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diff --git a/18577.txt b/18577.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..31663a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/18577.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7663 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, News from the Duchy, by Sir 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: News from the Duchy + + +Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch + + + +Release Date: June 13, 2006 [eBook #18577] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEWS FROM THE DUCHY*** + + +E-text prepared by Lionel Sear + + + +NEWS FROM THE DUCHY. + +by + +A. T. Quiller-Couch (Q). + + + + + + + +To My Friend AUSTIN M. PURVES of Philadelphia and Troy Town. + + + + +Contents. + +PART I. + + + PIPES IN ARCADY. + + OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN. + + PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS. + + THE MONT-BAZILLAC. + + THE THREE NECKLACES. + + THE WREN. + + NOT HERE, O APOLLO. + + FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM. + + THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP. + + LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE + + THE CASK ASHORE. + + +PART II. + + + YE SEXES, GIVE EAR. + + FRENCHMAN'S CREEK. + + + +PART I. + + + + +PIPES IN ARCADY. + + +I hardly can bring myself to part with this story, it has been +such a private joy to me. Moreover, that I have lain awake in the +night to laugh over it is no guarantee of your being passably +amused. Yourselves, I dare say, have known what it is to awake in +irrepressible mirth from a dream which next morning proved to be flat +and unconvincing. Well, this my pet story has some of the qualities +of a dream; being absurd, for instance, and almost incredible, and +even a trifle inhuman. After all, I had better change my mind, and +tell you another-- + +But no; I will risk it, and you shall have it, just as it befel. + + +I had taken an afternoon's holiday to make a pilgrimage: my goal +being a small parish church that lies remote from the railway, five +good miles from the tiniest of country stations; my purpose to +inspect--or say, rather, to contemplate--a Norman porch, for which it +ought to be widely famous. (Here let me say that I have an unlearned +passion for Norman architecture--to enjoy it merely, not to write +about it.) + +To carry me on my first stage I had taken a crawling local train +that dodged its way somehow between the regular expresses and the +"excursions" that invade our Delectable Duchy from June to October. +The season was high midsummer, the afternoon hot and drowsy with +scents of mown hay; and between the rattle of the fast trains it +seemed that we, native denizens of the Duchy, careless of +observation or applause, were executing a _tour de force_ in that +fine indolence which has been charged as a fault against us. That we +halted at every station goes without saying. Few sidings--however +inconsiderable or, as it might seem, fortuitous--escaped the +flattery of our prolonged sojourn. We ambled, we paused, almost +we dallied with the butterflies lazily afloat over the meadow-sweet +and cow-parsley beside the line; we exchanged gossip with +station-masters, and received the congratulations of signalmen on the +extraordinary spell of fine weather. It did not matter. +Three market-women, a pedlar, and a local policeman made up with me +the train's complement of passengers. I gathered that their business +could wait; and as for mine--well, a Norman porch is by this time +accustomed to waiting. + +I will not deny that in the end I dozed at intervals in my empty +smoking compartment; but wish to make it clear that I came on the +Vision (as I will call it) with eyes open, and that it left me +staring, wide-awake as Macbeth. + +Let me describe the scene. To the left of the line as you travel +westward there lies a long grassy meadow on a gentle acclivity, set +with three or four umbrageous oaks and backed by a steep plantation +of oak saplings. At the foot of the meadow, close alongside the +line, runs a brook, which is met at the meadow's end by a second +brook which crosses under the permanent way through a culvert. +The united waters continue the course of the first brook, beside the +line, and maybe for half a mile farther; but, a few yards below their +junction, are partly dammed by the masonry of a bridge over which a +country lane crosses the railway; and this obstacle spreads them into +a pool some fifteen or twenty feet wide, overgrown with the leaves of +the arrow-head, and fringed with water-flags and the flowering rush. + +Now I seldom pass this spot without sparing a glance for it; first +because of the pool's still beauty, and secondly because many rabbits +infest the meadow below the coppice, and among them for two or three +years was a black fellow whom I took an idle delight in recognising. +(He is gone now, and his place knows him no more; yet I continue to +hope for sight of a black rabbit just there.) But this afternoon I +looked out with special interest because, happening to pass down the +line two days before, I had noted a gang of navvies at work on the +culvert; and among them, as they stood aside to let the train pass, I +had recognised my friend Joby Tucker, their ganger, and an excellent +fellow to boot. + +Therefore my eyes were alert as we approached the curve that opens +the meadow into view, and--as I am a Christian man, living in the +twentieth century--I saw this Vision: I beheld beneath the shade of +the midmost oak eight men sitting stark naked, whereof one blew on a +flute, one played a concertina, and the rest beat their palms +together, marking the time; while before them, in couples on the +sward, my gang of navvies rotated in a clumsy waltz watched by a ring +of solemn ruminant kine! + +I saw it. The whole scene, barring the concertina and the navvies' +clothes, might have been transformed straight from a Greek vase of +the best period. Here, in this green corner of rural England on a +workaday afternoon (a Wednesday, to be precise), in full sunlight, I +saw this company of the early gods sitting, naked and unabashed, and +piping, while twelve British navvies danced to their music. . . . +I saw it; and a derisive whistle from the engine told me that driver +and stoker saw it too. I was not dreaming, then. But what on +earth could it mean? For fifteen seconds or so I stared at the +Vision . . . and so the train joggled past it and rapt it from my +eyes. + +I can understand now the ancient stories of men who, having by hap +surprised the goddesses bathing, never recovered from the shock but +thereafter ran wild in the woods with their memories. + +At the next station I alighted. It chanced to be the station for +which I had taken my ticket; but anyhow I should have alighted there. +The spell of the vision was upon me. The Norman porch might wait. +It is (as I have said) used to waiting, and in fact it has waited. +I have not yet made another holiday to visit it. Whether or no the +market-women and the local policeman had beheld, I know not. I hope +not, but now shall never know. . . . The engine-driver, leaning in +converse with the station-master, and jerking a thumb backward, had +certainly beheld. But I passed him with averted eyes, gave up my +ticket, and struck straight across country for the spot. + +I came to it, as my watch told me, at twenty minutes after five. +The afternoon sunlight still lay broad on the meadow. The place was +unchanged save for a lengthening of its oak-tree shadows. But the +persons of my Vision--naked gods and navvies--had vanished. Only the +cattle stood, knee-deep in the pool, lazily swishing their tails in +protest against the flies; and the cattle could tell me nothing. + + +Just a fortnight later, as I spent at St. Blazey junction the forty +odd minutes of repentance ever thoughtfully provided by our railway +company for those who, living in Troy, are foolish enough to travel, +I spied at some distance below the station a gang of men engaged in +unloading rubble to construct a new siding for the clay-traffic, and +at their head my friend Mr. Joby Tucker. The railway company was +consuming so much of my time that I felt no qualms in returning some +part of the compliment, and strolled down the line to wish Mr. Tucker +good day. "And, by the bye," I added, "you owe me an explanation. +What on earth were you doing in Treba meadow two Wednesdays ago--you +and your naked friends?" + +Joby leaned on his measuring rod and grinned from ear to ear. + +"You see'd us?" he asked, and, letting his eyes travel along the +line, he chuckled to himself softly and at length. "Well, now, I'm +glad o' that. 'Fact is, I've been savin' up to tell 'ee about it, +but (thinks I) when I tells Mr. Q. he won't never believe." + +"I certainly saw you," I answered; "but as for believing--" + +"Iss, iss," he interrupted, with fresh chucklings; "a fair knock-out, +wasn' it? . . . You see, they was blind--poor fellas!" + +"Drunk?" + +"No, sir--blind--'pity the pore blind'; three-parts blind, anyways, +an' undergoin' treatment for it." + +"Nice sort of treatment!" + +"Eh? You don't understand. See'd us from the train, did 'ee? +Which train?" + +"The 1.35 ex Millbay." + +"Wish I'd a-knowed you was watchin' us. I'd ha' waved my hat as you +went by, or maybe blawed 'ee a kiss--that bein' properer to the +occasion, come to think." + +Joby paused, drew the back of a hand across his laughter-moistened +eyes, and pulled himself together, steadying his voice for the story. + + +"I'll tell 'ee what happened, from the beginnin'. A gang of us had +been sent down, two days before, to Treba meadow, to repair the +culvert there. Soon as we started to work we found the whole +masonry fairly rotten, and spent the first afternoon (that was +Monday) underpinnin', while I traced out the extent o' the damage. +The farther I went, the worse I found it; the main mischief bein' a +leak about midway in the culvert, on the down side; whereby the +water, perc'latin' through, was unpackin' the soil, not only behind +the masonry of the culvert, but right away down for twenty yards and +more behind the stone-facing where the line runs alongside the pool. +All this we were forced to take down, shorein' as we went, till we +cut back pretty close to the rails. The job, you see, had turned out +more serious than reported; and havin' no one to consult, I kept the +men at it. + +"By Wednesday noon we had cut back so far as we needed, shorein' very +careful as we went, and the men workin' away cheerful, with the +footboards of the expresses whizzin' by close over their heads, so's +it felt like havin' your hair brushed by machinery. By the time we +knocked off for dinner I felt pretty easy in mind, knowin' we'd broke +the back o' the job. + +"Well, we touched pipe and started again. Bein' so close to the line +I'd posted a fella with a flag--Bill Martin it was--to keep a look +out for the down-trains; an' about three o'clock or a little after he +whistled one comin'. I happened to be in the culvert at the time, +but stepped out an' back across the brook, just to fling an eye along +the embankment to see that all was clear. Clear it was, an' +therefore it surprised me a bit, as the train hove in sight around +the curve, to see that she had her brakes on, hard, and was slowin' +down to stop. My first thought was that Bill Martin must have taken +some scare an' showed her the red flag. But that was a mistake; +besides she must have started the brakes before openin' sight on +Bill." + +"Then why on earth was she pulling up?" I asked. "It couldn't be +signals." + +"There ain't no signal within a mile of Treba meadow, up or down. +She was stoppin' because--but just you let me tell it in my own way. +Along she came, draggin' hard on her brakes an' whistlin'. +I knew her for an excursion, and as she passed I sized it up for a +big school-treat. There was five coaches, mostly packed with +children, an' on one o' the coaches was a board--'Exeter to +Penzance.' The four front coaches had corridors, the tail one just +ord'nary compartments. + +"Well, she dragged past us to dead-slow, an' came to a standstill +with her tail coach about thirty yards beyond where I stood, and, as +you might say, with its footboard right overhangin' the pool. +You mayn't remember it, but the line just there curves pretty sharp +to the right, and when she pulled up, the tail coach pretty well hid +the rest o' the train from us. Five or six men, hearin' the brakes, +had followed me out of the culvert and stood by me, wonderin' why the +stoppage was. The rest were dotted about along the slope of th' +embankment. And then the curiousest thing happened--about the +curiousest thing I seen in all my years on the line. A door of the +tail coach opened and a man stepped out. He didn't jump out, you +understand, nor fling hisself out; he just stepped out into air, and +with that his arms and legs cast themselves anyways an' he went down +sprawlin' into the pool. It's easy to say we ought t' have run then +an' there an' rescued him; but for the moment it stuck us up starin' +an',--Wait a bit! You han't heard the end. + +"I hadn't fairly caught my breath, before another man stepped out! +He put his foot down upon nothing, same as the first, overbalanced +just the same, and shot after him base-over-top into the water. + +"Close 'pon the second man's heels appeared a third. . . . Yes, sir, +I know now what a woman feels like when she's goin' to have the +scritches. I'd have asked someone to pinch me in the fleshy part o' +the leg, to make sure I was alive an' awake, but the power o' speech +was taken from us. We just stuck an' stared. + +"What beat everything was the behaviour of the train, so to say. +There it stood, like as if it'd pulled up alongside the pool for the +very purpose to unload these unfort'nit' men; an' yet takin' no +notice whatever. Not a sign o' the guard--not a head poked out +anywheres in the line o' windows--only the sun shinin', an' the steam +escapin', an' out o' the rear compartment this procession droppin' +out an' high-divin' one after another. + +"Eight of 'em! Eight, as I am a truth-speakin' man--but there! you +saw 'em with your own eyes. Eight! and the last of the eight scarce +in the water afore the engine toots her whistle an' the train starts +on again, round the curve an' out o' sight. + +"She didn' leave us no time to doubt, neither, for there the poor +fellas were, splashin' an' blowin', some of 'em bleatin' for help, +an' gurglin', an' for aught we know drownin' in three-to-four feet o' +water. So we pulled ourselves together an' ran to give 'em first +aid. + +"It didn' take us long to haul the whole lot out and ashore; and, as +Providence would have it, not a bone broken in the party. One or two +were sufferin' from sprains, and all of 'em from shock (but so were +we, for that matter), and between 'em they must ha' swallowed a bra' +few pints o' water, an' muddy water at that. I can't tell ezackly +when or how we discovered they was all blind, or near-upon blind. +It may ha' been from the unhandiness of their movements an' the way +they clutched at us an' at one another as we pulled 'em ashore. +Hows'ever, blind they were; an' I don't remember that it struck us as +anyways singular, after what we'd been through a'ready. We fished +out a concertina, too, an' a silver-mounted flute that was bobbin' +among the weeds. + +"The man the concertina belonged to--a tall fresh-complexioned young +fella he was, an' very mild of manner--turned out to be a sort o' +leader o' the party; an' he was the first to talk any sense. +'Th-thank you,' he said. 'They told us Penzance was the next stop.' + +"'Hey?' says I. + +"'They told us,' he says again, plaintive-like, feelin' for his +spectacles an' not finding 'em, 'that Penzance was the next stop.' + +"'Bound for Penzance, was you?' I asks. + +"'For the Land's End,' says he, his teeth chatterin'. I set it down +the man had a stammer, but 'twas only the shock an' the chill of his +duckin'. + +"'Well,' says I, 'this ain't the Land's End, though I dessay it feels +a bit like it. Then you wasn' _thrown_ out?' I says. + +"'Th-thrown out?' says he. 'N-no. They told us Penzance was the +next stop.' + +"'Then,' says I, 'if you got out accidental you've had a most +providential escape, an' me an' my mates don't deserve less than to +hear about it. There's bound to be inquiries after you when the +guard finds your compartment empty an' the door open. May be the +train'll put back; more likely they'll send a search-party; but +anyways you're all wet through, an' the best thing for health is to +off wi' your clothes an' dry 'em, this warm afternoon.' + +"'I dessay,' says he, 'you'll have noticed that our eyesight is +affected.' + +"'All the better if you're anyways modest,' says I. 'You couldn' +find a retirededer place than this--not if you searched: an' _we_ +don't mind.' + +"Well, sir, the end was we stripped 'em naked as Adam, an' spread +their clothes to dry 'pon the grass. While we tended on 'em the mild +young man told us how it had happened. It seems they'd come by +excursion from Exeter. There's a blind home at Exeter, an' likewise +a cathedral choir, an' Sunday school, an' a boys' brigade, with other +sundries; an' this year the good people financin' half a dozen o' +these shows had discovered that by clubbin' two sixpences together a +shillin' could be made to go as far as eighteenpence; and how, doin' +it on the co-op, instead of an afternoon treat for each, they could +manage a two days' outin' for all--Exeter to Penzance an' the Land's +End, sleepin' one night at Penzance, an' back to Exeter at some +ungodly hour the next. It's no use your askin' me why a man +three-parts blind should want to visit the Land's End. There's an +attraction about that place, an' that's all you can say. Everybody +knows as 'tisn' worth seein', an' yet everybody wants to see it. +So why not a blind man? + +"Well, this Happy Holiday Committee (as they called themselves) got +the Company to fix them up with a special excursion; an' our blind +friends--bein' sensitive, or maybe a touch above mixin' wi' the +schoolchildren an' infants--had packed themselves into this rear +compartment separate from the others. One of 'em had brought his +concertina, an' another his flute, and what with these an' other ways +of passin' the time they got along pretty comfortable till they came +to Gwinear Road: an' there for some reason they were held up an' had +to show their tickets. Anyways, the staff at Gwinear Road went along +the train collectin' the halves o' their return tickets. 'What's the +name o' this station?' asks my blind friend, very mild an' polite. +'Gwinear Road,' answers the porter;' Penzance next stop.' Somehow +this gave him the notion that they were nearly arrived, an' so, you +see, when the train slowed down a few minutes later an' came to a +stop, he took the porter at his word, an' stepped out. Simple, +wasn't it? But in my experience the curiousest things in life are +the simplest of all, once you come to inquire into 'em." + +"What I don't understand," said I, "is how the train came to stop +just there." + +Mr. Tucker gazed at me rather in sorrow than in anger. "I thought," +said he, "'twas agreed I should tell the story in my own way. +Well, as I was saying, we got those poor fellas there, all as naked +as Adam, an' we was helpin' them all we could--some of us wringin' +out their underlinen an' spreading it to dry, others collectin' their +hats, an' tryin' which fitted which, an' others even dredgin' the +pool for their handbags an' spectacles an' other small articles, an' +in the middle of it someone started to laugh. You'll scarce believe +it, but up to that moment there hadn't been so much as a smile to +hand round; an' to this day I don't know the man's name that started +it--for all I can tell you, I did it myself. But this I do know, +that it set off the whole gang like a motor-engine. There was a sort +of 'click,' an' the next moment-- + +"Laugh? I never heard men laugh like it in my born days. Sort of +recoil, I s'pose it must ha' been, after the shock. Laugh? +There was men staggerin' drunk with it and there was men rollin' on +the turf with it; an' there was men cryin' with it, holdin' on to a +stitch in their sides an' beseechin' everyone also to hold hard. +The blind men took a bit longer to get going; but by gosh, sir! once +started they laughed to do your heart good. O Lord, O Lord! I wish +you could ha' see that mild-mannered spokesman. Somebody had fished +out his spectacles for en, and that was all the clothing he stood +in--that, an' a grin. He fairly beamed; an' the more he beamed the +more we rocked, callin' on en to take pity an' stop it. + +"Soon as I could catch a bit o' breath, 'Land's End next stop!' +gasped I. 'O, but this _is_ the Land's End! This is what the Land's +End oughter been all the time, an' never was yet. O, for the Lord's +sake,' says I, 'stop beamin', and pick up your concertina an' pitch +us a tune!' + +"Well, he did too. He played us 'Home, sweet home' first of all-- +'mid pleasure an' palaces--an' the rest o' the young men sat around +en an' started clappin' their hands to the tune; an' then some fool +slipped an arm round my waist. I'm only thankful he didn't kiss me. +Didn't think of it, perhaps; couldn't ha' been that he wasn't +capable. It must ha' been just then your train came along. +An' about twenty minutes later, when we was gettin' our friends back +into their outfits, we heard the search-engine about half a mile +below, whistlin' an' feelin' its way up very cautious towards us. + +"They was sun-dried an' jolly as sandhoppers--all their eight +of 'em--as we helped 'em on board an' wished 'em ta-ta! +The search-party couldn' understand at all what had happened--in so +short a time, too--to make us so cordial; an' somehow we didn' +explain--neither we nor the blind men. I reckon the whole business +had been so loonatic we felt it kind of holy. But the pore fellas +kept wavin' back to us as they went out o' sight around the curve, +an' maybe for a mile beyond. I never heard," Mr. Tucker wound up +meditatively, "if they ever reached the Land's End. I wonder?" + +"But, excuse me once more," said I. "How came the train to stop as +it did?" + +"To be sure. I said just now that the curiousest things in life +were, gen'rally speakin', the simplest. One o' the schoolchildren in +the fore part of the train--a small nipper of nine--had put his head +out o' the carriage window and got his cap blown away. That's all. +Bein' a nipper of some resource, he wasted no time, but touched off +the communicatin' button an' fetched the whole train to a standstill. +George Simmons, the guard, told me all about it last week, when I +happened across him an' asked the same question you've been askin'. +George was huntin' through the corridors to find out what had gone +wrong; that's how the blind men stepped out without his noticin'. +He pretended to be pretty angry wi' the young tacker. 'Do 'ee know,' +says George, 'it's a five pound fine if you stop a train without good +reason?' 'But I _had_ a good reason,' says the child. 'My mother +gave 'levenpence for that cap, an' 'tis a bran' new one.'" + + + +OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN. + + + "Mary, mother, well thou be! + Mary, mother, think on me; + Sweete Lady, maiden clean, + Shield me from ill, shame, and teen; + Shield me, Lady, from villainy + And from all wicked company!" + Speculum Christiani. + +Here is a little story I found one day among the legends of the +Cornish Saints, like a chip in porridge. If you love simplicity, I +think it may amuse you. + +Lovey Bussow was wife of Daniel Bussow, a tin-streamer of Gwithian +Parish. He had brought her from Camborne, and her neighbours agreed +that there was little amiss with the woman if you overlooked her +being a bit weak in the head. They set her down as "not exactly." +At the end of a year she brought her husband a fine boy. It happened +that the child was born just about the time of year the tin-merchants +visited St. Michael's Mount; and the father--who streamed in a small +way, and had no beast of burden but his donkey, or "naggur"--had to +load up panniers and drive his tin down to the shore-market with the +rest, which for him meant an absence of three weeks, or a fortnight +at the least. + +So Daniel kissed his wife and took his leave; and the neighbours, who +came to visit her as soon as he was out of the way, all told her the +same story--that until the child was safely baptised it behoved her +to be very careful and keep her door shut for fear of the Piskies. +The Piskies, or fairy-folk (they said), were themselves the spirits +of children that had died unchristened, and liked nothing better than +the chance to steal away an unchristened child to join their nation +of mischief. + +Lovey listened to them, and it preyed on her mind. She reckoned that +her best course was to fetch a holy man as quickly as possible to +baptise the child and make the cross over him. So one afternoon, the +mite being then a bare fortnight old, she left him asleep in his +cradle and, wrapping a shawl over her head, hurried off to seek +Meriden the Priest. + +Meriden the Priest dwelt in a hut among the sandhills, a bowshot +beyond St. Gwithian's Chapel on the seaward side, as you go out to +Godrevy. He had spent the day in barking his nets, and was spreading +them out to dry on the short turf of the towans; but on hearing +Lovey's errand, he good-naturedly dropped his occupation and, staying +only to fill a bottle with holy water, walked back with her to her +home. + +As they drew near, Lovey was somewhat perturbed to see that the door, +which she had carefully closed, was standing wide open. She guessed, +however, that a neighbour had called in her absence, and would be +inside keeping watch over the child. As she reached the threshold, +the dreadful truth broke upon her: the kitchen was empty, and so was +the cradle! + +It made her frantic for a while. Meriden the Priest offered what +consolation he could, and suggested that one of her neighbours had +called indeed, and finding the baby alone in the cottage, had taken +it off to her own home to guard it. But this he felt to be a forlorn +hope, and it proved a vain one. Neither search nor inquiry could +trace the infant. Beyond a doubt the Piskies had carried him off. + +When this was established so that even the hopefullest of the +good-wives shook her head over it, Lovey grew calm of a sudden and +(as it seemed) with the calm of despair. She grew obstinate too. + +"My blessed cheeld!" she kept repeating. "The tender worm of 'en! +But I'll have 'en back, if I've to go to the naughty place to fetch +'en. Why, what sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comes +home and his firstborn gone?" + +They shook their heads again over this. It would be a brave blow for +the man, but (said one to another) he that marries a fool must look +for thorns in his bed. + +"What's done can't be undone," they told her. "You'd best let a +two-three of us stay the night and coax 'ee from frettin'. It's bad +for the system, and you so soon over child-birth." + +Lovey opened her eyes wide on them. + +"Lord's sake!" she said, "you don't reckon I'm goin' to sit down +under this? What?--and him the beautifullest, straightest cheeld +that ever was in Gwithian Parish! Go'st thy ways home, every wan. +Piskies steal my cheeld an' Dan'l's, would they? I'll pisky 'em!" + +She showed them forth--"put them to doors" as we say in the Duchy-- +every one, the Priest included. She would have none of their +consolation. + +"You mean it kindly, naybors, I don't say; but tiddn' what I happen +to want. I wants my cheeld back; an' I'll _have'n_ back, what's +more!" + +They went their ways, agreeing that the woman was doited. Lovey +closed the door upon them, bolted it, and sat for hours staring at +the empty cradle. Through the unglazed window she could see the +stars; and when these told her that midnight was near, she put on her +shawl again, drew the bolt, and fared forth over the towans. +At first the stars guided her, and the slant of the night-wind on her +face; but by and by, in a dip between the hills, she spied her mark +and steered for it. This was the spark within St. Gwithian's Chapel, +where day and night a tiny oil lamp, with a floating wick, burned +before the image of Our Lady. + +Meriden the Priest kept the lamp filled, the wick trimmed, year in +and year out. But he, good man, after remembering Lovey in his +prayers, was laid asleep and snoring within his hut, a bowshot away. +The chapel-door opened softly to Lovey's hand, and she crept up to +Mary's image, and abased herself before it. + +"Dear Aun' Mary," she whispered, "the Piskies have taken my cheeld! +You d'knaw what that means to a poor female--you there, cuddlin' your +liddle Jesus in the crook o' your arm. An' you d'knaw likewise what +these Piskies be like; spiteful li'l toads, same as you or I might be +if happen we'd died unchristened an' hadn' no share in heaven nor +hell nor middle-earth. But that's no excuse. Aun' Mary, my dear, I +want my cheeld back!" said she. That was all Lovey prayed. Without +more ado she bobbed a curtsy, crept from the chapel, closed the door, +and way-to-go back to her cottage. + +When she reached it and struck a light in the kitchen she more than +half expected to hear the child cry to her from his cradle. But, for +all that Meriden the Priest had told her concerning the Virgin and +her power, there the cradle stood empty. + +"Well-a-well!" breathed Lovey. "The gentry are not to be hurried, I +reckon. I'll fit and lie down for forty winks," she said; "though I +do think, with her experience Mary might have remembered the poor +mite would be famished afore this, not to mention that the milk in me +is beginnin' to hurt cruel." + +She did off some of her clothes and lay down, and even slept a little +in spite of the pain in her breasts; but awoke a good two hours +before dawn, to find no baby restored to her arms, nor even (when she +looked) was it back in its cradle. + +"This'll never do," said Lovey. On went her shawl again, and once +again she faced the night and hurried across the towans to St. +Gwithian's Chapel. There in her niche stood Our Lady, quite as +though nothing had happened, with the infant Christ in her arms and +the tiny lamp burning at her feet. + +"Aun' Mary, Aun' Mary," said Lovey, speaking up sharp, "this iddn' no +sense 't all! A person would think time was no objic, the way you +stick there starin', ain' my poor cheeld leary with hunger afore +now--as you, bein' a mother, oft to knaw. Fit an' fetch 'en home to +me quick. Aw, do'ee co', that's a dear soul!" + +But Our Lady stood there and made no sign. + +"I don't understand 'ee 't all," Lovey groaned. "'Tiddn' the way +I'd behave in your place, and you d'knaw it." + +Still Our Lady made no sign. + +Lovey grew desperate. + +"Aw, very well, then!" she cried. "Try what it feels like without +your liddle Jesus!" + +And reaching up a hand, she snatched at and lifted the Holy Child +that fitted into a stone socket on Our Lady's arm. It came away in +her grasp, and she fled, tucking it under her shawl. + +All the way home Lovey looked for the earth to gape and swallow her, +or a hand to reach down from heaven and grip her by the hair; and all +the way she seemed to hear Our Lady's feet padding after her in the +darkness. But she never stopped nor stayed until she reached home; +and there, flinging in through the door and slamming to the bolt +behind her, she made one spring for the bed, and slid down in it, +cowering over the small stone image. + +_Rat-a-tat! tat!_--someone knocked on the door so that the cottage +shook. + +"Knock away!" said Lovey. "Whoever thee be, thee 'rt not my cheeld." + +_Rat-a-tat! tat!_ + +"My cheeld wouldn' be knockin': he's got neither strength nor sproil +for it. An' you may fetch Michael and all his Angels, to tear me in +pieces," said Lovey; "but till I hear my own cheeld creen to me, I'll +keep what I have!" + +Thereupon Lovey sat up, listening. For outside she heard a feeble +wail. + +She slipped out of bed. Holding the image tight in her right arm, +she drew the bolt cautiously. On the threshold at her feet, lay her +own babe, nestling in a bed of bracken. + +She would have stooped at once and snatched him to her. But the +stone Christling hampered her, lying so heavily in her arm. For a +moment, fearing trickery, she had a mind to hurl it far out of doors +into the night. . . . It would fall without much hurt into the soft +sand of the towans. But on a second thought she held it forth gently +in her two hands. + +"I never meant to hurt 'en, Aun' Mary," she said. "But a firstborn's +a firstborn, be we gentle or simple." + +In the darkness a pair of invisible hands reached forward and took +her hostage. + +When it was known that the Piskies had repented and restored Lovey +Bussow's child to her, the neighbours agreed that fools have most of +the luck in this world; but came nevertheless to offer their +congratulations. Meriden the Priest came also. He wanted to know +how it had happened; for the Piskies do not easily surrender a child +they have stolen. + +Lovey--standing very demure, and smoothing her apron down along her +thighs--confessed that she had laid her trouble before Our Lady. + +"A miracle, then!" exclaimed his Reverence. "What height! What +depth!" + +"That's of it," agreed Lovey. "Aw, b'lieve me, your Reverence, we +mothers understand wan another." + + + +PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS. + + +Pilot Matthey came down to the little fishing-quay at five p.m. or +thereabouts. He is an elderly man, tall and sizable, with a grizzled +beard and eyes innocent-tender as a child's, but set in deep +crow's-feet at the corners, as all seamen's eyes are. It comes of +facing the wind. + +Pilot Matthey spent the fore-half of his life at the fishing. +Thence he won his way to be a Trinity pilot, and wears such portions +of an old uniform as he remembers to don. He has six sons and four +daughters, all brought up in the fear of the Lord, and is very much +of a prophet in our Israel. One of the sons works with him as +apprentice, the other five follow the fishing. + +He came down to the quay soon after tea-time, about half an hour +before the luggers were due to put out. Some twenty-five or thirty +men were already gathered, dandering to and fro with hands in +pockets, or seated on the bench under the sea wall, waiting for the +tide to serve. About an equal number were below in the boats, +getting things ready. + +There was nothing unusual about Matthey, save that, although it was a +warm evening in August, he wore a thick pea-jacket, and had turned +the collar up about his ears. Nor (if you know Cornish fishermen) +was there anything very unusual in what he did, albeit a stranger +might well have thought it frantic. + +For some time he walked to and fro, threading his way in and out of +the groups of men, walking much faster than they--at the best they +were strolling--muttering the while with his head sunk low in his +jacket collar, turning sharply when he reached the edge of the quay, +or pausing a moment or two, and staring gloomily at the water. +The men watched him, yet not very curiously. They knew what was +coming. + +Of a sudden he halted and began to preach. He preached of Redemption +from Sin, of the Blood of the Lamb, of the ineffable bliss of +Salvation. His voice rose in an agony on the gentle twilight: it +could be heard--entreating, invoking, persuading, wrestling--far +across the harbour. The men listened quite attentively until the +time came for getting aboard. Then they stole away by twos and +threes down the quay steps. Meanwhile, and all the while, +preparations on the boats had been going forward. + +He was left alone at length. Even the children had lost interest in +him, and had run off to watch the boats as they crept out on the +tide. He ceased abruptly, came across to the bench where I sat +smoking my pipe, and dropped exhausted beside me. The fire had died +out of him. He eyed me almost shamefacedly at first, by and by more +boldly. + +"I would give, sir," said Pilot Matthey, "I would give half my +worldly goods to lead you to the Lord." + +"I believe you," said I. "To my knowledge you have often risked more +than that--your life--to save men from drowning. But tell me--you +that for twenty minutes have been telling these fellows how Christ +feels towards them--how can you know? It is hard enough, surely, to +get inside any man's feelings. How can you pretend to know what +Christ feels, or felt--for an instance, in the Judgment Hall, when +Peter denied?" + +"Once I did, sir," said Pilot Matthey, smoothing the worn knees of +his trousers. "It was just that. I'll tell you:" + + +"It happened eighteen or twenty years ago, on the old _Early and +Late_--yes, twenty years come Christmas, for I mind that my eldest +daughter was expectin' her first man-child, just then. You saw him +get aboard just now, praise the Lord! But at the time we was all +nervous about it--my son-in-law, Daniel, bein' away with me on the +East Coast after the herrings. I'd as good as promised him to be +back in time for it--this bein' my first grandchild, an' due (so well +as we could calculate) any time between Christmas an' New Year. +Well, there was no sacrifice, as it happened, in startin' for home-- +the weather up there keepin' monstrous, an' the catches not worth the +labour. So we turned down Channel, the wind strong an' dead foul-- +south at first, then west-sou'-west--headin' us all the way, and +always blowin' from just where 'twasn't wanted. This lasted us down +to the Wight, and we'd most given up hope to see home before +Christmas, when almost without warnin' it catched in off the land-- +pretty fresh still, but steady--and bowled us down past the Bill and +halfway across to the Start, merry as heart's delight. Then it fell +away again, almost to a flat calm, and Daniel lost his temper. +I never allowed cursin' on board the Early and Late--nor, for that +matter, on any other boat of mine; but if Daniel didn't swear a bit +out of hearin', well then--poor dear fellow, he's dead and gone these +twelve years (yes, sir--drowned)--well then I'm doin' him an +injustice. One couldn't help pitying him, neither. Didn't I know +well enough what it felt like? And the awe of it, to think it's +happenin' everywhere, and ever since world began--men fretting for +the wife and firstborn, and gettin' over it, and goin' down to the +grave leavin' the firstborn to fret over _his_ firstborn! It puts me +in mind o' the old hemn, sir: 'tis in the Wesley books, and I can't +think why church folk leave out the verse-- + + "The busy tribes o' flesh and blood, + With all their cares and fears--" + +Ay, 'cares and fears'; that's of it-- + + "Are carried downward by the flood, + And lost in followin' years." + +"Poor Daniel--poor boy!" + +Pilot Matthey sat silent for a while, staring out over the water in +the wake of the boats that already had begun to melt into the shadow +of darkness. + +"'Twas beautiful sunshiny weather, too, as I mind," he resumed. "One +o' those calm spells that happen, as often as not, just about +Christmas. I remember drawin' your attention to it, sir, one +Christmas when I passed you the compliments of the season; and you +put it down to kingfishers, which I thought strange at the time." + +"Kingfishers?" echoed I, mystified for the moment. "Oh, yes"--as +light broke on me--"Halcyon days, of course!" + +"That's right," Pilot Matthey nodded. "That's what you called 'em. +. . . It took us a whole day to work past the tides of the Start. +Then, about sunset, a light draught off the land helped us to Bolt +Tail, and after that we mostly drifted all night, with here and there +a cat's-paw, down across Bigbury Bay. By five in the morning we were +inside the Eddystone, with Plymouth Sound open, and by twelve noon we +was just in the very same place. It was Christmas Eve, sir. + +"I looked at Daniel's face, and then a notion struck me. It was +foolish I hadn't thought of it before. + +"'See here, boys,' I says. (There was three. My second son, Sam, +Daniel, and Daniel's brother, Dick, a youngster of sixteen or so.) +'Get out the boat,' I says,' and we'll tow her into Plymouth. +If you're smart we may pluck her into Cattewater in time for Daniel +to catch a train home. Sam can go home, too, if he has a mind, and +the youngster can stay and help me look after things. I've seen a +many Christmasses,' said I, 'and I'd as lief spend this one at +Plymouth as anywhere else. You can give 'em all my love, and turn up +again the day after Boxin' Day--and mind you ask for excursion +tickets,' I said. + +"They tumbled the boat out fast enough, you may be sure. Leastways +the two men were smart enough. But the boy seemed ready to cry, so +that my heart smote me. 'There!' said I, 'and Dicky can go too, if +he'll pull for it. I shan't mind bein' left to myself. A redeemed +man's never lonely--least of all at Christmas time.' + +"Well, sir, they nipped into the boat, leavin' me aboard to steer; +and they pulled--pulled--like as if they'd pull their hearts out. +But it happened a strongish tide was settin' out o' the Sound, and +long before we fetched past the breakwater I saw there was no chance +to make Cattewater before nightfall, let alone their gettin' to the +railway station. I blamed myself that I hadn't thought of it +earlier, and so, steppin' forward, I called out to them to ease up-- +we wouldn't struggle on for Cattewater, but drop hook in Jennycliff +Bay, somewhere inside of the Merchant Shipping anchorage. As things +were, this would save a good hour--more likely two hours. 'And,' +said I, 'you can take the boat, all three, and leave her at Barbican +steps. Tell the harbour-master where she belongs, and where I'm +laying. He'll see she don't take no harm, and you needn't fear but +I'll get put ashore to her somehow. There's always somebody passin' +hereabouts.' + +"'But look 'ee here, father,' said the boys--good boys they were, +too--'What's to happen if it comes on to blow from south or +sou'-west, same as it blew at the beginning of the week?' + +"''Tisn't goin' to do any such thing,' said I, for I'd been studyin' +the weather. 'And, even if it should happen, I've signals aboard. +'Tisn't the first time, sonnies, I've sat out a week-end on board a +boat, alone wi' the Redeemer.' + +"That settled it, sir. It relieved 'em a bit, too, when they spied +another lugger already lyin' inside the anchorage, and made her out +for a Porthleven boat, the_ Maid in Two Minds_, that had been after +the herrings with the rest of us up to a fortni't ago, or maybe three +weeks: since when we hadn't seen her. As I told you, the weather had +been cruel, and the catches next to nothing; and belike she'd given +it up earlier than we and pushed for home. At any rate, here she +was. We knowed her owners, as fishermen do; but we'd never passed +word with her, nor with any of her crew. I'd heard somewhere--but +where I couldn't recollect--that the skipper was a blasphemous man, +given to the drink, and passed by the name of Dog Mitchell; but 'twas +hearsay only. All I noted, or had a mind to note, as we dropped +anchor less than a cable length from her, was that she had no boat +astern or on deck (by which I concluded the crew were ashore), and +that Dog Mitchell himself was on deck. I reckernised him through the +glass. He made no hail at all, but stood leanin' by the mizen and +smokin', watchin' what we did. By then the dark was comin' down. + +"Well, sir, I looked at my watch, and there was no time to be choice +about position; no time even for the lads to get aboard and pack +their bags. I ran forward, heaved anchor, cast off tow-line, an' +just ran below, and came up with an armful o' duds which I tossed +into the boat as she dropped back alongside. I fished the purse out +of my pocket, and two sovereigns out o' the purse. 'That'll take 'ee +home and back,' said I, passin' the money to Daniel. 'So long, +children! You haven't no time to spare.' + +"Away they pulled, callin' back, 'God bless 'ee, father!' and the +like; words I shan't forget. . . . Poor Daniel! . . . And there, all +of a sudden, was I, left to spend Christmas alone: which didn't +trouble me at all. + +"'Stead o' which, as you might say, havin' downed sail and made +things pretty well shipshape on deck, I went below and trimmed and +lit the riding light. When I came on deck with it the _Maid in Two +Minds_ was still in darkness. 'That's queer,' thought I; but maybe +the _Early and Late's_ light reminded Dog Mitchell of his, for a few +minutes later he fetched it up and made it fast, takin' an uncommon +long time over the job and mutterin' to himself all the while. +(For I should tell you that, the weather bein' so still and the +distance not a hundred yards, I could hear every word.) + +"'Twas then, I think, it first came into my mind that the man was +drunk, and five minutes later I was sure of it: for on his way aft he +caught his foot and tripped over something--one o' the deck-leads +maybe--and the words he ripped out 'twould turn me cold to repeat. +His voice was thick, too, and after cursin' away for half a minute it +dropped to a sort of growl, same as you'll hear a man use when he's +full o' drink and reckons he has a grudge against somebody or +something--he doesn't quite know which, or what. Thought I, ''Tis a +risky game o' those others to leave a poor chap alone in that state. +He might catch the boat afire, for one thing: and, for another, he +might fall overboard.' It crossed my mind, too, that if he fell +overboard I hadn't a boat to pull for him. + +"He went below after that, and for a couple of hours no sound came +from the _Maid in Two Minds_. 'Likely enough,' thought I, 'he's +turned in, to sleep it off; and that's the best could happen to him'; +and by and by I put the poor fellow clean out o' my head. I made +myself a dish o' tea, got out supper, and ate it with a thankful +heart, though I missed the boys; but, then again, I no sooner missed +them than I praised God they had caught the train. They would be +nearin' home by this time; and I sat for a while picturin' it: the +kitchen, and the women-folk there, that must have made up their minds +to spend Christmas without us; particularly Lisbeth Mary--that's my +daughter, Daniel's wife--with her mother to comfort her, an' the +firelight goin' dinky-dink round the cups and saucers on the +dresser. I pictured the joy of it, too, when Sam or Daniel struck +rat-tat and clicked open the latch, or maybe one o' the gals pricked +up an ear at the sound of their boots on the cobbles. I 'most hoped +the lads hadn't been thoughtful enough to send on a telegram. +My mind ran on all this, sir; and then for a moment it ran back to +myself, sittin' there cosy and snug after many perils, many joys; +past middle-age, yet hale and strong, wi' the hand o' the Lord +protectin' me. 'The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack +nothing. He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth +beside the waters of comfort. He shall convert my soul . . .' + +"I don't know how it happened, sir, but of a sudden a well o' warmth +ran through me and all over me, just like a spring burstin'. 'Waters +o' Comfort?' Ay, maybe . . . maybe. Funny things happen on +Christmas Eve, they say. My old mother believed to her last day that +every Christmas Eve at midnight the cattle in their challs went down +on their knees, throughout the land . . . + +"But the feelin', if you understand me, wasn't Christmas-like at all. +It had started with green pastures: and green pastures ran in my +head, with brooks, and birds singin' away up aloft and bees hummin' +all 'round, and the sunshine o' the Lord warmin' everything and +warmin' my heart . . . I felt the walls of the cuddy chokin' me of a +sudden, an' went on deck. + +"A fine night it was, up there. Very clear with a hint o' frost--no +moon. As I remember, she was in her first quarter and had gone down +some while. The tide had turned and was makin' in steady. I could +hear it clap-clappin' past the _Maid in Two Minds_--she lay a little +outside of us, to seaward, and we had swung so that her ridin' light +come over our starboard how. Out beyond her the lighthouse on the +breakwater kept flashin'--it's red over the anchorage--an' away +beyond that the 'Stone. Astern was all the half-circle o' Plymouth +lights--like the front of a crown o' glory. And the stars overhead, +sir!--not so much as a wisp o' cloud to hide 'em. + +"'Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His +star in the east . . .'I'd always been curious about that star, +sir,--whether 'twas an ordinary one or one sent by miracle: and, +years before, I'd argued it out that the Lord wouldn't send one like +a flash in the pan, but--bein' thoughtful in all things--would leave +it to come back constant every year and bring assurance, if ye looked +for it. After that, I began to look regularly, studying the sky from +the first week of December on to Christmas: and 'twasn't long before +I felt certain. 'Tis a star--they call it Regulus in the books, for +I've looked it out--that gets up in the south-east in December month: +pretty low, and yet full high enough to stand over a cottage; one o' +the brightest too, and easily known, for it carries five other stars +set like a reap-hook just above it. + +"Well, I looked to the south-east, and there my star stood blazin', +just over the dark o' the land, with its reap-hook over its forehead. +'The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light . . .' + +"While I stood staring at it, thinkin' my thoughts, there came a +noise all of a sudden from the other lugger, as if someone had kicked +over a table down below, and upset half a dozen pots and pans. +Then, almost before I had time to wonder, I heard Dog Mitchell +scramble forth on deck, find his feet in a scrufflin' way, and start +travisin' forth and back, forth and back, talkin' to himself all the +while and cursin'. He was fairly chewin' curses. I guessed what was +the matter. He had been down below toppin' things up with a last +soak of neat whisky, and now he had the shakes on him, or the +beginnings of 'em. + +"You know the sayin', 'A fisherman's walk--two steps, an' overboard'? +. . . I tell you I was in misery for the man. Any moment he might +lurch overboard, or else throw himself over--one as likely as another +with a poor chap in that state. Yet how could I help--cut off, +without boat or any means to get to him? + +"Forth and back he kept goin', in his heavy sea-boots. I could hear +every step he took, and when he kicked against the hatchway-coamin' +(he did this scores o' times) and when he stood still and spat +overboard. Once he tripped over the ship's mop--got the handle +a-foul of his legs, and talked to it like a pers'nal enemy. +Terrible language--terrible! + +"It struck me after a bit"--here Pilot Matthey turned to me with one +of those shy smiles which, as they reveal his childish, simple heart, +compel you to love the man. "It struck me after a bit that a +hemn-tune mightn't come amiss to a man in that distress of mind. +So I pitched to sing that grand old tune, 'Partners of a glorious +hope,' a bit low at first, but louder as I picked up confidence. +Soon as he heard it he stopped short, and called out to me to shut my +head. So, findin' that hemns only excited him, I sat quiet, while he +picked up his tramp again. + +"I had allowed to myself that 'twould be all right soon after eleven, +when the publics closed, and his mates would be turnin' up, to take +care of him. But eleven o'clock struck, back in the town; and the +quarters, and then twelve; and still no boat came off from shore. +Then, soon after twelve, he grew quiet of a sudden. The trampin' +stopped. I reckoned he'd gone below, though I couldn't be certain. +But bein' by this time pretty cold with watchin', and dog-tired, I +tumbled below and into my bunk. I must have been uneasy though, for +I didn't take off more'n my boots. + +"What's more I couldn't have slept more than a dog's sleep. For I +woke up sudden to the noise of a splash--it seemed I'd been waitin' +for it--and was up on deck in two shakes. + +"Yes, the chap was overboard, fast enough--I heard a sort of gurgle +as he came to the surface, and some sort of attempt at a cry. +Before he went under again, the tide drifted his head like a little +black buoy across the ray of our ridin' light. So overboard I +jumped, and struck out for him." + +At this point--the exciting point--Pilot Matthey's narrative halted, +hesitated, grew meagre and ragged. + +"I got a grip on him as he rose. He couldn't swim better'n a few +strokes at the best. (So many of our boys won't larn to swim--they +say it only lengthens things out when your time comes.) . . . The man +was drownin', but he had sproil enough to catch at me and try to pull +me under along with him. I knew that trick, though, luckily. . . . +I got him round on his back, with my hands under his armpits, and +kicked out for the _Maid in Two Minds_. + +"'Tisn't easy to climb straight out o' the water and board a lugger-- +not at the best of times, when you've only yourself to look after; +and the _Maid in Two Minds_ had no accommodation-ladder hung +out . . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, +among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack and +close to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till I +had it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by--which he had the +sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that I +scrambled on to the mizen-boom somehow and hauled him aboard mainly +by his collar and seat of his trousers. It was a job, too; and the +first thing he did on deck was to reach his head overside and be +vi'lently sick. + +"He couldn't have done better. When he'd finished I took charge, +hurried him below--my! the mess down there!--and got him into +somebody's dry clothes. All the time he was whimperin' and +shiverin'; and he whimpered and shivered still when I coaxed him into +his bunk and tucked him up in every rug I could find. There was a +bottle of whisky, pretty near empty, 'pon the table. Seein' how +wistful the poor chap looked at it, and mindin' how much whisky and +salt water he'd got rid of, I mixed the dregs of it with a little hot +water off the stove, and poured it into him. Then I filled up the +bottle with hot water, corked it hard, and slipped it down under the +blankets, to warm his feet. + +"'That's all right, matey,' said he, his teeth chatterin' as I +snugged him down. 'But cut along and leave me afore the others +come.' + +"Well, that was sense in its way, though he didn't seem to take +account that there was only one way back for me--the way I'd come. + +"'You'll do, all right?' said I. + +"'I'll do right enough now,' said he. 'You cut along.' + +"So I left him. I was that chilled in my drippin' clothes, the +second swim did me more good than harm. When I got to the _Early and +Late_, though, I was pretty dead beat, and it cost me half a dozen +tries before I could heave myself on to the accommodation-ladder. +Hows'ever, once on board I had a strip and a good rub-down, and +tumbled to bed glowin' like a babby. + +"I slept like a top, too, this time. What woke me was a voice close +abeam, hailin' the _Early and Late_; and there was a brisk, +brass-bound young chap alongside in a steam-launch, explainin' as +he'd brought out the boat, and why the harbour-master hadn't sent her +out last night. 'As requested by your crew, Cap'n.' 'That's very +polite o' them and o' you, and o' the harbour-master,' said I; 'and I +wish you the compliments o' the season.' For I liked the looks of +him there, smiling up in an obliging way, and Plymouth bells behind +him all sounding to Church together for Christmas. 'Same to you, +Cap'n!' he called out, and sheered off with a wave o' the hand, +having made the boat fast astern. + +"I stared after him for a bit, and then I turned my attention to the +_Maid in Two Minds_. Her boat, too, lay astern of her; and one of +her crew was already on deck, swabbin' down. After a bit, another +showed up. But Dog Mitchell made no appearance. + +"Nat'rally enough my thoughts ran on him durin' breakfast; and, when +'twas done, I dressed myself and pulled over to inquire. By this +time all three of his mates were on deck, and as I pulled close they +drew together--much as to ask what I wanted. + +"'I came across,' says I, 'to ask after the boss. Is he all right +this morning?' + +"'Why not?' asked one o' the men, suspicious-like, with a glance at +the others. They were all pretty yellow in the gills after their +night ashore. + +"'What's up?' says Dog Mitchell's own voice on top o' this: and the +man heaved himself on deck and looked down on me. + +"'It's the skipper of the _Early and Late_,' said one of the fellows +grinning; 'as seems to say he has the pleasure o' your acquaintance.' + +"'Does he?' said Dog Mitchell slowly, chewing. The man's eyes were +bleared yet, but the drink had gone out of him with his shock: or the +few hours' sleep had picked him round. He hardened his eyes on me, +anyway, and says he--'Does he? Then he's a bloody liar!' + +"I didn't make no answer, sir. I saw what he had in mind--that I'd +come off on the first opportunity, cadgin' for some reward. I turned +the boat's head about, and started to pull back for the _Early and +Late_. The men laughed after me, jeering-like. And Dog Mitchell, he +laughed, too, in the wake o' them, with a kind of challenge as he saw +my lack o' pluck. And away back in Plymouth the bells kept on +ringing. + +"That's the story. You asked how I could tell what the blessed Lord +felt like when Peter denied. I don't know. But I seemed to feel +like it, just that once." + + + +THE MONT-BAZILLAC. + + +I have a sincere respect and liking for the Vicar of Gantick--"th' +old Parson Kendall," as we call him--but have somewhat avoided his +hospitality since Mrs. Kendall took up with the teetotal craze. +I say nothing against the lady's renouncing, an she choose, the light +dinner claret, the cider, the port (pale with long maturing in the +wood) which her table afforded of yore: nor do I believe that the +Vicar, excellent man, repines deeply--though I once caught the faint +sound of a sigh as we stood together and conned his cider-apple +trees, un-garnered, shedding their fruit at random in the long +grasses. For his glebe contains a lordly orchard, and it used to be +a treat to watch him, his greenish third-best coat stuck all over +with apple-pips and shreds of pomace, as he helped to work the press +at the great annual cider-making. But I agree with their son, Master +Dick, that "it's rough on the guests." + +Master Dick is now in his second year at Oxford; and it was probably +for his sake, to remove temptation from the growing lad, that Mrs. +Kendall first discovered the wickedness of all alcoholic drink. +Were he not an ordinary, good-natured boy--had he, as they say, an +ounce of vice in him--I doubt the good lady's method might go some +way towards defeating her purpose. As things are, it will probably +take no worse revenge upon her solicitude than by weaning him +insensibly away from home, to use his vacation-times in learning to +be a man. + +Last Long Vacation, in company with a friend he calls Jinks, Master +Dick took a Canadian canoe out to Bordeaux by steamer, and spent six +adventurous weeks in descending the Dordogne and exploring the +Garonne with its tributaries. On his return he walked over to find +me smoking in my garden after dinner, and gave me a gleeful account +of his itinerary. + +". . . And the next place we came to was Bergerac," said he, after +ten minutes of it. + +"Ah!" I murmured. "Bergerac!" + +"You know it?" + +"Passably well," said I. "It lies toward the edge of the claret +country; but it grows astonishing claret. When I was about your age +it grew a wine yet more astonishing." + +"Hallo!" Master Dick paused in the act of lighting his pipe and +dropped the match hurriedly as the flame scorched his fingers. + +"It was grown on a hill just outside the town--the Mont-Bazillac. I +once drank a bottle of it." + +"Lord! You too? . . . _Do_ tell me what happened!" + +"Never," I responded firmly. "The Mont-Bazillac is extinct, swept +out of existence by the phylloxera when you were a babe in arms. +_Infandum jubes renovare--_ no one any longer can tell you what that +wine was. They made it of the ripe grape. It had the raisin flavour +with something--no more than a hint--of Madeira in it: the leathery +tang--how to describe it?" + +"You need not try, when I have two bottles of it at home, at this +moment!" + +"When I tell you--" I began. + +"Oh, but wait till you've heard the story!" he interrupted. "As I +was saying, we came to Bergerac and put up for the night at the +_Couronne d'Or_--first-class cooking. Besides ourselves there were +three French bagmen at the _table d'hote_. The usual sort. Jinks, +who talks worse French than I do (if that's possible), and doesn't +mind, got on terms with them at once. . . . For my part I can always +hit it off with a commercial--it's the sort of mind that appeals to +me--and these French bagmen _do_ know something about eating and +drinking. That's how it happened. One of them started chaffing us +about the _ordinaire_ we were drinking--quite a respectable tap, by +the way. He had heard that Englishmen drank only the strongest wine, +and drank it in any quantities. Then another said: 'Ah, messieurs, +if you would drink for the honour of England, _justement_ you should +match yourselves here in this town against the famous Mont-Bazillac.' +'What is this Mont-Bazillac?' we asked: and they told us--well, +pretty much what you told me just now--adding, however, that the +landlord kept a few precious bottles of it. They were quite fair in +their warnings." + +"Which, of course, you disregarded." + +"For the honour of England. We rang for the landlord--a decent +fellow, Sebillot by name--and at first, I may tell you, he wasn't at +all keen on producing the stuff; kept protesting that he had but a +small half-dozen left, that his daughter was to be married in the +autumn, and he had meant to keep it for the wedding banquet. +However, the bagmen helping, we persuaded him to bring up two +bottles. A frantic price it was, too--frantic for _us_. +Seven francs a bottle." + +"It was four francs fifty even in my time." + +"The two bottles were opened. Jinks took his, and I took mine. +We had each _arrosed_ the dinner with about a pint of Bordeaux; +nothing to count. We looked at each other straight. I said, 'Be a +man, Jinks! _A votre sante messieurs!_' and we started. . . . As you +said just now, it's a most innocent-tasting wine." + +"As a matter of fact, I didn't say so. Still, you are right." + +"The fourth and fifth glasses, too, seemed to have no more kick in +them than the first. . . . Nothing much seemed to be happening, +except that Sebillot had brought in an extra lamp--at any rate, the +room was brighter, and I could see the bagmen's faces more distinctly +as they smiled and congratulated us. I drank off the last glass +'to the honour of England,' and suggested to Jinks--who had kept pace +with me, glass for glass--that we should take a stroll and view the +town. There was a fair (as I had heard) across the bridge. . . . +We stood up together. I had been feeling nervous about Jinks, and it +came as a relief to find that he was every bit as steady on his legs +as I was. We said good evening to the bagmen and walked out into the +street. 'Up the hill or down?' asked Jinks, and I explained to him +very clearly that, since rivers followed the bottoms of their +valleys, we should be safe in going downhill if we wanted to find the +bridge. And I'd scarcely said the words before it flashed across me +that I was drunk as Chloe. + +"Here's another thing.--I'd never been drunk before, and I haven't +been drunk since: but all the same I knew that this wasn't the least +like ordinary drunkenness: it was too--what shall I say?--too +brilliant. The whole town of Bergerac belonged to me: and, what was +better, it was lit so that I could steer my way perfectly, although +the street seemed to be quite amazingly full of people, jostling and +chattering. I turned to call Jinks's attention to this, and was +saying something about a French crowd--how much cheerfuller it was +than your average English one--when all of a sudden Jinks wasn't +there! No, nor the crowd! I was alone on Bergerac bridge, and I +leaned with both elbows on the parapet and gazed at the Dordogne +flowing beneath the moon. + +"It was not an ordinary river, for it ran straight up into the sky: +and the moon, unlike ordinary moons, kept whizzing on an axis like a +Catherine-wheel, and swelled every now and then and burst into +showers of the most dazzling fireworks. I leaned there and stared at +the performance, feeling just like a king--proud, you understand, but +with a sort of noble melancholy. I knew all the time that I was +drunk; but that didn't seem to matter. The bagmen had told me--" + +I nodded again. + +"That's one of the extraordinary things about the Mont-Bazillac," I +corroborated. "It's all over in about an hour, and there's not (as +the saying goes) a headache in a hogshead." + +"I wouldn't quite say that," said Dick reflectively. "But you're +partly right. All of a sudden the moon stopped whizzing, the river +lay down in its bed, and my head became clear as a bell. 'The +trouble will be,' I told myself, 'to find the hotel again.' But I +had no trouble at all. My brain picked up bearing after bearing. +I worked back up the street like a prize Baden-Powell scout, found +the portico, remembered the stairway to the left, leading to the +lounge, went up it, and recognising the familiar furniture, dropped +into an armchair with a happy sigh. My only worry, as I picked up a +copy of the _Gil Blas_ and began to study it, was about Jinks. +But, you see, there wasn't much call to go searching after him when +my own experience told me it would be all right. + +"There were, maybe, half a dozen men in the lounge, scattered about +in the armchairs and smoking. By and by, glancing up from my +newspaper, I noticed that two or three had their eyes fixed on me +pretty curiously. One of them--an old boy with a grizzled +moustache--set down his paper, and came slowly across the room. +'Pardon, monsieur,' he said in the politest way, 'but have we the +honour of numbering you amongst our members?' 'Good Lord!' cried I, +sitting up, 'isn't this the _Couronne d'Or?_' 'Pray let monsieur not +discommode himself,' said he, with a quick no-offence sort of smile, +'but he has made a little mistake. This is the _Cercle Militaire_.' + +"I must say those French officers were jolly decent about it: +especially when I explained about the Mont-Bazillac. They saw me +back to the hotel in a body; and as we turned in at the porchway, who +should come down the street but Jinks, striding elbows to side, like +a man in a London-to-Brighton walking competition! . . . He told me, +as we found our bedrooms, that '_of course_, he had gone up the hill, +and that the view had been magnificent.' I did not argue about it, +luckily: for--here comes in another queer fact--_there was no moon at +all that night_. Next morning I wheedled two more bottles of the +stuff out of old Sebillot--which leaves him two for the wedding. +I thought that you and I might have some fun with them. . . . Now +tell me _your_ experience." + +"That," said I, "must wait until you unlock my tongue; if indeed you +have brought home the genuine Mont-Bazillac." + + +As it happened, Master Dick was called up to Oxford unexpectedly, a +week before the beginning of term, to start practice in his college +"four." Our experiment had to be postponed; with what result you +shall hear. + + +About a fortnight later I read in our local paper that the Bishop +had been holding a Confirmation service in Gantick Parish Church. +The paragraph went on to say that "a large and reverent congregation +witnessed the ceremony, but general regret was expressed at the +absence of our respected Vicar through a temporary indisposition. +We are glad to assure our readers that the reverend gentleman is well +on the way to recovery, and indeed has already resumed his +ministration in the parish, where his genial presence and quick +sympathies, etc." + +This laid an obligation upon me to walk over to Gantick and inquire +about my old friend's health: which I did that same afternoon. +Mrs. Kendall received me with the information that her husband was +quite well again, and out-and-about; that in fact he had started, +immediately after luncheon, to pay a round of visits on the outskirts +of the parish. On the nature of his late indisposition she showed +herself reticent, not to say "short" in her answers; nor, though the +hour was four o'clock, did she invite me to stay and drink tea with +her. + +On my way back, and just within the entrance-gate of the vicarage +drive, I happened on old Trewoon, who works at odd jobs under the +gardener, and was just now busy with a besom, sweeping up the first +fall of autumn leaves. Old Trewoon, I should tell you, is a +Wesleyan, and a Radical of the sardonic sort; and, as a jobbing man, +holds himself free to criticise his employers. + +"Good afternoon!" said I. "This is excellent news that I hear about +the Vicar. I was afraid, when I first heard of his illness, that it +might be something serious--at his age--" + +"Serious?" Old Trewoon rested his hands on the besom-handle and eyed +me, with a twist of his features. "Missus didn' tell you the natur' +of the complaint, I reckon?" + +"As a matter of fact she did not." + +"I bet she didn'. Mind you, _I_ don't know, nuther." He up-ended his +besom and plucked a leaf or two from between the twigs before adding, +"And what, makin' so bold, did she tell about the Churchwardens?" + +"The Churchwardens?" I echoed. + +"Aye, the Churchwardens: Matthey Hancock an' th' old Farmer Truslove. +They was took ill right about the same time. Aw, my dear"--Mr. +Trewoon addresses all mankind impartially as "my dear"--"th' hull +parish knaws about _they_. Though there warn't no concealment, for +that matter." + +"What about the Churchwardens?" I asked innocently, and of a sudden +became aware that he was rocking to and fro in short spasms of inward +laughter. + +"--It started wi' the Bishop's motor breakin' down; whereby he and +his man spent the better part of two hours in a God-forsaken lane +somewhere t'other side of Hen's Beacon, tryin' to make her go. +He'd timed hisself to reach here punctual for the lunchin' the Missus +always has ready on Confirmation Day: nobody to meet his Lordship but +theirselves and the two Churchwardens; an' you may guess that Hancock +and Truslove had turned up early in their best broadcloth, lookin' to +have the time o' their lives. + +"They were pretty keen-set, too, by one o'clock, bein' used to eat +their dinners at noon sharp. One o'clock comes--no Bishop: two +o'clock and still no Bishop. 'There's been a naccydent,' says the +Missus: 'but thank the Lord the vittles is cold!' 'Maybe he've forgot +the day,' says the Vicar; 'but any way, we'll give en another +ha'f-hour's grace an' then set-to,' says he, takin' pity on the +noises old Truslove was makin' inside his weskit. . . . So said, so +done. At two-thirty--service bein' fixed for ha'f-after-three--they +all fell to work. + +"You d'know, I dare say, what a craze the Missus have a-took o' late +against the drinkin' habit. Sally, the parlourmaid, told me as how, +first along, th' old lady set out by hintin' that the Bishop, bein' a +respecter o' conscience, wouldn' look for anything stronger on the +table than home-brewed lemonade. But there the Vicar struck; and +findin' no way to shake him, she made terms by outin' with two +bottles o' wine that, to her scandal, she'd rummaged out from a +cupboard o' young Master Dick's since he went back to Oxford College. +She decanted 'em [chuckle], an' th' old Vicar allowed, havin' tasted +the stuff, that--though he had lost the run o' wine lately, an' didn' +reckernise whether 'twas port or what-not--seemin' to him 'twas a +sound wine and fit for any gentleman's table. 'Well, at any rate,' +says the Missus, 'my boy shall be spared the temptation: an' I hope +'tis no sign he's betaken hisself to secret drinkin'!' + +"Well, then, it was decanted: an' Hancock and Truslove, nothin' +doubtful, begun to lap it up like so much milk--the Vicar helpin', +and the Missus rather encouragin' than not, to the extent o' the +first decanter; thinkin' that 'twas good riddance to the stuff and +that if the Bishop turned up, he wouldn't look, as a holy man, for +more than ha'f a bottle. I'm tellin' it you as Sally told it to me. +She says that everything went on as easy as eggs in a nest until she +started to hand round the sweets, and all of a sudden she didn' know +what was happenin' at table, nor whether she was on her head or her +heels. . . . All I can tell you, sir, is that me and Battershall"-- +Battershall is the vicarage gardener, stableman, and factotum--"was +waitin' in the stables, wonderin' when in the deuce the Bishop would +turn up, when we heard the whistle blown from the kitchen: which was +the signal. Out we ran; an' there to be sure was the Bishop comin' +down the drive in a hired trap. But between him and the house-- +slap-bang, as you might say, in the middle of the lawn--was our two +Churchwardens, stripped mother-naked to the waist, and sparring: and +from the window just over the porch th' old Missus screaming out to +us to separate 'em. No, nor that wasn't the worst: for, as his +Lordship's trap drove up, the two tom-fools stopped their boxin' to +stand 'pon their toes and blow kisses at him! + +"I must say that Battershall showed great presence o' mind. +He shouted to me to tackle Truslove, while he ran up to Matthey +Hancock an' butted him in the stomach; an' together we'd heaved the +two tom-fools into the shrubbery almost afore his Lordship could +believe his eyes. I won't say what had happened to the Vicar, for I +don't rightways know. All I can get out o' Sally--she's a modest +wench--is that--that--_he wanted to be a Statoo!_ . . ." + +"Quite so," I interrupted, edging towards the gate and signifying +with a gesture of the hand that I had heard enough. + +Old Trewoon's voice followed me. + +"I reckon, sir, we best agree, for the sake o' the dear old fella, +that such a sight as them two Churchwardens was enough to make any +gentleman take to his bed. But"--as the gate rang on its hasp and +rang again--"I've been thinkin' powerful _what might ha' happened if +his Lordship had turned up in due time to partake_." + + +Master Dick is a good boy; and when we met in the Christmas vacation +no allusion was made to the Mont-Bazillac. On my part, I am absolved +from my promised confession, and my lips shall remain locked. +That great, that exhilarating, that redoubtable wine, has--with the +nuptials of M. Sebillot's daughter--perished finally from earth. +I wonder what happened in Bergerac on that occasion, and if it had a +comparable apotheosis! + + + +THE THREE NECKLACES. + + +"A great nation!" said the little Cure. "But yes, indeed, the +English are a very great nation. And now I have seen them at home! +But it passes expression, monsieur, what a traveller I find myself!" + +We stood together on the deck of the steamer, watching--after an +eight hours' passage from Plymouth--the Breton coast as it loomed +out of the afternoon haze. Our crossing had been smooth, yet +sea-sickness had prostrated all his compatriots on board--five or six +priests, as many religieuses, and maybe a dozen peasants, whom I +supposed to be attached in some way to the service of the religious +orders the priests represented. (Of late years, since the French +Government expelled them, quite a number of these orders have found a +home in our West Country.) On my way to the docks that morning I had +overtaken and passed them straggling by twos and threes to the +steamer, the men in broad-brimmed hats with velvet ribbons, the women +coifed and bodiced after the fashion of their country, each group +shepherded by a priest; and I had noted how strange and almost +forlorn a figure they cut in the grey English streets. If some of +the strangeness had worn off, they certainly appeared no less forlorn +as they sat huddled in physical anguish, dumb, immobile, staring at +the sea. + +The little Cure, however, was vivacious enough for ten. It was +impossible to avoid making friends with him. He had nothing to do, +he told me, with his companions, but was just a plain parish priest +returning from an errand of business. + +He announced this with a fine roll of the voice. + +"Of business," he repeated. "The English are a great nation for +business. But how warm of heart, notwithstanding!" + +"That is not always reckoned to us," said I. + +"But _I_ reckon it . . . _Tenez_, that will be Ile Vierge--there, +with the lighthouse standing white--as it were, beneath the cliffs; +but the cliffs belong in fact to the mainland. . . . And now in a few +minutes we come abreast of _my_ parish--the Ile Lezan. . . . See, +see!" He caught my arm as the tide raced us down through the Passage +du Four. "My church--how her spire stands up!" He turned to me, his +voice shaking with emotion. "You English are accustomed to travel. +Probably you do not guess, monsieur, with what feelings I see again +Ile Lezan--I, who have never crossed the Channel before nor indeed +have visited any foreign land. But I am glad: it spreads the mind." +Here he put his hands together and drew them apart as though +extending a concertina. "I have seen you English at home. +If monsieur, who is on tour, could only spare the time to visit me on +Ile Lezan!" + +Well, the end of it was that before we parted on the quay at Brest I +found myself under half a promise, and a week later, having (as I put +it to myself) nothing better to do, I took the train to a little +wind-swept terminus, whence a ramshackle cart jolted me to Port +Lezan, on the coast, whence again by sail and oar a ferry-boat +conveyed me over to the Island. + +My friend the Cure greeted me with something not far short of +ecstasy. + +"But this is like you English--you keep your word. . . . You will +hardly believe," he confided, as I shared his admirable dejeuner-- +soup, langouste, an incomparable omelet, stuffed veal, and I forget +what beside--"you will hardly believe with what difficulty I bring +myself back to this horizon." He waved a hand to the blue sea-line +beyond his window. "When one has tasted progress--" He broke off. +"But, thanks be to God, we too, on Ile Lezan, are going to progress. +You will visit my church and see how much we have need." + +He took me to it: a bleak, decayed building, half ruinated, the +slated pavement uneven as the waves of the sea, the plastered walls +dripping with saline ooze. From the roof depended three or four +rudely carved ships, hung there _ex voto_ by parishioners preserved +from various perils of the deep. He narrated their histories at +length. + +"The roof leaks," he said, "but we are to remedy that. At length the +blessed Mary of Lezan will be housed, if not as befits her, at least +not shamefully." He indicated a niched statue of the Virgin, with +daubed red cheeks and a robe of crude blue overspread with blotches +of sea-salt. "Thanks to your England," he added. + +"Why 'thanks to England'?" + +He chuckled--or perhaps I had better say chirruped. + +"Did I not say I had been visiting your country on business? Eh? +You shall hear the story--only I tell no names." + +He took snuff. + +"We will call them," he said, "only by their Christian names, which +are Lucien and Jeanne. . . . I am to marry them next month, when +Lucien gets his relief from the lighthouse on Ile Ouessant. + +"They are an excellent couple. As between them, the wits are with +Lucien, who will doubtless rise in his profession. He has been +through temptation, as you shall hear. For Jeanne, she is _un coeur +simple_, as again you will discover; not clever at all--oh, by no +means!--yet one of the best of my children. It is really to Jeanne +that we owe it all. . . . I have said so to Lucien, and just at the +moment Lucien was trying to say it to me. + +"They were betrothed, you understand. Lucien was nineteen, and +Jeanne maybe a year younger. From the beginning, it had been an +understood thing: to this extent understood, that Lucien, instead of +sailing to the fishery (whither go most of the young men of Ile Lezan +and the coast hereabouts) was destined from the first to enter the +lighthouse service under Government. The letters I have written to +Government on his behalf! . . . I am not one of those who quarrel +with the Republic. Still--a priest, and in this out-of-the-way +spot--what is he? + +"However, Lucien got his appointment. The pay? Enough to marry on, +for a free couple. But the families were poor on both sides--long +families, too. Folk live long on Ile Lezan--women-folk especially; +accidents at the fishery keep down the men. Still, and allowing for +that, the average is high. Lucien had even a great-grandmother +alive--a most worthy soul--and on Jeanne's side the grandparents +survived on both sides. Where there are grandparents they must be +maintained. + +"No one builds on Ile Lezan. Luden and Jeanne--on either side their +families crowded to the very windows. If only the smallest hovel +might fall vacant! . . . For a week or two it seemed that a cottage +might drop in their way; but it happened to be what you call +picturesque, and a rich man snapped it up. He was a stranger from +Paris, and called himself an artist; but in truth he painted little, +and that poorly--as even _I_ could see. He was fonder of planning +what he would have, and what not, to indulge his mood when it should +be in the key for painting. Happening here just when the cottage +fell empty, he offered a price for it far beyond anything Lucien +could afford, and bought it. For a month or two he played with this +new toy, adding a studio and a veranda, and getting over many large +crates of furniture from the mainland. Then by and by a restlessness +overtook him--that restlessness which is the disease of the rich--and +he left us, yet professing that it delighted him always to keep his +little _pied-a-terre_ in Ile Lezan. He has never been at pains to +visit us since. + +"But meanwhile Lucien and Jeanne had no room to marry and set up +house. It was a heavy time for them. They had some talk together of +crossing over and finding a house on the mainland; but it came to +nothing. The parents on both sides would not hear of it, and in +truth Jeanne would have found it lonely on the mainland, away from +her friends and kin; for Lucien, you see, must in any case spend half +his time on the lighthouse on Ile Ouessant. So many weeks on duty, +so many weeks ashore--thus it works, and even so the loneliness wears +them; though our Bretons, being silent men by nature, endure it +better than the rest. + +"Lucien and Jeanne must wait--wait for somebody to die. In plain +words it came to that. Ah, monsieur! I have heard well-to-do folk +talk of our poor as unfeeling. That is an untruth. But suppose it +were true. Where would the blame lie in such a story as this? +Like will to like, and young blood is hot. . . . Lucien and Jeanne, +however, were always well conducted. . . . Yes, yes, my story? +Six months passed, and then came word that our rich artist desired to +sell his little _pied-a-terre_; but he demanded the price he had +given for it, and, moreover, what he called compensation for the +buildings he had added. Also he would only sell or let it with the +furniture; he wished, in short, to disencumber himself of his +purchase, and without loss. This meant that Lucien less than ever +could afford to buy; and there are no money-lenders on Ile Lezan. +The letter came as he was on the point of departing for another six +weeks on Ile Ouessant: and that evening the lovers' feet took them to +the nest they had so often dreamed of furnishing. There is no +prettier cottage on the island--I will show it to you on our way +back. Very disconsolately they looked at it, but there was no cure. +Lucien left early next morning. + +"That was last autumn, a little before the wreck of your great +English steamship the _Rougemont Castle_. Days after, the tides +carried some of the bodies even here, to Ile Lezan; but not many-- +four or five at the most--and we, cut off from shore around this +corner of the coast, were long in hearing the terrible news. +Even the lighthouse-keepers on Ile Ouessant knew nothing of it until +morning, for she struck in the night, you remember, attempting to run +through the Inner Passage and save her time. + +"I believe--but on this point will not be certain--that the alarm +first came to Lucien, and in the way I shall tell you. At any rate +he was walking alone in the early morning, and somewhere along the +shore to the south of the lighthouse, when he came on a body lying on +the seaweed in a gully of the rocks. + +"It was the body of a woman, clad only in a nightdress. As he +stooped over her, Lucien saw that she was exceeding beautiful; yet +not a girl, but a well-developed woman of thirty or thereabouts, with +heavy coils of dark hair, well-rounded shoulders, and (as he +described it to me later on) a magnificent throat. + +"He had reason enough to remark her throat, for as he turned the body +over--it lay on its right side--to place a hand over the heart, if +perchance some life lingered, the nightdress, open at the throat, +disclosed one, two, three superb necklaces of diamonds. There were +rings of diamonds on her fingers, too, and afterwards many fine gems +were found sewn within a short vest or camisole of silk she wore +under her nightdress. But Lucien's eyes were fastened on the three +necklaces. + +"Doubtless the poor lady, aroused in her berth as the ship struck, +had clasped these hurriedly about her throat before rushing on deck. +So, might her life be spared, she would save with it many thousands +of pounds. They tell me since that in moments of panic women always +think first of their jewels. + +"But here she lay drowned, and the jewels--as I said, Lucien could +not unglue his eyes from them. At first he stared at them stupidly. +Not for some minutes did his mind grasp that they represented great +wealth; and even when the temptation grew, it whispered no more than +that here was money--maybe even a hundred pounds--but enough, at all +events, added to his savings, to purchase the cottage at home, and +make him and Jeanne happy for the rest of their lives. + +"His fingers felt around to the clasps. One by one he detached the +necklaces and slipped them into his trousers' pocket. + +"He also managed to pull off one of the rings; but found this a more +difficult matter, because the fingers were swollen somewhat with the +salt water. So he contented himself with one, and ran back to the +lighthouse to give the alarm to his comrades. + +"When his comrades saw the body there was great outcry upon the +jewels on its fingers; but none attempted to disturb them, and Lucien +kept his own counsel. They carried the poor thing to a store-chamber +at the base of the lighthouse, and there before nightfall they had +collected close upon thirty bodies. There was much talk in the +newspapers afterwards concerning the honesty of our poor Bretons, who +pillaged none of the dead, but gave up whatever they found. +The relatives and the great shipping company subscribed a fund, of +which a certain small portion came even to Ile Lezan to be +administered by me. + +"The poor lady with the necklaces? If you read the accounts in the +newspapers, as no doubt you did, you will already have guessed her +name. Yes, in truth, she was your great soprano, whom they called +Madame Chiara, or La Chiara: so modest are you English, at least in +all that concerns the arts, that when an incomparable singer is born +to you she must go to Italy to borrow a name. She was returning from +South Africa, where the finest of the three necklaces had been +presented to her by subscription amongst her admirers. They say her +voice so ravished the audiences at Johannesburg and Pretoria that she +might almost, had she willed, have carried home the great diamond +they are sending to your King. But that, no doubt, was an invention +of the newspapers. + +"For certain, at any rate, the necklace was a superb one; nor do I +speak without knowledge, as you shall hear. Twenty-seven large +stones--between each a lesser stone--and all of the purest water! +The other two were scarcely less magnificent. It was a brother who +came over and certified the body; for her husband she had divorced in +America, and her father was an English clergyman, old and infirm, +seldom travelling beyond the parish where he lives in a chateau and +reigns as a king. It seems that these things happen in England. +At first he was only a younger son, and dwelt in the rectory as a +plain parish priest, and there he married and brought up his family; +but his elder brother dying, he became seigneur of the parish too, +and moved into a great house, yet with little money to support it +until his only daughter came back from studying at Milan and +conquered London. The old gentleman speaks very modestly about it. +Oh, yes, I have seen and talked with him. And what a garden! +The azaleas! the rhododendrons! But he is old, and his senses +somewhat blunted. He lives in the past--not his own, but his +family's rather. He spoke to me of his daughter without emotion, and +said that her voice was undoubtedly derived from three generations +back, when an ancestor--a baronet--had married with an opera-singer. + +"But we were talking of the necklaces and of the ring which Lucien +had taken. . . . He told his secret to nobody, but kept them ever in +his trousers' pocket. Only, when he could escape away from his +comrades to some corner of the shore, he would draw the gems forth +and feast his eyes on them. I believe it weighed on him very little +that he had committed a crime or a sin. Longshore folk have great +ease of conscience respecting all property cast up to them by the +sea. They regard all such as their rightful harvest: the feeling is +in their blood, and I have many times argued in vain against it. +Once while I argued, here in Ile Lezan, an old man asked me, 'But, +Father, if it were not for such chances, why should any man choose to +dwell by the sea?' If, monsieur, you lived among them and knew their +hardships, you would see some rude sense in that question. + +"To Lucien, feasting his eyes by stealth on the diamonds and counting +the days to his relief, the stones meant that Jeanne and happiness +were now close within his grasp. There would be difficulty, to be +sure, in disposing of them; but with Jeanne's advice--she had a +practical mind--and perhaps with Jeanne's help, the way would not be +hard to find. He was inclined to plume himself on the ease with +which, so far, it had been managed. His leaving the rings, and the +gems sewn within the camisole--though to be sure these were not +discovered for many hours--had been a masterstroke. He and his +comrades had been complimented together upon their honesty. + +"The relief came duly; and in this frame of mind--a little sly, +but more than three parts triumphant--he returned to Ile Lezan and +was made welcome as something of a hero. (To do him credit, he had +worked hard in recovering the bodies from the wreck.) At all times +it is good to arrive home after a spell on the lighthouse. +The smell of nets drying and of flowers in the gardens, the faces on +the quay, and the handshakes, and the first church-going--they all +count. But to Lucien these things were for once as little compared +with the secret he carried. His marriage now was assured, and that +first evening--the Eve of Noel--he walked with Jeanne up the road to +the cottage, and facing it, told her his secret. They could be +married now. He promised it, and indicated the house with a wave of +the hand almost proprietary. + +"But Jeanne looked at him as one scared, and said: 'Shall I marry a +thief?' + +"Then, very quietly, she asked for a look at the jewels, and he +handed them to her. She had never set eyes on diamonds before, but +all women have an instinct for jewels, and these made her gasp. +'Yes,' she owned, 'I could not have believed that the world contained +such beautiful things. I am sorry thou hast done this wickedness, +but I understand how they tempted thee.' + +"'What is this you are chanting?' demanded Lucien. 'The stones were +nothing to me. I thought only that by selling them we two could set +up house as man and wife.' + +"'My dear one,' said Jeanne, 'what happiness could we have known with +this between us?' What with the diamonds in her hand and the little +cottage there facing her, so long desired, she was forced to shut her +eyes for a moment; but when she opened them again her voice was quite +firm. 'We must restore them where they belong. It may be that Pere +Thomas can help us; but I must think of a way. Give them to me, and +let me keep them while I think of a way.' + +"'You do not love me as I love you,' said Lucien in his anger and +disappointment; but he knew, all the same, that he spoke an untruth. + +"Jeanne took the diamonds home with her, to her bedroom, and sat for +some time on the edge of her bed, thinking out a way. In the midst +of her thinking she stood up, walked over to the glass, and clasped +the finest of the necklaces about her throat. . . . I suppose no +woman of this country ever wore the like of it--no, not in the days +when there were kings and queens of Leon. . . . Jeanne was not +beautiful, but she gazed at herself with eyes like those of a patient +in a fever. . . . Then of a sudden she felt the stones burning her as +though they had been red-hot coals. She plucked them off, and cast +herself on her knees beside the bed." + + +"You will remember that this was the Eve of Noel, when the children +of the parish help me to deck the _creche_ for the infant Christ. We +take down the images--see, there is St. Joseph, and there yonder Our +Lady, in the side chapel; the two oxen and a sheep are put away in +the vestry, in a cupboard full of camphor. We have the Three Kings +too. . . . In short, we put our hearts into the dressing-up. +By nightfall all is completed, and I turn the children out, reserving +some few last touches which I invent to surprise them when they come +again on Christmas morning. Afterwards I celebrate the Mass for the +Vigil, and then always I follow what has been a custom in this +parish, I believe, ever since the church was built. I blow out all +the candles but two, and remain here, seated, until the day breaks, +and the folk assemble to celebrate the first Mass of Noel. Eh? +It is discipline, but I bring rugs, and I will not say that all the +time my eyes are wide open. + +"Certainly I closed them on this night of which I am telling. For I +woke up with a start, and almost, you might say, in trepidation, for +it seemed to me that someone was moving in the church. My first +thought was that some mischievous child had crept in, and was playing +pranks with my _creche_, and to that first I made my way. Beyond the +window above it rode the flying moon, and in the rays of it what did +I see? + +"The figures stood as I had left them. But above the manger, over +the shoulders of the Virgin, blazed a rope of light--of diamonds such +as I have never seen nor shall see again--all flashing green and blue +and fieriest scarlet and piercing white. Of the Three Kings, also +each bore a gift, two of them a necklace apiece, and the third a +ring. I stood before the miracle, and my tongue clave to the roof of +my mouth, and then a figure crept out of the shadows and knelt in the +pool of moonlight at my feet. It was Jeanne. She caught at the +skirt of my soutane, and broke into sobbing. + +"'My father, let the Blessed One wear them ever, or else help me to +give them back!' + +"You will now guess, monsieur, on what business I have been visiting +England. It is a great country. The old clergyman sat among his +azaleas and rhododendrons and listened to all my story. Then he took +the box that held his daughter's jewels, and, emptying it upon the +table, chose out one necklace and set it aside. 'This one,' said he, +'shall be sold, my friend, and with the money you shall, after giving +this girl a marriage portion, re-adorn your church on Ile Lezan to +the greater glory of God!'" + +On our way back to his lodging the little Cure halted me before the +cottage. Gay curtains hung in the windows, and the veranda had been +freshly painted. + +"At the end of the month Lucien gets his relief, and then they are to +be married," said the little Cure. + + + +THE WREN. + + +A LEGEND. + +Early on St. Stephen's Day--which is the day after Christmas--young +John Cara, son of old John Cara, the smith of Porthennis, took down +his gun and went forth to kill small birds. He was not a sportsman; +it hurt him to kill any living creature. But all the young men in +the parish went slaughtering birds on St. Stephen's Day; and the +Parson allowed there was warrant for it, because, when St. Stephen +had almost escaped from prison, a small bird (by tradition a wren) +had chirped, and awakened his gaolers. + +Strange to say, John Cara's dislike of gunning went with a singular +aptitude for it. He had a quick sense with birds; could guess their +next movements just as though he read their minds; and rarely missed +his aim if he took it without giving himself time to think. + +Now the rest of youths, that day, chose the valley bottoms as a +matter of course, and trooped about in parties, with much whacking of +bushes. But John went up to Balmain--which is a high stony moor +overlooking the sea--because he preferred to be alone, and also +because, having studied their ways, he knew this to be the favourite +winter haunt of the small birds, especially of the wrens and the +titlarks. + +His mother had set her heart on making a large wranny-pie (that is, +wren-pie, but actually it includes all manner of birdlings). It was +to be the largest in the parish. She was vain of young John's +prowess, and would quote it when old John grumbled that the lad was +slow as a smith. "And yet," said old John, "backward isn't the word +so much as foolish. Up to a point he understands iron 'most so well +as I understand it myself. Then some notion takes him, and my back's +no sooner turned than he spoils his job. Always trying to make iron +do what iron won't do--that's how you may put it." The wife, who was +a silly woman, and (like many another such) looked down on her +husband's trade, maintained that her boy ought to have been born a +squire, with game of his own. + +Young John went up to Balmain; and there, sure enough, he found +wrens and titlarks flitting about everywhere, cheeping amid the +furze-bushes on the low stone hedges and the granite boulders, +where the winter rains had hollowed out little basins for themselves, +little by little, working patiently for hundreds of years. +The weather was cold, but still and sunny. As he climbed, the sea at +first made a blue strip beyond the cliff's edge on his right, then +spread into a wide blue floor, three hundred feet below him, and all +the width of it twinkling. Ahead and on his left all the moorland +twinkled too, with the comings and goings of the birds. The wrens +mostly went about their business--whatever that might be--in a sharp, +practical way, keeping silence; but the frail note of the titlarks +sounded here, there, everywhere. + +Young John might have shot scores of them. But, as he headed for the +old mine-house of Balmain and the cromlech, or Main-Stone, which +stands close beside it--and these are the only landmarks--he did not +even trouble to charge his gun. For the miracle was happening +already. + +It began--as perhaps most miracles do--very slowly and gently, +without his perceiving it; quite trivially, too, and even absurdly. +It started within him, upon a thought that wren-pie was a foolish +dish after all! His mother, who prided herself upon making it, did +but pretend to enjoy it after it was cooked. His father did not even +pretend: the mass of little bones in it cheated his appetite and +spoiled his temper. From this, young John went on to consider. +"Was it worth while to go on killing wrens and shamming an appetite +for them, only because a wren had once informed against St. Stephen? +How were _these_ wrens guilty? And, anyway, how were the titlarks +guilty?" Young John reasoned it out in this simple fashion. He came +to the Main-Stone, and seating himself on the turf, leaned his back +against one of the blocks which support the huge monolith. He sat +there for a long while, puckering his brows, his gun idle beside him. +At last he said to himself, but firmly and aloud: + +"Parson and the rest say 'tis true. But I can't believe it, and +something inside says 'tis wrong. . . . There! I won't shoot another +bird--and that settles it!" + +"Halleluia!" said a tiny voice somewhere above him. + +The voice, though' tiny, was shrill and positive. Young John +recognised, and yet did not recognise it. He stared up at the wall +of the old mine-house from which it had seemed to speak, but he could +see no one. Next he thought that the word must have come from his +own heart, answering a sudden gush of warmth and happiness that set +his whole body glowing. It was as if winter had changed to summer, +within him and without, and all in a moment. He blinked in the +stronger sunshine, and felt it warm upon his eyelids. + +"Halleluia!" said the voice again. It certainly came from the wall. +He looked again, and, scanning it in this strange, new light, was +aware of a wren in one of the crevices. + +"Will he? will he?" piped another voice, pretty close behind his ear. +Young John, now he had learnt that wrens can talk, had no difficulty +in recognising this other voice: it was the half-hearted note of the +titlark. He turned over on his side and peered into the shadow of +the Main-Stone; but in vain, for the titlark is a hesitating, unhappy +little soul that never quite dares to make up its mind. It used to +be the friend of a race that inhabited Cornwall ages ago. It builds +in their cromlechs, and its song remembers them. It is the bird, +too, in whose nest the cuckoo lays; so it knows all about losing +one's children and being dispossessed. + +"We will give him a gift," chirruped the wren, "and send him about +his business. He is the first man that has the sense to leave us to +ours." + +"But will he?--will he?" the titlark piped back ghostlily. "One can +never be sure. I have known men long, long before ever you came +here. I knew King Arthur. This rock was his table, and he dined +here with seven other kings on the night after they had beaten the +Danes at Vellandruchar. I hid under the stone and listened to them +passing the cups, and between their talk you could hear the stream +running down the valley--it turned the two mill-wheels, Vellandruchar +and Vellandreath, with blood that night. Even at daybreak it ran +high over the legs of the choughs walking on the beach below--that is +why the choughs go red-legged to this day. . . . They are few now, +but then they were many: and next spring they came and built in the +rigging of the Danes' ships, left ashore--for not a Dane had escaped. +But King Arthur had gone his way. Ah, he was a man!" + +"Nevertheless," struck in the wren, "this is a good fellow too; and a +smith, whose trade is as old as your King Arthur's. We will prosper +him in it." + +"What will you give him?" asked the titlark. + +"He is lying at this moment on the trefoil that commands all metals. +Let him look to his gun when he awakes." + +"Ah!" said the titlark, "I told you that secret. I was with Teague +the Smith when he discovered it. . . . But he discovered it too late; +and, besides, he was a dreamer, and used it only to make crosses and +charms and womanish ornaments." + +"It's no use to _us_, anyhow," said the practical wren. "So let us +give it away. I hate waste." + +"I doubt," said the titlark, "it will be much profit to him, +wonderful though it is." + +"Well," said the wren, "a present's a present. Folks with a living +to get must give what they can afford." + + +It is not wise, as a rule, to sleep on the bare ground in December. +But Young John awoke warm and jolly as a sandboy. He picked up his +gun. It was bent and curiously twisted in the barrel. "Hallo!" said +he, and peered closely into the short turf where it had lain. . . . + +When he reached home his mother cried out joyfully, seeing his +game-bag and how it bulged. She cried out to a different tune when +he showed her what it contained--clods and clumps of turf, matted +over with a tiny close-growing plant that might have been any common +moss for aught she knew (or recked) of the difference. + +"But where are all the birds you promised me?" + +He held out his gun--he had promised no birds, but that mattered +nothing. His father took it to the lamp and glanced at it; put on +his horn spectacles slowly, and peered at it. He was silent for a +long while. Young John had turned inattentively from his mother's +reproaches, and stood watching him. + +The old man swung about at length. "When did ye contrive this?" he +asked, rubbing the twist of the gun-barrel with his thumb. "And the +forge not heated all this day!" + +"We'll heat it to-night after supper," said Young John. + + +In the Church of Porthennis, up to twenty-five years ago, there +stood a screen of ironwork--a marvel of arabesques and intricate +traceries, with baskets of flowers, sea-monsters, Cherubim, tying the +filigree-work and looping it together in knots and centres. +One panel had for subject a spider midmost in a web, to visit which +smiths came hundreds of miles, from all over the country, and +wondered. For it was impossible to guess how iron had ever been +beaten to such thinness or drawn so ductile. But unhappily-and +priceless as was the secret Young John Cara had chosen to let die +with him--the art of it was frail, frail as the titlark's song. +His masterpiece, indeed, had in it the corruption of Celtic art. +It could not endure its native weather, and rusted away almost to +nothingness. When the late Sir Gilbert Aubyn, the famous neo-Gothic +architect, was called in (1885) to restore Porthennis Church--or, as +we say in Cornwall, to "restroy" it--he swept the remnants away. +But the legend survives, _ferro perennius_. + + + +NOT HERE, O APPOLLO! + + +A CHRISTMAS STORY HEARD AT MIDSUMMER. + +We sat and talked in the Vicarage garden overlooking Mount's Bay. +The long summer day lingered out its departure, although the full +moon was up and already touching with a faint radiance the towers on +St. Michael's Mount--'the guarded Mount'--that rested as though at +anchor in the silver-grey offing. The land-breeze had died down +with sunset; the Atlantic lay smooth as a lake below us, and melted, +league upon league, without horizon into the grey of night. +Between the Vicar's fuchsia-bushes we looked down on it, we three-- +the Vicar, the Senior Tutor and I. + +I think the twilit hour exactly accorded with our mood, and it did +not need the scent of the Vicar's ten-week stocks, wafted across the +garden, to touch a nerve of memory. For it was twenty years since we +had last sat in this place and talked, and the summer night seemed to +be laden with tranquil thoughts, with friendship and old regard. + . . . Twenty years ago I had been an undergraduate, and had made one +of a reading-party under the Senior Tutor, who annually in the Long +Vacation brought down two or three fourth-year men to bathe and boat +and read Plato with him, for no pay but their friendship: and, +generation after generation, we young men had been made welcome in +this garden by the Vicar, who happened to be an old member of our +College and (as in time I came to see) delighted to renew his youth +in ours. There had been daughters, too, in the old days. . . . +But they had married, and the Vicarage nest was empty long since. + +The Senior Tutor, too, had given up work and retired upon his +Fellowship. But every summer found him back at his old haunts; and +still every summer brought a reading-party to the Cove, in conduct +now of a brisk Junior Fellow, who had read with me in our time and +achieved a "first." In short, things at the Cove were pretty much +the same after twenty years, barring that a small colony of painters +had descended upon it and made it their home. With them the +undergraduates had naturally and quickly made friends, and the result +was a cricket match--a grand Two-days' Cricket Match. They were all +extremely serious about it, and the Oxford party--at their wits' end, +no doubt, to make up a team against the Artists--had bethought +themselves of me, who dwelt at the other end of the Duchy. They had +written--they had even sent a two-page telegram--to me, who had not +handled a bat for more years than I cared to count. It is delicious +to be flattered by youth, especially for gifts you never possessed or +possess no longer. I yielded and came. The season was Midsummer, or +a little after; the weather golden and glorious. + +We had drawn stumps after the first day's play, and the evening was +to be wound up with a sing-song in the great tent erected--a marvel +to the "Covers," or native fishermen--on the cricket-field. But I no +longer take kindly to such entertainments; and so, after a bathe and +a quiet dinner at the inn, it came into my mind to take a stroll up +the hill and along the cliffs, and pay an evening call on the old +Vicar, wondering if he would remember me. + +I found him in his garden. The Senior Tutor was there too--"the +grave man, nicknamed Adam"--and the Vicar's wife, seated in a +bee-hive straw chair, knitting. So we four talked happily for a +while, until she left us on pretence that the dew was falling; and +with that, as I have said, a wonderful silence possessed the garden +fragrant with memories and the night-scent of flowers. . . + +Then I let fall the word that led to the Vicar's story. In old +rambles, after long mornings spent with Plato, my eyes (by mirage, no +doubt) had always found something Greek in the curves and colour of +this coast; or rather, had felt the want of it. What that something +was I could hardly have defined: but the feeling was always with me. +It was as if at each bend of the shore I expected to find a temple +with pillars, or a column crowning the next promontory; or, where the +coast-track wound down to the little haven, to happen on a votive +tablet erected to Poseidon or to "Helen's brothers, lucent stars"; +nay, to meet with Odysseus' fisherman carrying an oar on his +shoulder, or even, in an amphitheatre of the cliffs, to surprise +Apollo himself and the Nine seated on a green plat whence a waterfall +gushed down the coombe to the sandy beach . . . . This evening on my +way along the cliffs--perhaps because I had spent a day bathing in +sunshine in the company of white-flannelled youths--the old sensation +had returned to haunt me. I spoke of it. + +"'Not here, O Apollo--'" murmured the Senior Tutor. + +"You quote against your own scepticism," said I. "The coast is right +enough; it _is_" + + Where Helicon breaks down + In cliff to the sea. + +"It was made to invite the authentic gods--only the gods never found +it out." + +"Did they not?" asked the Vicar quietly. The question took us a +little aback, and after a pause his next words administered another +small shock. "One never knows," he said, "when, or how near, the +gods have passed. One may be listening to us in this garden, +to-night. . . . As for the Greeks--" + +"Yes, yes, we were talking of the Greeks," the Senior Tutor (a +convinced agnostic) put in hastily. "If we leave out Pytheas, no +Greeks ever visited Cornwall. They are as mythical hereabouts as"-- +he hesitated, seeking a comparison--"as the Cornish wreckers; and +_they_ never existed outside of pious story-books." + +Said the Vicar, rising from his garden-chair, "I accept the omen. +Wait a moment, you two." He left us and went across the dim lawn to +the house, whence by and by he returned bearing a book under his arm, +and in his hand a candle, which he set down unlit upon the wicker +table among the coffee-cups. + +"I am going," he said, "to tell you something which, a few years ago, +I should have scrupled to tell. With all deference to your opinions, +my dear Dick, I doubt if they quite allow you to understand the +clergy's horror of chancing a heresy; indeed, I doubt if either of +you quite guess what a bridle a man comes to wear who preaches a +hundred sermons or so every year to a rural parish, knowing that +nine-tenths of his discourse will assuredly be lost, while at any +point in the whole of it he may be fatally misunderstood. . . . Yet +as a man nears his end he feels an increasing desire to be honest, +neither professing more than he knows, nor hiding any small article +of knowledge as inexpedient to the Faith. The Faith, he begins to +see, can take care of itself: for him, it is important to await his +marching-orders with a clean breast. Eh, Dick?" + +The Senior Tutor took his pipe from his mouth and nodded slowly. + +"But what is your book?" he asked. + +"My Parish Register. Its entries cover the years from 1660 to 1827. +Luckily I had borrowed it from the vestry box, and it was safe on my +shelf in the Vicarage on the Christmas Eve of 1870, the night when +the church took fire. That was in my second year as incumbent, and +before ever you knew these parts." + +"By six months," said the Senior Tutor. "I first visited the Cove in +July, 1871, and you were then beginning to clear the ruins. All the +village talk still ran on the fire, with speculations on the cause of +it." + +"The cause," said the Vicar, "will never be known. I may say that +pretty confidently, having spent more time in guessing than will ever +be spent by another man. . . . But since you never saw the old church +as it stood, you never saw the Heathen Lovers in the south aisle." + +"Who were they?" + +"They were a group of statuary, and a very strange one; executed, as +I first believed, in some kind of wax--but, pushing my researches +(for the thing interested me) I found the material to be a white +soapstone that crops out here and there in the crevices of our +serpentine. Indeed, I know to a foot the spot from which the +sculptor took it, close on two hundred years ago." + +"It was of no great age, then?" + +"No: and yet it bore all the marks of an immense age. For to begin +with, it had stood five-and-twenty years in this very garden, exposed +to all weathers, and the steatite (as they call it) is of all +substances the most friable--is, in fact, the stuff used by tailors +under the name of French chalk. Again, when, in 1719, my +predecessor, old Vicar Hichens, removed it to the church and set it +in the south aisle--or, at any rate, when he died and ceased to +protect it--the young men of the parish took to using it for a +hatstand, and also to carving their own and their sweethearts' names +upon it during sermon-time. The figures of the sculpture were two; a +youth and a maid, recumbent, and naked but for a web of drapery flung +across their middles; and they lay on a roughly carved rock, over +which the girl's locks as well as the drapery were made to hang limp, +as though dripping with water. . . . One thing more I must tell you, +risking derision; that to my ignorance the sculpture proclaimed its +age less by these signs of weather and rough usage than by the +simplicity of its design, its proportions, the chastity (there's no +other word) of the two figures. They were classical, my dear Dick-- +what was left of them; Greek, and of the best period." + +The Senior Tutor lit a fresh pipe, and by the flare of the match I +saw his eyes twinkling. + +"Praxiteles," he jerked out, between the puffs, "and in the age of +Kneller! But proceed, my friend." + +"And do you wait, my scoffer!" The Vicar borrowed the box of +matches, lit the candle--which held a steady flame in the still +evening air--opened the book, and laid it on his knee while he +adjusted his spectacles. "The story is here, entered on a separate +leaf of the Register and signed by Vicar Hichens' own hand. +With your leave--for it is brief--I am going to read it through to +you. The entry is headed:" + +'_Concerning a group of Statuary now in the S. aisle of Lezardew +Parish Church: set there by me in witness of God's Providence in +operation, as of the corruption of man's heart, and for a warning to +sinners to amend their ways_. + +'In the year 1694, being the first of my vicariate, there lived in +this Parish as hind to the farmer of Vellancoose a young man +exceeding comely and tall of stature, of whom (when I came to ask) +the people could tell me only that his name was Luke, and that as a +child he had been cast ashore from a foreign ship; they said, a +Portugal ship. [But the Portugals have swart complexions and are +less than ordinary tall, whereas this youth was light-coloured and +only brown by sunburn.] Nor could he tell me anything when I +questioned him concerning his haveage; which I did upon report that +he was courting my housemaiden Grace Pascoe, an honest good girl, +whom I was loth to see waste herself upon an unworthy husband. +Upon inquiry I could not discover this Luke to be any way unworthy, +saving that he was a nameless man and a foreigner and a backward +church-goer. He told me with much simplicity that he could not +remember to have had any parents; that Farmer Lowry had brought him +up from the time he was shipwrecked and ever treated him kindly; and +that, as for church-going, he had thought little about it, but would +amend in this matter if it would give me pleasure. Which I thought a +strange answer. When I went on to hint at his inclination for Grace +Pascoe, he confused me by asking, with a look very straight and +good-natured, if the girl had ever spoken to me on the matter; to +which I was forced to answer that she had not. So he smiled, and I +could not further press him. + +'Yet in my mind they would have made a good match; for the girl too +was passing well-featured, and this Luke had notable gifts. He could +read and write. The farmer spoke well of him, saying, "He has +rewarded me many times over. Since his coming, thanks to the Lord, +my farm prospers: and in particular he has a wonderful way with the +beasts. Cattle or sheep, fowls, dogs, the wild things even, come to +him almost without a call." He had also (the farmer told me) a +wonderful knack of taking clay or mud and moulding it with his hands +to the likeness of living creatures, of all sorts and sizes. In the +kitchen by the great fire he would work at these images by hours +together, to the marvel of everyone: but when the image was made, +after a little while he always destroyed it; nor was it ever begged +by anyone for a gift, there being a belief that, being fashioned by +more than a man's skill, such things could only bring ill-luck to the +possessors of them. + +'For months then I heard no more of Grace Pascoe's lover: nor (though +he now came every Sunday to church) did I ever see looks pass between +the Vicarage pew (where she sat) and the Vellancoose pew (where he). +But at the end of the year she came to me and told me she had given +her word to a young farmer of Goldsithney, John Magor by name. In a +worldly way this was a far better match for her than to take a +nameless and landless man. Nor knew I anything against John Magor +beyond some stray wildness natural to youth. He came of clean blood. +He was handsome, almost as the other; tall, broad of chest, a +prizewinner at wrestling-matches; and of an age when a good wife is +usually a man's salvation. + +'I called their banns, and in due time married them. On the +wedding-day, after the ceremony, I returned from church to find the +young man Luke awaiting me by my house-door; who very civilly desired +me to walk over to Vellancoose with him, which I did. There, taking +me aside to an unused linhay, he showed me the sculpture, telling me +(who could not conceal my admiration) that he had meant it for John +and Grace Magor (as she now was) for a wedding-gift, but that the +young woman had cried out against it as immodest and, besides, +unlucky. On the first count I could understand her rejecting such a +gift; for the folk of these parts know nothing of statuary and count +all nakedness immodest. Indeed, I wondered that the bridegroom had +not taken Luke's freedom in ill part, and I said so: to which he +answered, smiling, that no man ever quarrelled with him or could +quarrel. "And now, sir," he went on, "my apprenticeship is up, and I +am going on a long journey. Since you find my group pleasing I would +beg you to accept it, or--if you had liefer--to keep it for me until +I come again, as some day I shall." "I do not wonder," said I, "at +your wish to leave Lezardew Parish for the world where, as I augur, +great fortune awaits you." He smiled again at this and said that, +touching his future, he had neither any hope nor any fear: and again +he pressed me to accept the statuary. For a time I demurred, and in +the end made it a condition that he altered the faces somewhat, +concealing the likeness to John and Grace Magor: and to this he +consented. "Yet," said he, "it will be the truer likeness when the +time comes." + +'He was gone on the morrow by daybreak, and late that afternoon the +farmer brought me the statuary in his hay-wagon. I had it set in the +garden by the great filberd-tree, and there it has stood for near +five-and-twenty years. (I ought to say that he had kept his promise +of altering the faces, and thereby to my thinking had defaced their +beauty: but beneath this defacement I still traced their first +likeness.) + +'Now to speak of the originals. My way lying seldom by Goldsithney, +I saw little of John and Grace Magor during the next few years, and +nothing at all of them after they had left Goldsithney (their +fortunes not prospering) and rented a smaller farm on the coast +southward, below Rosudgeon: but what news came to me was ever of the +same tenour. Their marriage had brought neither children nor other +blessings. There were frequent quarrels, and the man had yielded to +drinking; the woman, too, it was reported. She, that had been so +trim a serving-maid, was become a slut with a foul tongue. They were +cruelly poor with it all; for money does not always stick to unclean +hands. I write all this to my reproach as well as to theirs, for +albeit they dwelt in another parish it had been my Christian duty to +seek them out. I did not, and I was greatly to blame. + +'To pass over many years and come to the 2nd of December last (1718). +That night, about 11 o'clock, I sat in my library reading. It was +blowing hard without, the wind W.N.W.; but I had forgotten the gale +in my book, when a sound, as it were a distant outcry of many voices, +fetched me to unbar the shutters and open the window to listen. +The sound, whatever it was, had died away: I heard but the wind +roaring and the surf on the beaches along the Bay: and I was closing +the window again when, close at hand, a man's voice called to me to +open the front door. I went out to the hall, where a lamp stood, and +opened to him. The light showed me the young man Luke, on whom I had +not set eyes for these four-and-twenty years: nor, amazed and +perturbed as I was, did it occur to me as marvellous that he had not +aged a day. "There is a wreck," said he, "in the Porth below here; +and you, sir, are concerned in it. Will you fetch a lantern and come +with me?" He put this as a question, but in his tone was a command: +and when I brought the lantern he took it from me and led the way. +We struck across the Home Parc southward, thence across Gew Down and +the Leazes, and I knew that he was making for the track which leads +down to the sea by Prah Sands. At the entry of the track he took off +his coat and wrapped the lantern in it, though just there its light +would have been most useful, or so I thought. But he led the way +easily, and I followed with scarce a stumble. "We shall not need +it," he said; "for see, there they are!" pointing to a small light +that moved on the sands below us. "But who are they?" I asked. +He strode down ahead of me, making swiftly for the light, and coming +upon them in the noise of the gale we surprised a man and a woman, +who at first cowered before us and then would have cast down their +light and run. But my companion, unwrapping the lantern, held it +high and so that the light shone on their faces. They were John +Magor and his wife Grace. + +'Then I, remembering what cry of shipwrecked souls had reached to my +library in the Vicarage, and well guessing what work these wretches +had been at, lifted my voice to accuse them. But the young man Luke +stepped between us, and said he to them gently, "Come, and I will +show what you seek." He went before us for maybe two hundred yards +to the northern end of the beach, they behind him quaking, and I +shepherding them in my righteous wrath. "Behold you," said he, and +again lifted the lantern over a rock dark with seaweed (and yet the +weed shone in the light)--"Behold you, what you have wrecked." + +'On their backs along the flat of the rock lay two naked bodies, of a +youth and a maid, half-clasped one to another. He handed me the +lantern for a better look, and in the rays of it the two wretches +peered forward as if drawn against their will. I cannot well say if +they or I first perceived the miracle; that these corpses, as they +lay in the posture, so bore the very likeness of the two lovers on my +sculptured slab. But I remember that, as John and Grace Magor +screamed back and clung to me, and as by the commotion of them +clutching at my knees the lantern fell and was extinguished, I heard +the young man Luke say, "Yourselves, yourselves!" + +'I called to him to pick up the lantern; but he did not answer, and +the two clinging wretches encumbered me. After a long while the +clouds broke and the moon shone through them; and where he had stood +there was no one. Also the slab of rock was dark, and the two +drowned corpses had vanished with him. I pointed to it; but there +was no tinder-box at hand to light the lantern again, and in the +bitter weather until the dawn the two clung about me, confessing and +rehearsing their sins. + +'I have great hopes that they are brought to a better way of life; +and because (repent they never so much) no one is any longer likely +to recognise in these penitents the originals upon whom it was +moulded these many years ago, I am determined to move the statuary to +a place in the S. aisle of our parish church, as a memorial, the +moral whereof I have leave of John and Grace Magor to declare to all +the parish. I choose to defer making it public, in tenderness, while +they live: for all things point as yet to the permanent saving of +their souls. But, as in the course of nature I shall predecease +them, I set the record here in the Parish Register, as its best +place. + +'(Signed) Malachi Hichens, B.D. + '21st Jan., 1719.' + +"And is that all?" I asked. + +"Yes and no," said the Vicar, closing the book. "It is all that Mr. +Hichens has left to help us: and you may or may not connect with it +what I am going to relate of my own experience. . . . The old church, +as you know, was destroyed by fire in the morning hours of Christmas +Day, 1870. Throughout Christmas Eve and for a great part of the +night it had been snowing, but the day broke brilliantly, on a sky +without wind or cloud; and never have my eyes seen anything so +terribly beautiful--ay, so sublime--as the sight which met them at +the lych-gate. The old spire--which served as a sea-mark for the +fishermen, and was kept regularly white-washed that it might be the +more conspicuous--glittered in the morning sunshine from base to +summit, as though matching its whiteness against that of the +snow-laden elms: and in this frame of pure silver-work, burning +without noise and with scarcely any smoke--this by reason of the +excessive dryness of the woodwork--the church stood one glowing vault +of fire. There was indeed so little smoke that at the first alarm, +looking from my bedroom window, I had been incredulous; and still I +wondered rather than believed, staring into this furnace wherein +every pillar, nook, seat or text on the wall was distinctly visible, +the south windows being burnt out and the great door thrown open and +on fire. + +"There was no entrance possible here, or indeed anywhere: but, being +half-distraught, I ran around to the small door of the north aisle. +This, too, was on fire--or, rather, was already consumed; and you +will say that I must have been wholly distraught when I tell you what +I saw, looking in through the aperture through which it would have +been death to pass. I saw _him_." + +"You saw the young man Luke?" I asked, as he paused, inviting a word. + +"He was standing by the stone figures within the porch. . . . And +they crumbled--crumbled before my eyes in the awful heat. But he +stood scatheless. He was young and comely; the hair of his head was +not singed. He was as one of the three that walked in the midst of +Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. . . . When the stone slab was crumbled to a +handful of dust, he moved up the aisle and was gone. . . . That is +all: but, as you accept your friend for a truthful man, explain, O +sceptic!" + +--And again there fell a silence in the garden. + + + +FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM. + + +In the days of my childhood, and up to the year 1886, the Justices of +the Peace for the Gantick Division of Hundred of Powder, in the +county of Cornwall, held their Petty Sessions at Scawns, a bleak, +foursquare building set on the knap of a windy hill, close beside the +high road that leads up from the sea to the market town of +Tregarrick. The house, when the county in Quarter Sessions purchased +it to convert it into a police station and petty sessional court, had +been derelict for twenty years--that is to say, ever since the winter +of 1827, when Squire Nicholas, the last owner to reside in it +(himself an ornament in his time of the Gantick Bench), broke his +neck in the hunting field. With his death, the property passed to +some distant cousin in the North, who seldom visited Cornwall. +This cousin leased the Scawns acres to a farmer alongside of whose +fields they marched, and the farmer, having no use for the mansion, +gladly sub-let it. The county authorities, having acquired the +lease, did indeed make certain structural adaptations, providing +tolerable quarters for the local constabulary, with a lockup in the +cellarage (which was commodious), but apart from this did little to +arrest the general decay of the building. In particular, the +disrepair of the old dining-room, where the magistrates now held +Session, had become a public scandal. The old wall-paper dropped in +tatters, the ceiling showed patches where the plaster had broken from +the battens, rats had eaten holes in the green baize table-cloth, and +the whole place smelt of dry-rot. From the wall behind the +magistrates' table, in the place where nations more superstitious +than ours suspend a crucifix, an atrocious portrait of the late +Squire Nicholas surveyed the desolated scene of his former carousals. +An inscription at the base of the frame commemorated him as one who +had consistently "Done Right to all manner of People after the Laws +and Usages of the Realm, without Fear or Favour, Affection or +Ill-will." + +Beneath this portrait, on the second Wednesday in June, 1886, were +gathered no fewer than six Justices of the Peace, a number the more +astonishing because Petty Sessions chanced to clash with the annual +meeting of the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Society, held that year +at the neighbouring market town of Tregarrick. Now, the reason of +this full bench was at once simple and absurd, and had caused +merriment not unmixed with testiness in the magistrates' private +room. Each Justice, counting on his neighbour's delinquency, had +separately resolved to pay a sacrifice to public duty, and to drop in +to dispose of the business of Sessions before proceeding to the Show. +The charge-sheet, be it noted, was abnormally light: it comprised one +single indictment. + +"Good Lord!" growled Admiral Trist, Chairman of the Bench, Master of +the famous Gantick Harriers. "Six of us to hear a case of sleeping +out!" + +"Who's the defendant?" asked Sir Felix Felix-Williams. "'Thomas +Edwards'--Don't know the name in these parts." + +"I doubt if he knows it himself, Sir Felix," answered Mr. Batty, the +Justices' Clerk. "The Inspector tells me it's a tramping fellow the +police picked up two nights ago. He has been in lock-up ever since." + +"Then why the devil couldn't they have sent round and fished up one +of us--or a couple--to deal with the case out of hand?" + +"Damned shame, the way the police nurse this business!" murmured Lord +Rattley, our somewhat disreputable local peer. "They're wanted at +Tregarrick to-day, and, what's more, they want the fun of the Show. +So they take excellent care to keep the charge-list light. But since +Petty Sessions must be held, whether or no, they pounce on some poor +devil of a tramp to put a face on the business." + +"H'm, h'm." The Admiral, friend of law and order, dreaded Lord +Rattley's tongue, which was irresponsible and incisive. "Well, if +this is our only business, gentlemen--" + +"There _is_ another case, sir," put in Mr. Batty. "Wife--Trudgian by +name--wants separation order. Application reached me too late to be +included in the list." + +"Trudgian?" queried Parson Voisey. "Not Selina Magor, I hope, that +married young Trudgian a year or so back? Husband a clay-labourer, +living somewhere outside Tregarrick." + +"That's the woman. Young married couple--first quarrel. The wife, +on her own admission, had used her tongue pretty sharply, and, I +don't doubt, drove the man off to the public-house, where he sat +until sulky-drunk. A talking-to by the Chairman, if I might +suggest--" + +"Yes, yes," agreed Parson Voisey. "And I'll have a word with Selina +afterwards. She used to attend my Young Women's Class--one of my +most satisfactory girls." + +"We'll see--we'll see," said the Admiral. "Are we ready, gentlemen?" + +He led the way into Court, where all rose in sign of respect--Mr. +Batty's confidential clerk, the Inspector, a solitary constable, a +tattered old man in the constable's charge, and the two Trudgians. +These last occupied extreme ends of the same form; the husband +sullen, with set jaw and eyes obstinately fixed on his boots, the +young wife flushed of face and tearful, stealing from time to time a +defiant glance at her spouse. + +In face of this scanty audience the six Justices solemnly took their +seats. + +"Thomas Edwards!" called the Clerk. + +The tattered old man cringed up to the table, with an embarrassed +smile, which yet had a touch of impudence about the corners of the +mouth. + +"Thomas Edwards, you stand charged for that on a certain date, to +wit, June 6th, you, not having any visible means of subsistence, and +not giving a good account of yourself, were found lodging in a +certain outhouse known as Lobb's Barn, in the Parish of Gantick, +contrary, etc. Do you plead Guilty or Not Guilty?" + +"Guilty, y'r Worships." + +The constable, on a nod from the Inspector, cleared his throat, and +stated the charge: "On the 6th instant, y'r Worships, at 10.45 in the +evening, being on duty in the neighbourhood of Lobb's Barn," etc. +Defendant, on being arrested, had used the filthiest language, and +had for some time stoutly resisted being marched off to the lock-up. + +"That will do," the Chairman interrupted. "You, Edwards--if that's +your real name--" + +"It'll do for this job," put in the prisoner. + +"Very well. Have you anything to say?" + +The prisoner ran his eye along the array of Justices. + +"Seems a lot o' dogs for one bone!" + +The Admiral stiffened with wrath, and the crimson of his face +deepened as Lord Rattley threw himself back in his chair, laughing. + +"Forty shillings, or a month!" + +"Oh, come--I say!" Lord Rattley murmured. + +The Admiral, glancing to right and left, saw, too, that three or four +of his colleagues were lifting their eyebrows in polite protest. + +"I--I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for not consulting you! Correct +me, if you will. I would point out, however, that in addition to the +offence with which he is charged, this fellow was guilty of violent +and disgusting language, and, further, of resisting the police." + +But his colleagues made no further protest, and Thomas Edwards, +having but two coppers to his name, was conducted below to the +cellarage, there to await transference to the County Jail. + +"Selina Trudgian!" + +The Admiral, viewing the young couple as they stood sheepishly before +him, commanded Selina to state her complaint as briefly as possible, +avoiding tears. + +But this was beyond her. + +"He came home drunk, your Worship," she sobbed, twisting her +handkerchief. + +"I didn'," corrected her husband. + +"He came home d-drunk, your Worship . . . he c-came home d-drunk--" + +"Now hearken to me, you two!" + +The Admiral, fixing a severe eye on them, started to read them a +lesson on married life, with its daily discipline, its constant +obligation of mutual forbearance. For a confirmed bachelor, he did +it remarkably well; but it must be recorded that this was not by any +means his first essay in lecturing discordant spouses from the Bench. +Lord Rattley, whose own matrimonial ventures had been (like Mr. +Weller's researches in London) extensive and peculiar, leaned back +and followed the discourse with appreciation, his elbows resting on +the arms of his chair, his finger-tips delicately pressed together, +his gaze pensively tracking the motions of a bumblebee that had +strayed in at an open window and was battering its head against the +dusty pane of a closed one. + +Just then the Admiral, warming to his theme, pushed back his chair a +few inches. . . . + +For some days previously a stream of traction-engines had passed +along the high road, dragging timber-wagons, tent-wagons, machinery, +exhibits of all kinds, towards the Tregarrick Show. This heavy +traffic (it was afterwards surmised) had helped what Wordsworth calls +"the unimaginable touch of Time," shaking the dry-rotted joists of +Scawns House, and preparing the catastrophe. + +The Admiral was a heavy-weight. He rode, in those days, at close +upon seventeen stone. As he thrust back his chair, there came from +the floor beneath--from the wall immediately behind him--an ominous, +rending sound. The hind legs of his chair sank slowly, the seat of +justice tilted farther and farther; as he clutched wildly at the +table, the table began to slide upon him, and with an uproar of +cracking timber, table, chairs, magistrates, clerks, together, in one +burial blent, were shot downwards into the cellarage. + +The Inspector--a tall man--staggering to his feet as the table slid +from him into the chasm, leapt and clutched a crazy chandelier that +depended above him. His weight tore it bodily from the ceiling, with +a torrential downrush of dust and plaster, sweeping him over the edge +of the gulf and overwhelming the Trudgians, husband and wife, on the +brink of it. + +At this moment the constable, fresh from locking up Thomas Edwards +below, returned, put his head in at the door, gasped at sight of a +devastation which had swallowed up every human being, and with great +presence of mind, ran as hard as he could pelt for the hamlet of High +Lanes, half a mile away, to summon help. + +Now the Inspector, as it happened, was unhurt. Picking himself up, +digging his heels into the moraine of plaster, and brushing the grit +from his eyes, he had the pleasure of recognising Lord Rattley, the +Parson, Mr. Humphry Felix-Williams (son of Sir Felix), and Mr. Batty, +as they scrambled forth successively, black with dust but unhurt, +save that the Parson had received a slight scalp-wound. Then Mr. +Humphry caught sight of a leg clothed in paternal shepherd's-plaid, +and tugged at it until Sir Felix was restored, choking, to the light +of day--or rather, to the Cimmerian gloom of the cellarage, in which +an unexpected figure now confronted them. + +It was the prisoner, Thomas Edwards. A collapsing beam had torn away +some bricks from the wall of his cell, and he came wriggling through +the aperture, using the most dreadful oaths. + +"Stir yourselves--Oh,--,--, stir yourselves! Standin' there like +a--lot of stuck pigs! Get out the Admiral! The Admiral, I tell you! +. . . . Hark to the poor old devil, damnin' away down ther, wi' two +hundredweight o' table pressin' against his belly!" + +Mr. Edwards, in fact, used an even more vulgar word. But he was not +stopping to weigh words. Magistrates, Inspector, Clerk--he took +charge of them all on the spot--a master of men. The Admiral, in the +unfathomed dark of the cellar, was indeed uttering language to make +your hair creep. + +"Oh, cuss away, y' old varmint!" sang down Mr. Edwards cheerfully. +"The louder you cuss, the better the hearin'; 'means ye have air to +breathe an' nothin' broke internal. . . . Eh? Oh, _I_ knows th' old +warrior! Opened a gate for en once when he was out hare-huntin', up +St. Germans way--I likes a bit o' sport, I do, when I happens on it. +Lord love ye, the way he damned my eyes for bein' slow about it! + . . . Aye, aye, Admiral! Cuss away, cuss away--proper quarter-deck +you're givin' us! But we're gettin' to you fast as we can. . . . +England can't spare the likes o' you--an' she won't, not if we can +help it!" + +The man worked like a demon. What is more, he was making the others +work, flailing them all--peer and baronet and parson--with +slave-driver's oaths, while they tugged to loosen the timbers under +which the magistrates' table lay wedged. + +"Lift, I tell ye! Lift! . . . What the--'s wrong with that end o' +the beam? Stuck, is it? Jammed? Jammed your grandmothers! +Nobbut a few pounds o' loose lime an' plaster beddin' it. Get down +on your knees an' clear it. . . . That's better! And now pull! +PULL, I say! Oh, not _that_ way, you rabbits!--here, let me show +you!" + +By efforts Herculean, first digging the rubbish clear with clawed +hands, then straining and heaving till their loins had almost +cracked, they levered up the table at length, and released not only +the Admiral, but the two remaining magistrates, whom they found +pinned under its weight, one unharmed, but in a swoon, the other +moaning feebly with the pain of two broken ribs. + +"Whew! What the devil of a smell of brandy!" observed Lord Rattley, +mopping his brow in the intervals of helping to hoist the rescued +ones up the moraine. At the top of it, the Inspector, lifting his +head above the broken flooring to shout for help, broke into furious +profanity; for there, in the empty court-room, stood young Trudgian +and his wife, covered, indeed, with white dust, but blissfully wrapt +in their own marvellous escape; and young Trudgian for the moment was +wholly preoccupied in probing with two fingers for a piece of plaster +which had somehow found its way down his Selina's back between the +nape of the neck and the bodice. + +"Drop it, you fool, and lend a hand!" objurgated the Inspector; +whereupon Mrs. Trudgian turned about, bridling. + +"You leave my Tom alone, please! A man's first call is on his wedded +wife, I reckon." + +The rescued magistrates were lifted out, carried forth into fresh +air, and laid on the turf by the wayside to recover somewhat while +the rescuers again wiped perspiring brows. + +"A thimbleful o' brandy might do the Admiral good," suggested the +prisoner. + +"Brandy?" cried Lord Rattley. "The air reeks of brandy! +Where the--?" + +"The basement's swimmin' with it, m' lord." The fellow touched his +hat. "Two casks stove by the edge o' the table. I felt around the +staves, an' counted six others, hale an' tight. Thinks I, 'tis what +their Worships will have been keepin' for private use, between +whiles. Or elst--" + +"Or else?" + +"Or else maybe we've tapped a private cellar." + +Lord Rattley slapped his thigh. + +"A _cache_, by Jove! Old Squire Nicholas--I remember, as a boy, +hearing it whispered he was hand-in-glove with the Free Trade." + +The prisoner touched his hat humbly. + +"This bein' a magistrates' matter, m' lord, an' me not wishin' to +interfere--" + +"Quite so." Lord Rattley felt in his pockets. "You have done us a +considerable service, my man, and--er--that bein' so--" + +"Forty shillin' it was. _He's_ cheap at it"--with a nod towards the +Admiral. "A real true-blue old English gentleman! You can always +tell by their conversations." + +"The fine shall be paid." + +"I counted six casks, m'lord, so well as I could by the feel--" + +"Yes, yes! And here's a couple of sovereigns for yourself--all I +happen to have in my pocket--" + +Lord Rattley bustled off to the house for brandy. + +"England's old England, hows'ever you strike it!" chirruped the +prisoner gleefully, and touched his forehead again. "See you at the +Show, m' lord, maybe? 'Will drink your lordship's health there, +anyway." + +He skipped away up the road towards Tregarrick. In the opposite +direction young Mr. and Mrs. Trudgian could be seen just passing out +of sight, he supporting her with his arm, pausing every now and then, +bending over her uxoriously. + + + +THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP. + + +I. + +"'Erbert 'Enery Bates!" + +"Wot cheer!" + +It was the morning of Speech-day on board the Industrial Training +Ship _Egeria_--July the 31st, to be precise. At 3 p.m. Sir Felix +Felix-Williams, Baronet, would arrive to distribute the prizes. +He would be attended by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen; and the +speeches, delivered beneath an awning on the upper deck, would be +fully reported next day in the local newspapers. The weather was +propitious. + +Just now (11 a.m.) some half a dozen of the elder boys, attired in +dirty white dungaree and barefooted, were engaged in swabbing out +what, in her sea-going days, had been the _Egeria's_ ward-room, +making ready to set out tables for an afternoon tea to follow the +ceremony. They were nominally under supervision of the ship's +Schoolmaster, who, however, had gone off to unpack a hamper of +flowers--the gift of an enthusiastic subscriber. + +"Step this way, 'Erbert 'Enery Bates." + +"You go to hell, Link Andrew!" But the boy stopped his work and faced +about, nevertheless. + +"See this flag?" Link Andrew dived his long arms into a pile of +bunting that lay ready for decorating the tea-room. "Wot is it?" + +"Union Jack o' course, you silly rotter!" + +"Oh, you good, good boy! . . . Yes, dear lads," went on Link Andrew, +in a mimicking voice, "it is indeed the meet-your-flag of our 'oly +Motherland, and 'Erbert 'Enery Bates, our Good Conduck Medallist, +will now oblige by going down on his knees and kissing it. Else I'll +put an eye on him!" + +Master Bates--"Good Conduct Bates"--stepped forward, with his fists +up. He was something of a sneak and a sucker-up, yet by no means a +coward. He advanced bravely enough, although he knew that Link +Andrew--the best boxer in the ship--was provoking him of set purpose. + +The rest of the boys liked Link and disliked Bates; yet their sense +of fair play told them that Link was putting himself in the wrong; +and yet again, despite their natural eagerness to see a fight, they +wanted to save Link from what could but end in folly. He was playing +for a fall. + +"Here comes Schoolmaster!" shouted one, at a venture. + +At that moment, indeed, the Schoolmaster appeared in the doorway. + +"What's this noise about?" he demanded. "You, Link Andrew? +I thought your interest was to avoid trouble for twenty-four hours." + + + +II. + +By the Industrial Schools Act of 1866, 29 & 30 Vict. c. 118, it is +ordained that any youngster apparently under the age of fourteen +found begging, or wandering destitute, or consorting with thieves, or +obstinately playing truant from school, or guilty of being neglected +by his parents, or of defying his parents, or of having a parent who +has incurred a sentence of penal servitude--may by any two justices +be committed to a certified Industrial School, there to be detained +until he reaches the age of sixteen, or for a shorter term if the +Justices shall so direct. Such an Industrial School was the +ex-battleship _Egeria_. + +She had carried seventy-four guns in her time; and though gunless now +and jury-masted, was redolent still of the Nelson period from her +white-and-gold figure-head to the beautiful stern galleries which +Commander Headworthy had adorned with window-boxes of Henry Jacoby +geraniums. The Committee in the first flush of funds had spared no +pains to reproduce the right atmosphere, and in that atmosphere +Commander Headworthy laudably endeavoured to train up his crew of +graceless urchins, and to pass them out at sixteen, preferably into +the Navy or the Merchant Service, but at any rate as decent members +of society. Nor were the boys' nautical experiences entirely +stationary, since a wealthy sympathiser (lately deceased) had +bequeathed his fine brigantine yacht to serve the ship as a tender +and take a few score of the elder or more privileged lads on an +annual summer cruise, that they might learn something of practical +seamanship. + +The yacht--by name the _Swallow_--an old but shapely craft of some +two hundred tons, lay just now a short cable's length from the parent +ship, with sails bent and all ready for sea; for by custom the annual +cruise started on the day next after the prize-giving. + +The question was: Would Link Andrew be allowed to go? + +He would have sold his soul to go. He even meditated ways of +suicide if the Commander, for a punishment, should veto his going. +During the last three weeks he had run up an appalling tally of black +marks, and yet it was generally agreed that the Commander would +relent if Link would only keep his temper and behave with common +prudence for another twenty-four hours. + +But this was just what Link seemed wholly unable to do. He hated the +ship, the officers, everything in life; and the hot July weather +worked upon this hatred until it became a possessing fury. + + + +III. + +At dinner-time he very nearly wrecked his chance for good and all. + +Shortly before noon a diminutive, mild-looking gentleman, noticeable +for his childlike manner and a pair of large round spectacles, came +alongside the _Egeria_ in a shore-boat. It appeared that he bore a +visitor's ticket for the afternoon function and had arrived thus +early by invitation of one of the Committee to take a good look over +the ship before the proceedings began. Apparently, too, the +Committee-man had sent Commander Headworthy no warning--to judge from +that officer's wrathful face and the curt tone in which he invited +his visitor to luncheon. + +The mild-looking gentleman--who gave his name as Harris--declined +courteously, averring that he had brought a sandwich with him. +The Commander thereupon turned him over to the Second Officer under +whose somewhat impatient escort Mr. Harris made a thorough tour of +the ship, peering into everything and asking a number of questions. +The boys--whom he amused by opening a large white umbrella, +green-lined, to shield him from the noonday sun on the upper deck-- +promptly christened him "Moonface." + +This Mr. Harris, still in charge of the Second Officer, happened +along the gun-deck as they finished singing "_Be present at our +table, Lord_," and were sitting down to dinner. From their places +they marched up one by one, each with his dinner-basin, to have it +filled at the head of the table. + +"Hallo, you, Andrew!" called out the Second Officer. "Fetch that +basin along here. I want the gentleman to have a look at the ship's +food." + +Link came forward, stretched out a long arm, and thrust the basin +under the visitor's nose. + +"Perhaps," said he, "the toff would like a sniff at the same time? +There's Sweet Williams for a summer's day!" + +"There, that'll do, Link! Go to your place, my lad, and don't be +insolent," said the Second Officer hastily, with a nervous glance at +Mr. Harris. + +But Mr. Harris merely blinked behind his glasses. + +"Yes, yes, to be sure," he agreed. "Pork _is_ tricky diet in such +weather as we're having!" + + + +IV. + +Half an hour later, having detached himself gently from his escort, +Mr. Harris wandered back to the upper deck. It appeared to be +deserted; and Mr. Harris, unfolding his umbrella against the sun's +rays, wandered at will. + +In the waist of the vessel, on the port side, he came upon a dais and +a baize-covered table with an awning rigged over them; and upon the +ship's Schoolmaster, who was busily engaged in arranging the +prize-books. + +"Good afternoon, sir!" The Schoolmaster, affecting to be busy and +polite at the same time, picked out a book and held it up to view. +"_Smiles on Self Help_," he announced. + +"You don't say so!" answered Mr. Harris, halting. "But--I mean--they +can't very well, can they?" + +"_Eric, or Little by Little_, by the late Archdeacon Farrar. +My choice, sir: some light, you see, and others solid, but all _pure_ +literature. . . . They value it, too, in after life. Ah, sir, +they've a lot of good in 'em! There's many worse characters than my +boys walking the world." + +Mild Mr. Harris removed his glasses. "Are you talking like that from +force of habit?" he asked. "If so, I shall not be so much annoyed." + +The Schoolmaster was fairly taken aback. He stared for a moment and +shifted his helm, so to speak, with a grin of intelligence and a +short laugh. + +"Not quite so bad as that, sir," he remonstrated. "It's--it's--well, +you may call it the _atmosphere_. On Speech-day the ship fairly +reeks of it." + +"And, like the pork, eh! it's just a little bit 'off'?" suggested the +visitor, returning his smile. "By the way, I want to ask you a +question or two about a boy. His name is Link--Something-or-other." + +"Link Andrew?" The Schoolmaster gave him a quick look. "You don't +tell me he's in trouble again? Not been annoying you, sir, I hope?" + +"On the contrary, I've taken a fancy to the lad; and, by the way +again, Link can't be his real name?" + +"Short for Abraham Lincoln, as baptised," explained the Schoolmaster. +"At least, that's one theory. According to another it's short for +'Missing Link.' Not that the boy's bad-looking; but did you happen +to notice the length of his arms--like a gorilla's?" + +"I could not avoid doing so." + +Mr. Harris related the incident. + +"It was exceedingly kind of you, sir, to pass over his conduct so +lightly. The fact is, if Link Andrew had been reported again he'd +have lost his hammock in the yacht. We all want him to go; some to +get rid of him for a spell, and others because we can't help liking +the boy. He hates us back, you bet, and has hated us from the moment +he set foot on deck, five years ago . . . Whitechapel-reared, I +believe. . . . Yet fond of the sea in his way. Once shipped on the +yacht he'll behave like an angel. But here on board he's like a +young beast in a trap." + + + +V. + +Mr. Harris mooned away to the poop-deck, from the rail of which he +watched the guests arriving. As Sir Felix's gig was descried putting +off from the shore, the boys swarmed up the ratlines and out on the +yards, where they dressed ship very prettily. A brass band in the +waist hailed his approach with the strains of "Rule, Britannia!" +At the head of the accommodation-ladder a guard of honour welcomed +him with a hastily rehearsed "Present Arms!" and the boys aloft +accompanied it with three shrill British cheers. The dear old +gentleman gazed up and around him, and positively beamed. + +By this time a crowd of boats had put off, and soon the guests came +pouring up the ladder in a steady stream. There were ladies in +picture hats. A reporter stood by the gangway taking notes of their +costumes. They fell to uttering the prettiest exclamations upon the +shipshapeness of everything on board. Mr. Harris saw the First +Officer inviting numbers of them to lean over the bulwarks and +observe a scar the old ship had received--or so he alleged--at +Trafalgar. "How interesting!" they cried. + +Well, to be sure, it was interesting. Nelson himself--there was good +authority for this at any rate--had once stood on the _Egeria's_ +poop; had leaned, perhaps, against the very rail on which Mr. +Harris's hand rested. . . . And the function went off very well. +The boys clambered down upon deck again, the band played-- + + "'Tis a Fine Old English Gentleman," + +And all gathered about the awning. Sir Felix, nobly expansive in a +buff waistcoat, cleared his throat and spoke of the Empire in a way +calculated to bring tears to the eyes. The prize-giving followed. + +As it proceeded, Mr. Harris stole down the poop-ladder and edged his +way around the back of the crowd to the waist of the ship, where the +boys were drawn up with a few officers interspersed to keep +discipline. He arrived there just as Link Andrew returned from the +dais with two books--the boxing and gymnasium prizes. The boy was +foaming at the mouth. + +"See, here--_Fights for the Flag!_ And, on top of it, _Deeds What +Won the Silly Empire!_ And the old blighter 'oped that I'd be a good +boy, and grow up, and win some more. For the likes of _him_, he +meant--Yuss, I _don't_ think! . . . Oh, hold my little hand and check +the tearful flow, for I'm to be a ship's boy at 'arf-a-crown a month, +and go Empire buildin'!" + +"There!" said Mr. Harris, indicating a coil of rope. "Sit down and +have it out." + + + +VI. + +Some five or six years later, Mr. Harris--who resides in a small West +Country town, the name of which does not concern us--was seated in +his library reading, when his parlourmaid brought him a card-- +"Mr. Wilkins, I.T.S. _Egeria_." + +"I scarcely hoped that you would remember me, sir," began the +Schoolmaster, on being introduced. "But, happening to pass through-- +on a holiday trip, a walking tour--I ventured to call and ask news of +Link Andrew. You may remember our having a conversation about him +once on board the _Egeria_?" + +"I remember it perfectly," said Mr. Harris; "and you'll be glad to +hear that Andrew is doing remarkably well; is saving money, in fact, +and contemplates getting married." + +"Indeed, sir, that is good hearing. I was afraid that he might have +left your employment." + +"So, to be sure, he has; taking with him, moreover, an excellent +character. He is now a second gardener at a steady wage." + +"You can't think, sir, how you relieve my mind. To tell the truth, I +met him, less than an hour ago; and by his manner . . . But I had +better tell you how it happened: I knew, of course, that you had +interested yourself in Link and found a job for him. But after he'd +left the ship he never let us hear word of his doings. . . . Well, +passing through your town just now, I ran up against him. He was +coming along the street, and I recognised him on the instant; but all +of a sudden he turned and began to stare in at a shop-window--an +ironmonger's--giving me his back. I made sure, of course, that he +hadn't spied me; so I stepped up and said I, 'Hallo, Link, my lad!' +clapping a hand on his shoulder. He turned about, treated me to a +long stare, and says he, 'Aren't you makin' some mistake, mister?' +'Why,' says I, 'surely I haven't changed so much as all that since +the days I taught you vulgar fractions on board the old _Egeria_? +I'm Mr. Wilkins,' says I. 'Oh, are you?' says he. 'Then, +Mr. Wilkins, you can go back to hell and take 'em my compliments +there.' That's all he said, and he walked away down the street." + +"That's queer," said Mr. Harris, polishing his spectacles. "Yes, he +came to me as gardener's boy--I thought it would be a pleasant change +after the ship; and he served his apprenticeship well. I remember +that in answer to my application the Secretary wrote: 'Of course we +prefer to train our lads to the sea; but when one has no aptitude for +it--'" + +Mr. Harris paused, for the Schoolmaster was smiling broadly. + +"Good Lord, sir!--if you'll excuse me. Link Andrew no aptitude for +the sea! Why, that lad's seamanship saved my life once: and, what's +more, it saved the whole yacht's company! Hasn't he ever told you +about it?" + +"Not a word. I think," said Mr. Harris, "our friend Link chooses to +keep his past in watertight compartments. Sit down and tell me about +it." + + +VII. + +This was the Schoolmaster's story: + +"It happened on that very cruise, sir. The _Swallow_ had been +knocking around at various West Country regattas--Weymouth, Torquay, +Dartmouth, finishing up with Plymouth. From Plymouth we were to sail +for home. + +"We had dropped hook in the Merchant Shipping Anchorage, as they +call it; which is the eastern side of the Sound, by Jennycliff Bay. +That last day of the regattas--a Saturday--the wind had been almost +true north, and freshish, but nothing to mention: beautiful sailing +weather for the small boats. The big cracks had finished their +engagements and were making back for Southampton. + +"Well, as I say, this north wind was a treat; especially coming, as +it did, after a week of light airs and calms that had spoilt most of +the yacht-racing. Some time in the afternoon I heard talk that our +skipper--well, I won't mention names--and, as it turned out in the +end, everyone was implicated. Anyhow, at six o'clock or thereabouts +the gig was ordered out, and every blessed officer on board went +ashore in her; which was clean contrary to regulations, of course, +but there happened to be a cinematograph show they all wanted to see +at the big music-hall--some prize-fight or other. I don't set much +store by prize-fights for my part, and living pictures give me the +headache: so, to salve everybody's conscience, I was left in sole +charge of the ship. + +"Everything went smooth as a buttered cake until about nine o'clock, +when the wind, that had been dying down all the time, suddenly flew +west and began to gather strength hand over fist. . . . I never, not +being a seaman, could have believed--till I saw and felt it--the +change that came over Plymouth Sound in the space of one half-hour. +The gig had been ordered again for nine-thirty, to pull to the +Barbican Steps and be ready at ten to bring the officers on board. +But before nine-thirty I began to have my serious doubts about +sending her. It was just as well I had. + +"For by nine-forty-five it was blowing a real gale, and by ten +o'clock something like a hurricane. Just then, to top my terror, +Master Link Andrew came aft to me--the wind seemed to blow him +along--and 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Wilkins,' said he, 'but in my +opinion she's dragging.' + +"Just think of it, sir! There was I, in sole charge of a hundred boys +or so, and knowing no more what to do than the ship's cat. . . . She +_was_ dragging, too; sagging foot by foot in towards the dark of +Jennycliff Bay. + +"'If you'll take a word from me, sir,' said Link, 'we'd best up sail +and get out of this.' + +"'What about the other anchor?' I suggested. + +"' Try it if you like,' said he. 'In my belief it won't hold any +more than a tin mustard-pot.' + +"Nor did it, when we let go. He came back after a few minutes from +the darkness forward. 'No go,' said he. 'Nothing to do but slip and +clear.' + +"There was no question, either, that he spoke sense. 'But where?' I +shouted at him. 'Drake's Island? . . . And who's to do it, even so?' + +"'The anchorage is crowded under Drake's Island,' he shouted back. +'It's the devil-among-the-tailors we'd play there, if we ever +fetched. . . . Breakwater's no shelter either.' + +"He seemed to whistle to himself for a moment; and the next I heard +him yell out sharply to the boys forward to tumble on the mainsail, +strip her covers off, double-reef and hoist her. He took command +from that moment. While a score of them flew to tackle this job, he +beat his way forward and called on another lot to get out the +staysail. Back he ran again, cursing and calling on all and sundry +to look smart. Next he was at my side ordering me to unlash the +wheel and stand by. 'It's touch-and-go, sir.' + +"'Hadn't we better send up a flare?' I suggested feebly. + +"'Flare your bloomin' grandmother!' From this moment I regret to say +that Link Andrew treated me with contempt. He next ordered a dozen +small boys aloft, to reef and set her upper square-sail. When I +urged that it was as good as asking them to commit suicide, he cursed +me openly. 'Drown the poor pups, will I? I thought--damn you all!-- +you laid yourselves out to breed seamen! You _say_ you do, at +prize-givings!' He ran forward again to get the hawsers buoyed +before slipping them. + +"I never remember a sound more sickening to the stomach than those +chains made as they ran out through the hawse-holes. The one mistake +Link committed was in ordering the upper square-sail to be reefed. +By the mercy of God not a child was blown off the yards in that +operation; yet it was no sooner concluded than, having by this time +found a megaphone, he shouted up to them to undo their work and shake +out the reef. + +"'That's madness!' I yelled from the wheel, where I clung dripping, +blindly pressing down the spokes and easing them as he checked me. +'Look to leeward, you blighter!' he yelled back. + +"The ship had payed off slowly, and while she gathered way, was +drifting straight down upon an Italian barque that two hours ago had +lain more than a cable's length from us. . . . I thought our lower +yard--we heeled so--would have smacked against her bowsprit-end; and +from the outcries on board the Italian I rather fancy her crew +expected it. But we shaved her by a yard or so, as Link pushed me +away from the wheel and took charge. A moment later she had dropped +behind us into the night, and we were surging in full-tilt for +Plymouth, heaving over at the Lord knows what angle. + +"But we were off; we were clear; and, strange to say, the worst of it +was over. The wind was worsening, if anything, and we continued to +drive at a frightful angle. Now and again we slanted to a squall +that fairly dipped us till the sea poured half-way across her decks. +As I staggered forward--clutching at anything handy--to assure myself +that none of the boys had been flung off the fore-yard and overboard, +I heard a sea burst the starboard bulwarks, and in another moment, +while I yet wondered if the sound came from something parting aloft, +with a 'Wa-ay-oh!' Link had put over her helm, and the suddenly +altered slant flung me into the scuppers, where I dropped after +taking a knock against the standing rigging, the mark of which I +shall carry on my forehead till I die. + +"By this time, sir, I was pretty well dazed. I forget if it was in a +couple of short tacks, or in three, that we fetched Picklecombe Point +on the western side. Then we put about on a long tack that carried +us well outside the breakwater and came in for Cawsand Bay and +safety. On this last fetch Link kicked me up and gave me the wheel +again, while he went forward to hunt up the spare anchor. + +"We brought up, well in shelter, at something before two in the +morning, not a hand lost. Before anyone was allowed to turn in, Link +had every sail stowed and covered--'for the honour of the blasted +ship,' as he put it. + +"The skipper and his precious lot came aboard next day not long +before noon, and after a wholesome scare. It seems they were late, +and all pretty so-so by the time they reached the Barbican Steps; +and, let be that there was no boat for them, the watermen one and all +declined to take them off in any such weather. Nothing for it but to +doss the night ashore, which they did. But I wouldn't give much for +their feelings next morning when they put off and, lo! there was no +_Swallow_ in the Merchant Shipping Anchorage. In Cawsand Bay, you +understand, we were well hidden by the land, and it cost them at +least a couple of hours to guess our whereabouts. + +"Long as the time was, it wasn't enough to wear out the effects of +the--well, the Cinematograph. A yellower set, or a bluer in the +gills, you never set eyes on. They came aboard, and the skipper, +having made some inquiries of me, called up Link, cleared his throat +quite in the old approved style, and began to make a speech. + +"Link cut it short. + +"'All right, my precious swine! Now step below and wash off the +traces. If you behave pretty, maybe I'll not report you.'" + + + +VIII. + +"That finished the lot," wound up the Schoolmaster. "There _was_ no +answer to it, if you come to think." + +"And Link never told?" + +"Never a word, sir. Nor did I. But the story leaked out somehow, +and it gave the Commander the whip-hand of his Committee, to ship a +new set of officers. Ship and tender, sir, the _Egeria_ nowadays is +something to be proud of. But for my part I don't go on any more of +these summer cruises. The open sea never suited my stomach, and I +prefer a walk for my holiday." + + + +LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE. + + +The night-porter at the Admiralty had been sleeping in his chair. +He was red-eyed and wore his livery coat buttoned at random. +He grumbled to himself as he opened the great door. + +He carried a glass-screened candle, and held it somewhat above the +level of his forehead--which was protuberant and heavily pock-marked. +Under the light he peered out at the visitor, who stood tall and +stiff, with uniform overcoat buttoned to the chin, between the Ionic +pillars of the portico. + +"Who's there?" + +"Lieutenant Lapenotiere, of the _Pickle_ schooner--with dispatches." + +"Dispatches?" echoed the night-porter. Out beyond the screen of +masonry that shut off the Board of Admiralty's forecourt from +Whitehall, one of the tired post-horses started blowing through its +nostrils on this foggy night. + +"From Admiral Collingwood--Mediterranean Fleet off Cadiz--sixteen +days," answered the visitor curtly. "Is everyone abed?" + +"Admiral Collingwood? Why Admiral Collingwood?" The night-porter +fell back a pace, opening the door a trifle wider. "Good God, sir! +You don't say as how--" + +"You can fetch down a Secretary or someone, I hope?" said Lieutenant +Lapenotiere, quickly stepping past him into the long dim hall. +"My dispatches are of the first importance. I have posted up from +Falmouth without halt but for relays." + +As the man closed the door, he heard his post-boy of the last relay +slap one of the horses encouragingly before heading home to stable. +The chaise wheels began to move on the cobbles. + +"His Lordship himself will see you, sir. Of that I make no doubt," +twittered the night-porter, fumbling with the bolt. "There was a +terrible disturbance, back in July, when Captain Bettesworth +arrived--not so late as this, to be sure, but towards midnight--and +they waited till morning, to carry up the dispatches with his +Lordship's chocolate. Thankful was I next day not to have been on +duty at the time. . . . If you will follow me, sir--" + +Lieutenant Lapenotiere had turned instinctively towards a door on the +right. It admitted to the Waiting Room, and there were few officers +in the service who did not know--and only too well--that Chamber of +Hope Deferred. + +"No, sir, . . . this way, if you please," the night-porter corrected +him, and opened a door on the left. "The Captains' Room," he +announced, passing in and steering for the chimney-shelf, on which +stood a pair of silver sconces each carrying three wax candles. +These he took down, lit and replaced. "Ah, sir! Many's the time +I've showed Lord Nelson himself into this room, in the days before +Sir Horatio, and even after. And you were sayin'--" + +"I said nothing." + +The man moved to the door; but halted there and came back, as though +in his own despite. + +"I can't help it, sir. . . . Half a guinea he used to give me, +regular. But the last time--and hard to believe 'twas little more +than a month ago--he halts on his way out, and says he, searchin' +awkward-like in his breeches' pocket with his left hand, 'Ned,' says +he, 'my old friend'--aye, sir, his old friend he called me--'Ned,' +says he, pullin' out a fistful o' gold, 'my old friend,' says he, +'I'll compound with you for two guineas, this bein' the last time you +may hold the door open for me, in or out. But you must pick 'em +out,' says he, spreadin' his blessed fingers with the gold in 'em: +'for a man can't count money who's lost his right flapper.' +Those were his words, sir. 'Old friend,' he called me, in that way +of his." + +Lieutenant Lapenotiere pointed to his left arm. Around the sleeve a +black scarf was knotted. + +"_Dead_, sir," the night-porter hushed his voice. + +"Dead," echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, staring at the Turkey carpet, +of which the six candles, gaining strength, barely illumined the +pattern. "Dead, at the top of victory; a great victory. Go: fetch +somebody down." + +The night-porter shuffled off. Lieutenant Lapenotiere, erect and +sombre, cast a look around the apartment, into which he had never +before been admitted. The candles lit up a large painting--a queer +bird's-eye view of Venice. Other pictures, dark and bituminous, +decorated the panelled walls--portraits of dead admirals, a sea-piece +or two, some charts. . . . This was all he discerned out in the dim +light; and in fact he scanned the walls, the furniture of the room, +inattentively. His stomach was fasting, his head light with rapid +travel; above all, he had a sense of wonder that all this should be +happening to _him_. For, albeit a distinguished officer, he was a +modest man, and by habit considered himself of no great importance; +albeit a brave man, too, he shrank at the thought of the message he +carried--a message to explode and shake millions of men in a +confusion of wild joy or grief. + +For about the tenth time in those sixteen days it seemed to burst and +escape in an actual detonation, splitting his head--there, as he +waited in the strange room where never a curtain stirred. . . . +It was a trick his brain played him, repeating, echoing the awful +explosion of the French seventy-four _Achille_, which had blown up +towards the close of the battle. When the ship was ablaze and +sinking, his own crew had put off in boats to rescue the Frenchmen, +at close risk of their own lives, for her loaded guns, as they grew +red-hot, went off at random among rescuers and rescued. . . . + +As had happened before when he felt this queer shock, his mind +travelled back and he seemed to hear the series of discharges running +up at short intervals to the great catastrophe. . . . To divert his +thoughts, he turned to study the view of Venice above the +chimney-piece . . . and on a sudden faced about again. + +He had a sensation that someone was in the room--someone standing +close behind him. + +But no. . . . For the briefest instant his eyes rested on an +indistinct shadow--his own perhaps, cast by the candle-light? +Yet why should it lie lengthwise there, shaped like a coffin, on the +dark polished table that occupied the middle of the room? + +The answer was that it did not. Before he could rub his eyes +it had gone. Moreover, he had turned to recognise a living +being . . . and no living person was in the room, unless by chance +(absurd supposition) one were hidden behind the dark red window +curtains. + +"Recognise" may seem a strange word to use; but here had lain the +strangeness of the sensation--that the someone standing there was a +friend, waiting to be greeted. It was with eagerness and a curious +warmth of the heart that Lieutenant Lapenotiere had faced about--upon +nothing. + +He continued to stare in a puzzled way at the window curtains, when a +voice by the door said: + +"Good evening!--or perhaps, to be correct, good morning! You are Mr.--" + +"Lapenotiere," answered the Lieutenant, who had turned sharply. +The voice--a gentleman's and pleasantly modulated--was not one he +knew; nor did he recognise the speaker--a youngish, shrewd-looking +man, dressed in civilian black, with knee-breeches. "Lapenotiere--of +the _Pickle_ schooner." + +"Yes, yes--the porter bungled your name badly, but I guessed. +Lord Barham will see you personally. He is, in fact, dressing with +all haste at this moment. . . . I am his private secretary," +explained the shrewd-looking gentleman in his quiet, business-like +voice. "Will you come with me upstairs?" + +Lieutenant Lapenotiere followed him. At the foot of the great +staircase the Secretary turned. + +"I may take it, sir, that we are not lightly disturbing his +Lordship--who is an old man." + +"The news is of great moment, sir. Greater could scarcely be." + +The Secretary bent his head. As they went up the staircase +Lieutenant Lapenotiere looked back and caught sight of the +night-porter in the middle of the hall, planted there and gazing up, +following their ascent. + +On the first-floor landing they were met by a truly ridiculous +spectacle. There emerged from a doorway on the left of the wide +corridor an old gentleman clad in night-cap, night-shirt and bedroom +slippers, buttoning his breeches and cursing vigorously; while close +upon him followed a valet with dressing-gown on one arm, waistcoat +and wig on the other, vainly striving to keep pace with his master's +impatience. + +"The braces, my lord--your Lordship has them forepart behind, if I +may suggest--" + +"Damn the braces!" swore the old gentleman. "Where is he? Hi, +Tylney!" as he caught sight of the Secretary. "Where are we to go? +My room, I suppose?" + +"The fire is out there, my lord. . . . 'Tis past three in the +morning. But after sending word to awake you, I hunted round and by +good luck found a plenty of promising embers in the Board Room grate. +On top of these I've piled what remained of my own fire, and Dobson +has set a lamp there--" + +"You've been devilish quick, Tylney. Dressed like a buck you are, +too!" + +"Your Lordship's wig," suggested the valet. + +"Damn the wig!" Lord Barham snatched it and attempted to stick it on +top of his night-cap, damned the night-cap, and, plucking it off, +flung it to the man. + +"I happened to be sitting up late, my lord, over the _Aeolus_ +papers," said Mr. Secretary Tylney. + +"Ha?" Then, to the valet, "The dressing-gown there! Don't fumble! + . . . So this is Captain--" + +"Lieutenant, sir: Lapenotiere, commanding the _Pickle_ schooner." + +The Lieutenant saluted. + +"From the Fleet, my lord--off Cadiz; or rather, off Cape Trafalgaro." + +He drew the sealed dispatch from an inner breast-pocket and handed it +to the First Lord. + +"Here, step into the Board Room. . . . Where the devil are my +spectacles?" he demanded of the valet, who had sprung forward to hold +open the door. + +Evidently the Board Room had been but a few hours ago the scene of a +large dinner-party. Glasses, dessert-plates, dishes of fruit, +decanters empty and half empty, cumbered the great mahogany table +as dead and wounded, guns and tumbrils, might a battlefield. +Chairs stood askew; crumpled napkins lay as they had been dropped or +tossed, some on the floor, others across the table between the +dishes. + +"Looks cosy, eh?" commented the First Lord. "Maggs, set a screen +around the fire, and look about for a decanter and some clean +glasses." + +He drew a chair close to the reviving fire, and glanced at the cover +of the dispatch before breaking its seal. + +"Nelson's handwriting?" he asked. It was plain that his old eyes, +unaided by spectacles, saw the superscription only as a blur. + +"No, my lord: Admiral Collingwood's," said Lieutenant Lapenotiere, +inclining his head. + +Old Lord Barham looked up sharply. His wig set awry, he made a +ridiculous figure in his hastily donned garments. Yet he did not +lack dignity. + +"Why Collingwood?" he asked, his fingers breaking the seal. +"God! you don't tell me--" + +"Lord Nelson is dead, sir." + +"Dead--dead? . . . Here, Tylney--you read what it says. Dead? . . . +No, damme, let the captain tell his tale. Briefly, sir." + +"Briefly, sir--Lord Nelson had word of Admiral Villeneuve coming out +of the Straits, and engaged the combined fleets off Cape Trafalgaro. +They were in single line, roughly; and he bore down in two columns, +and cut off their van under Dumanoir. This was at dawn or +thereabouts, and by five o'clock the enemy was destroyed." + +"How many prizes?" + +"I cannot say precisely, my lord. The word went, when I was +signalled aboard the Vice-Admiral's flagship, that either fifteen or +sixteen had struck. My own men were engaged, at the time, in +rescuing the crew of a French seventy-four that had blown up; and I +was too busy to count, had counting been possible. One or two of my +officers maintain to me that our gains were higher. But the dispatch +will tell, doubtless." + +"Aye, to be sure. . . . Read, Tylney. Don't sit there clearing your +throat, but read, man alive!" And yet it appeared that while the +Secretary was willing enough to read, the First Lord had no capacity, +as yet, to listen. Into the very first sentence he broke with-- + +"No, wait a minute. 'Dead,' d'ye say? . . . My God! . . . +Lieutenant, pour yourself a glass of wine and tell us first how it +happened." + +Lieutenant Lapenotiere could not tell very clearly. He had twice +been summoned to board the _Royal Sovereign_--he first time to +receive the command to hold himself ready. It was then that, coming +alongside the great ship, he had read in all the officers' faces an +anxiety hard to reconcile with the evident tokens of victory around +them. At once it had occurred to him that the Admiral had fallen, +and he put the question to one of the lieutenants--to be told that +Lord Nelson had indeed been mortally wounded and could not live long; +but that he must be alive yet, and conscious, since the _Victory_ was +still signalling orders to the Fleet. + +"I think, my lord," said he, "that Admiral Collingwood must have been +doubtful, just then, what responsibility had fallen upon him, or how +soon it might fall. He had sent for me to 'stand by' so to speak. +He was good enough to tell me the news as it had reached him--" + +Here Lieutenant Lapenotiere, obeying the order to fill his glass, let +spill some of the wine on the table. The sight of the dark trickle +on the mahogany touched some nerve of the brain: he saw it widen into +a pool of blood, from which, as they picked up a shattered seaman and +bore him below, a lazy stream crept across the deck of the flag-ship +towards the scuppers. He moved his feet, as he had moved them then, +to be out of the way of it: but recovered himself in another moment +and went on-- + +"He told me, my lord, that the _Victory_ after passing under the +_Bucentaure's_ stern, and so raking her that she was put out of +action, or almost, fell alongside the _Redoutable_. There was a long +swell running, with next to no wind, and the two ships could hardly +have cleared had they tried. At any rate, they hooked, and it was +then a question which could hammer the harder. The Frenchman had +filled his tops with sharp-shooters, and from one of these-- +the mizen-top, I believe--a musket-ball struck down the Admiral. +He was walking at the time to and fro on a sort of gangway he had +caused to be planked over his cabin sky-light, between the wheel and +the ladder-way. . . . Admiral Collingwood believed it had happened +about half-past one . . ." + +"Sit down, man, and drink your wine," commanded the First Lord as the +dispatch-bearer swayed with a sudden faintness. + +"It is nothing, my lord--" + +But it must have been a real swoon, or something very like it: for he +recovered to find himself lying in an arm-chair. He heard the +Secretary's voice reading steadily on and on. . . . Also they must +have given him wine, for he awoke to feel the warmth of it in his +veins and coursing about his heart. But he was weak yet, and for the +moment well content to lie still and listen. + +Resting there and listening, he was aware of two sensations that +alternated within him, chasing each other in and out of his +consciousness. He felt all the while that he, John Richards +Lapenotiere, a junior officer in His Majesty's service, was assisting +in one of the most momentous events in his country's history; and +alone in the room with these two men, he felt it as he had never +begun to feel it amid the smoke and roar of the actual battle. +He had seen the dead hero but half a dozen times in his life: he had +never been honoured by a word from him: but like every other naval +officer, he had come to look up to Nelson as to the splendid +particular star among commanders. _There_ was greatness: _there_ was +that which lifted men to such deeds as write man's name across the +firmament! And, strange to say, Lieutenant Lapenotiere recognised +something of it in this queer old man, in dressing-gown and +ill-fitting wig, who took snuff and interrupted now with a curse and +anon with a "bravo!" as the Secretary read. He was absurd: but he +was no common man, this Lord Barham. He had something of the +ineffable aura of greatness. + +But in the Lieutenant's brain, across this serious, even awful sense +of the moment and of its meaning, there played a curious secondary +sense that the moment was not--that what was happening before his +eyes had either happened before or was happening in some vacuum in +which past, present, future and the ordinary divisions of time had +lost their bearings. The great twenty-four-hour clock at the end of +the Board Room, ticking on and on while the Secretary read, wore an +unfamiliar face. . . . Yes, time had gone wrong, somehow: and the +events of the passage home to Falmouth, of the journey up to the +doors of the Admiralty, though they ran on a chain, had no intervals +to be measured by a clock, but followed one another like pictures on +a wall. He saw the long, indigo-coloured swell thrusting the broken +ships shoreward. He felt the wind freshening as it southered and he +left the Fleet behind: he watched their many lanterns as they sank +out of sight, then the glow of flares by the light of which +dead-tired men were repairing damages, cutting away wreckage. +His ship was wallowing heavily now, with the gale after her,--and now +dawn was breaking clean and glorious on the swell off Lizard Point. +A Mount's Bay lugger had spied them, and lying in wait, had sheered +up close alongside, her crew bawling for news. He had not forbidden +his men to call it back, and he could see the fellows' faces now, as +it reached them from the speaking-trumpet: "Great victory--twenty +taken or sunk--Admiral Nelson killed!" They had guessed something, +noting the _Pickle's_ ensign at half-mast: yet as they took in the +purport of the last three words, these honest fishermen had turned +and stared at one another; and without one answering word, the lugger +had been headed straight back to the mainland. + +So it had been at Falmouth. A ship entering port has a thousand eyes +upon her, and the _Pickle's_ errand could not be hidden. The news +seemed in some mysterious way to have spread even before he stepped +ashore there on the Market Strand. A small crowd had collected, and, +as he passed through it, many doffed their hats. There was no +cheering at all--no, not for this the most glorious victory of the +war--outshining even the Nile or Howe's First of June. + +He had set his face as he walked to the inn. But the news had +flown before him, and fresh crowds gathered to watch him off. +The post-boys knew . . . and _they_ told the post-boys at the next +stage, and the next--Bodmin and Plymouth--not to mention the boatmen +at Torpoint Ferry. But the countryside did not know: nor the +labourers gathering in cider apples heaped under Devon apple-trees, +nor, next day, the sportsmen banging off guns at the partridges +around Salisbury. The slow, jolly life of England on either side of +the high road turned leisurely as a wagon-wheel on its axle, while +between hedgerows, past farm hamlets, church-towers and through the +cobbled streets of market towns, he had sped and rattled with +Collingwood's dispatch in his sealed case. The news had reached +London with him. His last post-boys had carried it to their stables, +and from stable to tavern. To-morrow--to-day, rather--in an hour or +two--all the bells of London would be ringing--or tolling! . . . + +"He's as tired as a dog," said the voice of the Secretary. +"Seems almost a shame to waken him." + +The Lieutenant opened his eyes and jumped to his feet with an +apology. Lord Barham had gone, and the Secretary hard by was +speaking to the night-porter, who bent over the fire, raking it with +a poker. The hands of the Queen Anne clock indicated a quarter to +six. + +"The First Lord would like to talk with you . . . later in the day," +said Mr. Tylney gravely, smiling a little these last words. +He himself was white and haggard. "He suggested the early afternoon, +say half-past two. That will give you time for a round sleep. . . . +You might leave me the name of your hotel, in case he should wish to +send for you before that hour." + +"'The Swan with Two Necks,' Lad Lane, Cheapside," said Lieutenant +Lapenotiere. + +He knew little of London, and gave the name of the hostelry at which, +many years ago, he had alighted from a West Country coach with his +box and midshipman's kit . . . . A moment later he found himself +wondering if it still existed as a house of entertainment. Well, he +must go and seek it. + +The Secretary shook hands with him, smiling wanly. + +"Few men, sir, have been privileged to carry such news as you have +brought us to-night." + +"And I went to sleep after delivering it," said Lieutenant +Lapenotiere, smiling back. + +The night-porter escorted him to the hall, and opened the great door +for him. In the portico he bade the honest man good night, and stood +for a moment, mapping out in his mind his way to "The Swan with Two +Necks." He shivered slightly, after his nap, in the chill of the +approaching dawn. + +As the door closed behind him he was aware of a light shining, out +beyond the screen of the fore-court, and again a horse blew through +its nostrils on the raw air. + +"Lord!" thought the Lieutenant. "That fool of a post-boy cannot have +mistaken me and waited all this time!" + +He hurried out into Whitehall. Sure enough a chaise was drawn up +there, and a post-boy stood by the near lamp, conning a scrap of +paper by the light of it. No, it was a different chaise, and a +different post-boy. He wore the buff and black, whereas the other +had worn the blue and white. Yet he stepped forward confidently, and +with something of a smile. + +"Lieutenant Lapenotiere?" he asked, reaching back and holding up his +paper to the lamp to make sure of the syllables. + +"That is my name," said the amazed Lieutenant. + +"I was ordered here--five-forty-five--to drive you down to Merton." + +"To Merton?" echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, his hand going to his +pocket. The post-boy's smile, or so much as could be seen of it by +the edge of the lamp, grew more knowing. + +"I ask no questions, sir." + +"But--but who ordered you?" + +The post-boy did not observe, or disregarded, his bewilderment. + +"A Briton's a Briton, sir, I hope? I ask no questions, knowing my +place. . . . But if so be as you were to tell me there's been a great +victory--" He paused on this. + +"Well, my man, you're right so far, and no harm in telling you." + +"Aye," chirruped the post-boy. "When the maid called me up with the +order, and said as how _he_ and no other had called with it--" + +"He?" + +The fellow nodded. + +"She knew him at once, from his portraits. Who wouldn't? With his +right sleeve pinned across so. . . . And, said I, 'Then there's been +a real victory. Never would you see him back, unless. And I was +right, sir!' he concluded triumphantly. + +"Let me see that piece of paper." + +"You'll let me have it back, sir?--for a memento," the post-boy +pleaded. Lieutenant Lapenotiere took it from him--a plain half-sheet +of note-paper roughly folded. On it was scribbled in pencil, +back-hand wise, "Lt. Lapenotiere. Admiralty, Whitehall. At 6.30 +a.m., not later. For Merton, Surrey." + +He folded the paper very slowly, and handed it back to the post-boy. + +"Very well, then. For Merton." + + +The house lay but a very little distance beyond Wimbledon. +Its blinds were drawn as Lieutenant Lapenotiere alighted from the +chaise and went up to the modest porch. + +His hand was on the bell-pull. But some pressure checked him as he +was on the point of ringing. He determined to wait for a while and +turned away towards the garden. + +The dawn had just broken; two or three birds were singing. It did +not surprise--at any rate, it did not frighten--Lieutenant +Lapenotiere at all, when, turning into a short pleached alley, he +looked along it and saw _him_ advancing. + +--Yes,_ him_, with the pinned sleeve, the noble, seamed, eager face. +They met as friends. . . . In later years the lieutenant could never +remember a word that passed, if any passed at all. He was inclined +to think that they met and walked together in complete silence, for +many minutes. Yet he ever maintained that they walked as two friends +whose thoughts hold converse without need of words. He was not +terrified at all. He ever insisted, on the contrary, that there, in +the cold of the breaking day, his heart was light and warm as though +flooded with first love--not troubled by it, as youth in first love +is wont to be--but bathed in it; he, the ardent young officer, bathed +in a glow of affection, ennobling, exalting him, making him free of a +brotherhood he had never guessed. + +He used also, in telling the story, to scandalise the clergyman of +his parish by quoting the evangelists, and especially St. John's +narrative of Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre. + + +For the door of the house opened at length; and a beautiful woman, +scarred by knowledge of the world, came down the alley, slowly, +unaware of him. Then (said he), as she approached, his hand went up +to his pocket for the private letter he carried, and the shade at his +side left him to face her in the daylight. + + + +THE CASK ASHORE.(1807). + + + +I. + + +RUM FOR BOND. + +At the head of a diminutive creek of the Tamar River, a little above +Saltash on the Cornish shore, stands the village of Botusfleming; and +in early summer, when its cherry-orchards come into bloom, you will +search far before finding a prettier. + +The years have dealt gently with Botusfleming. As it is to-day, so-- +or nearly so--it was on a certain sunny afternoon in the year 1807, +when the Reverend Edward Spettigew, Curate-in-Charge, sat in the +garden before his cottage and smoked his pipe while he meditated a +sermon. That is to say, he intended to meditate a sermon. But the +afternoon was warm: the bees hummed drowsily among the wallflowers +and tulips. From the bench his eyes followed the vale's descent +between overlapping billows of cherry blossom to a gap wherein shone +the silver Tamar--not, be it understood, the part called Hamoaze, +where lay the warships and the hulks containing the French prisoners, +but an upper reach seldom troubled by shipping. + +Parson Spettigew laid the book face-downwards on his knee while his +lips murmured a part of the text he had chosen: "_A place of broad +rivers and streams . . . wherein shall go no galley with oars, +neither shall gallant ship pass thereby_. . . ." His pipe went out. +The book slipped from his knee to the ground. He slumbered. + + +The garden gate rattled, and he awoke with a start. In the pathway +below him stood a sailor; a middle-sized, middle-aged man, rigged out +in best shore-going clothes--shiny tarpaulin hat, blue coat and +waistcoat, shirt open at the throat, and white duck trousers with +broad-buckled waistbelt. + +"Beggin' your Reverence's pardon," began the visitor, touching the +brim of his hat, and then upon second thoughts uncovering, "but my +name's Jope--Ben Jope." + +"Eh? . . . What can I do for you?" asked Parson Spettigew, a trifle +flustered at being caught napping. + +"--Of the _Vesoovius_ bomb, bo's'n," pursued Mr. Jope, with a smile +that disarmed annoyance, so ingenuous it was, so friendly, and withal +so respectful: "but paid off at eight this morning. Maybe your +Reverence can tell me whereabouts to find an embalmer in these +parts?" + +"A--a _what?_" + +"Embalmer." Mr. Jope chewed thoughtfully for a moment or two upon a +quid of tobacco. "Sort of party you'd go to supposin' as you had a +corpse by you and wanted to keep it for a permanency. You take a lot +of gums and spices, and first of all you lays out the deceased, and +next--" + +"Yes, yes," the Parson interrupted hurriedly; "I know the process, of +course." + +"What? to _practise_ it?" Hope illumined Mr. Jope's countenance. + +"No, most certainly not. . . . But, my good man,--an embalmer! and at +Botusfleming, of all places!" + +The sailor's face fell. He sighed patiently. + +"That's what they said at Saltash, more or less. I got a sister +living there--Sarah Treleaven her name is--a widow-woman, and sells +fish. When I called on her this morning, 'Embalmer?' she said; 'Go +and embalm your grandmother!' Those were her words, and the rest of +Saltash wasn't scarcely more helpful. But, as luck would have it, +while I was searchin', Bill Adams went for a shave, and inside of the +barber's shop what should he see but a fair-sized otter in a glass +case? Bill began to admire it, and it turned out the barber had +stuffed the thing. Maybe your Reverence knows the man?--'A. Grigg +and Son,' he calls hisself." + +"Grigg? Yes, to be sure: he stuffed a trout for me last summer." + +"What weight, makin' so bold?" + +"Seven pounds." + +Mr. Jope's face fell again. + +"Well-a-well! I dare say the size don't matter, once you've got the +knack. We've brought him along, anyway; and, what's more, we've made +him bring all his tools. By his talk, he reckons it to be a shavin' +job, and we agreed to wait before we undeceived him." + +"But--you'll excuse me--I don't quite follow--" + +Mr. Jope pressed a forefinger mysteriously to his lip, then jerked a +thumb in the direction of the river. + +"If your Reverence wouldn' mind steppin' down to the creek with me?" +he suggested respectfully. + +Parson Spettigew fetched his hat, and together the pair descended the +vale beneath the dropping petals of the cherry. At the foot of it +they came to a creek, which the tide at this hour had flooded and +almost overbrimmed. Hard by the water's edge, backed by tall elms, +stood a dilapidated fish-store, and below it lay a boat with nose +aground on a beach of flat stones. Two men were in the boat. +The barber--a slip of a fellow in rusty top-hat and suit of rusty +black--sat in the stern-sheets face to face with a large cask; a cask +so ample that, to find room for his knees, he was forced to crook +them at a high, uncomfortable angle. In the bows, boathook in hand, +stood a tall sailor, arrayed in shore-going clothes similar to Mr. +Jope's. His face was long, sallow, and expressive of taciturnity, +and he wore a beard--not, however, where beards are usually worn, but +as a fringe beneath his clean-shaven chin. + +"Well, here we are!" announced Mr. Jope cheerfully. "Your Reverence +knows A. Grigg and Son, and the others you can trust in all weathers; +bein' William Adams, otherwise Bill, and Eli Tonkin--friends o' mine +an' shipmates both." + +The tall seaman touched his hat by way of acknowledging the +introduction. + +"But--but I only see _one!_" protested Parson Spettigew. + +"This here's Bill Adams," said Mr. Jope, and again the tall seaman +touched his hat. "Is it Eli you're missin'? He's in the cask." + +"Oh!" + +"We'll hoick him up to the store, Bill, if you're ready? It looks a +nice cool place. And while you're prizin' him open, I'd best explain +to his Reverence and the barber. Here, unship the shore-plank; and +you, A. Grigg and Son, lend a hand to heave. . . . Aye, you're right: +it weighs more'n a trifle--bein' a quarter-puncheon, an' the best +proof-spirits. Tilt her _this_ way, . . . Ready? . . . then +w'y-ho! and away she goes!" + +With a heave and a lurch that canted the boat until the water poured +over her gunwale, the huge tub was rolled overside into shallow +water. The recoil, as the boat righted herself, cast the small +barber off his balance, and he fell back over a thwart with heels in +air. But before he picked himself up, the two seamen, encouraging +one another with strange cries, had leapt out and were trundling the +cask up the beach, using the flats of their hands. With another +_w'y-ho!_ and a tremendous lift, they ran it up to the turfy plat, +whence Bill Adams steered it with ease through the ruinated doorway +of the store. Mr. Jope returned, smiling and mopping his brow. + +"It's this-a-way," he said, addressing the Parson. "Eli Tonkin his +name is, or was; and, as he said, of this parish." + +"Tonkin?" queried the Parson. "There are no Tonkins surviving in +Botusfleming parish. The last of them was a poor old widow I laid to +rest the week after Christmas." + +"Belay there! . . . Dead, is she?" Mr. Jope's face exhibited the +liveliest disappointment. "And after the surprise we'd planned for +her!" he murmured ruefully. "Hi! Bill!" he called to his shipmate, +who having stored the cask, was returning to the boat. + +"Wot is it?" asked Bill Adams inattentively. "Look here, where did +we stow the hammer an' chisel?" + +"Take your head out o' the boat an' listen. The old woman's dead!" + +The tall man absorbed the news slowly. + +"That's a facer," he said at length. "But maybe we can fix _her_ up, +too? I'll stand my share." + +"She was buried the week after Christmas." + +"Oh?" Bill scratched his head. "Then we can't--not very well." + +"Times an' again I've heard Eli talk of his poor old mother," said +Mr. Jope, turning to the Parson. "Which you'll hardly believe it, +but though I knowed him for a West Country man, 'twas not till the +last I larned what parish he hailed from. It happened very +curiously. Bill, rout up A. Grigg and Son, an' fetch him forra'd +here to listen. You'll find the tools underneath him in the +stern-sheets." + +Bill obeyed, and possessing himself of hammer and chisel lounged off +to the shore. The little barber drew near, and stood at Mr. Jope's +elbow. His face wore an unhealthy pallor, and he smelt potently of +strong drink. + +"Brandy it is," apologised Mr. Jope, observing a slight contraction +of the Parson's nostril. "I reckoned 'twould tauten him a bit for +what's ahead. . . . Well, as I was sayin', it happened very +curiously. This day fortnight we were beatin' up an' across the Bay +o' Biscay, after a four months' to-an'-fro game in front of Toolon +Harbour. Blowin' fresh it was, an' we makin' pretty poor weather of +it--the _Vesoovius_ bein' a powerful wet tub, an' a slug at the best +o' times. 'Tisn' her fault, you understand: aboard a bombship +everything's got to be heavy--timbers, scantling, everything about +her--to stand the concussion. What with this an' her mortars, she +sits pretty low; but to make up for it, what with all this dead +weight, and bein' short-sparred, she can carry all sail in a breeze +that would surprise you. Well, sir, for two days she'd been carryin' +canvas that fairly smothered us, an' Cap'n Crang not a man to care +how we fared forra'd, so long as the water didn' reach aft to his own +quarters. But at last the First Lootenant, Mr. Wapshott, took pity +on us, and--the Cap'n bein' below, takin' his nap after dinner--sends +the crew o' the maintop aloft to take a reef in the tops'le. +Poor Eli was one. Whereby the men had scarcely reached the top afore +Cap'n Crang comes up from his cabin an' along the deck, not troublin' +to cast an eye aloft. Whereby he missed what was happenin'. +Whereby he had just come abreast of the mainmast, when--sock at his +very feet--there drops a man. 'Twas Eli, that had missed his hold, +an' dropped somewhere on the back of his skull. 'Hallo!' says the +Cap'n, 'an' where the devil might _you_ come from?' Eli heard it, +poor fellow--an' says he, as I lifted him, 'If you please, sir, from +Botusfleming, three miles t'other side of Saltash.' 'Then you've had +a damn quick passage,' answers Cap'n Crang, an' turns on his heel. + +"Well, sir, we all agreed the Cap'n might ha' showed more feelin', +specially as poor Eli'd broke the base of his skull, an' by eight +bells handed in the number of his mess. Five or six of us talked it +over, agreein' as how 'twas hardly human, an' Eli such a good fellow, +too, let alone bein' a decent seaman. Whereby the notion came to me +that, as he'd come from Botusfieming--those bein' his last words-- +back to Botusfleming he should go, an' on that we cooked up a plan. +Bill Adams being on duty in the sick-bay, there wasn' no difficulty +in sewin' up a dummy in Eli's place; an' the dummy, sir, nex' day we +dooly committed to the deep, Cap'n Crang hisself readin' the service. +The real question was, what to do with Eli? Whereby, the purser and +me bein' friends, I goes to him an' says, 'Look here,' I says, 'we'll +be paid off in ten days or so, an' there's a trifle o' prize-money, +too. 'What price'll you sell us a cask o' the ship's rum--say a +quarter-puncheon for choice?' 'What for?' says he. 'For shore-going +purposes,' says I. 'Bill Adams an' me got a use for it.' 'Well,' +says the purser--a decent chap, an' by name Wilkins--'I'm an honest +man,' says he, 'an' to oblige a friend you shall have it at +store-valuation rate. An' what's more,' said he, 'I got the wind o' +your little game, an'll do what I can to help it along; for I al'ays +liked the deceased, an' in my opinion Captain Crang behaved most +unfeelin'. You tell Bill to bring the body to me, an' there'll be no +more trouble about it till I hand you over the cask at Plymouth.' +Well, sir, the man was as good as his word. We smuggled the cask +ashore last evenin', an' hid it in the woods this side o' Mount +Edgcumbe. This mornin' we re-shipped it as you see. First along we +intended no more than just to break the news to Eli's mother, an' +hand him over to her; but Bill reckoned that to hand him over, cask +an' all, would look careless; for (as he said) 'twasn' as if you +could _bury_ 'im in a cask. We allowed your Reverence would draw the +line at that, though we hadn' the pleasure o' knowin' you at the +time." + +"Yes," agreed the Parson, as Mr. Jope paused, "I fear it could not be +done without scandal." + +"That's just how Bill put it. 'Well then,' says I, thinkin' it over, +'why not do the handsome while we're about it? You an' me ain't the +sort of men,' I says, 'to spoil the ship for a ha'porth o' tar.' +'Certainly we ain't,' says Bill. 'An' we've done a lot for Eli,' +says I. 'We have,' says Bill. 'Well then,' says I, 'let's put a +coat o' paint on the whole business an' have him embalmed.' Bill was +enchanted." + +"I--I beg your pardon," put in the barber, edging away a pace. + +"Bill was enchanted. Hark to him in the store, there, knockin' away +at the chisel." + +"But there's some misunderstanding," the little man protested +earnestly. "I understood it was to be a _shave_." + +"You can shave him, too, if you like." + +"If I th--thought you were s--serious--" + +"Have some more brandy." Mr. Jope pulled out and proffered a flask. +"Only don't overdo it, or it'll make your hand shaky. . . . Serious? +You may lay to it that Bill's serious. He's that set on the idea, it +don't make no difference to him, as you may have noticed, Eli's +mother not bein' alive to take pleasure in it. Why, he wanted to +embalm _her_, too! He's doin' this now for his own gratification, is +Bill, an' you may take it from me when Bill sets his heart on a thing +he sees it through. Don't you cross him, that's my advice." + +"But--but--" + +"No, you don't." As the little man made a wild spring to flee up the +beach, Mr. Jope shot out a hand and gripped him by the coat collar. +"Now look here," he said very quietly, as the poor wretch would have +grovelled at the Parson's feet, "you was boastin' to Bill, not an +hour agone, as you could stuff _anything_." + +"Don't hurt him," Parson Spettigew interposed, touching Mr. Jope's +arm. + +"I'm not hurtin' him, your Reverence, only--Eh? What's that?" + +All turned their faces towards the store. + +"Your friend is calling to you," said the Parson. + +"Bad language, too . . . that's not like Bill, as a rule. +Ahoy there, Bill!" + +"Ahoy!" answered the voice of Mr. Adams. + +"What's up?" Without waiting for an answer Mr. Jope ran the barber +before him up the beach to the doorway, the Parson following. +"What's up?" he demanded again, as he drew breath. + +"Take an' see for yourself," answered Mr. Adams darkly, pointing with +his chisel. + +A fine fragrance of rum permeated the store. + +Mr. Jope advanced, and peered into the staved cask. + +"Gone?" he exclaimed, and gazed around blankly. + +Bill Adams nodded. + +"But _where?_ . . . You don't say he's _dissolved?_" + +"It ain't the usual way o' rum. An' it _is_ rum?" + +Bill appealed to the Parson. + +"By the smell, undoubtedly." + +"I tell you what's happened. That fool of a Wilkins has made a +mistake in the cask. . . ." + +"An' Eli?--oh, Lord!" gasped Mr. Jope. + +"They'll have returned Eli to the Victuallin' Yard before this," said +Bill gloomily. "I overheard Wilkins sayin' as he was to pass over +all stores an' accounts at nine-thirty this mornin'." + +"An', once there, who knows where he's got mixed? . . . He'll go the +round o' the Fleet, maybe. Oh, my word, an' the ship that broaches +him!" + +Bill Adams opened and shut his mouth quickly, like a fish ashore. + +"They'll reckon they've got a lucky-bag," he said weakly. + +"An' Wilkins paid off with the rest, an' no address, even if he could +help--which I doubt." + +"Eh? I got a note from Wilkins, as it happens." Bill Adams took off +his tarpaulin hat, and extracted a paper from the lining of the +crown. "He passed it down to me this mornin' as I pushed off from +the ship. Said I was to keep it, an' maybe I'd find it useful. +I wondered what he meant at the time, me takin' no particular truck +with pursers ashore. . . . It crossed my mind as I'd heard he meant +to get married, and maybe he wanted me to stand best man at the +weddin'. W'ich I didn' open the note at the time; not likin' to +refuse him, after he'd behaved so well to me." + +"Pass it over," commanded Mr. Jope. He took the paper and unfolded +it, but either the light was dim within the store, or the handwriting +hard to decipher. "Would your Reverence read it out for us?" + +Parson Spettigew carried the paper to the doorway. He read its +contents aloud, and slowly: + + To Mr. Bill Adams, + + Capt. of the Fore-top, H.M.S. _Vesuvius_. + + Sir,--It was a dummy Capt. Crang buried. We cast the late E. + Tonkin overboard the second night in lat. 46/30, long. 7/15, or + thereabouts. By which time the feeling aboard had cooled down + and it seemed a waste of good spirit. The rum you paid for is + good rum. Hoping that you and Mr. Jope will find a use for it, + + Your obedient servant, + S. Wilkins. + +There was a long pause, through which Mr. Adams could be heard +breathing hard. + +"But what are we to do with it?" asked Mr. Jope, scratching his head +in perplexity. + +"Drink it. Wot else?" + +"But where?" + +"Oh," said Mr. Adams, "anywhere!" + +"That's all very well," replied his friend. "You never had no +property, an' don't know its burdens. We'll have to hire a house for +this, an' live there till it's finished." + + + +II. + + +THE MULTIPLYING CELLAR. + +St. Dilp by Tamar has altered little in a hundred years. As it +stands to-day, embowered in cherry-trees, so (or nearly so) it stood +on that warm afternoon in the early summer of 1807, when two +weather-tanned seamen of His Majesty's Fleet came along its fore +street with a hand-barrow and a huge cask very cunningly lashed +thereto. On their way they eyed the cottages and gardens to right +and left with a lively curiosity; but "Lord, Bill," said the shorter +seaman, misquoting Wordsworth unawares, "the werry houses look +asleep!" + +At the "Punch-Bowl" Inn, kept by J. Coyne, they halted by silent +consent. Mr. William Adams, who had been trundling the barrow, set +it down, and Mr. Benjamin Jope--whose good-natured face would have +recommended him anywhere--walked into the drinking-parlour and rapped +on the table. This brought to him the innkeeper's daughter, Miss +Elizabeth, twenty years old and comely. "What can I do for you, +sir?" she asked. + +"Two pots o' beer, first-along," said Mr. Jope. + +"Two?" + +"I got a shipmate outside." + +Miss Elizabeth fetched the two pots. + +"Here, Bill!" he called, carrying one to the door. Returning, he +blew at the froth on his own pot meditatively. "And the next thing +is, I want a house." + +"A house?" + +"'Stonishing echo you keep here. . . . Yes, miss, a house. My name's +Jope--Ben Jope--o' the _Vesuvius_ bomb, bo's'un; but paid off at +eight this morning. My friend outside goes by the name of Bill +Adams; an' you'll find him livelier than he looks. Everyone does. +But I forgot; you ha'n't seen him yet, and he can't come in, havin' +to look after the cask." + +"The ca--" Miss Elizabeth had almost repeated the word, but managed +to check herself. + +"You ought to consult someone about it, at your age," said Mr. Jope +solicitously. "Yes, the cask. Rum it is, an' a quarter-puncheon. +Bill and me clubbed an' bought it off the purser las' night, the +chaplain havin' advised us not to waste good prize-money ashore but +invest it in something we really wanted. But I don't know if you've +ever noticed how often one thing leads to another. You can't go +drinkin' out a quarter-puncheon o' rum in the high road, not very +well. So the next thing is, we want a house." + +"But," said the girl, "who ever heard of a house to let hereabouts!" + +Mr. Jope's face fell. + +"Ain't there none? An' it seemed so retired, too, an' handy near +Plymouth." + +"There's not a house to let in St. Dilp parish, unless it be the +Rectory." + +Mr. Jope's face brightened. + +"Then we'll take the Rectory," he said. "Where is it?" + +"Down by the river. . . . But 'tis nonsense you're tellin'. +The Rectory indeed! Why, it's a seat!" + +Mr. Jope's face clouded. + +"Oh," he said, "is that all?" + +"It's a fine one, too." + +"It'd have to be, to accomydate Bill an' me an' the cask. I wanted a +house, as I thought I told ye." + +"Oh, but I meant a country-seat," explained Miss Elizabeth. +"The Rectory is a house." + +Again Mr. Jope's face brightened. + +"An' so big," she went on, "that the Rector can't afford to live in +it. That's why 'tis to let. The rent's forty pound." + +"Can I see him?" + +"No, you can't; for he lives up to Lunnon an' hires Parson Spettigew +of Botusfleming to do the work. But it's my father has the lettin' +o' the Rectory if a tenant comes along. He keeps the keys." + +"Then I 'd like to talk with your father." + +"No you wouldn't," said the girl frankly; "because he's asleep. +Father drinks a quart o' cider at three o'clock every day of his +life, an' no one don't dare disturb him before six." + +"Well, I like reggilar habits," said Mr. Jope, diving a hand into his +breeches' pocket and drawing forth a fistful of golden guineas. +"But couldn't you risk it?" + +Miss Elizabeth's eyes wavered. + +"No, I couldn'," she sighed, shaking her head. "Father's very +violent in his temper. But I tell you what," she added: "I might +fetch the keys, and you might go an' see the place for yourself." + +"Capital," said Mr. Jope. While she was fetching these he finished +his beer. Then, having insisted on paying down a guinea for +earnest-money, he took the keys and her directions for finding the +house. She repeated them in the porch for the benefit of the taller +seaman; who, as soon as she had concluded, gripped the handles of his +barrow afresh and set off without a word. She gazed after the pair +as they passed down the street. + +At the foot of it a by-lane branched off towards the creek-side. +It led them past a churchyard and a tiny church almost smothered in +cherry-trees--for the churchyard was half an orchard: past a tumbling +stream, a mill and some wood-stacks; and so, still winding downwards, +brought them to a pair of iron gates, rusty and weather-greened. +The gates stood unlocked; and our two seamen found themselves next in +a carriage-drive along which it was plain no carriage had passed for +a very long while. It was overgrown with weeds, and straggling +laurels encroached upon it on either hand; and as it rounded one of +these laurels Mr. Jope caught his breath sharply. + +"Lor' lumme!" he exclaimed. "It is a seat, as the gel said!" + +Mr. Adams, following close with the wheelbarrow, set it down, stared, +and said: + +"Then she's a liar. It's a house." + +"It's twice the size of a three-decker, anyway," said his friend, and +together they stood and contemplated the building. + +It was a handsome pile of old brickwork, set in a foundation of rock +almost overhanging the river--on which, however, it turned its back; +in design, an oblong of two storeys, with a square tower at each of +the four corners, and the towers connected by a parapet of freestone. +The windows along the front were regular, and those on the +ground-floor less handsome than those of the upper floor, where +(it appeared) were the staterooms. For--strangest feature of all-- +the main entrance was in this upper storey, with a dozen broad steps +leading down to the unkempt carriage-way and a lawn, across which a +magnificent turkey oak threw dark masses of shadow. + +But the house was a picture of decay. Unpainted shutters blocked the +windows; tall grasses sprouted in the crevices of the entrance steps +and parapet; dislodged slates littered the drive; smears of old rains +ran down the main roof and from a lantern of which the louvers were +all in ruin, some hanging by a nail, others blown on edge by +long-past gales. The very nails had rusted out of the walls, and the +creepers they should have supported hung down in ropy curtains. + +Mr. Adams scratched his head. + +"What I'd like to know," said he after a while, "is how to get the +cask up them steps." + +"There'll be a cellar-door for sartin," Mr. Jope assured him +cheerfully. "You don't suppose the gentry takes their beer in at the +front, hey?" + +"This," said Mr. Adams, "is rum; which is a totally different thing." +But he set down his barrow, albeit reluctantly, and followed his +shipmate up the entrance steps. The front door was massive, and +sheeted over with lead embossed in foliate and heraldic patterns. +Mr. Jope inserted the key, turned it with some difficulty, and pushed +the door wide. It opened immediately upon the great hall, and after +a glance within he removed his hat. + +The hall, some fifty feet long, ran right across the waist of the +house, and was lit by tall windows at either end. Its floor was of +black and white marble in lozenge pattern. Three immense chandeliers +depended from its roof. Along each of the two unpierced walls, +against panels of peeling stucco, stood a line of statuary--heathen +goddesses, fauns, athletes and gladiators, with here and there a vase +or urn copied from the antique. The furniture consisted of half a +dozen chairs, a settee, and an octagon table, all carved out of wood +in pseudo-classical patterns, and painted with a grey wash to +resemble stone. + +"It's a fine room," said Mr. Jope, walking up to a statue of Diana: +"but a man couldn' hardly invite a mixed company to dinner here." + +"Symonds's f'r instance," suggested Mr. Adams. Symonds's being a +somewhat notorious boarding-house in a street of Plymouth which shall +be nameless. + +"You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, Bill," said Mr. Jope sternly. + +"They're anticks, that's what they are." + +Mr. Adams drew a long breath. + +"I shouldn' wonder," he said. + +"Turnin' 'em wi' their faces to the wall 'd look too marked," mused +Mr. Jope. "But a few tex o' Scripture along the walls might ease +things down a bit." + +"Wot about the hold?" Mr. Adams suggested. + +"The cellar, you mean. Let's have a look." + +They passed through the hall; thence down a stone stairway into an +ample vaulted kitchen, and thence along a slate-flagged corridor +flanked by sculleries, larders and other kitchen offices. The two +seamen searched the floors of all in hope of finding a cellar trap or +hatchway, and Mr. Adams was still searching when Mr. Jope called to +him from the end of the corridor: + +"Here we are!" + +He had found a flight of steps worthy of a cathedral crypt, leading +down to a stone archway. The archway was closed by an iron-studded +door. + +"It's like goin' to church," commented Mr. Jope, bating his voice. +"Where's the candles, Bill?" + +"In the barrer 'long wi' the bread an' bacon." + +"Then step back and fetch 'em." + +But from the foot of the stairs Mr. Jope presently called up that +this was unnecessary, for the door had opened to his hand--smoothly, +too, and without noise; but he failed to note this as strange, being +taken aback for the moment by a strong draught of air that met him, +blowing full in his face. + +"There's daylight here, too, of a sort," he reported: and so there +was. It pierced the darkness in a long shaft, slanting across from a +doorway of which the upper panel stood open to the sky. + +"Funny way o' leavin' a house," he muttered, as he stepped across the +bare cellar floor and peered forth. "Why, hallo, here's water!" + +The cellar, in fact, stood close by the river's edge, with a broad +postern-sill actually overhanging the tide, and a flight of steps, +scarcely less broad, curving up and around the south-west angle of +the house. + +While Mr. Jope studied these and the tranquil river flowing, all grey +and twilit, at his feet, Mr. Adams had joined him and had also taken +bearings. + +"With a check-rope," said Mr. Adams, "--and I got one in the barrer-- +we can lower it down here easy." + +He pointed to the steps. + +"Hey?" said Mr. Jope. "Yes, the cask--to be sure." + +"Wot else?" said Mr. Adams. "An' I reckon we'd best get to work, if +we're to get it housed afore dark." + +They did so: but by the time they had the cask bestowed and trigged +up, and had spiled it and inserted a tap, darkness had fallen. +If they wished to explore the house farther, it would be necessary to +carry candles; and somehow neither Mr. Jope nor Mr. Adams felt eager +for this adventure. They were hungry, moreover. So they decided to +make their way back to the great hall, and sup. + +They supped by the light of a couple of candles. The repast +consisted of bread and cold bacon washed down by cold rum-and-water. +At Symonds's--they gave no utterance to this reflection, but each +knew it to be in the other's mind--at Symonds's just now there would +be a boiled leg of mutton with turnips, and the rum would be hot, +with a slice of lemon. + +"We shall get accustomed," said Mr. Jope with a forced air of +cheerfulness. + +Mr. Adams glanced over his shoulder at the statuary and answered +"yes" in a loud unfaltering voice. After a short silence he arose, +opened one of the windows, removed a quid from his cheek, laid it +carefully on the outer sill, closed the window, and resumed his seat. +Mr. Jope had pulled out a cake of tobacco, and was slicing it into +small pieces with his clasp-knife. + +"Goin' to smoke?" asked Mr. Adams, with another glance at the Diana. + +"It don't hurt this 'ere marble pavement--not like the other thing." + +"No"--Mr. Adams contemplated the pavement while he, too, drew forth +and filled a pipe--"a man might play a game of checkers on it; that +is, o' course, when no one was lookin'." + +"I been thinking," announced Mr. Jope, "over what his Reverence said +about bankin' our money." + +"How much d'ye reckon we've got?" + +"Between us? Hundred an' twelve pound, fourteen and six. +That's after paying for rum, barrer and oddments. We could live," +said Mr. Jope, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stem +at his friend in expository fashion--"we could live in this here +house for more'n three years." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Adams, but without enthusiasm. "Could we now?" + +"That is, if we left out the vittles." + +"But we're not goin' to." + +"O' course not. Vittles for two'll run away with a heap of it. +And then there'll be callers." + +"Callers?" Mr. Adams's face brightened. + +"Not the sort you mean. Country folk. It's the usual thing when +strangers come an' settle in a place o' this size. . . . But, all the +same, a hundred an' twelve pound, fourteen and six is a heap: an' as +I say, we got to think over bankin' it. A man feels solid settin' +here with money under his belt; an' yet between you an' me I wouldn't +mind if it was less so, in a manner o' speakin'." + +"Me, either." + +"I was wonderin' what it would feel like to wake in the night an' +tell yourself that someone was rollin' up money for you like a +snowball." + +"There might be a certain amount of friskiness in that. But +contrariwise, if you waked an' told yourself the fella was runnin' +off with it, there wuldn'." + +"Shore-living folks takes that risk an' grows accustomed to it. +W'y look at the fellow in charge o' this house." + +"Where?" asked Mr. Adams nervously. + +"The landlord-fellow, I mean, up in the village. His daughter said +he went to sleep every afternoon, an' wouldn' be waked. How could a +man afford to do that if his money wasn' rollin' up somewhere for +him? An' the place fairly lined with barrels o' good liquor." + +"Mightn't liquor accumylate in the same way?" asked Mr. Adams, with +sudden and lively interest. + +"No, you nincom'," began Mr. Jope--when a loud knocking on the outer +door interrupted him. "Hallo!" he sank his voice. "Callers +already!" + +He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A heavy-shouldered, +bull-necked man stood outside in the dusk. + +"Good evenin'." + +"Evenin'," said the stranger. "My name is Coyne an' you must get out +o' this." + +"I don't see as it follows," answered Mr. Jope meditatively. "But +hadn't you better step inside?" + +"I don't want to bandy words--" began the publican, entering as +though he shouldered his way. + +"That's right! Bill, fetch an' fill a glass for the gentleman." + +"No, thank you. . . . Well, since you have it handy. But look here: +I got nothin' particular to say against you two men, only you can't +stop here to-night. That's straight enough, I hope, and no bones +broken." + +"Straight it is," Mr. Jope agreed: "and we'll talk o' the bones by +an' by. Wot name, sir?--makin' so bold." + +"My name's Coyne." + +"An' mine's Cash." Mr. Jope fumbled with the fastening of a pouch +underneath his broad waistbelt. "So we're well met. How much?" + +"Eh?" + +"How much? Accordin' to your darter 'twas forty pound a year, an' +money down: but whether monthly or quarterly she didn' say." + +"It's no question of money. It's a question of you two clearin' out, +and at once. I'm breakin' what I have to say as gently as I can. +If you don't choose to understand plain language, I must go an' fetch +the constable." + +"I seen him, up at the village this afternoon, an' you'd better not. +Bill, why can't ye fill the gentleman's glass?" + +"Because the jug's empty," answered Mr. Adams. + +"Then slip down to the cellar again." + +"No!" Mr. Coyne almost screamed it, rising from his chair. Dropping +back weakly, he murmured, panting, "Not for me: not on any account!" +His face was pale, and for the moment all the aggressiveness had gone +out of him. He lifted a hand weakly to his heart. + +"A sudden faintness," he groaned, closing his eyes. "If you two men +had any feelin's, you'd offer to see me home." + +"The pair of us?" asked Mr. Jope suavely. + +"I scale over seventeen stone," murmured Mr. Coyne, still with his +eyes closed; "an' a weight like that is no joke." + +Mr. Jope nodded. + +"You're right there; so you'd best give it over. Sorry to seem +heartless, sir, but 'tis for your good: an' to walk home in your +state would be a sin, when we can fix you up a bed in the house." + +Mr. Coyne opened his eyes, and they were twinkling vindictively. + +"Sleep in this house?" he exclaimed. "I wouldn't do it, not for a +thousand pound!" + +"W'y not?" + +"You'll find out 'why not,' safe enough, afore the mornin'! +Why 'twas in kindness--pure kindness--I asked the pair of ye to see +me home. I wouldn't be one to stay in this house alone arter +nightfall--no, or I wouldn't be one to leave a dog alone here, let be +a friend. My daughter didn't tell, I reckon, as this place was +ha'nted?" + +"Ha'nted?" + +"Aye. By females too." + +"O--oh!" Mr. Adams, who had caught his breath, let it escape in a +long sigh of relief. "Like Symonds's," he murmured. + +"Not a bit like Symonds's," his friend corrected snappishly. +"He's talkin' o' dead uns--ghosts--that is, if I take your meanin', +sir?" + +Mr. Coyne nodded. + +"That's it. Ghosts." + +"Get out with you!" said Mr. Adams, incredulous. + +"You must be a pair of very simple men," said landlord Coyne, +half-closing his eyes again, "if you reckoned that forty pound would +rent a place like this without some drawbacks. Well, the drawbacks +is ghosts. Four of 'em, and all females." + +"Tell us about 'em, sir," requested Mr. Jope, dropping into his seat. +"An' if Bill don't care to listen, he can fill up his time by takin' +the jug an' steppin' down to the cellar." + +"Damned if I do," said Mr. Adams, stealing a glance over his shoulder +at the statues. + +"It's a distressin' story," began Mr. Coyne with a very slight +flutter of the eyelids. "Maybe my daughter told you--an' if she +didn't, you may have found out for yourselves--as how this here house +is properly speakin' four houses--nothing in common but the roof, an' +the cellar, an' this room we're sittin' in. . . . Well, then, back +along there lived an old Rector here, with a man-servant called +Oliver. One day he rode up to Exeter, spent a week there, an' +brought home a wife. Footman Oliver was ready at the door to receive +'em, an' the pair went upstairs to a fine set o' rooms he'd made +ready in the sou'-west tower, an' there for a whole month they lived +together, as you might say, in wedded happiness. + +"At th' end o' the month th' old Rector discovered he had business +takin' him to Bristol. He said his farewells very lovin'ly, promised +to come back as soon as he could, but warned the poor lady against +setting foot outside the doors. The gardens an' fields (he said) +swarmed with field-mice, an' he knew she had a terror of mice of all +sorts. So off he rode, an' by an' by came back by night with a +second young lady: and Oliver showed 'em up to the nor'-east tower +for the honeymoon. + +"A week later my gentleman had a call to post down to Penzance. +He warned his second wife that it was a terrible year for adders an' +the ground swarmin' with 'em, for he knew she had a horror o' snakes. +Inside of a fortnight he brought home a third--" + +"Bill," said Mr. Jope, sitting up sharply, "what noise was that?" + +"I didn't hear it," answered Mr. Adams, who was turning up his +trousers uneasily. "Adders, maybe." + +"Seemed to me it sounded from somewheres in the cellar. Maybe you +wouldn't mind steppin' down, seein' as you don't take no interest in +what Mr. Coyne's tellin'." + +"I'm beginning to." + +"The cellar's the worst place of all," said Mr. Coyne, blinking. +"It's there that the bodies were found." + +"Bodies?" + +"Bodies. Four of 'em. I was goin' to tell you how he brought home +another, havin' kept the third poor lady to her rooms with some tale +about a mad dog starvin' to death in his shrubberies--he didn't know +where--" + +"If you don't mind," Mr. Jope interposed, "I've a notion to hear the +rest o' the story some other evenin'. It's--it's agreeable enough to +bear spinnin' out, an' I understand you're a fixture in this +neighbourhood." + +"Certainly," said Mr. Coyne, rising. "But wot about _you_?" + +"I'll tell you to-morrow." + +Mr. Jope gripped the arms of his chair, having uttered the bravest +speech of his life. He sat for a while, the sound of his own voice +echoing strangely in his ears, even when Mr. Coyne rose to take his +leave. + +"Well, I can't help admirin' you," said Mr. Coyne handsomely. +"By the way the rent's by the quarter, an' in advance--fours into +forty is ten; I mention it as a matter of business, and in case we +don't meet again." + +Mr. Jope counted out the money. + +When Mr. Coyne had taken his departure the pair sat a long while in +silence, their solitary candle flickering an the table between them. + +"You spoke out very bold," said Mr. Adams at length. + +"Did I?" said Mr. Jope. "I didn't feel it." + +"What cuts me to the quick is the thought o' them adders outside." + +"Ye dolt! There ain't no real adders outside. They're what the chap +invented to frighten the women." + +"Sure? Then," mused Mr. Adams, after a pause, "maybe there ain't no +real ghosts neither, but he invented the whole thing." + +"Maybe. What d'ye say to steppin' down an' fetchin' up another +mugful o' liquor?" + +"I say," answered Mr. Adams slowly, "as how I won't." + +"Toss for it," suggested Mr. Jope. "You refuse? Very well, then, I +must go. Only I thought better of ye, Bill--I did indeed." + +"I can't help what ye thought," Mr. Adams began sulkily; and then, as +his friend rose with the face of a man who goes to meet the worst, he +sprang up quaking. "Lord's sake, Ben Jope! You ain't a-goin' to take +the candle an' leave me!" + +"Bill Adams," said Mr. Jope with fine solemnity, "if I was to put a +name on your besettin' sin, it would be cowardice--an' you can just +sit here in the dark an' think it over." + +"When I was on the p'int of offering to go with ye!" + +"Ho! Was you? Very well, then, I accept the offer, an' you can walk +first." + +"But I don't see--" + +"Another word," announced Mr. Jope firmly, "an' you won't! _For I'll +blow out the candle_." + +Mr. Adams surrendered, and tottered to the door. They passed out, +and through the vaulted kitchen, and along the slate-flagged +corridor--very slowly here, for a draught fluttered the candle flame, +and Mr. Jope had to shield it with a shaking palm. Once with a +hoarse "What's that?" Mr. Adams halted and cast himself into a +posture of defence--against his own shadow, black and amorphous, +wavering on the wall. + +They came to the iron-studded door. + +"Open, you," commanded Mr. Jope under his breath. "And not too fast, +mind--there was a breeze o' wind blowin' this arternoon. Steady does +it--look out for the step, an' then straight forw--" + +A howl drowned the last word, as Mr. Adams struck his shin against +some obstacle and pitched headlong into darkness--a howl of pain +blent with a dull jarring rumble. Silence followed, and out of the +silence broke a faint groan. + +"Bill! Bill Adams! Oh, Bill, for the Lord's sake--!" +Still mechanically shielding his candle, Mr. Jope staggered back a +pace, and leaned against the stone door-jamb for support. + +"Here!" sounded the voice of Bill, very faint in the darkness. +"Here! fetch along the light, quick!" + +"Wot's it?" + +"Casks." + +"Casks?" + +"Kegs, then. I ought to know," responded Bill plaintively, "seeing +as I pretty near broke my leg on one!" + +Mr. Jope peered forward, holding the light high. In the middle of +the cellar stood the quarter-puncheon and around it a whole regiment +of small barrels. Half doubting his eyesight, he stooped to examine +them. Around each keg was bound a sling of rope. + +"Rope?" muttered Mr. Jope, stooping. "Foreign rope--left-handed +rope--" And with that of a sudden he sat down on the nearest keg and +began to laugh. "The old varmint! the darned old sinful methodeerin' +varmint!" + +"Oh, stow it, Ben! 'Tisn' manly." But still the unnatural laughter +continued. "What in thunder--" + +Bill Adams came groping between the kegs. + +"Step an' bar the outer door, ye nincom! _Can't you see?_ There's +been a run o' goods; an' while that Coyne sat stuffin' us up with his +ghosts, his boys were down below here loadin' us up with neat furrin +sperrits--_loadin' us up_, mark you. My blessed word, the fun we'll +have wi' that Coyne to-morrow!" + +Mr. Adams in a mental fog groped his way to the door opening on the +river steps, bolted it, groped his way back and stood scratching his +head. A grin, grotesque in the wavering light, contorted the long +lower half of the face for a moment and was gone. He seldom smiled. + +"On the whole," said Mr. Adams, indicating the kegs, "I fancy these +better'n the naked objects upstairs. Suppose we spend the rest o' +the night here? It's easier," he added, "than runnin' to and fro for +the drink. But what about liquor not accumylatin'?" + + + +PART II. + + + +YE SEXES, GIVE EAR! + + +A STORY FROM A CHIMNEY-CORNER. + +A good song, and thank' ee, Sir, for singing it! Time was, you'd +never miss hearing it in these parts, whether 'twas feast or +harvest-supper or Saturday night at the public. A virtuous good +song, too; and the merry fellow that made it won't need to cast about +and excuse himself when the graves open and he turns out with his +fiddle under his arm. My own mother taught it to me; the more by +token that she came from Saltash, and "Ye sexes, give ear" was a +terrible favourite with the Saltash females by reason of Sally +Hancock and her turn-to with the press-gang. Hey? You don't tell +me, after singing the song, that you never heard tell of Sally +Hancock? Well, if--! Here, take and fill my mug, somebody! + +'Tis an instructive tale, too. . . . This Sally was a Saltash +fishwoman, and you must have heard of _them_, at all events. +There was Bess Rablin, too, and Mary Kitty Climo, and Thomasine +Oliver, and Long Eliza that married Treleaven the hoveller, and +Pengelly's wife Ann; these made up the crew Sally stroked in the +great race. And besides these there was Nan Scantlebury--she took +Bess Rablin's oar the second year, Bess being a bit too fond of +lifting her elbow, which affected her health--and Phemy Sullivan, an +Irishwoman, and Long Eliza's half-sister Charlotte Prowse, and +Rebecca Tucker, and Susan Trebilcock, that everybody called "Apern," +and a dozen more maybe: powerful women every one, and proud of it. +The town called them Sally Hancock's Gang, she being their leader, +though they worked separate, shrimping, cockling, digging for lug and +long-lining, bawling fish through Plymouth streets, even a hovelling +job at times--nothing came amiss to them, and no weather. For a trip +to Plymouth they'd put on sea-boots belike, or grey stockings and +clogs: but at home they went bare-legged, and if they wore anything +'pon their heads 'twould be a handkerchief, red or yellow, with a +man's hat clapped a-top; coats too, and guernseys like men's, and +petticoats a short few inches longer; for I'm telling of that +back-along time when we fought Boney and while seafaring men still +wore petticoats--in these parts at any rate. Well, that's how Sally +and her mates looked on week-a-days, and that's how they behaved: but +you must understand that, though rough, they were respectable; the +most of them Wesleyan Methodists; and on Sundays they'd put on bonnet +and sit in chapel, and drink their tea afterwards and pick their +neighbours to pieces just like ordinary Christians. Sal herself was +a converted woman, and greatly exercised for years about her +husband's condition, that kept a tailor's shop halfway down Fore +Street and scoffed at the word of Grace; though he attended public +worship, partly to please his customers and partly because his wife +wouldn't let him off. + +The way the fun started was this. In June month of the year 'five +(that's the date my mother always gave) the Wesleyans up at the +London Foundry sent a man down to preach a revival through Cornwall, +starting with Saltash. He had never crossed the Tamar before, but +had lived the most of his life near Wolverhampton--a bustious little +man, with a round belly and a bald head and high sense of his own +importance. He arrived on a Saturday night, and attended service +next morning, but not to take part in it: he "wished to look round," +he said. So the morning was spent in impressing everyone with his +shiny black suit of West-of-England broadcloth and his beautiful +neckcloth and bunch of seals. But in the evening he climbed the +pulpit; and there Old Nick himself, that lies in wait for preachers, +must have tempted the poor fellow to preach on Womanly Perfection, +taking his text from St. Paul. + +He talked a brave bit about subjection, and how a woman ought to +submit herself to her husband, and keep her head covered in places of +public worship. And from that he passed on to say that 'twas to this +beautiful submissiveness women owed their amazing power for good, and +he, for his part, was going through Cornwall to tackle the womenfolk +and teach 'em this beautiful lesson, and he'd warrant he'd leave the +whole county a sight nearer righteousness than he found it. With +that he broke out into extempory prayer for our dear sisters, as he +called them, dusted his knees, and gave out the hymn, all as pleased +as Punch. + +Sal walked home from service alongside of her husband, very +thoughtful. Deep down in the bottom of his heart he was afraid of +her, and she knew it, though she made it a rule to treat him kindly. +But knowing him for a monkey-spirited little man, and spiteful as +well as funny, you could never be sure when he wouldn't break out. +To-night he no sooner gets inside his own door than says he with a +dry sort of a chuckle: + +"Powerful fine sermon, this evenin'. A man like that makes you +_think_." + +"Ch't!" says Sally, tossing her bonnet on to the easy chair and +groping about for the tinder-box. + +"Sort of doctrine that's badly needed in Saltash," says he. "But I'd +ha' bet 'twould be wasted on you. Well, well, if you can't +understand logic, fit and fetch supper, that's a good soul!" + +"Ch't!" said Sally again, paying no particular attention, but +wondering what the dickens had become of the tinder-box. +She couldn't find it on the chimney-piece, so went off to fetch the +kitchen one. + +When she came back, there was my lord seated in the easy chair--that +was hers by custom--and puffing away at his pipe--a thing not allowed +until after supper. You see, he had collared the tinder-box when he +first came in, and had hidden it from her. + +Sal lit the lamp, quiet-like. "I s'pose you know you're sittin' 'pon +my best bonnet?" said she. + +This took him aback. He jumped up, found the bonnet underneath +him sure enough, and tossed it on to the table. "Gew-gaws!" said he, +settling himself again and puffing. "Gew-gaws and frippery! +That man'll do good in this country; he's badly wanted." + +Sal patted the straw of her bonnet into something like shape and +smoothed out the ribbons. "If it'll make you feel like a +breadwinner," said she, "there's a loaf in the bread-pan. The cold +meat and pickles are under lock and key, and we'll talk o' them +later." She fitted the bonnet on and began to tie the strings. + +"You don't tell me, Sarah, that you mean to go gadding out at this +time of the evening?" cries he, a bit chapfallen, for he knew she +carried the keys in an under-pocket beneath her skirt. + +"And you don't suppose," answers she, "that I can spare the time to +watch you play-actin' in my best chair? No, no, my little man! +Sit there and amuse yourself: what _you_ do don't make a ha'porth of +odds. But there's others to be considered, and I'm going to put an +end to this nonsense afore it spreads." + +The time of the year, as I've told you, was near about midsummer, +when a man can see to read print out-of-doors at nine o'clock. +Service over, the preacher had set out for a stroll across the +hayfields towards Trematon, to calm himself with a look at the +scenery and the war-ships in the Hamoaze and the line of prison-hulks +below, where in those days they kept the French prisoners. He was +strolling back, with his hands clasped behind him under his +coat-tails, when on the knap of the hill, between him and the town, +he caught sight of a bevy of women seated among the hay-pooks--staid +middle-aged women, all in dark shawls and bonnets, chattering there +in the dusk. As he came along they all rose up together and dropped +him a curtsy. + +"Good evenin', preacher dear," says Sally, acting spokeswoman; "and a +very fine night for the time of year." + +I reckon that for a moment the preacher took a scare. Monstrous fine +women they were to be sure, looming up over him in the dimmety light, +and two or three of them tall as Grenadiers. But hearing himself +forespoken so pleasantly, he came to a stand and peered at them +through his gold-rimmed glasses. + +"Ah, good evening, ladies!" says he. "You are, I presoom, members +of the society that I've just had the privilege of addressin'?" +And thereupon they dropped him another curtsy all together. +"Like me, I dare say you find the scent of the new-mown hay +refreshingly grateful. And what a scene! What a beautiful porch, so +to speak, to the beauties of Cornwall!--beauties of which I have +often heard tell." + +"Yes, Sir," answers Sal demurely. "Did you ever hear tell, too, why +Old Nick never came into Cornwall?" + +"H'm--ha--some proverbial saying, no doubt? But--you will excuse +me--I think we should avoid speaking lightly of the great Enemy of +Mankind." + +"He was afraid," pursued Sal, "of being put into a pie." She paused +at that, giving her words time to sink in. The preacher didn't +notice yet awhile that Long Eliza Treleaven and Thomasine Oliver had +crept round a bit and planted themselves in the footpath behind him. + +After a bit Sal let herself go in a comfortable smile, and says she, +in a pretty, coaxing voice, "Sit yourself down, preacher, that's a +dear: sit yourself down, nice and close, and have a talk!" + +The poor fellow fetched a start at this. He didn't know, of course, +that everyone's "my dear" in Cornwall, and I'm bound to say I've seen +foreigners taken aback by it--folks like commercial travellers, not +given to shyness as a rule. + +"You'll excuse me, Madam." + +"No, I won't: not if you don't come and sit down quiet. Bless the +man, I'm not going to eat 'ee--wouldn't harm a hair of your dear +little head, if you had any! What? You refuse?" + +"How dare you, Madam!" The preacher drew himself up, mighty +dignified. "How dare you address me in this fashion!" + +"I'm addressin' you for your good," answered Sally. "We've been +talkin' over your sermon, me and my friends here--all very +respectable women--and we've made up our minds that it won't do. +We can't have it 'pon our conscience to let a gentleman with your +views go kicking up Jack's delight through the West. We owe +something more to our sex. 'Wrestlin' with 'em--that was one of your +expressions--'wrestlin' with our dear Cornish sisters'!" + +"In the spirit--a figure of speech," explained the poor man, +snappy-like. + +Sal shook her head. "They know all about wrestlin' down yonder. +I tell you, 'twon't do. You're a well-meaning man, no doubt; but +you're terribly wrong on some points. You'd do an amazing amount of +mischief if we let you run loose. But we couldn't take no such +responsibility--indeed we couldn't: and the long and short of it is, +you've got to go." + +She spoke these last words very firmly. The preacher flung a glance +round and saw he was in a trap. + +"Such shameless behaviour--" he began. + +"You've got to go back," repeated Sally, nodding her head at him. +"Take my advice and go quiet." + +"I can only suppose you to be intoxicated," said he, and swung round +upon the path where Thomasine Oliver stood guard. "Allow me to pass, +Madam, if you please!" + +But here the mischief put it into Long Eliza to give his hat a flip +by the brim. It dropped over his nose and rolled away in the grass. +"Oh, what a dear little bald head!" cried Long Eliza; "I declare I +must kiss it or die!" She caught up a handful of hay as he stooped, +and--well, well, Sir! Scandalous, as you say! Not a word beyond +this would any of them tell: but I do believe the whole gang rolled +the poor man in the hay and took a kiss off him--"making sweet hay," +as 'tis called. 'Twas only known that he paid the bill for his +lodging a little after dawn next morning, took up his bag, and passed +down Fore Street towards the Quay. Maybe a boat was waiting for him +there: at all events, he was never seen again--not on this side of +Tamar. + +Sal went back, composed as you please, and let herself in by the +front door. In the parlour she found her man still seated in the +easy chair and smoking, but sulky-like, and with most of his +monkey-temper leaked out of him. + +"What have you been doin', pray?" asks he. + +Sal looked at him with a twinkle. "Kissin'," says she, untying her +bonnet: and with that down she dropped on a chair and laughed till +her sides ached. + + +Her husband ate humble pie that night before ever he set fork in the +cold meat: and for some days after, though she kept a close eye on +him, he showed no further sign of wanting to be lord of creation. +"Nothing like promptness," thought Sally to herself. "If I hadn't +taken that nonsense in hand straight off, there's no telling where it +wouldn't have spread." By the end of the week following she had put +all uneasiness out of her mind. + +Next Saturday--as her custom was on Saturdays--she traded in +Plymouth, and didn't reach home until an hour or more past nightfall, +having waited on the Barbican for the evening fish-auction, to see +how prices were ruling. 'Twas near upon ten o'clock before she'd +moored her boat, and as she went up the street past the "Fish and +Anchor" she heard something that fetched her to a standstill. + +She stood for a minute, listening; then walked in without more ado, +set down her baskets in the passage, and pushed open the door of the +bar-room. There was a whole crowd of men gathered inside, and the +place thick with tobacco-smoke. And in the middle of this crew, with +his back to the door, sat her husband piping out a song: + + Ye sexes, give ear to my fancy; + In the praise of good women I sing; + It is not of Doll, Kate, or Nancy, + The mate of a clown nor a King-- + With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay! + + Old Adam, when he was creyated, + Was lord of the Universe round; + Yet his happiness was not complated + Until that a helpmate he'd found. + With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay! + + He had all things for food that was wanting, + Which give us content in this life; + He had horses and foxes for hunting, + Which many love more than a wife,-- + +He had sung so far and was waving his pipe-stem for the chorus when +the company looked up and saw Sal straddling in the doorway with her +fists on her hips. The sight daunted them for a moment: but she held +up a finger, signing them to keep the news to themselves, and leaned +her shoulder against the doorpost with her eyes steady on the back of +her husband's scrag neck. His fate was upon him, poor varmint, and +on he went, as gleeful as a bird in a bath: + + He'd a garden so planted by natur' + As man can't produce in this life; + But yet the all-wise great Creaytor + Perceived that he wanted a wife.-- + With his fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay! + +"You chaps might be a bit heartier with the chorus," he put in. +"A man would almost think you was afraid of your wives overhearin':" + + Old Adam was laid in a slumber, + And there he lost part of his side; + And when he awoke in great wonder + He beyeld his beyeautiful bride. + _With_ my fol-de-rol, tooral-- + +"Why, whatever's wrong with 'ee all? You're as melancholy as a passel +of gib-cats." And with that he caught the eye of a man seated +opposite, and slewed slowly round to the door. + +I tell you that even Sal was forced to smile, and the rest, as you +may suppose, rolled to and fro and laughed till they cried. But when +the landlord called for order and they hushed themselves to hear +more, the woman had put on a face that made her husband quake. + +"Go ahead, Hancock!" cried one or two. "'With transport he gazed--' +Sing away, man:" + +"I will not," said the tailor, very sulky. "This here's no fit place +for women: and a man has his feelin's. I'm astonished at you, +Sarah--I reely am. The wife of a respectable tradesman!" But he +couldn't look her straight in the face. + +"Why, what's wrong with the company?" she asks, looking around. +"Old, young, and middle-aged, I seem to know them all for Saltash +men: faults, too, they have to my knowledge: but it passes me what I +need to be afeared of. And only a minute since you was singing that +your happiness wouldn't be completed until that a helpmate you'd +found. Well, you've found her: so sing ahead and be happy." + +"I will not," says he, still stubborn. + +"Oh, yes you will, my little man," says she in a queer voice, which +made him look up and sink his eyes again. + +"Well," says he, making the best of it, "to please the missus, +naybours, we'll sing the whole randigal through. And after that, +Sarah"--here he pretended to look at her like one in command-- +"you'll walk home with me straight." + +"You may lay to that," Sal promised him: and so, but in no very firm +voice, he pitched to the song again: + + With transport he gazed upon her, + His happiness then was complate; + And he blessed the celestial donor + That on him bestowed such a mate-- + +"I reckon, friends, we'll leave out the chorus!" + +They wouldn't hear of this, but ri-tooralled away with a will, Sal +watching them the while from the doorway with her eyebrows drawn +down, like one lost in thought. + + She was not took out of his head, + To reign or to triumph o'er man; + She was not took out of his feet, + By man to be tramped upon: + With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay! + + But she was took out of his side, + His equal and partner to be: + Though they be yunited in one, + Still the man is the top of the tree! + With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay! + +"Well, and what's wrong wi' that?" Hancock wound up, feeling for his +courage again. + +"Get along with 'ee, you ninth-part-of-a-man! _Me_ took out of +_your_ side!" + +"Be that as it may, the 'Fish and Anchor' is no place for discussing +of it," the man answered, very dignified. "Enough said, my dear! +We'll be getting along home." He stood up and knocked the ashes out +of his pipe. + +But Sally was not to be budged. "I knew how 'twould be," she spoke +up, facing the company. "I took that preacher-fellow 'pon the ground +hop, as I thought, and stopped his nonsense; but something whispered +to me that 'twas a false hope. Evil communications corrupt good +manners, and now the mischief's done. There's no peace for Saltash +till you men learn your place again, and I'm resolved to teach it to +'ee. You want to know how? Well, to start with, by means of a board +and a piece o' chalk, same as they teach at school nowadays." + +She stepped a pace farther into the room, shut home the door behind +her, and cast her eye over the ale-scores on the back of it. +There were a dozen marks, maybe, set down against her own man's name; +but for the moment she offered no remark on this. + +"Mr. Oke," says she, turning to the landlord, "I reckon you never go +without a piece o' chalk in your pocket. Step this way, if you +please, and draw a line for me round what these lords of creation owe +ye for drink. Thank'ee. And now be good enough to fetch a chair and +stand 'pon it; I want you to reach so high as you can--Ready? +Now take your chalk and write, beginning near the top o' the door: +'I, Sarah Hancock--'" + +Landlord Oke gave a flourish with his chalk and wrote, Sally +dictating,-- + +"'I, Sarah Hancock--do hereby challenge all the men in Saltash +Borough--that me and five other females of the said Borough--will row +any six of them any distance from one to six statute miles--and will +beat their heads off--pulling either single oars or double paddles or +in ran-dam--the stakes to be six pound a side. And I do further +promise, if beaten, to discharge all scores below.' + +"Now the date, please--and hand me the chalk." + +She reached up and signed her name bold and free, being a fair +scholar. "And now, my little fellow," says she, turning to her +husband, "put down that pipe and come'st along home. The man's at +the top of the tree, is he? You'll wish you were, if I catch you at +any more tricks!" + +Well, at first the mankind at the "Fish and Anchor" allowed that Sal +couldn't be in earnest; this challenge of hers was all braggadoshy; +and one or two went so far as to say 'twould serve her right if she +was taken at her word. In fact, no one treated it seriously until +four days later, at high-water, when the folks that happened to be +idling 'pon the Quay heard a splash off Runnell's boat-building yard, +and, behold! off Runnell's slip there floated a six-oared gig, bright +as a pin with fresh paint. 'Twas an old condemned gig, that had +lain in his shed ever since he bought it for a song off the +_Indefatigable_ man-o'-war, though now she looked almost too smart to +be the same boat. Sally had paid him to put in a couple of new +strakes and plane out a brand-new set of oars in place of the old +ashen ones, and had painted a new name beneath the old one on the +sternboard, so that now she was the _Indefatigable Woman_ for all the +world to see. And that very evening Sally and five of her mates +paddled her past the Quay on a trial spin, under the eyes of the +whole town. + +There was a deal of laughing up at the "Fish and Anchor" that night, +the most of the customers still treating the affair as a joke. +But Landlord Oke took a more serious view. + +"'Tis all very well for you fellows to grin," says he, "but I've been +trying to make up in my mind the crew that's going to beat these +females, and, by George! I don't find it so easy. There's the boat, +too." + +"French-built, and leaks like a five-barred gate," said somebody. +"The Admiralty condemned her five year' ago." + +"A leak can be patched, and the Admiralty's condemning goes for +nothing in a case like this. I tell you that boat has handsome +lines--handsome as you'd wish to see. You may lay to it that what +Sal Hancock doesn't know about a boat isn't worth knowing." + +"All the same, I'll warrant she never means to row a race in that +condemned old tub. She've dragged it out just for practice, and +painted it up to make a show. When the time comes--if ever it do-- +she'll fit and borrow a new boat off one of the war-ships. We can do +the same." + +"Granted that you can, there's the question of the crew. Sal has her +thwarts manned--or womanned, as you choose to put it--and maybe a +dozen reserves to pick from in case of accident. She means business, +I tell you. There's Regatta not five weeks away, and pretty fools we +shall look if she sends round the crier on Regatta Day 'O-yessing' to +all the world that Saltash men can't raise a boat's crew to match a +passel of females, and two of 'em"--he meant Mary Kitty Climo and Ann +Pengelly--"mothers of long families." + +They discussed it long and they discussed it close, and this way +and that way, until at last Landlord Oke had roughed-out a crew. +There was no trouble about a stroke. That thwart went _nem. con._ +to a fellow called Seth Ede, that worked the ferry and had won prizes +in his day all up and down the coast: indeed, the very Plymouth men +had been afraid of him for two or three seasons before he gave up +racing, which was only four years ago. Some doubted that old Roper +Retallack, who farmed the ferry that year, would spare Seth on +Regatta Day: but Oke undertook to arrange this. Thwart No. 4 went +with no more dispute to a whackin' big waterman by the name of +Tremenjous Hosken, very useful for his weight, though a trifle thick +in the waist. As for strength, he could break a pint mug with one +hand, creaming it between his fingers. Then there was Jago the +Preventive man, light but wiry, and a very tricky wrestler: "a proper +angle-twitch of a man," said one of the company; "stank 'pon both +ends of 'en, and he'll rise up in the middle and laugh at 'ee." +So they picked Jago for boat-oar. For No. 5, after a little dispute, +they settled on Tippet Harry, a boat-builder working in Runnell's +yard, by reason that he'd often pulled behind Ede in the +double-sculling, and might be trusted to set good time to the +bow-side. Nos. 2 and 3 were not so easily settled, and they +discussed and put aside half a score before offering one of the +places to a long-legged youngster whose name I can't properly give +you: he was always called Freckly-Faced Joe, and worked as a +saddler's apprentice. In the end he rowed 2; but No. 3 they left +vacant for the time, while they looked around for likely candidates. + +Landlord Oke made no mistake when he promised that Sally meant +business. Two days later she popped her head in at his bar-parlour-- +'twas in the slack hours of the afternoon, and he happened to be +sitting there all by himself, tipping a sheaf of churchwarden clays +with sealing-wax--and says she: + +"What's the matter with your menkind?" + +"Restin'," says Oke with a grin. "I don't own 'em, missus; but, from +what I can hear, they're restin' and recoverin' their strength." + +"I've brought you the stakes from our side," says Sally, and down she +slaps a five-pound note and a sovereign upon the table. + +"Take 'em up, missus--take 'em up. I don't feel equal to the +responsibility. This here's a public challenge, hey?" + +"The publicker the better." + +"Then we'll go to the Mayor about it and ask his Worship to hold the +stakes." Oke was chuckling to himself all this while, the reason +being that he'd managed to bespeak the loan of a six-oared galley +belonging to the Water-Guard, and, boat for boat, he made no doubt +she could show her heels to the _Indefatigable Woman_. He unlocked +his strong-box, took out and pocketed a bag of money, and reached his +hat off its peg. "I suppose 'twouldn't do to offer you my arm?" says +he. + +"Folks would talk, Mr. Oke--thanking you all the same." + +So out they went, and down the street side by side, and knocked at +the Mayor's door. The Mayor was taking a nap in his back-parlour +with a handkerchief over his face. He had left business soon +after burying his wife, who had kept him hard at work at the +cheese-mongering, and now he could sleep when he chose. But he woke +up very politely to attend to his visitors' business. + +"Yes, for sure, I'll hold the stakes," said he: "and I'll see it put +in big print on the Regatta-bill. It ought to attract a lot of +visitors. But lor' bless you, Mr. Oke!--if you win, it'll do _me_ no +good. She"--meaning his wife--"has gone to a land where I'll never +be able to crow over her." + +"Your Worship makes sure, I see, that we women are going to be beat?" +put in Sal. + +"Tut-tut!" says the Mayor. "They've booked Seth Ede for stroke." +And with that he goes very red in the gills and turns to Landlord +Oke. "But perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned that?" says he. + +"Well," says Sal, "you've a-let the cat out of the bag, and I see +that all you men in the town are in league. But a challenge is a +challenge, and I mustn't go back on it." Indeed, in her secret heart +she was cheerful, knowing the worst, and considering it none so bad: +and after higgling a bit, just to deceive him, she took pretty well +all the conditions of the race as Oke laid 'em down. A tearing long +course it was to be, too, and pretty close on five miles: start from +near-abouts where the training-ship lays now, down to a mark-boat +somewheres off Torpoint, back, and finish off Saltash Quay. + +"My dears," she said to her mates later on, "I don't mind telling you +I was all of a twitter, first-along, wondering what card that man Oke +was holding back--he looked so sly and so sure of hisself. But if +he've no better card to play than Seth Ede, we can sleep easy." + +"Seth Ede's a powerful strong oar," Bess Rablin objected. + +"_Was_, you mean. He've a-drunk too much beer these four years past +to last over a five-mile course; let be that never was his distance. +And here's another thing: they've picked Tremenjous Hosken for one +th'art." + +"And he's as strong as a bullock." + +"I dessay: but Seth Ede pulls thirty-eight or thirty-nine to the +minute all the time he's racing--never a stroke under. I've watched +him a score o' times. If you envy Hosken his inside after two miles +o' _that_, you must be like Pomery's pig--in love with pain. +They've hired or borrowed the Preventive boat, I'm told; and it's the +best they could do. She's new, and she looks pretty. She'll drag +aft if they put their light weights in the bows: still, she's a good +boat. I'm not afeared of her, though. From all I can hear, the +_Woman_ was known for speed in her time, all through the fleet. +You can _feel_ she's fast, and _see_ it, if you've half an eye: and +the way she travels between the strokes is a treat. The Mounseers +can build boats. But oh, my dears, you'll have to pull and stay the +course, or in Saltash the women take second place for ever!" + +"Shan't be worse off than other women, even if that happens," said +Rebecca Tucker, that was but a year married and more than half in +love with her man. Sally had been in two minds about promoting +Rebecca to the bow-oar in place of Ann Pengelly, that had been +clipping the stroke short in practice: but after that speech she +never gave the woman another thought. + +Next evening the men brought out their opposition boat--she was +called the _Nonpareil_--and tried a spin in her. They had found a +man for No. 3 oar--another of the Water-Guard, by name Mick Guppy and +by nation Irish, which Sal swore to be unfair. She didn't lodge any +complaint, however: and when her mates called out that 'twas taking a +mean advantage, all she'd say was: "Saltash is Saltash, my dears; and +I won't go to maintain that a Saltash crew is anyways improved by a +chap from Dundalk." + +So no protest was entered. I needn't tell you that, by this time, +news of the great race had spread to Plymouth, and north away to +Callington and all the country round. Crowds came out every evening +to watch the two boats at their practising; and sometimes, as they +passed one another, Seth Ede, who had the reputation for a wag, would +call out to Sal and offer her the odds by way of chaff. Sal never +answered. The woman was in deadly earnest, and moreover, I dare say, +a bit timmersome, now that the whole Borough had its eyes on her, and +defeat meant disgrace. + +She never showed a sign of any doubt, though; and when the great day +came, she surpassed herself by the way she dressed. I dare say +you've noticed that when women take up a man's job they're inclined +to overdo it; and when Sal came down that day with a round +tarpaulin-hat stuck on the back of her head, and her hair plaited in +a queue like a Jack Tar's, her spiteful little husband fairly danced. + +"'Tis onwomanly," said he. "Go upstairs and take it off!" + +"Ch't," said she, "if you're so much upset by a tarpaulin-hat, you've +had a narra escape; for 'tis nothing to the costume I'd a mind to +wear--and I'd a mind to make you measure the whole crew for it." + +And as it was, I'm told, half the sightseers that poured into Saltash +that day in their hundreds couldn't tell the women's crew from the +men's by their looks or their dress. And these be the names and +weights, more or less: + +The _Indefatigable Woman_: Bow, Ann Pengelly, something under eleven +stone; No. 2, Thomasine Oliver, ditto; No. 3, Mary Kitty Climo, +eleven and a half; No. 4, Long Eliza, thirteen and over, a woman very +heavy in the bone; No. 5, Bess Rablin, twelve stone, most of it in +the ribs and shoulders; Stroke, Sarah Hancock, twelve stone four; +Coxswain, Ann Pengelly's fourth daughter Wilhelmina, weight about six +stone. The _Indefatigable Woman_ carried a small distaff in the +bows, and her crew wore blue jerseys and yellow handkerchiefs. + +The _Nonpareil_: Bow, T. Jago, ten stone and a little over; No. 2, +Freckly-Faced Joe, twelve stone; No. 3, M. Guppy, twelve stone and a +half; No. 4, Tremenjous Hosken, eighteen stone ten; No. 5, Tippet +Harry, twelve stone eight; Stroke, Seth Ede, eleven six. And I don't +know who the boy was that steered. The _Nonpareil_ carried a red, +white, and blue flag, and her crew wore striped jerseys, white and +blue. + +They were started by pistol; and Seth Ede, jumping off with a stroke +of forty to the minute, went ahead at once. In less than twenty +strokes he was clear, the _Nonpareil_ lifting forward in great heaves +that made the spectators tell each other that though 'twas no race +they had seen something for their money. They didn't see how sweetly +the other boat held her way between the strokes, nor note that Sally +had started at a quiet thirty-four, the whole crew reaching well out +and keeping their blades covered to the finish--coming down to the +stroke steadily, too, though a stiffish breeze was with them as well +as the tide. + +I suppose the longest lead held by the _Nonpareil_ during the race +was a good forty yards. She must have won this within four minutes +of starting, and for half a mile or so she kept it. Having so much +in hand, Ede slowed down--for flesh and blood couldn't keep up such a +rate of striking over the whole course--and at once he found out his +mistake. The big man Hosken, who had been pulling with his arms +only, and pulling like a giant, didn't understand swinging out; tried +it, and was late on stroke every time. This flurried Ede, who was +always inclined to hurry the pace, and he dropped slower yet--dropped +to thirty-five, maybe, a rate at which he did himself no justice, +bucketting forward fast, and waiting over the beginning till he'd +missed it. In discontent with himself he quickened again; but now +the oars behind him were like a peal of bells. By sheer strength +they forced the boat along somehow, and with the tide under her she +travelled. But the _Indefatigable Woman_ by this time was creeping +up. + +They say that Sally rowed that race at thirty-four from the start to +within fifty yards of the finish; rowed it minute after minute +without once quickening or once dropping a stroke. Folks along shore +timed her with their watches. If that's the truth, 'twas a +marvellous feat, and the woman accounted for it afterwards by +declaring that all the way she scarcely thought for one second of the +other boat, but set her stroke to a kind of tune in her head, saying +the same verse over and over: + + But she was took out of his side, + His equal and partner to be: + Though they be yunited in one, + Still the man is the top of the tree! + With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay--We'll see about _that!_ + +The _Indefatigable Woman_ turned the mark not more than four lengths +astern. They had wind and tide against them now, and with her crew +swinging out slow and steady, pulling the stroke clean through with a +hard finish, she went up hand-over-fist. The blades of the +_Nonpareil_ were knocking up water like a moorhen. Tremenjous Hosken +had fallen to groaning between the strokes, and I believe that from +the mark-boat homeward he was no better than a passenger--an +eighteen-stone passenger, mind you. The only man to keep it lively +was little Jago at bow, and Seth Ede--to do him justice--pulled a +grand race for pluck. He might have spared himself, though. +Another hundred yards settled it: the _Indefatigable Woman_ made her +overlap and went by like a snake, and the Irishman pulled in his oar +and said: + +"Well, Heaven bless the leddies, anyway!" + +Seth Ede turned round and swore at him vicious-like, and he fell to +rowing again: but the whole thing had become a procession. "Eyes in +the boat!" commanded Sal, pulling her crew together as they caught +sight of their rivals for the first time and, for a stroke or two, +let the time get ragged. She couldn't help a lift in her voice, +though, any more than she could help winding up with a flourish as +they drew level with Saltash town, a good hundred yards ahead, and +heard the band playing and the voices cheering. "Look out for the +quicken!"--and up went a great roar as the women behind her picked +the quicken up and rattled past the Quay and the winning-gun at forty +to the minute! + +They had just strength enough left to toss oars: and then they leaned +forward with their heads between their arms, panting and gasping out, +"Well rowed, Sal!" "Oh--oh--well rowed all!" and letting the delight +run out of them in little sobs of laughter. The crowd ashore, too, +was laughing and shouting itself hoarse. I'm sorry to say a few of +them jeered at the _Nonpareil_ as she crawled home: but, on the +whole, the men of Saltash took their beating handsome. + +This don't include Sal's husband, though. Landlord Oke was one of +the first to shake her by the hand as she landed, and the Mayor +turned over the stakes to her there and then with a neat little +speech. But Tailor Hancock went back home with all kinds of ugliness +and uncharitableness working in his little heart. He cursed Regatta +Day for an interruption to trade, and Saltash for a town given up to +idleness and folly. A man's business in this world was to toil for +his living in the sweat of his brow; and so, half an hour later, he +told his wife. + +The crowd had brought her along to her house door: and there she +left 'em with a word or two of thanks, and went in very quiet. +Her victory had uplifted her, of course; but she knew that her man +would be sore in his feelings, and she meant to let him down gently. +She'd have done it, too, if he'd met her in the ordinary way: but +when, after searching the house, she looked into the little back +workshop and spied him seated on the bench there, cross-legged and +solemn as an idol, stitching away at a waistcoat, she couldn't hold +back a grin. + +"Why, whatever's the matter with you?" she asked. + +"Work," says he, in a hollow voice. "Work is the matter. I can't +see a house--and one that used to be a happy home--go to rack and +ruin without some effort to prevent it." + +"I wouldn't begin on Regatta Day, if I was you," says Sal cheerfully. +"Has old Smithers been inquiring again about that waistcoat?" + +"He have not." + +"Then he's a patient man: for to my knowledge this is the third week +you've been putting him off with excuses." + +"I thank the Lord," says her husband piously, "that more work gets +put on me than I can keep pace with. And well it is, when a man's +wife takes to wagering and betting and pulling in low boat-races to +the disgrace of her sex. _Someone_ must keep the roof over our +heads: but the end may come sooner than you expect," says he, and +winds up with a tolerable imitation of a hacking cough. + +"I took three pairs of soles and a brill in the trammel this very +morning; and if you've put a dozen stitches in that old waistcoat, +'tis as much as ever! I can see in your eye that you know all about +the race; and I can tell from the state of your back that you watched +it from the Quay, and turned into the 'Sailor's Return' for a drink. +Hockaday got taken in over that blue-wash for his walls: it comes off +as soon as you rub against it." + +"I'll trouble you not to spy upon my actions, Madam," says he. + +"Man alive, _I_ don't mind your taking a glass now and then in +reason--specially on Regatta Day! And as for the 'Sailor's Return,' +'tis a respectable house. I hope so, anyhow, for we've ordered +supper there to-night." + +"Supper! You've ordered supper at the 'Sailor's Return'?" + +Sal nodded. "Just to celebrate the occasion. We thought, +first-along, of the 'Green Dragon': but the 'Dragon's' too grand a +place for ease, and Bess allowed 'twould look like showing off. +She voted for cosiness: so the 'Sailor's Return' it is, with roast +ducks and a boiled leg of mutton and plain gin-and-water." + +"Settin' yourselves up to be men, I s'pose?" he sneered. + +"Not a bit of it," answered Sal. "There'll be no speeches." + +She went off to the kitchen, put on the kettle, and made him a dish +of tea. In an ordinary way she'd have paid no heed to his tantrums: +but just now she felt very kindly disposed t'wards everybody, and +really wished to chat over the race with him--treating it as a joke +now that her credit was saved, and never offering to crow over him. +But the more she fenced about to be agreeable the more he stitched +and sulked. + +"Well, I can't miss _all_ the fun," said she at last: and so, having +laid supper for him, and put the jug where he could find it and draw +his cider, she clapped on her hat and strolled out. + +He heard her shut-to the front door, and still he went on stitching. +When the dusk began to fall he lit a candle, fetched himself a jugful +of cider, and went back to his work. For all the notice Sal was ever +likely to take of his perversity, he might just as well have stepped +out into the streets and enjoyed himself: but he was wrought up into +that mood in which a man will hurt himself for the sake of having a +grievance. All the while he stitched he kept thinking, "Look at me +here, galling my fingers to the bone, and that careless fly-by-night +wife o' mine carousin' and gallivantin' down at the 'Sailor's +Return'! Maybe she'll be sorry for it when I'm dead and gone; but at +present if there's an injured, misunderstood poor mortal in Saltash +Town, I'm that man." So he went on, until by and by, above the noise +of the drum and cymbals outside the penny theatre, and the +hurdy-gurdies, and the showmen bawling down by the waterside, he +heard voices yelling and a rush of folks running down the street past +his door. He knew they had been baiting a bull in a field at the +head of the town, and, the thought coming into his head that the +animal must have broken loose, he hopped off his bench, ran fore to +the front door, and peeked his head out cautious-like. + +What does he see coming down the street in the dusk but half a dozen +sailor-men with an officer in charge! Of course he knew the meaning +of it at once. 'Twas a press-gang off one of the ships in Hamoaze or +the Sound, that was choosing Regatta Night to raid the streets and +had landed at the back of the town and climbed over the hill to take +the crowds by surprise. They'd made but a poor fist of this, by +reason of the officer letting his gang get out of hand at the start; +and by their gait 'twas pretty plain they had collared a plenty of +liquor up the street. But while Hancock peeped out, taking stock of +them, a nasty monkey-notion crept into his head, and took hold of all +his spiteful little nature; and says he, pushing the door a bit wider +as the small officer--he was little taller than a midshipman--came +swearing by: + +"Beg your pardon, Sir!" + +"You'd best take in your head and close the door upon it," snaps the +little officer. "These fools o' mine have got their shirts out, and +are liable to make mistakes to-night." + +"What, _me?_--a poor tailor with a hackin' cough!" But to himself: +"So much the better," he says, and up he speaks again. "Beggin' your +pardon humbly, Commander; but I might put you in the way of the +prettiest haul. There's a gang of chaps enjoyin' theirselves down at +the 'Sailor's Return,' off the Quay, and not a 'protection' among +them. Fine lusty fellows, too! They might give your men a bit of +trouble to start with--" + +"Why are you telling me this?" the officer interrupts, +suspicious-like. + +"That's my affair," says Hancock boldly, seeing that he nibbled. +"Put it down to love o' my country, if you like; and take my advice +or leave it, just as you please. I'm not asking for money, so you +won't be any the poorer." + +"Off the Quay, did you say? Has the house a Quay-door?" + +"It has: but you needn't to trouble about that. They can't escape +that way, I promise you, having no boat alongside." + +The little officer turned and whispered for a while with two of the +soberest of his gang: and presently these whispered to two more, and +the four of them marched away up the hill. + +"'HANCOCK--TAILOR,'" reads out the officer aloud, stepping back into +the roadway and peering up at the shop-front. "Very well, my man, +you'll hear from us again--" + +"I'm not askin' for any reward, Sir." + +"So you've said: and I was about to say that, if this turns out to be +a trick, you'll hear from us again, and in a way you'll be sorry for. +And now, once more, take your ugly head inside. 'Tis my duty to act +on information, but I don't love informers." + +For the moment the threat made the tailor uncomfortable: but he felt +pretty sure the sailors, when they discovered the trick, wouldn't be +able to do him much harm. The laugh of the whole town would be +against them: and on Regatta Night the press--unpopular enough at the +best of times--would gulp down the joke and make the best of it. +He went back to his bench; but on second thoughts not to his work. +'Twould be on the safe side, anyway, to be not at home for an hour or +two, in case the sailors came back to cry quits. Playing the lonely +martyr, too, wasn't much fun with this mischief working inside of him +and swelling his lungs like barm. He took a bite of bread and a sup +of cider, blew out the candle, let himself forth into the street +after a glance to make sure that all was clear, and headed for the +"Fish and Anchor." + +He found the bar-room crowded, but not with the usual Regatta Night +throng of all-sorts. The drinkers assembled were either burgesses +like himself or waterside men with protection-papers in their +pockets: for news of the press-gang had run through the town like +wildfire, and the company had given over discussing the race of the +day and taken up with this new subject. Among the protected men his +eye lit on Treleaven the hoveller, husband to Long Eliza, and Caius +Pengelly, husband to Ann, that had pulled bow in the race. He winked +to them mighty cunning. The pair of 'em seemed dreadfully cast down, +and he knew a word to put them in heart again. + +"Terrible blow for us, mates, this woman's mutiny!" says he, dropping +into a chair careless-like, pulling out a short pipe, and speaking +high to draw the company's attention. + +"Oh, stow it!" says Caius Pengelly, very sour. "We'd found suthin' +else to talk about; and if the women have the laugh of us to-day, +who's responsible, after all? Why, you--_you_, with your darned +silly song about Adam and Eve! If you hadn't provoked your wife, +this here wouldn't ha' happened." + +"Indeed?" says the monkey-fellow, crossing his legs and puffing. +"So you've found something better to talk about? What's that, I'd +like to know?" + +"Why, there's a press-gang out," says Treleaven. "But there! a fellow +with your shaped legs don't take no interest in press-gangs, I +reckon." + +"Ah, to be sure," says the little man--but he winced and uncrossed his +legs all the same, feeling sorry he'd made 'em so conspicuous--"ah, +to be sure, a press-gang! I met 'em; but, as it happens, that's no +change of subject." + +"Us don't feel in no mood to stomach your fun to-night, Hancock; and +so I warn 'ee," put in Pengelly, who had been drinking more than +usual and spoke thick. "If you've a meaning up your sleeve, you'd +best shake it out." + +Hancock chuckled. "You fellows have no invention," he said; "no +resource at all, as I may call it. You stake on this race, and, when +the women beat you, you lie down and squeal. Well, you may thank me +that I'm built different: I bide my time, but when the clock strikes +I strike with it. I never did approve of women dressing man-fashion: +but what's the use of making a row in the house? 'The time is bound +to come,' said I to myself; and come it has. If you want a good +story cut short, I met the press-gang just now and turned 'em on to +raid the 'Sailor's Return': and if by to-morrow the women down there +have any crow over us, then I'm a Dutchman, that's all!" + +"Bejimbers, Hancock," says Treleaven, standing up and looking uneasy, +"you carry it far, I must say!" + +"Far? A jolly good joke, _I_ should call it," answers Hancock, +making bold to cross his legs again. + +And with that there comes a voice crying pillaloo in the passage +outside; and, without so much as a knock, a woman runs in with a face +like a sheet--Sam Hockaday's wife, from the "Sailor's Return." + +"Oh, Mr. Oke--Mr. Oke, whatever is to be done! The press has +collared Sally Hancock and all her gang! Some they've kilt, and +wounded others, and all they've a-bound and carried off and shipped +at the Quay-door. Oh, Mr. Oke, our house is ruined for ever!" + +The men gazed at her with their mouths open. Hancock found his legs +somehow; but they shook under him, and all of a sudden he felt +himself turning white and sick. + +"You don't mean to tell me--" he began. + +But Pengelly rounded on him and took him by the ear so that he +squeaked. "Where's my wife, you miserable joker, you?" demanded +Pengelly. + +"They c-can't be in earnest!" + +"You'll find that I am," said Pengelly, feeling in his +breeches-pocket, and drawing out a clasp-knife almost a foot long. +"What's the name of the ship?" + +"I--I don't know! I never inquired! Oh, please let me go, Mr. +Pengelly! Han't I got my feelings, same as yourself?" + +"There's a score of vessels atween this and Cawsand," put in +Treleaven, catching his breath like a man hit in the wind, "and half +a dozen of 'em ready to weigh anchor any moment. There's naught for +it but to take a boat and give chase." + +Someone suggested that Sal's own boat, the _Indefatigable Woman_, +would be lying off Runnell's Yard; and down to the waterside they all +ran, Pengelly gripping the tailor by the arm. They found the gig +moored there on a frape, dragged her to shore, and tumbled in. +Half a dozen men seized and shipped the oars: the tailor pitched +forward and driven to take the bow oar. Voices from shore sang out +all manner of different advice: but twas clear that no one knew which +way the press-boat had taken, nor to what ship she belonged. + +To Hancock 'twas all like a sick dream. He hated the water; he had +on his thinnest clothes; the night began to strike damp and chilly, +with a lop of tide running up from Hamoaze and the promise of worse +below. Pengelly, who had elected himself captain, swore to hail +every ship he came across: and he did--though from the first he met +with no encouragement. "Ship, ahoy!" he shouted, coming down with a +rush upon the stern-windows of the first and calling to all to hold +water. "Ahoy! Ship!" + +A marine poked his head over the taffrail. "Ship it is," said he. +"And what may be the matter with you?" + +"Be you the ship that has walked off with half a dozen women from +Saltash?" + +The marine went straight off and called the officer of the watch, +"Boat-load of drunk chaps under our stern, Sir," says he, saluting. +"Want to know if we've carried off half a dozen women from Saltash." + +"Empty a bucket of slops on 'em," said the officer of the watch, "and +tell 'em, with my compliments, that we haven't." + +The marine saluted, hunted up a slop-bucket, and poured it over with +the message. "If you want to know more, try the guard-ship," said +he. + +"That's all very well, but where in thunder _be_ the guard-ship?" +said poor Pengelly, scratching his head. + +Everyone knew, but everyone differed by something between a quarter +and half a mile. They tried ship after ship, getting laughter from +some and abuse from others. And now, to make matters worse, the wind +chopped and blew up from the sou'-west, with a squall of rain and a +wobble of sea that tried Hancock's stomach sorely. At one time they +went so far astray in the dark as to hail one of the prison-hulks, +and only sheered off when the sentry challenged and brought his +musket down upon the bulwarks with a rattle. A little later, off +Torpoint, they fell in with the water-police, who took them for a +party rowing home to Plymouth from the Regatta, and threatened 'em +with the lock-up if they didn't proceed quiet. Next they fell foul +of the guard-ship, and their palaver fetched the Admiral himself out +upon the little balcony in his nightshirt. When he'd done talking +they were a hundred yards off, and glad of it. + +Well, Sir, they tried ship after ship, the blessed night through, +till hope was nigh dead in them, and their bodies ached with +weariness and hunger. Long before they reached Devil's Point the +tumble had upset Hancock's stomach completely. He had lost his oar; +somehow it slipped off between the thole-pins, and in his weakness he +forgot to cry out that 'twas gone. It drifted away in the dark--the +night all round was black as your hat, the squalls hiding the stars-- +and he dropped off his thwart upon the bottom-boards. "I'm a dying +man," he groaned, "and I don't care. I don't care how soon it comes! +'Tis all over with me, and I shall never see my dear Sally no more!" + +So they tossed till day broke and showed Drake's Island ahead of +them, and the whole Sound running with a tidy send of sea from the +south'ard, grey and forlorn. Some were for turning back, but +Pengelly wouldn't hear of it. "We must make Cawsand Bay," says he, +"if it costs us our lives. Maybe we'll find half a dozen ships +anchored there and ready for sea." + +So away for Cawsand they pulled, hour after hour, Hancock all the +while wanting to die, and wondering at the number of times an empty +man could answer up to the call of the sea. + +The squalls had eased soon after daybreak, and the sky cleared and +let through the sunshine as they opened the bay and spied two +sloops-of-war and a frigate riding at anchor there. Pulling near +with the little strength left in them, they could see that the +frigate was weighing for sea. She had one anchor lifted and the +other chain shortened in: her top-sails and topgallant sails were +cast off, ready to cant her at the right moment for hauling in. +An officer stood ready by the crew manning the capstan, and right aft +two more officers were pacing back and forth with their hands clasped +under their coat-tails. + +"Lord!" groaned Pengelly, "if my poor Ann's aboard of she, we'll +never catch her!" He sprang up in the stern sheets and hailed with +all his might. + +Small enough chance had his voice of reaching her, the wind being +dead contrary: and yet for the moment it looked as if the two +officers aft had heard; for they both stepped to the ship's side, and +one put up a telescope and handed it to the other. And still the +crew of the gig, staring over their shoulders while they pulled +weakly, could see the men by the capstan standing motionless and +waiting for orders. + +"Seems a'most as if they were expectin' somebody," says Pengelly with +a sudden hopefulness: and with that Treleaven, that was pulling +stroke, casts his eyes over his right shoulder and gives a gasp. + +"Good Lord, look!" says he. "The tender!" + +And sure enough, out of the thick weather rolling up away over +Bovisand they spied now a Service cutter bearing across close-hauled, +leaning under her big tops'l and knocking up the water like +ginger-beer with the stress of it. When first sighted she couldn't +have been much more than a mile distant, and, pull as they did with +the remains of their strength, she crossed their bows a good +half-mile ahead, taking in tops'l as she fetched near the frigate. + +"Use your eyes--oh, use your eyes!" called out Pengelly: but no soul +could they see on her besides two or three of the crew forward and a +little officer standing aft beside the helmsman. Pengelly ran +forward, leaping the thwarts, and fetched the tailor a rousing kick. +"Sit up!" he ordered, "and tell us if that's the orficer you spoke to +last night!" + +The poor creature hoisted himself upon his thwart, looking as yellow +as a bad egg. "I--I think that's the man," said he, straining his +eyes, and dropped his head overside. + +"Pull for your lives, boys," shouted Pengelly. And they did pull, to +the last man. They pulled so that they reached the frigate just as +the tender, having run up in the wind and fallen alongside, began +uncovering hatches. + +Two officers were leaning overside and watching--and a couple of the +tender's crew were reaching down their arms into the hold. They were +lifting somebody through the hatchway, and the body they lifted clung +for a moment to the hatchway coaming, to steady itself. + +"Sally!" screamed a voice from the gig. + +The little officer in the stern of the tender cast a glance back at +the sound and knew the tailor at once. He must have owned sharp +sight, that man. + +"Oh, you've come for your money, have you?" says he. And, looking up +at the two officers overhead, he salutes, saying: "We've made a tidy +haul, Sir--thanks to that man." + +"I don't want your money. I want my wife!" yelled Hancock. + +"And I mine!" yelled Pengelly. + +"And I mine!" yelled Treleaven. + +By this time the gig had fallen alongside the tender, and the women +in the tender's hold were coming up to daylight, one by one. +Sal herself stood watching the jail-delivery; and first of all she +blinked a bit, after the darkness below, and next she let out a +laugh, and then she reached up a hand and began unplaiting her +pigtail. + +"Be you the Captain of this here ship?" asks she, looking up and +addressing herself to one of the officers leaning overside. + +"Yes, my man; this here's the _Ranger_ frigate, and I'm her Captain. +I'm sorry for you--it goes against my grain to impress men in this +fashion: but the law's the law, and we're ready for sea, and if +you've any complaints to make I hope you'll cut 'em short." + +"I don't know," says Sal, "that I've any complaints to make, except +that I was born a woman. That I went on to marry that pea-green +tailor yonder is my own fault, and we'll say no more about it." + +By this time all the women on the tender were following Sal's example +and unshredding their back-hair. By this time, too, every man aboard +the frigate was gathered at the bulwarks, looking down in wonderment. +There beneath 'em stood a joke too terrible to be grasped in one +moment. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rogers," says the Captain in a voice cold as +a knife, "but you appear to have made a mistake." + +The little officer had turned white as a sheet: but he managed to get +in his say before the great laugh came. "I have, Sir, to my sorrow," +says he, turning viciously on Hancock; "a mistake to be cast up +against me through my career. But I reckon," he adds, "I leave the +punishment for it in good hands." He glanced at Sally. + +"You may lay to that, young man!" says she heartily. "You may lay to +that every night when you says your prayers." + + +FRENCHMAN'S CREEK. + + +A REPORTED TALE. + +Frenchman's Creek runs up between overhanging woods from the +western shore of Helford River, which flows down through an earthly +paradise and meets the sea midway between Falmouth and the dreadful +Manacles--a river of gradual golden sunsets such as Wilson painted; +broad-bosomed, holding here and there a village as in an arm +maternally crook'd, but with a brooding face of solitude. Off the +main flood lie creeks where the oaks dip their branches in the high +tides, where the stars are glassed all night long without a ripple, +and where you may spend whole days with no company but herons and +sandpipers: + + Helford River, Helford River, + Blessed may you be! + We sailed up Helford River + By Durgan from the sea. . . . + +And about three-quarters of a mile above the ferry-crossing (where is +the best anchorage) you will find the entrance of the creek they call +Frenchman's, with a cob-built ruin beside it, and perhaps, if you +come upon it in the morning sunlight, ten or a dozen herons aligned +like statues on the dismantled walls. + +Now, why they call it Frenchman's Creek no one is supposed to know, +but this story will explain. And the story I heard on the spot from +an old verderer, who had it from his grandfather, who bore no +unimportant part in it--as will be seen. Maybe you will find it out +of keeping with its scenery. In my own words you certainly would: +and so I propose to relate it just as the verderer told it to me. + + +I. + +First of all you'll let me say that a bad temper is an affliction, +whoever owns it, and shortening to life. I don't know what your +opinion may be: but my grandfather was parish constable in these +parts for forty-seven years, and you'll find it on his headstone in +Manaccan churchyard that he never had a cross word for man, woman, or +child. He took no credit for it: it ran in the family, and to this +day we're all terribly mild to handle. + +Well, if ever a man was born bad in his temper, 'twas Captain Bligh, +that came from St. Tudy parish, and got himself known to all the +world over that dismal business aboard the _Bounty_. Yes, Sir, +that's the man--"Breadfruit Bligh," as they called him. They made an +Admiral of him in the end, but they never cured his cussedness: and +my grandfather, that followed his history (and good reason for why) +from the day he first set foot in this parish, used to rub his hands +over every fresh item of news. "Darn it!" he'd say, "here's that old +Turk broke loose again. Lord, if he ain't a warrior!" Seemed as if +he took a delight in the man, and kept a sort of tenderness for him +till the day of his death. + +Bless you, though folks have forgotten it, that little affair of the +_Bounty_ was only the beginning of Bligh. He was a left'nant when it +happened, and the King promoted him post-captain straight away. +Later on, no doubt because of his experiences in mutinies, he was +sent down to handle the big one at the Nore. "Now, then, you +dogs!"--that's how he began with the men's delegates--"His Majesty +will be graciously pleased to hear your grievances: and afterwards +I'll be graciously pleased to hang the lot of you and rope-end every +fifth man in the Fleet. That's plain sailing, I hope!" says he. +The delegates made a rush at him, triced him up hand and foot, and in +two two's would have heaved him to the fishes with an eighteen-pound +shot for ballast if his boat's crew hadn't swarmed on by the chains +and carried him off. After this he commanded a ship at Camperdown, +and another at Copenhagen, and being a good fighter as well as a man +of science, was chosen for Governor of New South Wales. He hadn't +been forty-eight hours in the colony, I'm told, before the music +began, and it ended with his being clapped into irons by the military +and stuck in prison for two years to cool his heels. At last they +took him out, put him on board a ship of war and played farewell to +him on a brass band: and, by George, Sir, if he didn't fight with the +captain of the ship all the way home, making claim that as senior in +the service he ought to command her! By this time, as you may guess, +there was nothing to be done with the fellow but make him an Admiral; +and so they did; and as Admiral of the Blue he died in the year +'seventeen, only a couple of weeks ahead of my poor grandfather, that +would have set it down to the finger of Providence if he'd only lived +to hear the news. + +Well, now, the time that Bligh came down to Helford was a few months +before he sailed for Australia, and that will be a hundred years ago +next summer: and I guess the reason of his coming was that the folks +at the Admiralty couldn't stand him in London, the weather just then +being sultry. So they pulled out a map and said, "This Helford looks +a nice cool far-away place; let the man go down and take soundings +and chart the place"; for Bligh, you must know, had been a pupil of +Captain Cook's, and at work of this kind there was no man cleverer in +the Navy. + +To do him justice, Bligh never complained of work. So off he packed +and started from London by coach in the early days of June; and with +him there travelled down a friend of his, a retired naval officer by +the name of Sharl, that was bound for Falmouth to take passage in the +Lisbon packet; but whether on business or a pleasure trip is more +than I can tell you. + +So far as I know, nothing went wrong with them until they came to +Torpoint Ferry: and there, on the Cornish side of the water, stood +the Highflyer coach, the inside of it crammed full of parcels +belonging to our Vicar's wife, Mrs. Polwhele, that always visited +Plymouth once a year for a week's shopping. Having all these parcels +to bring home, Mrs. Polwhele had crossed over by a waterman's boat +two hours before, packed the coach as full as it would hold, and +stepped into the Ferry Inn for a dish of tea. "And glad I am to be +across the river in good time," she told the landlady; "for by the +look of the sky there's a thunderstorm coming." + +Sure enough there was, and it broke over the Hamoaze with a bang +just as Captain Bligh and his friend put across in the ferry-boat. +The lightning whizzed, and the rain came down like the floods of +Deva, and in five minutes' time the streets and gutters of Torpoint +were pouring on to the Quay like so many shutes, and turning all the +inshore water to the colour of pea-soup. Another twenty minutes and +'twas over; blue sky above and the birds singing, and the roof and +trees all a-twinkle in the sun; and out steps Mrs. Polwhele very +gingerly in the landlady's pattens, to find the Highflyer ready to +start, the guard unlashing the tarpaulin that he'd drawn over the +outside luggage, the horses steaming and anxious to be off, and on +the box-seat a couple of gentlemen wet to the skin, and one of them +looking as ugly as a chained dog in a street fight. This was Bligh, +of course. His friend, Mr. Sharl, sat alongside, talking low and +trying to coax him back to a good temper: but Mrs. Polwhele missed +taking notice of this. She hadn't seen the gentlemen arrive, by +reason that, being timid of thunder, at the very first peal she'd run +upstair, and crawled under one of the bed-ties: and there she bided +until the chambermaid brought word that the sky was clear and the +coach waiting. + +If ever you've had to do with timmersome folks I dare say you've +noted how talkative they get as soon as danger's over. Mrs. Polwhele +took a glance at the inside of the coach to make sure that her +belongings were safe, and then, turning to the ladder that the Boots +was holding for her to mount, up she trips to her outside place +behind the box-seat, all in a fluff and commotion, and chattering +so fast that the words hitched in each other like beer in a +narrow-necked bottle. + +"Give you good morning, gentlemen!" said Mrs. Polwhele, "and I do +hope and trust I haven't kept you waiting; but thunder makes me +_that_ nervous! 'Twas always the same with me from a girl; and la! +what a storm while it lasted! I declare the first drops looked to me +a'most so big as crown-pieces. Most unfortunate it should come on +when you were crossing--most unfortunate, I vow! There's nothing so +unpleasant as sitting in damp clothes, especially if you're not +accustomed to it. My husband, now--if he puts on a shirt that hasn't +been double-aired I always know what's going to happen: it'll be +lumbago next day to a certainty. But maybe, as travellers, you're +not so susceptible. I find hotel-keepers so careless with their damp +sheets! May I ask, gentlemen, if you've come from far? You'll be +bound for Falmouth, as I guess: and so am I. You'll find much on the +way to admire. But perhaps this is not your first visit to +Cornwall?" + +In this fashion she was rattling away, good soul--settling her wraps +about her and scarcely drawing breath--when Bligh slewed himself +around in his seat, and for answer treated her to a long stare. + +Now, Bligh wasn't a beauty at the best of times, and he carried a +scar on his cheek that didn't improve matters by turning white when +his face was red, and red when his face was white. They say the King +stepped up to him at Court once and asked him how he came by it and +in what action. Bligh had to tell the truth--that he'd got it in the +orchard at home: he and his father were trying to catch a horse +there: the old man flung a hatchet to turn the horse and hit his boy +in the face, marking him for life. Hastiness, you see, in the +family. + +Well, the sight of his face, glowering back on her over his shoulder, +was enough to dry up the speech in Mrs. Polwhele or any woman. +But Bligh, it seems, couldn't be content with this. After withering +the poor soul for ten seconds or so, he takes his eyes off her, turns +to his friend again in a lazy, insolent way, and begins to talk loud +to him in French. + + +'Twas a terrible unmannerly thing to do for a fellow supposed to be a +gentleman. I've naught to say against modern languages: but when I +see it on the newspaper nowadays that naval officers ought to give +what's called "increased attention" to French and German, I hope that +they'll use it bettern than Bligh, that's all! Why, Sir, my eldest +daughter threw up a situation as parlour-maid in London because her +master and mistress pitched to parleyvooing whenever they wanted to +talk secrets at table. "If you please, Ma'am," she told the lady, +"you're mistaking me for the governess and I never could abide +compliments." She gave a month's warning then and there, and I +commend the girl's spirit. + +But the awkward thing for Bligh, as it turned out, was that Mrs. +Polwhele didn't understand his insolence. Being a woman that +wouldn't hurt a fly if she could help it, and coming from a parish +where every man, her husband included, took pleasure in treating her +respectfully, she never dreamed that an affront was meant. From the +moment she heard Bligh's lingo, she firmly believed that here were +two Frenchies on the coach; and first she went white to the lips and +shivered all over, and then she caught at the seat to steady herself, +and then she flung back a look at Jim the Guard, to make sure he had +his blunderbuss handy. She couldn't speak to Sammy Hosking, the +coachman, or touch him by the arm without reaching across Bligh: and +by this time the horses were at the top of the hill and settling into +a gallop. She thought of the many times she'd sat up in bed at home +in a fright that the Frenchmen had landed and were marching up to +burn Manaccan Vicarage: and how often she had warned her husband +against abusing Boney from the pulpit--'twas dangerous, she always +maintained, for a man living so nigh the seashore. The very shawl +beside her was scarlet, same as the women-folk wore about the fields +in those days in hopes that the invaders, if any came, would mistake +them for red-coats. And here she was, perched up behind two of her +country's enemies--one of them as ugly as Old Nick or Boney himself-- +and bowling down towards her peaceful home at anything from sixteen +to eighteen miles an hour. + +I dare say, too, the thunderstorm had given her nerves a shaking; at +any rate, Jim the Guard came crawling over the coach-roof after a +while, and, said he, "Why, Mrs. Polwhele, whatever is the matter? +I han't heard you speak six words since we started." + +And with that, just as he settled himself down for a comfortable chat +with her, after his custom, the poor lady points to the two +strangers, flings up both hands, and tumbles upon him in a fit of +hysterics. + +"Stop the hosses!" yells Jim; but already Sammy Hosking was pulling +up for dear life at the sound of her screams. + +"What in thunder's wrong with the female?" asks Bligh. + +"Female yourself!" answers up Sammy in a pretty passion. "Mrs. +Polwhele's a lady, and I reckon your cussed rudeness upset her. +I say nothing of your face, for that you can't help." + +Bligh started up in a fury, but Mr. Sharl pulled him down on the +seat, and then Jim the Guard took a turn. + +"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" for this, you must +know, was the reason of Bligh's sulkiness at starting. He had come +up soaking from Torpoint Ferry, walked straight to the coach, and +pulled the door open to jump inside, when down on his head came +rolling a couple of Dutch cheeses that Mrs. Polwhele had crammed on +the top of her belongings. This raised his temper, and he began to +drag parcel after parcel out and fling them in the mud, shouting that +no passenger had a right to fill up the inside of a coach in that +fashion. Thereupon Jim sent an ostler running to the landlady that +owned the Highflyer, and she told Bligh that he hadn't booked his +seat yet: that the inside was reserved for Mrs. Polwhele: and that he +could either take an outside place and behave himself, or be left +behind to learn manners. For a while he showed fight: but Mr. Sharl +managed to talk sense into him, and the parcels were stowed again and +the door shut but a minute before Mrs. Polwhele came downstairs and +took her seat as innocent as a lamb. + +"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" struck in Jim the +Guard, making himself heard above the pillaloo. "Carry on as if the +coach belonged to ye, hey? Come down and take your coat off, like a +man, and don't sit there making fool faces at me!" + +"My friend is not making faces," began Mr. Sharl, very gentle-like, +trying to keep the peace. + +"Call yourself his friend!" Jim snapped him up. "Get off, the pair +of you. Friend indeed! Go and buy him a veil." + +But 'twas easily seen that Mrs. Polwhele couldn't be carried farther. +So Sammy Hosking pulled up at a farmhouse a mile beyond St. Germans: +and there she was unloaded, with her traps, and put straight to bed: +and a farm-boy sent back to Torpoint to fetch a chaise for her as +soon as she recovered. And the Highflyer--that had been delayed +three-quarters of an hour--rattled off at a gallop, with all on board +in the worst of tempers. + +When they reached Falmouth--which was not till after ten o'clock at +night--and drew up at the "Crown and Anchor," the first man to hail +them was old Parson Polwhele, standing there under the lamp in the +entry and taking snuff to keep himself awake. + +"Well, my love," says he, stepping forward to help his wife down and +give her a kiss. "And how have you enjoyed the journey?" + +But instead of his wife 'twas a bull-necked-looking man that swung +himself off the coach-roof, knocking the Parson aside, and bounced +into the inn without so much as a "beg your pardon." + +Parson Polwhele was taken aback for the moment by reason that he'd +pretty nigh kissed the fellow by accident; and before he could +recover, Jim the Guard leans out over the darkness, and, says he, +speaking down: "Very sorry, Parson, but your missus wasn't taken very +well t'other side of St. Germans, and we've been forced to leave her +'pon the road." + +Now, the Parson doted on his wife, as well he might. He was a very +learned man, you must know, and wrote a thundering great history of +Cornwall: but outside of book-learning his head rambled terribly, and +Mrs. Polwhele managed him in all the little business of life. +"'Tis like looking after a museum," she used to declare. "I don't +understand the contents, I'm thankful to say; but, please God, I can +keep 'em dusted." A better-suited couple you couldn't find, nor a +more affectionate; and whenever Mrs. Polwhele tripped it to Plymouth, +the Parson would be at Falmouth to welcome her back, and they'd sleep +the night at the "Crown and Anchor" and drive home to Manaccan next +morning. + +"Not taken well?" cried the Parson. "Oh, my poor Mary--my poor, dear +Mary!" + +"'Tisn' so bad as all that," says Jim, as soothing as he could; but +he thought it best to tell nothing about the rumpus. + +"If 'tis on the wings of an eagle, I must fly to her!" cries the +Parson, and he hurried indoors and called out for a chaise and pair. + +He had some trouble in persuading a post-boy to turn out at such an +hour, but before midnight the poor man was launched and rattling away +eastward, chafing at the hills and singing out that he'd pay for +speed, whatever it cost. And at Grampound in the grey of the morning +he almost ran slap into a chaise and pair proceeding westward, and +likewise as if its postilion wanted to break his neck. + +Parson Polwhele stood up in his vehicle and looked out ahead. +The two chaises had narrowly missed doubling each other into a cocked +hat; in fact, the boys had pulled up within a dozen yards of smash, +and there stood the horses face to face and steaming. + +"Why, 'tis my Mary!" cries the Parson, and takes a leap out of the +chaise. + +"Oh, Richard! Richard!" sobs Mrs. Polwhele. "But you can't possibly +come in here, my love," she went on, drying her eyes. + +"Why not, my angel?" + +"Because of the parcels, dearest. And Heaven only knows what's +underneath me at this moment, but it feels like a flat-iron. +Besides," says she, like the prudent woman she was, "we've paid for +two chaises. But 'twas good of you to come in search of me, and I'll +say what I've said a thousand times, that I've the best husband in +the world." + +The Parson grumbled a bit; but, indeed, the woman was piled about +with packages up to the neck. So, very sad-like, he went back to his +own chaise--that was now slewed about for Falmouth--and off the +procession started at an easy trot, the good man bouncing up in his +seat from time to time to blow back a kiss. + +But after awhile he shouted to the post-boy to pull up again. + +"What's the matter, love?" sings out Mrs. Polwhele, overtaking him +and coming to a stand likewise. + +"Why, it occurs to me, my angel, that _you_ might get into _my_ +chaise, if you're not too tightly wedged." + +"There's no saying what will happen when I once begin to move," said +Mrs. Polwhele: "but I'll risk it. For I don't mind telling you that +one of my legs went to sleep somewhere near St. Austell, and 'tis +dreadfully uncomfortable." + +So out she was fetched and climbed in beside her husband. + +"But what was it that upset you?" he asked, as they started again. + +Mrs. Polwhele laid her cheek to his shoulder and sobbed aloud; and so +by degrees let out her story. + + +"But, my love, the thing's impossible!" cried Parson Polwhele. +"There's no Frenchman in Cornwall at this moment, unless maybe 'tis +the Guernsey merchant or some poor wretch of a prisoner escaped from +the hulks in the Hamoaze." + +"Then, that's what these men were, you may be sure," said Mrs. +Polwhele. + +"Tut-tut-tut! You've just told me that they came across the ferry, +like any ordinary passengers." + +"Did I? Then I told more than I know; for I never saw them cross." + +"A couple of escaped prisoners wouldn't travel by coach in broad +daylight, and talk French in everyone's hearing." + +"We live in the midst of mysteries," said Mrs. Polwhele. "There's my +parcels, now--I packed 'em in the Highflyer most careful, and I'm +sure Jim the Guard would be equally careful in handing them out--you +know the sort of man he is: and yet I find a good dozen of them +plastered in mud, and my new Moldavia cap, that I gave twenty-three +shillings for only last Tuesday, pounded to a jelly, quite as if +someone had flung it on the road and danced on it!" + +The poor soul burst out into fresh tears, and there against her +husband's shoulder cried herself fairly asleep, being tired out with +travelling all night. By and by the Parson, that wanted a nap just +as badly, dozed off beside her: and in this fashion they were brought +back through Falmouth streets and into the yard of the "Crown and +Anchor," where Mrs. Polwhele woke up with a scream, crying out: +"Prisoners or no prisoners, those men were up to no good: and I'll +say it if I live to be a hundred!" + +That same afternoon they transhipped the parcels into a cart, and +drove ahead themselves in a light gig, and so came down, a little +before sunset, to the "Passage Inn" yonder. There, of course, they +had to unload again and wait for the ferry to bring them across to +their own parish. It surprised the Parson a bit to find the +ferry-boat lying ready by the shore and my grandfather standing there +head to head with old Arch'laus Spry, that was constable of Mawnan +parish. + +"Hallo, Calvin!" the Parson sings out. "This looks bad--Mawnan and +Manaccan putting their heads together. I hope there's nothing gone +wrong since I've been away?" + +"Aw, Parson dear," says my grandfather, "I'm glad you've come--yea, +glad sure 'nuff. We've a-been enjoying a terrible time!" + +"Then something _has_ gone wrong?" says the Parson. + +"As for that," my grandfather answers, "I only wish I could say yes +or no: for 'twould be a relief even to know the worst." He beckoned +very mysterious-like and led the Parson a couple of hundred yards up +the foreshore, with Arch'laus Spry following. And there they came to +a halt, all three, before a rock that someone had been daubing with +whitewash. On the top of the cliff, right above, was planted a stick +with a little white flag. + +"Now, Sir, as a Justice of the Peace, what d'ee think of it?" + +Parson Polwhele stared from the rock to the stick and couldn't say. +So he turns to Arch'laus Spry and asks: "Any person taken ill in your +parish?" + +"No, Sir." + +"You're sure Billy Johns hasn't been drinking again?" Billy Johns +was the landlord of the "Passage Inn," a very ordinary man by rule, +but given to breaking loose among his own liquors. "He seemed all +right yesterday when I hired the trap off him; but he does the most +unaccountable things when he's taken bad." + +"He never did anything so far out of nature as this here; and I can +mind him in six outbreaks," answered my grandfather. "Besides, 'tis +not Billy Johns nor anyone like him." + +"Then you know who did it?" + +"I do and I don't, Sir. But take a look round, if you please." + +The Parson looked up and down and across the river; and, sure, +enough, whichever way he turned, his eyes fell on splashes of +whitewash and little flags fluttering. They seemed to stretch right +away from Porthnavas down to the river's mouth; and though he +couldn't see it from where he stood, even Mawnan church-tower had +been given a lick of the brush. + +"But," said the Parson, fairly puzzled, "all this can only have +happened in broad daylight, and you must have caught the fellow at +it, whoever he is." + +"I wouldn't go so far as to say I caught him," answered my +grandfather, modest-like; "but I came upon him a little above Bosahan +in the act of setting up one of his flags, and I asked him, in the +King's name, what he meant by it." + +"And what did he answer?" + +My grandfather looked over his shoulder. "I couldn't, Sir, not for a +pocketful of crowns, and your good lady, so to speak, within +hearing." + +"Nonsense, man! She's not within a hundred yards." + +"Well, then, Sir, he up and hoped the devil would fly away with me, +and from that he went on to say--" But here my grandfather came to a +dead halt. "No, Sir, I can't; and as a Minister of the Gospel, +you'll never insist on it. He made such horrible statements that I +had to go straight home and read over my old mother's marriage lines. +It fairly dazed me to hear him talk so confident, and she in her +grave, poor soul!" + +"You ought to have demanded his name." + +"I did, Sir; naturally I did. And he told me to go to the naughty +place for it." + +"Well, but what like is he?" + +"Oh, as to that, Sir, a man of ordinary shape, like yourself, in a +plain blue coat and a wig shorter than ordinary; nothing about him to +prepare you for the language he lets fly." + +"And," put in Arch'laus Spry, "he's taken lodgings down to Durgan +with the Widow Polkinghorne, and eaten his dinner--a fowl and a jug +of cider with it. After dinner he hired Robin's boat and went for a +row. I thought it my duty, as he was pushing off, to sidle up in a +friendly way. I said to him, 'The weather, Sir, looks nice and +settled': that is what I said, neither more nor less, but using those +very words. What d'ee think he answered? He said, 'That's capital, +my man: now go along and annoy somebody else.' Wasn't that a +disconnected way of talking? If you ask my opinion, putting two and +two together, I say he's most likely some poor wandering loonatic." + +The evening was dusking down by this time, and Parson Polwhele, +though a good bit puzzled, called to mind that his wife would be +getting anxious to cross the ferry and reach home before dark: so he +determined that nothing could be done before morning, when he +promised Arch'laus Spry to look into the matter. My grandfather he +took across in the boat with him, to look after the parcels and help +them up to the Vicarage: and on the way they talked about a grave +that my grandfather had been digging--he being sexton and parish +clerk, as well as constable and the Parson's right-hand man, as you +might call it, in all public matters. + +While they discoursed, Mrs. Polwhele was taking a look about her to +make sure the country hadn't altered while she was away at Plymouth. +And by and by she cries out: + +"Why, my love, whatever are these dabs o' white stuck up and down the +foreshore?" + +The Parson takes a look at my grandfather before answering: +"My angel, to tell you the truth, that's more than we know." + +"Richard, you're concealing something from me," said Mrs. Polwhele. +"If the French have landed and I'm going home to be burnt in my bed, +it shall be with my eyes open." + +"My dear Mary," the Parson argued, "you've a-got the French on your +brain. If the French landed they wouldn't begin by sticking dabs of +whitewash all over the parish; now, would they?" + +"How in the world should I know what a lot of Papists would do or not +do?" she answered. "'Tis no more foolish to my mind than eating +frogs or kissing a man's toe." + +Well, say what the Parson would, the notion had fixed itself in the +poor lady's head. Three times that night she woke in the bed with +her curl-papers crackling for very fright; and the fourth time 'twas +at the sound of a real dido below stairs. Some person was down by +the back door knocking and rattling upon it with all his might. + +The sun had been up for maybe an hour--the time of year, as I told +you, being near about mid-summer--and the Parson, that never wanted +for pluck, jumped out and into his breeches in a twinkling, while his +wife pulled the counterpane over her head. Down along the passage he +skipped to a little window opening over the back porch. + +"Who's there!" he called, and out from the porch stepped my +grandfather, that had risen early and gone to the churchyard to +finish digging the grave before breakfast. "Why, what on the earth +is wrong with ye? I made sure the French had landed, at the least." + +"Couldn't be much worse if they had," said my grandfather. +"Some person 've a-stole my shovel, pick, and biddicks." + +"Nonsense!" said the Parson. + +"The corpse won't find it nonsense, Sir, if I don't get 'em back in +time. I left 'em lying, all three, at the bottom of the grave +overnight." + +"And now they're missing?" + +"Not a trace of 'em to be seen." + +"Someone has been playing you a practical joke, Calvin. Here, stop a +moment--" The Parson ran back to his room, fetched a key, and flung +it out into the yard. "That'll unlock the tool-shed in the garden. +Get what you want, and we'll talk about the theft after breakfast. +How soon will the grave be ready?" + +"I can't say sooner than ten o'clock after what has happened." + +"Say ten o'clock, then. This is Saturday, and I've my sermon to +prepare after breakfast. At ten o'clock I'll join you in the +churchyard." + + +II. + +My grandfather went off to unlock the tool-shed, and the Parson back +to comfort Mrs. Polwhele--which was no easy matter. "There's +something wrong with the parish since I've been away, and that you +can't deny," she declared. "It don't feel like home any longer, and +my poor flesh is shivering like a jelly, and my hand almost too hot +to make the butter." She kept up this lidden all through breakfast, +and the meal was no sooner cleared away than she slipped on a shawl +and stepped across to the churchyard to discuss the robbery. + +The Parson drew a chair to the window, lit his pipe, and pulled out +his pocket-Bible to choose a text for his next day's sermon. But he +couldn't fix his thoughts. Try how he would, they kept harking back +to his travels in the post-chaise, and his wife's story, and those +unaccountable flags and splashes of whitewash. His pipe went out, +and he was getting up to find a light for it, when just at that +moment the garden gate rattled, and, looking down the path towards +the sound, his eyes fell on a square-cut, fierce-looking man in blue, +standing there with a dirty bag in one hand and a sheaf of tools over +his right shoulder. + +The man caught sight of the Parson at the window, and set down his +tools inside the gate--shovel and pick and biddicks. + +"Good-mornin'! I may come inside, I suppose?" says he, in a gruff +tone of voice. He came up the path and the Parson unlatched the +window, which was one of the long sort reaching down to the ground. + +"My name's Bligh," said the visitor, gruff as before. "You're the +Parson, eh? Bit of an antiquarian, I'm given to understand? +These things ought to be in your line, then, and I hope they are not +broken: I carried them as careful as I could." He opened the bag and +emptied it out upon the table--an old earthenware pot, a rusted iron +ring, four or five burnt bones, and a handful or so of ashes. +"Human, you see," said he, picking up one of the bones and holding it +under the Parson's nose. "One of your ancient Romans, no doubt." + +"Ancient Romans? Ancient Romans?" stammered Parson Polwhele. +"Pray, Sir, where did you get these--these articles?" + +"By digging for them, Sir; in a mound just outside that old Roman +camp of yours." + +"Roman camp? There's no Roman camp within thirty miles of us as the +crow flies: and I doubt if there's one within fifty!" + +"Shows how much you know about it. That's what I complain about in +you parsons: never glimpse a thing that's under your noses. Now, I +come along, making no pretence to be an antiquarian, and the first +thing I see out on your headland yonder, is a Roman camp, with a +great mound beside it--" + +"No such thing, Sir!" the Parson couldn't help interrupting. + +Bligh stared at him for a moment, like a man hurt in his feelings but +keeping hold on his Christian compassion. "Look here," he said; "you +mayn't know it, but I'm a bad man to contradict. This here Roman +camp, as I was sayin'--" + +"If you mean Little Dinnis Camp, Sir, 'tis as round as my hat." + +"Damme, if you interrupt again--" + +"But I will. Here, in my own parlour, I tell you that Little Dinnis +is as round as my hat!" + +"All right; don't lose your temper, shouting out what I never denied. +Round or square, it don't matter a ha'porth to me. This here round +Roman camp--" + +"But I tell you, once more, there's no such thing!" cried the Parson, +stamping his foot. "The Romans never made a round camp in their +lives. Little Dinnis is British; the encampment's British; the +mound, as you call it, is a British barrow; and as for you--" + +"As for me," thunders Bligh, "I'm British too, and don't you forget +it. Confound you, Sir! What the devil do I care for your +pettifogging bones? I'm a British sailor, Sir; I come to your +God-forsaken parish on a Government job, and I happen on a whole +shopful of ancient remains. In pure kindness--pure kindness, mark +you--I interrupt my work to dig 'em up; and this is all the thanks I +get!" + +"Thanks!" fairly yelled the Parson. "You ought to be horsewhipped, +rather, for disturbing an ancient tomb that's been the apple of my +eye ever since I was inducted to this parish!" Then, as Bligh drew +back, staring: "My poor barrow!" he went on; "my poor, ransacked +barrow! But there may be something to save yet--" and he fairly ran +for the door, leaving Bligh at a standstill. + +For awhile the man stood there like a fellow in a trance, opening and +shutting his mouth, with his eyes set on the doorway where the Parson +had disappeared. Then, his temper overmastering him, with a sweep of +his arm he sent the whole bag of tricks flying on to the floor, +kicked them to right and left through the garden, slammed the gate, +pitched across the road, and flung through the churchyard towards the +river like a whirlwind. + +Now, while this was happening, Mrs. Polwhele had picked her way +across the churchyard, and after chatting a bit with my grandfather +over the theft of his tools, had stepped into the church to see that +the place, and especially the table and communion-rails and the +parsonage pew, was neat and dusted, this being her regular custom +after a trip to Plymouth. And no sooner was she within the porch +than who should come dandering along the road but Arch'laus Spry. +The road, as you know, goes downhill after passing the parsonage +gate, and holds on round the churchyard wall like a sunk way, the +soil inside being piled up to the wall's coping. But, my grandfather +being still behindhand with his job, his head and shoulders showed +over the grave's edge. So Arch'laus Spry caught sight of him. + +"Why, you're the very man I was looking for," says Arch'laus, +stopping. + +"Death halts for no man," answers my grandfather, shovelling away. + +"That furrin' fellow is somewhere in this neighbourhood at this very +moment," says Arch'laus, wagging his head. "I saw his boat moored +down by the Passage as I landed. And I've a-got something to report. +He was up and off by three o'clock this morning, and knocked up the +Widow Polkinghorne, trying to borrow a pick and shovel." + +"Pick and shovel!" My grandfather stopped working and slapped his +thigh. "Then he's the man that 've walked off with mine: and a +biddicks too." + +"He said nothing of a biddicks, but he's quite capable of it." + +"Surely in the midst of life we are in death," said my grandfather. +"I was al'ays inclined to believe that text, and now I'm sure of it. +Let's go and see the Parson." + +He tossed his shovel on to the loose earth above the grave and was +just about to scramble out after it when the churchyard gate shook on +its hinges and across the path and by the church porch went Bligh, as +I've said, like a whirlwind. Arch'laus Spry, that had pulled his +chin up level with the coping, ducked at the sight of him, and even +my grandfather clucked down a little in the grave as he passed. + +"The very man!" said Spry, under his breath. + +"The wicked flee, whom no man pursueth," said my grandfather, looking +after the man; but Bligh turned his head neither to the right hand +nor to the left. + +"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed a voice inside the church. + +"Whatever was _that_," cries Arch'laus Spry, giving a jump. They +both stared at the porch. + +"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed the voice again. + +"It certainly comes from inside," said Arch'laus Spry. + +"It's Mrs. Polwhele!" said my grandfather; "and by the noise of it +she's having hysterics." + +And with that he scrambled up and ran; and Spry heaved himself over +the wall and followed. And there, in the south aisle, they found +Mrs. Polwhele lying back in a pew and kicking like a stallion in a +loose-box. + +My grandfather took her by the shoulders, while Spry ran for the jug +of holy water that stood by the font. As it happened, 'twas empty: +but the sight of it fetched her to, and she raised herself up with a +shiver. + +"The Frenchman!" she cries out, pointing. "The Frenchman--on the +coach! O Lord, deliver us!" + +For a moment, as you'll guess, my grandfather was puzzled: but he +stared where the poor lady pointed, and after a bit he began to +understand. I dare say you've seen our church, Sir, and if so, you +must have taken note of a monstrous fine fig-tree growing out of the +south wall--"the marvel of Manaccan," we used to call it. When they +restored the church the other day nobody had the heart to destroy the +tree, for all the damage it did to the building--having come there +the Lord knows how, and grown there since the Lord knows when. +So they took and patched up the wall around it, and there it thrives. +But in the times I'm telling of, it had split the wall so that from +inside you could look straight through the crack into the churchyard; +and 'twas to this crack that Mrs. Polwhele's finger pointed. + +"Eh?" said my grandfather. "The furriner that went by just now, was +it he that frightened ye, Ma'am?" + +Mrs. Polwhele nodded. + +"But what put it into your head that he's a Frenchman?" + +"Because French is his language. With these very ears I heard him +talk it! He joined the coach at Torpoint, and when I spoke him fair +in honest English not a word could he answer me. Oh, Calvin, Calvin! +what have I done--a poor weak woman--to be mixed up in these plots +and invasions?" + +But my grandfather couldn't stop to answer that question, for a +terrible light was breaking in upon him. "A Frenchman?" he called +out. "And for these twenty-four hours he's been marking out the +river and taking soundings!" He glared at Arch'laus Spry, and +Arch'laus dropped the brazen ewer upon the pavement and smote his +forehead. "The Devil," says he, "is among us, having great wrath!" + +"And for aught we know," says my grandfather, speaking in a slow and +fearsome whisper, "the French ships may be hanging off the coast +while we'm talking here!" + +"You don't mean to tell us," cried Mrs. Polwhele, sitting up stiff in +the pew, "that this man has been mapping out the river under your +very noses!" + +"He has, Ma'am. Oh, I see it all! What likelier place could they +choose on the whole coast? And from here to Falmouth what is it but +a step?" + +"Let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains," said Arch'laus +Spry solemn-like. + +"And me just home from Plymouth with a fine new roasting-jack!" +chimed in Mrs. Polwhele. "As though the day of wrath weren't bad +enough without that waste o' money! Run, Calvin--run and tell the +Vicar this instant--no, no, don't leave me behind! Take me home, +that's a good man: else I shall faint at my own shadow!" + +Well, they hurried off to the Vicarage: but, of course, there was no +Parson to be found, for by this time he was half-way towards Little +Dinnis, and running like a madman under the hot sun to see what +damage had befallen his dearly-loved camp. The servants hadn't seen +him leave the house; ne'er a word could they tell of him except that +Martha, the cook, when she cleared away the breakfast things, had +left him seated in his chair and smoking. + +"But what's the meaning of this?" cried out Mrs. Polwhele, pointing +to the tablecloth that Bligh had pulled all awry in his temper. +"And the window open too!" + +"And--hallo!" says my grandfather, staring across the patch of turf +outside. "Surely here's signs of a violent struggle. Human, by the +look of it," says he, picking up a thigh-bone and holding it out +towards Mrs. Polwhele. + +She began to shake like a leaf. "Oh, Calvin!" she gasps out. +"Oh, Calvin, not in this short time--it couldn't be!" + +"Charred, too," says my grandfather, inspecting it: and with that +they turned at a cry from Martha the cook, that was down on hands and +knees upon the carpet. + +"Ashes! See here, mistress--ashes all over your best carpet!" + +The two women stared at the fireplace: but, of course, that told them +nothing, being empty, as usual at the time of year, with only a few +shavings stuck about it by way of ornament. Martha, the first to +pick up her wits, dashed out into the front hall. + +"Gone without his hat, too!" she fairly screamed, running her eye +along the row of pegs. + +Mrs. Polwhele clasped her hands. "In the midst of life we are in +death," said Arch'laus Spry: "that's my opinion if you ask it." + +"Gone! Gone without his hat, like the snuff of a candle!" Mrs. +Polwhele dropped into a chair and rocked herself and moaned. + +My grandfather banged his fist on the table. He never could abide +the sight of a woman in trouble. + +"Missus," says he, "if the Parson's anywhere alive, we'll find 'en: +and if that Frenchman be Old Nick himself, he shall rue the day he +ever set foot in Manaccan parish! Come'st along, Arch'laus--" + +He took Spry by the arm and marched him out and down the garden path. +There, by the gate, what should his eyes light upon but his own +stolen tools! But by this time all power of astonishment was dried +up within him. He just raised his eyes aloft, as much as to say, +"Let the sky open and rain miracles!" and then and there he saw, +coming down the road, the funeral that both he and the Parson had +clean forgotten. + +The corpse was an old man called 'Pollas Hockaday; and Sam Trewhella, +a fish-curer that had married Hockaday's eldest daughter, walked next +behind the coffin as chief mourner. My grandfather waited by the +gate for the procession to come by, and with that Trewhella caught +sight of him, and, says he, taking down the handkerchief from his +nose: + +"Well, you're a pretty fellow, I must say! What in thunder d'ee mean +by not tolling the minute-bell?" + +"Tak 'en back," answers my grandfather, pointing to the coffin. +"Take 'en back, 'co!" + +"Eh?" says Trewhella. "Answer my question, I tell 'ee. You've hurt +my feelings and the feelings of everyone connected with the deceased: +and if this weren't not-azackly the place for it, I'd up and give you +a dashed good hiding," says he. + +"Aw, take 'en back," my grandfather goes on. "Take 'en back, my +dears, and put 'en somewhere, cool and temporary! The grave's not +digged, and the Parson's kidnapped, and the French be upon us, and +down by the river ther's a furrin spy taking soundings at this +moment! In the name of King George," said he, remembering that he +was constable, "I command you all except the females to come along +and collar 'en!" + + +While this was going on, Sir, Bligh had found his boat--which he'd +left by the shore--and was pulling up the river to work off his rage. +Ne'er a thought had he, as he flounced through the churchyard, of the +train of powder he dribbled behind him: but all the way he blew off +steam, cursing Parson Polwhele and the whole cloth from Land's End to +Johnny Groats, and glowering at the very gates by the road as though +he wanted to kick 'em to relieve his feelings. But when he reached +his boat and began rowing, by little and little the exercise tamed +him. With his flags and whitewash he'd marked out most of the lines +he wanted for soundings: but there were two creeks he hadn't yet +found time to explore--Porthnavas, on the opposite side, and the very +creek by which we're sitting. So, as he came abreast of this one, he +determined to have a look at it; and after rowing a hundred yards or +so, lay on his oars, lit his pipe, and let his boat drift up with the +tide. + +The creek was just the same lonesome place that it is to-day, the +only difference being that the pallace at the entrance had a roof on +it then, and was rented by Sam Trewhella--the same that followed old +Hockaday's coffin, as I've told you. But above the pallace the woods +grew close to the water's edge, and lined both shores with never a +clearing till you reached the end, where the cottage stands now and +the stream comes down beside it: in those days there wasn't any +cottage, only a piece of swampy ground. I don't know that Bligh saw +much in the scenery, but it may have helped to soothe his mind: for +by and by he settled himself on the bottom-boards, lit another pipe, +pulled his hat over his nose, and lay there blinking at the sky, +while the boat drifted up, hitching sometimes in a bough and +sometimes floating broadside-on to the current, until she reached +this bit of marsh and took the mud very gently. + +After a while, finding she didn't move, Bligh lifted his head for a +look about him and found that he'd come to the end of the creek. +He put out a hand and felt the water, that was almost luke-warm with +running over the mud. The trees shut him in; not a living soul was +in sight; and by the quietness he might have been a hundred miles +from anywhere. So what does my gentleman do but strip himself for a +comfortable bathe. + +He folded his clothes very neatly in the stern-sheets, waded out +across the shallows as naked as a babe, and took to the water with so +much delight that after a minute or so he must needs lie on his back +and kick. He splashed away, one leg after the other, with his face +turned towards the shore, and was just on the point of rolling over +for another swim, when, as he lifted a leg for one last kick, his +eyes fell on the boat. And there on the top of his clothes, in the +stern of her, sat my grandfather sucking a pipe. + +Bligh let down his legs and stood up, touching bottom, but neck-deep +in water. + +"Hi, you there!" he sings out. + +"Wee, wee, parleyvou!" my grandfather answers, making use of pretty +well all the French he knew. + +"Confound you, Sir, for an impident dirty dog! What in the name of +jiminy"--I can't give you, Sir, the exact words, for my grandfather +could never be got to repeat 'em--"What in the name of jiminy d'ee +mean by sitting on my clothes!" + +"Wee, wee," my grandfather took him up, calm as you please. +"You shocked me dreadful yesterday with your blasphemious talk: but +now, seeing 'tis French, I don't mind so much. Take your time: but +when you come out you go to prison. Wee, wee--preeson," says my +grandfather. + +"Are you drunk?" yells Bligh. "Get off my clothes this instant, you +hobnailed son of a something-or-other!" And he began striding for +shore. + +"In the name of His Majesty King George the Third I charge you to +come along quiet," says my grandfather, picking up a stretcher. + +Bligh, being naked and unarmed, casts a look round for some way to +help himself. He was a plucky fellow enough in a fight, as I've +said: but I leave you to guess what he felt like when to right and +left of him the bushes parted, and forth stepped half a dozen men in +black suits with black silk weepers a foot and a half wide tied in +great bunches round their hats. These were Sam Trewhella, of course, +and the rest of the funeral-party, that had left the coffin in a nice +shady spot inside the Vicarage garden gate, and come along to assist +the law. They had brought along pretty nearly all the menkind of the +parish beside: but these, being in their work-a-day clothes, didn't +appear, and for a reason you'll learn by and by. All that Bligh saw +was this dismal company of mourners backed by a rabble of +school-children, the little ones lining the shore and staring at him +fearsomely with their fingers in their mouths. + +For the moment Bligh must have thought himself dreaming. But there +they stood, the men in black and the crowd of children, and my +grandfather with the stretcher ready, and the green woods so quiet +all round. And there he stood up to the ribs in water, and the tide +and his temper rising. + +"Look here, you something-or-other yokels," he called out, "if this +is one of your village jokes, I promise you shall smart for it. +Leave the spot this moment, fetch that idiot out of the boat, and +take away the children. I want to dress, and it isn't decent!" + +"Mounseer," answers my grandfather, "I dare say you've a-done it for +your country; but we've a-caught you, and now you must go to prison-- +wee, wee, to preeson," he says, lisping it in a Frenchified way so as +to make himself understood. + +Bligh began to foam. "The longer you keep up this farce, my fine +fellows, the worse you'll smart for it! There's a Magistrate in this +parish, as I happen to know." + +"There _was_," said my grandfather; "but we've strong reasons to +believe he's been made away with." + +"The only thing we could find of 'en," put in Arch'laus Spry, "was a +shin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticed +it, but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about the +premises; and I've always been remarkable for my sense of smell." + +"You won't deny," my grandfather went on, "that you've been making a +map of this here river; for here it is in your tail-coat pocket." + +"You insolent ruffian, put that down at once! I tell you that I'm a +British officer and a gentleman!" + +"_And_ a Papist," went on my grandfather, holding up a ribbon with a +bullet threaded to it. ('Twas the bullet Bligh used to weigh out +allowances with on his voyage in the open boat after the mutineers +had turned him adrift from the _Bounty_, and he wore it ever after.) +"See here, friends: did you ever know an honest Protestant to wear +such a thing about him inside his clothes?" + +"Whether you're a joker or a numskull is more than I can fathom," +says Bligh; "but for the last time I warn you I'm a British officer, +and you'll go to jail for this as sure as eggs." + +"The question is, Will you surrender and come along quiet?" + +"No, I won't," says Bligh, sulky as a bear; "not if I stay here all +night!" + +With that my grandfather gave a wink to Sam Trewhella, and Sam +Trewhella gave a whistle, and round the point came Trewhella's +sean-boat that the village lads had fetched out and launched from his +store at the mouth of the creek. Four men pulled her with all their +might; in the stern stood Trewhella's foreman, Jim Bunt, with his +two-hundred-fathom net: and along the shore came running the rest of +the lads to see the fun. + +"Heva, heva!" yelled Sam Trewhella, waving his hat with the black +streamers. + +The sean-boat swooped up to Bligh with a rush, and then, just as he +faced upon it with his fists up, to die fighting, it swerved off on a +curve round him, and Jim Bunt began shooting the sean hand over hand +like lightning. Then the poor man understood, and having no mind to +be rolled up and afterwards tucked in a sean-net, he let out an oath, +ducked his head, and broke for the shore like a bull. But 'twas no +manner of use. As soon as he touched land a dozen jumped for him and +pulled him down. They handled him as gentle as they could, for he +fought with fists, legs, and teeth, and his language was awful: but +my grandfather in his foresight had brought along a couple of +wainropes, and within ten minutes they had my gentleman trussed, +heaved him into the boat, covered him over, and were rowing him off +and down the creek to land him at Helford Quay. + + +By this 'twas past noon; and at one o'clock, or a little before, +Parson Polwhele come striding along home from Little Dinnis. He had +tied a handkerchief about his head to keep off the sun; his hands and +knees were coated with earth; and he sweated like a furze-bush in a +mist, for the footpath led through cornfields and the heat was +something terrible. Moreover, he had just called the funeral to +mind; and this and the damage he'd left at Little Dinnis fairly +hurried him into a fever. + +But worse was in store. As he drew near the Parsonage, he spied a +man running towards him: and behind the man the most dreadful noises +were sounding from the house. The Parson came to a halt and swayed +where he stood. + +"Oh, Calvin! Calvin!" he cried--for the man running was my +grandfather--"don't try to break it gently, but let me know the +worst!" + +"Oh, blessed day! Oh, fearful and yet blessed day!" cries my +grandfather, almost catching him in both arms. "So you're not dead! +So you're not dead, the Lord be praised, but only hurt!" + +"Hurt?" says the Parson. "Not a bit of it--or only in my feelings. +Oh, 'tis the handkerchief you're looking at? I put that up against +sunstroke. But whatever do these dreadful sounds mean? Tell me the +worst, Calvin, I implore you!" + +"Oh, as for that," says my grandfather cheerfully, "the Frenchman's +the worst by a long way--not but what your good lady made noise +enough when she thought you'd been made away with: and afterwards, +when she went upstairs and, taking a glance out of window, spied a +long black coffin laid out under the lilac bushes, I'm told you could +hear her a mile away. But she've been weakening this half-hour: her +nature couldn't keep it up: whereas the longer we keep that +Frenchman, the louder he seems to bellow." + +"Heaven defend us, Calvin!"--the Parson's eyes fairly rolled in his +head--"are you gone clean crazed? Frenchman! What Frenchman?" + +"The same that frightened Mrs. Polwhele, Sir, upon the coach. +We caught him drawing maps of the river, and very nigh tucked him in +Sam Trewhella's sean: and now he's in your tool-shed right and tight, +and here's the key, Sir, making so bold, that you gave me this +morning. But I didn't like to take him into the house, with your +good lady tumbling out of one fit into another. Hark to 'en, now! +Would you ever believe one man could make such a noise?" + +"Fits! My poor, dear, tender Mary having fits!" The Parson broke +away for the house and dashed upstairs three steps at a time: and +when she caught sight of him, Mrs. Polwhele let out a louder squeal +than ever. But the next moment she was hanging round his neck, and +laughing and sobbing by turns. And how long they'd have clung to one +another there's no knowing, if it hadn't been for the language +pouring from the tool-shed. + +"My dear," said the Parson, holding himself up and listening. +"I don't think that can possibly be a Frenchman. He's too fluent." + +Mrs. Polwhele listened too, but after a while she was forced to cover +her face with both hands. "Oh, Richard, I've often heard 'en +described as gay, but--but they can't surely be so gay as all that!" + +The Parson eased her into an armchair and went downstairs to the +courtyard, and there, as you may suppose, he found the parish +gathered. + +"Stand back all of you," he ordered. "I've a notion that some +mistake has been committed: but you had best hold yourselves ready in +case the prisoner tries to escape." + +"But Parson dear, you're never going to unlock that door!" cried my +grandfather. + +"If you'll stand by me, Calvin," says the Parson, plucky as ginger, +and up he steps to the very door, all the parish holding its breath. + +He tapped once--no answer: twice--and no more answer than before. +There was a small trap open in the roof and through this the language +kept pouring with never a stop, only now and then a roar like a +bull's. But at the third knock it died down to a sort of rumbling, +and presently came a shout, "Who's there?" + +"A clergyman and justice of the peace," answers the Parson. + +"I'll have your skin for this!" + +"But you'll excuse me--" + +"I'll have your skin for this, and your blood in a bottle! I'm a +British officer and a gentleman, and I'll have you stuffed and put in +a glass case, as sure as my name's Bligh!" + +"Bligh?" says the Parson, opening the door. "Any relation to the +Blighs of St. Tudy? Oh, no it can't be!" he stammered, taken all +aback to see the man stark naked on the threshold. "Why--why, you're +the gentleman that called this morning!" he went on, the light +breaking in upon him: "excuse me, I recognise you by--by the slight +scar on your face." + + +Well, Sir, there was nothing for Bligh to do--the whole parish +staring at him--but to slip back into the shed and put on the clothes +my grandfather handed in at the door: and while he was dressing the +whole truth came out. I won't say that he took the Parson's +explanations in a nice spirit: for he vowed to have the law on +everyone concerned. But that night he walked back to Falmouth and +took the London coach. As for Helford River, 'twasn't charted that +year nor for a score of years after. And now you know how this creek +came by its name; and I'll say again, as I began, that a bad temper +is an affliction, whoever owns it. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEWS FROM THE DUCHY*** + + +******* This file should be named 18577.txt or 18577.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/5/7/18577 + + + +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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