toying with the ears +of the Gordon setter, which had come sniffing out of curiosity. + +"You're a very obstinate man," said Squire Moyle. After a long pause +he added, "I suppose you're wanting odds?" + +"Evens will do," said Sir Harry. + +The old man turned and rang the bell. + +"Tell Jim to fetch in the red cock," he shouted to the wall-eyed +footman--who must have been waiting in the corridor, so promptly he +appeared. + +"And Jim won't be long about it either," whispered Honoria. She had +come forward quietly, and stood at Taffy's elbow. + +Sir Harry shook a finger at her and laid it on his lips. But the old +Squire did not hear. He sat glum, pulling a whisker and keeping a +sour eye on the bird, which was strutting about in rather foolish +bewilderment at the pink peonies on the carpet. + +"I'm giving you every chance," he grumbled at length. + +"Oh, as for that," Sir Harry replied, equably, "have it out in the +yard, if you please, on your own dunghill." + +"No. Indoors is bad enough." + +Jim appeared just then, and turned out to be Taffy's old enemy, the +Whip, bearing the Squire's game-cock in a basket. He took it out; a +very handsome bird, with a hackle in which gold, purple and the +richest browns shone and were blended. + +Sir Harry had picked up his bird and was heeling it with the long +steel spurs; a very delicate process, to judge by the time occupied +and the pucker on his good-tempered brow. + +"Ready?" he asked at length. + +Jim, who had been heeling the Squire's bird, nodded and the pair were +set down. They ruffled and flew at each other without an instant's +hesitation. The visitor, which five minutes before had been staring +at the carpet so foolishly, was prompt enough now. For a moment they +paused, beak to beak, eye to eye, furious, with necks outstretched +and hackles stiff with the rage of battle. They began to rise and +fall like two feathers tossing in the air, very quietly. But for the +soft whir of wings there was no sound in the room. Taffy could +scarcely believe they were fighting in earnest. For a moment they +seemed to touch--to touch and no more, and for a moment only--but in +that moment the stroke was given. The home champion fluttered down, +stood on his legs for a moment, as if nothing had happened, then +toppled over and lay twitching, as his conqueror strutted over him +and lifted his throat to crow. + +Squire Moyle rose, clutching the corner of his chair. His mouth +opened and shut, but no words came. Sir Harry caught up his bird, +whipped off his spurs, and thrust him back into the bag. The old man +dropped back, letting his chin sink on his high stock-collar. + +"It serves me right. Who shall deliver me from the wrath to come?" + +"Oh! as for that--" Sir Harry finished tying the neck of the bag, and +lazily fell to fingering the setter's ear. + +The old man was muttering to himself. Taffy looked at the dead bird, +then at Honoria. She was gazing at it too, with untroubled eyes. + +"But I _will_ be saved! I tell you, Harry, I _will!_ Take those +birds away. Honoria, hand me my Bible. It's all here"--he tapped +the heavy book--"miracles, redemption, justification by faith--I +_will_ have faith. I _will_ believe, every damned word of it!" + +Sir Harry broke in with a peal of laughter. Taffy had never heard a +laugh so musical. + +The old man was adjusting his spectacles; but he took them off and +laid them down, his hands shaking with rage. + +"You came here to taunt me"--his voice shook as his hand--"me, an +old man, with no son to my house. You think, because I'm seeking +higher things, there's no fight left in us or in the parish. I tell +you what; make that boy of yours strip and stand up, and I'll back +the Parson's youngster for doubles or quits. Off with your coat, my +son, and stand up to him!" + +Taffy turned round in a daze. He did not understand. His eyes met +Honoria's, and they were fastened on him curiously. He was white in +the face; the sight of the murdered game-cock had sickened him. + +"He doesn't look flourishing." Sir Harry mimicked the Squire's recent +manner. + +Taffy turned with the look of a hunted animal. He did not want to +fight. He hated this house and its inhabitants. The other boy was +stripping off his jacket with a good-humoured smile. + +"I--I don't want--" Taffy began fumbling with a button. "Please--" + +"Off with your coat, boy! You were game enough t'other day. If you +lick en, I'll put a new roof on your father's church." + +Taffy was still fumbling with his jacket-button when a bell sounded, +clanging through the house. + +"The parson!" + +Squire Moyle clutched at his Bible like a child who has been caught +playing in school. Sir Harry stepped to the window and flung up the +sash. "Out you tumble, youngsters--you too, Miss, if you like. +Pick up your coat, George--cut and run to the stables; I'll be round +in a minute--quick, out you go!" + +The children scrambled over the sill and dropped on to the stone +terrace. As his father closed the sash behind him, George Vyell +laughed out. Then Taffy began to laugh; he laughed all the way as +they ran. When they reached the stables he was swaying with +laughter. There was a hepping-stock by the stable-wall, and he flung +himself on to the slate steps. He could not stop laughing. +The two others stared at him. They thought he had gone mad. + +"Here comes Dad!" cried George Vyell. + +This sobered Taffy. He sat up and brushed his eyes. Sir Harry +whistled for Jim, and told him to saddle the horses. + +George and Honoria stood by the stable-door and watched the saddling. +The horses were led out; Sir Harry's, a tall grey, George's, a roan +cob. + +"Look here!" Sir Harry said to Jim; "you take my bird, and comfort +your master with him. I don't want him any more." + +The two rode out of the yard and away up the avenue. Honoria planted +herself in front of Taffy. + +"Would you have fought just now?" she asked. + +"I--I don't know. That's my father calling." + +"But, would you have fought?" + +"I must go to him." He would not look her in the face. + +"Tell me." + +"Don't bother! I don't know." + +He ran out of the yard. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +GEORGE. + +It appeared that Honoria and Taffy were to do lessons together, and +Mr. Raymond was to teach them. This had been the meaning of his +visit to Tredinnis House. They began the very next day in the +library at Tredinnis--a deserted room carpeted with badgers' skins, +and lined with undusted books--works on farriery, veterinary surgery, +and sporting subjects, long rows of the _Annual Register_, the +_Arminian Magazine_. + +Taffy began by counting the badgers' skins. There were eighteen, and +the moths had got into them, so that the draught under the door +puffed little drifts of hair over the polished boards. Then he +settled down to the first Latin declension--_Musa_, a muse; vocative, +_Musa_, O muse!; genitive, Musae, of a muse. Honoria began upon the +ABC. + +Mr. Raymond brought a pile of his own books, and worked at them, +scribbling notes in the margin or on long slips of paper, while the +children learnt. A servant came in with a message from Squire Moyle, +and he left them for a while. + +"I call this nonsense," said Honoria. "How am I to get these silly +letters into my head?" + +Taffy was glad of the chance to show off. "Oh, that's easy. You +make up a tale about them. See here. A is the end of a house; it's +just like one with a beam across. B is a cat with his tail curled +under him--watch me drawing it. C is an old woman stooping; and D is +another cat, only his back is more rounded. Once upon a time, there +lived in a cottage an old woman who went about with two cats, one on +each side of her--that's how you go on." + +"But I can't go on. You must do it for me." + +"Well, each of these cats had a comb, and was combed every Saturday +night. One was a good cat, and kept his comb properly--like E, you +see. But the other had broken a tooth out of his--that's F--" + +"I expect he was a fulmart," said Honoria. + +Taffy agreed. He didn't know what a fulmart was, but he was not +going to confess it. So he went on hurriedly, and Honoria thought +him a wonder. They came to W. + +"So they got into a ship (I'll show you how to make one out of paper, +exactly like W), and sailed up into the sky, for the ship was a Ship +of Stars--you make X's for stars; but that's a witch-ship; so it +stuck fast in Y, which is a cleft ash-stick, and then came a stroke +of lightning, Z, and burnt them all up!" He stopped, out of breath. + +"I don't understand the ending at all," said Honoria. "What is a +Ship of Stars?" + +"Haven't you ever seen one?" + +"No." + +"I have. There's a story about it--" + +"Tell me about it." + +"I'll tell you lots of stories afterwards; about the Frog-king and +Aladdin and Man Friday and The Girl who trod on a Loaf." + +"And the Ship of Stars?" + +"N--no." Taffy felt himself blushing. "That's one of the stories +that won't come--and they're the loveliest of all," he added, in a +burst of confidence. + +Honoria thought for a moment, but did not understand in the least. +All she said was, "what funny words you use!" She went back to her +alphabet--A, house; B, cat. It came more easily now. + +After lessons she made him tell her a story; and Taffy, who wished to +be amusing, told her about the "Valiant Tailor who killed Seven at a +Blow." To his disgust, it scarcely made her smile. But after this +she was always asking for stories, and always listened solemnly, with +her dark eyes fixed on his face. She never seemed to admire him at +all for his gift, but treated it with a kind of indulgent wonder, as +if he were some queer animal with uncommon tricks. This dashed Taffy +a bit, for he liked to be thought a fine fellow. But he went on +telling his stories, and sometimes invented new ones for her. +George Vyell was much more appreciative. Sir Harry had heard of the +lessons, and wrote to beg that his son might join the class. +So George rode over three times a week to learn Latin, which he did +with uncommon slowness. But he thought Taffy's stories stunning, and +admired him without a shade of envy. The two boys liked each other; +and when they were alone Taffy stood an inch or two higher in +self-conceit than when Honoria happened to be by. But he took more +pains with his stories if she was listening. As for her lessons, +Honoria got through them by honest plodding. She never quite saw the +use of them, but she liked Mr. Raymond. She learnt more steadily +than either of the boys. + +One day George rode over with two pairs of boxing-gloves dangling +from his saddle. After lessons he and Taffy had a try with them, in +a clearing behind the shrubberies where the gardener had heaped his +sweepings of dry leaves to rot down for manure. + +"But, look here," said George, after the first round; "you'll never +learn if you hit so wild as that. You must keep your head up, and +watch my eyes and feint." + +Taffy couldn't help it. As soon as ever he struck out, he forgot +that it was not real fighting. And he felt ashamed to look George +straight in the face, for his own eyes were full of tears of +excitement. At the end of the bout, when George said, "Now we must +shake hands; it's the proper thing to do," he looked bewildered for a +moment. It made George laugh in his easy way, and then Taffy laughed +too. + +After this they had a bout almost every day; and he was soon able to +hold his own and treat it as sport. But somehow he always felt a +passion behind it, whispering to him to put some nastiness into his +blows, especially when Honoria came to look on. And yet he liked +George far better than he liked Honoria. Indeed, he adored George, +and the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings when George appeared +were the bright spots in his week. Lessons were over at twelve +o'clock; by one o'clock Taffy had to be home for dinner. Loneliness +filled the afternoons, but the child peopled them with extravagant +fancies. He and George were crusaders sworn to defend the Holy +Sepulchre, and bound by an oath of brotherhood, though George was a +Red Cross Knight and he a plain squire; and after the most surprising +adventures Taffy received the barbed and poisoned arrow intended for +his master, and died most impressively, with George and Honoria, and +Richard Coeur de Lion, and most of the characters from "Ivanhoe," +sobbing round his bed. There was a Blondel variant too, with George +imprisoned in a high tower; and a monstrous conglomerate tale in +which most of the heroes of history and romance played second fiddle +to George, whose pre-eminence, though occasionally challenged by +Achilles, Sir Lancelot, or the Black Prince, was regularly vindicated +by Taffy's timely help. + +This tale, with endless variations, actually lasted him for two good +years. The scene of it never lay among the towans, but round about +his old home or the well-remembered meadow at Tewkesbury. That was +his plain of Troy, his Field of Cressy, his lists of Ashby de la +Zouche. The high road at the back of the towans crossed a stream, by +a ford and a footbridge; and the travelling postman, if he had any +letters for the Parsonage, would stop by the footbridge and blow a +horn. He little guessed what challenges it sounded to the small boy +who came running for the post. + +The postman came by, as a rule, at two o'clock or thereabouts. +One afternoon in early spring Mr. Raymond happened to be starting for +a walk when the horn was blown, and he and Taffy went to meet the +post together. There were three or four letters which the Vicar +opened; and one for Humility, which he put in his pocket. In the +midst of his reading, he looked up, smiled over his spectacles, and +said: + +"Oxford has won the boat-race." + +Taffy had been deep in the Fifth Aeneid for some weeks, and +boat-racing ran much in his mind. + +"Who is Oxford?" he asked. + +Mr. Raymond took off his spectacles and wiped them. It came on him +suddenly that this child, whom he loved, was shut out from many of +his dearest thoughts. + +"Oxford is a city," he answered; and added, "the most beautiful city +in the world." + +"Shall I ever go there?" Taffy asked. + +Mr. Raymond walked off without seeming to hear the question. +But that evening after supper he told the most wonderful tales of +Oxford, while Taffy listened and hoped his mother would forget his +bedtime; and Humility listened too, bending over her _guipure_. +The love with which he looked back to Oxford was the second passion +of Samuel Raymond's life; and Humility was proud of it, not jealous +at all. He forgot all the struggle, all the slights, all the grip of +poverty. To him those years had become an heroic age, and men +Homeric men. And so he made them appear to Taffy, to whom it was +wonderful that his father should have moved among such giants. + +"And shall I go there too?" + +Humility glanced up quickly, and met her husband's eyes. + +"Some day, please God!" she said. Mr. Raymond stared at the embers +of wreck-wood on the hearth. + +From that night Oxford became the main scene of Taffy's imaginings; a +wholly fictitious Oxford, pieced together of odds and ends from +picture-books, and peopled with all the old heroes. And so, with +contests on the models of the Fifth Aeneid, the story went forward +gallantly for many months. + +But the afternoons were long; and at times the interminable +sand-hills and everlasting roar of the sea oppressed the child with a +sense of loneliness beyond words. The rabbits and gulls would not +make friends with him, and he ached for companionship. Of that ache +was born his half-crazy adoration of George Vyell. There were hours +when he lay in some nook of the towans, peering into the ground, +seeing pictures in the sand--pictures of men and regiments and +battles, shifting with the restless drift; until, unable to bear it, +he flung out his hands to efface them, and hid his face in the sand, +sobbing, "George! George!" + +At night he would creep out of bed to watch the lighthouse winking +away in the north-east. George lived somewhere beyond. And again it +would be "George! George!" + +And when the happy mornings came, and George with them, Taffy was as +shy as a lover. So George never guessed. It might have surprised +that very careless young gentleman, when he looked up from his verbs +which govern the dative, and caught Taffy's eye, could he have seen +himself in his halo there. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +THE SQUIRE'S SOUL. + +Two years passed, and a third winter. The church was now well on its +way to restoration. The roof had been repaired, the defective +timbers removed and sound ones inserted, the south wall strengthened +with three buttresses, the foundations on that side examined and +shored up. The old Squire did not halt here. Furniture arrived for +the interior; a handsome altar cloth, a small gilt cross, a dozen +hanging lamps, an oaken lectern, cushions, hymn-books, a big new +Bible with purple book-markers. He promised to take out the east +window--which was just a patchwork of common glass, like a cucumber +frame--and replace it with sound mullions and stained glass, in +memory of his only daughter, Honoria's mother. She had run away from +Tredinnis House, and married a penniless captain; and Honoria's +surname was Callastair, though nobody uttered it in the old man's +hearing. Husband and wife had died in India, of cholera, within +three years of their marriage; and the old man had sent for the +child. Having relented so far, he went on to do it thoroughly, in +his own fashion. He neglected Honoria; but she might have anything +she wanted for the asking. It seemed, though, that she wanted very +little. + +He allowed Mr. Raymond to choose the design for this window. He only +stipulated that the subject should be Jonah and the whale. +"There's no story'll compare with it for trying a man's faith." + +When the window came, and was erected, he complained that it left out +most of the whale, of which the jaws and one wicked little red eye +were all that appeared. "It looks half-hearted. Why didn't they +swim en all in? 'Tis neck or nothin' wi' that story; but they've +made it neck _and_ nothin'. An' after colouring en violet too!" + +In return, the Vicar had hunted up some county histories and heraldic +works in the library at Tredinnis, and was now busy re-emblazoning +with his own hand the devices carved on the Moyle pew. + +Little by little, too, the congregation had grown. The people came +shyly at first. They mistrusted the Established Church. But they +treated the Vicar with politeness when he visited them. And seeing +him so awkward, and how with all his book-learning he listened to +their opinions and blushed when he offered any small service, they +grew to like him, being shy themselves. They pitied him too, knowing +the old Squire better than he did. So from Sunday to Sunday Taffy, +pulling at his rope in the belfry, counted the new-comers, and +Humility talked about them on the way home and at dinner. They were +fisher folk for the most part; the men in blue guernseys and corduroy +trousers, and some with curled black beards and rings in their ears; +the women, in gayer colours than you see in an up-country church; a +southern-seeming race, with southern-sounding names--Santo, Jose, +Hugo, Bennet, Cara. They belonged--so Mr. Raymond often told +himself--to the class which Christ called His Apostles. Sometimes, +scanning an olive-coloured face, he would be minded of the Sea of +Gennesareth; and, a minute later, the sight of the grey coast-line +with its whirled spray would chill the fancy. + +The congregation always lingered outside the porch after service; and +then one would say to another: "Wall, there's more in the man than +you'd think. See you up to the meetin' this evenin' I s'pose? +So long!" + +But having come once, they came again. And the family at the +Parsonage were full of hope, though Taffy longed sometimes for a +play-fellow, and sometimes for he knew not what, and Humility bent +over her lace pillow and thought of green lanes and of Beer Village +and women at work by sunshiny doorways; and wondered if their faces +had changed. + + "O, that I were where I would be! + Then would I be where I am not; + But where I am, there I must be, + And where I would be, I cannot." + +She never told a soul of her home thoughts. Her husband never +guessed them. But Taffy (without knowing why), whenever this verse +from his old playbook came into his head, connected it with his +mother. + +But the old Squire was getting impatient. He took quite a feudal +view of the saving of his soul, and would have dragged the whole +parish to church by main force, had it been possible. + +Late one afternoon, Taffy was lying in one of his favourite nooks in +the lee of the towans, when he heard voices and looked up. And there +sat the old gentleman gazing down on him from horseback, with Bill +Udy at his side. The Squire was in hunting dress. + +"What be doin' down there?" he asked. "Praying?" + +"No, sir." + +"I wish you would. I wish you'd pray for me. I've heerd that a +child'll do good sometimes when grown folk can't. I doubt your +father isn't goin' to do the good I looked for from en. He don't +believe in sudden conversion. Here, Bill, take the mare and lead her +home." + +He dismounted, and seated himself with a groan on the edge of the +sand-pit. + +"Look here; I've got convictions of sin, but I can't get no forrader. +What's to be done?" + +"I don't know, sir," Taffy stammered, with his eyes on the Squire's +spurs. + +"You can pray for me, I suppose?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Well, do it. Do it to-night. I've got convictions, boy; but my +heart's like a stone. I've had a wisht day of it. If the weather +holds back, we'll kill a May fox this year. But where's the comfort? +All the time to-day 'twas '_Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked! +Lippety-lop, no peace for the wicked!_' I couldn't stand it; I came +away. You'll do it, won't 'ee?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Is your father at home? I'll call an' speak to en. He does me +good; but he can't melt what I carry here." + +He tapped his breast and rising without another word strode off +across the sand-hills with his head down and his hands clasped +beneath his coat-tails, which flapped in the wind as he went. + +Taffy ran and overtook Bill Udy and the mare. + +"He's in a wisht poor state, id'n a'?" said Bill Udy, who was parish +clerk. "Bless 'ee, tidn' no manner of use. His father before en was +took in just the same way. Turned religious late in life. What +d'ee think he did? Got his men together one Sunday mornin', marched +them up to Meetin' house, up to Four Turnin's; slipped his ridin' +crop through the haps o' the door, an' 'Now my Billies,' says he, +through the key-hole, 'not a man or woman of 'ee leaves the place +till you've said that Amazin' Creed. Come along,' he says, +'_Whosoever will be saved_ an' the sooner 'tis over, the sooner +you gets home to dinner.' A fine talk there was! Squire, he's just +such another. Funny things he've a-done. Married a poor soul from +Roseland way--a Miss Trevanion--quite a bettermost lady. When Miss +Susannah was born--that's Miss Honoria's mother--she went to be +churched. What must he do, to show his annoyance that 'twasn't a +boy, but drive a she-ass into church? Very stiff behaviour. +He drove the beast right fore an' into the big pew. The Moyles, you +see, 've got a mule for their shield of arms. He've had his own way +too much; that's of it. + +"One day he dropped into church just before sarmon-time. There was a +rabbit squattin' outside 'pon his father's tombstone. Squire crep' +up an' clapped his Sunday hat 'pon top of en. Took en into church. +One o' the curate chaps was preachin'--a timorous little fellah. +By-'n'-by Squire slips out his rabbit. 'Wirroo, boys! Coorse en, +coorse en--we'll have en for dinner!' Aw, a pretty dido! The curate +fellah ran out to door an' the rabbit after en. Folks did say the +rabbit was the old Squire's soul, an' that he'd turned black inside +the young Squire's hat. Very stiff behaviour. + +"He've had his own way too much; that's what it is. When he was +pricked for sheriff, he hired a ramshackle po'shay, painted a mule +'pon the panel, an' stuffed the footmen's stockings with bran till it +looked a case of dropsy. He was annoyed at bein' put to the expense. +The judge lost his temper at bein' met in such a way, an' pitched +into en in open court, specially about the mule. He didn't know +'twas the Squire's shield of arms. Squire stood it for some time; +but at last he ups an' says, 'If you was an old woman of _mine_, I'd +dress 'ee different; an' if you was an old woman of mine an' kep' +scolding like that, I'd have 'ee in the duckin'-stool for your +sauce!' He almost went to gaol for that. But they put it on the +ground the judge had insulted his shield of arms, an' so he got off. + +"Well, wish-'ee-well! Don't you trouble about _he_. He've had his +own way too much, but he won't get it this time." + +That night Taffy dreamt that he met Squire Moyle walking along the +shore; but the sand clogged him, and his spurs sank in it and his +riding-boots. When he was ankle deep he began to call out, "Pray for +me!" Then Taffy saw a black rabbit running on the firm sand to the +breakers; and the Squire cried "Pray for me! I must catch en! +'Tis my father's soul running off!" and put his hand into his breast +and drew out a stone and flung it. But the stone, as soon as it +touched the sand, turned into another rabbit, and the pair ran off +together along the shore. The old man tried to follow, but the sand +held him; and the tide was rising. . . . + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +ENTER THE KING'S POSTMAN. + +A faint south wind murmured beneath the eaves. It died away, and for +an hour there was peace on the towans. Then the sands began to +trickle again, and the rushes to whisper and bend away from the sea, +toward the high moors over which the gulls had flown yesterday and +disappeared. By-and-by a spit or two of rain came flying out of the +black north-west. The drops fell in the path of the sand, but the +sand drove over and covered them, racing faster and faster. + +Day rose, and Taffy awoke. The house walls were shaking. With each +blow the wind ran up a scale of notes and ended with a howl. +He looked out. Sea and sky had melted into one; only now and then +white surf line heaved into sight, and melted back into grey. +After breakfast he and his father started to battle their way to +Tredinnis House, while Humility barricaded the door behind them. +Taffy wore a suit of oilers, of which he was mightily proud. + +They made their way under the lee of the towans to escape the +stinging sand. Within Tredinnis Gates they found a couple of +pine-trees blown down across the road, and scrambled over their +trunks. Before lessons, Taffy boasted a lot of his journey to +Honoria, and almost forgot to be sorry that George did not appear, +though it was Wednesday. + +They had no trouble in reaching home. The gale hurled them along. +Taffy, leaning his back against it, could scarcely feel his feet +touching ground. Humility unfastened the door, looking white and +anxious. Before they could close it again, the wind swept a big dish +off the dresser with a crash. + +Taffy slept soundly that night. He did not hear a knocking which +sounded on the house-door, soon after eleven o'clock. The man who +knocked came from Tresedder, one of the moor farms. "Oh, sir! did +'ee see the rockets go up over Innis? There'll be dead men down 'pon +the Island rocks." + +Taffy slept on. When he came downstairs next morning there was a +stranger in the kitchen--a little old man, huddled in a blanket +before the great fireplace, where a line of clothes hung drying. +Humility was stooping to wedge a sand-bag under the door. She looked +up at Taffy with a wan little smile. + +"There has been a wreck," she said. + +"Glory be!" exclaimed the stranger from the fire-place. + +Taffy glanced at him, but could see little more than the back of a +bald head above the blankets. + +"Where's the ship?" he asked. + +"Gone," answered the Vicar, coming at that moment from the inner room +where his books were. "She must have broken up in less than ten +minutes after she struck the Island--parted and gone down in six +fathoms of water." + +"And the men? Was father there?" It bewildered Taffy that all this +should have happened while he was sleeping. + +"There was no time to fix the rocket apparatus. She was late in +making her distress signals. But I doubt if anything could have been +done. She went down too quickly." + +"But--" Taffy's gaze wandered to the bald head. + +"He was washed clean over the ridge where she struck, and swept into +Innis Pool--one big wave carried him into safety--one man out of +six." + +"Hallelujah!" cried the rescued man facing round in his chair. +"Might ha' been scat like an egg-shell, and here I be shoutin' +praises!" Taffy saw that he was a clean-shaven little fellow, with +puckered cheeks and two wisps of grey hair curling forward from his +ears. + +Mr. Raymond frowned. "I am sure," said he, "you ought not to be +talking so much." + +"I will sing and give praise, sir, beggin' you pardon, with the best +member that I have. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended +and I burn not? Hallelujah! A-men!" + +He took his basin of bread and milk from Humility's hand, and ate by +the fire. She had wrung his clothes through fresh water, and as soon +as they were thoroughly dry he retired upstairs to change. He came +back to his seat by the fire. + +"Now, I be like 'Possel Paul," he said, rubbing his hands, and +stretching them out to the blaze. "After his shipwreck, you know, +when the folks 'pon the island showed en kindness. This is the +Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in your eyes. + + "'Not fearing nor doubting, + With Christ by my side, + I hopes to die shouting, + The Lord will provide!'" + +Humility thought that for certain the shipwreck had turned his head. + +"But where do you come from?" she asked. + +"They call me Jacky Pascoe, ma'am; but I calls myself the King's +Postman-- + + "'Jacky Pascoe is my name, + Wendron is my nation, + Nowhere is my dwelling-place, + For Christ is my salvation--' + +"I was brought to a miner, over to Wheal Jewel, in Illogan Parish; +but got conversion fifteen years since, an' now I go about praising +the Name. I've been miner, cafender, cooper, mason, seaman, +scissor-grinder, umbrella-mender, holli-bubber, all by turns. +I sticks my hands in my pockets, an' waits on the Lord; an' what he +tells me to do, I do. This day week I was up to Fowey, working on +the tip.[1] There was a little schooner there, the _Garibaldi_, of +Newport, discharging coal. The Lord said to me, 'Arise, go in that +there schooner!' I sought out the skipper, and said, 'Where be bound +for next?' 'Back to Newport,' says he. 'That'll suit me,' I says, +an' persuaded en to take me. But the Lord knew where she were bound +better'n the skipper; and here I be!" + +It seemed to his hearers that this man took little thought of his +drowned shipmates. Mr. Raymond looked up as he strapped his books +together. + +"You were not the only man in that schooner," he said, rather +severely. + +"Glory be! Who be I, to question the Lord's ways? One day I picked +up a map, an' seed a place on it called 'Little Sins.' 'Little Sins +wants great Deliverance,' says I, an' I started clane off an' walked +to the place, though I'd never so much as heard of it till then. +'Twas harvest-time there, an' I danced into the field, shouting +'Glory, glory. The harvest is plenty, but the labourers be few!' +The farmer was moved to give me a job 'pon the spot. I bided there +two year, an' built them a chapel an' preached the Word in it. +They offered me money to stop an' preach; and I laid it before the +Lord. But He said, 'You're the King's Postman. Keep moving, keep on +moving! 'I've built two more chapels since then." + +Late that afternoon three bodies were recovered from the sea--the +captain, the mate, and a boy of about sixteen; and were buried in the +churchyard next day, as soon as the inquest was over. Pascoe +followed the coffins, and pointed the service at the grave-side with +interjaculations of his own. "Glory be!" "A-men!" "Hallelujah!" +"Great Redemption!" To the Vicar's surprise the small crowd after a +minute began to follow the man's lead, until at length he could +scarcely read for these interruptions. + +At supper that night Pascoe sprang a question on the Vicar. + +"Be you convarted?" he asked, looking up with his mouth full of bread +and cheese. + +"I hope so." + +"Aw, you _hopes!_ 'Tis a bad case with 'ee, then. When a man's +convarted, he _knows_. Seemin' to me, you baint. You don't show +enough of the bright side. Now, as I go along, my very toes keep +ticking salvation. Down goes one foot, 'Glory be!' Down goes the +other, 'A-men!' Aw! I must dance for joy!" + +He got up and danced around the kitchen. + +"I wish the man would go," Humility thought to herself. + +His very next words answered her wish. "I'll be leavin' to-morrow, +friends. I've got a room down to the village, an' I've borreyed a +razor. I'm goin' to tramp round the mines at the back here, an' +shave the miners at a ha'penny a chin. That'll pay my way. There's +a new preacher planned to the Bible Christians, down to Innis, an' +I'm goin' to help he. My dears, don't 'ee tell me the Lord didn' +know what He was about when He cast the _Garibaldi_ ashore!" + +He left the Parsonage next day. "Ma'am," he said to Humility on +leaving, "I salute this here house. Peace be on this here house, for +it is worthy. He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet +shall receive a prophet's reward." + +Two mornings later, Taffy, looking out from his bedroom window soon +after daybreak, saw the prophet trudging along the road. He had a +clean white bag slung across his shoulder; it carried his soap and +razors, no doubt. And every now and then he waved his walking-stick +and skipped as he went. + +[1] Loading vessels from the jetties. + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +A HAPPY DAY. + +A volley of sand darkened and shook the pane. Taffy, sponging +himself in his tub and singing between his gasps, looked up hastily, +then flung a big towel about him and ran to the window. + +Honoria was standing below; and Comedy, her gray pony, with a creel +and a couple of fishing rods strapped to his canvas girth. + +"Wake up! I've come to take you fishing." + +Mr. Raymond had started off at daybreak to walk to Truro on business; +so there would be no lessons that morning, and Taffy had been looking +forward to a lonely whole holiday. + +"I've brought two pasties," said Honoria, "and a bottle of milk. +We'll go over to George's country and catch trout. He is to meet us +at Vellingey Bridge. We arranged it all yesterday, only I kept it +for a surprise." + +Taffy could have leapt for joy. "Go in and speak to mother," he +said; "she's in the kitchen." + +Honoria hitched Comedy's bridle over the gate, walked up the barren +little garden, and knocked at the door. When Mrs. Raymond opened it +she held out a hand politely. + +"How do you do?" she said, "I have come to ask if Taffy may go +fishing with me." + +Except in church, and outside the porch for a formal word or two, +Humility and Honoria had never met. This was Honoria's first visit +to the Parsonage, and the sight of the clean kitchen and shining pots +and pans filled her with wonder. Humility shook hands and made a +silent note of the child's frock, which was torn and wanted brushing. + +"He may go, and thank you. It's lonely for him here, very often." + +"I suppose," said Honoria gravely, "I ought to have called before. +I wish--" She was about to say that she wished Humility would come +to Tredinnis. But her eyes wandered to the orderly dresser and the +scalding-pans by the fireplace. + +"I mean--if Taffy had a sister it would be different." + +Humility bent to lift a kettle off the fire. When she faced round +again, her eyes were smiling though her lip trembled a little. + +"How bright you keep everything here!" said Honoria. + +"There's plenty of sand to scour with; it's bad for the garden +though." + +"Don't you grow any flowers?" + +"I planted a few pansies the first year; they came from my home up in +Devonshire. But the sand covered them. It covers everything." +She smiled, and asked suddenly, "May I kiss you?" + +"Of course you may," said Honoria. But she blushed as Humility did +it, and they both laughed shyly. + +"Hullo!" cried Taffy from the foot of the stairs. Honoria moved to +the window. She heard the boy and his mother laughing and making +pretence to quarrel, while he chose the brownest of the hot cakes +from the wood-ashes. She stared out upon Humility's buried pansies. +It was strange--a minute back she had felt quite happy. + +Humility set them off, and watched them till they disappeared in the +first dip of the towans; and then sat down in the empty kitchen and +wept a little before carrying up her mother's breakfast. + +Honoria rode in silence for the first mile; but Taffy sang and +whistled by turns as he skipped alongside. The whole world flashed +and glittered around the boy and girl; the white gulls fishing, the +swallows chasing one another across the dunes, the lighthouse on the +distant spit, the white-washed mine-chimneys on the ridge beside the +shore. Away on the rises of the moor one hill-farm laughed to +another in a steady flame of furze blossom--laughed with a tinkling +of singing larks. And beyond the last rise lay the land of wonders, +George's country. "Hark!" Honoria reined up. "Isn't that the +cuckoo?" Taffy listened. Yes, somewhere among the hillocks seaward +its note was dinning. + +"Count!" + + "Cuckoo, cherry-tree, + Be a good bird and tell to me + How many years before I die?" + +"Ninety-six!" Taffy announced. + +"Ninety-two," said Honoria, "but we won't quarrel about it. +Happy month to you!" + +"Eh?" + +"It is the first of May. Come along; perhaps we shall meet the +Mayers, though we're too late, I expect. Hullo! there's a miner-- +let's ask him." + +The miner came upon them suddenly--footsteps make no sound among the +towans; a young man in a suit stained orange-tawny, with a tallow +candle stuck with a lump of clay in the brim of his hat, and a +striped tulip stuck in another lump of clay at the back and nodding. + +"Good-morning, miss. You've come a day behind the fair." + +"Is the Maying over?" Honoria asked. + +"Iss, fay. I've just been home to shift myself." + +He walked along with them and told them all about it in the +friendliest manner. It had been a grand Maying--all the boys and +girls in the parish--with the hal-an-tow, of course--such dancing! +Fine and tired some of the maids must be--he wouldn't give much for +the work they'd do to-day. Two May mornings in one year would make a +grass-captain mad, as the saying was. But there--'twas a poor spirit +that never rejoiced. + +"Which do you belong to?" Taffy nodded toward the mine-chimneys on +the sky-line high on their left, which hid the sea, though it lay +less than half a mile away and the roar of it was in their ears--just +such a roar as the train makes when rushing through a tunnel. + +"Bless you, I'm a tinner. I belong to Wheal Gooniver, up the valley. +Wheal Vlo there, 'pon the cliff, he's lead. And the next to him, +Wheal Penhale, he's iron. I came a bit out of my way with you for +company." + +Soon after parting from him they crossed the valley-stream (Taffy had +to wade it), and here they happened on a dozen tall girls at work +"spalling" the tin-ore, but not busy. The most of them leaned on +their hammers or stood with hands on hips, their laughter drowning +the _thud, thud_ of the engine-house and the rattle of the stamps up +the valley. And the cause of it all seemed to be a smaller girl who +stood by with a basket in her arms. + +"Here you be, Lizzie!" cried one. "Here's a young lady and gentleman +coming with money in their pockets." + +Lizzie turned. She was a child of fourteen, perhaps; brown skinned, +with shy, wild eyes. Her stockings were torn, her ragged clothes +decorated with limp bunches of bluebells, and her neck and wrists +with twisted daisy chains. She skipped up to Honoria and held out a +basket. Within it, in a bed of fern, lay a May-doll among a few +birds' eggs--a poor wooden thing in a single garment of pink calico. + +"Give me something for my doll, miss!" she begged. + +"Aw, that's too tame," one of the girls called out, and pitched her +voice to the true beggar's whine: "Spare a copper! My only child, +dear kind lady, and its only father broke his tender neck in a +blasting accident, and left me twelve to maintain!" + +All the girls began laughing again. Honoria did not laugh. She was +feeling in her pocket. + +"What is your name?" she asked. + +"Lizzie Pezzack. My father tends the lighthouse. Give me something +for my doll, miss!" + +Honoria held out a half-crown piece. + +"Hand it to me." + +The child did not understand. "Give me something--" she began again +in her dull, level voice. + +Honoria stamped her foot. "Give it to me!" She snatched up the doll +and thrust it into the fishing creel, tossed the coin into Lizzie's +basket, and taking Comedy by the bridle, moved up the path. + +"She've adopted en!" They laughed and called out to Lizzie that she +was in luck's way. But Taffy saw the child's face as she stared into +the empty basket, and that it was perplexed and forlorn. + +"Why did you do that?" he asked, as he caught up with Honoria. +She did not answer. + +And now they turned away from the sea, and struck a high road which +took them between upland farms and across the ridge of cultivated +land to a valley full of trees. A narrow path led inland up this +valley. They had followed it under pale green shadows, in Indian +file, the pony at Honoria's heels and Taffy behind, and stepped out +into sunlight again upon a heathery moor where a trout stream +chattered and sparkled. And there by a granite bridge they found +George fishing, with three small trout shining on the turf beside +him. + +This was a day which Taffy remembered all his life, and yet most +confusedly. Indeed there was little to remember it by--little to be +told except that all the while the stream talked, the larks sang, and +in the hollow of the hills three children were happy. George landed +half a dozen trout before lunch-time; but Taffy caught none, partly +because he knew nothing about fishing, partly because the chatter of +the stream set him telling tales to himself and he forgot the rod in +his hand. And Honoria, after hooking a tiny fish and throwing it +back into the water, wandered off in search of larks' nests. +She came slowly back when George blew a whistle announcing lunch. + +"Hullo! What's this?" he asked, as he dived a hand into her creel. +"Ugh! a doll! I say, Taffy, let's float her down the river. +What humbug, Honoria!" + +But she had snatched the doll and crammed it back roughly into the +creel. A minute later, when they were not looking, she lifted the +lid again and disposed the poor thing more gently. + +"Why don't you talk, one of you?" George demanded, with his mouth +full. + +Taffy shook himself out of his waking dream--"I was wondering where +it goes to," he said, and nodded toward the running water. + +"It goes down to Langona," said George, "and that's just a creek full +of sand, with a church right above it in a big grass meadow--the +queerest small church you ever saw. But I've heard my father tell +that hundreds of years back a big city stood there, with seven fine +churches and quays, and deep water alongside and above, so that ships +could sail right up to the ford. They came from all parts of the +world for tin and lead, and the people down in the city had nothing +to do but sit still and grow rich." + +"Somebody must have worked," interrupted Honoria; "on the buildings +and all that." + +"The building was done by convicts. The story is that convicts were +transported here from all over the kingdom." + +"Did they live in the city?" + +"No; they had a kind of camp across the creek. They dug out the +harbour too, and kept it clear of sand. You can still see the marks +of their pickaxes along the cliffs; I'll show them to you some day. +My father knows all about it, because his great-great-great-great-- +grandfather (and a heap more 'greats,' I don't know how many) was the +only one saved when the city was buried." + +"Was he from the city, or one of the convicts?" asked Honoria, who +had not forgiven George's assault upon her doll. + +"He was a baby at the time, and couldn't remember," George answered, +with fine composure. "They say he was found high up the creek, just +where you cross it by the foot-bridge. The bridge is covered at high +water; and if you try to cross below, especially when the tide is +flowing, just you look out! Twice a day the sands become quick +there. They've swallowed scores. I'll tell you another thing: +there's a bird builds somewhere in the cliffs there--a crake, the +people call it--and they say that whenever he goes crying about the +sands, it means that a man will be drowned there." + +"Rubbish! I don't believe in your city." + +"Very well, then, I'll tell you something else. The fishermen have +seen it--five or six of them. You know the kind of haze that gets up +sometimes on hot days, when the sun's drawing water? They say that +if you're a mile or two out and this happens between you and Langona +Creek, you can see the city quite plain above the shore, with the +seven churches and all." + +"_I_ can see it!" Taffy blurted this out almost without knowing that +he spoke; and blushed furiously when George laughed. "I mean--I'm +sure--" he began to explain. + +"If you can see it," said Honoria, "you had better describe George's +property for him." She yawned. "He can't tell the story himself-- +not one little bit." + +"Right you are, miss," George agreed. "Fire away, Taffy." + +Taffy thought for a minute, then, still with a red face, began. +"It is all true, as George says. A fine city lies there, covered +with the sands; and this was what happened. The King of Langona had +a son, a handsome young Prince, who lived at home until he was +eighteen, and then went on his travels. That was the custom, you +know. The Prince took only his foster-brother, whose name was John, +and they travelled for three years. On their way back, as they came +to Langona Creek, they saw the convicts at work, and in one of the +fields was a girl digging alone. She had a ring round her ankle, +like the rest, with a chain and iron weight, but she was the most +beautiful girl the Prince had ever seen. So he pulled up his horse +and asked her who she was, and how she came to be wearing the chain. +She told him she was no convict, but the daughter of a convict, and +it was the law for the convict's children to wear these things. +'To-night,' said the Prince, 'you shall wear a ring of gold and be a +Princess,' and he commanded John to file away the ring and take her +upon his horse. They rode across the creak and came to the palace; +and the Prince, after kissing his father and mother, said, 'I have +brought you all kinds of presents from abroad; but best of all I have +brought home a bride.' His parents, who wondered at her beauty, and +never doubted but that she must be a king's daughter, were full of +joy, and set the bells ringing in all the seven churches. So for a +year everybody was happy, and at the end of that time a son was +born." + +"You're making it up," said Honoria. Taffy's _own_ stories always +puzzled her, with hints and echoes from other stories she +half-remembered, but could seldom trace home. He had too cunning a +gift. + +George said, "Do be quiet! Of course he's making it up, but who wants +to know _that?_" + +"Two days afterward," Taffy went on, "the Prince was out hunting with +his foster-brother. The Princess in her bed at home complained to +her mother-in-law, 'Mother, my feet are cold. Bring me another rug +to wrap them in.' The Queen did so, but as she covered the +Princess's feet she saw the red mark left by the ankle ring, and knew +that her son's wife was no true Princess, but a convict's daughter. +And full of rage and shame she went away and mixed two cups. +The first she gave to the Princess to drink; and when it had killed +her (for it was poison) she dipped a finger into the dregs and rubbed +it inside the child's lips, and very soon he was dead too. Then she +sent for two ankle-chains and weights--one larger and one very +small--and fitted them on the two bodies and had them flung into the +creek. When the Prince came home he asked after his wife. 'She is +sleeping,' said the Queen, 'and you must be thirsty with hunting?' +She held out the second cup, and the Prince drank and passed it to +John, who drank also. Now in this cup was a drug which took away all +memory. And at once the Prince forgot all about his wife and child; +and John forgot too. + +"For weeks after this the Prince complained that he felt unwell. +He told the doctors that there was an empty place in his head, and +they advised him to fill it by travelling. So he set out again, and +John went with him as before. On their journey they stayed for a +week with the King of Spain, and there the Prince fell in love with +the King of Spain's daughter, and married her, and brought her home +at the end of a year, during which she, too, had brought him a son. + +"The night after their return, when the Prince and his second wife +slept, John kept watch outside the door. About midnight he heard the +noise of a chain dragging, but very softly, and up the stairs came a +lady in white with a child in her arms. John knew his former +mistress at once, and all his memory came back to him, but she put a +finger to her lips and went past him into the bed-chamber. She went +to the bed, laid a hand on her husband's pillow, and whispered:" + + 'Wife and babe below the river, + Twice will I come and then come never.' + +"Without another word she turned and went slowly past John and down +the stairs." + +"I know _that_, anyhow," Honoria interrupted. "That's 'East of the +Sun and West of the Moon,' or else it's the Princess whose brother +was changed into a Roebuck, or else--" But George flicked a pebble +at her, and Taffy went on, warming more and more to the story:-- + +"In the morning, when the Prince woke, his second wife saw his pillow +on the side farthest from her, and it was wet. 'Husband,' she said, +'you have been weeping to-night.' 'Well,' said he, 'that is queer, +though, for I haven't wept since I was a boy. It's true, though, +that I had a miserable dream.' But when he tried to remember it, he +could not. + +"The same thing happened on the second night, only the dead wife +said:" + + 'Wife and babe below the river, + Once will I come and then come never.' + +"And again in the morning there was a mark on the pillow where her wet +hand had rested. But the Prince in the morning could remember +nothing. On the third night she came and said:" + + 'Wife and babe below the river, + Now I am gone and gone for ever,' + +"And went down the stairs with such a reproachful look at John that +his heart melted and he ran after her. But at the outer door a flash +of lightning met him, and such a storm broke over the palace and city +as had never been before and never will be again. + +"John heard screams, and the noise of doors banging and feet running +throughout the palace; he turned back and met the Prince, his master, +coming downstairs with his child in his arms. The lightning stroke +had killed his second wife where she lay. John followed him out into +the streets, where the people were running to and fro, and through +the whirling sand to the ford which crossed the creek a mile above +the city. And there, as they stepped into the water, a woman rose +before John, with a child in her arms, and said: 'Carry us.' +The Prince, who was leading, did not see. John took them on his +back, but they were heavy because of the iron chains and weights on +their ankles, and the sands sank under him. Then, by-and-by, the +first wife put her child into John's arms and said, 'Save him,' and +slipped off his back into the water. 'What sound was that?' asked +the Prince. 'That was my heart cracking,' said John. So they went +on till the sand rose half-way to their knees. Then the Prince +stopped and put his child into John's arms. 'Save him,' he said, and +fell forward on his face; and John's heart cracked again. But he +went forward in the darkness until the water rose to his waist, and +the sand to his knees. He was close to the farther shore now, but +could not reach it unless he dropped one of the children; and this he +would not do. He bent forward, holding out one in each arm, and +could just manage to push them up the bank and prop them there with +his open hand; and while he bent, the tide rose and his heart cracked +for the third time. Though he was dead, his stiff arms kept the +children propped against the bank. But just at the turning of the +tide the one with the ankle-weight slipped and was drowned. +The other was found next morning by the inland people, high and dry. +And some _do_ say," Taffy wound up, "that his brother was not really +drowned, but turned into a bird, and that, though no one has seen +him, it is his voice that gives the '_crake_,' imitating the sound +made by John's heart when it burst; but others say it comes from John +himself, down there below the sands." + +There was silence for a minute. Even Honoria had grown excited +toward the end. + +"But it was unfair!" she broke out. "It ought to have been the +convict-child that was saved." + +"If so, I shouldn't be here," said George; "and it's not very nice of +you to say it." + +"I don't care. It was unfair; and anyone but a boy "--with scorn--" +would see it." She turned upon the staring Taffy--"I hate your tale; +it was horrid." + +She repeated it, that evening, as they turned their faces homeward +across the heathery moor. Taffy had halted on the top of a hillock +to wave good-night to George. For years he remembered the scene--the +brown hollow of the hills; the clear evening sky, with the faint +purple arch, which is the shadow of the world, climbing higher and +higher upon it; and his own shadow stretching back with his heart +toward George, who stood fronting the level rays and waved his +glittering catch of fish. + +"What was that you said?" he asked, when at length he tore himself +away and caught up with Honoria. + +"That was a horrid story you told. It spoiled my afternoon, and I'll +trouble you not to tell any more of the sort." + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +LIZZIE REDEEMS HER DOLL AND HONORIA THROWS A STONE. + +A broad terrace ran along the southern front of Tredinnis House. +It had once been decorated with leaden statues, but of these only the +pedestals remained. + +Honoria, perched on the terraced wall, with her legs dangling, was +making imaginary casts with a trout-rod, when she heard footsteps. A +child came timidly round the angle of the big house--Lizzie Pezzack. + +"Hullo! What do you want?" + +"If you please, miss--" + +"Well?" + +"If you please, miss--" + +"You've said that twice." + +Lizzie held out a grubby palm with a half-crown in it: "I wants my +doll back, if you please, miss." + +"But you sold it." + +"I didn't mean to. You took me so sudden." + +"I gave you ever so much more than it was worth. Why, I don't +believe it cost you three ha'pence!" + +"Tuppence," said Lizzie. + +"Then you don't know when you're well off. Go away." + +"'Tisn't that, miss--" + +"What is it, then?" + +Lizzie broke into a flood of tears. + +Honoria, the younger by a year or so, stood and eyed her scornfully; +then turning on her heel marched into the house. + +She was a just child. She went upstairs to her bedroom, unlocked her +wardrobe, and took out the doll, which was clad in blue silk, and +reposed in a dog-trough lined with the same material. Honoria had +recklessly cut up two handkerchiefs (for underclothing) and her +Sunday sash, and had made the garments in secret. They were +prodigies of bad needlework. With the face of a Medea she stripped +the poor thing, took it in her arms as if to kiss it, but checked +herself sternly. She descended to the terrace with the doll in one +hand and its original calico smock in the other. + +"There, take your twopenny baby!" + +Lizzie caught and strained it to her breast; covered its poor +nakedness hurriedly, and hugged it again with passionate kisses. + +"You silly! Did you come all this way by yourself?" + +Lizzie nodded. "Father thinks I'm home, minding the house. He's off +duty this evening, and he walked over here to the Bryanite Chapel, up +to Four Turnings. There's going to be a big Prayer Meeting to-night. +When his back was turned I slipped out after him, so as to keep him +in sight across the towans." + +"Why?" + +"I'm terrible timid. I can't bear to walk across the towans by +myself. You can't see where you be--they're so much alike--and it +makes a person feel lost. There's so many bones, too." + +"Dead rabbits." + +"Yes, and dead folks, I've heard father say." + +"Well, you'll have to go back alone, any way." + +Lizzie hugged the doll. "I don't mind so much now. I'll keep along +by the sea and run, and only open my eyes now and then. Here's your +money, miss." + +She went off at a run. Honoria pocketed the half-crown and went back +to her fly-fishing. But after a few casts she desisted, and took her +rod to pieces slowly. The afternoon was hot and sultry. She sat +down in the shadow of the balustrade and gazed at the long, blank +facade of the house baking in the sun; at the tall, uncurtained +windows; at the peacock stalking to and fro like a drowsy sentinel. + +"You are a beast of a house," she said contemplatively; "and I hate +every stone of you!" + +She stood up and strolled toward the stables. The stable yard was +empty but for the Gordon setter dozing by the pump-trough. +Across from the kitchens came the sound of the servants' voices +chattering. Honoria had never made friends with the servants. + +She tilted her straw hat further over her eyes, and sauntered up the +drive with her hands behind her; through the great gates and out upon +the towans. She had started with no particular purpose, and had none +in her mind when she came in sight of the Parsonage, and of Humility +seated in the doorway with her lace pillow across her knees. + +It had been the custom among the women of Beer Village to work in +their doorways on sunny afternoons, and Humility followed it. + +She looked up smiling. "Taffy is down by the shore, I think." + +"I didn't come to look for him. What beautiful work!" + +"It comes in handy. Won't you step inside and let me make you a cup +of tea?" + +"No, I'll sit here and watch you." Humility pulled in her skirts, and +Honoria found room on the doorstep beside her. "Please don't stop. +It's wonderful. Now I know where Taffy gets his cleverness." + +"You are quite wrong. This is only a knack. All his cleverness +comes from his father." + +"Oh, books! Of course, Mr. Raymond knows all about books. +He's writing one, isn't he?" + +Mrs. Raymond nodded. + +"What about?" + +"It's about St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews; in Greek, you know. +He has been working at it for years." + +"And he's indoors working at it now? What funny things men do!" +She was silent for a while, watching Humility's bobbins. "But I +suppose it doesn't matter just _what_ they do. The great thing is to +do it better than anyone else. Does Mr. Raymond think Taffy clever?" + +"He never talks about it." + +"But he _thinks_ so. I know; because at lessons when he says +anything to Taffy it's quite different from the way he talks to +George and me. He doesn't favour him, of course; he's much too fair. +But there's a difference. It's as if he _expected_ Taffy to +understand. Did Mr. Raymond teach him all those stories he knows?" + +"What stories?" + +"Fairy tales, and that sort of thing." + +"Good gracious me, no!" + +"Then _you_ must have. And you _are_ clever, after all. Asking me +to believe you're not, and making that beautiful lace all the while, +under my very eyes!" + +"I'm not a bit clever. Here's the pattern, you see, and there's the +thread, and the rest is only practice. I couldn't make the pattern +out of my head. Besides, I don't like clever women." + +"A woman must try to be _something_." Honoria felt that this was +vague, but wanted to argue. + +"A woman wants to be loved," said Mrs. Raymond thoughtfully. +"There's such a heap to be done about the house that she won't find +time for much else. Besides, if she has children, she'll be planning +for them." + +"Isn't that rather slow?" + +Humility wondered where the child had picked up the word. +"Slow?" she echoed, with her eyes on the horizon beyond the dunes. +"Most things are slow when you look forward to them." + +"But these fairy-tales of yours?" + +"I'll tell you about them. When my mother was a girl of sixteen she +went into service as a nursemaid in a clergyman's family. +Every evening the clergyman used to come into the nursery and tell +the children a fairy-tale. That's how it started. My mother left +service to marry a farmer--it was quite a grand match for her--and +when I was a baby she told the stories to me. She has a wonderful +memory still, and she tells them capitally. When I listen I believe +every word of them; I like them better than books, too, because they +always end happily. But I can't repeat them a bit. As soon as I +begin they fall to pieces, and the pieces get mixed up, and, worst of +all, the life goes right out of them. But Taffy, he takes the pieces +and puts them together, and the tale is better than ever: quite +different, and new, too. That's the puzzle. It's not memory with +him; it's something else." + +"But don't you ever make up a story of your own?" Honoria insisted. + +Now you might talk with Mrs. Raymond for ten minutes, perhaps, and +think her a simpleton; and then suddenly a cloud (as it were) parted, +and you found yourself gazing into depths of clear and beautiful +wisdom. + +She turned on Honoria with a shy, adorable smile: "Why, of course I +do--about Taffy. Come in and let me show you his room and his +books." + +An hour later, when Taffy returned, he found Honoria seated at the +table and his mother pouring tea. They said nothing about their +visit to his room; and though they had handled every one of his +treasures, he never discovered it. But he did notice--or rather, he +felt--that the two understood each other. They did; and it was an +understanding he would never be able to share, though he lived to be +a hundred. + +Mr. Raymond came out from his study and drank his tea in silence. +Honoria observed that he blinked a good deal. He showed no surprise +at her visit, and after a moment seemed unaware of her presence. +At length he raised the cup to his lips, and finding it empty set it +down and rose to go back to his work. Humility interfered and +reminded him of a call to be paid at one of the upland farms. +The children might go too, she suggested. It would be very little +distance out of Honoria's way. + +Mr. Raymond sighed, but went for his walking-stick; and they set out. + +When they reached the farmhouse he left the children outside. +The town-place was admirably suited for a game of "Follow-my-leader," +which they played for twenty minutes with great seriousness, to the +disgust of the roosting poultry. Then Taffy spied a niche, high up, +where a slice had been cut out of a last year's haystack. He fetched +a ladder. Up they climbed, drew the ladder after them, and played at +being Outlaws in a Cave, until the dusk fell. + +Still Mr. Raymond lingered indoors. "He thinks we have gone home," +said Honoria. "Now the thing would be to creep down and steal one of +the fowls, and bring it back and cook it." + +"We can make believe to do it," Taffy suggested. + +Honoria considered for a moment. "I'll tell you what: there's a +great Bryanite meeting to-night, down at the Chapel. I expect +there'll be a devil hunt." + +"What's that?" + +"They turn out the lights and hunt for him in the dark." + +"But he isn't _really_ there?" + +"I don't know. Suppose we play at scouts and creep down the road? +If the Chapel is lit up we can spy in on them; and then you can +squeeze your nose on the glass and make a face, while I say 'Boo!' +and they'll think the Old Gentleman is really come." + +They stole down the ladder and out of the town-place. The Chapel +stood three-quarters of a mile away, on a turfed wastrel where two +high roads met and crossed. + +Long before they reached it they heard clamorous voices and groans. + +"I expect the devil hunt has begun," said Honoria. But when they +came in sight of the building its windows were brightly lit. +The noise inside was terrific. + +The two children approached it with all the precaution proper to +scouts. Suddenly the clamour ceased and the evening fell so silent +that Taffy heard the note of an owl away in the Tredinnis plantations +to his left. This silence was daunting, but they crept on and soon +were standing in the illuminated ring of furze whins which surrounded +the Chapel. + +"Can you reach up to look in?" + +Taffy could not; so Honoria obligingly went on hands and knees, and +he stood on her back. + +"Can you see? What's the matter?" + +Taffy gasped. "_He's_ in there!" + +"What?--the Old Gentleman?" + +"Yes; no--your grandfather!" + +"What? Let me get up. Here, you kneel--" + +It was true. Under the rays of a paraffin lamp, in face of the +kneeling congregation, sat Squire Moyle; his body stiffly upright on +the bench, his jaws rigid, his eyes with horror in them fastened upon +the very window through which Honoria peered--fastened, it seemed to +her, upon her face. But, no; he saw nothing. The Bryanites were +praying; Honoria saw their lips moving. Their eyes were all on the +old man's face. In the straining silence his mouth opened--but only +for a moment--while his tongue wetted his parched lips. + +A man by the pulpit-stairs shuffled his feet. A sigh passed through +the Chapel as he rose and relaxed the tension. It was Jacky Pascoe. +He stepped up to the Squire, and, laying a hand on his shoulder, +said, gently, persuasively, yet so clearly that Honoria could hear +every word: + +"Try, brother. Keep on trying. O, I've knowed cases--You can never +tell how near salvation is. One minute the heart's like a stone, and +the next maybe 'tis melted and singing like fat in a pan. +'Tis working! 'tis working!" + +The congregation broke out with cries: "Amen!" "Glory, glory!" +The Squire's lips moved and he muttered something. But stony despair +sat in his eyes. + +"Ay, glory, glory! You've been a doubter, and you doubt no longer. +Soon you'll be a shouter. Man, you'll dance like as David danced +before the Ark! You'll feel it in your toes! Come along, friends, +while he's resting a minute! Sing all together--oh, the blessed +peace of it!-- + + "'I long to be there, His glory to share--'" + +He pitched the note, and the congregation took up the second line +with a rolling, gathering volume of song. It broke on the night like +the footfall of a regiment at charge. Honoria scrambled off Taffy's +back, and the two slipped away to the high road. + +"Shall you tell your father?" + +"I--I don't know." + +She stooped and found a loose stone. "He shan't find salvation +to-night," she said heroically. + +As the stone crashed through the window the two children pelted off. +They ran on the soft turf by the wayside, and only halted to listen +when they reached Tredinnis's great gates. The sound of feet running +far up the road set them off again, but now in opposite ways. +Honoria sped down the avenue, and Taffy headed for the Parsonage, +across the towans. Ordinarily this road at night would have been +full of terrors for him; but now the fear at his heels kept him +going, while his heart thumped on his ribs. He was just beginning to +feel secure, when he blundered against a dark figure which seemed to +rise straight out of the night. + +"Hullo!" + +Blessed voice! The wayfarer was his own father. + +"Taffy! I thought you were home an hour ago. Where on earth have you +been?" + +"With Honoria." He was about to say more, but checked himself. +"I left her at the top of the avenue," he explained. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +TAFFY'S CHILDHOOD COMES TO AN END. + +The summer passed. There was a talk in the early part of it that the +Bishop would be coming, next spring, to consecrate the restored +church and hold a confirmation service. Taffy and Honoria were to be +confirmed, and early in August Mr. Raymond began to set apart an hour +each day for preparing them. In a week or two the boy's head was +full of religion. He spent much of his time in the church, watching +the carpenter at work upon the new seats; his mind ran on the story +of Samuel, and he wished his mother had followed Hannah's example and +dedicated him to God; he had a suspicion that God would be angry with +her for not doing so. + +He did not observe that, as the autumn crept on, a shadow gathered on +Humility's face. One Sunday the old Squire did not come to church; +and again on the next Wednesday, at the harvest festival, Honoria sat +alone in the Tredinnis pew. The shadow was on his mother's face as +he chatted about this on their way home to the Parsonage; but the boy +did not perceive it. He loved his parents, but their lives lay +outside his own, and their sayings and doings passed him like a vain +show. He walked in the separate world of childhood, and it seemed an +enormous world yet, though a few weeks were to bring him abruptly to +the end of it. + +But just before he came to the precipice he was given a glimpse of +the real world--and of a world beyond that, far more splendid and +romantic than any region of his dreams. + +The children had no lessons during Christmas, or for three weeks +after. On the last morning before the holidays George brought a +letter for Mr. Raymond, who read it, considered for a while, and laid +it among his papers. + +"It's an invitation," George announced in a whisper. "I wonder if +he'll let you come." + +"Where?" whispered Taffy. + +"Up to Plymouth--to the Pantomime." + +"What's that?" + +"Oh--clowns, and girls dressed up like boys, and policemen on slides, +and that sort of thing." + +Taffy sat bewildered. He vaguely remembered Plymouth as a mass of +roofs seen from the train, as it drew up for a minute or two on a +high bridge. Someone in the railway carriage had talked of an engine +called _Brutus_, which (it appeared) had lately run away and crashed +into the cloak-room at the end of the platform. He still thought of +railway engines as big, blundering animals, with wills of their own, +and of Plymouth as a town rendered insecure by their vagaries; but +the idea that its roofs covered girls dressed up like boys and +policemen on slides was new to him, and pleasant on the whole, though +daunting. + +"Will you give my thanks to Sir Harry," said Mr. Raymond, after +lessons, "and tell him that Taffy may go." + +So on New Year's Day Taffy found himself in Plymouth. It was an +experience which he could never fit into his life except as a gaudy +interlude; for when he awoke and looked back upon it, he was no +longer the boy who had climbed up beside Sir Harry and behind Sir +Harry's restless pair of bays. The whirl began with that drive to +the station; began again in the train; began again as they stepped +out on the pavement at Plymouth, just as a company of scarlet-coated +soldiers came down the roadway with a din of brazen music. +The crowd, the shops, the vast hotel, completely dazed him, and he +seriously accepted the waiter, in his black suit and big white +shirt-front, as a contribution to the fun of the entertainment. + +"We must dine early," Sir Harry announced at lunch; "the Pantomime +begins at seven." + +"Isn't--isn't this the Pantomime?" Taffy stammered. + +George giggled. Sir Harry set down his glass of claret, stared at +the boy, and broke into musical laughter. Taffy perceived he had +made some ridiculous mistake and blushed furiously. + +"God bless the child--the Pantomime's at the theatre!" + +"Oh!" Taffy recalled the canvas booth and wheezy cornet of his early +days with a chill of disappointment. + +But with George at his side it was impossible to be anything but +happy. After lunch they sallied out, and it would have been hard to +choose the gayest of the three. Sir Harry's radiant good-temper +seemed to gild the streets. He took the boys up to the Hoe and +pointed out the war-ships; he whisked them into the Camera Obscura; +thence to the Citadel, where they watched a squad of recruits at +drill; thence to the Barbican, where the trawling-fleet lay packed +like herring, and the shops were full of rope and oilskin suits and +marine instruments, and dirty children rolled about the roadway +between the legs of seabooted fishermen; and so up to the town again, +where he lingered in the most obliging manner while the boys stared +into the fishing-tackle shops and toy shops. On the way he led them +up a narrow passage and into a curious room, where fifteen or twenty +men were drinking, and talking at the top of their voices. The most +of them seemed to know Sir Harry well and greeted him with an odd +mixture of respect and familiarity. Their talk was full of +mysterious names and expressions, and Taffy thought at first they +must be Freemasons. "The Moor point-to-point was a walk-over for the +Milkman; Lapidary was scratched, which left it a soft thing, unless +Sir Harry fancied a fox-catcher like Nursery Governess, in which +case Billy behind the bar would do as much business as he liked at +six-to-one." After a while Taffy discovered they were talking about +horses, and wondered why they should meet to discuss horses in a +dingy room up a back yard. "Youngster of yours is growin', +Surrarry," said a red-faced man. "Who's his stable companion?" Taffy +was introduced, and to his embarrassment Sir Harry began to relate +his ridiculous mistake at lunch. The men roared with laughter. + +He made another, quite as ridiculous, at the pastry-cook's where Sir +Harry ordered tea. "What'll you take with it? Call for what you +like, only don't poison yourselves." Taffy referring his gaze from +the buns and confections on the counter to the card in his hands, +which was inscribed with words in unknown tongues, made a bold plunge +and announced that he would take a "_marasheno_." + +This tickled Sir Harry mightily. He ordered the waitress with a wink +to "bring the young gentleman a _marasheno_"; and Taffy, who had +expected something in the shape of a macaroon, was confronted with a +tiny glass of a pale liquor, which, when tasted, in the most +surprising manner put sunshine into his stomach and brought tears +into his eyes. But under Sir Harry's quizzical gaze he swallowed it +down bravely, and sat gasping and blinking. + +It may have been that the maraschino induced a haze upon the rest of +the afternoon. The gas-lamps were lit when they left the +pastry-cook's and entered a haberdasher's where Taffy, without +knowing why, was fitted with a pair of white kid gloves. Of dinner +at the hotel he remembered nothing except that the candles on the +tables had red shades, of which the silverware gave funny +reflections; that the same waiter flitted about in the penumbra; and +that Sir Harry, who was dressed like the waiter, said, "Wake up, +young Marasheno! Do you take your coffee black?" "It's usually pale +brown at home," answered Taffy; at which Sir Harry laughed again. +"Black will suit you better to-night," he said, and poured out a +small cupful, which Taffy drank and found exceedingly nasty. And a +moment later he was wide awake, and the three were following a young +woman along a passage which seemed to run in a complete circle. +The young woman flung open a door; they entered a little room with a +balcony in front; and the first glorious vision broke on the child +with a blaze of light, a crash of music, and the murmur of hundreds +of voices. + +Faces, faces, faces!--faces mounting from the pit below him, up and +up to the sky-blue ceiling, where painted goddesses danced and +scattered pink roses around the enormous gasalier. Fauns piping on +the great curtain, fiddles sawing in the orchestra beneath, ladies in +gay silks and jewels leaning over the gilt balconies opposite--which +were real, and which a vision only? He turned helplessly to George +and Sir Harry. Yes, _they_ were real. But what of Nannizabuloe, and +the sand-hills, and the little parsonage to which that very morning +he had turned to wave his handkerchief? + +A bell rang, and the curtain rose upon a company of russet-brown +elves dancing in a green wood. The play was _Jack the Giant-killer_; +but Taffy, who knew the story in the book by heart, found the story +on the stage almost meaningless. That mattered nothing; it was the +world, the new and unimagined world, stretching deeper and still +deeper as the scenes were lifted--a world in which solid walls +crumbled, and forests melted, and loveliness broke through the ruins, +unfolding like a rose; it was this that seized on the child's heart +until he could have wept for its mere beauty. Often he had sought +out the trout-pools on the moors behind the towans, and lying at full +length had watched the fish moving between the stones and +water-plants; and watching through a summer's afternoon had longed to +change places with them and glide through their grottoes or anchor +among the reed-stalks and let the ripple run over him. As long back +as he could remember, all beautiful sights had awakened this ache, +this longing-- + + "O, that I were where I would be! + Then would I be where I am not; + For where I am I would not be, + And where I would be, I cannot." + +It seemed to him that these bright beings on the stage had broken +through the barriers, had stepped beyond the flaming ramparts, and +were happy. Their horseplay, at which George laughed so +immoderately, called to Taffy to come and be happy, too; and when +Jack the Giant-killer changed to Jack in the Beanstalk, and when in +the Transformation Scene a real beanstalk grew and unfolded its +leaves, and each leaf revealed a fairy seated, with the limelight +flashing on star and jewelled wand, the longing became unbearable. +The scene passed in a minute. The clown and pantaloon came on, and +presently Sir Harry saw Taffy's shoulders shaking, and set it down +to laughter at the harlequinade. He could not see the child's face. + +But, perhaps, the queerest event of the evening (when Taffy came to +review his recollections) was this: He must have fallen into a stupor +on leaving the theatre, for when he awoke he found himself on a couch +in a gas-lit room, with George beside him, and Sir Harry was shaking +him by the collar, and saying, "God bless the children, I thought +they were in bed hours ago!" A man--the same who had talked about +racehorses that afternoon--was standing by the table, on which a +quantity of cards lay scattered among the drinking-glasses; and he +laughed at this, and his laugh sounded just like the rustling of +paper. "It's all very well--" began Sir Harry, but checked himself +and lit a candle, and led the two boys off shivering to bed. + +The next morning, too, had its surprises. To begin with, Sir Harry +announced at breakfast that he must go and buy a horse. He might be +an hour or two over the business, and meanwhile the boys had better +go out into the town and enjoy themselves. Perhaps a sovereign +apiece might help them. + +Taffy, who had never in his life possessed more than a shilling, was +staring at the gold piece in his hand, when the door opened, and Sir +Harry's horse-racing friend came in to breakfast and nodded +"Good-morning." + +"Pity you're leaving to-day," he said, as he took his seat at a table +hard by them. + +"My revenge must wait," Sir Harry answered. + +It seemed a cold-blooded thing to be said so carelessly. +Taffy wondered if Sir Harry's search for a horse had anything to do +with this revenge, and the notion haunted him in the intervals of his +morning's shopping. + +But how to lay out his sovereign? That was the first question. +George, who within ten minutes had settled his own problem by +purchasing a doubtful fox-terrier of the Boots of the hotel, saw no +difficulty. The Boots had another pup for sale--one of the same +litter. + +"But I want something for mother, and the others--and Honoria." + +"Botheration! I'd forgotten Honoria, and now the money's gone! + Never mind; she can have my pup." + +"Oh!" said Taffy ruefully. "Then she won't think much of my +present." + +"Yes, she will. Suppose you buy a collar for him--you can get one +for five shillings." + +They found a saddler's and chose the dog-collar which came to four +shillings; and for eighteenpence the shopman agreed to have +"_Honoria from Taffy_," engraved on it within an hour. Humility's +present was chosen with surprising ease--a large, framed photograph +of the Bishop of Exeter; price, six shillings. + +"I don't suppose," objected George, "your mother cares much for the +Bishop of Exeter." + +"Oh, yes, she does," said Taffy; "he's coming to confirm us next +spring. Besides," he added, with one of those flashes of wisdom +which surely he derived from her, "mother won't care what it is, so +long as she's remembered. And it costs more than the collar." + +This left him with eight-and-sixpence; and for three-and-sixpence he +bought a work-box for his grandmother, with a view of Plymouth Hoe on +the lid. But now came the crux. What should he get for his father? + +"It must be a book," George suggested. + +"But what kind of a book? He has so many." + +"Something in Latin." + +The bookseller's window was filled with yellow-backed novels and +toy-books, which obviously would not do. So they marched in and +demanded a book suitable for a clergyman who had a good many books +already--"a middle-aged clergyman," George added. + +"You can't go far wrong with this," suggested the bookseller, +producing Crockford's "Clerical Directory" for the current year. +But this was too expensive; "and," said Taffy, "I think he would +rather have something in Latin." The bookseller rubbed his chin, +went to his shelves, and took down a small _De Imitatione Christi_, +bound in limp calf. "You can't go far wrong with this, either," he +assured them. So Taffy paid down his money. + +Just as the boys reached the hotel, Sir Harry drove up in a cab; and +five minutes later they were all rattling off to the railway station. +Taffy eyed the cab-horse curiously, never doubting it to be Sir +Harry's new purchase; and was extremely surprised when the cabman +whipped it up and trotted off--after receiving his money, too. +But in the bustle there was no time to ask questions. + +It was about three in the afternoon, and the sun already low in the +south-west, when they came in sight of the cross-roads and Sir Harry +pulled up his bays. And there, on the green by the sign-post, stood +Mrs. Raymond. She caught Taffy in her arms and hugged him till he +felt ashamed, and glanced around to see if the others were looking; +but the phaeton was bowling away down the road. + +"But why are _you_ here, mother?" + +Mrs. Raymond gazed a while after the carriage before speaking. +"Your father had to be at the church," she said. + +"But there's no service--" He broke off "See what I've brought for +you!" And he pulled out the portrait. "Do you know who it is?" + +Humility thanked him and kissed him passionately. There was +something odd with her this afternoon. + +"Don't you like your present?" + +"Darling, it is beautiful," she stooped and kissed him again, +passionately. + +"I've a present for father, too; a book. Why are you walking so +fast?" In a little while he asked again, "Why are you walking so +fast?" + +"I--I thought you would be wanting your tea." + +"Mayn't I take father his book first?" + +She did not answer. + +"But mayn't I?" he persisted. + +They had reached the garden-gate. Humility seemed to hesitate. +"Yes; go," she said at length; and he ran, with the _De Imitatione +Christi_ under his arm. + +As he came within view of the church he saw a knot of men gathered +about the door. They were pulling something out from the porch. +He heard the noise of hammering, and Squire Moyle, at the back of the +crowd, was shouting at the top of his voice: + +"The church is yours, is it? I'll see about that! Pitch out the +furnitcher, my billies--_that's_ mine, anyway!" + +Still the hammers sounded within the church. + +"Don't believe in sudden convarsion, don't 'ee? I reckon you will +when you look round your church. Bishop coming to consecrate it, is +he? Consecrate _my_ furnitcher? I'll see you and your bishop to +blazes first!" + +A heap of shattered timber came flying through the porch. + +"_Your_ church, hey? _Your_ church?" + +The crowd fell back and Mr. Raymond stood in the doorway, between +Bill Udy and Jim the Huntsman. Bill Udy held a brazen ewer and +paten, and Jim a hammer; and Mr. Raymond had a hand on one shoulder +of each. + +For a moment there was silence. As Taffy came running through the +lych-gate a man who had been sitting on a flat tombstone and +watching, stood up and touched his arm. It was Jacky Pascoe, the +Bryanite. + +"Best go back," he said, "'tis a wisht poor job of it." + +Taffy halted for a moment. The Squire's voice had risen to a sudden +scream--he sputtered as he pointed at Mr. Raymond. + +"There he is, naybours! Get behind the varmint, somebody, and stop +his earth! Calls hisself a minister of God! Calls it _his_ church!" + +Mr. Raymond took his hands off the men's shoulders, and walked +straight up to him. "Not _my_ church," he said, aloud and +distinctly. "God's church!" + +He stretched out an arm. Taffy, running up, supposed it stretched +out to strike. "Father!" + +But Mr. Raymond's palm was open as he lifted it over the Squire's +head. "God's church," he repeated. "In whose service, sir, I defy +you. Go! or if you will, and have the courage, come and stand while +I kneel amid the ruin you have done and pray God to judge between +us." + +He paused, with his eyes on the Squire's. + +"You dare not, I see. Go, poor coward, and plan what mischief you +will. Only now leave me in peace a little." + +He took the boy's hand and they passed into the church together. +No one followed. Hand in hand they stood before the dismantled +chancel. Taffy heard the sound of shuffling feet on the walk +outside, and looked up into Mr. Raymond's face. + +"Father!" + +"Kiss me, sonny." + +The _De Imitatione Christi_ slipped from Taffy's fingers and fell +upon the chancel step. + +So his childhood ended. + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +THE BUILDERS. + +These things happened on a Friday. After breakfast next morning +Taffy went to fetch his books. He did so out of habit and without +thinking; but his father stopped him. + +"Put them away," he said. "Some day we'll go back to them, but not +yet." + +Instead of books Humility packed their dinner in the satchel. +They reached the church and found the interior just as they had left +it. Taffy was set to work to pick up and sweep together the scraps +of broken glass which littered the chancel. His father examined the +wreckage of the pews. + +While the boy knelt at his task, his thoughts were running on the +Pantomime. He had meant, last night, to recount all its wonders and +the wonders of Plymouth; but somehow the words had not come. +After displaying his presents he could find no more to say: and +feeling his father's hand laid on his shoulder, had burst into tears +and hidden his face in his mother's lap. He wanted to console them, +and they were pitying _him_--why he could not say--but he knew it was +so. + +And now the Pantomime, Plymouth, everything, seemed to have slipped +away from him into a far past. Only his father and mother had drawn +nearer and become more real. He tried to tell himself one of the old +stories; but it fell into pieces like the fragments of coloured glass +he was handling, and presently he began to think of the glass in his +hands and let the story go. + +"On Monday we'll set to work," said his father. "I dare say Joel"-- +this was the carpenter down at Innis village--"will lend me a few +tools to start with. But the clearing up will take us all to-day." + +They ate their dinner in the vestry. Taffy observed that his father +said: "_We_ will do this," or "_Our_ best plan will be so-and-so," +and spoke to him as to a grown man. On the whole, though the dusk +found them still at work, this was a happy day. + +"But aren't you going to lock the door?" he asked, as they were +leaving. + +"No," said Mr. Raymond. "We shall win, sonny; but not in that way." + +On the morrow Taffy rang the bell for service as usual. To his +astonishment Squire Moyle was among the first-comers. He led Honoria +by the hand, entered the Tredinnis pew and shut the door with a slam. +It was the only pew left unmutilated. The rest of the congregation-- +and curiosity made it larger than usual--had to stand; but a wife of +one of the miners found a hassock and passed it to Humility, who +thanked her for it with brimming eyes. Mr. Raymond said afterward +that this was the first success of the campaign. + +Not willing to tire his audience, he preached a very short sermon; +but it was his manifesto, and all the better for being short. He +took his text from Nehemiah, Chapter II., verses 19 and 20-- +"_But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the +Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, +and despised us, and said: 'What is this thing that ye do? Will ye +rebel against the King?_'" + +"_Then answered I them and said unto them, 'The God of Heaven, He +will prosper us; therefore, we His servants will arise and build_.' + +"Fellow-parishioners," he said, "you see the state of this church. +Concerning the cause of it I require none of you to judge. I enter +no plea against any man. Another will judge, who said, '_Destroy +this temple and in three days I will rear it up_.' But He spake of +the temple of His body; which was destroyed and is raised up; and its +living and irrevocable triumph I, or some other servant of God, +will celebrate at this altar, Sunday by Sunday, that whosoever will +may see, yes, and taste it. The state of this poor shell is but a +little matter to a God whose majesty once inhabited a stable; yet the +honour of this, too, shall be restored. You wonder how, perhaps. +_It may be the Lord will work for us; for there is no restraint to +the Lord to save by many or by few_. Go to your homes now and ponder +this; and having pondered, if you will, pray for us." + +As the Raymonds left the church they found Squire Moyle waiting by +the porch. Honoria stood just behind him. The rest of the +congregation had drawn off a little distance to watch. The Squire +lifted his hat to Humility, and turned to Mr. Raymond with a sour +frown. + +"That means war?" + +"It means that I stay," said the Vicar. "The war, if it comes, comes +from your side." + +"I don't think the worse of 'ee for fighting. You're not going to +law then?" + +Mr. Raymond smiled. "I don't doubt you've put yourself within the +reach of it. But if it eases your mind to know, I am not going to +law." + +The Squire grunted, raised his hat again and strode off, gripping +Honoria by the hand. + +She had not glanced towards Taffy. Clearly she was not allowed to +speak to him. + +The meaning of the Vicar's sermon became plain next morning, when he +walked down to the village and called on Joel Hugh, the carpenter. + +"I knows what thee'rt come after," began Joel, "but 'tis no use, +parson dear. Th' old fellow owns the roofs over us, and if I do a +day's work for 'ee, out I goes, neck and crop." + +Mr. Raymond had expected this. "It's not for work I'm come," said +he; "but to hire a few tools, if you're minded to spare them." + +Joel scratched his head. "Might manage that, now. But, Lord bless +'ee! thee'll never make no hand of it." He chose out saw, hammer, +plane and auger, and packed them up in a carpenter's frail, with a +few other tools. "Don't 'ee talk about payment, now; naybors must be +nayborly. Only, you see, a man must look after his own." + +Mr. Raymond climbed the hill toward the towans with the carpenter's +frail slung over his shoulder. As luck would have it, near the top +he met Squire Moyle descending on horseback. The Vicar nodded +"Good-morning" in passing, but had not gone a dozen steps when the +old man reined up and called after him. + +"Hi!" + +The Vicar halted. + +"Whose basket is that you're carrying?" Then, getting no answer, +"Wait till next Saturday night, when Joel Hugh comes to thank you. +I suppose you know he rents his cottage by the week?" + +"No harm shall come to him through me," said the Vicar, and retraced +his steps down the hill. The Squire followed at a foot-pace, +grinning as he went. + +That night Mr. Raymond went back to his beloved books, but not to +read; and early next morning was ready at the cross-roads for the van +which plied twice a week between Innis village and Truro. He had +three boxes with him--heavy boxes, as Calvin the van-driver remarked +when it came to lifting them on board. + +"Thee'rt not leaving us, surely?" said he. + +"No." + +"But however didst get these lumping boxes up the hill?" + +"My son helped me." + +He had modestly calculated on averaging a shilling a volume for his +books; but discovered on leaving the shop at Truro that it worked out +at one-and-threepence. He returned to Nannizabuloe that night with +one box only--but it was packed full of tools--and a copy of Fuller's +"Holy State," which at the last moment had proved too precious to be +parted with--at least, just yet. + +The woodwork of the old pews--painted deal for the most part, but +mixed with a few boards of good red pine and one or two of teak, +relics of some forgotten shipwreck--lay stacked in the belfry and +around the font under the west gallery. Mr. Raymond and Taffy spent +an hour in overhauling it, chose out the boards for their first pew, +and fell to work. + +At the end of another hour the pair broke off and looked at each +other. Taffy could not help laughing. His own knowledge of +carpentry had been picked up by watching Joel Hugh at work, and just +sufficed to tell him that his father was possibly the worst carpenter +in the world. + +"I think my fingers must be all thumbs," declared Mr. Raymond. + +The puckers in his face set Taffy laughing afresh. They both laughed +and fell to work again, the boy explained his notions of the +difficult art of mortising. They were rudimentary, but sound as far +as they went, and his father recognised this. Moreover, when the boy +had a tool to handle he did it with a natural deftness, in spite of +his ignorance. He was Humility's child, born with the skill-of-hand +of generations of lace-workers. He did a dozen things wrongly, but +he neither fumbled, nor hammered his fingers, nor wounded them with +the chisel--which was Humility's husband's way. + +At the end of four days of strenuous effort, they had their first pew +built. It was a recognisable pew, though it leaned to one side, and +the door (for it had a door) fell to with a bang if not cautiously +treated. The triumph was, the seat could be sat upon without risk. +Mr. Raymond and Taffy tested it with their combined weight on the +Saturday evening, and went home full of its praises. + +"But look at your clothes," said Humility; and they looked. + +"This is serious," said Mr. Raymond. "Dear, you must make us a +couple of working suits of corduroy or some such stuff: otherwise +this pew-making won't pay." + +Humility stood out against this for a day or two. That _her_ husband +and child should go dressed like common workmen! But there was no +help for it, and on the Monday week Taffy went forth to work in +moleskin breeches, blue guernsey, and loose white smock. As for Mr. +Raymond, the only badge of his calling was his round clerical hat; +and as all the miners in the neighbourhood wore hats of the same soft +felt and only a trifle higher in the crown, this hardly amounted to a +distinction. + +Humility's eyes were full of tears as she watched them from the door +that morning. But Taffy felt as proud as Punch. A little before +noon he carried out a board that required sawing, and rested it on a +flat tombstone where, with his knee upon it, he could get a good +purchase. He was sawing away when he heard a dog barking, and looked +up to see Honoria coming along the path with George's terrier +frisking at her heels. + +She halted outside the lych-gate, and Taffy, vain of his new clothes, +drew himself up and nodded. + +"Good-morning," said Honoria. "I'm not allowed to speak to you and +I'm not going to, after this." She swooped on the puppy and held +him. "See what George brought home from Plymouth for me. Isn't he +a beauty?" + +Held so, by the scruff of his neck, he was not a beauty. Taffy had +it on the tip of his tongue to tell her about the collar. He wished +he had brought it. + +"I wonder," she went on pensively, "your mother had the heart to +dress you out in that style. But I suppose now you'll be growing up +into quite a common boy." + +Taffy decided to say nothing about the collar. "I like the clothes," +he declared defiantly. + +"Then you can't have the common instincts of a gentleman. Well, +good-bye! Grandfather has salvation all right this time; he said +he'd put the stick about me if I dared to speak to you." + +"He won't know." + +"Won't know? Why I shall tell him, of course, when I get back." + +"But--but he _mustn't_ beat you!" + +She eyed him for a moment or two in silence. "Mustn't he? I advise +you to go and tell him." She walked away slowly, whistling; but +by-and-by broke into a run and was gone, the puppy scampering behind +her. + +As the days grew longer and the weather milder, Taffy and his father +worked late into the evenings; sometimes, if the job needed to be +finished, by the light of a couple of candles. + +One evening, about nine o'clock, the boy as he planed a bench paused +suddenly. "What's that?" + +They listened. The door stood open, and after a second or two they +heard the sound of feet tiptoeing away up the path outside. + +"Spies, perhaps," said his father. "If so, let them go in peace." + +But he was not altogether easy. There had been strange doings up at +the Bryanite Chapel of late. He still visited a few of his +parishioners regularly--hill farmers and their wives for the most +part, who did not happen to be tenants of Squire Moyle, and on whom +his visits therefore could bring no harm; and one or two had hinted +of strange doings, now that the Bryanites had hold of the old Squire. +They themselves had been up--just to look; they confessed it +shamefacedly, much in the style of men who have been drinking +overnight. Without pressing them and showing himself curious, the +Vicar could get at no particulars. But as the summer grew he felt a +moral sultriness, as it were, growing with it. The people were off +their balance, restless; and behind their behaviour he had a sense, +now of something electric, menacing, now of a hand holding it in +check. Slowly in those days the conviction deepened in him that he +was an alien on this coast, that between him and the hearts of the +race he ministered to there stretched an impalpable, impenetrable +veil. And all this while the faces he passed on the road, though +shy, were kindlier than they had been in the days before his +self-confidence left him--it seemed not so long ago. + +On a Saturday night early in May, the footsteps were heard again, and +this time in the porch itself. While Mr. Raymond and Taffy listened +the big latch went up with a creak, and a dark figure slipped into +the church. + +"Who is there?" challenged Mr. Raymond from the chancel where he +stood peering out of the small circle of light. + +"A friend. Pass, friend, and all's well!" answered a squeaky voice. +"Bless you, I've sarved in the militia before now." + +It was Jacky Pascoe, with his coat-collar turned up high about his +ears. + +"What do you want?" Mr. Raymond demanded sharply. + +"A job." + +"We can pay for no work here." + +"Wait till thee'rt asked, Parson, dear. I've been spying in upon 'ee +these nights past. Pretty carpenters you be! T'other night, as I +was a-peeping, the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go, and for goodness' +sake show them chaps how to do it fitty.' 'Dear Lord,' I said, +'Thou knowest I be a Bryanite.' The Lord said to me, 'None of your +back answers! Go and do as I tell 'ee.' So here I be." + +Mr. Raymond hesitated. "Squire Moyle is your friend, I hear, and the +friend of your chapel. What will he say if he discovers that you are +helping us?" + +Jacky scratched his head. "I reckon the Lord must have thought o' +that, too. Suppose you put me to work in the vestry? There's only +one window looks in on the vestry: you can block that up with a +curtain, and there I'll be like a weevil in a biscuit." + +When this screen was fixed, the little Bryanite looked round and +rubbed his hands. "Now I'll tell 'ee a prabble," he said--"a +prabble about this candle I'm holding. When God Almighty said +'_let there be light_,' He gave every man a candle--to some folks, +same as you, long sixes perhaps and best wax; to others, a farthing +dip. But they all helps to light up; and the beauty of it is, +Parson"--he laid a hand on Mr. Raymond's cuff--"there isn't one of +'em burns a ha'porth the worse for every candle that's lit from en. +Now sit down, you and the boy, and I'll larn 'ee how to join a board." + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +VOICES FROM THE SEA. + +Before winter and the long nights came around again, Taffy had become +quite a clever carpenter. From the first his quickness fairly +astonished the Bryanite, who at the best was but a journeyman and +soon owned himself beaten. + +"I doubt," said he, "if you'll ever make so good a man as your +father; but you can't help making a better workman." He added, with +his eyes on the boy's face, "There's one thing in which you might +copy en. He hasn't much of a gift: _but he lays it 'pon the altar_." + +By this time Taffy had resumed his lessons. Every day he carried a +book or two in his satchel with his dinner, and read or translated +aloud while his father worked. Two hours were allowed for this in +the morning, and again two in the afternoon. Sometimes a day would +be set apart during which they talked nothing but Latin. +Difficulties in the text of their authors they postponed until the +evening, and worked them out at home, after supper, with the help of +grammar and dictionary. + +The boy was not unhappy, on the whole; though for weeks together he +longed for sight of George Vyell, who seemed to have vanished into +space, or into that limbo where his childhood lay like a toy in a +lumber room. Taffy seldom turned the key of that room. The stories +he imagined now were not about fairies or heroes, but about himself. +He wanted to be a great man and astonish the world. Just how the +world was to be astonished he did not clearly see; but the triumph, +in whatever shape it came, was to involve a new gown for his mother, +and for his father a whole library of books. + +Mr. Raymond never went back to his books now, except to help Taffy. +The Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews was laid aside. +"Some day!" he told Humility. The Sunday congregation had dwindled +to a very few, mostly farm people; Squire Moyle having threatened to +expel any tenant of his who dared to set foot within the church. + +In the autumn two things happened which set Taffy wondering. + +During the first three years at Nannizabuloe, old Mrs. Venning had +regularly been carried downstairs to dine with the family. +The sea-air (she said) had put new life into her. But now she seldom +moved from her room, and Taffy seldom saw her except at night, when-- +after the old childish custom--he knocked at her door to wish her +pleasant dreams and pull up the weights of the tall clock which stood +by her bed's head. + +One night he asked carelessly, "What do you want with the clock? +Lying here you don't need to know the time; and its ticking must keep +you awake." + +"So it does, child; but bless you, I like it." + +"Like being kept awake?" + +"Dear, yes! I have enough of rest and quiet up here. You mind the +litany I used to say over to you?--Parson Kempthorne taught it to us +girls when I was in service with him; 'twas made up, he said, by +another old Devonshire parson, years and years ago--" + + "'When I lie within my bed + Sick in heart and sick in head, + And with doubts discomforted, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me! + When the house do sigh and weep--'" + +"That's it. You wouldn't think how quiet it is up here all day. +But at night, when you're in bed and sleeping, all the house begins +to talk; little creakings of furniture, you know, and the wind in the +chimney and sometimes the rain in the gutter, running--it's all talk +to me. Mostly it's quite sociable, too; but sometimes, in rainy +weather, the tune changes and then it's like some poor soul in bed +and sobbing to itself. That's when the verse comes in:" + + "'When the house do sigh and weep + And the world is drowned in sleep, + Yet my eyes the watch do keep, + Sweet Spirit, comfort me!'" + +"And then the clock's ticking is a wonderful comfort. _Tick-tack, +tick-tack!_ and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing +up to be a man, and the minutes running and trickling away to my +deliverance--" + +"Granny!" + +"My dear, I'm as well off as most; but that isn't saying I shan't be +glad to go and take the pain in my joints to a better land. +Before we came here, in militia-time, I used to lie and listen for +the buglers, but now I've only the clock. No more bugles for me, I +reckon, till I hear them blown across Jordan." + +Taffy remembered how he too had lain and listened to the bugles; and +with that he saw his childhood, as it were a small round globe set +within a far larger one and wrapped around with other folks' +thoughts. He kissed his grandmother and went away wondering; and as +he lay down that night it still seemed wonderful to him that she +should have heard those bugles, and more wonderful, that night after +night for years she should have been thinking of him while he slept, +and he never have guessed it. + +One morning, some three weeks later, he and his father were putting +on their oil-skins before starting to work--for it had been blowing +hard through the night and the gale was breaking up in floods of +rain--when they heard a voice hallooing in the distance. +Humility heard it too and turned swiftly to Taffy. "Run upstairs, +dear. I expect it's someone sent from Tresedder farm; and if so, +he'll want to see your father alone." + +Mr. Raymond frowned. "No," he said; "the time is past for that." + +A fist hammered on the door. Mr. Raymond threw it open. + +"Brigantine--on the sands! Half a mile this side of the +light-house!" Taffy saw across his father's shoulder a gleam of +yellow oilskins and a flapping sou'-wester hat. The panting voice +belonged to Sam Udy--son of old Bill Udy--a labourer at Tresedder. + +"I'll go at once," said Mr. Raymond. "Run you for the coast-guard!" + +The oilskins went by the window; the side gate clashed to. + +"Is it a wreck?" cried Taffy. "May I go with you?" + +"Yes, there may be a message to run with." + +From the edge of the towans, where the ground dipped steeply to the +long beach, they saw the wreck, about a mile up the coast, and as +well as they could judge a hundred or a hundred and twenty yards out. +She lay almost on her beam ends, with the waves sweeping high across +her starboard quarter and never less than six ranks of ugly breakers +between her and dry land. A score of watchers--in the distance they +looked like emmets--were gathered by the edge of the surf. But the +coast-guard had not arrived yet. + +"The tide is ebbing, and the rocket may reach. Can you see anyone +aboard?" + +Taffy spied through his hands, but could see no one. His father set +off running, and he followed, half-blinded by the rain, now +floundering in loose sand, now tripping in a rabbit hole. They had +covered three-fourths of the distance when Mr. Raymond pulled up and +waved his hat as the coast-guard carriage swept into view over a +ridge to the right and came plunging across the main valley of the +towans. It passed them close--the horses fetlock-deep in sand, with +heads down and heaving, smoking shoulders; the coast-guardsmen with +keen strong faces like heroes'--and the boy longed to copy his father +and send a cheer after them as they went galloping by. But something +rose in his throat. + +He ran after the carriage, and reached the shore just as the first +rocket shot singing out towards the wreck. By this time at least a +hundred miners had gathered, and between their legs he caught a +glimpse of two figures stretched at length on the wet sand. He had +never looked on a dead body before. The faces of these were hidden +by the crowd; and he hung about the fringe of it dreading, and yet +courting, a sight of them. + +The first rocket was swept down to leeward of the wreck. The chief +officer judged his second beautifully, and the line fell clean across +the vessel and all but amidships. A figure started up from the lee +of the deckhouse, and springing into the main shrouds, grasped it and +made it fast. The beach being too low for them to work the cradle +clear above the breakers, the coast-guardsmen carried the shore end +of the line up the shelving cliff and fixed it. Within ten minutes +the cradle was run out, and within twenty the first man came swinging +shoreward. + +Four men were brought ashore alive, the captain last. The rest of +the crew of six lay on the sands with Mr. Raymond kneeling beside +them. He had covered their faces, and now gave the order to lift +them into the carriage. Taffy noticed that he was obeyed without +demur or question. And there flashed on his memory a grey morning, +not unlike this one, when he had missed his father at breakfast: +"He had been called away suddenly," Humility explained, "and there +would be no lessons that day," and she kept the boy indoors all the +morning and busy with a netting-stitch he had been bothering her to +teach him. + +"Father," he asked as they followed the cart, "does this often +happen?" + +"Your mother hasn't thought it well for you to see these sights." + +"Then it _has_ happened, often?" + +"I have buried seventeen," said Mr. Raymond. + +That afternoon he showed Taffy their graves. "I know the names of +all but two. The bodies have marks about them--tattooed, you know-- +and that helps. And I write to their relatives or friends and +restore whatever small property may be found on them. I have often +wished to put up some gravestone, or a wooden cross at least, with +their names." + +He went to his chest in the vestry and took out a book--a cheap +account book, ruled for figures. Taffy turned over the pages. + + Nov. 3rd, 187-. Brig "James and Maria": J. D., fair-haired, + height 5 ft. 8 in., marked on chest with initials and cross + swords, tattooed, also anchor and coil of rope on right + fore-arm: large brown mole on right shoulder-blade. + Striped flannel drawers: otherwise naked: no property of any + kind. + + Ditto. Grown man, age 40 or thereabouts: dark; iron grey beard: + lovers' knot tattooed on right forearm, with initials R. L., + E. W., in the loops: clad in flannel shirt, guernsey, trousers + (blue sea-cloth), socks (heather-mixture), all unmarked. + Silver chain in pocket, with Freemason's token: a half-crown, a + florin, and fourpence-- + +And so on. On the opposite page were entered the full names and +details afterwards discovered, with notes of the Vicar's +correspondence, and position of the grave. + +"They ought to have gravestones," said Mr. Raymond. "But as it is, I +can only get about thirty shillings for the funeral from the county +rate. The balance has come out of my pocket--from two to three +pounds for each. From the beginning the Squire refused to help to +bury sailors. He took the ground that it wasn't a local claim." + +"Hullo!" said Taffy, for as he turned the leaves his eye fell on this +entry:-- + + Jan 30th, 187-. S.S. "Rifleman" (all hands). Cargo, China + clay: W. P., age about eighteen, fair skin, reddish hair, short + and curled, height 5ft. 10 and 3/4 in. Initials tattooed on + chest under a three-masted ship and semicircle of seven stars; + clad in flannel singlet and trousers (cloth): singlet marked + with same initials in red cotton: pockets empty-- + +"But he was in the Navy!" cried Taffy, with his finger on the entry. + +"Which one? Yes, he was in the Navy. You'll see it on the opposite +page. He deserted, poor boy, in Cork Harbour, and shipped on board a +tramp steamer as donkey-man. She loaded at Fowey and was wrecked on +the voyage back. William Pellow he was called: his mother lives but +ten miles up the coast: she never heard of it until six weeks after." + +"But we--I, I mean--knew him. He was one of the sailor boys on +Joby's van. You remember their helping us with the luggage at +_Indian Queens'?_ He showed me his tattoo marks that day." + +And again he saw his childhood as it were set about with an enchanted +hedge, across which many voices would have called to him, and some +from near, but all had hung muted and arrested. + +The inquest on the two drowned sailors was held next day at the +_Fifteen Balls_, down in Innis village. Later in the afternoon, the +four survivors walked up to the church, headed by the Captain. + +"We've been hearing," said the Captain, "of your difficulties, sir: +likewise your kindness to other poor seafaring chaps. We'd have +liked to make ye a small offering for your church, but sixteen +shillings is all we can raise between us. So we come to say that if +you can put us on to a job, why we're staying over the funeral, and a +day's work or more after that won't hurt us one way or another." + +Mr. Raymond led them to the chancel and pointed out a new beam, on +which he and Jacky Pascoe had been working a week past, and over +which they had been cudgelling their brains how to get it lifted and +fixed in place. + +"I can send to one of the miners and borrow a couple of ladders." + +"Ladders? Lord love ye, sir, and begging your pardon, we don't want +ladders. With a sling, Bill, hey?--and a couple of tackles. +You leave it to we, sir." + +He went off to turn over the gear salved from his vessel, and early +next forenoon had the apparatus rigged up and ready. He was obliged +to leave it at this point, having been summoned across to Falmouth to +report to his agents. His last words, before starting were addressed +to his crew. "I reckon you can fix it now, boys. There's only one +thing more, and don't you forget it: Hats off; and any man that wants +to spit must go outside." + +That afternoon Taffy learnt for the first time what could be done +with a few ropes and pulleys. The seamen seemed to spin ropes out of +themselves like spiders. By three o'clock the beam was hoisted and +fixed; and they broke off their work to attend their shipmates' +funeral. After the funeral they fell to again, though more silently, +and before nightfall the beam shone with a new coat of varnish. + +They left early next morning, after a good deal of handshaking, and +Taffy looked after them wistfully as they turned to wave their caps +and trudged away over the rise towards the cross-roads. Away to the +left in the wintry sunshine a speck of scarlet caught his eye against +the blue-grey of the towans. He watched it as it came slowly towards +him, and his heart leapt--yet not quite as he had expected it to +leap. + +For it was George Vyell. George had lately been promoted to "pink" +and made a gallant figure on his strapping grey hunter. For the +first time Taffy felt ashamed of his working-suit, and would have +slipped back to the church. But George had seen him, and pulled up. + +"Hullo!" said he. + +"Hullo!" said Taffy; and, absurdly enough, could find no more to say. + +"How are you getting on?" + +"Oh, I'm all right." There was another pause. "How's Honoria?" + +"Oh, she's all right. I'm riding over there now: they meet at +Tredinnis to-day." He tapped his boot with his hunting crop. + +"Don't you have any lessons now?" asked Taffy, after a while. + +"Dear me, yes; I've got a tutor. He's no good at it. But what made +you ask?" + +Really Taffy could not tell. He had asked merely for the sake of +saying something. George pulled out a gold watch. + +"I must be getting on. Well, good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" + +And that was all. + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +TAFFY'S APPRENTICESHIP. + +They could manage the carpentering now. And Jacky Pascoe, who, in +addition to his other trades, was something of a glazier, had taken +the damaged east window in hand. For six months it had remained +boarded up, darkening the chancel. Mr. Raymond removed the boards +and fixed them up again on the outside, and the Bryanite worked +behind them night after night. He could only be spied upon through +two lancet windows at the west end of the church, and these they +curtained. + +But what continually bothered them was their ignorance of iron-work. +Staples, rivets, hinges were for ever wanted. At length, one +evening, toward the end of March, the Bryanite laid down his tools. + +"Tell 'ee what 'tis, Parson. You must send the boy to someone +that'll teach en smithy-work. There's no sense in this cold +hammering." + +"Wheelwright Hocken holds his shop and cottage from the Squire." + +"Why not put the boy to Mendarva the Smith, over to Benny Beneath? +He's a first-rate workman." + +"That is more than six miles away." + +"No matter for that. There's Joll's Farm close by; Farmer Joll would +board and lodge en for nine shillings a week, and glad of the chance; +and he could come home for Sundays." + +Mr. Raymond, as soon as he reached home, sat down and wrote a letter +to Mendarva the Smith and another to Farmer Joll. Within a week the +bargains were struck, and it was settled that Taffy should go at +once. + +"I may be calling before long, to look you up," said the Bryanite, +"but mind you do no more than nod when you see me." + +Joll's Farm lay somewhere near Carwithiel, across the moor where +Taffy had gone fishing with George and Honoria. On the Monday +morning when he stepped through the white front gate, with his bag on +his shoulder, and paused for a good look at the building, it seemed +to him a very comfortable farmstead, and vastly superior to the +tumble-down farms around Nannizabuloe. The flagged path, which led +up to the front door between great bunches of purple honesty, was +swept as clean as a dairy. + +A dark-haired maid opened the door and led him to the great kitchen +at the back. Hams wrapped in paper hung from the rafters, and +strings of onions. The pans over the fire-place were bright as +mirrors, and through the open window he heard the voices of children +at play as well as the clacking of poultry in the town-place. + +"I'll go and tell the mistress," said the maid; but she paused at the +door. "I suppose you don't remember me, now?" + +"No," said Taffy truthfully. + +"My name's Lizzie Pezzack. You was with the young lady, that day, +when she bought my doll. I mind you quite well. But I put my hair +up last Easter, and that makes a difference." + +"Why, you were only a child!" + +"I was seventeen last week. And--I say, do you know the Bryanite, +over to St. Ann's--Preacher Jacky Pascoe?" + +He nodded, remembering the caution given him. + +"I got salvation off him. Master and mis'-ess they've got salvation +too; but they take it very quiet. They're very fond of one another; +if you please one, you'll please 'em both. They let me walk over to +prayer-meetin' once a week. But I don't go by Mendarva's shop-- +that's where you work--though 'tis the shortest way; because there's +a woman buried in the road there, with a stake through her, and I'm +a terrible coward for ghosts." + +She paused as if expecting him to say something; but Taffy was +staring at a "neck" of corn, elaborately plaited, which hung above +the mantel-shelf. And just then Mrs. Joll entered the kitchen. + +Taffy--without any reason--had expected to see a middle-aged +housewife. But Mrs. Joll was hardly over thirty; a shapely woman, +with a plain, pleasant face and auburn hair, the wealth of which she +concealed by wearing it drawn straight back from the forehead and +plaited in the severest coil behind. She shook hands. + +"You'll like a drink of milk before I show you your room?" + +Taffy was grateful for the milk. While he drank it, the voices of +the children outside rose suddenly to shouts of laughter. + +"That will be their father come home," said Mrs. Joll, and going to +the side door called to him. "John, put the children down! +Mr. Raymond's son is here." + +Mr. Joll, who had been galloping round the farmyard with a small girl +of three on his back, and a boy of six tugging at his coat-tails, +pulled up, and wiped his good-natured face. + +"Kindly welcome," said he, coming forward and shaking hands, while +the two children stared at Taffy. + +After a minute the boy said, "My name's Bob. Come and play horses, +too." + +Farmer Joll looked at Taffy with a shyness that was comic. +"Shall we?" + +"Mr. Raymond will be tired enough already," his wife suggested. + +"Not a bit," declared Taffy; and hoisting Bob on his back, he set off +furiously prancing after the farmer. + +By dinner-time he and the family were fast friends, and after dinner +the farmer took him off to be introduced to Mendarva the Smith. + +Mendarva's forge stood on a triangle of turf beside the high-road, +where a cart-track branched off to descend to Joll's Farm in the +valley. And Mendarva was a dark giant of a man with a beard like +those you see on the statues of Nineveh. On Sundays he parted his +beard carefully and tied the ends with little bows of scarlet ribbon; +but on week days it curled at will over his mighty chest. He had one +assistant whom he called "the Dane"; a red-haired youth as tall as +himself and straighter from the waist down. Mendarva's knees had +come together with years of poising and swinging his great hammer. + +"He's little, but he'll grow," said he, after eyeing Taffy up and +down. "Dane, come fore and tell me if we'll make a workman of en." + +The Dane stepped forward and passed his hands over the boy's +shoulders and down his ribs. "He's slight, but he'll fill out. +Good pair o' shoulders. Give's hold o' your hand, my son." + +Taffy obeyed; not very well liking to be handled thus like a prize +bullock. + +"Hand like a lady's. Tidy wrist, though. He'll do, master." + +So Taffy was passed, given a leathern apron, and set to his first +task of keeping the forge-fire raked and the bellows going, while the +hammers took up the music he was to listen to for a year to come. + +This music kept the day merry; and beyond the window along the +bright high-road there was usually something worth seeing-- +farm-carts, jowters' carts, the doctor and his gig, pedlars and +Johnny-fortnights, the miller's waggons from the valley-bottom below +Joll's Farm, and on Tuesdays and Fridays the market-van going and +returning. Mendarva knew or speculated upon everybody, and with half +the passers-by broke off work and gave the time of day, leaning on +his hammer. But down at the farm all was strangely quiet, in spite +of the children's voices; and at night the quietness positively kept +him awake, listening to the pur-r of the pigeons in their cote +against the house-wall, thinking of his grandmother awake at home and +harkening to the _tick-tack_ of her tall clock. Often when he awoke +to the early summer daybreak and saw through his attic-window the +grey shadows of the sheep still and long on the slope above the +farmstead, his ear was wanting something, asking for something; for +the murmur of the sea never reached this inland valley. And he would +lie and long for the chirruping of the two children in the next room +and the drawing of bolts and clatter of milk-pails below stairs. + +He had plenty to eat, and that plenty simple and good, and clean +linen to sleep between. The kitchen was his except on Saturday +nights, when Mrs. Joll and Lizzie tubbed the children there, and then +he would carry his books off to the best parlour or stroll around the +farm with Mr. Joll and discuss the stock. There were no loose rails +in Mr. Joll's gates, no farm implements lying out in the weather to +rust. Mr. Joll worked early and late, and his shoulders had a +tell-tale stoop--for he was a man in the prime of life, perhaps some +five years older than his wife. + +One Saturday evening he unburdened his heart to Taffy. It happened +at the end of the hay-harvest, and the two were leaning over a gate +discussing the yet unthatched rick. + +"What I say is," declared the farmer quite in-consequently, "a man +must be able to lay his troubles 'pon the Lord. I don't mean his +work, but his troubles; and go home and shut the door and be happy +with his wife and children. Now, I tell you that for months--iss, +years--after Bob was born I kept plaguing myself in the fields, +thinking that some harm might have happened to the child. Why, I +used to make an excuse and creep home, and then if I see'd a blind +pulled down you wouldn't think how my heart'd go thump; and I'd stand +wi' my head on the door-hapse an' say, 'If so be the Lord have +took'n, I must go and comfort Susan--not my will, but Thine, Lord-- +but, Lord, don't 'ee be cruel this time!' And then find the cheeld +right as ninepence and the blind only pulled down to keep the sun off +the carpet. After a while my wife guessed what was wrong--I used to +make up such poor twiddling pretences. She said, 'Look here, the +Lord and me'll see after Bob; and if you can't keep to your own work +without poking your nose into ours, then I married for worse and not +for better.' Then it came upon me that by leaving the Lord to look +after my job I'd been treating Him like a farm labourer. It's the +things you can't help he looks after--not the work." + +A few evenings later there came a knock at the door, and Lizzie, who +went to open it, returned with the Bryanite skipping behind her. + +"Blessings be upon this here house!" he cried, cutting a sort of +double shuffle on the threshold. He shook hands with the farmer and +his wife, and nodded toward Taffy. "So you've got Parson Raymond's +boy here!" + +"Yes," said Mrs. Joll; and turned to Taffy. "He've come to pray a +bit: perhaps you would rather be in the parlour?" + +Taffy asked to be allowed to stay; and presently Mr. Pascoe had them +all down on their knees. He began by invoking God's protection on +the household; but his prayer soon ceased to be a prayer. It broke +into ejaculations of praise--"Friends, I be too happy to ask for +anything--Glory, glory! The blood! The precious blood! +O deliverance! O streams of redemption running!" The farmer and his +wife began to chime in--"Hallelujah!" "Glory!" and Lizzie Pezzack to +sob. Taffy, kneeling before a kitchen chair, peeped between his +palms, and saw her shoulders heaving. + +The Bryanite sprang to his feet, overturning the settle with a crash. +"Tid'n no use. I must skip! Who'll dance wi' me?" + +He held out his hands to Mrs. Joll. She took them, and skipped once +shamefacedly. Lizzie, with flaming cheeks, pushed her aside. +"Leave me try, mis'ess; I shall die if I don't." She caught the +preacher's hands, and the two leapt about the kitchen. "I can dance +higher than mis'ess!" Farmer Joll looked on with a dazed face. +"Hallelujah!" "Amen!" he said at intervals, quite mechanically. +The pair stood under the bacon rack and began to whirl like +dervishes--hands clasped, toes together, bodies leaning back and +almost rigid. They whirled until Taffy's brain whirled with them. + +With a louder sob Lizzie let go her hold and tottered back into a +chair, laughing hysterically. The Bryanite leaned against the table, +panting. + +There was a long pause. Mrs. Joll took a napkin from the dresser and +fell to fanning the girl's face, then to slapping it briskly. +"Get up and lay the table," she commanded; "the preacher'll stay to +supper." + +"Thank 'ee, ma'am, I don't care if I do," said he; and ten minutes +later they were all seated at supper and discussing the fall in wheat +in the most matter-of-fact voices. Only their faces twitched now and +again. + +"I hear you had the preacher down to Joll's last night," said +Mendarva the Smith. "What'st think of en?" + +"I can't make him out," was Taffy's colourless but truthful answer. + +"He's a bellows of a man. I do hear he's heating up th' old Squire +Moyle's soul to knack an angel out of en. He'll find that a job and +a half. You mark my words, there'll be Dover over in your parish one +o' these days." + +During work-hours Mendarva bestowed most of his talk on Taffy. +The Dane seldom opened his lips except to join in the anvil chorus-- + + "Here goes one-- + Sing, sing, Johnny! + Here goes two-- + Sing, Johnny, sing! + Whack'n till he's red, + Whack'n till he's dead, + And whop! goes the widow with + A brand new ring!" + +And when the boy took a hammer and joined in he fell silent. +Taffy soon observed that a singular friendship knit these two men, +who were both unmarried. Mendarva had been a famous wrestler in his +day, and his great ambition now was to train the other to win the +County belt. Often after work the pair would try a hitch together on +the triangle of turf, with Taffy for stickler, Mendarva illustrating +and explaining, the Dane nodding seriously whenever he understood, +but never answering a word. Afterwards the boy recalled these bouts +very vividly--the clear evening sky, the shoulders of the two big men +shining against the level sun as they gripped and swayed, their long +shadows on the grass under which (as he remembered) the poor +self-murdered woman lay buried. + +He thought of her at night, sometimes, as he worked alone at the +forge; for Mendarva allowed him the keys and use of the smithy +overtime, in consideration of a small payment for coal. And then he +blew his fire and hammered, with a couple of candles on the bench and +a Homer between them; and beat the long hexameters into his memory. +The incongruity of it never struck him. He was going to be a great +man, and somehow this was going to be the way. These scraps of +iron--these tools of his forging--were to grow into the arms and +shield of Achilles. In its own time would come the magic moment, the +shield find its true circumference and swing to the balance of his +arm, proof and complete. + + en d etithei thotamoio mega stheuos okeanoio + antuga pad pumatev sakeos puka poietoi. . . + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +LIZZIE AND HONORIA. + +His apprenticeship lasted a year and six months, and all this while +he lived with the Jolls, walking home every Sunday morning and +returning every Sunday night, rain or shine. He carried his deftness +of hand into his new trade, and it was Mendarva who begged and +obtained an extension of the time agreed on, "Rather than lose the +boy I'll tache en for love." So Taffy stayed on for another six +months. He was now in his seventeenth year--a boy no longer. +One evening, as he blew up his smithy fire, the glow of it fell on +the form of a woman standing just outside the window and watching +him. He had no silly fears of ghosts: but the thought of the buried +woman flashed across his mind and he dropped his pincers with a +clatter. + +"'Tis only me," said the woman. "You needn't to be afeard." And he +saw it was the girl Lizzie. + +She stepped inside the forge and seated herself on the Dane's anvil. + +"I was walking back from prayer-meeting," she said. "'Tis nigher +this way, but I don't ever dare to come. Might, I dessay, if I'd +somebody to see me home." + +"Ghosts?" asked Taffy, picking up the pincers and thrusting the bar +back into the hot cinders. + +"I dunno: I gets frightened o' the very shadows on the road +sometimes. I suppose, now, you never walks out that way?" + +"Which way?" + +"Why, towards where your home is. That's the way I comes." + +"No, I don't." Taffy blew at the cinders until they glowed again. +"It's only on Sundays I go over there." + +"That's a pity," said Lizzie candidly. "I'm kept in, Sunday +evenings, to look after the children while farmer and mis'ess goes to +Chapel. That's the agreement I came 'pon." + +Taffy nodded. + +"It would be nice now, wouldn't it--" She broke off, clasping her +knees and staring at the blaze. + +"What would be nice?" + +Lizzie laughed confusedly. "Aw, you make me say't. I can't abear +any of the young men up to the Chapel. If me and you--" + +Taffy ceased blowing. The fire died down, and in the darkness he +could hear her breathing hard. + +"They're so rough," she went on, "and t'other night I met young +Squire Vyell riding along the road, and he stopped me and wanted to +kiss me." + +"George Vyell? Surely he didn't?" Taffy blew up the fire again. + +"Iss he did. I don't see why not, neither." + +"Why he shouldn't kiss you?" + +"Why he shouldn't want to." + +Taffy frowned, carried the white hot bar to his anvil, and began to +hammer. He despised girls, as a rule, and their ways. Decidedly +Lizzie annoyed him; and yet as he worked he could not help glancing +at her now and then, as she sat and watched him. By-and-by he saw +that her eyes were full of tears. + +"What's the matter?" he asked abruptly. + +"I--I can't walk home alone. I'm afeard!" He tossed his hammer +aside, raked out the fire, and reached his coat off its peg. As he +swung round in the darkness to put it on, he blundered against Lizzie +or Lizzie blundered against him. She clutched at him nervously. + +"Clumsy! can't you see the doorway?" She passed out, and he +followed and locked the door. As they crossed the turf to the +high-road, she slipped her arm into his. "I feel safe, that way. +Let it stay, co!" After a few paces, she added, "You're different +from the others--that's why I like you." + +"How?" + +"I dunno; but you _be_ diff'rent. You don't think about girls, for +one thing." + +Taffy did not answer. He felt angry, ashamed, uncomfortable. He did +not turn once to look at her face, dimly visible by the light of the +young moon--the hunter's moon--now sinking over the slope of the +hill. Thick dust--too thick for the heavy dew to lay--covered the +cart-track down to the farm, muffling their footsteps. Lizzie paused +by the gate. + +"Best go in separate," she said; paused again and whispered, "You may +if you like." + +"May do what?" + +"What--what young Squire Vyell wanted." + +They were face to face now. She held up her lips, and as she did so +they parted in an amorous little laugh. The moonlight was on her +face. Taffy bent swiftly and kissed her. + +"Oh, you hurt!" With another little laugh she slipped up the garden +path and into the house. + +Ten minutes later Taffy followed, hating himself. + + +For the next fortnight he avoided her; and then, late one evening she +came again. He was prepared for this, and had locked the door of the +smithy and let down the shutter while, he worked. She tapped upon +the outside of the shutter with her knuckles. + +"Let me in!" + +"Can't you leave me alone?" he answered pettishly. "I want to work, +and you interrupt." + +"I don't want no love-making--I don't indeed. I'll sit quiet as a +mouse. But I'm afeard, out here." + +"Nonsense!" + +"I'm afeard o' the ghost. There's something comin'--let me in, +co-o!" + +Taffy unlocked the door and held it half opened while he listened. + +"Yes, there's somebody coming, on horseback. Now, look here--it's no +ghost, and I can't have you about here with people passing. +I--I don't want you here at all; so make haste and slip away home, +that's a good girl." + +Lizzie glided like a shadow into the dark lane as the trample of +hoofs drew close, and the rider pulled up beside the door. + +"You're working late, I see. Is it too late to make a shoe for +Aide-de-camp here?" + +It was Honoria. She dismounted and stood at the doorway, holding her +horse's bridle. + +"No," said Taffy: "that is, if you don't mind the waiting." + +With his leathern apron he wiped the Dane's anvil for a seat, while +she hitched up Aide-de-camp and stepped into the glow of the +forge-fire. + +"The hounds took us three miles beyond Carwithiel: and there, just as +they lost, Aide-de-camp cast his off-hind shoe. I didn't find it out +at first, and now I've had to walk him all the way back. Are you +alone here?" + +"Yes." + +"Who was that I saw leaving as I came up?" + +"You saw someone?" + +"Yes." She nodded, looking him straight in the face. "It looked like +a woman. Who was she?" + +"That was Lizzie Pezzack, the girl who sold you her doll, once. +She's a servant down at the farm where I lodge." + +Honoria said no more for the moment, but seated herself on the Dane's +anvil, while Taffy chose a bar of iron and stepped out to examine +Aide-de-camp's hoof. He returned and in silence began to blow up the +fire. + +"I dare say you were astonished to see me," she remarked at length. + +"Yes." + +"I'm still forbidden to speak to you. The last time I did it, +grandfather beat me." + +"The old brute!" Taffy nipped the hot iron savagely in his pincers. + +"I wonder if he'll do it again. Somehow I don't think he will." + +Taffy looked at her. She had drawn herself up, and was smiling. +In her close-fitting habit she seemed very slight, yet tall, and a +woman grown. He took the bar to the anvil and began to beat it flat. +His teeth were shut, and with every blow he said to himself "Brute!" + +"That's beautiful," Honoria went on. "I stopped Mendarva the other +day, and he told me wonders about you. He says he tried you with a +hard-boiled egg, and you swung the hammer and chipped the shell all +round without bruising the white a bit. Is that true?" + +Taffy nodded. + +"And your learning--the Latin and Greek, I mean; do you still go on +with it?" + +He nodded again, towards a volume of Euripides that lay open on the +workbench. + +"And the stories you used to tell George and me; do you go on telling +them to yourself?" + +He was obliged to confess that he never did. She sat for a while +watching the sparks as they flew. Then she said, "I should like to +hear you tell one again. That one about Aslog and Orm, who ran away +by night across the ice-fields and took a boat and came to an island +with a house on it, and found a table spread and the fire lit, but no +inhabitants anywhere--You remember? It began 'Once upon a time, not +far from the city of Drontheim, there lived a rich man--'" + +Taffy considered a moment and began "Once upon a time, not far from +the city of Drontheim--" He paused, eyed the horse-shoe cooling +between the pincers, and shook his head. It was no use. Apollo had +been too long in service with Admetus, and the tale would not come. + +"At any rate," Honoria persisted, "you can tell me something out of +your books: something you have just been reading." + +So he began to tell her the story of Ion, and managed well enough in +describing the boy and how he ministered before the shrine at Delphi, +sweeping the temple and scaring the birds away from the precincts: +but when he came to the plot of the play and, looking up, caught +Honoria's eyes, it suddenly occurred to him that all the rest of the +story was a sensual one, and he could not tell it to her. +He blushed, faltered, and finally broke down. + +"But it was beautiful," said she, "so far as it went: and it's just +what I wanted. I shall remember that boy Ion now, whenever I think +of you helping your father in the church at home. If the rest of the +story is not nice, I don't want to hear it." How had she guessed? +It was delicious, at any rate, to know that she thought of him; and +Taffy felt how delicious it was, while he fitted and hammered the +shoe on Aide-de-camp's hoof, she standing by with a candle in either +hand, the flame scarcely quivering in the windless night. + +When all was done, she raised a foot for him to give her a mount. +"Good-night!" she called, shaking the reins. Half a minute later +Taffy stood by the door of the forge, listening to the echoes of +Aide-de-camp's canter, and the palm of his hand tingled where her +foot had rested. + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +THE SQUIRE'S WEIRD. + +He took leave of Mendarva and the Jolls just before Christmas. +The smith was unaffectedly sorry to lose him. "But," said he, "the +Dane will be entered for the championship next summer, so I s'pose I +must look forward to that." + +Every one in the Joll household gave him a small present on his +leaving. Lizzie's was a New Testament, with her name on the flyleaf, +and under it, "Converted April 19, 187-." Taffy did not want the +gift, but took it rather than hurt her feelings. + +Farmer Joll said, "Well, wish 'ee well! Been pretty comfiable, I +hope. Now you'm goin', I don't mind telling 'ee I didn't like your +coming a bit. But now 'tis wunnerful to me you've been wi' us less +than two year'; we've made such friends." + +At home Taffy bought a small forge and set it up in the church at the +west end of the north aisle. Mr. Raymond, under his direction, had +been purchasing the necessary tools for some months past, and now the +main expense was the cost of coal, which pinched them a little. +But they managed to keep the fire alight, and the work went forward +briskly. Save that he still forbade the parish to lend them the +least help, the old Squire had ceased to interfere. + +Mr. Raymond's hair was greyer, and Taffy might have observed--but did +not--how readily towards the close of a day's laborious carpentry he +would drop work and turn to Dindorf's _Poetae Scenici Graeci_, +through which they were reading their way. On Sundays the +congregation rarely numbered a dozen. It seemed that, as the end of +the Vicar's task drew nearer, so the prospect of filling the church +receded and became more shadowy. And if his was a queer plight, +Jacky Pascoe's was queerer. The Bryanite continued to come by night +and help, but at rarer intervals. He was discomforted in mind, as +anyone could see, and at length he took Mr. Raymond aside and made +confession. + +"I must go away; that's what 'tis. My burden is too great for me to +bear." + +"Why," said Mr. Raymond, who had grown surprisingly tolerant during +the last twelve months, "what cause have you, of all men, to feel +dejected? You can set the folk here on fire like flax." He sighed. + +"That's azactly the reason--I can set 'em afire with a breath, but I +can't hold 'em under. I make 'em too strong for me--_and I'm +afeard_. Parson, dear, it's the gospel truth; for two years I've a +been strivin' agen myself, wrastlin' upon my knees, and all to hold +this parish in." He mopped his face. "'Tis like fightin' with +beasts at Ephesus," he said. + +"Do you want to hold them in?" + +"I do, and I don't. I've got to try, anyway. Sometimes I tell +mysel' 'tis putting a hand to the plough and turning back; and then I +reckon I'll go on. But when the time comes I can't. I'm afeard, I +tell 'ee." He paused. "I've laid it before the Lord, but He don't +seem to help. There's two voices inside o' me. 'Tis a terrible +responsibility." + +"But the people: what are you afraid of their doing?" + +"I don't know. You don't know what a runaway hoss will do, but +you're afeared all the same." He sank his voice. "There's +wantonness, for one thing--six love-children born in the parish this +year, and more coming. They do say that Vashti Clemow destroyed her +child. And Old Man Johns--him they found dead on the rocks under the +Island--he didn't go there by accident. 'Twas a calm day, too." + +As often as not Taffy worked late and blew his forge-fire alone in +the church, the tap of his hammer making hollow music in the desolate +aisles. He was working thus one windy night in February, when the +door rattled open and in walked a totally unexpected visitor--Sir +Harry Vyell. + +"Good evening! I was riding by and saw your light in the windows +dancing up and down. I thought I would hitch up the mare and drop in +for a chat. But go on with your work." + +Taffy wondered what had brought him so far from his home at that time +of night, but asked no questions. And Sir Harry placed a hassock on +one of the belfry steps, and taking his seat, watched for a while in +silence. He wore his long riding-boots and an overcoat with the +collar turned up about a neckcloth less nattily folded than usual. + +"I wish," he said at length, "that my boy George was clever like you. +You were great friends once--you remember Plymouth, hey? But I dare +say you've not seen much of each other lately." + +Taffy shook his head. + +"George is a bit wild. Oxford might have done something for him; +made a man of him, I mean. But he wouldn't go. I believe in wild +oats to a certain extent. I have told him from the first he must +look after himself and decide for himself. That's my theory. +It makes a youngster self-reliant. He goes and comes as he likes. +If he comes home late from hunting I ask no questions; I don't wait +dinner. Don't you agree with me?" + +"I don't know," Taffy answered, wondering why he should be consulted. + +"Self-reliance is what a man wants." + +"Couldn't he have learnt that at school?" + +Sir Harry fidgeted with the riding-crop in his hands. "Well, you +see, he's an only son--I dare say it was selfish of me. You don't +mind my talking about George?" + +Taffy laughed. "I like it. But--" + +Sir Harry laughed too, in an embarrassed way. "But you don't suppose +I rode over from Carwithiel for that? Well, well! The fact is--one +gets foolish as one grows old--George went out hunting this morning, +and didn't turn up for dinner. I kept to my rule and dined alone. +Nine o'clock came; half-past; no George. At ten Hoskins locked up as +usual, and off I went to bed. But I couldn't sleep. After a while +it struck me that he might be sleeping here over at Tredinnis; that +is, if no accident had happened. No sleep for me until I made sure; +so I jumped out, dressed, slipped down to the stables, saddled the +mare and rode over. I left the mare by Tredinnis great gates and +crept down to Moyle's stables like a housebreaker, looked in through +the window, and sure enough there was George's grey in the loose box +to the right. So George is sleeping there, and I'm easy in my mind. +No doubt you think me an old fool?" + +But Taffy was not thinking anything of the sort. + +"I couldn't wish better than that. You understand?" + +"Not quite." + +"He lost his mother early. He wants a woman to look after him, and +for him to think about. If he and Honoria would only make up a +match. . . . And Carwithiel would be quite a different house." + +Taffy hesitated, with a hand on the forge-bellows. + +"I dare say it's news to you, what I'm telling. But it has been in +my mind this long while. Why don't you blow up the fire? I bet Miss +Honoria has thought of it too: girls are deep. She has a head on her +shoulders. I'll warrant she sends half a dozen of my servants +packing within a week. As it is, they rob me to a stair. I know it, +and I haven't the pluck to interfere." + +"What does the old Squire say?" Taffy managed to ask. + +"It has never come to _saying_ anything. But I believe he thinks of +it, too, when he happens to think of anything but his soul. He'll be +pleased; everyone will be pleased. The properties touch, you see." + +"I see." + +"To tell you the truth, he's failing fast. This religion of his is a +symptom: all of his family have taken to it in the end. If he hadn't +the constitution of a horse, he'd have been converted ten years +before this. What puzzles me is, he's so quiet. You mark my words +"--Sir Harry rose, buttoned his coat and shook his riding-crop +prophetically--"he's brewing up for something. There'll be the devil +of a flare-up before he has done." + + +It came with the Midsummer bonfires. At nine o'clock on St. John's +Eve, Mr. Raymond read prayers in the church. It was his rule to +celebrate thus the vigils of all saints in the English calendar and +some few Cornish saints besides; and he regularly announced these +services on the preceding Sundays: but no parishioner dreamed of +attending them. + +To-night, as usual, he and Taffy had prayed alone: and the lad was +standing after service at the church door, with his surplice on his +arm (for he always wore a surplice and read the lessons on these +vigils), when the flame of the first bonfire shot up from the +headland over Innis village. + +Almost on the moment, a flame answered it from the point where the +lighthouse stood; and, within ten minutes, the horizon of the towans +was cressetted with these beacon-fires: surely (thought Taffy) with +many more than usual. And he remembered that Jacky Pascoe had thrown +out a hint of a great revival to be held on Baal-fire Night (as he +called it). + +The night was sultry and all but windless. For once the tormented +sands had rest. The flame of the bonfires shone yellow-- +orange-yellow--and steady. He could see the dark figures of men and +women, passing between him and the nearest, on the high wastrel in +front of Tredinnis great gates. Their voices reached him in a +confused murmur, broken now and then by a child's scream of delight. +And yet a hush seemed to hang over sea and land: an expectant hush. +For weeks the sky had not rained. Day after day, a dull indigo blue +possessed it, deepening with night into duller purple, as if the +whole heavens were gathering into one big thundercloud, which menaced +but never broke. And in the hush of those nights a listener could +almost fancy he heard, between whiles, the rabbits stirring uneasily +in their burrows. + +By-and-by the bonfire on the wastrel appeared to be giving out sparks +of light which blazed independently; yet without decreasing its own +volume of flame. The sparks came dancing, nearer and larger: the +voices grew more distinct. The revellers had kindled torches and +were advancing in procession to visit other bonfires. The torches, +too, were supposed to bless the fields they passed across. Small +blessing had they ever brought to the barren towans. + +The procession rose and sank as it came over the uneven ridges like a +fiery snake; topped the nearest ridge and came pouring down past the +churchyard wall. At its head danced Lizzie Pezzack, shrieking like a +creature possessed, her hair loose and streaming while she whirled +her torch. Taffy knew these torches; bundles of canvas steeped in +tar and fastened in the middle to a stout stick or piece of chain. +Lizzie's was fastened to a chain; and as he watched her uplifted arm +swinging the blazing mass he found time to wonder how she escaped +setting her hair on fire. Other torch-bearers tossed their arms and +shouted as they passed. The smoke was suffocating, and across the +patch of quiet graveyard the heat smote on Taffy's face. But in the +crowd he saw two figures clearly--Jacky Pascoe and Squire Moyle; and +the Bryanite's face was agitated and white in the infernal glare. +He had given an arm to the Squire, who was clearly the centre of the +procession and tottered forward with jaws working and cavernous eyes. + +"He's saved!" a voice shouted. + +Others took up the cry. "Saved!" "The Squire's saved!" +"Saved to-night--saved to glory!" + +The Squire paused, still leaning on the Bryanite's arm. While the +procession swayed around him, he gazed across the gate as a man who +had lost his bearings. No glint of torchlight reached his cavernous +eyes; but the sight of Mr. Raymond's surpliced figure standing behind +Taff's shoulder in the full glare seemed to rouse him. He lifted a +fist and shook it slowly. + +"Com'st along, sir!" urged the Bryanite. But the Squire stood +irresolute, muttering to himself. + +"Com'st along, sir!" + +"Lev' me be, I tell 'ee!" He laid both hands on the gate and spoke +across it to Mr. Raymond, his head nodding while his voice rose. + +"D'ee hear what they say? I'm saved. I'm the Squire of this parish, +and I'm goin' to Heaven. I make no account of you and your church. +Old Satan's the fellow I'm after, and I'm going to have him out o' +this parish to-night or my name's not Squire Moyle." + +"That's of it, Squire!" "Hunt 'en!" "Out with 'en!" + +He turned on the crowd. + +"Hunt 'en? Iss fay I will! Come along, boys--back to Tredinnis! +No, no"--this to the Bryanite--"we'll go back. I'll show 'ee sport-- +we'll hunt th' old Divvle by scent and view to-night. I'm Squire +Moyle, ain't I? And I've a pack o' hounds, ha'n't I? Back, boys-- +back, I tell 'ee!" + +Lizzie Pezzack swung her torch. "Back--back to Tredinnis!" The +crowd took up the cry, "Back to Tredinnis!" The old man shook off +the Bryanite's hand, and as the procession wheeled and reformed +itself confusedly, rushed to the head of it, waving his hat-- + +"Back!--Back to Tredinnis!" + +"God help them!" said Mr. Raymond; and taking Taffy by the arm, drew +him back into the church. + + +The shouting died away up the road. For three-quarters of an hour +father and son worked in silence. The reddened sky shed its glow +gently through the clear glass windows, suffusing the shadows beneath +the arched roof. And in the silence the lad wondered what was +happening up at Tredinnis. + + +Jim the Whip took oath afterward that it was no fault of his. He had +suspected three of the hounds for a day or two--Chorister, White Boy, +and Bellman--and had separated them from the pack. That very evening +he had done the same with Rifler, who was chewing at the straw in a +queer fashion and seemed quarrelsome. He had said nothing to the +Squire, whose temper had been ugly for a week past. He had hoped it +was a false alarm--had thought it better to wait, and so on. + +The Squire went down to the kennels with a lantern, Jim shivering +behind him. They had their horses saddled outside and ready, and the +crowd was waiting along the drive and up by the great gates. +The Squire saw at a glance that two couples were missing, and in two +seconds had their names on his tongue. He was like a madman. +He shouted to Jim to open the doors. "Better not, maister!" pleaded +Jim. The old man cursed, smote him across the neck with the butt-end +of his whip, and unlocked the doors himself. Jim, though half +stunned, staggered forward to prevent him, and took another blow, +which felled him. He dropped across the threshold of Chorister's +kennel; the doors of all opened outwards, and the weight of his body +kept this one shut. But he saw the other three hounds run out, saw +the Squire turn with a ghastly face, drop the lantern, and run for it +as White Boy snapped at his boot. Jim heard the crash of the lantern +and the snap of teeth, and with that he fainted off in the darkness. +He had cut his forehead against the bars of the big kennel, and when +he came to himself one of the hounds was licking his face through the +grating. + + +Men told for years after how the old Squire came galloping up the +drive that night, hoof to belly, his chin almost on mare Nonsuch's +neck, his face like a man's who hears hell cracking behind him, and +of the three dusky hounds which followed (the tale said) with +clapping jaws and eyes like coach-lamps. + +Down in the quiet church Taffy heard the outcry, and, laying down his +plane, looked up and saw that his father had heard it too. +Mr. Raymond's mild eyes, shining through his spectacles, asked as +plainly as words: "What was _that?_" + +"Listen!" + +For a minute--two minutes--they heard nothing more. Then out of the +silence broke a rapid, muffled beat of hoofs, and Mr. Raymond +clutched Taffy's arm as a yell--a cry not human, or if human, +insane--ripped the night as you might rip linen, and fetched them to +their feet. Taffy gained the porch first; and just at that moment a +black shadow heaved itself on the churchyard wall and came hurling +over with a thud--a clatter of dropping stones--then a groan. + +Before they could grasp what was happening the old Squire had +extricated himself from the fallen mare, and came staggering across +the graves. + +"Hide me!--" + +He came with both arms outstretched, his face turned sideways. +Behind him, from the far side of the wall, came sounds--horrible +shuffling sounds--and in the dusk they saw the head of one of the +hounds above the coping and his forepaws clinging as he strained to +heave himself over. + +"Off! Keep 'en off!" + +They caught him by both hands, dragged him within, and slammed the +door. + +"Hide me! Hi--!" + +The word ended with a thud as he pitched headlong on the slate +pavement. Through the barred door the scream of the mare Nonesuch +answered it. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +THE BARRIERS FALL. + +There were marks of teeth on his right boot, but no marks at all on +his body. Fright--or fright following on that evening's frenzy--had +killed him. + +He was buried three days later, and Mr. Raymond read the service. +No rain had fallen, and the blood of the three hounds still stained +the gravel dividing the grave from the porch, where the crowd had +shot them down. + +For a while his death made small difference to the family at the +Parsonage. They had fought his enmity and proved it not formidable +for brave hearts. But they had scarcely realised their success, and +wondered why his death did not affect them more. + +About this time Taffy began to carry out a scheme which he and his +father had often discussed, but hitherto had found no leisure for-- +the setting up of wooden crosses on the graves of the drowned +sailormen. They had wished for slate, but good slate was expensive +and hard to come by, and Taffy had no skill in stone-cutting. +Since wood it must be, he resolved to put his best work into it. +The names, etc., should be engraved, not painted merely. Some of the +pew-fronts in the church had panels elaborately carved in flat and +shallow relief--fine Jacobean designs, all of them. He took careful +rubbings of their traceries, and set to work to copy them on the face +of his crosses. + +One afternoon, some three weeks after the Squire's funeral, he +happened to return to the house for a tracing which he had forgotten, +and found Honoria seated in the kitchen and talking with his father +and mother. She was dressed in black, of course, and either this or +the solemnity of her visit gave her quite a grown-up look. But, to +be sure, she was mistress of Tredinnis now, and a child no longer. + +Taffy guessed the meaning of her visit at once. And no doubt this +act of formal reconciliation between Tredinnis House and the +Parsonage had cost her some nervousness. As Taffy entered his +parents stood up and seemed just as awkward as their visitor. +"Another time, perhaps," he heard his father say. Honoria rose +almost at once, and would not stay to drink tea, though Humility +pressed her. + +"I suppose," said Taffy next day, looking up from his Virgil, +"I suppose Miss Honoria wants to make friends now and help on the +restoration?" + +Mr. Raymond, who was on his knees fastening a loose hinge in a +pew-door, took a screw from between his lips. + +"Yes, she proposed that." + +"It must be splendid for you, dad!" + +"I don't quite see," answered Mr. Raymond, with his head well inside +the pew. + +Taffy stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and took a turn up and +down the aisle. + +"Why," said he, coming to a halt, "it means that you have won. +It's victory, dad, and _I_ call it glorious!" His lip trembled. +He wanted to put a hand on his father's shoulder; but his abominable +shyness stood between. + +"We won long ago, my boy." And Mr. Raymond wheeled round on his +knees, pushed up his spectacles, and quoted the famous lines, very +solemnly and slowly: + + "'And not by eastern windows only, + When daylight comes, comes in the light; + In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly! + But westward, look, the land is bright!'" + +"I see," Taffy nodded. "And--I say, that's jolly. Who wrote it?" + +"A man I used to see in the streets of Oxford and always turned to +stare after: a man with big ugly shaped feet and the face of a god--a +young tormented god. Those were days when young men's thoughts +tormented them. Taffy," he asked abruptly, "should you like to go to +Oxford?" + +"Don't, father!" The boy bit his lip to keep back the tears. +"Talk of something else--something cheerful. It has been a splendid +fight, just splendid! And now it's over I'm almost sorry." + +"What is over?" + +"Well, I suppose--now that Honoria wants to help--we can hire workmen +and have the whole job finished in a month, or two at farthest: and +you--" + +Mr. Raymond stood up, and leaning against a bench-end, examined the +thread of the screw between his fingers. + +"That is one way of looking at it, no doubt," he said slowly; "and I +hope God will forgive me if I have put my own pride before His +service. But a man desires to leave some completed work behind him-- +something to which people may point and say, '_he_ did it.' +There was my book, now: for years I thought that was to be my work. +But God thought otherwise and (to correct my pride, perhaps) chose +this task instead. To set a small forsaken country church in order +and make it worthy of His presence--that is not the mission I should +have chosen. But so be it: I have accepted it. Only, to let others +step in at the last and finish even this--I say He must forgive me, +but I cannot." + +"Your book--you can go back to it and finish it." + +"I have burnt it." + +"Dad!" + +"I burned it. I had to. It was a temptation to me, and until I +lifted it from the grate and the flakes crumbled in my hands the +surrender was not complete." + +Taffy felt a sudden gush of pity. And as he pitied suddenly he +understood his father. + +"It had to be complete?" + +"Either the book or the surrender. My boy"--and in his voice there +echoed the aspiration and the despair of the true scholar, who abhors +imperfection and incompleteness in a world where nothing is either +perfect or complete; "it is different with you. I borrowed you, so +to say, for the time. Without you I must have failed; but this was +never your work. For myself, I have learnt my lessons; but, please +God, you shall be my Solomon and be granted a temple to build." + +Taffy had lost his shyness now. He laid a hand on his father's +sleeve. + +"We will go on then." + +"Yes, we will go on." + +"And Jacky? Where has he been? I haven't seen him since the Squire +died." + +Mr. Raymond searched in his coat-pocket and handed over a crumpled +letter. It ran:-- + + "Dear friend,--this is to say that you will not see me no more. + The dear Lord tells me that I have made a cauch of it. + He don't say how, all He says is go and do better somewheres + else. + + "Seems to me a terrable thing to think _Religion_ can be bad for + any man. It have done me such powars of good. The late Moyle + esq he was like a dirty pan all the milk turned sour no matter + what. Dear friend I pored Praise into him and it come out + Prayer and all for him self. But the dear Lord says I was to + blame as much as Moyle esq so must do better next time but feel + terrable timid. + + "My respects to Masr Taffy. Dear friend I done my best I come + like _Nicodemus_ by night. Seeming to me when Christians fall + out tis over what they pray for. When they _praise God_ forget + diffnses and I cant think where the quaraling comes in and so + no more at present from + + "Yours respffly + + "J. Pascoe." + +After supper that night, in the Parsonage kitchen Humility kept +rising from her chair, and laying her needlework aside to re-arrange +the pans and kettles on the hearth. This restlessness was so unusual +that Taffy, seated in the ingle with a book on his knee, had half +raised his head to twit her when he felt a hand laid softly on his +hair, and looked up into his mother's eyes. + +"Taffy, should you like to go to Oxford?" + +"Don't, mother!" + +"But you can." The tears in her eyes answered his at once. +She turned to his father. "Tell him!" + +"Yes, my boy, you can go," said Mr. Raymond; "that is, if you can win +a scholarship. Your mother and I have been talking it over." + +"But--" Taffy began, and could get no further. + +"We have money enough--with care," said Mr. Raymond. + +But the boy's eyes were on his mother. Her cheeks, usually so pale, +were flushed; but she turned her face away and walked slowly back to +her chair. "The lace-work," he heard her say: "I have been saving-- +from the beginning--" + +"For this?" He followed and took her hand. With the other she +covered her eyes; but nodded. + +"O mother--mother!" He knelt and let his brow drop on her lap. +She ceased to weep; her palms rested on his bowed head, but now and +then her body shook. And but for the ticking of the tall clock there +was silence in the room. + +It was wonderful; and the wonder of it grew when they recovered +themselves and fell to discussing their plans. In spite of his +idolatry, Mr. Raymond could not help remembering certain slights +which he, a poor miller's son, had undergone at Christ Church. +He had chosen Magdalen, which Taffy knew to be the most beautiful of +all the colleges; and the news that his name had been entered on the +college books for years past gave him a delicious shock. It was now +July. He would matriculate in the October term, and in January enter +for a demyship. But (the marvels followed so fast on each other's +heels) there would be an examination held in ten days' time--actually +in ten days' time--a "certificate" examination, Mr. Raymond called +it--which would excuse the boy not only the ordinary Matriculation +test, but Responsions too. And, in short, Taffy was to pack his box +and go. + +"But the subjects?" + +"You have been reading them and the prescribed books for four months +past. And I have had sets of the old papers by me for a guide. +Your mathematics are shaky--but I think you should do well enough." + +It was now Humility's turn, and the discussion plunged among shirts +and collars. Never had evening been so happy; and whether they +talked of mathematics or of collars, Taffy could not help observing +how from time to time his father's and mother's eyes would meet and +say, as plainly as words, "We have done rightly." "Yes, we have done +rightly." + +And the wonder of it remained next morning, when he awoke to a +changed world and took down his books with a new purpose. +Already his box had been carried into old Mrs. Venning's room, and +his mother and grandmother were busy, the one packing and repacking, +the other making a new and important suggestion every minute. + +He was to go up alone, and to lodge in Trinity College, where an old +friend of Mr. Raymond's, a resident fellow just then abroad and +spending his Long Vacation in the Tyrol, had placed his own room at +the boy's service. + +To see Oxford--to be lodging in college! He had to hug his mother in +the midst of her packing. + +"You will be going by the Great Western," she said. "You won't be +seeing Honiton on your way." + +When the great morning came, Mr. Raymond travelled with him in the +van to Truro, to see him off. Humility went upstairs to her mother's +room, and the two women prayed together-- + + "They also serve who only stand and wait." + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +OXFORD. + + "Know you her secret none can utter? + Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?" + +"Eight o'clock, sir!" + +Taffy heard the voice speaking above a noise which his dreams +confused with the rattle of yesterday's journey. He was still in the +train, rushing through the rich levels of Somersetshire. He saw the +broad horizon, the cattle at pasture, the bridges and flagged pools +flying past the window--and sat up rubbing his eyes. Blenkiron, the +scout, stood between him and the morning sunshine emptying a can of +water into the tub beside his bed. + +Blenkiron wore a white waistcoat and a tie of orange and blue, the +colours of the College Servants' Cricket Club. These were signs of +the Long Vacation. For the rest his presence would have become an +archdeacon; and he guided Taffy's choice of a breakfast with an air +which suggested the hand of iron beneath the glove of velvet. + +"And begging your pardon, sir, but will you be lunching in?" + +Taffy would consult Mr. Blenkiron's convenience. + +"The fact is, sir, we've arranged to play Teddy `All this afternoon +at Cowley, and the drag starts at one-thirty sharp." + +"Then I'll get my lunch out of college," said Taffy, wondering who +Teddy Hall might be. + +"I thank you, sir. I had, indeed, took the liberty of telling the +manciple that you was not a gentleman to give more trouble than you +could 'elp. Fried sole, pot of tea, toast, pot of blackberry jam, +commons of bread--" Mr. Blenkiron disappeared. + +Taffy sprang out of bed and ran to the open window in the next room. +The gardens lay below him--smooth turf flanked with a border of gay +flowers, flanked on the other side with yews, and beyond the yews +with an avenue of limes, and beyond these with tall elms. A straight +gravelled walk divided the turf. At the end of it two yews of +magnificent spread guarded a great iron gate. Beyond these the +chimneys and battlements of Wadham College stood grey against the +pale eastern sky, and over them the larks were singing. + +So this was Oxford; more beautiful than all his dreams! And since +his examination would not begin until to-morrow, he had a whole long +day to make acquaintance with her. Half a dozen times he, had to +interrupt his dressing to run and gaze out of the window, skipping +back when he heard Blenkiron's tread on the staircase. And at +breakfast again he must jump up and examine the door. Yes, there was +a second door outside--a heavy _oak_-just as his father had +described. What stories had he heard about these oaks! He was +handling this one almost idolatrously when Blenkiron appeared +suddenly at the head of the stairs. Blenkiron was good enough to +explain at some length how the door worked, while Taffy, who did not +need his instruction in the least, blushed to the roots of his hair. + +For, indeed, it was like first love, this adoration of Oxford; +shamefast, shy of its own raptures; so shy, indeed, that when he put +on his hat and walked out into the streets he could not pluck up +courage to ask his way. Some of the colleges he recognised from his +father's description; of one or two he discovered the names by +peeping through their gateways and reading the notices pinned up by +the porters' lodges, for it never occurred to him that he was free to +step inside and ramble through the quadrangles. He wondered where +the river lay, and where Magdalen, and where Christ Church. +He passed along the Turl and down Brasenose Lane; and at the foot of +it, beyond the great chestnut-tree leaning over Exeter wall, the +vision of noble square, the dome of the Radcliffe, and St. Mary's +spire caught his breath and held him gasping. His feet took him by +the gate of Brasenose and across the High. On the farther pavement +he halted, round-eyed, held at gaze by the beauty of the Virgin's +porch, with the creeper drooping like a veil over its twisted +pillars. + +High up, white pigeons wheeled round the spire or fluttered from +niche to niche, and a queer fancy took him that they were the souls +of the carved saints up there, talking to one another above the +city's traffic. At length he withdrew his eyes, and reading the name +"Oriel Street" on an angle of the wall above him, passed down a +narrow by-lane in search of further wonders. + +The clocks were striking three when, after regaining the High and +lunching at a pastrycook's, Taffy turned down into St. Aldates and +recognised Tom Tower ahead of him. The great gates were closed. +Through the open wicket he had a glimpse of green turf and an idle +fountain; and while he peered in, a jolly-looking porter stepped out +of the lodge for a breath of air and nodded in the friendliest +manner. + +"You can walk through if you want to. Were you looking for anyone?" + +"No," said Taffy, and explained proudly, "My father used to be at +Christ Church." + +The porter seemed interested. "What name?" he asked. + +"Raymond." + +"That must have been before my time. I suppose you'll be wanting to +see the Cathedral. That's the door--right opposite." + +Taffy thanked him and walked across the great empty quadrangle. +Within the Cathedral the organ was sounding and pausing, and from +time to time a boy's voice broke in upon the music like a flute, the +pure treble rising to the roof as though it were the very voice of +the building, and every pillar sustained its petition, "_Lord have +mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law!_" +Neither organist nor chorister was visible, and Taffy tiptoed along +the aisles in dread of disturbing them. For the moment this voice +adoring in the noble building expressed to him the completest, the +most perfect thing in life. All his own boyish handiwork, remember, +under his father's eye had been guided toward the worship of God. + +". . . _And incline our hearts to keep this law_." The music +ceased. He heard the organist speaking, up in the loft; criticising, +no doubt: and it reminded him somehow of the small sounds of home and +his mother moving about her housework in the hush between breakfast +and noon. + +He stepped out into the sunlight again, and wandering through archway +and cloister found himself at length beyond the college walls and at +the junction of two avenues of elms, between the trunks of which +shone the acres of a noble meadow, level and green. The avenues ran +at a right angle, east and south; the one old, with trees of +magnificent girth, the other new and interset with poplars. + +Taffy stood irresolute. One of these avenues, he felt sure, must +lead to the river; but which? + +Two old gentlemen stepped out from the wicket of the Meadow +Buildings, and passed him, talking together. The taller--a lean +man, with a stoop--was clearly a clergyman. The other wore cap and +gown, and Taffy remarked, as he went by, that his cap was of velvet; +and also that he walked with his arms crossed just above the wrists, +his right hand clutching his left cuff, and his left hand his right +cuff, his elbows hugged close to his sides. + +After a few paces the clergyman paused, said something to his +companion, and the two turned back towards the boy. + +"Were you wanting to know your way?" + +"I was looking for the river," Taffy answered. He was thinking that +he had never in his life seen a face so full of goodness. + +"Then this is your first visit to Oxford? Suppose, now, you come +with us? and we will take you by the river and tell you the names of +the barges. There is not much else to see, I'm afraid, in Vacation +time." + +He glanced at his companion in the velvet cap, who drew down an +extraordinary bushy pair of eyebrows (yet he, too, had a beautiful +face) and seemed to come out of a dream. + +"So much the better, boy, if you come up to Oxford to worship false +gods." + +Taffy was taken aback. + +"Eight false gods in little blue caps, seated in a trough and tugging +at eight poles; and all to discover if they can get from Putney to +Mortlake sooner than eight others in little blue caps of a lighter +shade. What do they _do_ at Mortlake when they get there in such a +hurry? Eh, boy?" + +"I--I'm sure I don't know," stammered Taffy. + +The clergyman broke out laughing, and turned to him. "Are you going +to tell us your name?" + +"Raymond, sir. My father used to be at Christ Church." + +"What? Are you Sam Raymond's son?" + +"You knew my father?" + +"A very little. I was his senior by a year or two. But I know +something about him." He turned to the other. "Let me introduce the +son of a man after your own heart--of a man fighting for God in the +wilds, and building an altar there with his own hands and by the lamp +of sacrifice." + +"But how do you know all this?" cried Taffy. + +"Oh," the old clergyman smiled, "we are not so ignorant up here as +you suppose." + +They walked by the river bank, and there Taffy saw the college barges +and was told the name of each. Also he saw a racing eight go by: it +belonged to the Vacation Rowing Club. From the barges they turned +aside and followed the windings of the Cherwell. The clergyman did +most of the talking; but now and then the old gentleman in the velvet +cap interposed a question about the church at home, its architecture, +the materials it was built of, and so forth; or about Taffy's own +work, his carpentry, his apprenticeship with Mendarva the Smith. +And to all these questions the boy found himself replying with an +ease which astonished him. + +Suddenly the old clergyman said, "There is your College!" + +And unperceived by Taffy a pair of kindly eyes watched his own as +they met the first vision of that lovely tower rising above the trees +and (so like a thing of life it seemed) lifting its pinnacles +exultantly into the blue heaven. + +"Well?" + +All three had come to a halt. The boy turned, blushing furiously. + +"This is the best of all, sir." + +"Boy," said old Velvet-cap, "do you know the meaning of +'edification'? There stands your lesson for four years to come, if +you can learn it in that time. Do you think it easy? Come and see +how it has been learnt by men who have spent their lives face to face +with it." + +They crossed the street by Magdalen bridge, and passed under Pugin's +gateway, by the Chapel door and into the famous cloisters. All was +quiet here; so quiet that even the voices of the sparrows chattering +in the ivy seemed but a part of the silence. The shadow of the great +tower fell across the grass. + +"This is how one generation read the lesson. Come and see how +another, and a later, read it." + +A narrow passage led them out of gloom into sudden sunlight; and the +sunlight spread itself on fair grass-plots and gravelled walks, +flower-beds and the pale yellow facade of a block of buildings in the +classical style, stately and elegant, with a colonnade which only +needed a few promenading figures in laced coats and tie-wigs to +complete the agreeable picture. + +"What do you make of that?" + +As a matter of fact Taffy's thoughts had run back to the theatre at +Plymouth with its sudden changes of scenery. And he stood for a +moment while he collected them. + +"It's different: I mean," he added, feeling that this was intolerably +lame, "it means something different; I cannot tell what." + +"It means the difference between godly fear and civil ease, between a +house of prayer and one of no prayer. It spells the moral change +which came over this University when religion, the spring and source +of collegiate life, was discarded. The cloisters behind you were +built for men who walked with God." + +"But why," objected Taffy, plucking up courage, "couldn't they do +that in the sunlight?" + +Velvet-cap opened his mouth. The boy felt he was going to be +denounced; when a merry laugh from the old clergyman averted the +storm. + +"Be content," he said to his companion; "we are Gothic enough in +Oxford nowadays. And the lad is right too. There was hope even for +eighteenth-century Magdalen while its buildings looked on sunlight +and on that tower. You and the rest of us lay too much stress on +prayer. The lesson of that tower (with all deference to your amazing +discernment and equally amazing whims) is not prayer, but praise. +And when all men unite to worship God, it'll be praise, not prayer, +that brings them together. + + "'Praise is devotion fit for noble minds, + The differing world's agreeing sacrifice.'" + +"Oh, if you're going to fling quotations from a tapster's son at my +head. . . . Let me see . . . how does it go on? . . . Where-- +something or other--different faiths-- + + "'Where Heaven divided faiths united finds. . . .'" + +And in a moment the pair were in hot pursuit after the quotation, +tripping each other up like two schoolboys at a game. Taffy never +forgot the final stanza, the last line of which they recovered +exactly in the middle of the street, Velvet-cap standing between two +tram-lines, right in the path of an advancing car, while he +declaimed-- + + "'By penitence when we ourselves forsake, + 'Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven; + In praise--'" + +(The gesture was magnificent) + + "'In praise we nobly give what God may take, + And are without a beggar's blush forgiven.' + +"--Confound these trams!" + +The old clergyman shook hands with Taffy in some haste. "And when +you reach home give my respects to your father. Stay, you don't know +my name. Here is my card, or you'll forget it." + +"Mine, too," said Velvet-cap. + +Taffy stood staring after them as they walked off down the lane which +skirts the Botanical Gardens. The names on the two cards were famous +ones, as even he knew. He walked back toward Trinity a proud and +happy boy. Half-way up Queen's Lane, finding himself between blank +walls, with nobody in sight, he even skipped. + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +TAFFY GIVES A PROMISE. + +The postman halted by the foot-bridge and blew his horn. The sound +sent the rabbits scampering into their burrows; and just as they +began to pop out again, Taffy came charging across the slope. +Whereupon they drew back their noses in disgust, and to avoid the +sand scattered by his toes. + +The postman held up a blue envelope and waved it. "Here, 'tis come, +at last!" + +"It may not be good news," said Taffy, clutching it, and then turning +it over in his hand. + +"Well, that's true. And till you open it, it won't be any news at +all." + +"I wanted mother to be first to know." + +"Oh, very well--only, as you say, it mightn't be good news." + +"If it's bad news, I want to be alone. But why should they trouble +to write?" + +"True again. I s'pose now you're sure it _is_ from them?" + +"I can tell by the seal." + +"Take it home, then," said the postman. "Only if you think 'tis for +the sake of a twiddling sixteen shilling a week that I traipse all +these miles every day--" + +Taffy fingered the seal. "If you would really like to know--" + +"Don't 'ee mention it. Not on any account." He waved his hand +magnanimously and trudged off toward Tredinnis. + +Taffy waited until he disappeared behind the first sand-hill, and +broke the seal. A slip of parchment lay inside the envelope. + +"_This is to certify_--" + +He had passed! He pulled off his cap and waved it round his head. +And once more the rabbits popped back into their burrows. + +Toot--toot--toot!--It was that diabolical postman. He had fetched a +circuit round the sand-hill, and was peeping round the north side of +it and grinning as he blew his horn. + +Taffy set off running, and never stopped until he reached the +Parsonage and burst into the kitchen. "Mother--It's all right! +I've passed!" + + +Somebody was knocking at the door. Taffy jumped up from his knees, +and Humility made the lap of her apron smooth. + +"May I come in?" asked Honoria, and pushed the door open. +She stepped into the middle of the kitchen and dropped Taffy an +elaborate courtesy. + +A thousand congratulations, sir!" + +"Why, how did you know?" + +"Well, I met the postman; and I looked in through the window before +knocking." + +Taffy bit his lip. "People seem to be taking a deal of interest in +us all of a sudden," he said to his mother. + +Humility looked distressed, uncomfortable. Honoria ignored the snub. +"I am starting for Carwithiel to-day," she said, "for a week's visit, +and thought I would look in--after hearing what the postman told me-- +and pay my compliments." + +She talked for a minute or two on matters of no importance, asked +after old Mrs. Venning's health, and left, turning at the door and +giving Humility a cheerful little nod. + +"Taffy, you ought not to have spoken so." Humility's eyes were +tearful. + +Taffy's conscience was already accusing him. He snatched up his cap +and ran out. + +"Miss Honoria!" + +She did not turn. + +"Miss Honoria--I am sorry!" He overtook her, but she turned her face +away. "Forgive me!" + +She halted, and after a moment looked him in the eyes. He saw then +that she had been crying. + +"The first time I came to see you he whipped me," she said slowly. + +"I am sorry; indeed I am." + +"Taffy--" + +"Miss Honoria." + +"I said--Taffy." + +"Honoria, then." + +"Do you know what it is to feel lonely here?" + +Taffy remembered the afternoons when he had roamed the sand-hills +longing for George's company. "Why, yes," said he; "it used to be +always lonely." + +"I think we have been the loneliest children in the whole world--you +and I and George--only George didn't feel it the same way. And now +it's coming to an end with you. You are going up to Oxford, and soon +you will have heaps of friends. Can you not understand? Suppose +there were two prisoners, alone in the same prison, but shut in +different cells, and one heard that the other's release had come. +He would feel--would he not?--that now he was going to be lonelier +than ever. And yet he might be glad of the other's liberty, and if +the chance were given, might be the happier for shaking hands with +the other and wishing him joy." + +Taffy had never heard her speak at all like this. + +"But you are going to Carwithiel, and George is famous company." + +"I am going over to Carwithiel because I hate Tredinnis. I hate +every stone of it, and will sell the place as soon as ever I come of +age. And George is the best fellow in the world. Some day I shall +marry him (oh, it is all arranged!), and we shall live at Carwithiel +and be quite happy; for I like him, and he likes people to be happy. +And we shall talk of you. Being out of the world ourselves, we shall +talk of you, and the great things you are going to do, and the great +things you are doing. We shall say to each other, 'It's all very +well for the world to be proud of him, but we have the best right, +for we grew up with him and know the stories he used to tell us; and +when the time came for his going, it was we who waved from the +door--" + +"Honoria--" + +"But there is one thing you haven't told, and you shall now, if you +care to--about your examination and what you did at Oxford." + +So he sat down beside her on a sand-hill and told her: about the long +low-ceiled room in the quadrangle of the Bodleian, the old marbles +which lined the walls, the examiner at the blue baize table, and the +little deal tables (all scribbled over with names and dates and +verses and ribald remarks) at which the candidates wrote; also of the +_viva voce_ examination in the antechamber of the Convocation House, +He told it all as if it were the great event he honestly felt it to +be. + +"And the others," said she, "those who were writing around you, and +the examiner--how did you feel towards them?" + +Taffy stared at her. "I don't know that I thought much about them." + +"Didn't you feel as if it was a battle and you wanted to beat them +all?" + +He broke out laughing. "Why, the examiner was an old man, as dry as +a stick! And I hardly remember what the others were like--except +one, a white-headed boy with a pimply face. I couldn't help noticing +him, because whenever I looked up there he was at the next table, +staring at me and chewing a quill." + +"I can't understand," she confessed. "Often and often I have tried +to think myself a man--a man with ambition. And to me that has +always meant fighting. I see myself a man, and the people between me +and the prize have all to be knocked down or pushed out of the way. +But you don't even see them--all you see is a pimply-faced boy +sucking a quill. Taffy--" + +"Yes?" + +"I wish you would write to me when you get to Oxford. +Write regularly. Tell me all you do." + +"You will like to hear?" + +"Of course I shall. So will George. But it's not only that. +You have such an easy way of going forward; you take it for granted +you're going to be a great man--" + +"I don't." + +"Yes, you do. You think it just lies with yourself, and it is +nobody's business to interfere with you. You don't even notice those +who are on the same path. Now a woman would notice every one, and +find out all about them." + +"Who said I wanted to be a great man?" + +"Don't be silly, that's a good boy! There's your father coming out +of the church porch, and you haven't told him yet. Run to him, but +promise first." + +"What?" + +"That you will write." + +"I promise." + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +HONORIA'S LETTERS. + +1. + + "CARWITHIEL, Oct. 25, 18--." + + "MY DEAR TAFFY,--Your letter was full of news, and I read it + over twice: once to myself, and again after dinner to George + and Sir Harry. We pictured you dining in the college hall. + Thanks to your description, it was not very difficult: the long + tables, the silver tankards, the dark panels and the dark + pictures above, and the dons on the dais, aloof and very + sedate. It reminded me of Ivanhoe--I don't know why; and no + doubt if ever I see Magdalen, it will not be like my fancy in + the least. But that's how I see it; and you at a table near + the bottom of the hall, like the youthful squire in the + story-books--the one, you know, who sits at the feast below the + salt until he is recognised and forced to step up and take his + seat with honour at the high table. I began to explain all + this to George, but found that he had dropped asleep in his + chair. He was tired out after a long day with the pheasants." + + "I shall stay here for a week or two yet, perhaps. You know how + I hate Tredinnis. On my way over, I called at the Parsonage + and saw your mother. She was writing that very day, she said, + and promised to send my remembrances, which I hope duly reached + you. The Vicar was away at the church, of course. There is + great talk of the Bishop coming in February, when all will be + ready. George sends his love; I saw him for a few minutes at + breakfast this morning, before he started for another day with + the pheasants." + + "Your friend," + "HONORIA." + +2. + + "CARWITHIEL, Nov. 19, 18--." + + "MY DEAR TAFFY,--Still here, you see! I am slipping this into a + parcel containing a fire-screen which I have worked with my + very own hands; and I trust you will be able to recognise the + shield upon it and the Magdalen lilies. I send it, first, as a + birthday present; and I chose the shield--well, I dare say that + going in for a demy-ship is a matter-of-fact affair to you, who + have grown so exceedingly matter-of-fact; but to me it seems a + tremendous adventure; and so I chose a shield--for I suppose + the dons would frown if you wore a cockade in your college cap. + I return to Tredinnis to-morrow; so your news, whatever it is, + must be addressed to me there. But it is safe to be good + news." + + "Your friend," + "HONORIA." + +3. + + "TREDINNIS, Nov. 27, 18--." + + "MOST HONOURED SCHOLAR,--Behold me, an hour ago, a great lady, + seated in lonely grandeur at the head of my own ancestral + table. This is the first time I have used the dining-room; + usually I take all my meals in the morning-room, at a small + table beside the fire. But to-night I had the great table + spread and the plate spread out, and wore my best gown, and + solemnly took my grandfather's chair and glowered at the ghost + of a small girl shivering at the far end of the long white + cloth. When I had enough of this (which was pretty soon) I + ordered up some champagne and drank to the health of + Theophilus John Raymond, Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford. + I graciously poured out a second glass for the small ghost at + the other end of the table; and it gave her the courage to + confess that she, too, in a timid way, had taken an interest in + you for years, and hoped you were going to be a great man. + Having thus discovered a bond between us, we grew very + friendly; and we talked a great deal about you afterwards in + the drawing-room, where I lost her for a few minutes and found + her hiding in the great mirror over the fire-place--a habit of + hers." + + "It is time for me to practise ceremony, for it seems that + George and I are to be married some time in the spring. For my + part I think my lord would be content to wait longer; for so + long as he is happy and sees others cheerful he is not one to + hurry or worry. But Sir Harry is the impatient one: and has + begun to talk of his decease. He doesn't believe in it a bit, + and at times when he composes his features and attempts to be + lugubrious I have to take up a book and hide my smiles. But he + is clever enough to see that it worries George." + + "I saw both your father and mother this morning. Mr. Raymond has + been kept to the house by a chill; nothing serious: but he is + fretting to be out again and at work in that draughty church. + He will accept no help; and the mistress of Tredinnis has no + right to press it on him. I shall never understand men and how + they fight. I supposed that the war lay between him and my + grandfather. But it seems he was fighting an idea all the + while; for here is my grandfather beaten and dead and gone; and + still the Vicar will give no quarter. If you had not assured + me that your demy-ship means eighty pounds a year, I could + believe that men fight for shadows only. Your mother and + grandmother are both well. . . ." + + +It was a raw December afternoon--within a week of the end of term-- +and Taffy had returned from skating in Christ Church meadow, when he +found a telegram lying on his table. There was just time to see the +Dean, to pack, and to snatch a meal in hall, before rattling off to +his train. At Didcot he had the best part of an hour to wait for the +night-mail westward. + + "_Your father dangerously ill. Come at once_." + +There was no signature. Yet Taffy knew who had ridden to the office +with that telegram. The flying dark held visions of her, and the +express throbbed westward to the beat of Aide-de-camp's gallop. +Nor was he surprised at all to find her on the platform at Truro +Station. The Tredinnis phaeton was waiting outside. + +He seemed to her but a boy after all, as he stepped out of the train +in the chill dawn: a wan-faced boy, and sorely in need of comfort. + +"You must be brave," said she, gathering up the reins as he climbed +to the seat beside her. + +Surely yes; he had been telling himself this very thing all night. +The groom hoisted in his portmanteau, and with a slam of the door +they were off. The cold air sang past Taffy's ears. It put vigour +into him, and his courage rose as he faced his shattered prospects, +shattered dreams. He must be strong now for his mother's sake; a man +to work and be leant upon. + +And so it was that whereas Honoria had found him a boy, Humility +found him a man. As her arms went about him in her grief, she felt +his body, that it was taller, broader; and knew in the midst of her +tears that this was not the child she had parted from seven short +weeks ago, but a man to act and give orders and be relied upon. + +"He called for you . . . many times," was all she could say. + +For Taffy had come too late. Mr. Raymond was dead. He had +aggravated a slight chill by going back to his work too soon, and the +bitter draughts of the church had cut him down within sight of his +goal. A year before he might have been less impatient. The chill +struck into his lungs. On December 1st he had taken to his bed, and +he never rallied. + +"He called for me?" + +"Many times." + +They went up the stairs together and stood beside the bed. The +thought uppermost in Taffy's mind was--"He called for me. He wanted +me. He was my father and I never knew him." + +But Humility in her sorrow groped amid such questions as these, +"What has happened? Who am I? Am I she who yesterday had a husband +and a child? To-day my husband is gone and my child is no longer the +same child." + +In her room old Mrs. Venning remembered the first days of her own +widowhood, and life seemed to her a very short affair, after all. + +Honoria saw Taffy beside the grave. It was no season for out-of-door +flowers, and she had rifled her hothouses for a wreath. The exotics +shivered in the north-westerly wind; they looked meaningless, +impertinent, in the gusty churchyard. Humility, before the coffin +left the house, had brought the dead man's old blue working-blouse, +and spread it for a pall. No flowers grew in the Parsonage garden; +but pressed in her Bible lay a very little bunch, gathered, years +ago, in the meadows by Honiton. This she divided and, unseen by +anyone, pinned the half upon the breast of the patched garment. + +On the evening after the funeral and for the next day or two she was +strangely quiet, and seemed to be waiting for Taffy to make some +sign. Dearly as mother and son loved one another, they had to find +their new positions, each toward each. Now Taffy had known nothing +of his parents' income. He assumed that it was little enough, and +that he must now leave Oxford and work to support the household. +He knew some Latin and Greek; but without a degree he had little +chance of teaching what he knew. He was a fair carpenter, and a more +than passable smith. . . . He revolved many schemes, but chiefly +found himself wondering what it would cost to enter an architect's +office. + +"I suppose," said he, "father left no will?" + +"Oh yes, he did," said Humility, and produced it: a single sheet of +foolscap signed on her wedding day. It gave her all her husband's +property absolutely--whatever it might be. + +"Well," said Taffy, "I'm glad. I suppose there's enough for you to +rent a small cottage, while I look about for work?" + +"Who talks about your finding work? You will go back to Oxford, of +course." + +"Oh, shall I?" said Taffy, taken aback. + +"Certainly; it was your father's wish." + +"But the money?" + +"With your scholarship there's enough to keep you there for the four +years. After that, no doubt, you will be earning a good income." + +"But--" He remembered what had been said about the lace-money, and +could not help wondering. + +"Taffy," said his mother, touching his hand, "leave all this to me +until your degree is taken. You have a race to run and must not +start unprepared. If you could have seen _his_ joy when the news +came of the demy-ship!" + +Taffy kissed her and went up to his room. He found his books laid +out on the little table there. + + +4. + + "TREDINNIS, February 13, 18--." + + "MY DEAR TAFFY,--I have a valentine for you, if you care to + accept it; but I don't suppose you will, and indeed I hope in + my heart that you will not. But I must offer it. + Your father's living is vacant, and my trustees (that is to + say, Sir Harry; for the other, a second cousin of mine who + lives in London, never interferes) can put in someone as a + stop-gap, thus allowing me to present you to it when the time + comes, if you have any thought of Holy Orders. You will + understand exactly why I offer it; and also, I hope, you will + know that I think it wholly unworthy of you. But turn it over + in your mind and give me your answer." + + "George and I are to be married at the end of April. May is an + unlucky month. It shall be a week--even a fortnight--earlier, + if that fits in with your vacation, and you care to come. + See how obliging I am! I yield to you what I have refused to + Sir Harry. We shall try to persuade the Bishop to come and + open the church on the same day." + + "Always your friend," + "HONORIA." + +5. + + "TREDINNIS, February 21. 18--." + + "My Dear Taffy,--No, I am not offended in the least; but very + glad. I do not think you are fitted for the priesthood; but my + doubts have nothing to do with your doubts, which I don't + understand, though you tried to explain them so carefully. + You will come through _them_, I expect. I don't know that I + have any reasons that could be put on paper: only, somehow, I + cannot _see_ you in a black coat and clerical hat." + + "You complain that I never write about George. You don't + deserve to hear, since you refuse to come to our wedding. + But would _you_ talk, if you happened to be in love? There, I + have told you more than ever I told George, whose conceit has + to be kept down. Let this console you." + + "Our new parson, when he comes, is to lodge down in Innis + Village. Your mother--but no doubt she has told you--stays in + the Parsonage while she pleases. She and your grandmother are + both well. I see her every day: I have so much to learn, and + she is so wise. Her beautiful eyes--but oh, Taffy, it must be + terrible to be a widow! She smiles and is always cheerful; but + the _look_ in them! How can I describe it? When I find her + alone with her lace-work, or sometimes (but it is not often) + with her hands in her lap, she seems to come out of her silence + with an effort, as others withdraw themselves from talk. + I wonder if she does talk in those silences of hers. + Another thing, it is only a few weeks now since she put on a + widow's cap, and yet I cannot remember her--can scarcely + picture her--without it. I am sure that if I happened to call + one day when she had laid it aside, I should begin to talk + quite as if we were strangers." + + "Believe me, yours sincerely," + "HONORIA." + +But the wedding, after all, did not take place until the beginning of +October, a week before the close of the Long Vacation; and Taffy, +after all, was present. The postponement had been enforced by many +delays in building and furnishing the new wing at Carwithiel; for Sir +Harry insisted that the young couple must live under one roof with +him, and Honoria (as we know) hated the very stones of Tredinnis. + +The Bishop came to spend a week in the neighbourhood; the first three +days as Honoria's guest. On the Saturday he consecrated the work of +restoration in the church, and in the afternoon held a confirmation +service. Taffy and Honoria knelt together to receive his blessing. +It was the girl's wish. The shadow of her responsibility to God and +man lay heavy on her during the few months before her marriage: and +Taffy, already weary and dispirited with his early doubtings, +suffered her mood of exaltation to overcome him like a wave and sweep +him back to rest for a while on the still waters of faith. +Together they listened while the Bishop discoursed on the dead +Vicar's labours with fluency and feeling; with so much feeling, +indeed, that Taffy could not help wondering why his father had been +left to fight the battle alone. + +On the Sunday and Monday two near parishes claimed the Bishop. +On the Tuesday he sent his luggage over to Carwithiel, whither he was +to follow after the wedding service, to spend a day or two with Sir +Harry. It had been Honoria's wish that George should choose Taffy +for his best man; but George had already invited one of his sporting +friends, a young Squire Philpotts from the eastern side of the Duchy; +and as the date fell at the beginning of the hunting season, he +insisted on a "pink" wedding. Honoria consulted the Bishop by +letter. "Did he approve of a 'pink' wedding so soon after the +bride's confirmation?" The Bishop saw no harm in it. + +So a "pink" wedding it was, and the scarlet coats made a lively patch +of colour in the gray churchyard: but it gave Taffy a feeling that he +was left out in the cold. He escorted his mother to the church, and +left her for a few minutes in the Vicarage pew. The bridegroom and +his friends were gathered in a showy cluster by the chancel step, but +the bride had not arrived, and he stepped out to help in marshalling +the crowd of miners and mine-girls, fishermen, and mothers with +unruly children--a hundred or so in all, lining the path or +straggling among the graves. + +Close by the gate he came on a girl who stood alone. + +"Hullo, Lizzie--you here?" + +"Why not?" she asked, looking at him sullenly. + +"Oh, no reason at all." + +"There might ha' been a reason," said she, speaking low and +hurriedly. "You might ha' saved me from this, Mr. Raymond; and her +too; one time, you might." + +"Why, what on earth is the matter?" He looked up. The Tredinnis +carriage and pair of grays came over the knoll at a smart trot, and +drew up before the gate. + +"Matter?" Lizzie echoed with a short laugh. "Oh, nuthin'. +I'm goin' to lay the curse on her, that's all." + +"You shall not!" There was no time to lose. + +Honoria's trustee--the second cousin from London, a tall, +clean-shaven man with a shiny bald head, and a shiny hat in his +hand--had stepped out and was helping the bride to alight. +What Lizzie meant Taffy could not tell; but there must be no scene. +He caught her hand. "Mind--I say you shall not!" he whispered. + +"Lemme go--you're creamin' my fingers." + +"Be quiet then." + +At that moment Honoria passed up the path. Her wedding gown almost +brushed him as he stood wringing Lizzie's hand. She did not appear +to see him; but he saw her face beneath the bridal veil, and it was +hard and white. + +"The proud toad!" said Lizzie. "I'm no better'n dirt, I suppose, +though from the start she wasn' above robbin' me. Aw, she's sly ... +Mr. Raymond, I'll curse her as she comes out, see if I don't!" + +"And I swear you shall not," said Taffy. The scent of Honoria's +orange-blossom seemed to cling about them as they stood. + +Lizzie looked at him vindictively. "You wanted her yourself, _I_ +know. You weren't good enough, neither. Let go my fingers!" + +"Go home, now. See, the people have all gone in." + +"Go'st way in too, then, and leave me here to wait for her." + +Taffy shut his teeth, let go her hand, and taking her by the +shoulders, swung her round face toward the gate. + +"March!" he commanded, and she moved off whimpering. Once she looked +back. "March!" he repeated, and followed her down the road as one +follows and threatens a mutinous dog. + + +The scene by the church gate had puzzled Honoria, and in her first +letter (written from Italy) she came straight to the point, as her +custom was: + + "I hope there is nothing between you and that girl who used to + be at Joll's. I say nothing about our hopes for you, but you + have your own career to look to; and as I know you are too + honourable to flatter an ignorant girl when you mean nothing, + so I trust you are too wise to be caught by a foolish fancy. + Forgive a staid matron (of one week's standing) for writing so + plainly, but what I saw made me uneasy--without cause, no + doubt. Your future, remember, is not yours only. And now I + shall trust you, and never come back to this subject." + + "We are like children abroad, George's French is wonderful, but + not so wonderful as his Italian. When he goes to take a ticket + he first of all shouts the name of the station he wishes to + arrive at (for some reason he believes all foreigners to be + deaf), then he begins counting down francs one by one, very + slowly, watching the clerk's face. When the clerk's face tells + him he has doled out enough, he shouts 'Hold hard!' and + clutches the ticket. It takes time; but all the people here + are friends with him at once--especially the children, whom he + punches in the ribs and tells to 'buck up.' Their mothers nod + and smile and openly admire him; and I--well, I am happy and + want everyone else to be happy." + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +MEN AS TOWERS. + +It was May morning, and Taffy made one of the group gathered on the +roof of Magdalen Tower. In the groves below and across the river +meadows all the birds were singing together. Beyond the glimmering +suburbs, St. Clement's and Cowley St. John, over the dark rise by +Bullingdon Green, the waning moon seemed to stand still and wait, +poised on her nether horn. Below her the morning sky waited, clean +and virginal, letting her veil of mist slip lower and lower until it +rested in folds upon Shotover. While it dropped a shaft of light +tore through it and smote flashing on the vane high above Taffy's +head, turning the dark side of the turrets to purple and casting +lilac shadows on the surplices of the choir. For a moment the whole +dewy shadow of the tower trembled on the western sky, and melted and +was gone as a flood of gold broke on the eastward-turned faces. +The clock below struck five and ceased. There was a sudden baring of +heads; a hush; and gently, borne aloft on boys' voices, clear and +strong, rose the first notes of the hymn-- + + "Te Deum Patrem colimus, + Te laudibus prosequimur, + Qui corpus cibo reficis, + Coelesti mentem gratia." + +In the pauses Taffy heard, faint and far below, the noise of cowhorns +blown by the street boys gathered at the foot of the tower and beyond +the bridge. Close beside him a small urchin of a chorister was +singing away with the face of an ecstatic seraph; whence that ecstasy +arose the urchin would have been puzzled to tell. There flashed into +Taffy's brain the vision of the whole earth lauding and adoring-- +sun-worshippers and Christians, priests and small children; nation +after nation prostrating itself and arising to join the chant-- +"the differing world's agreeing sacrifice." Yes, it was Praise that +made men brothers; Praise, the creature's first and last act of +homage to his Creator; Praise that made him kin with the angels. +Praise had lifted this tower; had expressed itself in its soaring +pinnacles; and he for the moment was incorporate with the tower and +part of its builder's purpose. "Lord, make men as towers!"--he +remembered his father's prayer in the field by Tewkesbury, and at +last he understood. "All towers carry a lamp of some kind"--why, of +course they did. He looked about him. The small chorister's face +was glowing-- + + "Triune Deus, hominum + Salutis auctor optime, + Immensum hoc mysterium + Ovante lingua canimus!" + +Silence--and then with a shout the tunable bells broke forth, rocking +the tower. Someone seized Taffy's college cap and sent it spinning +over the battlements. Caps? For a second or two they darkened the +sky like a flock of birds. A few gowns followed, expanding as they +dropped, like clumsy parachutes. The company--all but a few severe +dons and their friends--tumbled laughing down the ladder, down the +winding stair, and out into sunshine. The world was pagan after all. + + +At breakfast Taffy found a letter on his table, addressed in his +mother's hand. As a rule she wrote twice a week, and this was not +one of the usual days for hearing from her. But nothing was too good +to happen that morning. He snatched up the letter and broke the +seal. + +"My dearest boy," it ran, "I want you home at once to consult with +me. Something has happened (forgive me, dear, for not preparing you; +but the blow fell on me yesterday so suddenly)--something which makes +it doubtful, and more than doubtful, that you can continue at Oxford. +And something else _they say_ has happened which I will never believe +in unless I hear it from my boy's lips. I have this comfort, at any +rate, that he will never tell me a falsehood. This is a matter which +cannot be explained by letter, and cannot wait until the end of term. +Come home quickly, dear; for until you are here I can have no peace +of mind." + +So once again Taffy travelled homewards by the night mail. + + +"Mother, it's a lie!" + +Taffy's face was hot, but he looked straight into his mother's eyes. +She too was rosy-red: being ever a shamefast woman. And to speak of +these things to her own boy-- + +"Thank God!" she murmured, and her fingers gripped the arms of her +chair. + +"It's a lie! Where is the girl?" + +"She is in the workhouse, I believe. I don't know who spread it, or +how many have heard. But Honoria believes it." + +"Honoria! She cannot--" He came to a sudden halt. "But, mother, +even supposing Honoria believes it, I don't see--" + +He was looking straight at her. Her eyes sank. Light began to break +in on him. + +"Mother!" + +Humility did not look up. + +"Mother! Don't tell me that she--that Honoria--" + +"She made us promise--your father and me. . . . God knows it did no +more than repay what your father had suffered. . . . Your future was +everything to us. . . ." + +"And I have been maintained at Oxford by her money," he said, pausing +in his bitterness on every word. + +"Not by that only, Taffy! There was your scholarship . . . and it +was true about my savings on the lace-work. . . ." + +But he brushed her feeble explanations away with a little gesture of +impatience. "Oh why, mother?--Oh why?" + +She heard him groan and stretched out her arms. + +"Taffy, forgive me--forgive us! We did wrongly, I see--I see it as +plain now as you. But we did it for your sake." + +"You should have told me. I was not a child. Yes, yes, you should +have told me." + +Yes; there lay the truth. They had treated him as a child when he +was no longer a child. They had swathed him round with love, +forgetting that boys grow and demand to see with their own eyes and +walk on their own feet. To every mother of sons there comes sooner +or later the sharp lesson which came to Humility that morning; and +few can find any defence but that which Humility stammered, sitting +in her chair and gazing piteously up at the tall youth confronting +her: "I did it for your sake." Be pitiful, oh accusing sons, in that +hour! For, terrible as your case may be against them, your mothers +are speaking the simple truth. + +Taffy took her hand. "The money must be paid back, every penny of +it." + +"Yes, dear." + +"How much?" + +Humility kept a small account-book in the work-box beside her. +She opened the pages, but, seeing his outstretched hand, gave it +obediently to Taffy, who took it to the window. + +"Almost two hundred pounds." He knit his brows and began to drum with +his fingers on the window-pane. "And we must put the interest at +five per cent. . . . With my first in Moderations I might find some +post as an usher in a small school. . . . There's an agency which +puts you in the way of such things: I must look up the address. . . . +We will leave this house, of course." + +"Must we?" + +"Why of course we must. We are living here by _her_ favour. +A cottage will do--only it must have four rooms, because of +grandmother. . . . I will step over and talk with Mendarva. +He may be able to give me a job. It will keep me going, at any rate, +until I hear from the agency." + +"You forget that I have over forty pounds a year--or, rather, mother +has. The capital came from the sale of her farm, years ago." + +"Did it?" said Taffy grimly. "You forget that I have never been +told. Well, that's good, so far as it goes. But now I'll step over +and see Mendarva. If only I could catch this cowardly lie somewhere +on my way!" + +He kissed his mother, caught up his cap, and flung out of the house. +The sea breeze came humming across the sandhills. He opened his +lungs to it, and it was wine to his blood; he felt strong enough to +slay dragons. "But who could the liar be? Not Lizzie herself, +surely! Not--" + +He pulled up short in a hollow of the towans. + +"Not--George?" + +Treachery is a hideous thing; and to youth so incomprehensibly +hideous that it darkens the sun. Yet every trusting man must be +betrayed. That was one of the lessons of Christ's life on earth. +It is the last and severest test; it kills many, morally, and no man +who has once met and looked it in the face departs the same man, +though he may be a stronger one. + +"_Not George?_" + +Taffy stood there so still that the rabbits crept out and, catching +sight of him, paused in the mouths of their burrows. When at length +he moved on it was to take, not the path which wound inland to +Mendarva's, but the one which led straight over the higher moors to +Carwithiel. + +It was between one and two o'clock when he reached the house and +asked to see Mr. and Mrs. George Vyell, They were not at home, the +footman said; had left for Falmouth the evening before to join some +friends on a yachting cruise. Sir Harry was at home; was, indeed, +lunching at that moment; but would no doubt be pleased to see Mr. +Raymond. + +Sir Harry had finished his lunch, and sat sipping his claret and +tossing scraps of biscuits to the dogs. + +"Hullo, Raymond!--thought you were in Oxford. Sit down, my boy; +delighted to see you. Thomas, a knife and fork for Mr. Raymond. +The cutlets are cold, I'm afraid; but I can recommend the cold +saddle, and the ham--it's a York ham. Go to the sideboard and forage +for yourself. I wanted company. My boy and Honoria are at Falmouth +yachting, and have left me alone. What, you won't eat? A glass of +claret, then, at any rate." + +"To tell the truth, Sir Harry," Taffy began awkwardly. "I've come on +a disagreeable business." + +Sir Harry's face fell. He hated disagreeable business. He flipped a +piece of biscuit at his spaniel's nose and sat back, crossing his +legs. + +"Won't it keep?" + +"To me it's important." + +"Oh, fire away then: only help yourself to the claret first." + +"A girl--Lizzie Pezzack, living over at Langona--has had a child +born--" + +"Stop a moment. Do I know her?--Ah, to be sure--daughter of old +Pezzack, the light-keeper--a brown-coloured girl with her hair over +her eyes. Well, I'm not surprised. Wants money, I suppose? +Who's the father?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well, but--damn it all!--somebody knows." Sir Harry reached for the +bottle and refilled his glass. + +"The one thing I know is that Honoria--Mrs. George, I mean--has heard +about it, and suspects me." + +Sir Harry lifted his glass and glanced at him over the rim. +"That's the devil. Does she, now?" He sipped. "She hasn't been +herself for a day or two--this explains it. I thought it was change +of air she wanted. She's in the deuce of a rage, you bet." + +"She is," said Taffy grimly. + +"There's no prude like your young married woman. But it'll blow +over, my boy. My advice to you is to keep out of the way for a +while." + +"But--but it's a lie!" broke in the indignant Taffy. "As far as I am +concerned there's not a grain of truth in it!" + +"Oh--I beg your pardon, I'm sure." Here Honoria's terrier (the one +which George had bought for her at Plymouth) interrupted by begging +for a biscuit, and Sir Harry balanced one carefully on its nose. +"On trust--good dog! What does the girl say herself?" + +"I don't know. I've not seen her." + +"Then, my dear fellow--it's awkward, I admit--but I'm dashed if I see +what you expect me to do." The baronet pulled out a handkerchief and +began flicking the crumbs off his knees. + +Taffy watched him for a minute in silence. He was asking himself why +he had come. Well, he had come in a hot fit of indignation, meaning +to face Honoria and force her to take back the insult of her +suspicion. But after all--suppose George were at the bottom of it? +Clearly Sir Henry knew nothing, and in any case could not be asked to +expose his own son. And Honoria? Let be that she would never +believe--that he had no proof, no evidence even--this were a pretty +way of beginning to discharge his debt to her! The terrier thrust a +cold muzzle against his hand. The room was very still. Sir Harry +poured out another glassful and held out the decanter. "Come, you +must drink; I insist!" + +Taffy looked up. "Thank you, I will." + +He could now and with a clear conscience. In those quiet moments he +had taken the great resolution. The debt should be paid back, and +with interest; not at five per cent., but at a rate beyond the +creditor's power of reckoning. For the interest to be guarded for +her should be her continued belief in the man she loved. Yes, +_but if George were innocent?_ Why, then the sacrifice would be +idle; that was all. + +He swallowed the wine, and stood up. + +"Must you be going? I wanted a chat with you about Oxford," grumbled +Sir Harry; but noting the lad's face, how white and drawn it was, he +relented, and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't take it too +seriously, my boy. It'll blow over--it'll blow over. Honoria likes +you, I know. We'll see what the trollop says: and if I get a chance +of putting in a good word, you may depend on me." + +He walked with Taffy to the door--good, easy man--and waved a hand +from the porch. On the whole, he was rather glad than not to see his +young friend's back. + + +From his smithy window Mendarva spied Taffy coming along the road, +and stepped out on the green to shake hands with him. + +"Pleased to see your face, my son! You'll excuse my not asking 'ee +inside; but the fact is"--he jerked his thumb towards the smithy--" +we've a-got our troubles in there." + +It came on our youth with something of a shock that the world had +room for any trouble beside his own. + +"'Tis the Dane. He went over to Truro yesterday to the wrastlin', +an' got thrawed. I tell'n there's no call to be shamed. 'Twas Luke +the Wendron fella did it--in the treble play--inside lock backward, +and as pretty a chip as ever I see." Mendarva began to illustrate it +with foot and ankle, but checked himself, and glanced nervously over +his shoulder. "Isn' lookin', I hope? He's in a terrible pore about +it. Won't trust hissel' to spake, and don't want to see nobody. +But, as I tell'n, there's no call to be shamed; the fella took the +belt in the las' round, and turned his man over like a tab. He's a +proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank 'pon en both ends, and +he'll rise up in the middle and look at 'ee. There was no one a +patch on en but the Dane; and I'll back the Dane next time they +clinch. 'Tis a nuisance, though, to have'n like this--with a big job +coming on, too, over to the light-house." + +Taffy looked steadily at the smith. "What's doing at the +light-house?" + +"Ha'n't 'ee heerd?" Mendarva began a long tale, the sum of which was +that the light-house had begun of late to show signs of age, to rock +at times in an ominous manner. The Trinity House surveyor had been +down and reported, and Mendarva had the contract for some immediate +repairs. "But 'tis patching an old kettle, my son. The foundations +be clamped down to the rock, and the clamps have worked loose. +The whole thing'll have to come down in the end; you mark my words." + +"But, these repairs?" Taffy interrupted: "You'll be wanting hands." + +"Why, o' course." + +"And a foreman--a clerk of the works--" + + +While Mendarva was telling his tale, over a hill two miles to the +westward a small donkey-cart crawled for a minute against the +sky-line and disappeared beyond the ridge which hid the towans. +An old man trudged at the donkey's head; and a young woman sat in the +cart with a bundle in her arms. + +The old man trudged along so deep in thought that when the donkey +without rhyme or reason came to a halt, half-way down the hill, he +too halted, and stood pulling a wisp of grey side-whiskers. + +"Look here," he said. "You ent goin' to tell? That's your las' +word, is it?" + +The young woman looked down on the bundle and nodded her head. + +"There, that'll do. If you weant, you weant; I've tek'n 'ee back, +an' us must fit and make the best o't. The cheeld'll never be good +for much--born lame like that. But 'twas to be, I s'pose." + +Lizzie sat dumb, but hugged the bundle closer. + +"'Tis like a judgment. If your mother'd been spared, 'twudn' have +happened. But 'twas to be, I s'pose. The Lord's ways be past +findin' out." + +He woke up and struck the donkey across the rump. + +"Gwan you! Gee up! What d'ee mean by stoppin' like that?" + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +THE SERVICE OF THE LAMP. + +The Chief Engineer of the Trinity House was a man of few words. +He and Taffy had spent the afternoon clambering about the rocks below +the light-house, peering into its foundations. Here and there, where +weed coated the rocks and made foothold slippery, he took the hand +which Taffy held out. Now and then he paused for a pinch of snuff. +The round of inspection finished, he took an extraordinarily long +pinch. + +"What's _your_ opinion?" he asked, cocking his head on one side and +examining the young man much as he had examined the light-house. +"You have one, I suppose?" + +"Yes, sir; but of course it doesn't count for much." + +"I asked for it." + +"Well, then, I think, sir, we have wasted a year's work; and if we go +on tinkering we shall waste more." + +"Pull it down and rebuild, you say?" + +"Yes, sir; but not on the same rock." + +"Why?" + +"This rock was ill-chosen. You see, sir, just here a ridge of elvan +crops up through the slate; the rock, out yonder, is good elvan, and +that is why the sea has made an island of it, wearing away the softer +stuff inshore. The mischief here lies in the rock, not in the +light-house." + +"The sea has weakened our base?" + +"Partly: but the light-house has done more. In a strong gale the +foundations begin to work, and in the chafing the rock gets the worst +of it." + +"What about concrete?" + +"You might fill up the sockets with concrete; but I doubt, sir, if +the case would hold for any time. The rock is a mere shell in +places, especially on the north-western side." + +"H'm. You were at Oxford for a time, were you not?" + +"Yes, sir," Taffy answered, wondering. + +"I've heard about you. Where do you live?" + +Taffy pointed to the last of a line of three whitewashed cottages +behind the light-house. + +"Alone?" + +"No, sir; with my mother and my grandmother. She is an invalid." + +"I wonder if your mother would be kind enough to offer me a cup of +tea?" + +In the small kitchen, on the walls of which, and even on the dresser, +Taffy's books fought for room with Humility's plates and tin-ware, +the Chief Engineer proved to be a most courteous old gentleman. +Towards Humility he bore himself with an antique politeness which +flattered her considerably. And when he praised her tea she almost +forgave him for his detestable habit of snuff-taking. + +He had heard something (it appeared) from the President of Taffy's +college, and also from--(he named Taffy's old friend in the velvet +college-cap). In later days Taffy maintained not only that every man +must try to stand alone, but that he ought to try the harder because +of its impossibility; for in fact it was impossible to escape from +men's helpfulness. And though his work was done in lonely places +where in the end fame came out to seek him, he remained the same boy +who, waking in the dark, had heard the bugles speaking comfort. + +As a matter of fact his college had generously offered him a chance +which would have cost him nothing or next to nothing, of continuing +to read for his degree. But he had chosen his line, and against +Humility's entreaties he stuck to it. The Chief Engineer took a +ceremonious leave. He had to drive back to his hotel, and Taffy +escorted him to his carriage. + +"I shall run over again to-morrow," he said at parting; "and we'll +have a look at that island rock." He was driven off, secretly a +little puzzled. + +Well, it puzzled Taffy at times why he should be working here with +Mendarva's men for twenty shillings a week (it had been eighteen, to +begin with) when he might be reading for his degree and a fellowship. +Yet in his heart he knew the reason. _That_ would be building, after +all, on the foundations which Honoria had laid. + +Pride had helped chance to bring him here, to the very spot where +Lizzie Pezzack lived. He met her daily, and several times a day. +She, and his mother and grandmother, were all the women-folk in the +hamlet--if three cottages deserve that name. In the first cottage +Lizzie lived with her father, who was chief light-houseman, and her +crippled child; two under-keepers, unmarried men, managed together in +the second; and this accident allowed Taffy to rent the third from +the Brethren of the Trinity House and live close to his daily work. +Unless brought by business, no one visited that windy peninsula; no +one passed within sight of it; no tree grew upon it or could be seen +from it. At daybreak Taffy's workmen came trudging along the track +where the short turf and gentians grew between the wheel-ruts; and in +the evening went trudging back, the level sun flashing on their empty +dinner-cans. The eight souls left behind had one common gospel-- +Cleanliness. Very little dust found its way thither; but the salt, +spray-laden air kept them constantly polishing window-panes and +brass-work. To wash, to scour, to polish, grew into the one +absorbing business of life. They had no gossip; even in their own +dwellings they spoke but little; their speech shrank and dwindled +away in the continuous roar of the sea. But from morning to night, +mechanically, they washed and scoured and polished. Paper was not +whiter than the deal table and dresser which Humility scrubbed daily +with soap and water, and once a week with lemon-juice as well. +Never was cleaner linen to sight and smell than that which she pegged +out by the furze-brake on the ridge. All the life of the small +colony, though lonely, grew wholesome as it was simple of purpose in +cottages thus sweetened and kept sweet by limewash and the salt wind. + +And through it moved the forlorn figure of Lizzie Pezzack's child. +Somehow Lizzie had taught the boy to walk, with the help of a crutch, +as early as most children; but the wind made cruel sport with his +first efforts in the open, knocking the crutch from under him at +every third step, and laying him flat. The child had pluck, however; +and when autumn came round again, could face a fairly stiff breeze. + + +It was about this time that word came of the Trinity Board's +intention to replace the old lighthouse with one upon the outer rock. +For the Chief Engineer had visited it and decided that Taffy was +right. To be sure no mention was made of Taffy in his report; but +the great man took the first opportunity to offer him the post of +foreman of the works, so there was certainly nothing to be grumbled +at. The work did not actually start until the following spring; for +the rock, to receive the foundations, had to be bored some feet below +high-water level, and this could only be attempted on calm days or +when a southerly wind blew from the high land well over the workmen's +heads, leaving the inshore water smooth. On such days Taffy, looking +up from his work, would catch sight of a small figure on the +cliff-top leaning aslant to the wind and watching. + +For the child was adventurous and took no account of his lameness. +Perhaps if he thought of it at all, having no chance to compare +himself with other children, he accepted his lameness as a condition +of childhood--something he would grow out of. His mother could not +keep him indoors; he fidgeted continually. But he would sit or stand +quiet by the hour on the cliff-top watching the men as they drilled +and fixed the dynamite, and waiting for the bang of it. Best of all, +however, were the days when his grandfather allowed him inside the +light-house, to clamber about the staircase and ladders, to watch the +oiling and trimming of the great lantern, and the ships moving slowly +on the horizon. He asked a thousand questions about them. + +"I think," said he one day before he was three years old, "that my +father is in one of those ships." + +"Bless the child!" exclaimed old Pezzack. "Who says you have a +father?" + +"_Everybody_ has a father. Dicky Tregenza has one; they both work +down at the rock. I asked Dicky, and he told me." + +"Told 'ee what?" + +"That everybody has a father. I asked him if mine was out in one of +those ships, and he said very likely. I asked mother, too, but she +was washing-up and wouldn't listen." + +Old Pezzack regarded the child grimly. "'Twas to be, I s'pose," he +muttered. + +Lizzie Pezzack had never set foot inside the Raymonds' cottage. +Humility, gentle soul as she was, could on some points be as +unchristian as other women. As time went on it seemed that not a +soul beside herself and Taffy knew of Honoria's suspicion. She even +doubted, and Taffy doubted too, if Lizzie herself knew such an +accusation had been made. Certainly never by word or look had Lizzie +hinted at it. Yet Humility could not find it in her heart to +forgive her. "She may be innocent," was the thought; "but through +her came the injury to my son." Taffy by this time had no doubt at +all. It was George who poisoned Honoria's ear; George's shame and +Honoria's pride would explain why the whisper had never gone +further; and nothing else would explain. + +Did his mother guess this? He believed so at times, but they never +spoke of it. + +The lame child was often in the Raymonds' kitchen. Lizzie did not +forbid or resent this. And he liked Humility, and would talk to her +at length while he nibbled one of her dripping-cakes. "People don't +tell the truth," he observed sagely on one of these occasions. +(He pronounced it "troof," by the way.) "_I_ know why we live here. +It's because we're near the sea. My father's on the sea somewhere +looking for us, and grandfather lights the lamp every night to tell +him where we are. One night he'll see it and bring his ship in and +take us all off together." + +"Who told you all this?" + +"Nobody. People won't tell me nothing (nofing). I has to make it +out in my head." + +At times, when his small limbs grew weary (though he never +acknowledged this) he would stretch himself on the short turf of the +headland and lie staring up at the white gulls. No one ever came +near enough to surprise the look which then crept over the child's +face. But Taffy, passing him at a distance, remembered another small +boy, and shivered to remember and compare-- + + "A boy's will is the wind's will, + And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." + +--But how when the boy is a cripple? + +One afternoon he was stooping to inspect an obstinate piece of boring +when the man at his elbow said: + +"Hullo! edn' that young Joey Pezzack in diffities up there? Blest if +the cheeld won't break his neck wan of these days!" + +Taffy caught up a coil of rope, sprang into a boat, and pushed across +to land. "Don't move!" he shouted. At the foot of the cliff he +picked up Joey's crutch and ran at full speed up the path worn by the +workmen. This led him round to the verge ten feet above the ledge +where the child clung white and silent. He looped the rope in a +running noose and lowered it. + +"Slip this under your arms. Can you manage, or shall I come down? +I'll come if you're hurt." + +"I've twisted my foot. It's all right, now you're come," said the +little man bravely; and slid the rope round himself in the most +business-like way. + +"The grass was slipper--" he began, as soon as his feet touched firm +earth: and with that he broke down and fell to sobbing in Taffy's +arms. + +Taffy carried him--a featherweight--to the cottage where Lizzie stood +by her table washing up. She saw them at the gate and came running +out. + +"It's all right. He slipped--out on the cliff. Nothing more than a +scratch or two, and perhaps a sprained ankle." + +He watched while she set Joey in a chair and began to pull off his +stockings. He had never seen the child's foot naked. She turned +suddenly, caught him looking, and pulled the stocking back over the +deformity. + +"Have you heard?" she asked. + +"What?" + +"_She_ has a boy! Ah!" she laughed harshly, "I thought that would +hurt you. Well, you _have_ been a silly!" + +"I don't think I understand." + +"You don't think you understand!" she mimicked. "And you're not fond +of her, eh? Never were fond of her, eh? You silly--to let him take +her, and never tell!" + +"Tell?" + +She faced him, hardening her gaze. "Yes, tell--" She nodded slowly; +while Joey, unobserved by either, looked up with wide, round eyes. + +"Men don't fight like that." The words were out before it struck him +that one man had, almost certainly, fought like that. Her face, +however, told him nothing. She could not know. "_You_ have never +told," he added. + +"Because--" she began, but could not tell him the whole truth. +And yet what he said was true. "Because you would not let me," she +muttered. + +"In the churchyard, you mean--on her wedding day?" + +"Before that." + +"But before that I never guessed." + +"All the same I knew what you were. You wouldn' have let me. +It came to the same thing. And if I had told--Oh, you make it hard +for me!" she wailed. + +He stared at her, understanding this only--that somehow he could +control her will. + +"I will never let you tell," he said gravely. + +"I hate her!" + +"You shall not tell." + +"Listen"--she drew close and touched his arm. "He never cared for +her; it's not his way to care. She cares for him now, I dessay--not +as she might have cared for _you_--but she's his wife, and some women +are like that. There's her pride, any way. Suppose--suppose he came +back to me?" + +"If I caught him--" Taffy began: but the poor child, who for two +minutes had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a +wail: + +"Oh, mother! my foot--it hurts so!" + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +FACE TO FACE. + +The first winter had interrupted all work upon the rock; but Taffy +and his men had used the calm days of the following spring and summer +to such purpose that before the end of July the foundations began to +show above high-water neaps, and in September he was able to report +that the building could be pushed forward in any ordinary weather. +The workmen were carried to and from the mainland by a wire hawser +and cradle, and the rising breastwork of masonry protected them from +the beat of the sea. Progress was slow, for each separate stone had +to be dovetailed above, below, and on all sides with the blocks +adjoining it, besides being cemented; and care to be taken that no +salt mingled with the fresh water, or found its way into the joints +of the building. Taffy studied the barometer hour by hour, and kept +a constant look-out to windward against sudden gales. + +On November 16th the men had finished their dinner, and sat smoking +under the lee of the wall, when Taffy, with his pocket-aneroid in his +hand, gave the order to snug down and man the cradle for shore. +They stared. The morning had been a halcyon one; and the northerly +breeze, which had sprung up with the turn of the tide and was +freshening, carried no cloud across the sky. Two vessels, +abrigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching +down-channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles' +distance they could see distinctly the white foam running from her +bluff bows, and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as she +heeled to it. + +One or two grumbled. Half a day's work meant half a day's pay to +them. It was all very well for the Cap'n, who drew his by the week. + +"Come, look alive!" Taffy called sharply. He pinned his faith to +the barometer, and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the +brigantine and saw that her crew were busy with the braces, +flattening the forward canvas. "See there, boys. There'll be a gale +from the west'ard before night." + +For a minute the brigantine seemed to have run into a calm. +The schooner, half a mile behind her, came reaching along steadily. + +"That there two-master's got a fool for a skipper," grumbled a voice. +But almost at the moment the wind took her right aback--or would have +done so had the crew not been preparing for it. Her stern swung +slowly around into view, and within two minutes she was fetching away +from them on the port tack, her sails hauled closer and closer as she +went. Already the schooner was preparing to follow suit. + +"Snug down, boys! We must be out of this in half an hour." + +And sure enough, by the time Taffy gained the cliff by the old +light-house, the sky had darkened, and a stiff breeze from the +north-west, crossing the tide, was beginning to work up a nasty sea +around the rock and lop it from time to time over the masonry and the +platforms where half an hour before his men had been standing. +The two vessels had disappeared in the weather; and as Taffy stared +in their direction a spit of rain--the first--took him viciously in +the face. + +He turned his back to it and hurried homeward. As he passed the +light-house door old Pezzack called out to him: + +"Hi! wait a bit! Would 'ee mind seein' Joey home? I dunno what his +mother sent him over here for, not I. He'll get hisself leakin'." + +Joey came hobbling out, and put his right hand in Taffy's with the +fist doubled. + +"What's that in your hand?" + +Joey looked up shyly. "You won't tell?" + +"Not if it's a secret." + +The child opened his palm and disclosed a bright half-crown piece. + +"Where on earth did you get that?" + +"The soldier gave it to me." + +"The soldier? nonsense! What tale are you making up?" + +"Well, he had a red coat, so he _must_ be a soldier. He gave it to +me, and told me to be a good boy and run off and play." + +Taffy came to a halt. "Is he here--up at the cottages?" + +"How funnily you say that! No, he's just rode away. I watched him +from the light-house windows. He can't be gone far yet." + +"Look here, Joey--can you run?" + +"Yes, if you hold my hand; only you mustn't go too fast. Oh, you're +hurting!" + +Taffy took the child in his arms, and with the wind at his back went +up the hill with long stride. "There he is!" cried Joey as they +gained the ridge; and he pointed; and Taffy, looking along the ridge, +saw a speck of scarlet moving against the lead-coloured moors--half a +mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the +cottages were close by. "Run home, sonny. I'm going to have a look +at the soldier, too." + +The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to +run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and +within a quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin. +So fiercely it went howling inland along the ridge that he half +expected to see the horse urged into a gallop before it. But the +rider, now standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went +plodding on. For a while horse and man disappeared over the rise; +but Taffy guessed that on hitting the cross-path beyond it they would +strike away to the left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he +began to slant his course to the left in anticipation. The tide, he +knew, would be running in strong; and with this wind behind it he +hoped--and caught himself praying--that it would be high enough to +cover the wooden foot-bridge and make the ford impassable; and if so, +the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and fetch a +circuit farther up the valley. + +By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other's heels, and +the strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost +his hat, and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots. +But all he felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there +little by little for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his +silent thoughts as a reservoir by small mountain streams; and with so +tranquil a surface that at times--poor youth!--he had honestly +believed it reflected God's calm, had been proud of his magnanimity, +and said "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass +against us." Now as he ran he prayed to the same God to delay the +traitor at the ford. + +Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the +sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when the +small waves lapped against his mare's fore-feet, he heard Taffy's +shout for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a +second or two before he recognised the figure which came plunging +down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches +at the swaying elder boughs. + +"Hello!" he shouted cheerfully. "Looks nasty, doesn't it?" + +Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare's legs +were plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy's face. + +"Get down," he panted. + +"Hey?" + +"Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse and put up your fists!" + +"What the devil is the matter? Hello! . . . Keep off, I tell you! +Are you mad?" + +"Come off and fight." + +"By God, I'll break your head in if you don't let go. . . . You +idiot!"--as the mare plunged and tore the stirrup-leather from +Taffy's grip--"She'll brain you, if you fool round her heels like +that!" + +"Come off, then." + +"Very well." George backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle +and faced him on the beach. "Now perhaps you'll explain." + +"You've come from the headland?" + +"Well?" + +"From Lizzie Pezzack's." + +"Well, and what then?" + +"Only this, that so sure as you've a wife at home, if you come to the +headland again I'll kill you; and if you're a man, you'll put up your +fists now." + +"Oh, that's it? May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with +Lizzie Pezzack?" + +"Whose child is Lizzie's?" + +"Not yours, is it?" + +"You said so once; you told your wife so; liar that you were." + +"Very good, my gentleman. You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!" +He led her up the beach and sought for a branch to tie his reins to. +The mare hung back, terrified by the swishing of the whipped boughs +and the roar of the gale overhead: her hoofs, as George dragged her +forward, scuffled with the loose-lying stones on the beach. After a +minute he desisted and turned on Taffy again. + +"Look here; before we have this out there's one thing I'd like to +know. When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you there?" + +"If you must know--yes." + +"And when--when this happened, she stopped the supplies?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, I didn't know it. She never told me." + +"She never told _me_." + +"You don't say--" + +"I do. I never knew it until too late." + +"Well, now, I'm going to fight you. I don't swallow being called a +liar. But I tell you this first, that I'm damned sorry. I never +guessed that it injured your prospects." + +At another time, in another mood, Taffy might have remembered that +George was George, and heir to Sir Harry's nature. As it was, the +apology threw oil on the flame. + +"You cur! Do you think it was _that?_ And _you_ are Honoria's +husband!" He advanced with an ugly laugh. "For the last time, put up +your fists." + +They had been standing within two yards of each other; and even so, +shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above +the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip. +His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was +dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against +sudden attack. + +But as he did so his face and uplifted arm were suddenly painted +clear against the darkness. The mare plunged more wildly than ever. +Taffy dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him, the black +contour of the hill, the whole sky welled up a pale blue light which +gathered brightness while he stared. The very stones on the beach at +his feet shone separate and distinct. + +"What is it?" George gasped. + +"A ship on the rocks! Quick, man! Will the mare reach to Innis?" + +"She'll have to." George wheeled her round. She was fagged out with +two long gallops after hounds that day, but for the moment sheer +terror made her lively enough. + +"Ride, then! Call up the coast-guard. By the flare she must be +somewhere off the creek here. Ride!" + +A clatter of hoofs answered him as the mare pounded up the lane. + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +THE WRECK OF THE "SAMARITAN." + +Taffy stood for a moment listening. He judged the wreck to be +somewhere on the near side of the light-house, between it and the +mouth of the creek; that was, if she had already struck. If not, the +gale and the set of the tide together would be sweeping her eastward, +perhaps right across the mouth of the creek. And if he could +discover this his course would be to run back, intercept the +coast-guard, and send him around by the upper bridge. + +He waited for a second signal to guide him--a flare or a rocket: but +none came. The beach lay in the lew of the weather, deep in the +hills' hollow and trebly land-locked by the windings of the creek, +but above him the sky kept its screaming as though the bare ridges of +the headland were being shelled by artillery. + +He resolved to keep along the lower slopes and search his way down to +the creek's mouth, when he would have sight of any signal shown along +the coast for a mile or two to the east and north-east. The night +was now as black as a wolf's throat, but he knew every path and +fence. So he scrambled up the low cliff and began to run, following +the line of stunted oaks and tamarisks which fenced it, and on the +ridges--where the blown hail took him in the face--crouching and +scuttling like a crab sideways, moving his legs only from the knees +down. + +In this way he had covered half a mile and more when his right foot +plunged in a rabbit hole and he was pitched headlong into the +tamarisks below. Their boughs bent under his weight, but they were +tough, and he caught at them, and just saved himself from rolling +over into the black water. He picked himself up and began to rub his +twisted ankle. And at that instant, in a lull between two gusts, his +ear caught the sound of splashing, yet a sound so unlike the lapping +of the driven tide that he peered over and down between the tamarisk +boughs. + +"Hullo there!" + +"Hullo!" a voice answered. "Is that someone alive? Here, mate--for +Christ's sake!" + +"Hold on! Whereabouts are you?" + +"Down in this here cruel water." The words ended in a shuddering +cough. + +"Right--hold on for a moment!" Taffy's ankle pained him, but the +wrench was not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down, +clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. "Where are +you? I can't see." + +"Here!" The voice was not a dozen yards away. + +"Swimming?" + +"No--I've got a water-breaker--can't hold on much longer." + +"I believe you can touch bottom there." + +"Hey? I can't hear." + +"Try to touch bottom. It's firm sand hereabouts." + +"So I can." The splashing and coughing came nearer, came close. +Taffy stretched out a hand. A hand, icy-cold, fumbled and gripped it +in the darkness. + +"Christ! Where's a place to lie down?" + +"Here, on this rock." They peered at each other, but could not see. +The man's teeth chattered close to Taffy's ear. + +"Warm my hands, mate--there's a good chap." He lay on the rock and +panted. Taffy took his hands and began to rub them briskly. + +"Where's the ship?" + +"Where's the ship?" He seemed to turn over the question in his mind, +and then stretched himself with a sigh. "How the hell should I +know?" + +"What's her name?" Taffy had to ask the question twice. + +"The _Samaritan_, of Newport, brigantine. Coals she carried. +Ha'n't you such a thing as a match? It seems funny to me, talkin' +here like this, and me not knowin' you from Adam." + +He panted between the words, and when he had finished lay back and +panted again. + +"Hurt?" asked Taffy after a while. + +The man sat up and began to feel his limbs, quite as though they +belonged to some other body. "No, I reckon not." + +"Then we'd best be starting. The tide's rising. My house is just +above here." + +He led the way along the slippery foreshore until he found what he +sought, a foot-track slanting up the cliff. Here he gave the sailor +a hand and they mounted together. On the grass slope above they met +the gale and were forced to drop on their hands and knees and crawl, +Taffy leading and shouting instructions, the sailor answering each +with "Ay, ay, mate!" to show that he understood. + +But about half-way up these answers ceased, and Taffy, looking round +and calling, found himself alone. He groped his way back for twenty +yards, and found the man stretched on his face and moaning. + +"I can't . . . I can't! My poor brother! I can't!" + +Taffy knelt beside him on the soaking turf. "Your brother? Had you +a brother on board?" + +The man bowed his face again upon the turf. Taffy, upright on both +knees, heard him sobbing like a child in the roaring darkness. + +"Come," he coaxed, and putting out a hand, touched his wet hair. +"Come." They crept forward again, but still as he followed the +sailor cried for his drowned brother, up the long slope to the ridge +of the headland, where, with the light-house and warm cottage windows +in view, all speech and hearing were drowned by stinging hail and the +blown grit of the causeway. + +Humility opened the door to them. + +"Taffy! Where have you been?" + +"There has been a wreck." + +"Yes, yes--the coast-guard is down by the light-house. The men there +saw her before she struck. They kept signalling till it fell dark. +They had sent off before that." + +She drew back, shrinking against the dresser as the lamplight fell on +the stranger. Taffy turned and stared too. The man's face was +running with blood; and looking at his own hands he saw that they +also were scarlet. + +He helped the poor wretch to a chair. + +"Bandages: can you manage?" She nodded, and stepped to a cupboard. +The sailor began to wail again like an infant. + +"See--above the temple here: the cut isn't serious." Taffy took down +a lantern and lit it. The candle shone red through the smears his +fingers left on the horn panes. "I must go and help, if you can +manage." + +"I can manage," she answered quietly. + +He strode out, and closing the door behind him with an effort, faced +the gale again. Down in the lee of the light-house the lamps of the +coast-guard carriage gleamed foggily through the rain. The men were +there discussing, George among them. He had just galloped up. + +The Chief Officer went off to question the survivor, while the rest +began their search. They searched all that night; they burned flares +and shouted; their torches dotted the cliffs. After an hour the +Chief Officer returned. He could make nothing of the sailor, who had +fallen silly from exhaustion or the blow on his head; but he divided +his men into three parties, and they began to hunt more +systematically. Taffy was told off to help the westernmost gang and +search the rocks below the light-house. Once or twice he and his +comrades paused in their work, hearing, as they thought, a cry for +help. But when they listened, it was only one of the other parties +hailing. + +The gale began to abate soon after midnight, and before dawn had +blown itself out. Day came, filtered slowly through the wrack of it +to the south-east; and soon they heard a whistle blown, and there on +the cliff above them was George Vyell on horseback, in his red coat, +with an arm thrown out and pointing eastward. He turned and galloped +off in that direction. + +They scrambled up and followed. To their astonishment, after +following the cliffs for a few hundred yards, he headed inland, down +and across the very slope up which Taffy had crawled with the sailor. + +They lost sight of his red coat among the ridges. Two or three-- +Taffy amongst them--ran along the upper ground for a better view. + +"Well, this beats all!" panted the foremost. + +Below them George came into view again, heading now at full gallop +for a group of men gathered by the shore of the creek, a good +half-mile from its mouth. And beyond--midway across the sandy bed +where the river wound--lay the hull of a vessel, high and dry; her +deck, naked of wheelhouse and hatches, canted toward them as if to +cover from the morning the long wounds ripped by her uprooted masts. + +The men beside him shouted and ran on, but Taffy stood still. It was +monstrous--a thing inconceivable--that the seas should have lifted a +vessel of three hundred tons and carried her half a mile up that +shallow creek. Yet there she lay. A horrible thought seized him. +Could she have been there last night when he had drawn the sailor +ashore? And had he left four or five others to drown close by, in +the darkness? No, the tide at that hour had scarcely passed +half-flood. He thanked God for that. + +Well, there she lay, high and dry, with plenty to attend to her. +It was time for him to discover the damage done to the light-house +plant and machinery, perhaps to the building itself. In half an hour +the workmen would be arriving. + +He walked slowly back to the house, and found Humility preparing +breakfast. + +"Where is he?" Taffy asked, meaning the sailor. "In bed?" + +"Didn't you meet him? He went out five minutes ago--I couldn't keep +him--to look for his brother, he said." + +Taffy drank a cupful of tea, took up a crust, and made for the door. + +"Go to bed, dear," his mother pleaded. "You must be worn out." + +"I must see how the works have stood it." + +On the whole, they had stood it well. The gale, indeed, had torn +away the wire table and cage, and thus cut off for the time all +access to the outer rock; for while the sea ran at its present height +the scramble out along the ridge could not be attempted even at low +water. But from the cliff he could see the worst. The waves had +washed over the building, tearing off the temporary covers, and +churning all within. Planks, scaffolding--everything floatable-had +gone, and strewed the rock with matchwood; and--a marvel to see-one +of his two heaviest winches had been lifted from inside, hurled clean +over the wall, and lay collapsed in the wreckage of its cast-iron +frame. But, so far as he could see, the dovetailed masonry stood +intact. A voice hailed him. + +"What a night! What a night!" + +It was old Pezzack, aloft on the gallery of the light-house in his +yellow oilers, already polishing the lantern panes. + +Taffy's workmen came straggling and gathered about him. +They discussed the damage together but without addressing Taffy; +until a little pock-marked fellow, the wag of the gang, nudged a mate +slily and said aloud-- + +"By God, Bill, we _can_ build a bit--you and me and the boss!" + +All the men laughed; and Taffy laughed too, blushing. Yes; this had +been in his mind. He had measured his work against the sea in its +fury, and the sea had not beaten him. + +A cry broke in upon their laughter. It came from the base of the +cliff to the right: a cry so insistent that they ran toward it in a +body. + +Far below them, on the edge of a great boulder which rose from the +broken water and seemed to overhang it, stood the rescued sailor. He +was pointing. + +Taffy was the first to reach him! + +"It's my brother! It's my brother Sam!" + +Taffy flung himself full length on the rock and peered over. +A tangle of ore-weed awash rose and fell about its base; and from +under this, as the frothy waves drew back, he saw a man's ankle +protruding, and a foot still wearing a shoe. + +"It's my brother!" wailed the sailor again. "I can swear to the shoe +of en!" + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +SALVAGE. + +One of the masons lowered himself into the pool, and thrusting an arm +beneath the ore-weed, began to grope. + +"He's pinned here. The rock's right on top of him." + +Taffy examined the rock. It weighed fifteen tons if an ounce; but +there were fresh and deep scratches upon it. He pointed these out to +the men, who looked and felt them with their hands and stared at the +subsiding waves, trying to bring their minds to the measure of the +spent gale. + +"Here, I must get out of this!" said the man in the pool, as a small +wave dashed in and sent its spray over his bowed shoulders. + +"You ban't going to leave en?" wailed the sailor. "You ban't going +to leave my brother Sam?" + +He was a small, fussy man, with red whiskers; and even his sorrow +gave him little dignity. The men were tender with him. + +"Nothing to be done till the tide goes back." + +"But you won't leave en? Say you won't leave en! He've a wife and +three children. He was a saved man, sir, a very religious man; not +like me, sir. He was highly respected in the neighbourhood of +St. Austell. I shouldn't wonder if the newspapers had a word +about en . . ." The tears were running down his face. + +"We must wait for the tide," said Taffy gently, and tried to lead him +away, but he would not go. So they left him to watch and wait while +they returned to their work. + +Before noon they recovered and fixed the broken wire cable. The iron +cradle had disappeared, but to rig up a sling and carry out an +endless line was no difficult job, and when this was done Taffy +crossed over to the island rock and began to inspect damages. +His working gear had suffered heavily, two of his windlasses were +disabled, scaffolding, platforms, hods, and loose planks had +vanished; a few small tools only remained, mixed together in a mash +of puddled lime. But the masonry stood unhurt, all except a few feet +of the upper course on the seaward side, where the gale, giving the +cement no time to set, had shaken the dove-tailed stones in their +sockets--a matter easily repaired. + +Shortly before three a shout recalled them to the mainland. The tide +was drawing towards low water, and three of the men set to work at +once to open a channel and drain off the pool about the base of the +big rock. While this was doing, half a dozen splashed in with iron +bars and pickaxes; the rest rigged two stout ropes with tackles, and +hauled. The stone did not budge. For more than an hour they prised +and levered and strained. And all the while the sailor ran to and +fro, snatching up now a pick and now a crowbar, now lending a hand to +haul, and again breaking off to lament aloud. + +The tide turned, the winter dark came down, and at half-past four +Taffy gave the word to desist. They had to hold back the sailor, or +he would have jumped in and drowned beside his brother. + +Taffy slept little that night, though he needed sleep. The salving +of this body had become almost a personal dispute between the sea and +him. The gale had shattered two of his windlasses; but two remained, +and by one o'clock next day he had both slung over to the mainland +and fixed beside the rock. The news spreading inland fetched two or +three score onlookers before ebb of tide--miners for the most part, +whose help could be counted on. The men of the coast-guard had left +the wreck, to bear a hand if needed. George had come too. +And happening to glance upwards while he directed his men, Taffy saw +a carriage with two horses drawn up on the grassy edge of the cliff: +a groom at the horses' heads and in the carriage a figure seated, +silhouetted there high against the clear blue heaven. Well he +recognised, even at that distance, the poise of her head, though for +almost four years he had never set eyes on her,--nor had wished to. + +He knew that her eyes were on him now. He felt like a general on the +eve of an engagement. By the almanac the tide would not turn until +4.35. At four, perhaps, they could begin; but even at four the +winter twilight would be on them, and he had taken care to provide +torches and distribute them among the crowd. His own men were making +the most of the daylight left, drilling holes for dear life in the +upper surface of the boulder, and fixing the Lewis-wedges and rings. +They looked to him for every order, and he gave it in a clear, +ringing voice which he knew must carry to the cliff top. He did not +look at George. + +He felt sure in his own mind that the wedges and rings would hold; +but to make doubly sure he gave orders to loop an extra chain under +the jutting base of the boulder. The mason who fixed it, standing +waist-high in water as the tide ebbed, called for a rope and hitched +it round the ankle of the dead man. The dead man's brother jumped +down beside him and grasped the slack of it. + +At a signal from Taffy the crowd began to light their torches. +He looked at his watch, at the tide, and gave the word to man the +windlasses. Then with a glance towards the cliff he started the +working chant--"_Ayee-ho, Ayee-ho!_" The two gangs--twenty men to +each windlass--took it up with one voice, and to the deep intoned +chant the chains tautened, shuddered for a moment, and began to lift. + +"_Ayee-ho!_" + +Silently, irresistibly, the chain drew the rock from its bed. +To Taffy it seemed an endless time, to the crowd but a few moments +before the brute mass swung clear. A few thrust their torches down +towards the pit where the sailor knelt. Taffy did not look, but gave +the word to pass down the coffin which had been brought in readiness. +A clergyman--his father's successor, but a stranger to him--climbed +down after it: and he stood in the quiet crowd watching the +light-house above and the lamps which the groom had lit in Honoria's +carriage, and listening to the bated voices of the few at their +dreadful task below. + +It was five o'clock and past before the word came up to lower the +tackle and draw the coffin up. The Vicar clambered out to wait it, +and when it came, borrowed a lantern and headed the bearers. +The crowd fell in behind. + +"I am the resurrection and the life. . . ." + +They began to shuffle forwards and up the difficult track; but +presently came to a halt with one accord, the Vicar ceasing in the +middle of a sentence. + +Out of the night, over the hidden sea, came the sound of men's voices +lifted, thrilling the darkness thrice: the sound of three British +cheers. + +Whose were the voices? They never knew. A few had noticed as +twilight fell a brig in the offing, standing inshore as she tacked +down channel. She, no doubt, as they worked in their circle of +torchlight, had sailed in close before going about, her crews +gathered forward, her master perhaps watching through his night-glass +had guessed the act, saluted it, and passed on her way unknown to her +own destiny. + +They strained their eyes. A man beside Taffy declared he could see +something--the faint glow of a binnacle lamp as she stood away. +Taffy could see nothing. The voice ahead began to speak again. +The Vicar, pausing now and again to make sure of his path, was +reading from a page which he held close to his lantern. + + "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty: they shall behold + the land that is very far off. + + "Thou shalt not see a fierce people, a people of a deeper speech + than thou canst perceive; of a stammering tongue that thou + canst not understand. + + "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. + + "For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord + is our king; he will save us. + + "Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their + mast, they could not spread the sail; then is the prey of a + great spoil divided; the lame take the prey." + +Here the Vicar turned back a page, and his voice rang higher: + + "Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall + rule in judgment. + + "And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a + covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as + the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. + + "And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of + them that hear shall hearken." + +Now Taffy walked behind, thinking his own thoughts; for the cheers of +those invisible sailors had done more than thrill his heart. +A finger, as it were, had come out of the night and touched his +brain, unsealing the wells and letting in light upon things undreamt +of. Through the bright confusion of this sudden vision the Vicar's +sentences sounded and fell on his ears unheeded. And yet while they +faded that happened which froze and bit each separate word into his +memory, to lose distinctness only when death should interfere, stop +the active brain, and wipe the slate. + +For while the procession halted and broke up its formation for a +moment on the brow of the cliff, a woman came running into the +torchlight. + +"Is my Joey there? Where's he _to_, anybody? Hev anyone seen my +Joey?" + +It was Lizzie Pezzack, panting and bareheaded, with a scared face. + +"He's lame--you'd know en. Have 'ee got en there? He's wandered +off!" + +"Hush up, woman," said a bearer. "Don't keep such a pore!" + +"The cheeld's right enough somewheres," said another. "'Tis a man's +body we've got. Stand out of the way, for shame!" + +But Lizzie, who as a rule shrank away from men and kept herself +hidden, pressed nearer, turning her tragical face upon each in turn. +Her eyes met George's, but she appealed to him as to the others. + +"He's wandered off. Oh, say you've seen en, somebody!" + +Catching sight of Taffy, she ran and gripped him by the arm. + +"_You'll_ help! It's my Joey. Help me find en!" + +He turned half about, and almost before he knew what he sought his +eyes met George's. George stepped quietly to his side. + +"Let me get my mare," said George, and walked away toward the +light-house railing where he had tethered her. + +"We'll find the child. Our work's done here, Mr. Saul!" +Taffy turned to the Chief Officer. "Spare us a man or two and some +flares." + +"I'll come myself," said the Chief Officer. "Go you back, my dear, +and we'll fetch home your cheeld as right as ninepence. +Hi, Rawlings, take a couple of men and scatter along the cliffs there +to the right. Lame, you say? He can't have gone far." + +Taffy, with the Chief Officer and a couple of volunteers, moved off +to the left, and in less than a minute George caught them up, on +horseback. + +"I say," he asked, walking his mare close alongside of Taffy, "you +don't think this serious, eh?" + +"I don't know. Joey wasn't in the crowd, or I should have noticed +him. He's daring beyond his strength." He pulled a whistle from his +pocket, blew it twice, and listened. This had been his signal when +firing a charge; he had often blown it to warn the child to creep +away into shelter. + +There was no answer. + +"Mr. Vyell had best trot along the upper slope," the Chief Officer +suggested, "while we search down by the creek." + +"Wait a moment," Taffy answered. "Let's try the wreck first." + +"But the tide's running. He'd never go there." + +"He's a queer child. I know him better than you." + +They ran downhill toward the creek, calling as they went, but getting +no answer. + +"But the wreck!" exclaimed the Chief Officer. "It's out of reason!" + +"Hi! What was that?" + +"Oh, my good Lord," groaned one of the volunteers, "it's the crake, +master! It's Langona crake calling the drowned!" + +"Hush, you fool! Listen--I thought as much! Light a flare. +Mr. Saul--he's out there calling!" + +The first match spluttered and went out. They drew close around the +Chief Officer while he struck the second to keep off the wind, and in +those few moments the child's wail reached them distinctly across the +darkness. + +The flame leaped up and shone, and they drew back a pace, shading +their eyes from it and peering into the steel-blue landscape which +sprang on them out of the night. They had halted a few yards only +from the cliff, and the flare cast the shadow of its breast-high +fence of tamarisks forward and almost half-way across the creek, and +there on the sands, a little beyond the edge of this shadow, stood +the child. + +They could even see his white face. He stood on an island of sand +around which the tide swirled in silence, cutting him off from the +shore, cutting him off from the wreck behind. + +He did not cry any more, but stood with his crutch planted by the +edge of the widening stream, and looked toward them. + +And Taffy looked at George. + +"I know," said George quietly, and gathered up his reins. +"Stand aside, please." + +As they drew aside, not understanding, he called to his mare. +One living creature, at any rate, could still trust all to George +Vyell. She hurtled past them and rose at the tamarisk-hedge blindly. +Followed silence--a long silence; then a thud on the beach below and +a scuffle of stones; silence again, and then the cracking of twigs as +Taffy plunged after, through the tamarisks, and slithered down the +cliff. + +The light died down as his feet touched the flat slippery stones; +died down, and was renewed again and showed up horse and rider scarce +twenty yards ahead, labouring forward, the mare sinking fetlock deep +at every plunge. + +At his fourth stride Taffy's feet, too, began to sink, but at every +stride he gained something. The riding may be superb, but thirteen +stone is thirteen stone. Taffy weighed less than eleven. + +He caught up with George on the very edge of the water. "Make her +swim it!" he panted. "Her feet mustn't touch here." George grunted. +A moment later all three were in the water, the tide swirling them +sideways, sweeping Taffy against the mare. His right hand touched +her flank at every stroke. + +The tide swept them upwards--upwards for fifteen yards at least, +though the channel measured less than eight feet. The child, who had +been standing opposite the point where they took the water, hobbled +wildly along shore. The light on the cliff behind sank and rose +again. + +"The crutch," Taffy gasped. The child obeyed, laying it flat on the +brink and pushing it toward them. Taffy gripped it with his left +hand, and with his right found the mare's bridle. George was bending +forward. + +"No--not that way! You can't get back! The wreck, man!--it's +firmer--" + +But George reached out his hand and dragged the child towards him and +on to his saddle-bow. "Mine," he said quietly, and twitched the +rein. The brave mare snorted, jerked the bridle from Taffy's hand, +and headed back for the shore she had left. + +Rider, horse, and child seemed to fall away from him into the night. +He scrambled out, and snatching the crutch ran along the brink, +staring at their black shadows. By-and-by the shadows came to a +standstill. He heard the mare panting, the creaking of +saddle-leather came across the nine or ten feet of dark water. + +"It's no go," said George's voice; then to the mare, "Sally, my dear, +it's no go." A moment later he asked more sharply: + +"How far can you reach?" + +Taffy stepped in until the waves ran by his knees. The sand held his +feet, but beyond this he could not stand against the current. +He reached forward holding the crutch at arm's length. + +"Can you catch hold?" + +"All right." Both knew that swimming would be useless now; they were +too near the upper apex of the sand-bank. + +"The child first. Here, Joey, my son! reach out and catch hold for +your life." + +Taffy felt the child's grip on the crutch-head, and drawing it +steadily toward him hauled the poor child through. The light from +the cliff sank and rose behind his scared face. + +"Got him?" + +"Yes." The sand was closing around Taffy's legs, but he managed to +shift his footing a little. + +"Quick, then; the bank's breaking up." + +George was sinking, knee-deep and deeper. But his outstretched +fingers managed to reach and hook themselves around the crutch-head. + +"Steady, now . . . must work you loose first. Get hold of the shaft +if you can: the head isn't firm. Work your legs . . . that's it." + +George wrenched his left foot loose and planted it against the mare's +flank. Hitherto she had trusted her master. The thrust of his heel +drove home her sentence, and with scream after scream--the sand +holding her past hope--she plunged and fought for her life. Still as +she screamed, George, silent and panting, thrust against her, thrust +savagely against the quivering body, once his pride for beauty and +fleetness. + +"Pull!" he gasped, freeing his other foot with a wrench which left +its heavy riding-boot deep in the sucking mud; and catching a new +grip on the crutch-head, flung himself forward. + +Taffy felt the sudden weight and pulled--and while he pulled felt in +a moment no grip, no weight at all. Between two hateful screams a +face slid by him, out of reach, silent, with parted lips; and as it +slipped away he fell back staggering, grasping the useless, headless +crutch. + +The mare went on screaming. He turned his back on her, and catching +Joey by the hand dragged him away across the melting island. At the +sixth step the child, hauled off his crippled foot, swung blundering +across his legs. He paused, lifted him in his arms and plunged +forward again. + +The flares on the cliff were growing in number. They cast long +shadows before him. On the far side of the island the tide flowed +swift and steady--a stream about fourteen yards wide--cutting him +from the farther sand-bank on which, not fifty yards above, lay the +wreck. He whispered to Joey, and plunged into it straight, turning +as the water swept him off his legs, and giving his back to it, his +hands slipped under the child's armpits, his feet thrusting against +the tide in slow, rhythmical strokes. + +The child after the first gasp lay still, his head obediently thrown +back on Taffy's breast. The mare had ceased to scream. The water +rippled in the ears as each leg-thrust drove them little by little +across the current. + +If George had but listened! It was so easy, after all. The +sand-bank still slid past them, but less rapidly. They were close to +it now, and had only to lie still and be drifted against the leaning +stanchions of the wreck. Taffy flung an arm about one and checked +his way quietly, as a man brings a boat alongside a quay. He hoisted +Joey first upon the stanchion, then up the tilted deck to the gap of +the main hatchway. Within this, with their feet on the steps and +their chests leaning on the side panel of the companion, they rested +and took breath. + +"Cold, sonny?" + +The child burst into tears. + +Taffy dragged off his own coat and wrapped him in it. The small body +crept close, sobbing, against his side. + +Across, on the shore, voices were calling, blue eyes moving. A pair +of yellow lights came towards these, travelling swiftly upon the +hillside. Taffy guessed what they were. + +The yellow lights moved more slowly. They joined the blue ones, and +halted. Taffy listened. But the voices were still now; he heard +nothing but the hiss of the black water, across which those two lamps +sought and questioned him like eyes. + +"God help her!" + +He bowed his face on his arms. A little while, and the sands would +be covered, the boats would put off; a little while. . . . Crouching +from those eyes he prayed God to lengthen it. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +HONORIA. + +She was sitting there rigid, cold as a statue, when the rescuers +brought them ashore and helped them up the slope. A small crowd +surrounded the carriage. In the rays of their moving lanterns her +face altered nothing to all their furtive glances of sympathy +opposing the same white mask. Some one said, "There's only two, +then!" Another, with a nudge and a nod at the carriage, told him to +hold his peace. She heard. Her lips hardened. + +Lizzie Pezzack had rushed down to the shore to meet the boat. +She was bringing her child along with a fond, wild babble of tender +names and sobs and cries of thankfulness. In pauses, choked and +overcome, she caught him to her, felt his limbs, pressed his wet face +against her neck and bosom. Taffy, supported by strong arms and +hurried in her wake, had a hideous sense of being paraded in her +triumph. The men around him who had raised a faint cheer sank their +voices as they neared the carriage; but the woman went forward, +jubilant and ruthless, flaunting her joy as it were a flag blown in +her eyes and blindfolding them to the grief she insulted. + +"Stay!" + +It was Honoria's voice, cold, incisive, not to be disobeyed. He had +prayed in vain. The procession halted; Lizzie checked her babble and +stood staring, with an arm about Joey's neck. + +"Let me see the child." + +Lizzie stared, broke into a silly, triumphant laugh, and thrust the +child forward against the carriage step. The poor waif, drenched, +dazed, tottering without his crutch, caught at the plated handle for +support. Honoria gazed down on him with eyes which took slow and +pitiless account of the deformed little body, the shrunken, puny +limbs. + +"Thank you. So--this--is what my husband died for. Drive on, +please." + +Her eyes, as she lifted them to give the order, rested for a moment +on Taffy--with how much scorn he cared not, could he have leapt and +intercepted Lizzie's retort. + +"And why not? A son's a son--curse you!--though he was your man!" + +It seemed she did not hear; or hearing, did not understand. Her eyes +hardened their fire on Taffy, and he, lapped in their scorn, thanked +God she had not understood. + +"Drive on, please." + +The coachman lowered his whip. The horses moved forward at a slow +walk; the carriage rolled silently away into the darkness. She had +not understood. Taffy glanced at the faces about him. + +"Ah, poor lady!" said someone. But no one had understood. + + +They found George's body next morning on the sands a little below the +foot-bridge. He lay there in the morning sunshine as though asleep, +with an arm flung above his head and on his face the easy smile for +which men and women had liked him throughout his careless life. + +The inquest was held next day, in the library at Carwithiel. +Sir Harry insisted on being present, and sat beside the coroner. +During Taffy's examination his lips were pursed up as though +whistling a silent tune. Once or twice he nodded his head. + +Taffy gave his evidence discreetly. The child had been lost; had +been found in a perilous position. He and deceased had gone together +to the rescue. On reaching the child, deceased--against advice--had +attempted to return across the sands and had fallen into +difficulties. In these his first thought had been for the child, +whom he had passed to witness to drag out of danger. When it came to +deceased's turn the crutch, on which all depended, had parted in two, +and he had been swept away by the tide. + +At the conclusion of the story Sir Harry took snuff and nodded twice. +Taffy wondered how much he knew. The jury, under the coroner's +direction, brought in a verdict of "death by misadventure," and added +a word or two in praise of the dead man's gallantry. The coroner +complimented Taffy warmly and promised to refer the case to the Royal +Humane Society for public recognition. The jury nodded, and one or +two said "Hear, hear!" Taffy hoped fervently he would do nothing of +the sort. + +The funeral took place on the fourth day, at nine o'clock in the +morning. Such--in the day I write of--was the custom of the country. +Friends who lived at a distance rose and shaved by candle-light, and +daybreak found them horsed and well on their way to the house of +mourning, their errand announced by the long black streamers tied +about their hats. The sad business over and done with, these guests +returned to the house, where until noon a mighty breakfast lasted and +all were welcome. Their black habiliments and lowered voices alone +marked the difference between it and a hunting-breakfast. + +And indeed this morning Squire Willyams, who had taken over the +hounds after Squire Moyle's death, had given secret orders to his +huntsmen; and the pack was waiting at Three-barrow Turnpike, a couple +of miles inland from Carwithiel. At half-past ten the mourners +drained their glasses, shook the crumbs off their riding-breeches, +and took leave; and after halting outside Carwithiel gates to unpin +and pocket their hat-bands, headed for the meet with one accord. + +A few minutes before noon Squire Willyams, seated on his grey by the +edge of Three-barrow Brake, and listening to every sound within the +covert, happened to glance an eye across the valley, and let out a +low whistle. + +"Well!" said one of a near group of horsemen catching sight of the +rider pricking toward them down the farther slope, "I knew en for +unbeliever; but this beats all!" + +"And his awnly son not three hours under the mould! Brought up in +France as a youngster he was, and this I s'pose is what comes of +reading Voltaire. My lord for manners, and no more heart than a +wormed nut--that's Sir Harry, and always was." + +Squire Willyams slewed himself round in his saddle. He spoke quietly +at fifteen yards' distance, but each word reached the group of +horsemen as clear as a bell. + +"Rablin," he said, "as a damned fool oblige me during the next few +minutes by keeping your mouth shut." + +With this he resumed his old attitude and his business of watching +the covert side; removing his eyes for a moment to nod as Sir Harry +rode up and passed on to join the group behind him. + +He had scarcely done so when deep in the undergrowth of blackthorn a +hound challenged. + +"Spendigo for a fiver!--and well found, by the tune of it," cried Sir +Harry. "See that patch of grey wall, Rablin--there, in a line beyond +the Master's elbow? I lay you an even guinea that's where my +gentleman comes over." + +But honest reprobation mottled the face of Mr. Rablin, squireen; and +as an honest man he spoke out. Let it go to his credit, because as a +rule he was a snob and inclined to cringe. + +"I did not expect"--he cleared his throat--"to see you out to-day, +Sir Harry." + +Sir Harry winced, and turned on them all a grey, woeful face. + +"That's it," he said. "I can't bide home. I can't bide home." + + +Honoria bided home with her child and mourned for the dead. +As a clever woman--far cleverer than her husband--she had seen his +faults while he lived; yet had liked him enough to forgive without +difficulty. But now these faults faded, and by degrees memory reared +an altar to him as a man little short of divine. At the worst he had +been amiable. A kinder husband never lived. She reproached herself +bitterly with the half-heartedness of her response to his love; to +his love while it dwelt beside her, unvarying in cheerful kindness. +For (it was the truth, alas! and a worm that gnawed continually) +passionate love she had never rendered him. She had been content; +but how poor a thing was contentment! She had never divined his +worth, had never given her worship. And all the while he had been a +hero, and in the end had died as a hero. Ah, for one chance to +redeem the wrong! for one moment to bow herself at his feet and +acknowledge her blindness! Her prayer was ancient as widowhood, and +Heaven, folding away the irreparable time, returned its first and +last and only solace--a dream for the groping arms; waking and +darkness, and an empty pillow for her tears. + +From the first her child had been dear to her; dearer (so her memory +accused her now) than his father; more demonstratively beloved, at +any rate. But in those miserable months she grew to love him with a +double strength. He bore George's name, and was (as Sir Harry +proclaimed) a very miniature of George; repeated his shapeliness of +limb, his firm shoulders, his long lean thighs--the thighs of a born +horseman; learned to walk, and lo! within a week walked with his +father's gait; had smiles for the whole of his small world, and for +his mother a memory in each. + +And yet--this was the strange part of it; a mystery she could not +explain because she dared not even acknowledge it--though she loved +him for being like his father, she regarded the likeness with a +growing dread; nay, caught herself correcting him stealthily when he +developed some trivial trait which she, and she alone, recognised as +part of his father's legacy. It was what in the old days she would +have called "contradictions," but there it was, and she could not +help it; the nearer George in her memory approached to faultlessness, +the more obstinately her instinct fought against her child's +imitation of him; and yet, because the child was obstinately +George's, she loved him with a double love. + +There came a day when he told her a childish falsehood. She did not +whip him, but stood him in front of her and began to reason with him +and explain the wickedness of an untruth. By-and-by she broke off in +the midst of a sentence, appalled by the shrillness of her own voice. +From argument she had passed to furious scolding. And the little +fellow quailed before her, his contrition beaten down under the storm +of words that whistled about his ears without meaning, his small +faculties disabled before this spectacle of wrath. Her fingers were +closing and unclosing. They wanted a riding-switch; they wanted to +grip this small body they had served and fondled, and to cut out-- +what? The lie? Honoria hated a lie. But while she paused and +shook, a light flashed, and her eyes were open and saw--that it was +not the lie. + +She turned and ran, ran upstairs to her own room, flung herself on +her knees beside the bed, dragged a locket from her bosom and fell to +kissing George's portrait, passionately crying it for pardon. +She was wicked, base; while he lived she had misprised him; and this +was her abiding punishment, that not even repentance could purge her +heart of dishonouring thoughts, that her love for him now could never +be stainless though washed with daily tears. "'_He that is unjust, +let him be unjust still_.' _Must_ that be true, Father of all +mercies? I misjudged him, and it is too late for atonement. But I +repent and am afflicted. Though the dead know nothing--though it can +never reach or avail him--give me back the power to be just!" + +Late that afternoon Honoria passed an hour piously in turning over +the dead man's wardrobe, shaking out and brushing the treasured +garments and folding them, against moth and dust, in fresh tissue +paper. It was a morbid task, perhaps, but it kept George's image +constantly before her, and this was what her remorseful mood +demanded. Her nerves were unstrung and her limbs languid after the +recent tempest. By-and-by she locked the doors of the wardrobe, and +passing into her own bedroom, flung herself on a couch with a bundle +of papers--old bills, soiled and folded memoranda, sporting +paragraphs cut from the newspapers--scraps found in his pockets +months ago and religiously tied by her with a silken ribbon. +They were mementoes of a sort, and George had written few letters +while wooing--not half a dozen first and last. + +Two or three receipted bills lay together in the middle of the +packet--one a saddler's, a second a nurseryman's for pot-plants (kept +for the sake of its queer spelling), a third the reckoning for an +hotel luncheon. She was running over them carelessly when the date +at the head of this last one caught her eye. "August 3rd "--it fixed +her attention because it happened to be the day before her birthday. + +August 3rd--such and such a year--the August before his death; and +the hotel a well-known one in Plymouth--the hotel, in fact, at which +he had usually put up. . . . Without a prompting of suspicion she +turned back and ran her eye over the bill. A steak, a pint of +claret, vegetables, cheese, and attendance--never was a more innocent +bill. + +Suddenly her attention stiffened on the date. George was in Plymouth +the day before her birthday. But no; as it happened, George had been +in Truro on that day. She remembered, because he had brought her a +diamond pendant, having written beforehand to the Truro jeweller to +get a dozen down from London to choose from. Yes, she remembered it +clearly, and how he had described his day in Truro. And the next +morning--her birthday morning--he had produced the pendant, wrapped +in silver paper. He had thrown away the case; it was ugly, and he +would get her another. . . . + +But the bill? She had stayed once or twice at this hotel with +George, and recognised the handwriting. The bookkeeper, in +compliment perhaps to a customer of standing, had written "George +Vyell, Esq." in full on the bill-head, a formality omitted as a rule +in luncheon-reckonings. And if this scrap of paper told the truth-- +why, _then George had lied!_ + +But why? Ah, if he had done this thing nothing else mattered, +neither the how nor the why! If George had lied? . . . And the +pendant--had that been bought in Plymouth and not (as he had +asserted) in Truro? He had thrown away the case. Jewellers print +their names inside such cases. The pendant was a handsome one. +Perhaps his cheque-book would tell. + +She arose, stepped half-way to the door, but came back and flung +herself again upon the couch. No; she could not . . . this was the +second time to-day . . . she could not face the torture again. + +Yet . . . if George _had_ lied! + +She sat up; sat up with both hands pressed to her ears to shut out a +sudden voice clamouring through them-- + +"_And why not? A son's a son--curse you!--though he was your man!_" + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +A L'OUTRANCE. + +Lizzie Pezzack had put Joey to bed and was smoothing his coverlet +when she heard someone knocking. She passed out into the front room +and opened to the visitor. + +On the doorstep stood a lady in deep black--Honoria. Beyond the +garden wall the lamps of her carriage blazed in the late twilight. +The turf had muffled the sound of wheels, but now the jingle of +shaken bits came loud through the open door. + +"Ah!" said Lizzie, drawing her breath back through her teeth. + +"I must speak to you, please. May I come in? I have a +question . . ." + +Lizzie turned her back, struck a match, and lit a candle. +"What question?" she asked with her back turned, her eyes on the +flame as it sank, warming the tallow, and grew bright again. + +"It's . . . it's a question," Honoria began weakly; then shut the +door behind her and advanced into the room. "Turn round and look at +me. Ah, you hate me, I know!" + +"Yes," Lizzie assented slowly, "I hate you." + +"But you must answer me. You see, it isn't for me alone + . . . it's not a question of our hating, in a way . . . +it concerns others. . . ." + +"Yes?" + +"But it's cowardly of me to put it so, because it concerns me too. +You don't know--" + +"Maybe I do." + +"But if you did--" Honoria broke off and then plunged forward +desperately. "That child of yours--his father--alone here--by +ourselves. . . . Think before you refuse!" + +Lizzie set down the candle and eyed her. + +"And _you_," she answered at length, dragging out each word-- +"_you_ can come here and ask me that question?" + +For a moment silence fell between them, and each could hear the +other's breathing. Then Honoria drew herself up and faced her +honestly, casting out both hands. + +"Yes; I _had_ to." + +"_You!_ a lady!" + +"Ah, but be honest with me! Lady or not, what has that to do with +it? We are two women--that's where it all started, and we're kept to +that." + +Lizzie bent her brows. "Yes, you are right," she admitted. + +"And," Honoria pursued eagerly, "if I come here to sue you for the +truth--it is you who force me." + +"I?" + +"By what you said that night, when George--when my husband--was +drowned; when you cursed me. 'A son's a son,' you said, 'though he +was your man.'" + +"Did I say that?" Lizzie seemed to muse over the words. "You have +suffered?" she asked. + +"Yes, I have suffered." + +"Ah, if I thought so! ... But you have not. You are a hypocrite, +Mrs. Vyell; and you are trying to cheat me now. You come here not to +end _that_ suffering, but to force a word from me that'll put joy and +hope into you; that you'll go home hugging to your heart. Oh, I know +you!" + +"You do not." + +"I do; because I know myself. From a child I've been dirt to your +pride, an item to your money. For years I've lived a shamed woman. +But one thing I bought with it--one little thing. Think the price +high for it--I dessay it is; but I bought and paid for it--and often +when I turn it over in my mind I don't count the price too dear." + +"I don't understand." + +"You may, if you try. What I bought was the power over you, my proud +lady. While I keep tight lips I have you at the end of a chain. +You come here to-night to break it; one little word and you'll be +free and glad. But no, and no, and no! You may guess till you're +tired--you may be sure in your heart; but it's all no good without +that little word you'll never get from me." + +"You _shall_ speak!" + +Lizzie shrugged her shoulders and picked up the candle. + +"Simme," she said, "you'd best go back to your carriage and horses. +My li'l boy's in the next room, tryin' to sleep; and 'tisn' fit he +heard much of this." + +She passed resolutely into the bedroom, leaving her visitor to +darkness. But Honoria, desperate now, pushed after her, scarcely +knowing what she did or meant to do. + +"You _shall_ speak!" + +The house-door opened and light footsteps came running through the +outer room. It was little George, and he pulled at her skirts. + +"Mummy, the horses are taking cold!" + +But Honoria still advanced. "You _shall_ speak!" + +Joey, catching sight of her from the bed, screamed and hid his face. +To him she was a thing of horror. From the night when, thrust +beneath her eyes, he had cowered by her carriage-step, she had +haunted his worst dreams. And now, black-robed and terrible of face, +she had come to lay hands on him and carry him straight to hell. + +"Mother! Take her away! take her away!" + +His screams rang through the room. "Hush, dear!" cried Lizzie, +running to him; and laid a hand on his shoulder. + +But the child, far too terrified to know whose hand it was, flung +himself from her with a wilder scream than any; flung himself all but +free of the bed-clothes. As Lizzie caught and tried to hold him the +thin night-shirt ripped in her fingers, laying bare the small back +from shoulder to buttock. + +They were woman to woman now; cast back into savagery and blindly +groping for its primitive weapons. Honoria crossed the floor not +knowing what she meant to do, or might do. Lizzie sprang to defence +against she knew not what. But when her enemy advanced, towering, +with a healthy boy dragging at her skirts, she did the one thing she +could--turned with a swift cry back upon her own crippled child and +caught at the bed-clothes to cover and hide his naked deformity. + +While she crouched and shielded him, silence fell on the room. +She had half expected Honoria to strike her; but no blow came, nor +any sound. By-and-by she looked up. Honoria had come to a +standstill, with rigid eyes. They were fastened on the bed. +Then Lizzie understood. + +She had covered the child's legs from sight; but not his back--nor +the brown mole on it--the large brown mole, ringed like Saturn, set +obliquely between the shoulder-blades. + +She rose from the bed slowly. Honoria turned on little George with a +gesture as if to fling off his velvet jacket. But Lizzie stamped her +foot. + +"No," she commanded hoarsely; "let be. Mine is a cripple." + +"So it is true. . . ." Honoria desisted; but her eyes were wide and +still fixed on the bed. + +"Yes, it is true. You have all the luck. Mine is a cripple." + +Still Honoria stared. Lizzie gulped down something in her throat; +but her voice, when she found it again, was still hoarse and +strained. + +"And now--go! You have learnt what you came for. You have won, +because you stop at nothing. But go, before I try to kill you for +the joy in your heart!" + +"Joy?" Honoria put out a hand toward the bed's foot, to steady +herself. It was her turn to be weak. + +"Yes--joy." Lizzie stepped between her and the door, pointed a +finger at her, and held it pointing. "In your heart you are glad +already. Wait, and in a moment I shall see it in your eyes--glad, +glad! Yes, your man was worthless, and you are glad. But oh! +You bitter fool!" + +"Let me go, please." + +"Listen a bit; no hurry now. Plenty of time to be glad 'twas only +your husband, not the man of your heart. Look at me, and answer-- +I don't count for much now, do I? Not much to hate in me, now you +know the name of my child's father, and that 'tisn' Taffy Raymond!" + +"Let me go." But seeing that Lizzie would not, she stopped and +kissed her boy. "Run out to the carriage, dear, and say I'll be +coming in a minute or two." Little George clung to her wistfully, +but her tone meant obedience. Lizzie stepped aside to let him pass +out. + +"Now," said Honoria, "the next room is best, I think. Lead me there, +and I will listen." + +"You may go if you like." + +"No; I will listen. Between us two there is--there is--" + +"_That_." Lizzie nodded towards the child huddling low in the bed. + +"That, and much more. We cannot stop at the point you've reached. +Besides, I have a question to ask." + +Lizzie passed before her into the front room, lit two candles and +drew down the blind. + +"Ask it," she said. + +"How did you know that I believed the other--Mr. Raymond--to be--" +She came to a halt. + +"I guessed." + +"What? From the beginning?" + +"No; it was after a long while. And then, all of a sudden, something +seemed to make me clever." + +"Did you know that, believing it, I had done him a great wrong-- +injured his life beyond repair?" + +"I knew something had happened: that he'd given up being a gentleman +and taken to builder's work. I thought maybe you were at the bottom +of it. Who was it told you lies about en?" + +"Must I answer that?" + +"No; no need. George Vyell was a nice fellow; but he was a liar. +Couldn't help it, I b'lieve. But a dirty trick like that--well, +well!" + +Honoria stared at her, confounded. "You never loved my husband?" + +And Lizzie laughed--actually laughed; she was so weary. "No more +than you did, my dear. Perhaps a little less. Eh, what two fools we +are here, fending off the truth! Fools from the start--and now, +simme, playing foolish to the end; ay, when all's said and naked +atween us. Lev' us quit talkin' of George Vyell. We knawed George +Vyell, you and me too; and here we be, left to rear children by en. +But the man we hated over wasn' George Vyell." + +"Yet if--as you say--you loved him--the other one--why, when you saw +his life ruined and guessed the lie that ruined it--when a word could +have righted him--if you loved him--" + +"Why didn't I speak? Ladies are most dull, somehow; or else you +don't try to see. Or else--Wasn't he near me, passing my door ivery +day? Oh, I'm ignorant and selfish. But hadn't I got him near? +And wouldn't that word have lost him, sent him God knows where--to +_you_ perhaps? You--you'd had your chance, and squandered it like a +fool. I never had no chance. I courted en, but he wouldn' look at +me. He'd have come to your whistle--once. Nothing to hinder but +your money. And from what I can see and guess, you piled up that +money in his face like a hedge. Oh, I could pity you, now!--for now +you'll never have en." + +"God pity us both!" said Honoria, going; but she turned at the door. +"And after our marriage you took no more thought of my--of George?" +The question was an afterthought; she never thought to see it stab as +it did. But Lizzie caught at the table edge, held to it swaying over +a gulf of hysterics, and answered between a sob and a passing bitter +laugh. + +"At the last--just to try en. No harm done, as it happened. +You needn' mind. He was worthless anyway." + +Honoria stepped back, took her by the elbow as she swayed, and seated +her in a chair; and so stood regarding her as a doctor might a +patient. After a while she said-- + +"I think you will do me injustice, but you must believe as you like. +I am not glad. I am very far from glad or happy. I doubt if I shall +ever be happy again. But I do not hate you as I did." + +She went out, closing the door softly. + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +THE SHIP OF STARS. + +Taffy guessed nothing of these passions in conflict, these weak +agonies. He went about his daily work, a man grown, thinking his own +thoughts; and these thoughts were of many things; but they held no +room for the problem which meant everything in life to Honoria and +Lizzie--yes, and to Humility, though it haunted her in less +disturbing shape. Humility pondered it quietly with a mind withdrawn +while her hands moved before her on the lace pillow; and pondering +it, she resigned the solution to time. But it filled her thoughts +constantly, none the less. + +One noon Taffy returned from the light-house for his dinner to find a +registered postal packet lying on the table. He glanced up and met +his mother's gaze; but let the thing lie while he ate his meal, and +having done, picked it up and carried it away with him unopened. + +On the cliff-side, in a solitary place, he broke the seal. +He guessed well enough what the packet contained: the silver medal +procured for him by the too officious coroner. And the coroner, +finding him obstinate against a public presentation, had forwarded +the medal with an effusive letter. Taffy frowned over its opening +sentences, and without reading farther crumpled the paper into a +tight ball. He turned to examine the medal, holding it between +finger and thumb; or rather, his eyes examined it while his brain ran +back along the tangled procession of hopes and blunders, wrongs and +trials and lessons hardly learnt, of which this mocking piece of +silver symbolised the end and the reward. In that minute he saw +Honoria and George, himself and Lizzie Pezzack as figures travelling +on a road that stretched back to childhood; saw behind them the +anxious eyes of his parents, Sir Harry's debonair smile, the sinister +face of old Squire Moyle, malevolent yet terribly afraid; saw that +the moving figures could not control their steps, that the watching +faces were impotent to warn; saw finally beside the road other ways +branching to left and right, and down these undestined and neglected +avenues the ghosts of ambitions unattempted, lives not lived, all +that might have been. + +Well, here was the end of it, this ironical piece of silver. . . . +With sudden anger he flung it from him; sent it spinning far out over +the waters. And the sea, his old sworn enemy, took the votive +offering. He watched it drop--drop; saw the tiny splash as it +disappeared. + +And with that he shut a door and turned a key. He had other thoughts +to occupy him--great thoughts. The light-house was all but built. +The Chief Engineer had paid a surprise visit, praised his work, and +talked about another sea light soon to be raised on the North Welsh +Coast; used words that indeed hinted, not obscurely, at promotion. +And Taffy's blood tingled at the prospect. But, out of working +hours, his thoughts were not of light-houses. He bought maps and +charts. On Sundays he took far walks along the coast, starting at +daybreak, returning as a rule long after dark, mired and footsore, +and at supper too weary to talk with his mother, whose eyes watched +him always. + + +It was a still autumn evening when Honoria came riding to visit +Humility; the close of a golden day. Its gold lingered yet along the +west and fell on the whitewashed doorway where Humility sat with her +lace-work. Behind, in the east, purple and dewy, climbed the domed +shadow of the world. And over all lay that hush which the earth only +knows when it rests in the few weeks after harvest. Out here, on +barren cliffs above the sea, folks troubled little about harvest. +But even out here they felt and knew the hush. + +In sight of the whitewashed cottages Honoria slipped down from her +saddle, removed Aide-de-camp's bridle, and turned him loose to +browse. With the bridle on her arm she walked forward alone. +She came noiselessly on the turf, and with the click of the gate her +shadow fell at Humility's feet. Humility looked up and saw her +standing against the sunset, in her dark habit. Even in that instant +she saw also that Honoria's face, though shaded, was more beautiful +than of old. "More dangerous" she told herself; and rose, knowing +that the problem was to be solved at last. + +"Good-evening!" she said, rising. "Oh yes--you must come inside, +please; but you will have to forgive our untidiness." + +Honoria followed, wondering as of old at the beautiful manners which +dignified Humility's simplest words. + +"I heard that you were to go." + +"Yes; we have been packing for a week past. To North Wales it is-- +a forsaken spot, no better than this. But I suppose that's the sort +of spot where light-houses are useful." + +The sun slanted in upon the packed trunks and dismantled walls; but +it blazed also upon brass window-catches, fender-knobs, +door-handles--all polished and flashing like mirrors. + +"I am come," said Honoria, "now at the last--to ask your pardon." + +"At the last?" Humility seemed to muse, staring down at one of the +trunks; then went on as if speaking to herself. "Yes, yes, it has +been a long time." + +"A long injury--a long mistake; you must believe it was an honest +mistake." + +"Yes," said Humility gravely. "I never doubted you had been misled. +God forbid I should ask or seek to know how." + +Honoria bowed her head. + +"And," Humility pursued, "we had put ourselves in the wrong by +accepting help. One sees now it is always best to be independent; +though at the time it seemed a fine prospect for him. The worst was +our not telling him. That was terribly unfair. As for the rest-- +well, after all, to know yourself guiltless is the great thing, is it +not? What others think doesn't matter in comparison with that. +And then of course he knew that I, his mother, never believed the +falsehood--no, not for a moment." + +"But it spoiled his life?" + +Now Humility had spoken, and still stood, with her eyes resting on +the trunk. Beneath its lid, she knew, and on top of Taffy's books +and other treasures, lay a parcel wrapped in tissue paper--a dog +collar with the inscription "_Honoria from Taffy_." So, by lifting +the lid of her thoughts a little--a very little--more, she might have +given Honoria a glimpse of something which her actual answer, +truthful as it was, concealed. + +"No. I wouldn't say that. If it had spoilt his life--well, you have +a child of your own and can understand. As it is, it has +strengthened him, I think. He will make his mark--in a different +way. Just now he is only a foreman among masons; but he has a career +opening. Yes, I can forgive you at last." + +And, being Humility, she had spoken the truth. But being a woman, +even in the act of pardon she could not forego a small thrust, and in +giving must withhold something. + +And Honoria, being a woman, divined that something was withheld. + +"And Taffy--your son--do you think that _he_--?" + +"He never speaks, if he thinks of it. He will be here presently. +You know--do you not? they are to light the great lantern on the new +lighthouse to-night for the first time. The men have moved in, and +he is down with them making preparations. You have seen the notices +of the Trinity Board? They have been posted for months. Taffy is as +eager over it as a boy; but he promised to be back before sunset to +drink tea with me in honour of the event; and afterwards I was to +walk down to the cliff with him to see." + +"Would you mind if I stayed?" + +Humility considered before answering. "I had rather you stayed. +He's like a boy over this business; but he's a man, after all." + +After this they fell into quite trivial talk, while Humility prepared +the tea things. + +"Your mother--Mrs. Venning--how does she face the journey?" + +"You must see her," said Humility, smiling, and led her into the room +where the old lady reclined in bed, with a flush on each waxen cheek. +She had heard their voices. + +"Bless you"--she was quite cheerful--"I'm ready to go as far as +they'll carry me! All I ask is that in the next place they'll give +me a window where I can see the boy's lamp when he's built it." + +Humility brought in the table and tea-things, and set them out by the +invalid's bed. She went out into the kitchen to look to the kettle. +In that pause Honoria found it difficult to meet Mrs. Venning's eyes; +but the old lady was wise enough to leave grudges to others. It was +enough, in the time left to her, to accept what happened and leave +the responsibility to Providence. + +Honoria, replying but scarcely listening to her talk, heard a +footfall at the outer door--Taffy's footfall; then the click of a +latch and Humility's voice saying, "There's a visitor inside; come to +take tea with you." + +"A visitor?" He was standing in the doorway. "_You?_" He blushed in +his surprise. + +Honoria rose. "If I may," she said, and wondered if she might hold +out a hand. + +But he held out his, quite frankly, and laughed. "Why, of course. +They will be lighting up in half an hour. We must make haste." + +Once or twice during tea he stole a glance from Honoria to his +mother; and each time fondly believed that it passed undetected. His +talk was all about the light-house and the preparations there, and he +rattled on in the highest spirits. Two of the women knew, and the +third guessed, that this chatter was with him unwonted. + +At length he too seemed to be struck by this. "But what nonsense I'm +talking!" he protested, breaking off midway in a sentence and +blushing again. "I can't help it, though. I'm feeling just as big +as the light-house to-night, with my head wound up and turning round +like the lantern!" + +"And your wit occulting," suggested Honoria, in her old light manner. +"What is it?--three flashes to the minute?" + +He laughed and hurried them from the tea-table. Mrs. Venning bade +them a merry good-bye as they took leave of her. + +"Come along, mother." + +But Humility had changed her mind. "No," said she. "I'll wait in +the doorway. I can just see the lantern from the garden gate, you +know. You two can wait by the old light-house, and call to me when +the time comes." + +She watched them from the doorway as they took the path toward the +cliff, toward the last ray of sunset fading across the dusk of the +sea. The evening was warm, and she sat bareheaded with her lace-work +on her knee; but presently she put it down. + +"I must be taking to spectacles soon," she said to herself. "My eyes +are not what they used to be." + + +Taffy and Honoria reached the old light-house and halted by its +white-painted railing. Below them the new pillar stood up in full +view, young and defiant. A full tide lapped its base, feeling this +comely and untried adversary as a wrestler shakes hands before +engaging. And from its base the column, after a gentle inward +curve--enough to give it a look of lissomeness and elastic strength-- +sprang upright straight and firm to the lantern, ringed with a +gallery and capped with a cupola of copper not yet greened by the +weather; in outline as simple as a flower, in structure to the +understanding eye almost as subtly organised, adapted and pieced into +growth. + +"So that is your ambition now?" said Honoria, after gazing long. +She added, "I do not wonder." + +"It does not stop there, I'm afraid." There was a pause, as though +her words had thrown him into a brown study. + +"Look!" she cried. "There is someone in the lantern--with a light in +his hand. He is lighting up!" + +Taffy ran back a pace or two toward the cottage and shouted, waving +his hand. In a moment Humility appeared at the gate and waved in +answer, while the strong light flashed seaward. They listened; but +if she called, the waves at their feet drowned her voice. + +They turned and gazed at the light, counting, timing the flashes; two +short flashes with but five seconds between, then darkness for twenty +seconds, and after it a long steady stare. + +Abruptly he asked, "Would you care to cross over and see the +lantern?" + +"What, in the cradle?" + +"I can work it easily. It's not dangerous in the least; a bit +daunting, perhaps." + +"But I'm not easily frightened, you know. Yes, I should like it +greatly." + +They descended the cliff to the cable. The iron cradle stood ready +as Taffy had left it when he came ashore. She stepped in lightly, +scarcely touching for a second the hand he put out to guide her. + +"Better sit low," he advised; and she obeyed, disposing her skirts on +the floor caked with dry mud from the workmen's boots. He followed +her, and launched the cradle over the deep twilight. + +A faint breeze--there had been none perceptible on the ridge--played +off the face of the cliffs. The forward swing of the cradle, too, +raised a slight draught of air. Honoria plucked off her hat and veil +and let it fan her temples. + +Half-way across, she said, "Isn't it like this--in mid-air over +running water--that the witches take their oaths?" + +Taffy ceased pulling on the rope. "The witches? Yes, I remember +something of the sort." + +"And a word spoken so is an oath and lasts for ever. Very well; +answer me what I came to ask you to-night." + +"What is that?" But he knew. + +"That when--you know--when I tell you I was deceived . . . you will +forgive." Her voice was scarcely audible. + +"I forgive." + +"Ah, but freely? It is only a word I want; but it has to last me +like an oath." + +"I forgive you freely. It was all a mistake." + +"And you have found other ambitions! And they satisfy you?" + +He laughed and pulled at the rope again. "They ought to," he +answered gaily, "they're big enough. Come and see." + +The seaward end of the cable was attached to a doorway thirty feet +above the base of the lighthouse. One of the under-keepers met them +here with a lantern. He stared when he caught sight of the second +figure in the cradle, but touched his cap to the mistress of +Carwithiel. + +"Here's Mrs. Vyell, Trevarthen, come to do honour to our opening +night." + +"Proudly welcome, ma'am," said Trevarthen. "You'll excuse the litter +we're in. This here's our cellar, but you'll find things more +ship-shape upstairs. Mind your head, ma'am, with the archway--better +let me lead the way perhaps." + +The archway was indeed low, and they were forced to crouch and almost +crawl up the first short flight of steps. But after this Honoria, +following Trevarthen's lantern round and up the spiral way, found the +roof heightening above her, and soon emerged into a gloomy chamber +fitted with cupboards and water-tanks--the provision room. From this +a ladder led straight up through a man-hole in the ceiling to the +light-room store, set round with shining oil-tanks and stocked with +paint-pots, brushes, cans, signalling flags, coils of rope, bags of +cotton waste, tool-chests. . . . A second ladder brought them to the +kitchen, and a third to the sleeping-room; and here the light of the +lantern streamed down on their heads through the open man-hole above +them. They heard, too, the roar of the ventilator, and the +_ting-ting_, regular and sharp, of the small bell reporting that the +machinery revolved. + +Above, in the blaze of the great lenses, old Pezzack and the second +under-keeper welcomed them. The pair had been watching and +discussing the light with true professional pride; and Taffy drew up +at the head of the ladder and stared at it, and nodded his slow +approbation. The glare forced Honoria back against the glass wall, +and she caught at its lattice for support. + +But she pulled herself together, ashamed of her weakness, and glad +that Taffy had not perceived it. + +"This satisfies you?" she whispered. + +He faced round on her with a slow smile. "No," he said, +"this light-house is useless." + +"Useless?" + +"You remember the wreck--that wreck--the _Samaritan?_ She came +ashore beneath here; right beneath our feet; by no fault or +carelessness. A light-house on a coast like this--a coast without a +harbour--is a joke set in a death-trap, to make game of dying men." + + +"But since the coast has no harbour--" + +"I would build one. Look at this," he pulled a pencil and paper from +his pocket and rapidly sketched the outlines of the Bristol Channel. +"What is that? A bag. Suppose a vessel taken in the mouth of it; a +bag with death along the narrowing sides and death waiting at the +end--no deep-water harbour--no chance anywhere. And the tides! +You know the rhyme--" + + "From Padstow Point to Lundy Light + Is a watery grave by day or night." + +"Yes, there's Lundy"--he jotted down the position of the island-- +"Hit off the lee of Lundy, if you can, and drop hook, and pray God it +holds!" + +"But this harbour? What would it cost?" + +"I dare say a million of money; perhaps more. But I work it out at +less--at Porthquin, for instance, or Lundy itself, or even at St. +Ives." + +"A million!" she laughed. "Now I see the boy I used to know--the boy +of dreams." + +He turned on her gravely. She was exceedingly beautiful, standing +there in her black habit, bareheaded in the glare of the lenses, +standing with head thrown back, with eyes challenging the past, and a +faint glow on either cheek. But he had no eyes for her beauty. + +He opened his lips to speak. Yes, he could overwhelm her with +statistics and figures, all worked out; of shipping and disasters to +shipping; of wealth and senseless waste of wealth. He could bury her +beneath evidence taken by Royal Commission and Parliamentary +Committee, commissioners' reports, testimony of shipowners and +captains; calculated tables of tides, sets of currents, prevailing +winds; results of surveys hydrographical; all the mass of facts he +had been accumulating and brooding over for eighteen long months. +But the weight of it closed his lips, and when he opened them again +it was to say, "Yes, that is my dream." + +At once he turned his talk upon the light revolving in their faces; +began to explain the lenses and their working in short, direct +sentences. She heard his voice, but without following. + +Pezzack and the under-keeper had drawn apart to the opposite side of +the cage and were talking together. The lantern hid them, but she +caught the murmur of their voices now and again. She was conscious +of having let something slip--slip away from her for ever. If she +could but recall him, and hold him to his dream! But this man, +talking in short sentences, each one so sharp and clear, was not the +Taffy she had known or could ever know. + +In the blaze of the lenses suddenly she saw the truth. He and she +had changed places. She who had used to be so practical--_she_ was +the dreamer now; had come thither following a dream, walking in a +dream. He, the dreaming boy, had become the practical man, firm, +clear-sighted, direct of purpose; with a dream yet in his heart, but +a dream of great action, a dream he hid from her, certainly a dream +in which she had neither part nor lot. And yet she had made him what +he was; not willingly, not by kindness, but by injustice. What she +had given he had taken; and was a stranger to her. + +Muffled wings and white breasts began to beat against the glass. +A low-lying haze--a passing stratum of sea-fog--had wrapped the +light-house for a while, and these were the wings and breasts of +sea-birds attracted by the light. To her they were the ghosts of +dead thoughts--stifled thoughts--thoughts which had never come to +birth--trying to force their way into the ring of light encompassing +and enwrapping her; trying desperately, but foiled by the transparent +screen. + +Still she heard his voice, level and masterful, sure of his subject. +In the middle of one of his sentences a sharp thud sounded on the +pane behind her, as sudden as the crack of a pebble and only a little +duller. + +"Ah, what is that?" she cried, and touched his arm. + +He thrust open one of the windows, stepped out upon the gallery, and +returned in less than a minute with a small dead bird in his hand. + +"A swallow," he said. "They have been preparing to fly for days. +Summer is done, with our work here." + +She shivered. "Let us go back," she said. + +They descended the ladders. Trevarthen met them in the kitchen and +went before them with his lantern. In a minute they were in the +cradle again and swinging toward the cliff. The wisp of sea-fog had +drifted past the light-house to leeward, and all was clear again. +High over the cupola Cassiopeia leaned toward the pole, her breast +flashing its eternal badge--the star-pointed W. Low in the north--as +the country tale went--tied to follow her emotions, externally +separate, eternally true to the fixed star of her gaze, the Waggoner +tilted his wheels and drove them close and along and above the misty +sea. + +Taffy, pulling on the rope, looked down upon Honoria's upturned face +and saw the glimmer of starlight in her eyes; but neither guessed her +thoughts nor tried to. + +It was only when they stood together on the cliff-side that she broke +the silence. "Look," she said, and pointed upward. "Does that +remind you of anything?" + +He searched his memory. "No," he confessed: "that is, if you mean +Cassiopeia up yonder." + +"Think!--the Ship of Stars." + +"The Ship of Stars?--Yes, I remember now. There was a young sailor-- +with a ship of stars tattooed on his chest. He was drowned on this +very coast." + +"Was that a part of the story you were to tell me?" + +"What story? I don't understand." + +"Don't you remember that day--the morning when we began lessons +together? You explained the alphabet to me, and when we came to W-- +you said it was a ship--a ship of stars. There was a story about it, +you said, and promised to tell me some day." + +He laughed. "What queer things you remember!" + +"But what was the story?" + +"I wonder! If I ever knew, I've forgotten. I dare say I had +something in my head. Now I think of it, I was always making up some +foolish tale or other, in those days." + +Yes; he had forgotten. "I have often tried to make up a story about +that ship," she said gravely, "out of odds and ends of the stories +you used to tell. I don't think I ever had the gift to invent +anything on my own account. But at last, after a long while--" + +"The story took shape? Tell it to me, please." + +She hesitated, and broke into a bitter little laugh. "No," said she, +"you never told me yours." Again it came to her with a pang that he +and she had changed places. He had taken her forthrightness and left +her, in exchange, his dreams. They were hers now, the gaily coloured +childish fancies, and she must take her way among them alone. +Dreams only! but just as a while back he had started to confess his +dream and had broken down before her, so now in turn she knew that +her tongue was held. + +Humility rose as they entered the kitchen together. A glance as +Honoria held out her hand for good-bye told her all she needed to +know. + +"And you are leaving in a day or two?" Honoria asked. + +"Thursday next is the day fixed." + +"You are very brave." + +Again the two women's eyes met, and this time the younger understood. +_Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; +thy people shall he my people, and thy God my God_--that which the +Moabitess said for a woman's sake women are saying for men's sakes by +thousands every day. + +Still holding her hand, Humility drew Honoria close. "God deal +kindly with you, my dear," she whispered, and kissed her. + +At the gate Honoria blew a whistle, and after a few seconds +Aide-de-camp came obediently out of the darkness to be bridled. +This done, Taffy lent his hand and swung her into the saddle. + +"Good-night and good-bye!" + +Taffy was the first to turn back from the gate. The beat of +Aide-de-camp's hoofs reminded him of something--some music he had +once heard; he could not remember where. + +Humility lingered a moment longer, and followed to prepare her son's +supper. + +But Honoria, fleeing along the ridge, hugged one fierce thought in +her defeat. The warm wind sang by her ears, the rhythm of +Aide-de-camp's canter thudded upon her brain; but her heart cried +back on them and louder than either-- + +"He is mine, mine, mine! He is mine, and always will be. He is lost +to me, but I possess him. For what he is I have made him, and at my +cost he is strong." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIP OF STARS*** + + +******* This file should be named 16000.txt or 16000.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/0/0/16000 + + + +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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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