MERRY-GARDEN AND OTHER STORIES. 

by

ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH. 

1907

This e-text was prepared from a version published in 1907. 

CONTENTS. 

 MERRY-GARDEN. 

 THE BEND OF THE ROAD. 

 HI-SPY-HI. 

 HIS EXCELLENCY'S PRIZE-FIGHT. 

 THE _BLACK JOKE_. 

 WHERE THE TREASURE IS. 

 A JEST OF AMBIALET. 

MERRY GARDEN. 

I. 

PROLOGUE. 

Beside a winding creek of the Lynher River, and not far from the Cornishborough of Saltash, you may find a roofless building so closely backedwith cherry-orchards that the trees seem by their slow pressure to bethrusting the mud-walls down to the river's brink, there to topple andfall into the tide. The old trees, though sheeted with white blossom inthe spring, bear little fruit, and that of so poor a flavour as to bescarcely worth picking. They have, in fact, almost reverted to savagery, even as the cottage itself is crumbling back to the earth out of which itwas built. On the slope above the cherry-orchards, if you moor your boatat the tumble-down quay and climb by half-obliterated pathways, you willcome to a hedge of brambles, and to a broken gate with a well beside it;and beyond the gate to an orchard of apple-trees, planted in times when, regularly as Christmas Eve came round, Aunt Barbree Furnace, her maidSusannah, and the boy Nandy, would mount by this same path with a bowl ofcider, and anoint the stems one by one, reciting--

 _Here's to thee, good apple-tree-- Pockets full, hats full, great bushel-bags full! Amen, an' vire off the gun!_

--Whereupon Nandy, always after a caution to be extry-careful, would shuthis eyes, pull the trigger of his blunderbuss, and wake all the echoes ofthe creek in an uproar which, as Susannah never failed to remark, was fitto frighten every war-ship down in Hamoaze. The trees, grey with lichen, sprawl as they have fallen under the weight of past crops. They go onblossoming, year after year; even those that lie almost horizontallyremember their due season and burst into blowth, pouring (as it were) inrosy-white cascades down the slope and through the rank grasses. But as often as not the tenant neglects to gather the fruit. Nor is itworth his while to grub up the old roots; for you cannot plant a neworchard where an old one has decayed. One of these days (he tells me) hemeans to do something with the wisht old place: meanwhile I doubt if hesets foot in it once a year. 

For me, I find it worth visiting at least twice a year: in spring when thePoet's Narcissus flowers in great clumps under the north hedge, and thecolumbines grow breast-high--pink, blue, and blood-red; and again inautumn, for the sake of an apple which we call the gillyflower--small andshy, but of incomparable flavour--and for a gentle melancholy which hauntsthe spot like--yes, like a human face, and with faint companionable smilesand murmurs of dead-and-gone laughter. 

The tenant was right: it was a wisht old place, and the more wisht becauseit lies so near to a world that has forgotten it. Above, if you row pastthe bend of the creek, you will come upon trim villas with well-keptgardens; below, and beyond the entrance to the creek, you look down abroad river to the Hamoaze, crowded with torpedo-boats, powder-hulks, training-ships, and great vessels of war. Around and behindMerry-Garden--for that is its name--stretches a parish given up to thecultivation of fruit and flowers; and across the creek another parish'clothed'--I quote the local historian--'in flowers like a bride'; andboth parishes learned their prosperity from Merry-Garden the now deserted. In mazzard time ('mazzards' are sweet black cherries) the sound of younglaughter floats across Merry-Garden; but the girls and boys who make thelaughter seldom, wander that way. No longer to its quay come boats withholiday-parties from the Fleet and the Garrison at Plymouth, as they cameby scores a hundred years ago. 

In those days Merry-Garden was a cherry-garden. The cottage was facedwith a verandah overlooking the tide. In the wide stone chimney-place, where now, standing knee-deep in nettles, you may look up and see blue skybeyond the starlings' nests, as many as twenty milk-pans have stoodtogether over the fire, that the visitors might have clotted cream to eatwith their strawberries and raspberries. In the orchards, from undermasses of traveller's joy, you may pull away rotten pieces of timber thatonce made arbours and summer-houses. 

The present tenant will sub-let you the whole of Merry-Garden, if youwish, for two pounds ten shillings per annum. He is an old man, with anamazing memory and about as much sentiment as my boot. From him I learnedthe following story: and, with your leave, I will repeat it in his words. 

I. 

Aunt Barbree Furnace was a widow woman, and held Merry-Garden upon atenancy of a kind you don't often come across nowadays--and good riddanceto it!--though common enough when I was a boy. The whole lease was butfor three pounds a year for the term of three lives--her husband, WilliamJohn Furnace; her husband's younger sister Tryphena, that had married aman called Jewell and buried him within six months; and Tryphena's onlychild Ferdinando, otherwise known as Nandy. When the lease was drawn, allthree lives seemed good enough for another fifty years. The Furnaces cameof a long-lived stock, and William John with any ordinary care might hopeto reach eighty. His sister had been specially put into the lease on thestrength of her constitution; and six months of married life had given hera distaste for it, which made things all the safer. As for Nandy, there'salways a risk, of course, with very young lives, 'specially with boys:but if he did happen to pull through, 'twas like as not he might lengthenout the lease for another thirty years. 

At any rate Mr. And Mrs. Furnace took the risk with a cheerful mind. The woman came from Saltash, where she and her mother had driven athriving trade in cockles and other shellfish, particularly with the RoyalMarines; and being a busy spirit and childless, she hit on the notion ofturning her old trade to account. Her husband, William John, had tilledMerry-Garden and stocked it with fruits and sallets with no eye but to thesale of them in Saltash market. But the house was handy forpleasure-takers by water, and by and by the board she put up--_Mrs. Barbree Furnace. Cockles and Cream in Season. Water Boiled and Teaif You Wish_--attracted the picnickers by scores; and the picnickers beganto ask for fruit with their teas, till William John, at his wife's advice, planted half an acre of strawberries, and laid out another half-acre incurrant and raspberry bushes. By this time, too, the cherry-trees werebeginning to yield. So by little and little, feeling sure of their lease, they extended the business. William John, one winter, put up a brand-newchimney, and bought three cows which he pastured up along in the meadowbehind the woods; and next spring the pair hung out a fresh board andpainted on it--_Furnace's Merry-Garden Tea-House. Patronised by the Navaland Military. Teas, with Fruit and Cream, Sixpence per head_: and anotherboard which they hoisted in the mazzard-season, saying--_Sixpence at theGate, and eat so Much as you Mind to. All are Welcome_. With all this, Aunt Barbree (as she came to be called) didn't neglect the cockles, whichwere her native trade. In busy times she could afford to hire over one ofthe Saltash fish-women--the Johnses or the Glanvilles; you'll have heardof them, maybe?--to lend her a hand: but in anything like a slack seasonshe'd be down at low water, with her petticoat trussed over her knees, raking cockles with her own hands. Yes, yes, a powerful, a remarkablewoman! and a pity it was (I've heard my mother say) to see such a healthy, strong couple prospering in all they touched, and hauling in moneyhand-over-fist, with neither chick nor child to leave it to. 

Prosper they did, at any rate; and terrible popular the place became withthe Fleet and the Army, till by the year eighteen-nought-five--the same inwhich Admiral Nelson fought the Battle of Trafalgar--there wasn't anofficer in either service that had ever found himself at Plymouth, butcould tell something of Merry-Garden and its teas, with their cockles andcream and strawberries in June and mazzards in July month. By this timethe Furnaces had built a new landing-quay--the same to which your boat ismoored at this moment--and rigged up arbours and come-sit-by-me's in everycorner of the garden and under every plum-tree and laylock-bush: forWilliam John was extending his season by degrees, and had gone so far asto set up a board in May-time by Admiral's Hard, down at Devonport, and onit '_Officers of the United Services will Kindly take Notice that the Laylocks in Merry-Garden are in Bloom. Cockles Warranted, and Cream frombest Channel Island Cows. Patronised also by the Nobility and Gentry ofPlymouth, Plymouth Dock, Saltash, and East Cornwall_. '

You may wonder that the Furnaces' success didn't encourage others to setup in opposition? But a cherry-garden isn't grown in a day. Mrs. Furnacehad dropped into it (so to speak) when the trees that William John hadplanted were already on the way to yield good profit. Also she was awoman who knew how to keep a pleasure-garden decent, however near it mightlie to a great town and a naval port. Simple woman though she seemed, sheunderstood scandal. 

But in the midst of life we are in death. One day, at the height of hisprosperity, William John drove over to Menheniot Churchtown (where hissister Tryphena resided with her boy Nandy and kept a general shop) tofetch them over to Merry-Garden for a visit. Aunt Barbree loved children, you understand: besides which, Tryphena's husband had left her poor, and'twas the first week in August after a good season, and the mazzardswanted eating if they weren't to perish for want of it. . . . So WilliamJohn, who by this time was rich enough to set up a tax-cart, butinexperienced to manage it, drove over to Menheniot and fetched his sisterand the boy: and on the way home the horse bolted and scattered the lot, with the result that William John was flung against a milestone and sisterTryphena across a hedge. The pair succumbed to their injuries: but theboy Nandy (aged fourteen) was picked up with no worse than a stunning, anda bump at the back of his head which hardened so that he was everafterwards able to crack nuts with it, and even Brazil nuts, by hammeringwith his skull against a door or any other suitable object. Of course, when they picked him up he hadn't a notion he possessed any such gift. 

Well here, as you might say, was a pretty kettle of fish for Aunt Barbree. Here not only was a loving husband killed, and a sister-in-law, but at onestroke two out of the three healthy lives on which the whole lease ofMerry-Garden depended. She mourned William John for his own sake, because, as husbands go, she had reason to regret him; and TryphenaJewell, for a poor relation, had never been pushing. Tryphena's faultrather had been that she gave herself airs. Having no money to speak of, she stood up against Aunt Barbree's riches by flaunting herself as amother: "though, " as Aunt Barbree would complain to her husband, "I can'tsee what she finds uncommon in the child, unless 'tis the number of hispimples: and I've a mind, the next time, to recommend Wessel'sAntiscorbutic Drops. The boy looks unhealthy: and, come to think of it, with his life in the lease, 'tis only due to ourselves to advise thewoman. " She only said this to ease her feelings: but the truth was (andWilliam John knew it) she yearned for a child of her own, even to theextent sometimes of wanting to adopt one. 

Well, this terrible accident not only widowed the poor soul, but broughtall her little jealousies, as you might say, home to roost. She couldn'tabide Nandy, and Nandy had reached an age when boys aren't at their best. But adopt him she had to; and, what tried her worse, she was forced tolook after his health with more than a mother's care. For, outside of astockingful of guineas, all her capital was sunk in Merry-Garden, and allMerry-Garden hung now on the boy's life. 

The worst trial of all was that, somehow or other, Nandy got to know hisvalue and the reason of it, and from that day he gave Aunt Barbree nopeace. He wouldn't go to school; study gave him a headache. His motherhad taught him to read and write, but under Aunt Barbree's roof he learnedno more than he was minded to, and among the things he taught himself wasa tolerable imitation of a hacking cough. With this and the help of ahollow tooth he could spit blood whenever he wanted a shilling. He played this game for about six months, until the poor woman--who waslosing flesh with lying awake at night and wondering what would happen toher when cast out in the cold world--fixed up her courage to know theworst, and carried him off to a Plymouth doctor. The doctor advised herto take the boy home and give him the strap. 

Aunt Barbree applied this treatment for a time, but dropped it in the end. The boy was growing too tall for it. The visit to the doctor, however, worked like a miracle in one way. 

"Auntie, " said the penitent one day, "I'm feeling a different boyaltogether, this last week or two. "

"I reckoned you would, " said Aunt Barbree. 

"My appetite's improving. Have you noticed my appetite?"

"Heaven is my witness!" said Aunt Barbree. The cherry season wasbeginning. She had consulted with a friend of hers in Saltash, the wifeof a confectioner. It seems that apprentices in the confectionery tradeare allowed to eat pastry and lollypops without let or hindrance, untilthey take a surfeit and are cured for ever after. Aunt Barbree wasbeginning to wonder why the cure worked so slow in the case of freshfruit. "Heaven is my witness, I _have!_" said Aunt Barbree. 

"There's a complete change coming over my constitution, " said Nandy, pensive-like. "I feel it hardening every day: and as for my skull, why--talk about Brazil nuts!--I believe I could crack cherry-stones with it. "

"I beg you won't try, " pleaded Aunt Barbree, for this trick of Nandy'salways gave her the shivers. 

"A head like mine was meant for something worthier than civil life. I've been turnin' it over--"

"Turnin' _what_ over?"

"Things in general, " said Nandy; "and the upshot is, I've a great mind to'list for a sojer. "

"The good Lord forbid!" cried Aunt Barbree. 

"The Frenchies might shoot me, to be sure, " Nandy allowed. "That's oneway of looking at it. But King George would take the risk o' that, andgive me a shilling down for it. "

"O Nandy, Nandy--here's a shillin' for 'ee, if that's what you want!But be a good boy, and don't talk so irreligious!"

Well, sir, the lad knew he had the whip-hand of the poor woman, and thetaller he grew the more the lazy good-for-nothing used it. Enlistment washis trump card, and he went to the length of buying a drill-book andpractising the motions in odd corners of the garden, but always so thathis aunt should catch him at it. If she was slow in catching him, theyoung villain would draw attention by calling out words from the manual ina hollow voice, mixed up with desperate ones of his own composing--"_At the word of command the rear rank steps back one pace, the wholefacing to the left, the left files then taking a side step to the left anda pace to the rear. Ready, p'sent! Ha, what do I see afore me? Is't thehated foeman?_"--and so on, and so on. Aunt Barbree, with tears in hereyes, would purse out sums varying from sixpence to half a crown, coaxinghim to dismiss such murderous thoughts from his mind; and thereupon he'dtake another turn and mope, saying that it ill became a lad of his inches, let alone his tremenjous spirit, to idle out his days while others weredying for their country; to oblige his aunt he would stand it as long ashe could, but nobody need be surprised if he ended by drowning himself, And this frightened Aunt Barbree almost worse than did his talk ofenlisting, and drove her one day, when Nandy had just turned seventeen, to take a walk up the valley to consult Dr. Clatworthy. 

II. 

Dr. Clatworthy was a man in many respects uncommon. To begin with, he hadplenty of money; and next, he was as full of crazes as of learning. One of these crazes was astronomy, and another was mud-baths, and anotherwas open windows and long walks in the open air, and another wasskin-diseases and nervous disorders, and another was the Lost Tribes, andanother was Woman's Education; with the Second Advent and Vegetable Dietto fill up the spaces. Some of these he had picked up at Oxford, andothers in his travels abroad, especially in Moravia: but the sum total wasthat you'd call him a crank. Coming by chance into Cornwall, he had takenan uncommon fancy to our climate and its 'humidity'--that was the word. There was nothing like it (he said) for the skin--leastways, if takenalong with mud-baths. He had bought half a dozen acres of land at thehead of the creek, a mile above Merry-Garden, and built a whacking greathouse upon it, full of bathrooms and adorned upon the outside with statuesin baked earth to represent Trigonometry and the other heathen gods. He had given the contract to an up-country builder, and brought thematerial (which was mainly brick and Bath-stone) from the Lord knowswhere; but it was delivered up the creek by barges. There were days, inthe year before William John's death, when these barges used to sail uppast Merry-Garden at high springs in procession without end. But now thehouse had been standing furnished for three good years, with fruit-gardensplanted on the slopes below it, and basins full of gold-fish: and thereDr. Clatworthy lived with half a score of male patients as mad as himself. For, though rich, he didn't spend his money in enjoyment only, but chargedhis guests six guineas a week, while he taught 'em the secret of perfecthealth. 

Well, you may laugh at the man, but I've heard my mother (who remembershim) say that, with all his faults, he had the complexion of a baby. She would describe him as an unmarried man, of the age of fifty, --he had aprejudice against marrying under fifty, --dressed in nankeen for allweathers, with no other protection than a whalebone umbrella, and likewiseremarkable for a fine Roman nose. 'Twas this Clatworthy, by the way, thata discharged gardener advised to go down to Merry-Garden and make a secondfortune by picking cherries, "for, " said he, "having such a nose as yoursyou can hook on to a bough with it and pick with both hands. " I don'tmyself believe that he came to visit Merry-Garden on any suchrecommendation; but visit it he did, and often, while his own trees weregrowing; and there his noble deportment and his lordly way with money madean impression on Aunt Barbree, who had already heard talk of hiscapabilities. 

So--as I was saying--one day, being near upon driven to her wits' end, Aunt Barbree marched the boy up to Hi-jeen Villa (as the new great housewas called), and begged for Dr. Clatworthy's advice; "for I do believe, "she wound up, "the boy is sinking into a very low state of despondency. "

"And so should I be despondent, " said the doctor, eyeing Nandy, "if I hadthat number of pimples and didn't know a sure way to cure them. "

"Fresh fruit don't seem to do no good, " said Aunt Barbree, "though I'veheard it confidently recommended. "

The doctor made Nandy take off his shirt. "Why, " said he, enthusiastic-like, "the boy's a perfect treasure!"

"You think so?" said Aunt Barbree, a bit dubious, not quite catching hisdrift. 

"A case, ma'am, like this wouldn't yield to fresh fruit, not in ten years. It's throwing away your time. Mud is the cure, ma'am--mud-bathing andconstant doses of sulphur-water, varied with a plenty of exercise to openthe pores of the skin. "

"Sulphur-water?" Aunt Barbree had used it now and then upon herfruit-trees, to keep away mildew. She doubted Nandy's taking kindly toit. "He's easier led, sir, than driven, " she said. 

"My good woman, " said the doctor, "you leave him to me. I'll take up thiscase for nothing but the honour and glory of it. He shall board and lodgehere and live like a fighting-cock, and not a penny-piece to pay. As for curing him--if it'll give you any confidence, look at mycomplexion, ma'am. What d'ye think of it?"

"Handsome, sure 'nough, " said Aunt Barbree. 

"Satin, ma'am--complete satin!" said the doctor. "And I'm like that allover. "

"Well to be sure, if Nandy don't object--" said Aunt Barbree, hurried-like. 

Nandy thought that to live for a while in a fine house and be fed like afighting-cock would be a pleasant change; and so the bargain was struck. 

Poor lad, he repented it before the first week was out. He couldn't abidethe mud-baths, which he took in the garden, planted up to the chin in aring with a dozen old gentlemen, stuck out there like cabbages, and withClatworthy planted in the middle and haranguing by the hour, sometimes onpolitics and Napoleon Bonaparte, sometimes on education, but oftenest onhis system and the good they ought to be deriving from it. Moreover, though they fed him well enough, according to promise, the sulphur-wateracted on his stomach in a way that prevented any lasting satisfaction withhis vittles. In short, before the week was out he wanted to run awayhome; and only one thing hindered him--that he'd fallen in love. 

This was the way it happened. Dr. Clatworthy, having notions of his ownupon matrimony, and money to carry them out, had picked out a pretty childand adopted her, and set her to school with a Miss St. Maur of Saltash, tobe trained up in his principles, till of an age to make him 'a perfecthelpmeet, ' as he called it. 

The poor child--she was called Jessica Venning to begin with, but thedoctor had rechristened her Sophia--was grown by this time into a younglady of seventeen, pretty and graceful. She could play upon the harp andpaint in water-colours, and her needlework was a picture, but not half sopretty a picture as her face. She came from Devonshire, from the edge ofthe moors behind Newton Abbot, where the folks have complexions allcream-and-roses. She'd a figure like a wand for grace, and an eyehalf-melting, half-roguish. People might call Clatworthy a crank, orwhatever word answered to it in those days: but he had made no mistake inchoosing the material to make him a bride--or only this, that the poorgirl couldn't bear the look or the thought of him. Well, the time wasdrawing on when Clatworthy, according to his plans, was to marry her, andto prepare her for it he had taken to writing her a letter every day, full of duty and mental improvement. Part of Nandy's business was to walkover with these letters to Saltash. The doctor explained to him that itwould open the pores of his skin, and he must wait for an answer. And so it came about that Nandy saw Miss Sophia, and fell over head andears in love with her. 

But towards the end of the second week he felt that he could stand life atHi-jeen Villa no longer--no, not even for the sake of seeing Miss Sophiadaily. 

"It's no use, miss, " he told her very dolefully, as he delivered Friday'sletter; "I've a-got to run for it, and I'm going to run for it to-morrow. "He heaved a great sigh. 

"But how foolish of you, Nandy!" said Miss Sophia, glancing up from theletter. "When you know it's doing you so much good!"

"Good?" said Nandy, savage-like. "How would _you_ like it? There now--I'm sorry, Miss Sophia. I forgot--and now I've made you cry!"

"I--I sh--shan't like it at all, " quavered Miss Sophia, blinking away hertears. "And--and it's not at all the same thing. "

"No, " agreed Nandy; "no, o' course not: you ha'n't got no pimples. Oh, Miss Sophia, " he went on, speaking very earnest, "would you reallylike me better if I weren't so speckity?"

"Ever so much better, Nandy. You can't think what an improvement it wouldbe. "

"'Tis only skin-deep, " said Nandy. "At the bottom of my heart, miss, I'd die for you. . . . But I can't stand it no longer. To-morrow I'vemade up my mind to run home to Merry-Garden: and there, if it gives youany pleasure, I can go on taking mud-baths on my own account. "

"Merry-Garden?" said Miss Sophia. "Why, that's where Dr. Clatworthy wantsus to take tea with him to-morrow! He writes that he is inviting Miss StMaur to bring all the girls in the top class, and he will meet us there. . . . See, here's the letter enclosed. "

"That settles it, " said Nandy. 

He walked home that afternoon with two letters--a hypocritical little notefrom Sophia, a high polite one from Miss St. Maur. Miss St. Mauraccepted, on behalf of her senior young ladies, Dr. Clatworthy's trulydelightful invitation to take tea with him on the morrow. She herself--she regretted to say--would be detained until late in the afternoon bysome troublesome tradesmen who were fixing new window-sashes in theschoolroom. She could not trust them to do the work correctly exceptunder her supervision, and to defer it would entail a week's delay, theschoolroom being vacant only on Saturday afternoons. The young ladiesshould arrive, however, punctually at 3. 30 p. M. , in charge of Miss de laPorcheraie, her excellent French instructress: she herself would follow at5 o'clock or thereabouts, and meanwhile she would leave her charges, in perfect confidence, to Dr. Clatworthy's polished hospitality. . . . Those were the words. My mother--who was fond of telling the story--had'em by heart. 

III. 

Nandy kept his word. 

Breakfast next morning was no sooner over than he made a bolt across thepleasure-grounds, crept through the hedge at the bottom, and went singingdown the woods towards Merry-Garden, with his heart half-lovesick andhalf-gleeful, and with two thick sandwiches of bread-and-butter in hispocket to provide against accidents. But he didn't feel altogether easyat the thought of facing Aunt Barbree: and by and by, drawing near to thehouse and catching sight of his aunt's sun-bonnet up among theraspberry-canes, he decided (as they say) to play for safety. So, creeping down to the front door, he slipped under it a letter which hehad spent a solid hour last night in composing; and made his way to theforeshore, to loaf and smoke a pipe of stolen tobacco and, generallyspeaking, make the most of his holiday. The note said--

 "Dear Aunt, --Do not weep for me. The sulphur-water made me sick and I could stand it no longer. So am gone for a Soger. Letters and remittances will doubtless find me if addressed to the Citadel, Plymouth. A loving heart is what I hunger for--Your affect, nephew, Ferdinando Jewell. "

 "P. S. --On 2nd thoughts I may be able to come back this evening to say farewell for ever. " "P. S. --Don't sit up. "

Now a boy may be a lazy good-for-nothing, and yet (if you'll understandme) be missed from a garden where there are ladders to fix and mazzardcherries to pick; and likewise, though liable to be grumbled at, a boy hashis uses in the gathering of cockles. Though she knew him to be ananointed young humbug, there's no denying that Aunt Barbree had missedNandy and his help. She was getting past fifty, and somehow the last tendays had reminded her of it. . . . The long and short of it was that, after a couple of hours fruit-picking--and it took her no less to gettogether the supply she'd reckoned on for her afternoon customers--sheentered the house with a feeling of stiffness in her back and a feelingthat answered to it elsewhere, that maybe Nandy was a better boy thanshe'd given him credit for. Upon top of this feeling she pushed open thedoor and spied his letter lying on the mat. 

The reading of it turned her hot and cold. She marched straight to thedairy, where Susannah was busy with the cream-pans, and says she, loosening her bonnet-strings as she dropped upon a bench, "He was but anorphan, after all, Susannah: and now we've driven 'en to desperation!"

"Who's been driven to desperation?" asked Susannah. 

"Why, Nandy, " answered Aunt Barbree, tears brimming her eyes. "Who elst?"

"Piggywig's tail!" said Susannah. "What new yarn has the cheeld beentellin'?"

"He's my own nephew, and a Furnace upon his mother's side, " said AuntBarbree; "and I'll trouble you to speak more respectful of your employer'skin. And he hasn't been tellin' it; he've _written_ it, here in pen andink. He've cut and run to take the King's shilling and be a sojer: and ifI can't overtake him before he gets to Plymouth Citadel the deed will hedone, and the Frenchies will knock him upon the head and I shall bewithout a roof to cover me. Get me my shawl and bonnet. "

"You baint goin' to tell me, " said Susannah, "that you act'lly mean totake and trapse to Plymouth in all this heat?"

"I do, " said Barbree. "Get me my shawl and bonnet. "

"What, on a Saturday afternoon! And me left single-handed to tend thecustomers!"

"Drat the customers!" said Aunt Barbree. "And drat everything, includin'the boy, if you like! But fetch to Plymouth I must and will. So, for thethird time of askin', get me my shawl and bonnet. "

It cost a mort of coaxing even to persuade her to a bite of dinner beforesetting forth. By half-past noon she was dressed and ready, and took theroad toward Saltash Ferry. Nandy didn't see her start. He was lyingstretched, just then, under the cliff by the foreshore, getting rid of theeffects of his pipe of tobacco. 

It left him so exhausted that, when the worst was over, he rolled on hisstomach on the warm stones of the foreshore and fell into a doze; byconsequence of which he knew nothing more till the tide crept up andwetted his ankles; and with that he heard voices--uproarious voices on thewater--and sat up to see a boatload of people pass by him and draw to thelanding-stage under Merry-Garden. 

Nandy rubbed his eyes, studied the visitors--that is, as well as he couldat fifty yards' distance--and chuckled. He knew that his aunt was arespectable woman, and particular about the folks she admitted to hergardens. But it was too late to interfere--even if he'd wanted tointerfere, which he didn't. So he watched the visitors draw to land anddisembark; and sat and waited, still chuckling. 

IV. 

Susannah, having fitted forth Aunt Barbree and watched her from the gateas she took the road to Saltash, had returned to the house in anunpleasant temper. She was a good servant and would stand any amount ofordering about, but she hated responsibility. To be left alone on aSaturday afternoon in the height of the mazzard season to cope withHeaven-knew-how-many-customers--to lay the tables in the arbours, boil thewater, take orders and, worst of all, give change (Susannah had neverlearnt arithmetic)--was an outlook that fairly daunted her spirit. Her temper, too, for a week past had not been at its best. She, like hermistress, had missed Nandy. In spite of his faults he was a help: and, as for faults, who in this wicked world is without 'em? It's by means oftheir faults that you grow accustomed to folks. 

The early afternoon was hot and thundery, and the hum of the bees(Aunt Barbree was famous for her honey) came lazy-like through the openwindow. Susannah prayed to the Lord that this quiet might last--untilfour o'clock, at any rate. Short of an earthquake in Plymouth (which, being pious, she didn't dare to pray for) nothing would ward off visitorsbeyond that hour, but, with luck, Aunt Barbree might be expected back soonafter five, when the giving of change would begin. Susannah looked at theclock. The time was close upon half-past two. She might, with any luck, count on another hour. 

But it wasn't to be. 

She had scarcely turned from studying the clock to open the sliding doorof the china-cupboard and set out her stock of plates and cups andsaucers, before her ear caught the sound of voices--of loud voices too--onthe steps above the landing-quay: and almost before she could catch herbreath there came a knock on the door fit to wake the dead. Susannahwhipped up her best apron off the chair where she had laid it ready tohand, and hurried out, pinning it about her. 

The first sight she saw when she opened the door was a sailorman standingthere under the verandah, and smiling at her with a shiny, good-naturedface. He was rigged out in best shore-going clothes--tarpaulin hat, bluecoat and waistcoat, and duck trousers, with a broad waist-belt of leather. Behind him stood another sailorman, older and more gloomy looking; andbehind the pair of them Susannah's eye ranged over half a dozen seedytide-waiters and longshoremen, all very bashful-looking, and crowded amonga bevy of damsels of the sort that you might best describe as paintedhussies. 

"Good afternoon, ma'am, " said the sailorman, with a pacifying sort ofsmile. 

"Good afternoon, " said Susannah, catching her breath. "But, all the same, this isn't Babylon. "

"You serve teas here, ma'am?"

"No, we don't, " answers Susannah, very sturdy. 

"Then the board hav' made a mistake, " said the sailor, scratching the backof his head and pushing his tarpaulin hat forward and sideways over hiseyebrows. "It _said_ that you was patronised by the naval and military, and that teas was provided. "

"But we're a respectable house, " said Susannah. 

The sailorman gazed at her, long and earnest, and turned to his mate. "Good Lord, Bill!" said he, "what a dreadful mistake!"

"Ho!" said one of the ladies, tossing her chin. "Ho, I see what it is!The likes of us ain't good enough for the likes of her!"

"Not by a long chalk, ma'am, " agreed Susannah, her temper rising. 

"It's this way, ma'am, " put in the sailorman very peaceable-like. "My name's Ben Jope, of the _Vesuvius_ bomb, and this here's my mate BillAdams. We was paid off this morning at half-past nine, and picked up afew hasty friends ashore for a Feet-Sham-Peter. But o' course if thishere is a respectable house there's no more to be said--except that maybeyou'll be good enough to recommend us to one that isn't. "

The poor fellow meant it well, but somehow or other his words so annoyedSusannah that she bounced in and slammed the door in his face. He stoodfor a while staring at it, and then turned and led the way down the stepsagain to the quay, walking like a man in a dream, and not seeming to hearthe ladies--though one or two were telling him that he hadn't the pluck ofa louse: and down at the quay the company came upon Master Nandy, dandering towards them with his hands in his pockets. 

"Hullo!" said Nandy. 

"Hullo to _you!_" said Mr. Jope. 

"Turned you out?" asked Nandy. 

Mr. Jope glanced back at the roof of Merry-Garden, which from the quaycould be seen just overtopping the laylocks. "She's a sperrited woman, "he said; and after that there was a pause until Nandy asked him who hethought he was staring at. "I dunno, " said Mr. Jope. "You puts me inmind of a boy I knew, one time. I stood godfather to him, and he grew upto be afflicted in much the same manner. "

"I've been unwell, " said Nandy, "and I haven't got over the effects ofit. "

"No, by George, you haven't, " agreed Mr. Jope. "I've heard tar-waterrecommended. "

"Is it worse tasted than sulphur-water?" asked Nandy, and with that awicked thought came into his mind, for he still nursed a spite against allthat he had suffered under Dr. Clatworthy's care. "If you can't get takenin at Merry-Garden, " said he, "why don't you try Hi-jeen Villa, up thecreek?"

"What's that?"

"It's--it's another establishment, " said Nandy. 

"Respectable? You'll excuse my askin'--"

"Tisn' for me to judge, " said Nandy; "but they sit about the garden intheir nightshirts, with a footman carryin' round the drinks. "

V. 

Well, sir, half an hour later Dr. Clatworthy and his patients wereenjoying their mud-baths in the garden, up at Hi-jeen Villa, and thedoctor had just begun to think about getting his water-douche and dressinghimself to keep his appointment with Miss Sophia and the rest of the youngladies, when the back-door opened and what should he see entering thegarden but Mr. Jope, with all his bedizened company!

"Hi, you there!" shouted the doctor from his bath. "Get out of thisgarden at once! Who are you? and what do you mean by walking into privatepremises?"

For a moment Mr. Jope stared about him, wondering where in the world thevoice came from. But when he traced it to the garden-beds, and there, inthe midst of the flowers, spied a dozen human heads all a-blowing anda-growing with the stocks and carnations, his face turned white and red, and his eyes grew round, and he turned and stared at Bill Adams, and BillAdams stared at Mr. Jope. 

"Bill, " said Mr. Jope, "is it--is it an earthquake?"

"Tis a Visitation o' some kind, " said Bill. "I've heard o' such things inIreland. "

"Oh, Bill! an' to think that in another minute, if we hadn' arrived--"Mr. Jope caught hold of his mate's arm and hurried him forward to therescue. 

"Go away! Get out of this, I tell you!" yelled Clatworthy. 

"Not me, sir! Not a British sailor!" hurrahed back Mr. Jope. "Bill! Bill!Cast your eyes around and see if you can find a bit of rope anywheres inthis blessed garden--and you, behind there, stop the women's screeching!"--for 'tis a fact that by this time two or three were falling about in thehysterics--"What! Not a loose end o' rope anywheres? Lord, how theselandsmen do live unprovided! But never you mind, sir!--reach out a handto me an' don't struggle--that is, if you're touching bottom. Strugglin' only makes it worse--"

"You silly fool!" shouted Clatworthy. "We're in no danger, I tell you!Begone, and take the women away with you. These grounds are private, oncemore!"

"Hey?" Mr. Jope by this time had one foot planted, very gingerly, on aflower-bed, and was reaching forth a hand to Clatworthy; and Clatworthy, squatting up to his chin in the warm mud, was lifting two naked arms tobeat him off. "Private, hey?" says Mr. Jope, looking around and seeingthe rest of the patients bobbing up and down in their baths between therage of it and shame to show themselves too far. "Private? Then itoughtn't to be--that's all I say. But what in thunder are ye doing itfor?"

"Oh, get you gone, man!" groaned Clatworthy. "I've an appointment tokeep!"

"Not in that state, sure-ly?"

"No, sir! But how am I to get out of this and dress, till you lead offthe women? And your cursed intrusion has made me fill my hair with mud, and to cleanse and dress it again will cost me half an hour at least. Man, man, for pity's sake get out of this and take your women with you!Sir, when I tell you that in less than twenty minutes I am due to be atMerry-Garden--if you know where that is--"

"_To_ be sure, " put in Mr. Jope. 

"--To meet a company of ladies--"

"Avast there! Why, 'tis less than a half-hour ago they turned _me_ out o'that very place. _You_--and in _that_ state! Oh, be ashamed o'yourself!"

But just then a patient behind Clatworthy set up a yell so full of terrorthat even the doctor slewed round his head and splashed more mud over hishair, all combed as it was in full pigeon-wing style. 

"Bill!" said Mr. Jope, sharp-like. "Bill Adams! What are you doin' withthat there water-pot?"

"Helpin', " said Bill. "Helpin' 'em to grow!"

VI. 

'Tis time, though, that we went back to Merry-Garden. 

The rising tide--and I ought to have told you that the tides that day wereclose upon the top of the springs, with high-water at five o'clock orthereabouts--the rising tide had barely carried Mr. Jope and his partyfrom Nandy's sight, round the bend, before another boatload ofpleasure-seekers hove in sight at the mouth of the creek. They weretwelve in all, and the boat a twenty-foot galley belonging to one of thewar-ships in the Hamoaze. She had been borrowed for the afternoon by theship's second lieutenant, a Mr. Hardcastle, and with him he had broughtthe third lieutenant, besides a score of young officers belonging to thegarrison--a captain and two cornets of the 4th Dragoons, a couple ofgunners--officers, that is, of the Artillery--an elderly major and anensign of the Marines, and the rest belonging to the Thirty-secondRegiment of Foot (one of 'em, if I recollect, the Doctor). The last ofthe party was a slip of an officer of the French Navy--Raynold by name--that had been taken prisoner by Mr. Hardcastle's ship, and bore no malicefor it: a cheerful, good-natured lad, and (now that he hadn't an excusefor fighting 'em) as merry with these young Britons as they were glad tohave him of their party. 

Nandy, of course, knew no more about them than what his eyes told him, that they were a party of officers from Plymouth come to enjoy themselvesat Merry-Garden. But the sight of them as they brought their boat to thequay and landed--the first customers of the afternoon--put him in mindthat the time was drawing near for Miss Sophia to arrive with herclass-mates, and that Dr. Clatworthy would soon be turning up to squirethem around the orchard and entertain them at tea. He wickedly hoped thatthe doctor hadn't left home before Mr. Jope reached Hi-jeen Villa. But the thought of Mr. Jope reminded him of what Mr. Jope had saidconcerning his pimples; and this again reminded him of what his belovedMiss Sophia had said on the same subject. He had promised her to continuetaking mud-baths on his own account, even after he had cut his lucky (ashe put it) from Hi-jeen Villa. . . . To be sure, one bath wouldn't produceany immediate result. _That_ wasn't to be expected. But it would be aguarantee of good faith, as they say in the newspapers: and though hehadn't time to dig a pit after the fashion of the baths in the doctor'sgarden, still there was plenty of mud along the lower foreshore to givehim a nice soft roll; and a plenty of water for a swim, to wash himselfclean: and lastly (as he reckoned, having no watch) a plenty of time to dothis and be dressed again before the dear creature arrived. So Nandy, with a stomach full of virtue, turned his back on the quay and started towalk down the creek along the foreshore, to a corner where he might reckonon being free from observation. 

Meantime the young officers, that had landed and strolled up to thecottage, were being received by Susannah, and in a twitter, poor soul!"Her mistress was out--called away upon sudden business. Still, if theywould take the ups with the downs, she would do her best to have tea readyin half an hour's time: and meanwhile they might roam the orchards and eatas many cherries as they had a mind to, and all for sixpence a head. Thirteen sixpences came--yes, surely--to six-and-sixpence. She wouldrather they paid when Aunt Barbree returned. Or, if they preferred it, there was a skittle-alley at the end of the garden, with a smallbowling-green . . . "

They preferred the bowling-green. Susannah conducted them to it, unlockedthe box of bowls, and was returning to the house in a fluster, when, inthe verandah before the front door, she came plump upon a bevy of youngladies, all as pretty as you please in muslin frocks and great summer hatsto shield their complexions: whereof one, a little older than the rest(but pretty, notwithstanding), stepped forward and inquired, in aforeign-speaking voice, for Dr. Clatworthy. 

"But he is in retard then!" this lady cried, when Susannah answered that, although she knew Dr. Clatworthy well, not a fur or feather of him had sheseen that day (which was her way of putting it). "Ah, but how vexing!And Miss St. Maur was positive he would be beforehand!"

"Lor' bless you, my pretty!" said Susannah, "If the doctor promised to behere, you may be sure he will be here. "

She went on to explain, as she had explained to the officers, that she wasalone on the premises--her mistress had been called away upon suddenbusiness--but if they would take the ups with the downs. . . . Then, hercuriosity overcoming her--for, of course, she had heard gossip of thedoctor's intentions--"And which of you, " she asked, "is he going to marry, making so bold?"

"If Dr. Clatworthy is so ungallant--" began Miss Sophia, jabbing with thepoint of her parasol at a crevice in the flagstones of the verandah. 

"Fie, dear!" cried Ma'amselle Julie, interrupting. 

"Well, at any rate, the mazzards are ripe, " said Miss Sophia, "and I seeno fun in waiting. "

"So _that's_ the maid, " said Susannah to herself, and pitied her--havingherself no great admiration for Dr. Clatworthy, in spite of his riches:but she assured them that the doctor--the most punctual of men--wouldcertainly arrive within a few minutes. And the mazzards were crying outto be eaten. If the young ladies would make free of the orchards whileshe fit and boiled the kettle . . . 

"The fun of it is, " said Miss Sophia to Ma'amselle Julie ten minuteslater, as they were staining their pretty lips with the juice of the blackmazzards, "that if Dr. Clatworthy doesn't appear--"

"But he will, dear. "

"The fun of it is that we haven't, I believe, eighteenpence between usall. "

"Miss St. Maur was positive that he would be punctual, " said Ma'amselleJulie. 

"But he isn't, you see: and--oh, my dear, is it so wicked?--you can'tthink how I wish he would never come--never, never, never!"

"Sophia!"

"Even, " went on Miss Sophia, nodding her head, "if I've eaten all thesecherries under false pretences, and have to go to prison for it!"

Well, somehow, in all this the young ladies had been drawing nearer andnearer to the bowling-green, where the young officers were skylarking andtrundling the bowls at the fat major at three shots a penny, and the poolgoing to the player who caught him on the ankles. When they were tired ofthis they came strolling forth in a body, the most of them with armslinked, just as Susannah appeared at the end of the path carrying a traypiled with tea-things. 

"Hallo! Petticoats, begad!" said the youngest ensign among them; andMa'amselle Julie, linking an arm in Miss Sophia's, was turning away with aproper show of ignorance that any such thing as a party of young menexisted in the world, when a voice cried out--

"Julie!"

"Eh?" the lady turned, all white in the face. "Eh? What--Edoo-ard?My cousin Edoo-ard?"

"Dear Julie!" It was the young French officer, and he ran and caught herby both hands and kissed them. "To think of meeting you, here in England!But let me introduce my friends--my friends the enemy. " And here herattled off their names in a hurry. 

"Really, one would suppose that Dr. Clatworthy was lost!" said Miss Sophiawith a cold-seeming bow and a glance along the path. 

"You have ordered tea here?" asked the young naval lieutenant, Mr. Hardcastle. 

"There _was_ to have been tea. "

"I do hope, miss, " said he, "that we are not ousting you from your table?"

"To tell the truth, " said Miss Sophia, "I know nothing about thearrangements. A gentleman was to have been here to receive us--indeed wehave come at his invitation; but he is in no hurry, it seems. "

"Indeed, miss, " put in Susannah, "and I'm sure I don't know what to do!The gentlemen, here, have engaged the big summer-house, which holds fortyat a pinch, and there's no other place that'll seat more than half adozen. Of course, " said she, "the two parties could sit at the longtable, one at each end--"

But here young Mr. Hardcastle, after a glance at Miss Julie and her youngFrenchman--that were already deep in talk together--cut Susannah shortwith a sly wink. He was a lad of great presence of mind, and rose inlater life to be an Admiral. 

"Ladies, " said he, "I feel sure that if we leave the arrangements entirelyto this good woman, your worthy squire--whenever he chooses to put in anappearance--will find nothing to complain of. "

Well, well . . . I can't tell you just how it happened: but happen it did, and I daresay you've seen enough of the ways of young folk to understandit. While Susannah bustled back to the house to fetch the relays, the twoparties fell to talking of the weather and the pretty flowers, and fromthat to strolling little by little along the pathway; in a body at first;but afterwards, as one young lady stopped to smell at a carnation, andanother to admire the splashes of colour on Aunt Barbree's York andLancaster roses, the company got separated into twos and fours, and thefours broke up into twos, and the distance between pair and pair keptgetting wider and wider. Ma'amselle Julie ought to have hindered it, overcome though she was with joy at meeting her kinsman. But she wasn'tto blame for what followed, and for my part I've a kind of notion that Mr. Hardcastle must have found an opportunity and slipped half a crown intoSusannah's hand. . . . At any rate when Susannah rang a bell along thelower path to announce that tea was ready, they came strolling back (andfrom the variousest corners of the garden) to find that the silly womanhad gone and laid the tables, not in the big summer-house at all, but allalong in a line of little arbours. 

Then, Of course, began the prettiest confusion, Ma'amselle Julieprotesting that she couldn't think of allowing such a thing, and Mr. Hardcastle pointing out what a shame it would be to overwork poor Susannahby making her lay the tables over again; and the young ladies in a flutterbetween laughing and making believe to be angry, and one or two couplesagreeing that the dispute was all about nothing, and that they might aswell find a quiet arbour and wait till it was over. 

Yes, yes . . . You understand? . . . And in the midst of it all, and justas Mr. Hardcastle had carried his point and Ma'amselle Julie gave way, declaring that never in this world would she be able to look Miss St. Maurin the face again, who should come hurrying past the verandah but Dr. Clatworthy himself!

In the babel of talking and laughing no one had heard his footstep; and hecame to a halt by a laylock-bush at the end of the verandah and stoodstaring: and while he stared his face went red, and then white, and hereeled back behind the bush and put both hands to his head. 

What had he seen? His bride--his chosen Sophia--disappearing into anarbour with a young man! And her youthful companions--pupils of anestablishment he had chosen with such care--making merry with a group ofuniformed officers--of soldiers--well known to be the most profligate ofmen!

Oh, monstrous!

But what was to be done? Could he stalk into the midst of the party andraise a scene? The young men might laugh at him. . . . Even supposing heput them to rout, what next was he to do? He would find himself withthose abandoned girls left on his hands. A pleasant tea-party, that!And Miss St. Maur might not be arriving for another hour. Could he spendall that time in lecturing them? Could he even trust himself to speak toSophia? Dr. Clatworthy, still with his hands to his head, staggered downthe steps and forth from the garden. 

He had done with Sophia for ever! His first demand of a woman worthy tobe his wife was that she should never have looked upon another man to makeeyes at him, and he had distinctly seen (Oh, monstrous, monstrous, to besure!). . . . He would go straight home and write Miss St. Maur a letterthe like of which that lady had never received in her life. 

With these terrible thoughts working in his head, the poor man had crosseda couple of fields on his way home when he looked up and saw Miss St. Maurherself coming towards him along the footpath over the knap of the hill. 

"Dr. Clatworthy!" cried Miss St. Maur. 

"Ma'am, " said Dr. Clatworthy. 

"Why--why, wherever have you left dear Sophia and the rest of my charges?"

"At Merry-Garden, ma'am--and in various summer-houses, ma'am--and makingfree, ma'am, with a vicious soldiery!"

"But it is impossible!" cried Miss St. Maur when he had told his tale ofhorror. "I refuse to believe it. Indeed, sir, I can only think you havetaken leave of your senses!"

"Come and see for yourself, ma'am, " said the doctor, cold as ice to lookat, but with an inside like a furnace. 

He was forced almost to a run to keep pace with Miss St. Maur: but at thesteps leading up to the garden he made her promise him to go quiet, andthe pair tiptoed up and through the verandah and peered around thelaylock-bush. 

"There!" cried Miss St. Maur, turning to him and pointing up the path withher parasol. 

To and fro along the path a party of young ladies was strollingdisconsolate. They walked in pairs, to be sure: and the hum of theirvoices reached to the laylock-bush as they bent and discussed the flowersin Aunt Barbree's border. Not a uniform, not a man, was in sight. 

"There!" said Miss St. Maur. "There, sir! What did I tell you?"

VII. 

The cause of it all was Nandy. Nandy had found a nice out-of-the-waycorner of the foreshore, with a patch of mud above the water's edge, and, after a good roll in it (it was a trifle smellier than the baths atHi-jeen Villa, but nothing amiss), had waded out into the tide for athorough wash. He was standing in water up to his armpits and rinsing themud out of his hair, when, happening to glance shorewards, he caught aglimpse of scarlet, and rubbed his eyes to see a red-coated soldierstanding on the beach and overhauling his clothes, which he had left therein a heap. 

"Hi!" sang out Nandy. "You leave those clothes alone: they're mine!"

The soldier put up a hand and seemed to be beckoning, cautious-like. 

Nandy waded nearer. "Looky-here, lobster--none of your tricks!" he said. "They-there clothes belong to me. "

"I ain't goin' to be a lobster, as you put it, much longer, " said thesoldier. "I'm a-goin' to cast my shell. " And with that he begins tounbutton his tunic. "If you try to interfere, young man, I'll wring yourneck; and if you cry out, I carry a pistol upon me--" and sure enough hepulled a pistol from his pocket and laid it on the stones between hisfeet. "I'm a desperate man, " he said. 

"Hullo!" said Nandy, beginning to understand. "Desertin', eh?"

The soldier nodded as he flung the tunic down on the beach--and Nandy tooknote of the figures 32 in brass on the collar. "It's all along of awoman, " said he. 

"Ah!" said Nandy, sympathetic. "There's lots of us in the world takenthat way. "

"Looky-here, " said the soldier, "if you try any sauce with me, you'll besorry for it; and, what's more, you won't get this pretty suit o' scarletclothes I was minded to leave you for a present. "

"Thank you, " said Nandy. 

"They won't fit so badly if you turn up the bottoms o' the pantaloons: andyou can't look worse than you do in a state o' nature. "

"All right, " said Nandy; "only make haste about it; for 'tis cold standin'here in the water. "

To tell the truth a rare notion had crept into his head. This scarletuniform--for scarlet it was, with white and yellow facings--had come as agodsend. He would walk home in it, and if it didn't frighten twentyshillings out of Aunt Barbree he must have lost the knack of lying. 

"You can't be in more of a hurry than I am, " answered the soldier, stripping to the very buff--for everything he wore, down to his shirt, carried the regimental mark. The only part of Nandy's wardrobe he sparedwere the boots, which wouldn't fit him at all. 

"So long!" said the soldier, having lit his pipe: and with that he gave ashake to settle himself down in Nandy's clothes, picked up his pistol andscrambled up through the bushes. In thirty seconds he was over the cliffand out of sight, and Nandy left to stare at his new uniform. 

He picked up the articles gingerly and slipped them on, one by one. There was a coarse flannel shirt with a leather stock, a pair of woollensocks, black pantaloons with a line of red piping, spatterdashes, a tunicsuch as I've described--with pipe-clayed belt and crossbelt--and last ofall a great japanned shako mounted with a brass plate and chin-strap and ascarlet-and-white cockade like a shaving-brush. When his toilet wasfinished, Nandy stepped down to the edge of the tide to take a look at hisown reflection. It seemed to him that he cut a fine figure; but somehowhe couldn't fetch up stomach to wear that rory-tory shako, but took hisway towards Merry-Garden carrying it a-dangle by the chin-strap. However, by the time he reached the gate he had begun to feel moreaccustomed to his grandeur, and likewise that in for a penny was in for apound: so, clapping the blessed thing tight on his head and pulling downthe strap, he marched up the steps with a bold face. 

The verandah was empty, and he strode along it and past the laylock-bushwhere--scarce ten minutes before--Dr. Clatworthy had received such adesperate shock. A little way beyond it was a path leading round to theback door, and Nandy was making for this when his ears caught the sound oflaughing and the jingling of teacups from the line of arbours, and hespied Susannah coming towards the house with a teapot in one hand and anempty cream-dish in the other. For the moment she didn't recognise him. 

"Attention! Stand at ease!" said Nandy, drawing himself up to the salute. 

"The Lord deliver us!" screamed Susannah, dropping teapot and cream-dishtogether: and at the sound of it a dozen gentlemen in regimentals camerushing out from their arbours. Before Nandy knew whether he stood on hisheels or his head one of these gentlemen had gripped him by the collar, and was requiring him to say instanter what the devil he meant by it. 

"Why, damme, " shouted someone, "if 'tisn't the uniform of theThirty-second! Here! Shilston! Appleshaw!"

"What's wrong?"

"The fellow belongs to yours. "

"The deuce he does! Slew him round and show his face. "

"Oh, Nandy, Nandy!"--this was Miss Sophia's voice--"Have you really beenand gone and enlisted!"

"No, miss, I ha'n't, "--by this time Nandy was blubbering for very fright. He tore himself loose and fell at Miss Sophia's feet. "But I was takin' abath, miss--for my skin's sake, as advised by you--and a sojer came andtook my clothes by main force, "--here Nandy sobbed aloud--"I--I think, miss, he must ha' meant to desert!"

"Hey!" One of the officers took him again by the collar. "What's thatyou're saying? A deserter . . . Left you these clothes and bolted? . . . Oh, stop your whining and answer! When? Where?"

Nandy checked his tears--but not his sobs--and pointed. "Down by theforeshore, sir . . . Not a quarter of an hour since . . . He took the wayup the Lynher, towards St. Germans . . . "

"Here, Appleshaw, this is serious! Trehane, Drury--you'll help us?A man of ours, deserted. . . . You'll excuse us, ladies--we'll bring thefellow back to you if we catch him. Show us the way, youngster--down bythe creek, did you say? Tallyho, boys! One and all! Yoicks forra'd!Go-one away!"--and, dragging Nandy with them, the pack pelted out of thegarden. 

VIII. 

Now you understand how it was that Dr. Clatworthy and Miss St. Maur, entering the garden ten minutes later, saw but a bevy of disconsolatemaidens strolling the paths, and no uniform nor sign of one. 

"There!" said Miss St. Maur, pointing with her parasol. "There, sir! Whatdid I tell you?"

Dr. Clatworthy stared about him and mopped the crown of his head. "But when I assure you, madam--"

"Oh, cruel, cruel!" Miss St. Maur burst into tears. 

"Madam!" Dr. Clatworthy looked about him again. The young ladies hadturned and were withdrawing slowly to the far end of the walk. By thistime, you must know, the light had fallen dim, but with the moon risingand the sun not gone altogether. "Madam! Dear madam!" said Dr. Clatworthy, and was pressing her, polite as a lamb, towards the nearestarbour to seat her there and persuade her. But before he could pilot herpast the laylock-bush, forth from that very arbour stepped a couple, and from the next arbour another couple, and both couples took the gardenpath, and in each couple the heads were closer together than necessary forordinary talk, and the eyes of them seemingly too well occupied to noticethe doctor and Miss St. Maur by the laylock-bush. 

You see, Mr. Hardcastle, who belonged to the Navy, hadn't felt the need totrouble himself about a deserter from the sister service; and MounseerRaynold had found a cousin, and naturally felt no concern in chasing a manto strengthen the British army. 

"My dear madam!" said Dr. Clatworthy, and led Miss St. Maur towards thearbour. For certain he had recognised Miss Sophia; but maybe he let hergo then and there from his thoughts. And Miss St. Maur by his side wasweeping bitterly. 

Dr. Clatworthy wasn't used to a woman in tears. He took Miss St. Maur'shand, and by and by, finding her sobs didn't stop, he pressed it, and . . . 

Well, that's all the story. I've heard my mother tell it a score oftimes, and always when she came to this point, she'd laugh and tell me tomarry for choice before I came to fifty, or else trust to luck and buy ahandkerchief. 

THE BEND OF THE ROAD. 

I. 

Just outside the small country station of M---- in Cornwall, a viaductcarries the Great Western Railway line across a coombe, or narrow valley, through which a tributary trout-stream runs southward to meet the tides ofthe L---- River. From the carriage-window as you pass you look down thecoombe for half a mile perhaps, and also down a road which, leading outfrom M---- Station a few yards below the viaduct, descends the left-handslope at a sharp incline to the stream; but whether to cross it or runclose beside it down the valley bottom you cannot tell, since, before theymeet, an eastward curve of the coombe shuts off the view. 

Both slopes are pleasantly wooded, and tall beeches, interset here andthere with pines--a pretty contrast in the spring--spread their boughsover the road; which is cut cornice-wise, with a low parapet hedge toprotect it along the outer side, where the ground falls steeply to thewater-meadows, that wind like a narrow green riband edged by the streamwith twinkling silver. 

For the rest, there appears nothing remarkable in the valley: andcertainly Mr. Molesworth, who crossed and recrossed it regularly onTuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, on his way to and from his bankingbusiness in Plymouth, would have been puzzled to explain why, three timesout of four, as his train rattled over the viaduct, he laid down hisnewspaper, took the cigar from his mouth, and gazed down from the windowof his first-class smoking carriage upon the green water-meadows and thecurving road. The Great Western line for thirty miles or so on the farside of Plymouth runs through scenery singularly beautiful, and its manyviaducts carry it over at least a dozen coombes more strikinglypicturesque than this particular one which alone engaged his curiosity. The secret, perhaps, lay with the road. Mr. Molesworth, who had never setfoot on it, sometimes wondered whither it led and into what country itdisappeared around the base of the slope to which at times his eyestravelled always wistfully. He had passed his forty-fifth year, andforgotten that he was an imaginative man. Nevertheless, and quiteunconsciously, he let his imagination play for a few moments everymorning--in the evening, jaded with business, he forgot as often as not tolook--along this country road. Somehow it had come to wear a friendlysmile, inviting him: and he on his part regarded it with quite a friendlyinterest. Once or twice, half-amused by the fancy, he had promisedhimself to take a holiday and explore it. 

Years had gone by, and the promise remained unredeemed, nor appearedlikely to be redeemed; yet at the back of his mind he was always aware ofit. Daily, as the train slowed down and stopped at M---- Station, hespared a look for the folks on the platform. They had come by the road;and others, alighting, were about to take the road. 

They were few enough, as a rule: apple-cheeked farmers and country-wiveswith their baskets, bound for Plymouth market; on summer mornings, aslikely as not, an angler or two, thick-booted, carrying rods and creels, their hats wreathed with March-browns or palmers on silvery lines of gut;in the autumn, now and then, a sportsman with his gun; on Monday morningshalf a dozen Navy lads returning from furlough, with stains of nativeearth on their shoes and the edges of their wide trousers. . . . The facesof all these people wore an innocent friendliness: to Mr. Molesworth, a childless man, they seemed a childlike race, and mysterious as children, carrying with them like an aura the preoccupations of the valley fromwhich they emerged. He decided that the country below the road must beworth exploring; that spring or early summer must be the proper season, and angling his pretext. He had been an accomplished fly-fisher in hisyouth, and wondered how much of the art would return to his hand when, after many years, it balanced the rod again. 

Together with his fly-fishing, Mr. Molesworth had forgotten most of thepropensities of his youth. He had been born an only son of rich parents, who shrank from exposing him to the rigours and temptations of a publicschool. Consequently, when the time came for him to go up to Oxford, he had found no friends there and had made few, being sensitive, shy, entirely unskilled in games, and but moderately interested in learning. His vacations, which he spent at home, were as dull as he had always foundthem under a succession of well-meaning, middle-aged tutors--until, oneAugust day, as he played a twelve-pound salmon, he glanced up at thefarther bank and into a pair of brown eyes which were watching him withunconcealed interest. 

The eyes belonged to a yeoman-farmer's daughter: and young Molesworth losthis fish, but returned next day, and again day after day, to try for him. At the end of three weeks or so, his parents--he was a poor hand atdissimulation--discovered what was happening, and interfered withpromptness and resolution. He had not learnt the art of disobedience, andwhile he considered how to begin (having, indeed, taken his passion with athoroughness that did him credit), Miss Margaret, sorely weeping, waspacked off on a visit to her mother's relations near Exeter, where, threemonths later, she married a young farmer-cousin and emigrated to Canada. 

In this way Mr. Molesworth's love-making and his fly-fishing had come toan end together. Like Gibbon, he had sighed as a lover, and (MissMargaret's faithlessness assisting) obeyed as a son. Nevertheless, thesequel did not quite fulfil the hopes of his parents, who, having actedwith decision in a situation which took them unawares, were willing enoughto make amends by providing him with quite a large choice of suitablepartners. To their dismay it appeared that he had done with all thoughtsof matrimony: and I am not sure that, as the years went on, their dismaydid not deepen into regret. To the end he made them an admirable son, butthey went down to their graves and left him unmarried. 

In all other respects he followed irreproachably the line of life they hadmarked out for him. He succeeded to the directorate of the Bank in whichthe family had made its money, and to those unpaid offices of localdistinction which his father had adorned. As a banker he was eminently'sound'--that is to say, cautious, but not obstinately conservative; as aJustice of the Peace, scrupulous, fair, inclined to mercy, exact in theperformance of all his duties. As High Sheriff he filled his term ofoffice and discharged it adequately, but without ostentation. Respecting wealth, but not greatly caring for it--as why should he?--everyyear without effort he put aside a thousand or two. Men liked him, inspite of his shyness: his good manners hiding a certain fastidiousness ofwhich he was aware without being at all proud of it. No one had evertreated him with familiarity. One or two at the most called him friend, and these probably enjoyed a deeper friendship than they knew. Everyone felt him to be, behind his reserve, a good fellow. 

Regularly thrice a week he drove down in his phaeton to the small countrystation at the foot of his park, and caught the 10. 27 up-train: regularlyas the train started he lit the cigar which, carefully smoked, wasregularly three-parts consumed by the time he crossed the M---- viaduct;and regularly, as he lit it, he was conscious of a faint feeling ofresentment at the presence of Sir John Crang. 

Nine mornings out of ten, Sir John Crang (who lived two stations down theline) would be his fellow-traveller; and, three times out of five, hisonly companion. Sir John was an ex-Civil Servant, knighted for what wereknown vaguely as 'services in Burmah, ' and, now retired upon a derelictcountry seat in Cornwall, was making a bold push for local importance, and dividing his leisure between the cultivation of roses (in which heexcelled) and the directorship of a large soap-factory near the Plymouthdocks. Mr. Molesworth did not like him, and might have accounted for hisdislike by a variety of reasons. He himself, for example, grew roses in asmall way as an amateur, and had been used to achieve successes at thelocal flower-shows until Sir John arrived and in one season beat him outof the field. This, as an essentially generous man, he might haveforgiven; but not the loud dogmatic air of patronage with which, onventuring to congratulate his rival and discuss some question of culture, he had been bullied and set right, and generally treated as an ignorantjunior. Moreover, he seemed to observe--but he may have been mistaken--that, whatever rose he selected for his buttonhole, Sir John would takenote of it and trump next day with a finer bloom. 

But these were trifles. Putting them aside, Mr. Molesworth felt that hecould never like the man who--to be short--was less of a gentleman than ahighly coloured and somewhat aggressive imitation of one. Most of all, perhaps, he abhorred Sir John's bulging glassy eyeballs, of a hard whiteby contrast with his coppery skin--surest sign of the cold sensualist. But in fact he took no pains to analyse his aversion, which extended evento the smell of Sir John's excellent but Burmese cigars. The two mennodded when they met, and usually exchanged a remark or two on theweather. Beyond this they rarely conversed, even upon politics, althoughboth were Conservatives and voters in the same electoral division. 

The day of which this story tells was a Saturday in the month of May188--, a warm and cloudless morning, which seemed to mark the realbeginning of summer after an unusually cold spring. The year, indeed, had reached that exact point when for a week or so the young leaves are asfragrant as flowers, and the rush of the train swept a thousand deliciousscents in at the open windows. Mr. Molesworth had donned a whitewaistcoat in honour of the weather, and wore a bud of a Capucine rose inhis buttonhole. Sir John had adorned himself with an enormous glowingSenateur Vaisse. (Why not a Paul Neyron while he was about it? wonderedMr. Molesworth, as he surveyed the globular bloom. )

 "Now in the breast a door flings wide--"

It may have been the weather that disposed Sir John to talk to-day. After commending it, and adding a word or two in general in praise of theWest-country climate, he paused and watched Mr. Molesworth lighting hiscigar. 

"You're a man of regular habits?" he observed unexpectedly, with a shadeof interrogation in his voice. 

Mr. Molesworth frowned and tossed his match out of window. 

"I believe in regular habits myself. " Sir John, bent on affability, laid down his newspaper on his knee. "There's one danger about them, though: they're deadening. They save a man the bother of thinking, andpersuade him he's doing right, when all the reason is that he's done thesame thing a hundred times before. I came across that in a book once, andit seemed to me dashed sound sense. Now here's something I'd like to askyou--have you any theory at all about dreams?"

"Dreams?" echoed Mr. Molesworth, taken aback by the inconsequent question. 

"There's a Society--isn't there?--that makes a study of 'em and collectsevidence. Man wakes up, having dreamt that friend whom he knows to beabroad is standing by his bed; lights his candle or turns on theelectric-light and looks at his watch; goes to sleep again, tells hisfamily all about it at breakfast, and a week or two later learns that hisfriend died at such-and-such an hour, and the very minute his watchpointed to. That's the sort of thing. "

"You mean the Psychical Society?"

"That's the name. Well, I'm a case for 'em. Anyway, I can knock theinside out of one of their theories, that dreams are a sort ofmemory-game, made up of scenes and scraps and suchlike out of your wakingconsciousness--isn't that the lingo? Now, I've never had but one dream inmy life; but I've dreamt it two or three score of times, and I dreamt itlast night. "

"Indeed?" Mr. Molesworth was getting mildly interested. 

"And I'm not what you'd call a fanciful sort of person, " went on Sir John, with obvious veracity. "Regular habits--rise early and to bed early;never a day's trouble with my digestion; off to sleep as soon as my headtouches the pillow. You can't call my dream a nightmare, and yet it'sunpleasant, somehow. "

"But what is it?"

"Well, "--Sir John seemed to hesitate--"you might call it a scene. Yes, that's it--a scene. There's a piece of water and a church besideit--just an ordinary-looking little parish church, with a tower but nopinnacles. Outside the porch there's a tallish stone cross--you can justsee it between the elms from the churchyard gate; and going through thegate you step over a sort of grid--half a dozen granite stones laidparallel, with spaces between. "

"Then it must be a Cornish church. You never see that contrivance outsidethe Duchy: though it's worth copying. It keeps out sheep and cattle, while even a child can step across it easily. "

"But, my dear sir, I never saw Cornwall--and certainly never saw or heardof this contrivance--until I came and settled here, eight years ago:whereas I've been dreaming this, off and on, ever since I was fifteen. "

"And you never actually saw the rest of the scene? the church itself, forinstance?"

"Neither stick nor stone of it: I'll take my oath. Mind you, it isn't_like_ a church made up of different scraps of memory. It's just thatparticular church, and I know it by heart, down to a scaffold-hole, partlyhidden with grass, close under the lowest string-course of the tower, facing the gate. "

"And inside?"

"I don't know. I've never been inside. But stop a moment--you haven'theard the half of it yet! There's a road comes downhill to the shore, between the churchyard wall--there's a heap of greyish silvery-lookingstuff, by the way, growing on the coping--something like lavender, withyellow blossoms--Where was I? Oh yes, and on the other side of the roadthere's a tall hedge with elms above it. It breaks off where the roadtakes a bend around and in front of the churchyard gate, with a yard ortwo of turf on the side towards the water, and from the turf a clean dropof three feet, or a little less, on to the foreshore. The foreshore isall grey stones, round and flat, the sort you'd choose to play what'scalled ducks-and-drakes. It goes curving along, and the road with it, until the beach ends with a spit of rock, and over the rock a kind ofcottage (only bigger, but thatched and whitewashed just like a cottage)with a garden, and in the garden a laburnum in flower, leaning slantwise, "--Sir John raised his open hand and bent his forefinger to indicate theangle--"and behind the cottage a reddish cliff with a few clumps of furzeoverhanging it, and the turf on it stretching up to a larch plantation. . . . "

Sir John paused and rubbed his forehead meditatively. 

"At least, " he resumed, "I _think_ it's a larch plantation; but the scenegets confused above a certain height. It's the foreshore, and the churchand the cottage that I always see clearest. Yes, and I forgot to tellyou--I'm a poor hand at description--that there's a splash of whitewash onthe spit of rock, and an iron ring fixed there, for warping-in a vessel, maybe: and sometimes there's a boat, out on the water. . . . "

"You describe it vividly enough, " said Mr. Molesworth as Sir John pausedand, apparently on the point of resuming his story, checked himself, tossed his cigar out of the window, and chose a fresh one from hispocket-case. "Well, and what happens in your dream?"

Sir John struck a match, puffed his fresh cigar alight, deliberatelyexamined the ignited end, and flung the match away. "Nothing happens. I told you it was just a scene, didn't I?"

"You said that somehow the dream was an unpleasant one. "

"So I did. So it is. It makes me damnably uncomfortable every time Idream it; though for the life of me I can't tell you why. "

"The picture as you draw it seems to me quite a pleasant one. "

"So it is, again. "

"And you say nothing happens?"

"Well--" Sir John took the cigar from his mouth and looked at it--"nothing ever happens in it, definitely: nothing at all. But always in thedream there's a smell of lemon verbena--it comes from the garden--and acurious hissing noise--and a sense of a black man's being somehow mixed upin it all. . . . "

"A black man?"

"Black or brown . . . In the dream I don't think I've ever actually seenhim. The hissing sound--it's like the hiss of a snake, only ten timeslouder--may have come into the dream of late years. As to that I won'tswear. But I'm dead certain there was always a black man mixed up in it, or what I may call a sense of one: and that, as you will say, is the mostcurious part of the whole business. "

Sir John flipped away the ash of his cigar and leant forward impressively. 

"If I wasn't, as I say, dead sure of his having been in it from thefirst, " he went on, "I could tell you the exact date when he took a handin the game: because, " he resumed after another pause, "I once actuallysaw what I'm telling you. "

"But you told me, " objected Mr. Molesworth, "that you had never actuallyseen it. "

"I was wrong then. I saw it once, in a Burmese boy's hand at Maulmain. The old Eastern trick, you know: palmful of ink and the rest of it. There was nothing particular about the boy except an ugly scar on hischeek (caused, I believe, by his mother having put him down to sleep inthe fireplace while the clay floor of it was nearly red-hot under theashes). His master called himself his grandfather--a holy-looking manwith a white beard down to his loins: and the pair of them used to come upevery year from Mergui or some such part, at the Full Moon of Taboung, which happens at the end of March and is the big feast in Maulmain. The pair of them stood close by the great entrance of the Shway Dagone, where the three roads meet, and just below the long flights of stepsleading up to the pagoda. The second day of the feast I was making forthe entrance with a couple of naval officers I had picked up at the Club, and my man, Moung Gway, following as close as he could keep in the crowd. Just as we were going up the steps, the old impostor challenged me, and, partly to show my friends what the game was like--for they were new to thecountry--I stopped and found a coin for him. He poured the usual dollopof ink into the boy's hand, and, by George, sir, next minute I was staringat the very thing I'd seen a score of times in my dreams but never out ofthem. I tell you, there's more in that Eastern hanky-panky than meets theeye; beyond that I'll offer no opinion. Outside the magic I believe thewhole business was a put-up job, to catch my attention and take meunawares. For when I stepped back, pretty well startled, and blinkingfrom the strain of keeping my attention fixed on the boy's palm, a manjumped forward from the crowd and precious nearly knifed me. If it hadn'tbeen for Moung Gway, who tripped him up and knocked him sideways, I shouldhave been a dead man in two twos--for my friends were taken aback by thesuddenness of it. But in less than a minute we had him down and thehandcuffs on him; and the end was, he got five years' hard, which meanshefting chain-shot from one end to another of the prison square and thenhefting it back again. There was a rather neat little Burmese girl, yousee--a sort of niece of Moung Gway's--who had taken a fancy to me; andthis turned out to be a disappointed lover, just turned up from a voyageto Cagayan in a paddy-boat. I believed he had fixed it up with thevenerable one to hold me with the magic until he got in his stroke. Venomous beggars, those Burmans, if you cross 'em in the wrong way!The fellow got his release a week before I left Maulmain for good, and thevery next day Moung Gway was found, down by the quays, dead as a haddock, with a wound between the shoulder-blades as neat as if he'd been measuredfor it. Oh, I could tell you a story or two about those fellows!"

"It's easily explained, at any rate, " Mr. Molesworth suggested, "why yousee a dark-skinned man in your dream. "

"But I tell you, my dear sir, he has been a part of the dream from thebeginning . . . Before I went to Wren's, and long before ever I thought ofBurmah. He's as old as the church itself, and the foreshore and thecottage--the whole scene, in fact--though I can't say he's half asdistinct. I can't tell you in the least, for instance, what his featuresare like. I've said that the upper part of the dream is vague to me;at the end of the foreshore, that is, where the cottage stands; the churchtower I can see plainly enough to the very top. But over by the cottage--above the porch, as you may say--everything seems to swim in a mist:and it's up in that mist the fellow's head and shoulders appear andvanish. Sometimes I think he's looking out of the window at me, and drawsback into the room as if he didn't want to be seen; and the mist itselfgathers and floats away with the hissing sound I told you about. . . . "

Sir John's voice paused abruptly. The train was drawing near the M----viaduct, and Mr. Molesworth from force of habit had turned his eyes to thewindow, to gaze down the green valley. He withdrew them suddenly, andlooked around at his companion. 

"Ah, to be sure, " he said vaguely; "I had forgotten the hissing sound. "

It was curious, but as he spoke he himself became aware of a loud hissingsound filling his ears. The train lurched and jolted heavily. 

"Hullo!" exclaimed Sir John, half rising in his seat, "something's wrong. "He was staring past Mr. Molesworth and out of the window. "Nasty placefor an accident, too, " he added in a slow, strained voice. 

The two men looked at each other for a moment. Sir John's face wore atense expression--a kind of galvanised smile. Mr. Molesworth closed hiseyes, instinctively concealing his sudden sickening terror of what anaccident just there must mean: and for a second or so he actually had asensation of dropping into space. He remembered having felt somethinglike it in dreams three or four times in his life: and at the same instanthe remembered a country superstition gravely imparted to him in childhoodby his old nurse, that if you dreamt of falling and didn't wake up beforereaching the bottom, you would surely die. The absurdity of it chasedaway his terror, and he opened his eyes and looked about him with a shortlaugh. . . . 

The train still jolted heavily, but had begun to slow down, and Mr. Molesworth drew a long breath as a glance told him that they were past theviaduct. Sir John had risen, and was leaning out of the farther window. Something had gone amiss, then. But what?

He put the question aloud. Sir John, his head and shoulders well outsidethe carriage-window, did not answer. Probably he did not hear. 

As the train ran into M---- Station and came to a standstill, Mr. Molesworth caught a glimpse of the station-master, in his gold-braidedcap, by the door of the booking-office. He wore a grave, almost a scaredlook. The three or four country-people on the sunny platform seemed tohave their gaze drawn by the engine, and somebody ahead there wasshouting. Sir John Crang, without a backward look, flung the door openand stepped out. Mr. Molesworth was preparing to follow--and by thecramped feeling in his fingers was aware at the same instant that he hadbeen gripping the arm-rest almost desperately--when the guard of thetrain came running by and paused to thrust his head in at the opendoorway to explain. 

"Engine's broken her coupling-rod, sir--just before we came to theviaduct. Mercy for us she didn't leave the rails. "

"Mercy indeed, as you say, " Mr. Molesworth assented. "I suppose we shallbe hung up here until they send a relief down?"

The guard--Mr. Molesworth knew him as 'George' by name, and by habitconstantly polite--turned and waved his flag hurriedly, in acknowledgmentof the shouting ahead, before answering--

"You may count on half an hour's delay, sir. Lucky it's no worse. You'll excuse me--they're calling for me down yonder. "

He ran on, and Mr. Molesworth stepped out upon the platform, of which thisend was already deserted, all the passengers having alighted and hurriedforward to inspect the damaged engine. A few paces beyond the door he metthe station-master racing back to despatch a telegram. 

"It seems that we've had a narrow escape, " said Mr. Molesworth. 

The station-master touched his hat and plunged into his office. Mr. Molesworth, instead of joining the crowd around the engine, haltedbefore a small pile of luggage on a bench outside the waiting-room andabsent-mindedly scanned the labels. 

Among the parcels lay a fishing-rod in a canvas case and a wicker creel, the pair of them labelled and bearing the name of an acquaintance of his--a certain Sir Warwick Moyle, baronet and county magistrate, beside whom hehabitually sat at Quarter Sessions. 

"I had no idea, " Mr. Molesworth mused, "that Moyle was an angler. It would be a fair joke, anyway, to borrow his rod and fill up the time. --How long before the relief comes down?" he asked, intercepting thestation-master as he came rushing out from his office and slammed the doorbehind him. 

"Maybe an hour, sir, before we get you started again. I can't honestlypromise you less than forty minutes. "

"Very well, then: I'm going to borrow Sir Warwick's rod, there, and fillup the time, " said Mr. Molesworth, pointing at it. 

The station-master apparently did not hear; at any rate he passed onwithout remonstrance. Mr. Molesworth slung the creel over his shoulder, picked up the rod, and stepped out beyond the station gateway upon theroad. 

II. 

The road ran through a cutting, sunless, cooled by many small springs ofwater trickling down the rock-face, green with draperies of thehart's-tongue and common polypody ferns; and emerged again into warmthupon a curve of the hillside facing southward down the coombe, and almostclose under the second span of the viaduct, where the tall trestlesplunged down among the tree-tops like gigantic stilts, and the railwayleft earth and spun itself across the chasm like a line of gossamer, itscriss-crossed timbers so delicately pencilled against the blue that thewhole structure seemed to swing there in the morning breeze. Above it, inheights yet more giddy, the larks were chiming; and Mr. Molesworth's heartwent up to those clear heights with a sudden lift. 

In all the many times he had crossed the viaduct he had never onceguessed--he could not have imagined--how beautiful it looked from below. He stood and gazed, and drew a long breath. Was it the escape fromdreadful peril, with its blessed revulsion of feeling, that so quickenedall his senses dulled by years of habit? He could not tell. He gavehimself up to the strange and innocent excitement. 

Why had he never till now--and now only by accident--obeyed the impulse todescend this road and explore? He was rich: he had not even the excuse ofchildren to be provided for: the Bank might surely have waited for oneday. He did not want much money. His tastes were simple--Was not thehappiness at this moment thrilling him a proof that his tastes were simpleas a child's? Lo, too, his eyes were looking on the world as freshly as achild's! Why had he so long denied them a holiday? Why do men chainthemselves in prisons of their own making?

What had the station-master said? It might be an hour--certainly not lessthan forty minutes--before the train could be restarted. Mr. Molesworthlooked at his watch. Forty minutes to explore the road: forty minutes'holiday! He laughed, pocketed the watch again, and took the road briskly, humming a song. 

Suppose he missed his train? Why, then, the Bank must do without himto-day, as it would have to do without him, one of these days, when he wasdead. He thought of his fellow-directors' faces, and laughed again. He felt morally certain of missing that train. What kind of world wouldit be if money grew in birds' nests, or if leaves were currency andwithered in autumn? Would it include truant-schools for bankers? . . . 

 "He that is down needs fear no fall, He that is low, no pride; He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide. "

 "Fulness to such a burden is That go on pilgrimage--"

Mr. Molesworth did not actually sing these words. The tune he hummed wasa wordless one, and, for that matter, not even much of a tune. But heafterwards declared very positively that he sang the sense of them, being challenged by the birds calling in contention louder and louder asthe road dipped towards the stream, and by the music of lapsing waterwhich now began to possess his ear. For some five or six furlongs theroad descended under beech-boughs, between slopes carpeted with lastyear's leaves: but by and by the beeches gave place to an oak coppice witha matted undergrowth of the whortleberry; and where these in turn brokeoff, and a plantation of green young larches climbed the hill, the wildhyacinths ran down to the stream in sheet upon sheet of blue. 

Mr. Molesworth rested his creel on the low hedge above one of these sheetsof blue, and with the music of the stream in his ears began to unpack SirWarwick Moyle's fishing-rod. For a moment he paused, bethinking himself, with another short laugh, that, without flies, neither rod nor line wouldcatch him a fish. But decidedly fortune was kind to him to-day: for, opening the creel, he found Sir Warwick's fly-book within it, bulging withhooks and flies by the score--nay, by the hundred. He unbuckled the strapand was turning the leaves to make his choice, when his ear caught thesound of footsteps, and he lifted his eyes to see Sir John Crang comingdown the road. 

"Hullo!" hailed Sir John. "I saw you slip out of the station and took afancy that I'd follow. Pretty little out-of-the-way spot, this. Eh?Why, where on earth did you pick up those angling traps?"

"I stole them, " answered Mr. Molesworth deliberately, choosing a fly. He did not in the least desire Sir John's company, but somehow foundhimself too full of good-nature to resent it actively. 

"Stole 'em?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, they belong to a friend of mine. They werelying ready to hand in the station, and I borrowed them without leave. He won't mind. "

"You're a cool one, I must say. " It may be that the recent agitation ofhis feelings had shaken Sir John's native vulgarity to the surface. Certainly he spoke now with a commonness of idiom and accent he wasusually at pains to conceal. "You must have a fair nerve altogether, for all you're such a quiet-looking chap. Hadn't even the curiosity--hadyou?--to find out what had gone wrong; but just picked up a handyfishing-rod and strolled off to fill up the time till damages wererepaired. Look here. Do you know, or don't you, that 'twasn't by morethan a hair's-breadth we missed going over that viaduct?"

"I knew we must have had a narrow escape. "

"And you can be tying the fly there on to that gut as steady as a doctorpicking up an artery! Well, I envy you. Look at _that!_" Sir John heldout a brown, hairy, shaking hand. "And I don't reckon myself a coward, either. "

Mr. Molesworth knew that the man's record had established at any rate hisreputation for courage. He had, in fact, been a famous hunter-out ofDacoity. 

"I didn't know you went in for that sort of thing, " pursued Sir John, watching Mr. Molesworth, who, with a penknife, was trimming the ends ofgut. "Don't mind my watching your first cast or two, I hope? I won'ttalk. Anglers don't like being interrupted, I know. "

"I shall be glad of your company: and please talk as much as you choose. To tell the truth, I haven't handled a rod for years, and I'm making thislittle experiment to see if I've quite lost the knack, rather than withany hope of catching fish. "

It appeared, however, that he had not lost the knack, and after the firstcast or two, in the pleasure of recovered skill, his senses abandonedthemselves entirely to the sport. Sir John had lit a cigar and seatedhimself amid the bracken a short distance back from the brink, to watch:but whether he conversed or not Mr. Molesworth could not tell. He remembered afterwards that at the end of twenty minutes or so--probablywhen his cigar was finished--Sir John rose and announced his intention ofstrolling some way farther down the valley--"to soothe his nerves a bit, "as he said, adding, "So long! I see you're going to miss that train, to acertainty. "

Yes, it was certain enough that Mr. Molesworth would miss his train. He fished down the stream slowly, the song and dazzle of the water fillinghis ears, his vision; his whole being soothed and lulled less by theactual scene than by a hundred memories it awakened or set stirring. He was young again--a youth of twenty with romance in his heart. The plants and grasses he trod were the asphodels, sundew, water-mint hisfeet had crushed--crushed into fragrance--five-and-twenty years ago. . . . 

So deeply preoccupied was he that, coming to a bend where the coombesuddenly widened, and the stream without warning cast its green fringe ofalders like a slough and slipped down a beach of flat pebbles to the headwaters of a tidal creek, Mr. Molesworth rubbed his eyes with a start. Had the stream been a Naiad she could not have given him the go-by morecoquettishly. 

He rubbed his eyes, and then with a short gasp of wonder--almost ofterror--involuntarily looked around for Sir John. Here before him was ashore, with a church beside it, and at the far end a whitewashed cottage--surely the very shore, church, cottage, of Sir John's dream! Yes, therewas the stone cross before the porch; and here the grid-fashioned churchstile; and yonder under the string-course the scaffold-hole with the grassgrowing out of it!

If Mr. Molesworth's hands had been steady when he tied on his May-fly, they trembled enough now as he hurriedly put up his tackle and disjointedhis rod: and still, and again while he hastened across to the cottageabove the rocky spit--the cottage with the larch plantation above and inthe garden a laburnum aslant and in bloom--his eyes sought the beach forSir John. 

The cottage was a large one, as Sir John had described. It was, in fact, a waterside inn, with its name, The Saracen's Head, painted in blackletters along its whitewashed front and under a swinging signboard. Looking up at the board Mr. Molesworth discerned, beneath its darkvarnish, the shoulders, scimitar, and grinning face of a turbaned Saracen, and laughed aloud between incredulity and a sense of terror absurdlyrelieved. This, then, was Sir John's black man!

But almost at the same moment another face looked over the low hedge--theface of a young girl in a blue sun-bonnet: and Mr. Molesworth put out ahand to the gate to steady himself. 

The girl--she had heard his laugh, perhaps--gazed down at him with a frankcuriosity. Her eyes were honest, clear, untroubled: they were alsoextremely beautiful eyes: and they were more. As Mr. Molesworth to hislast day was prepared to take oath, here were the very eyes, as here wasthe very face and here the very form, of the Margaret whom he had sufferedfor, and suffered to be lost to him, twenty-five years ago. It wasMargaret, and she had not aged one day. 

In Margaret's voice, too, seeing that he made no motion to enter, shespoke down to him across the hedge. 

"Are you a friend, sir, of the gentleman that was here just now?"

"Sir John Crang?" Mr. Molesworth just managed to command his voice. 

"I don't know his name, sir. But he left his cigar-case behind. I foundit on the settle five minutes after he had gone, and ran out to search forhim. . . . "

Mr. Molesworth opened the gate and held out a hand for the case. Yes: herecognised it. It bore Sir John's monogram in silver. 

"I will give it to him, " he said. Without exactly knowing why, hefollowed her into the inn-kitchen. Yes, he would take a pint of her ale. "The home-brewed?" Yes, certainly, the home-brewed. 

She brought it in a pewter tankard, exquisitely polished. The polish ofit caught and cast back the sunlight in prismatic circles on the scoureddeal table. The girl--Margaret--stood for a moment in the fuller sunlightby the window, lingering there to pick a dead leaf from a geranium on theledge. 

"Which way did Sir John go?"

"I _thought_ he took the turning along the shore; but I didn't noticeparticularly which way he went. He said he had come down the valley, andI took it for granted he would be going on. "

Mr. Molesworth drank his beer and stood up. "There are only two ways, then, out of this valley?"

"Thank you, sir--" As he paid her she dropped a small curtsey--"Yes, onlytwo ways--up the valley or along the shore. The road up the valley leadsto the railway station. "

"By the way, there was an accident at the station this morning?"

"Indeed, sir?" Her beautiful eyes grew round. "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"It might have been a very nasty one indeed, " said Mr. Molesworth, andpaused. "I think I'll take a look along the shore before returning. I don't want to miss my friend, if I can help it. "

"You can see right along it from the rock beyond the garden, " said thegirl, and Mr. Molesworth went out. 

As he reached the spit of rock, the sunlight playing down the waters ofthe creek dazzled him for a moment. Rubbing his eyes, he saw, about twohundred yards along the foreshore, a boat grounded, and two figures besideit on the beach: and either his sight was playing him a trick or these twowere struggling together. 

He ran towards them. Almost as he started, in one of the figures herecognised Sir John. The other had him by the shoulders, and seemed to bedragging him by main force towards the boat. Mr. Molesworth shouted as herushed up to the fray. The assailant turned--turned with a loud hissingsound--and, releasing Sir John, swung up a hand with something in it thatflashed in the sun as he struck at the newcomer: and as Mr. Molesworthfell, he saw a fierce brown face and a cage of white, gleaming teeth baredin a savage grin. . . . 

He picked himself up, the blood running warm over his eyes, and, as hestood erect for a moment, down over his white waistcoat. But the duskyface of his antagonist had vanished, and, with it, the whole scene. In place of the foreshore with its flat grey stones, his eye travelleddown a steep green slope. The hissing sound continued in his ears, louderthan ever, but it came with violent jets of steam from a locomotive, grotesquely overturned some twenty yards below him. Fainting, he saw andsank across the body of Sir John Crang, which lay with face upturned amongthe June grasses, staring at the sky. 

III. 

STATEMENT BY W. PITT FERGUSON, M. D. , OF LOCKYER STREET, PLYMOUTH. 

The foregoing narrative has been submitted to me by the writer, who waswell acquainted with the late Mr. Molesworth. In my opinion it conveys acorrect impression of that gentleman's temperament and character: and Ican testify that in the details of his psychical adventures on the valleyroad leading to St. A--'s Church it adheres strictly to the account givenme by Mr. Molesworth himself shortly after the accident on the M----viaduct, and repeated by him several times with insistence during theillness which terminated mortally some four months later. The manner inwhich the narrative is presented may be open to criticism: but of this, asone who has for some years eschewed the reading of fiction, I am not afair judge. It adds, at any rate, nothing in the way of 'sensation' to thestory as Mr. Molesworth told it: and of its improbability I should be thelast to complain, who am to add, of my own positive observation, someevidence which will make it appear yet more startling, if not whollyincredible. 

The accident was actually witnessed by two men, cattle-jobbers, who weredriving down the valley road in a light cart or 'trap, ' and were withintwo hundred yards of the viaduct when they saw the train crash through theparapet over the second span (counting from the west), and strike andplunge down the slope. In their evidence at the inquest, and again at theBoard of Trade inquiry, these men agree that it took them from five toeight minutes only to alight, run down and across the valley (fording thestream on their way), and scramble up to the scene of the disaster: andthey further agree that one of the first sad objects on which their eyesfell was the dead body of Sir John Crang with Mr. Molesworth, alive butsadly injured and bleeding, stretched across it. Apparently they hadmanaged to crawl from the wreck of the carriage before Sir John succumbed, or Mr. Molesworth had managed to drag his companion out--whether dead oralive cannot be told--before himself fainting from loss of blood. 

The toll of the disaster, as is generally known, amounted to twelve killedand seventeen more or less seriously injured. Help having been summonedfrom M---- Station, the injured--or as many of them as could be removed--were conveyed in an ambulance train to Plymouth. Among them was Mr. Molesworth, whose apparent injuries were a broken hip, a laceration of thethigh, and an ugly, jagged scalp-wound. Of all these he made, in time, afair recovery: but what brought him under my care was the nervous shockfrom which his brain, even while his body healed, never made any promisingattempt to rally. For some time after the surgeon had pronounced himcured he lingered on, a visibly dying man, and died in the end of utternervous collapse. 

Yet even within a few days of the end his brain kept an astonishingclearness: and to me, as well as to the friends who visited him inhospital and afterwards in his Plymouth lodgings--for he never returnedhome again, being unable to face another railway journey--he wouldmaintain, and with astonishing vigour and lucidity of description, that hehad actually in very truth travelled down the valley in company with SirJohn Crang, and seen with his own eyes everything related in the foregoingpaper. Now, as a record of what did undeniably pass through the brain ofa cultivated man in some catastrophic moments, I found these recollectionsof his exceedingly interesting. As no evidence is harder to collect, soalmost none can be of higher importance, than that of man's sensations atthe exact moment when he passes, naturally or violently, out of thispresent life into whatever may be beyond. Partly because Mr. Molesworth'sstory, which he persisted in, had this scientific value; partly in thehope of diverting his mind from the lethargy into which I perceived it tobe sinking; I once begged him to write the whole story down. To this, however, he was unequal. His will betrayed him as soon as he took pen andpaper. 

The entire veracity of his recollection he none the less affirmed againand again, and with something like passion, although aware that hisfriends were but humouring him while they listened and made pretence tobelieve. The strong card--if I may so term it--in his evidence wasundoubtedly Sir John Crang's cigar-case. It was found in Mr. Molesworth'sbreast-pocket when they undressed him at the hospital, and how it camethere I confess I cannot explain. It may be that it had dropped on thegrass from Sir John's pocket, and that Mr. Molesworth, under thehallucination which undoubtedly possessed him, picked it up, and pocketedit before the two cattle-drovers found him. It is an unlikely hypothesis, but I cannot suggest a likelier. 

A fortnight before his death he sent for a lawyer and made his will, thesanity of which no one can challenge. At the end he directed that hisbody should be interred in the parish churchyard of St. A--, 'as close asmay be to the cross by the church porch. ' As a last challenge toscepticism this surely was defiant enough. 

It was my duty to attend the funeral. The coffin, conveyed by train toM---- Station, was there transferred to a hearse, and the processionfollowed the valley road. I forget at what point it began to be impressedupon me, who had never travelled the road before, that Mr. Molesworth's'recollections' of it had been so exact that they compelled a choicebetween the impossibility of accepting his story and the impossibility ofdoubting the assurance of so entirely honourable a man that he had nevertravelled the road in his life. At first I tried to believe that hisrecollections of it--detailed as they were--might one by one have beensuggested by the view from the viaduct. But, honestly, I was soon obligedto give this up: and when we arrived at the creek's head and the smallchurchyard beside it, I confessed myself confounded. Point by point, andat every point, the actual scene reproduced Mr. Molesworth's description. 

I prefer to make no comment on my last discovery. After the funeral, being curious to satisfy myself in every particular, I walked across thetrack to the inn--The Saracen's Head--which again answered Mr. Molesworth's description to the last detail. The house was kept by awidow and her daughter: and the girl--an extremely good-looking youngperson--made me welcome. I concluded she must be the original of Mr. Molesworth's illusion--perhaps the strangest of all his illusions--andtook occasion to ask her (I confess not without a touch of trepidation) ifshe remembered the day of the accident. She answered that she rememberedit well. I asked if she remembered any visitor, or visitors, coming tothe inn on that day. She answered, None: but that now I happened to speakof it, somebody must have come that day while she was absent on an errandto the Vicarage (which lies some way along the shore to the westward): foron returning she found a fishing-rod and creel on the settle of theinn-kitchen. 

The creel had a luggage-label tied to it, and on the label was written'Sir W. Moyle. ' She had written to Sir Warwick about it more than amonth ago, but had not heard from him in answer. [It turned out that SirWarwick had left England, three days after the accident, on a yachtingexcursion to Norway. ]

"And a cigar-case?" I asked. "You don't remember seeing a cigar-case?"

She shook her head, evidently puzzled. "I know nothing about acigar-case, " she said. "But you shall see the rod and fishing-basket. "

She ran at once and fetched them. Now that rod and that creel (and thefly-book within it) have since been restored to Sir Warwick Moyle. He hadleft them in care of the station-master at M----, whence they had beenmissing since the day of the accident. It was suspected that they hadbeen stolen, in the confusion that day prevailing at the little station, by some ganger on the relief-train. 

The girl, I am convinced, was honest, and had no notion how they foundtheir way to the kitchen of The Saracen's Head: nor--to be equallyhonest--have I. 

HI-SPY-HI!

AN EPISODE IN THE HISTORY OF THE LOOE DIE-HARDS. 

Maybe you have never heard of the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery--the famous Looe Die-hards? "The iniquity of oblivion, " says Sir ThomasBrowne, "blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of menwithout distinction to merit of perpetuity. "

"Time, " writes Dr. Isaac Watts--

 "Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away!"

And this fine hymn was a favourite with Captain AEneas Pond, thecommanding-officer of the Die-hards. Yet am I sure that while singing itCaptain Pond in his heart excepted his own renowned corps. For were notthe Die-hards an exception to every rule?

In the spring of the year 1803, when King George had to tell his faithfulsubjects that the Treaty of Amiens was no better than waste-paper, andBonaparte began to assemble his troops and flat-bottomed boats in the campand off the coast by Boulogne with intent to invade us, public excitementin the twin towns of East and West Looe rose to a very painful pitch. Of this excitement was begotten the East and West Looe VolunteerArtillery, which the Government kept in pay for six years and thenreluctantly disbanded. The company on an average numbered sixty orseventy men, commanded by a Captain and two Lieutenants of their ownchoosing. They learned the exercise of the great guns and of small arms;they wore a uniform consisting of blue coat and pantaloons, with scarletfacings and yellow wings and tassels, and a white waistcoat; and theladies of Looe embroidered two flags for them, with an inscription oneach--'_Death or Victory_' on the one--on the other, '_We Choose theLatter. _'

They meant it, too. If the course of events between 1803 and 1809 deniedthem the chance of achieving victory, 'tis at least remarkable how theyavoided the alternative. Indeed it was their tenacity in keeping death atarm's length which won for them their famous sobriquet. 

The Doctor invented it. (He was surgeon to the corps as well as to itssenior Lieutenant. ) The Doctor made the great discovery, and imparted itto Captain Pond on a memorable evening in the late summer of 1808 as thetwo strolled homeward from parade--the Captain moodily, as became asoldier who for five years had carried a sword engraved with the motto, '_My Life's Blood for the Two Looes, _' and as yet had been granted noopportunity to flesh it. 

"But look here, Pond, " said the Doctor. "Has it ever occurred to you toreflect that in all these five years since you first enlisted yourcompany, not a single man of it has died?"

"Why the devil should he?" asked Captain Pond. 

"Why? Why, by every law of probability!" answered the Doctor. "Take any collection of seventy men the sum of whose ages divided byseventy gives an average age of thirty-four--which is the mean age of ourcorps, for I've worked it out: then by the most favourable rates ofmortality three at least should die every year. "

"War is a fearful thing!" commented Captain Pond. 

"But, dammit, I'm putting the argument on a _civilian_ basis! I say thateven in time of peace, if you take any seventy men the sum of whose agesdivided by seventy gives thirty-four, you ought in five years to average aloss of fifteen men. "

"Then, " murmured Captain Pond, "all I can say is that peace is a fearfulthing too. "

"Yes, yes, Pond! But my point is that in all these five years _we_ havenot yet lost a single man. "

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Captain Pond, after a moment's thought. "How doyou account for it?"

Professionally the Doctor was the most modest of men. "I do not seek toaccount for it, " said he. "I only know that you, my old friend, welldeserve the distinction which you have characteristically overlooked--thatof commanding the most remarkable company in the Duchy; nay, I willventure to say, in the whole of England. "

They had reached the brow of the hill overlooking the town. Captain Pondhalted and gazed for a moment on the veil of smoke above the peacefulchimneys, then into the sunset fading far down the Channel. A suddenmoisture clouded his gaze, but in the moisture quivered a new-born lightof pride. 

Yes, it was true. He--he in five years' command--had never lost a man!

The discovery elated and yet humbled him. His was a simple soul, and tookits responsibilities seriously. He sought not to inquire for what highpurpose Providence had so signally intervened to stave off from the Eastand West Looe Artillery the doom of common men. He only prayed to beequal to it. The Doctor's statistics had, in fact, scared him a little. I am positive that he never boasted. 

And yet--I will say this for the credit of us Cornishmen, that we rejoiceone in another's good fortune. Captain Pond might walk humbly and'touch wood' to avert Nemesis: he could not prevent the whisper spreading, nor, as it spread, could he silence the congratulations of hisfellow-townsmen. 'One and All' is our motto, and Looe quickly madeCaptain Pond's singular distinction its own--

 _There's Horse, there's Foot, there's Artiller-y, Yet none comes up with Looe; For the rest of the Army never says die, But our chaps never_ do!

You may realise something of the public enthusiasm when I tell you that itgave an entirely new trend to the small-talk on the Town Quay. Hitherto, the male population which resorted there had admitted but foursubjects as worthy of sensible men's discussion--the weather, the shippingintelligence, religion, and politics: but in a few days the health of the'Die-hards' took precedence of all these, and even threatened tomonopolise public gossip. Captain Pond, as the first reward of notoriety, found himself severely criticised for having at the outset enlisted adozen gunners of ripe age, although he had chosen them for no worse reasonthan that they had served in his Majesty's Navy and were by consequencethe best marksmen in the two towns. Not even this excuse, however, couldbe pleaded on behalf of Gunner Israel Spettigew (commonly known as UncleIssy), a septuagenarian who owed his inclusion entirely to the jokes hecracked. They had been greatly relished on parade: as indeed they hadmade him for forty years past the one indispensable man atMayor-choosings, Church-feasts, Carol-practices, Guise-dancings, and allpublic occasions; and because they varied little with the years, no onehad taken the trouble to remark until now that Uncle Issy himself wasageing. But now the poor old fellow found himself the object of asolicitude which (as he grumbled) made the Town Quay as melancholy as ahouse in a warren. 

The change in the public attitude came on him with a sudden shock. "Good-mornin', Uncle, " said Sergeant Pengelly of the Sloop Inn, as theveteran joined the usual group on the Quay for the usual 'crack' afterbreakfast. "There was a touch o' frost in the air this mornin'. I hopeit didn't affect you. "

"What?" said Uncle Issy. 

"We're in for a hard winter this season, " went on Sergeant Pengellylugubriously. "A touch o' frost so early in October you may take as oneo' Natur's warnings. "

"Ay, " chimed in Gunner Tripconey, shaking his head. "What is man, whenall's said an' done? One moment he's gallivantin' about in beauty andmajesty, an' the next--_phut!_ as you might say. "

Uncle Issy stared at him with neighbourly interest. "Been eatin' anythingto disagree with you, Tripconey?" he asked. 

"I have not, " Mr. Tripconey answered; "and what's more, though born sorecent as the very year his Majesty came to the throne, I've ordained tobe extry careful over my diet this winter an' go slow over such delicaciesas fried 'taties for breakfast. If these things happen in the green tree, Mr. Spettigew, what shall be done in the dry?"

Mr. Spettigew cheerfully ignored the hint. "Talkin' of frost and'taties, " he said, "have you ever tried storin' them in hard weather underyour bed-tie? 'Tis a bit nubbly till the sleeper gets used to it, but itbenefits the man if he's anyway given to lumbago, an' for the 'tatiesthemselves 'tis salvation. I tried it through the hard winter of the year'five by the advice o' Parson Buller, and a better Christian never missedthe point of a joke. 'Well, Israel, ' says he that January, 'how be thepotatoes getting along?' 'Your honour, ' says I, 'like the Apostlesthemselves, thirteen to the dozen; and likewise of whom it was said thatmany are cold but few are frozen'--hee-hee!"

Nobody smiled. "If you go strainin' yourself over little witticisms likethat, " observed young Gunner Oke gloomily, "one of these days you'll beheving the Dead March played over you before you know what's happenin':and then, perhaps, you'll laugh on t'other side of your mouth. "

Uncle Issy gazed around upon the company. They were eyeing him, one andall, in deadly earnest, and he crept away. Until that moment he hadcarried his years without feeling the burden. He went home, rakedtogether the embers of the fire over which he had cooked his breakfast, drew his chair close to the hearth, and sat down to warm himself. Yes: Sergeant Pengelly had spoken the truth. There _was_ an unnaturaltouch of frost in the air this morning. 

By and by, when William Henry Phippin's son, Archelaus, bugler to thecorps (aged fifteen), took the whooping-cough, public opinion blamedCaptain Pond no less severely for having enlisted a recruit who was stillan undergraduate in such infantile disorders: and although the poor childtook it in the mildest form, his father (not hitherto remarkable forparental tenderness) ostentatiously practised the favourite local cure andconveyed him to and fro for three days and all day long in the ferry-boatwhich plied under Captain Pond's windows. The demonstration, which wasconducted in mufti, could not be construed as mutiny; but the spirit whichprompted it, and the public feeling it evoked, galled the worthy Captainmore than he cared to confess. 

Still, and when all was said and done, the sweets of notorietyoutflavoured the sours. The Troy Artillery, down the coast, had betrayedits envy in a spiteful epigram; and this neighbourly acid, infused uponthe pride of Looe, had crystallised it, so to speak, into the name nowopenly and defiantly given to the corps. They were the Die-hardshenceforth, jealous of the title and of all that it implied. The ladiesof Looe, with whom Captain Pond (an unmarried man) had ever been afavourite, used during the next few weeks far severer language towardstheir neighbours of Troy than they had ever found for the distant butimminent Gaul and his lascivious advances. 

All this was well enough; but Looe had a Thersites in its camp. 

His name was Scantlebury; he kept a small general shop in the rear of theTown Quay, and he bore Captain Pond a grudge of five years' standing forhaving declined to enlist him on the pretext of his legs being somalformed that the children of the town drove their hoops between them. 

In his nasty spite this Scantlebury sat down and indited a letter, addressed--

 "To the Right Honble Person as looks after the artillery. Horse Guards, London. "

 "Honble SIR, --This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves me at present and I beg leave to tell you there be some dam funny goings-on, down here to Looe. The E. & W. Looe Volunteer Artllry have took to calling themselves the Die-hards and the way they coddle is a public scandal, when I tell you that for six weeks there has been no drill in the fresh air and 16s 8d public money has been paid to T. Tripconey carpenter (a member of the corps) for fastening up the windows of the Town Hall against draughts. Likewise a number of sandbags have been taken from the upper battery and moved down to the said room (which they use for a drill hall) to stop out the wind from coming under the door. Likewise also to my knowledge for three months the company have not been allowed to move at the double because Gunner Spettigew (who owns to seventy-three) cant manage a step of thirty-six inches without his heart being effected. 

 "I wish you could see the place where they have been and moved the said upper Battery. It would make you laugh. They have put it round the corner to the eastward where it would have to blow away seven or eight hundred ton of Squire Trelawny's cliff before it could get a clear shot at a vessel entering the haven. Trusting you will excuse the length of this letter and come down and have a look for yourself, I remain yours truly. A Well-Wisher. "

The clerk in Whitehall who opened this unconventional letter passed it upto his chief, who in turn passed it on to the Adjutant-General, who thrustit into a pigeon-hole reserved for such curiosities. Now, as it happened, a week later the Adjutant-General received a visit from a certain ColonelTaubmann of the Royal Artillery, who was just leaving London for Plymouth, to make a tour of inspection through the West, and report on the state ofthe coast-defences; and during the interview, as the Adjutant-Generalglanced down the Colonel's list of batteries, his eye fell on the name'Looe'; whereby being reminded of the letter, he pulled it out and read itfor his visitor's amusement. 

You may say then that Colonel Taubmann had fair warning. Yet it was farfrom preparing him for the welcome he received, three weeks later, when hedrove down to Plymouth to hold his inspection, due notice of which hadbeen received by Captain Pond ten days before. 

"What the devil's the meaning of this?" demanded Colonel Taubmann as hispost-boy reined up on the knap of the hill above the town. By 'this' hemeant a triumphal arch, packed with evergreens, and adorned with the motto'_Death to the Invader_' in white letters on a scarlet ground. 

He repeated the question to Captain Pond, who appeared a minute later infull regimentals advancing up the hill with his Die-hards behind him and alarge and excited crowd in the rear. 

"Good-morning, sir!" Captain Pond halted beneath the archway and saluted, beaming with pride and satisfaction and hospitable goodwill. "I amaddressing Colonel Taubmann, I believe? Permit me to bid you welcome toLooe, Colonel, and to congratulate you upon this perfect weather. Nature, as one might say, has endued her gayest garb. You have enjoyed apleasant drive, I hope?"

"What the devil is the meaning of this, sir?" repeated the Colonel. 

Captain Pond looked up at the motto and smiled. "The reference is toBonaparte. Dear me, I trust--I sincerely trust--you did not even for amoment mistake the application? You must pardon us, Colonel. We areawkward perhaps in our country way--awkward no doubt; but hearty, I assureyou. "

The Colonel, though choleric, was a good-natured man, and too much of agentleman to let his temper loose, though sorely tried, when at the bottomof the hill the Die-hards halted his carriage that he might receive notonly an address from the Doctor as Mayor, but a large bouquet from thehands of the Doctor's four-year-old daughter, little Miss Sophronia, whomher mother led forward amid the plaudits of the crowd. (The Doctor, Ishould explain, was a married man of but five years' standing, and hiswife and he doted on one another and on little Miss Sophronia, their onlychild. ) This item of the programme, carefully rehearsed beforehand, andexecuted pat on the moment with the prettiest air of impromptu, tookColonel Taubmann so fairly aback that he found himself stammering thanksbefore he well knew what had happened: and from that moment he was at thetown's mercy. Before he could drop back in the chaise, and almost beforethe Mayor, casting off his robe and throwing it upon the arm of thetown-crier, had exchanged his civic for his military role, the horses wereunharnessed and a dozen able-bodied men tugging at the traces: and so, desperately gripping a stout bunch of scarlet geraniums, Colonel Taubmannwas rattled off amid a whirl of cheering through the narrow streets, overthe cobbles, beneath arches and strings of flags and flag-bedeckedwindows, from which the women leaned and showered rice upon him, with aband playing ahead and a rabble shouting astern, up the hill to thebattery, where willing hands had wreathed Looe's four eighteen-pounderswith trusses of laurel. The very mark moored off for a target had beendecorated with an enormous bunch of holly and a motto--decipherable, asCaptain Pond, offering his field-glass, pointed out--

 _Our compliments to Bonyparty: He'll find us well and likewise hearty!_

The moment for resistance, for effective protest, had passed. There wasreally nothing for the Colonel to do but accept the situation with thebest face he could muster. As the chaise drew up alongside the battery, he did indeed cast one wild look around and behind him, but only to catcha bewitching smile from the Mayoress--a young and extremely good-lookingwoman, with that soft brilliance of complexion which sometimes marks theearly days of motherhood. And Captain Pond, with the Doctor and SecondLieutenant Clogg at his elbow, was standing hat in hand by thecarriage-step; and the weather was perfect, and every face in the crowdand along the line of the Die-hards so unaffectedly happy, that--to bebrief--the Colonel lost his head for the moment and walked through theinspection as in a dream, accepting--or at least seeming to accept--it inthe genial holiday spirit in which it was so honestly presented. Bang-Bang! went the eighteen-pounders, and through the smoke ColonelTaubmann saw the pretty Mayoress put up both hands to her ears. 

"Damme!" said Gunner Spettigew that evening, "the practice, if a man canspeak professionally, was a disgrace. Oke, there, at Number Two gun, mustha' lost his head altogether; for I marked the shot strike the water, and'twas a good hundred yards short if an inch. 'Hullo!' says I, and glancestoward the chap to apologise. If you'll believe me, I'd fairly opened mymouth to tell 'en that nine times out of ten you weren't such a blamedfool as you looked, when a glance at his eye told me he hadn' noticed. The man looked so pleased with everythin', I felt like nudgin' him underthe ribs with a rammer: but I dessay 'twas as well I thought better of it. The regular forces be terrible on their dignity at times. "

Colonel Taubmann had, however, made a note of the Die-hards' marksmanship, and attempted to tackle Captain Pond on the subject later in theafternoon--albeit gently--over a cup of tea provided by the Mayoress. 

"There is a spirit about your men, Captain--" he began. 

"You take sugar?" interposed Captain Pond. 

"Thank you: three lumps. "

"You find it agrees with you? Now in the Duchy, sir, you'll find it therarest exception for anyone to take sugar. "

"As I was saying, there is certainly a spirit about your men--"

"Health and spirits, sir! In my experience the two go together. Health and spirits--the first requisites for success in the militarycalling, and both alike indispensable! If a soldier enjoy bad health, how can he march? If his liver be out of order, if his hand tremble, ifhe see black spots before his eyes, with what accuracy will he shoot?Rheumatism, stone, gout in the system--"

Colonel Taubmann stared. Could he believe his eyes, or had he not, lessthan an hour ago, seen the Looe Artillery plumping shot into the barrensea a good fifty yards short of their target? Could he trust his ears, orwas it in a dream he had listened, just now, to Captain Pond's reasons formarching his men home at a pace reserved, in other regiments, forfunerals?--"In my judgment, sir, a step of twenty-four to thirty inches isas much as any man over sixty years of age can indulge in without risk ofoverstrain, and even so I should prescribe forty-eight steps a minute asthe maximum. Some criticism has been levelled at me--not perhaps withoutexcuse--for having enlisted men of that age. It is easy to be wise afterthe event, but at the time other considerations weighed with me--as forinstance that the men were sober and steady-going, and that I knew theirways, which is a great help in commanding a company. "

Colonel Taubmann stared and gasped, but held his tongue. There was indeeda breadth of simplicity about Captain Pond--a seriousness, innocent andabsolute, which positively forbade retort. 

"Nay!" went on the worthy man. "Carry the argument out to its logicalconclusion. If a soldier's efficiency be reduced by ill-health, whatshall we say of him when he is dead? A dead soldier--unless it be by thememory of his example--avails nothing. The active list knows him no more. He is gone, were he Alexander the Great and the late Marquis of Granbyrolled into one. No energy of his repels the invader; no flash of his eyereassures the trembling virgin or the perhaps equally apprehensive matron. He lies in his place, and the mailed heel of Bellona--to borrow anexpression of our Vicar's--passes over him without a protest. I need notlabour this point. The mere mention of it bears out my theory, andjustifies the line I have taken in practice; that in these critical times, when Great Britain calls upon her sons to consolidate their ranks in theface of the Invader, it is of the first importance to keep as many aspossible of them alive and in health. "

"Captain Pond has mounted his hobby, I see, " said the pretty Mayoress, coming forward at the conclusion of this harangue. "But you should hearmy husband, sir, on the health-giving properties of Looe's climate. "

Colonel Taubmann bowed gallantly. "Madam, I have no need. Your owncheeks bear a more eloquent testimony to it, I warrant, than any he couldcompose. "

"Well, and so they do, my love, " said the Doctor that evening, when sherepeated this pretty speech to him. "But I don't understand why youshould add that anyone could tell he belonged to the regular service. "

"They _have_ a way with them, " said the lady musingly, gazing out ofwindow. 

"Why, my dear, have I not paid you before now a score of compliments asneat?"

"Now don't be huffed, darling!--of course you have. But, you see, it cameas pat with him as if he had known me all my life: and I'll engage that hehas another as pat for the next woman he meets. "

"I don't doubt it, " agreed her spouse: "and if that's what you admire, perhaps you would like me to compliment and even kiss every pretty girl inthe place. There's no saying what I can't do if I try. "

"_Please_ don't be a goose, dear! I never said a Volunteer wasn't morecomfortable _to live with_. Those professionals are here to-day and gonetomorrow--sometimes even sooner. "

"Not to mention, " added the Doctor, more than half-seriously, "that lifewith them is dreadfully insecure. "

"Oh! I would never _seriously_ advise a friend of mine to marry a regularsoldier. Hector dear, to be left a widow must be terrible! . . . But you_did_ deserve to be teased, for never saying a word about my tea-party. How do you think it went off? And haven't you a syllable of praise forthe way I had polished the best urn? Why, you might have seen your facein it!"

"So I might, my love, no doubt: but my eyes were occupied in following_you_. "

Yes, the day had been a wonderful success, as Captain Pond remarked afterwaving good-bye to his visitor and watching his chaise out of sight uponthe Plymouth road. The Colonel's manner had been so affable, hisappreciation of Looe and its scenery and objects of interest sowhole-hearted, he had played his part in the day's entertainment with sounmistakable a zest!

"We are lucky, " said Captain Pond. "Suppose, now, he had turned out to besome cross-grained martinet . . . The type is not unknown in the regularforces. "

"He was intelligent, too, " chimed in the Doctor, --"unlike some soldiers Ihave met whose horizon has been bounded by the walls of theirbarrack-square. Did you observe the interest he took in my account of ourGiant's Hedge? He fully agreed with me that it must be pre-Roman, andallowed there was much to be said for the theory which ascribes it to theDruids. "

Alas for these premature congratulations! They were to be rudelyshattered within forty-eight hours, and by a letter addressed to CaptainPond in Colonel Taubmann's handwriting:--

 "Dear Sir, --The warmth of my reception on Tuesday and the hospitality of the good people of Looe--a hospitality which, pray be assured, I shall number amongst my most pleasant recollections--constrain me to write these few friendly words covering the official letter you will receive by this or the next post. In the hurry of leave-taking I had no time to discuss with you certain shortcomings which I was compelled to note in the gunnery of the E. And W. Looe Volunteer Artillery, or to suggest a means of remedy. But, to be brief, I think a fortnight's or three weeks' continuous practice _away from all local distractions_, and in a battery better situated than your own for the requirements of effective coast-defence, will give your company that experience for which mere enthusiasm, however admirable in itself, can never be an entirely satisfactory substitute. 

 "On the 2nd of next month the company (No. 17) of the R. A. At present stationed at Pendennis Castle, Falmouth, will be sailing for Gibraltar on active service. Their successors, the 22nd Company, now at Chatham, will not be due to replace them until the New Year. And I have advised that your company be ordered down to the Castle to fill up the interval with a few weeks of active training. 

 "May I say that I was deeply impressed by the concern you show in the health of your men? I agreed with well-nigh everything you said to me on this subject, and am confident you will in turn agree with me that nothing conduces more to the physical well-being of a body of troops, large or small, than an occasional change of air. 

 "With kind regards and a request that you will remember me to the ladies who contributed so much to the amenities of my visit. -- Believe me, dear sir, your obedient servant, "H. R. Taubmann (Lieut. -Colonel R. A. ). "

I will dare to say that Colonel Taubmann never fired a shot in his life--round-shot, bomb or grenade, grape or canister--with a tithe of the effectwrought by this letter. For a whole day Looe was stunned, dismayed, desolated. 

"And in Christmas week, of all holy seasons!" commented Gunner Spettigew. "And the very first Christmas the Die-hards have started a goose club!"

"And this, " said Sergeant Pengelly, with bitter intonation, "is Peace onEarth and Good-will toward men, or what passes for such in the regulars. Wi' the carol-practisin' begun too, an' nobody left behind to take thebass!"

"Tis the Army all over!" announced William Henry Phippin, who had servedas bo'sun's mate under Lord Howe. "I always was in two minds aboutbelongin' to that branch o' the Service: for, put it how you will, 'tis acome-down for a fellow that has once known the satisfaction to march aheadof 'em. There was a sayin' we had aboard the old _Queen Charlotte_--'A messmate afore a shipmate, ' we said, 'an' a shipmate afore a dog, an' adog, though he be a yellow dog, afore a sojer. ' But what vexes me is thetriumphant arches we wasted on such a chap. "

"My love, " said the Doctor to his spouse, "I congratulate you on yourfancy for _professional_ soldiers. You are married to one, anyway. "

"Dearest!"

"It comes to that, or very nearly. " He groaned. "To be separated forthree weeks from my Araminta! And at this time of all others!"--for thelady was again expecting to become a mother: as in due course (I am happyto say) she did, and presented him with a bouncing boy and was in turnpresented with a silver cradle. But this, though the great event of theDoctor's mayoralty, will not excuse a longer digression. 

Captain Pond kept his head, although upon his first perusal of the letterhe had come near to fainting, and for a week after walked the streets witha tragic face. There was no appeal. Official instructions had followedthe Colonel's informal warning. The die was cast. The Die-hards mustmarch, must for three weeks be immured in Pendennis Castle, that infernalfortress. 

To his lasting credit he pretermitted no effort to prepare his men andsteel them against the ordeal, no single care for their creature-comforts. Short though the notice was, he interviewed the Mayoress and easilypersuaded her to organise a working-party of ladies, who knitted socks, comforters, woollen gloves, etc. , for the departing heroes, and on the eveof the march-out aired these articles singly and separately that theymight harbour no moisture from the feminine tears which had too oftenbedewed the knitting. He raised a house-to-house levy of borrowedfeather-beds. Geese for the men's Christmas dinner might be purchased atFalmouth, and joints of beef, and even turkeys (or so he was crediblyinformed). But on the fatal morning he rode out of Looe with six poundsof sausages and three large Christmas puddings swinging in bags at hissaddle-bow. 

What had sustained him was indignation, mingled with professional pride. He had been outraged, hurt in the very seat of local patriotism: but hewould show these regulars what a Volunteer company could do. Yes, and(Heaven helping him) he would bring his men home unscathed, in health, with not a unit missing or sick or sorry. Out of this valley ofhumiliation every man should return--ay, and with laurels!

Forbear, my Muse, to linger over the scene of that departure! CaptainPond (I say) rode with six pounds of sausages and three puddings danglingat his saddle-bow. The Doctor rode in an ambulance-waggon crammed to thetilt with materials ranging from a stomach-pump to a backgammon-board;appliances not a few to restore the sick to health, appliances in farlarger numbers to preserve health in the already healthy. Mr. Clogg, thesecond lieutenant, walked with a terrier and carried a bag of rats by wayof provision against the dull winter evenings. Gunner Oke had strapped anaccordion on top of his knapsack. Gunner Polwarne staggered under abarrel of marinated pilchards. Gunner Spettigew travelled light with apack of cards, for fortune-telling and Pope Joan. He carried a Dream-Bookand Wesley's Hymns in either hip-pocket (and very useful they bothproved). Uncle Issy had lived long enough to know that intellectualcomforts are more lasting than material ones, and cheaper, and that in theend folks are glad enough to give material comforts in payment for them. 

It was in the dusk of the December evening--the day, to be precise, wasSaturday, and the hour 5 p. M. --that our Die-hards, footsore anddispirited, arrived in Falmouth, and tramped through the long streets toPendennis. The weather (providentially) was mild; but much rain hadfallen, and the roads were heavy. Uncle Issy had ridden the last tenmiles in the ambulance, and the print of a single-Glo'ster cheese adheredthereafter to the seat of his regimentals until the day when he handedthem in and the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery passed out of thistransitory life to endure in memory. 

They found the Castle in charge of a cross-grained, superannuated sergeantand his wife; of whom the one was partially deaf and the other totally. Also the regulars had marched out but three days before, and theapartments--the dormitories especially--were not in a condition topropitiate the squeamish. Also No. 17 Company of the Royal Artillery hadincluded a notable proportion of absent-minded gunners who, in the wordsof a latter-day bard, had left a lot of little things behind them. Lieutenant Clogg, on being introduced to his quarters, openly and withexcuse bewailed the trouble he had taken in carrying a bag of rats manyweary miles. A second terrier would have been a wiser and lesssuperfluous investment. As for the commissariat, nothing had beenprovided. The superannuated sergeant alleged that he had received noorders, and added cheerlessly that the shops in Falmouth had closed anhour ago. He wound up by saying incisively that he, for his part, had noexperience of Volunteers nor of what they expected: and (to pass over thisharrowing part of the business as lightly as may be) the Die-hardsbreakfasted next morning on hastily-cooked Christmas puddings. 

The garrison clock had struck eleven before, dog-tired as they were, they had reduced the two dormitories to conditions of cleanliness in whichit was possible for self-respecting men to lie down and take their sleep. And so they laid themselves down and slept, in their dreams rememberingLooe and their families and rooms that, albeit small, were cosy, and bedsthat smelt of lavender. Captain Pond had apportioned to each man threefingers of rum, and in cases of suspected catarrh had infused a dose ofquinine. 

It was midnight before he lay down in his quarters, on bedding he hadpreviously aired before a sullen fire. He closed his eyes--but only tosleep by fits and starts. How could his men endure three weeks of this?He must keep them occupied, amused. . . . He thought of amateurtheatricals. . . . Good God! how unsatisfying a supper was biscuit, after a long day's ride! Was _this_ how the regular army habituallylived? . . . What a pig's-sty of a barracks! . . . Well, it would restupon Government, if he buried his men in this inhospitable hole. He raised himself on his pillow and stared at the fire. Strange, to thinkthat only a few hours ago he had slept in Looe, and let the hours strikeunheeded on his own parish clock! Strange! And his men must be feelingit no less, and he was responsible for them, for three weeks of _this_--and for their good behaviour!

Early next morning (Sunday) he was astir, and having shaved and dressedhimself by lantern light, stepped down to the gate and roused up thesuperannuated sergeant with a demand to be conducted round thefortifications. 

The sergeant--who answered to the incredible name of Topase--wanted toknow what was the sense of worriting about the fortifications at this hourof the day: and, if his language verged on insubordination, his wife's wasfrankly mutinous. Captain Pond heard her from her bed exhorting herhusband to close the window and not let in the draught upon her for thesake of any little Volunteer whipper-snapper in creation. "What next?"she should like to know, and "Tell the pestering man there's a bed ofspring bulbs planted close under the wall, an' if he goes stampin' upon myli'l crocuges I'll have the law of him. "

Captain Pond's authority, however, was not to be disobeyed, and a quarterof an hour later he found himself, with Sergeant Topase beside him, on theplatform of the eighteen-pounder battery, watching the first rosy streaksof dawn as they spread and travelled across the misty sea at his feet. The hour was chilly, but it held the promise of a fine day; and in anothertwenty minutes, when the golden sunlight touched the walls of the oldfortress and ran up the flagstaff above it in a needle of flame, he gazedaround him on his temporary home, on the magnificent harbour, on the townof Falmouth climbing tier upon tier above the waterside, on thescintillating swell of the Channel without, and felt his chest expand withlegitimate pride. 

By this time the Doctor and Lieutenant Clogg had joined him, and theirfaces too wore a hopefuller, more contented look. Life at Pendennis mightnot prove so irksome after all, with plenty of professional occupation torelieve it. Captain Pond slipped an arm within the Doctor's, and togetherthe three officers made a slow tour of the outer walls, plying SergeantTopase with questions and disregarding his sulky hints that he, for hispart, would be thankful to get a bite of breakfast. 

"But what have we here?" asked Captain Pond suddenly, coming to a halt. 

Their circuit had brought them round to the landward side of the fortress, to a point bearing south by east of the town, when through a breach--yes, a clean breach!--in the wall they gazed out across the fosse and along ahigh turfy ridge that roughly followed the curve of the cliffs and of theseabeach below. Within the wall, and backed by it, --save where the gaphad been broken, --stood a group of roofless and half-dismantledoutbuildings which our three officers studied in sheer amazement. 

"What on earth is the meaning of this?"

"Married quarters, " answered Sergeant Topase curtly. "You won't want'em. "

"Married quarters?"

"Leastways, that's what they was until three days ago. The workmen bepullin' 'em down to put up new ones. "

"And in pulling them down they have actually pulled down twelve feet ofthe wall protecting the fortress?"

"Certainly: a bit of old wall and as rotten as touch. Never you fret: theFrenchies won't be comin' along whilst _you're_ here!"--thus SergeantTopase in tones of fine sarcasm. 

"By whose orders has this breach been made?" Captain Pond demandedsternly. 

"Nobody's. I believe, if you ask me, 'twas just a little notion of thecontractor's, for convenience of getting in his material and carting awaythe rubbish. He'll fix up the wall again as soon as the job's over, andthe place will be stronger than ever. "

"Monstrous!" exclaimed Captain Pond. "Monstrous! And you tell us he hasdone this without orders and no one has interfered!"

"I don't see what there is to fret about, savin' your presence, " the oldsergeant persisted. "And, any way, 'twon't take the man three days at theoutside to cart off the old buildings. Allow another four for getting inthe new material--"

"Seven days! seven days! And Great Britain engaged at this moment in thegreatest war of its history! Oh, Doctor, Doctor--these professionals!"

Sergeant Topase shrugged his shoulders, and, concluding that his duties asa cicerone were at an end, edged away to the gatehouse for his breakfast. 

"Oh, these professionals!" ingeminated Captain Pond again, eyeing thebreach and the dismantled married quarters. "A whole seven days! And forthat period we are to rest exposed not only to direct attack, but to thegaze of the curious public--nay, perchance even (who knows?) to the paidspies of the Corsican! Doctor, we must post a guard here at once!Incredible that even this precaution should have been neglected! Nay, "--with a sudden happy inspiration he clapped the Doctor on the shoulder, --"did he say 'twould take three days to level this sorry heap?"

"He did. "

"It shall not take us an hour! By George, sir, before daylight to-morrowwe'll run up a nine-pounder, and have this rubbish down in five minutes!Yes, yes--and I'd do it to-day, if it weren't the Sabbath. "

"I don't see that the Sabbath ought to count against what we may fairlycall the dictates of national urgency, " said the Doctor. "_ Salus patriaesuprema lex_. "

"What's that?"

"Latin. It means that when the State is endangered all lesserconsiderations should properly go to the wall. To me your proposal seemsa brilliant one; just the happy inspiration that would never occur to thehidebound professional mind in a month of Sundays. And in your place Iwouldn't allow the Sabbath or anything else--"

A yell interrupted him--a yell, followed by the sound of a scuffle and, after a moment's interval, by a shout of triumph. These noises came fromthe roofless married quarters, and the voice of triumph was LieutenantClogg's, who had stepped inside the building while his seniors stoodconversing, and now emerged dragging a little man by the collar, whilewith his disengaged hand he flourished a paper excitedly. 

"A spy! A spy!" he panted. 

"Hey?"

"I caught him in the act!" Mr. Clogg thrust the paper into his Captain'shands and, turning upon his captive, shook him first as one shakes afractious child, and then planted him vigorously on his feet and demandedwhat he had to say for himself. 

The captive could achieve no more than a stutter. He was an extremelylittle man, dressed in the Sunday garb of a civilian--fustian breeches, moleskin waistcoat, and a frock of blue broadcloth, very shiny at theseams. His hat had fallen off in the struggle, and his eyes, timorous asa hare's, seemed to plead for mercy while he stammered for speech. 

"Good Lord!" cried Captain Pond, gazing at the paper. "Look, Doctor--aplan!"

"A sketch plan!"

"A plan of our defences!"

"Damme, a plan of the whole Castle, and drawn to scale! Search him, Clogg; search the villain!"

"Wha-wha-_what_, " stuttered the little man, "WHAT'S the m-m-meaning ofthis? S-some-body shall p-pay, as sure as I--I--I--"

"Pay, sir?" thundered Captain Pond as Mr. Clogg dragged forth yet anotherbundle of plans from the poor creature's pocket. "You have seen the lastpenny you'll ever draw in your vile trade. "

"Wha-_what_ have I--I--I DONE?"

"Heaven knows, sir--Heaven, which has interposed at this hour to thwartthis treacherous design--alone can draw the full indictment against yourpast. Clogg, march him off to the guard-room: and you, Doctor, tellPengelly to post a guard outside the door. In an hour's time I may feelmyself sufficiently composed to examine him, and we will hold a fullinquiry to-morrow. Good Lord!"--Captain Pond removed his hat and wipedhis brow. "Good Lord! what an escape!"

"I'll--I'll have the l-l-law on you for t-th-this!" stammered the prisonersulkily an hour later when Captain Pond entered his cell. 

No other answer would he give to the Captain's closest interrogatory. Only he demanded that a constable should be fetched. He was told that inEngland a constable had no power of interference with military justice. 

"Y-you are a s-s-silly fool!" answered the prisoner, and turned away tohis bench. 

Captain Fond, emerging from the cell, gave orders to supply him with aloaf of bread and a pitcher of water. Down in Falmouth the bells wereringing for church. In the Castle a Sabbath stillness reigned. Sergeant Topase, napping and reading his Bible by turns before thegatehouse fire, remarked to his wife that on the whole these sillyamachoors were giving less trouble than he had expected. 

At 7. 45 next morning Gunner Israel Spettigew, having relieved guard withGunner Oke at the breach, and advised him to exhibit a dose ofblack-currant wine before turning in (as a specific against a chill in theextremities), was proceeding leisurably to cut himself a quid of tobaccowhen he became aware of two workmen--carpenters they appeared to be in thedim light--approaching the entry. 

"Who goes there?" he challenged. "'Tis no use my asking you for thecountersign, because I've forgotten it myself: but there's No Admittanceexcept on Business. "

"That's what we've come upon, " said one of the workmen. "By the looks of'ee you must be one of the new Artillerymen from Looe that can't diehowever hard they want to. But didn' Jackson tell you to look out forus?"

"Who's Jackson?"

"Why, our Clerk of the Works. He's somewhere inside surely? He usuallyturns up half an hour ahead of anyone else, his heart's so set on thisjob. "

"I haven't seen 'en go by, to my knowledge, " said Uncle Issy. 

The two men looked at one another. "Not turned up? Then there must besomething the matter with 'en this morning: taken poorly with over-work, I reckon. Oh, you can't miss Jackson when once you've set eyes on him--alittle chap with a face like a rabbit and a 'pediment in his speech. "

"Hey?" said Uncle Issy sharply. "What? A stammerin' little slip of achap in a moleskin waistcoat?"

"That's the man. Leastways I never see'd him wear a moleskin waistcoat, 'xcept on Sundays. "

"But it _was_ Sunday!"

"Hey?"

"Oh, tell me--tell me, that's dear souls! Makes a whistly noise in hisspeech--do he?--like a slit bellows?"

"That's Jackson, to a hair. But--but--then you _hev_ seen 'en?"

"Seen 'en?" cried Uncle Issy. "A nice miss I ha'n't helped to bury 'en, by this time! Oh yes . . . If you want Jackson he's inside: an' what'smore, he's a long way inside. But you can't want him half so much ashe'll be wantin' you. "

HIS EXCELLENCY'S PRIZE-FIGHT. 

My grand-uncle pushed the decanter of brown sherry: a stout old-fashioneddecanter, with shoulders almost as square as his own, and a silver chainabout them bearing a silver label--not unlike the badge and collar whichhe himself wore on full ceremonial occasions. 

"Three times round the world, " he said, "and as yet only twice around thetable. You must do it justice, gentlemen. "

"A great wine, Admiral!" said the Rector, filling and sipping, withhalf-closed eyes. "They have a brown sherry at Christ Church which maychallenge it, perhaps . . . The steward remembers my weakness when I go upto preach my afternoon sermon at St. Mary's. There was talk inCongregation, the other day, of abolishing afternoon sermons, on theground that nobody attended them; but this, as one speaker feelinglyobserved, would deprive the country clergy of a dear privilege. . . . "The Rector took another sip. "An heroic contest, between two such wines!"

"Talking of heroic contests, mine came to me by means of a prize-fight, "said my grand-uncle, with a glance down the table at us two youngsters whowere sipping and looking wise, as became connoisseurs fresh from the smallbeer of a public school. At the word 'prize-fight, ' Dick and I pricked upour ears. To us the Admiral was at once a prodigiously fine fellow and aprodigiously old one--though he dated after Nelson's day, to us he reachedwell back to it, and in fact he had been a midshipman in the last twoyears of the Great War. Certainly he belonged to the old school ratherthan to the new. He had fought under Codrington at Navarino. He hadtalked with mighty men of the ring--Tom Cribb, Jem Mace, Belcher, Sayers. 

"What is more, " said he, "though paid late, the wine you're drinking isthe first prize-money I ever took; in my first ship, lads, and withinforty-eight hours of joining her. . . . Youth, youth!"--as the decantercame around to him he refilled his glass. --"And to think that I was a goodtwo years younger than either of you!"

"A prize-fight? You'll tell us about it, sir?" ventured Dick eagerly. 

"The Rector has heard the yarn before, I doubt?" said the old man, with aglance which told that he only needed pressing. 

"That objection, " the Rector answered tactfully, "has been lodged againstcertain of my sermons. I never let it deter me. "

"There's a moral in it, too, " said my grand-uncle, visibly reassured. 

Well, as for the moral, I cannot say that I have ever found it, to swearby. But here is my grand-uncle's story. 

If you want a seaman, they say, you must catch him young, and I will addthat the first hour for him is the best. Eh? Young men have talked to meof the day when they first entered Oxford or Cambridge--of the moment, we'll say, when the London coach topped the Shotover rise in the earlymorning, and they saw all the towers and spires at their feet. I am willing to believe it good. And the first kiss, --when you and sheare young fools and over head and ears in love, --you'll know what I mean, you boys, when you grow to it, and I am not denying that it brings heavendown to earth and knocks their heads together. But for bliss--sheerundiluted bliss--match me the day when a boy runs upstairs and sees hismidshipman's outfit laid out on the bed--blue jacket, brass buttons, dirk, yes, and in my sea time a kind of top-hat that fined away towards the top, with a cockade. I tell you I spent an hour looking at myself in my poormother's cheval-glass, and then walked out across the common to showmyself to my aunts, --rest their souls!--who inhabited a cottage about amile from ours, and had been used hitherto, when entertaining me, to askone another in French if the offer of a glass of beer would, consideringmy age, be permissible. I drank sherry with them that afternoon, and leftthem (I make no doubt) with a kind of tacit assurance that, come whatmight, they were henceforward secure of protection. 

The next day--though it blew a short squall of tears when I took leave ofmy mother and climbed aboard the coach--was scarcely less glorious. I wore my uniform, and nursed my toasting-fork proudly across my knees;and the passengers one and all made much of me, in a manner which I neverallowed to derogate into coddling. At The Swan with Two Necks, Cheapside, when the coach set me down, I behaved as a man should; ordered supper anda bed; and over my supper discussed the prospects of peace with anaffable, middle-aged bagman who shared my box. He thought well of theprospects of peace. For me, I knitted my brows and gave him to understandthat circumstances might alter cases. 

From The Swan with Two Necks I took coach next morning--proceeding fromthe bar to the door between two lines of smiling domestics--and travelleddown to the Blue Posts, the famous Blue Posts, at Portsmouth. In the BluePosts there was a smoking-room, and across the end of it ran a sofa onwhich (tradition said) you might count on finding a midshipman asleep. I was not then aware of the tradition; but sure enough a midshipmanreclined there when I entered the room. He was not asleep, but engaged inperusing something which he promptly, even hastily, stowed away in thebreast of his tunic--a locket, I make no doubt. He sat up and regardedme; and I stared back at him, how long I will not say, but long enough forme to perceive that his jacket buttons were as glossy as my own. I noted this; but it conveyed little to me, for my imagination clothed inequal splendour everyone in his Majesty's service. 

He appeared to be young, even delicately youthful; but I felt it necessaryto assert my manhood before him, and rang for the waiter. 

"A glass of beer, if you please, " said I. 

The waiter lifted his eyebrows and looked from me to the sofa. 

"_One_ glass of beer, sir?" he asked. 

"I hardly like to offer--" I began lamely, following his glance. 

"It is more usual, sir. _In_ the Service. Between two young gentlemenas, by the addresses on their chestes, is both for the _Melpomeny_: andnewly joined. "

"Hulloa!" said I, turning round to the sofa, "are you in the same fix asmyself?"

Reading in his face that it was so, I corrected my order, and waved thewaiter to the door with creditable self-possession. As soon as he hadwithdrawn, "My name's Rodd, " said I. "What's yours?"

"Hartnoll, " he said; "from Norfolk. "

"I come from the West--Devonshire, " said I, and with an air of being proudof it; but added, on an afterthought, "Norfolk must be a fine county, though I've never seen it. Nelson came from there, didn't he?"

"His place is only six miles from ours, " said Hartnoll. "I've seen itscores of times. "

And with that he stuck his hands suddenly in his pockets, turned away fromme, and stared very resolutely out of the dirty bow-window. 

When the waiter had brought the drinks and retired again, Hartnollconfessed to me that he had never tasted beer. "You'll come to it intime, " said I encouragingly: but I fancy that the tap at the Blue Postswas of a quality to discourage a first experiment. He tasted his, made aface, and suggested that I might deal with both glasses. I had, to beginwith, ordered the beer out of bravado, and one gulp warned me that bravadomight be carried too far. I managed, indeed--being on my mettle--to drainmy own glass, and even achieved a noise which, with Hartnoll, might passfor a smacking of the lips: but we decided to empty his out of window, forfear of the waiter's scorn. We heaved up the lower sash--the effort itcost went some way to explaining the fustiness of the room--and Hartnolltossed out the beer. 

There was an exclamation below. 

While we craned out to see what had happened, the waiter's voice smote onour ears from the doorway behind us, saying that young gentlemen would beyoung gentlemen all the world over, but a new beaver hat couldn't bebought for ten shillings. Everything must have a beginning, of course, but the gentleman below was annoyed, and threatened to come upstairs. It wasn't perhaps exactly the thing to come to the Port Admiral's ears:but if we left it to _him_ (the waiter) he had a notion that tenshillings, with a little tact, might clear it, and no bones broken. 

Hartnoll, somewhat white in the face, tendered the sum, and very pluckilydeclined to let me bear my share. "You'll excuse me, Rodd, " said hepolitely, "but I must make it a point of honour. " Pale though he was, Ibelieve he would have offered to fight me had I insisted. 

Our instructions, it turned out, were identical. We were to be called forat the Blue Posts, and a boat would fetch us off to the _Melpomene_frigate. Her captain, it appeared, was a kind of second cousin ofHartnoll's: for me, I had been recommended to him by a cousin of myfather's, a member of the Board of Admiralty. Captain the Hon. JohnSuckling treated us, nearly or remotely as we might be connected with him, with impartiality that night. No boat came off for us. We learned thatthe _Melpomene_ was lying at Spithead, waiting (so the waiter told us) tocarry out a new Governor with his suite to Barbados; which possiblyaccounted for her captain's neglect of such small fry as two midshipmen. The waiter, however, advised us not to trouble ourselves. He would makeit all right in the morning. 

So Hartnoll and I supped together in the empty coffee-room; comparednotes; drank a pint of port apiece; and under its influence becameboastful. Insensibly the adventure of the beaver hat came to wear theaspect of a dashing practical joke. It encouraged us to exchangeconfidences of earlier deeds of derring-do, of bird-nesting, ofrook-shooting, of angling for trout, of encounters with poachers. I remember crossing my knees, holding up my glass to the light, andremarking sagely that some poachers were not at all bad fellows. Hartnoll agreed that it depended how you took 'em. We lauded Norfolk andDevon as sporting counties, and somehow it was understood that theyrespectively owed much of their reputation to the families of Hartnoll andRodd. Hartnoll even hinted at a love-affair: but here I discouraged himwith a frown, which implied that as seamen we saw that weakness in itsproper light. I have wondered, since then, to what extent we imposed uponone another: in fact, I daresay, very little; but in spirit we gave andtook fire. We were two ardent boys, and we meant well. 

"Here's to the Service!" said I, holding up my glass. 

"To the Service!" echoed Hartnoll; drained his, set it down, and lookedacross at me with a flushed face. 

"With quick promotion and a plenty of prize-money!" said a voice in thedoorway. It was that diabolical waiter again, entering to remove thecloth: and for a moment I felt my ears redden. Recovering myself, I toldhim pretty strongly not to intrude again upon the conversation ofgentlemen; but added that since he had presumed to take part in the toast, he might fetch himself a tankard of beer and drink to it. Whereupon hethanked me, begged my pardon for having taken the liberty, and immediatelytook another, telling me that anyone having _his_ experience of younggentlemen could see with half an eye that I was born to command. 

"Tell you what, " said I to Hartnoll when the waiter had left us, "that fellow has given me a notion, with his talk about prize-money. I don't half like owing you my share of that ten shillings, you know. "

"I thought we were agreed not to mention it again, " said Hartnoll, firingup. 

Said I, "But there's my view of it to be considered. Suppose now we putit on to our first prize-money--whoever makes the first haul to pay thewhole ten shillings, and if we make it together, then each to pay five?"

"That won't do, " said Hartnoll. "My head don't seem able to follow youvery clearly, but if we make our first haul together, the matter remainswhere it is. "

"Very well, " I yielded. "Then I must get ahead of you, to get quits. "

"You won't, though, " said Hartnoll, pushing back his chair, and sodismissing the subject. 

Now the evening being young, I proposed that we should sally forthtogether and view the town--in other words (though I avoided them) that weshould flaunt our uniforms in the streets of Portsmouth. Hartnolldemurred: the boat (said he) might arrive in our absence. I rang for thewaiter again, and took counsel with him. The waiter began by answeringthat the Blue Posts, though open day and night, would take it as a favourif gentlemen patronising the house would make it convenient to knock-inbefore midnight, and, if possible, retire to their rooms before that hour. He understood our desire to see the town; "it was, in fact, the usualthing, under the circumstances. " If I would not take it as what he mightcall (and did) call a libbaty, there was a good many bad charactersknocking about Portsmouth, pickpockets included, and especially atfair-time. 

"Fair-time?" I asked. 

"At the back of the town--Kingston way--you will find it, " said he, with ajerk of the thumb. 

"But, " said I, "the frigate might send off a boat for us. "

"Not a chance of it to-night, sir, " said the waiter. "The southerlybreeze has been bringing up a fog these two hours past, and the inside ofthe harbour is thick as soup. More by token, I've already sent word tothe chambermaid to fill a couple of warming-pans. You're booked with us, gentlemen, till to-morrow morning. "

Sure enough, descending to the street, we found it full of fog; and eitherthe fog was of remarkable density, or Portsmouth furnished with the worststreet-lamps in the world, for we had not walked five hundred yards beforeit dawned on me that to find our hostelry again might not be an entirelysimple matter. Maybe the port wine had induced a haze of its own upon mysense of locality. I fancied, too, that the fresh air was affectingHartnoll, unless his gait feigned a sea-roll to match his uniform. I felt a delicacy in asking him about it. 

Another thing that surprised me was the emptiness of the streets. I hadalways imagined Portsmouth to be a populous town . . . But possibly itsinhabitants were congregated around the fair, towards which we setourselves to steer, guided by the tunding of distant drums. It matteredlittle If we lost our bearings, since everybody in Portsmouth must knowthe Blue Posts. 

"Tell you what it is, Rodd, " said Hartnoll, pulling up in a by-street andpicking his words deliberately, --"tell you what accounts for it, "--he waveda hand at the emptiness surrounding us. "It's the press. Very night forit; and the men all hiding within doors. "

"Nonsense, " said I. "It's a deal likelier to be the Fat Woman or theTwo-headed Calf. "

"It's the press, " insisted Hartnoll: and for the moment, when we emergedout of a side lane upon a square filled with flaring lights, the crashingof drums and cymbals, and the voices of showmen yelling in front of theirbooths, I had a suspicion that he was right. One or two women, catchingsight of our uniforms, edged away swiftly, and, as they went, peered backinto the darkness of the lane behind us. A few minutes later, as wedodged around the circumference of the crowd in search of an opening, we ran up against one of the women with her man in tow. She was arguingwith him in a low, eager sort of voice, and he followed sulkily. At sightof us again she fetched up with a gasp of breath, almost with a squeal. The man drew himself up defiantly and began to curse us, but she quicklyinterrupted him, thrusting her open hand over his mouth, and drew him awaydown a dark courtyard. 

After this we found ourselves in the glare immediately under the platformof a booth; and two minutes later were mounting the rickety steps, less ofour own choice than by pressure of the crowd behind. The treat promisedus within was the Siege of Copenhagen with real fireworks, which as anentertainment would do as well as another. On the way up Hartnollwhispered to me to keep my hands in my breeches pockets, if I carried mymoney there; and almost on the same instant cried out that someone hadstolen his dirk. He stood lamenting, pointing to the empty sheath, whilea stout woman at a table took our entrance-money with an impassive face. The Siege of Copenhagen was what you youngsters nowadays would call a'fizzle, ' I believe: or maybe Hartnoll's face of woe and groanings overhis lost dirk damped the fireworks for me. But these were followed by aperforming pony, which, after some tricks, being invited by his master toindicate among the audience a gentleman addicted to kissing the ladies andrunning away, thrust its muzzle affectionately into my waistcoat; whereatHartnoll recovered his spirits at a bound, and treacherously laughedlouder than any of the audience. I thought it infernally bad taste, andtold him so. But, as it happened, I had a very short while to wait forrevenge: for in the very next booth, being invited to pinch the biceps ofthe Fat Woman, my gentleman-of-the-world blushed to the eyes, cast a wildlook around for escape, and turned, to fall into the arms of a couple ofsaucy girls who pushed him forward to hold him to his bargain. His eyeswere red--he was positively crying with shame and anger--when we foundourselves outside under the torchlights that made flaming haloes in thefog. 

"Hang it, Rodd! I've had enough of this fair. Let's get back to thePosts. "

"What's the time?" said I, and felt for my watch. 

My watch had disappeared. 

It had been my mother's parting gift, and somehow the loss of it made mefeel, with a shock, utterly alone in the world. Why on earth had I notclung to the respectable shelter of the Blue Posts? What a hollow mockerywere these brazen cymbals, these hoarse inviting voices, these coarseshow-cloths, these lights!

Curiously enough, and as if in instant sympathy with my dejection, thecymbals ceased to clash. The showmen began to extinguish their torches. I had lost my watch; Hartnoll did not own one. But we agreed that, atlatest, the hour could not be much more than ten. Yet the shows wereclosing, the populace was melting away into the fog. 

"I've had enough of this. Let's get back to the Posts, " Hartnollrepeated. His eyes told me that up to two days ago, when he left home, nine o'clock or thereabouts had been his regular bedtime. It had beenmine also. 

One of the two saucy girls, happening to pass an instant before the boothabove us extinguished its lights, spied us in dejected colloquy, and cameforward. Hartnoll turned from her, but I made bold to ask her the nearestway to the Blue Posts. 

I will give you her exact answer. She said--"Turn up on your right handat the next turning, but, at the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to theBlue Postesses. "

I have it by heart, because years after I found it in Shakespeare's_Merchant of Venice_, where you may find it for yourselves, if you look, with the answer I might have made to her. She did not wait for one, however, but stood looking around in the fog as if for a guide. "Poor lads!" she went on, "you'll certainly never reach it without help, though everyone in Portsmouth knows the Blue Posts: and I'd go with youmyself if I weren't due at the theatre in ten minutes' time. I have tocall on the manager as soon as the house empties to-night; and if I missit will mean losing an engagement. " She puckered her brow thoughtfully, and her face in spite of the paint on it struck me as a lovely one, saucyno longer but almost angelically kind. I have never seen her again fromthat day to this, and I was a boy of fourteen, but I'll wager that girlhad a good heart. "Your best plan, " she decided, "is to step along withme, and at the stage door, or inside the theatre at any rate, we'll soonfind somebody to put you in the way. "

But here a small figure stepped out against us from the shadow of theplatform, and a small shrillish voice piped up--

"For a copper, miss--or a copper apiece if they'll trust me. Find theBlue Postesses? W'y, I'd walk there on my head with my eyes bound!"

We stared down at her--for it was a small girl, a girl so diminutive thatHartnoll and I, who were not Anaks by any means, topped her by head andshoulders. She wore no shoes, no stockings, no covering for her head. Her hair, wet with the fog, draggled down, half-hiding her face, which wasold for its age (as they say), and chiefly by reason of her sharp, gipsy-coloured eyes. 

"For a copper apiece, miss, and honour bright!" said the waif. 

The young actress turned to us with a laugh. "Why not?" she asked. "That is, if you're not above being beholden to the child? But I warn younot to pay her till you get to the Blue Posts. "

I answered that any port was good in a storm, and the child should havesixpence if she proved as good as her word. 

"So long, then, my pair of seventy-fours. I'm late for the theatrealready. Good-night! and when you tuck yourselves in to bye-low don'tforget to dream of your mammies. " Bending quickly, she kissed Hartnoll onthe cheek, and was in the act to offer me a like salute when I dodgedaside, angered by her last words. She broke into a laugh like a chime ofbells, made a pretty pout at me with her lips and disappeared into thedarkness. Then it struck me that I need not have lost my temper; but Iwas none the more inclined to let Hartnoll down easily. 

"I call that pretty meek, " said I, as we walked off together, the childpattering, barefoot, beside us. 

"What's the matter?" asked Hartnoll. 

"Why, to let that girl kiss you--like a baby!"

"Sure you're not thinking of sour grapes?"

"I take you to witness, " said I, "that she tried it on and I wouldn't lether. "

"The more fool you!" retorted Hartnoll, edging away from me in dudgeon--but I knew he was more than half ashamed. Just at that moment to myastonishment I felt the child at my side reach up and touch my hand. 

"Ugh!" said I, drawing it away quickly. "Paws off, please! Eh?--what'sthis?" For she was trying to thrust something into it and to close myfingers upon it. 

"Hush!" she whispered. "It's your watch. "

I gave a whistle. "My watch? How the deuce did _you_ come by my watch?"

"Prigged it, " said the child in a business-like voice. "Don't know why Igave it back: seemed that I wanted to. That's why I offered to come withyou: and now I'm glad. Don't care if I _do_ get a hiding. "

For the moment, while she plodded alongside, I could only feel the watchover in my hand, making sure that it was really mine. 

"But, " said I, after a long pause of wonder, "you don't suppose that _I_want to give you a hiding, eh?--and you a girl, too!"

"No. "

"Then who's going to beat you?"

"Mother. " After a moment she added reassuringly, "But I've got anotherinside o' my bodice. "

I whistled again, and called up Hartnoll, who had been lagging behindsulkily. But he lost his sulks when I showed him the watch: and he toowhistled, and we stood stock-still gazing at the child, who had haltedwith one bare foot on the edge of the gutter. 

"She has another about her, " said I. "She confessed it. "

"Good Lord!" As the child made a motion to spring away, Hartnoll steppedout across the gutter and intercepted her. "I--I say, " he stammered, "you don't by any chance happen to have my dirk?"

She fell to whimpering. "Lemme go . . . I took pity on yer an' done yer akindness . . . Put myself out o' the way, I did, and this is what I getfor it. Thought you was kind-hearted, I did, and--if you don't lemme go, I'll leave you to find your way, and before mornin' the crimps'll getyou. " She threatened us, trembling with passion, shaking her finger atthe ugly darkness. 

"Look here, " said I, "if you said anything about another watch, understandthat I didn't hear. You don't suppose I want to take it from you?I'm only too glad to have my own again, and thank you. "

"I thought _'e_ might, " she said, only half-reassured, jerking a nodtowards Hartnoll. "As for his dirk, I never took it, but I know the boyas did. He lives the way we're going, and close down by the water; and ifyou spring a couple o' tanners maybe I'll make him give it up. "

"I'd give all I possess to get back that dirk, " said Hartnoll, and Ibelieve he meant it. 

"Come along, then, "--and we plunged yet deeper into the dark bowels ofPortsmouth. The child had quite recovered her confidence, and as we wentshe explained to us quite frankly why her mother would be angry. The night--if I may translate out of her own language, which I forget--was an ideal one for pocket-picking, what with the crowd at the fair, andthe fog, and (best of all, it seemed) the constables almost to a man drawnoff to watch the roads around Fareham. 

"But what, " I asked, "is the matter with Fareham?"

My ignorance staggered her. "What? Hadn't we heard of the greatPrize-fight?" We had not. "Not the great fight coming off between JemClark and the Dustman?" We were unfamiliar even with the heroes' names. 

She found this hard--very hard--to believe. Why, Portsmouth was full ofit, word having come down from London the date was to-morrow, and thatFareham, or one of the villages near Fareham, the field of battle. The constabulary, too, had word of it--worse luck--and were on theirmettle to break up the meeting, as the sportsmen of Portsmouth and itsneighbourhood were all on their mettle to attend it. This, explained thechild in her thin clear voice, --I can hear it now discoursing its sad, its infinitely weary wisdom to us two Johnny Newcomes, --this was thereason why the fair had closed early. The show-folk were all waiting, soto speak, for a nod. The tip given, they would all troop out northward, on each other's heels, greedy for the aftermath of the fight. Rumour filled the air, and every rumour chased after the movements of thetwo principals and their trainers, of whom nothing was known for certainsave that they had left London, and (it was said) had successfully dodgeda line of runners posted for some leagues along the Bath and Portsmouthroads. For an hour, soon after sunset, the town had been stunned by areport that Brighton, after all, would be the venue: a second report saidNewbury, or at any rate a point south-west of Reading. Fire drives outfire: a third report swore positively that Clark and the Dustman were inPortsmouth, in hiding, and would run the cordon in the small hours of themorning. 

So much--and also that her own name was Meliar-Ann and her mother kept asailor's lodging-house--the small creature told us, still trotting by ourside, until we found ourselves walking alongside a low wall over which weinhaled strong odours of the sea and of longshore sewage, and spied theriding-lights of the harbour looming through the fog. At the end of thiswe came to the high walls of a row of houses, all very quiet and black tothe eye, except that here and there a chink of light showed through awindow-shutter or the sill of a street-door. Throughout that long walk Ihad an uncanny sensation as of being led through a town bewitched, hushed, but wakeful and expectant of something. . . . I can get no nearer toexplaining. We must have passed a score of taverns at least; of that Ihave assured myself by many a later exploration of Portsmouth: and inthose days a Portsmouth tavern never closed day or night, save for thedeath of a landlord, nor always for that. But to-night a murmur at mostdistinguished it from the other houses in the street. 

Meliar-Ann solved the puzzle for us, with a wise nod of the head--

"There's a press out; or elst they're expecting one, " she said. 

I heard a distant clock chiming for midnight as we followed her along thisrow of houses. Ahead of us a door opened, throwing a thin line of lightupon the roadway, and was closed again softly, after the person within hadstood listening (as it seemed to me) for five seconds or so. 

Meliar-Ann started suddenly in front of us, spreading her arms out, thenslowly backwards, and so motioning us to halt under the shadow of thewall. Obeying, we saw her tiptoe forwards, till, coming to the door whichhad just been closed, she crept close and tapped on it softly, yet in away that struck me as being deliberate. Afterwards, thinking it over, Ifelt pretty sure that the child knocked by code. 

At all events the door opened again, almost at once and as noiselessly asbefore. Hartnoll and I squeezed our bodies back in the foggy shadow, andI heard a voice ask, "Is that Smithers?" To this Meliar-Ann made someresponse which I could not catch, but its effect was to make the voice--awoman's--break out in a string of querulous cursings. "Drat the child!"it said (or rather, it said something much stronger which I won't repeatbefore the Rector. Eh, Rector--what's that you say? _Maxima debeturpueris_--oh, make yourself easy: I won't corrupt their morals). "Drat the child!" it said, then, or words to that effect. "Bothering hereat this time of night, when Bill's been a-bed this hour and a half, andtime you was the same. " To this Meliar-Ann made, and audibly, thebriefest possible answer. She said, "You lie. " "Strike me dead!"replied the woman's voice in the doorway. "You lie, " repeated the child;"and you'd best belay to that. Bill's been stealin' and got himself intotrouble . . . A midshipman's dirk, it was, and he was seen taking it. I've run all this way to warn him. . . . " The two voices fell tomuttering. "You can slip inside if you like and tell him quietly, " saidthe woman after a while. "He's upstairs and asleep too, for all I know. If he brought any such thing home with him _I_ never saw it, and to thatI'll take my oath. "

But here another and still angrier voice--a virago's--broke in from thepassage behind, demanding to know if the door was being kept open toinvite the whole town. The child stood her ground on the doorstep. An instant later a hand reached out, clutched her--it seemed by the hair--and dragged her inside. Then followed a strangling sob and the thud ofheavy blows--

"Rodd, I can't stand this, " whispered Hartnoll. 

I answered, "Nor I;" and together we made a spring for it and hurled intothe passage, bearing back the woman who tried to hold the door against us. 

At the rush of our footsteps the virago dropped Meliar-Ann and fled downthe passage towards a doorway, through which she burst, screaming. The child, borne forward by our combined weight, tottered and fell almostacross the threshold of this room, where a flight of stairs, lit by adingy lamp, led up into obscure darkness. On the third stair under thelamp I caught a momentary vision of a dirty, half-naked boy standing witha drawn dirk in his hand, and with that, my foot catching againstMeliar-Ann's body, I pitched past, head foremost, into the lighted room. 

As I fell I heard, or seemed to hear, a scuffle of feet, followed by ashout from Hartnoll behind us--"My dirk! You dirty young villain!"--andanother stampede, this time upon the stairway. Then, all of a sudden, theroom was quiet, and I picked myself up and fell back against thedoor-post, face to face with half a dozen women. 

They were assuredly the strangest set of females I had ever set eyes on, and the tallest-grown: nor did it relieve my astonishment to note thatthey wore bonnets and shawls, as if for a journey, and that two or threewere smoking long clay pipes. The room, in fact, was thick withtobacco-smoke, through the reek of which my eyes travelled to a disorderlytable crowded with glasses and bottles of strong waters, in the midst ofwhich two tallow dips illuminated the fog; and beyond the table to thefigure of a man stooping over a couple of half-packed valises; anenormously stout man swathed in greatcoats--a red-faced, clean-shaven man, with small piggish eyes which twinkled at me wickedly as I picked myselfup, and he, too, stood erect to regard me. 

"Press-gang be d--d!" he growled, answering the virago's call of warning. "More likely a spree ashore. And where might _you_ come from, younggentleman? And what might be _your_ business to-night, breakin' into aprivate house?"

I cast a wild look over the bevy of forbidding females and temporised, backing a little until my shoulder felt the door-post behind me. 

"I was trying to find my way to the Blue Posts, " said I. 

"Then, " said the stout man with obvious truth, "you ain't found it yet. "

"No, sir, " said I. 

"And that bein' the case, you'll march out and close the door behind you. Not, "--he went on more kindly--"that I'd be inhospitable to his Majesty'suniform, 'specially when borne by a man of your inches; and to prove itI'll offer you a drink before parting. "

He reached out a hand towards one of the black bottles. I was about tothank him and decline, withdrawing my eyes from a black-bonneted femalewith (unless the shadow of her bonnet played me false) a stiff two-days'beard on her massive chin, when a noise of feet moving over the boardsabove, and of a scuffle, followed by loud whimpering, reminded me ofHartnoll. 

"I don't go without my mate, " I answered defiantly enough. 

"And what the '--' have I to do with your mate?" demanded the stout man. "I tell you, " said he, losing his temper and striding to the stairway, asthe sounds of a struggle recommenced overhead, "if your mate don't holdthe noise he's kicking up this instant, bringing trouble on respectablefolks, I'll cut his liver out and fling it arter you into the street. "

He would have threatened more, though he could hardly have threatenedworse, but at this moment a door opened in the back of the room and abullet-head thrust itself forward, followed by a pair of shoulders nakedand magnificently shaped. 

"Time to start, is it?" demanded the apparition. "Or elst what inthunder's the meanin' o' this racket, when I was just a-gettin' of mybeauty sleep?"

The stout man let out a murderous oath, and, rushing back, thrust the doorclose upon the vision; but not before I had caught a glimpse of a woman'sskirt enwrapping it from the waist down. The next moment one of thefemales had caught me up: I was propelled down the passage at a speed andwith a force that made the blood sing in my ears, and shot forth into thedarkness; where, as I picked myself up, half-stunned, I heard thehouse-door slammed behind me. 

I take no credit for what I did next. No doubt I remembered that Hartnollwas still inside; but for aught I know it was mere shame and rage, and thethought of my insulted uniform, that made me rush back at the door andbatter it with fists and feet. I battered until windows went up in thehouses to right and left. Voices from them called to me; still Ibattered: and still I was battering blindly when a rush of footsteps camedown the street and a hand, gripping me by the collar, swung me round intothe blinding ray of a dark lantern. 

"Hands off!" I gasped, half-choked, but fighting to break away. 

"All right, my game-cock!" A man's knuckles pressed themselves firmlyinto the nape of my neck. "Hullo! By gosh, sir, if it ain't amidshipman!"

"A midshipman?" said a voice of command. "Slew him round here. . . . So it is, by George! . . . And a nice time of night! Hold him up, bo'sun--you needn't be choking the lad. Now then, boy, what's your nameand ship?"

"Rodd, sir--of the _Melpomene_--and there's another inside--" I began. 

"The _Melpomene!_"

"Yes, sir: and there's my friend inside, and for all I know they'remurdering him. . . . A lot of men dressed up as women. . . . His name'sHartnoll--" I struggled to make away for another rush at the door, andhad my heel against it, when it gave way and Hartnoll came flying out intothe night. The officer, springing past me, very cleverly thrust in a footbefore it could be closed again. 

"Men dressed as women, you say?"

"It's an old trick, sir, " panted the bo'sun, pushing forward. "I've knowed it played ever since I served on a press. If you'll let theboys draw covert, sir . . . They've had a blank night, an' theirtempers'll be the better for it. "

He planted his shoulder against the door, begging for the signal, and thecrew closed up around the step with a growl. 

"My dirk!" pleaded Hartnoll. "I was getting it away, but one of 'emhalf-broke my arm and I dropped it again in the passage. "

"Hey? Stolen your dirk--have they? That's excuse enough. . . . Right youare, men, and in you go!"

He waved his cocked hat to them as a huntsman lays on his hounds. In wentthe door with a crash, and in two twos I was swept up and across thethreshold and surging with them down the passage. By reason of my inchesI could see nothing of what was happening ahead. I heard a struggle, andin the midst of it a hand went up and smashed the lamp over the stairway, plunging us all in total darkness. But the lieutenant had his lanternready, and by the rays of it the sailors burst open the locked door at theend and flung themselves upon the Amazons before the candles could beextinguished. At the same moment the lieutenant called back an order overmy head to his whippers-in, to find their way around and take the house inthe rear. 

The women, though overmatched, fought like cats--or like bull-dogs rather. They were borne down to the floor, but even here for a while the struggleheaved and swayed this way and that, and I had barely time to snatch upone of the candles before table, bottles, glasses, went over in a generalruin. Above the clatter of it and the cursing, as I turned to stick thecandle upright in a bottle on the dresser, I heard a cheer raised fromsomewhere in the back premises, and two men came rushing from the innerroom--two men in feminine skirts, the one naked to the waist, the otherclad about his chest and neck with a loose flannel shirt and a knottedBelcher handkerchief. 

They paused for just about the time it would take you to count five;paused while they drew themselves up for the charge; and the lieutenant, reading the battle in their faces--and no ordinary battle either--shoutedto close the door. He shouted none too soon. In a flash the pair wereupon us, and at the first blow two sailors went down like skittles. There must have been at least twenty sailors in the room, and all of themwilling, yet in that superb charge the pair drove them like sheep, and thenaked man had even time to drag the dresser from the clamps fastening itto the wall and hurl it down between himself and three seamen running totake him in flank. The candle went down with it: but the lieutenant, skipping back to the closed door, very pluckily held up his lantern andcalled on his men, in the same breath forbidding them to use theircutlasses yet. In the circumstances this was generous, and I verilybelieve he would have been killed for it--the pair being close upon himand their fists going like hammers--had not one of the seamen whipped outa piece of rope and, ducking low, dived under the naked man's guard andlassoed him by the ankles. Two others, who had been stretched on thefloor, simultaneously grabbed his companion by the skirts and wound theirarms about his knees: and so in a trice both heroes were brought toground. Even so they fought on until quieted by two judicious taps withthe hilt of the boatswain's cutlass. I honestly thought he had killedthem, but was assured they were merely stunned for the time. The boatswain, it appeared, was an expert, and had already administeredthe same soothing medicine to two or three of the more violent among theladies; though loath to do so (he explained), because it sometimes gavethe crowd a wrong impression when the bodies in this temporary state ofinanition were carried out. 

The small crowd in the street, however, seemed in no mind to hinder us. Possibly experience had taught them composure. At any rate they wereapathetic, though curious enough to follow us down to the quay and standwatching whilst we embarked our unconscious burdens. A lamp burnedfoggily at the head of the steps by which we descended to the waterside, and looking up I saw the child who had called herself Meliar-Ann standingin the circle of it, and gazing down upon the embarkation with darkunemotional eyes. Hartnoll spied her too, and waved his recovered dirktriumphantly. She paid him no heed at all. 

"But look here, " said the lieutenant, turning on me, "we can't take you onboard to-night--and without your chests. Oh yes--I have your names; Roddand Hartnoll . . . And a deuced lucky thing for you we tumbled upon you aswe did. But Captain Suckling's orders were--and I heard him give 'em, with my own ears--to fetch you off to-morrow morning. From the BluePosts, eh? Well, just you run back, or Blue Billy, "--by this irreverentname, as I learned later, the executive officers of his Majesty's Navy hadagreed to know Mr. Benjamin Sheppard, proprietor of the Blue Posts: asolid man, who died worth sixty thousand pounds--"or Blue Billy will besending round the crier. "

"But, sir, we don't know where to find the Blue Posts!"

He stared at me, turning with his foot on the boat's gunwale. "Why, Godbless the boy! you've only to turn to your left and follow your innocentnose for a hundred and fifty yards, and you'll run your heads against thedoorway. "

We watched the boat as it pushed off. A few of the crowd still lingeredon the quay's edge, and it has since occurred to me to wonder that, asHartnoll and I turned and ascended the steps, no violence was offered tous. We had come out to flaunt our small selves in his Majesty's uniform. Here, if ever, was proof of the respect it commanded; and we failed tonotice it. Meliar-Ann had disappeared. The loungers on the quay-head letus pass unmolested, and, following the lieutenant's directions, sureenough within five minutes we found ourselves under the lamp of the BluePosts!

The night-porter eyed us suspiciously before admitting us. "A man mightsay that you've made a pretty fair beginning, " he ventured; but I hadwarned Hartnoll to keep his chin up, and we passed in with a fine show ofhaughty indifference. 

At eight o'clock next morning Hartnoll and I were eating our breakfastwhen the waiter brought a visitor to our box--a tallish midshipman aboutthree years our senior, with a face of the colour of brickdust and a framethat had outgrown his uniform. 

"Good-morning, gentlemen, " said he; "and I daresay you guess my business. I'm to take you on board as soon as you can have your boxes ready. "

We asked him if he would do us the honour to share our breakfast:whereupon he nodded. 

"To tell you the truth, I was about to suggest it myself. Eh? What havewe? Grilled kidneys? Good. "

I called to the waiter to fetch another dish of kidneys. 

"_And_ a spatchcock, " added our guest. "They're famous, here, forspatchcock. _And_, yes, I think we'll say an anchovy toast. Tea? Well, perhaps, at this time of the morning--with a poker in it. "

This allusion to a poker we did not understand; but fortunately the waiterdid, and brought a glassful of rum, which Mr. Strangways--for so he hadmade himself known to us--tipped into his tea, assuring us that the greatNelson had ever been wont to refer to this--his favourite mixture--as"the pride of the morning. "

"By the way, " he went on, with his mouth full of kidney, "the secondlieutenant tells me you were in luck's way last night. "

To this we modestly agreed, and hoped that the prisoners had arrivedsafely on board. 

He grinned. "You may lay to that. We had to club half a dozen of them assoon as they were lifted aboard. When I say 'we' I ought to add that Iwas in my hammock and never heard a word of it, being a heavy sleeper. _That, _" said Mr. Strangways pensively, "is my one fault. "

We attempted to convey by our silence that Mr. Strangways' single faultwas a trifling, a venial one. 

"It'll hinder my prospects, all the same. " He nodded. "You mark mywords. " He nodded again, and helped himself to a round of buttered toast. "But I'm told, " he went on, "there was an unholy racket. They couldn'tdo much, having the jollies on both pair of paws; but a party inmother-o'-pearl buttons made a speech about the liberty of the subject, ina voice that carried pretty nearly to Gosport: and the first lieutenant, being an old woman, and afraid of the ship's losing reputation while hewas in charge, told them all to be good boys and he would speak to theCaptain when he came aboard; and served them out three fingers of rumapiece, which the bo'sun took upon himself to hocus. By latest accounts, they're sleeping it off and--I say, waiter, you might tell the cook todevil those kidneys. "

"But hasn't Captain Suckling returned yet?" I ventured to ask. 

"He hasn't, " said Mr. Strangways. "The deuce knows where he is, and thefirst lieutenant, not being in the deuce's confidence, is working himselfinto the deuce of a sweat. What's worse, His Excellency hasn't turned upyet, nor His Excellency's suite: though a boat waited for 'em five solidhours yesterday. All that arrived was His Excellency's valet and about ascore of valises, and word that the great man would follow in ashore-boat. Which he hasn't. "

From this light gossip Mr. Strangways turned and addressed himself to thedevilled kidneys, remarking that in his Britannic Majesty's service a manwas hungry as a matter of course; which I afterwards and experimentallyfound to be true. 

Well--not to protract the tale--an hour later we took boat with ourbelongings, under Mr. Strangways' escort, and were pulled on a swift tidedown to the ship. It so happened that the first and second lieutenantswere standing together in converse on the break of the poop when weclimbed on board and were led aft to report ourselves. The secondlieutenant, Mr. Fraser (in whom we recognised our friend of the nightbefore) stepped to the gangway and shook hands with a jolly smile. His superior offered us no such cheerful welcome, but stuck his handsbehind him and scowled. 

"H'm, " said he, "are these your two infants? They look as if they hadbeen making a night of it. "

I could have answered (but did not) that we must be looking pasty-facedindeed if his gills had the advantage of us: for the man was plainlyfretting himself to fiddle-strings with anxiety. He turned his back uponus and called forward for one of the master's mates, to whom he gaveorders to show us our hammocks. We saluted and took leave of him, and onour way below fell in with Strangways again, who haled us off to introduceus to the gun-room. 

Of the gun-room and its horrors you'll have formed--if lads still readtheir Marryat nowadays--your own conception; and I will only say that itprobably bears the same relation to the _Melpomene's_ gun-room as chalk tocheese. The _Melpomene's_ gun-room was low--so low that Strangways seldomentered it but he contused himself--and it was also dark as the inside ofa hat, and undeniably stuffy. 

Yet to me, in my first flush of enthusiasm, it appeared eminently cosy:and the six midshipmen of the _Melpomene_--Walters, de Havilland, Strangways, Pole, Bateman, Countisford--six as good fellows as a man couldwish to sail with. Youth, youth! They had their faults: but they wereall my friends till the yellow fever carried off two at Port Royal;and two are alive yet and my friends to-day. I tell their six names overto-day like a string of beads, and (if the Lord will forgive a goodProtestant) with a prayer for each. 

Our next business was to become acquainted with the two marines who hadcarried our chests below, and who (as we proudly understood) were to beour body-servants. We were on deck again, and luckily out of hearing ofour fellow-midshipmen, when these two menials came up to reportthemselves: and Hartnoll and I had just arrived at an amicable choicebetween them. 

"Here, Bill, " said the foremost, advancing and pointing at me with aforefinger, "which'll it be? If you _don't_ mind, I'll take thered-headed one, to put me in mind o' my gal. "

So on the whole we settled ourselves down very comfortably aboard the_Melpomene_: but the ship was not easy that day as a society, nor couldbe, with her commanding officer pacing to and fro like a bear in a cage. You will have seen the black bear at the Zoo, and noticed the swing of hishead as he turns before ever reaching the end of his cage? Well just so--or very like it--the _Melpomene's_ first lieutenant kept swinging andchafing on the quarter-deck all that afternoon--or, to be precise, untilsix o'clock, when Captain Suckling came aboard in a shore-boat, and in hisshore-going clothes. 

He was a pleasant-faced man; clean-shaven, rosy-complexioned, grey-haired, with something of the air and carriage of a country squire; apleasant-tempered man too, although he appeared to be in a pet of somesort, and fairly fired up when the first lieutenant (a littlesarcastically, I thought) ventured to hope that he had been enjoyinghimself. 

"Nothing of the sort, sir! It's the first--" Captain Suckling checkedhimself. "I was going to say, " he resumed more quietly, "that it's thefirst prize-fight I have ever attended and will be the last. But in pointof fact there has been no fight. "

"Indeed, sir?" I heard the first lieutenant murmur compassionately. 

"The men did not turn up; neither they nor their trainers. The wholemeeting, in fact, was what is vulgarly called a bilk. But where is SirJohn?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"His Excellency--you have made him comfortable?"

"His Excellency, sir, has not turned up. In fact, " said the firstlieutenant prettily, "I fancy that His Excellency, too, must have donewhat is--er--vulgarly termed a bilk. "

Captain Suckling stared from his lieutenant to the shore, and from theshore to the horizon. 

"The boat waited no less than five hours for him yesterday, and in theend brought off his valet with some luggage. He gave us to understandthat Sir John and his Secretary would follow in a shore-boat. This wastwenty-four hours ago, and they have not appeared. "

"Extraordinary!"

"I have to report also, " said the first lieutenant, "that at seveno'clock, in accordance with orders, Mr. Fraser took a party ashore. The press has been active of late, and at first they found the whole townshy: in fact, sir, they met with no success at all until midnight, when, just as they were on the point of returning, they raided a house andbrought off eight able-bodied fellows--as fine a lot, sir, physically, asyou could wish to see. For their seamanship I am unable to answer, havinghad no opportunity to question them. To judge from his report Mr. Fraserhandled the affair well, and brought them off expeditiously; and I amrelieved to tell you that, so far, we have had no trouble from shore--notso much as an inquiry sent. "

"That is luck, indeed, " said Captain Suckling approvingly; "and a comfortto hear at the end of a day when everything has gone wrong. Fetch themup--that is, if they are sufficiently recovered; fetch them up, and whenI've shifted these clothes I'll have a look at them while daylightserves. "

The Captain went below: and five minutes later I saw the first of theprisoners haled up through the hatchway. It was the man in the doubleovercoat; but he had lost his colour, and he no sooner reached the deckthan he lurched and sat down with a thud. Since no one helped him torise, he remained seated, and gazed about him with a drugged and vacuousstare, while the light of the approaching sunset shimmered over hismother-of-pearl buttons. 

The next to emerge was my friend of the splendid torso, handcuffed andfettered. When he, too, lurched and fell, I became aware for the firsttime that the frigate was rocking on a gentle south-westerly swell, and Iturned to the bulwarks for a glance overside at the water which, up to anhour ago, had been smooth as a pond. I had scarcely reached the bulwarkswhen a voice forward sang out that a boat was approaching and hailing us. 

Sure enough, a boat there was: and in the stern-sheets, with a couple ofwatermen pulling, sat two men of whom the portliss was promptly andconfidently proclaimed by the midshipmen gathered around me to be no otherthan His Excellency. 

The boat approached and fell alongside the ladder suspended a few yardsaft of the ship's waist. The first lieutenant, having sent word to theCaptain, hurried forward to receive our distinguished guest, who climbedheavily on his Secretary's arm. Arriving thus at the sally-way, he noddedgraciously in answer to the first lieutenant's salute, pulled out ahandkerchief to mop his brow, and in the act of mopping it cast a glanceacross the deck. 

"Captain Suckling has asked me to present his excuses to yourExcellency--" began the first lieutenant in his best tone of ceremony;and, with that, took a step backward as His Excellency flung out a rigidarm. 

"The Dustman! for a fiver!"

"I--I beg your Excellency's pardon--your Excellency was pleased toobserve--"

"The Dustman, for a hundred pounds! Jem Clark, too! Oh, catch me, Winyates!" and His Excellency staggered back, clutching at a man-rope withone hand, pointing with the other. His gaze wavered from the prisonersamidships to the first lieutenant, and from the first lieutenant to thepoop-ladder, at the head of which Captain Suckling at this instantappeared, hastily buttoning his uniform coat as he came. 

"A thousand pardons, your Excellency!"

"A thousand pounds, sir!"

"Hey?"

"If that's not the very pair of scoundrels I've been hunting the lengthand breadth of Hampshire. Fareham was the venue, Captain Suckling--if Iam addressing Captain Suckling--"

"You are, sir. I--I think you said Fareham--"

"I did, sir. I don't mind confessing to you--here on the point ofdeparting from England--that I admire the noble art, sir: so much so thatI have wasted a whole day in the neighbourhood of Fareham, hunting for aprize-fight which never came off. "

"But--but I don't mind confessing to your Excellency, " gasped CaptainSuckling, "that _I_ too have been at Fareham and have--er--met with thesame disappointment. "

"Disappointment, sir! When you have kidnapped the scoundrels--when youhave them on board at this moment!" Sir John pointing a shakingforefinger again at the pressed men. 

Captain Suckling stared in the direction where the finger pointed. "You don't mean to tell me--" he began weakly, addressing the firstlieutenant. 

"Mr. Fraser brought them aboard, sir, " said the first lieutenant. 

"And we'll have the law of you for it, " promised the man in the pearlbuttons from amidships, but in a weakening voice. 

Captain Suckling was what they call an officer and a gentleman. He drewhimself up at once. 

"In my absence my officers appear to have made a small mistake. But Ihope your Excellency may not be disappointed after all. I have never seteyes on either of these men before, but if that naked man be the Dustman Iwill put up a hundred pounds upon him, here and now; or on the other ifthat runs counter to your Excellency's fancy--"

"Jem Clark's my man, " said Sir John. "I'll match your stake, sir. "

"--And liberty for all if they show a decent fight, and a boat to set themashore, " went on Captain Suckling. "Is that a fair offer, my men?"

The man in the pearl buttons raised his head to answer for the twopugilists, who by this time were totally incapable of answering forthemselves. He showed pluck, too; for his face shone with the colour ofpale marble. 

"A hundred pounds! Oh, go to blazes with your hundred pounds! When Itell you the Prince Regent himself had five hundred on it. . . . Oh! prop'em up, somebody! and let the fools see what they've done to poor Jem, that I'd a-trained to a hair. And the money of half the fancy dependingon his condition. . . . "

"Prop 'em up, some of you!" echoed Captain Suckling. "Eh? God bless mysoul--"

He paused, staring from the yellow faces of the pugilists to the batteredand contused features of his own seamen. 

"God bless my soul!" repeated Captain Suckling. "Mr. Fraser!"

"Sir!" The second lieutenant stepped forward. 

"You mean to tell me that--that these two men--inflicted--er--_all this?_"

"They did, sir. If I might explain the unfortunate mistake--"

"You describe it accurately, sir. I could say to you, as Sir Isaac Newtonsaid to his dog Diamond, 'Oh, Mr. Fraser, Mr. Fraser, you little know whatyou have done!'"

"Indeed, sir, I fear we acted hastily. The fact is we found the two newmidshipmen, Rodd and Hartnoll, in something of a scrape with these people. . . . " The second lieutenant told how he had found me battering at thedoor, and how he had effected an entrance: but the Captain listenedinattentively. 

"Your Excellency, " he said, interrupting the narrative and turning on theGovernor, "I really think these men will give us little sport here. "

"They are going to be extremely ill, " said His Excellency, "and thatpresently. "

"I had better send them ashore. "

"Decidedly; and before they recover. Also, if I might advise, I would notbe too hasty in knocking off their handcuffs. "

"We are short-handed, " mused Captain Suckling; "but really the situationwill be a delicate one unless we weigh anchor at once. "

"You will be the laughing-stock of all the ships inside the Wight, and theobject of some indignation ashore. "

"There is nothing to detain us, for doubtless I can pick up a few recruitsat Falmouth. . . . But what to do with these men?"

"May I suggest that I have not yet dismissed my shore-boat?"

"The very thing!" Captain Suckling gazed overside, and then southwardtowards the Wight, whence a light sea-fog was drifting up again to envelopus. 

"I never thought, " he murmured, "to be thankful for thick weather to weighanchor in!"

He turned and stared pensively at the line of prisoners who had staggeredone by one to the bulwarks, and leaned there limply, their resentment lostfor the time in the convulsions of nature. 

"It seems like taking advantage of their weakness, " said he pensively. 

"It does, " agreed His Excellency; "but I strongly advise it. "

A moment, and a moment only, Captain Suckling hesitated before giving theorder. . . . Then in miserable procession the strong men were led past usto the ladder, each supported by two seamen. The gangway was crowded, andmy inches did not allow me to look over the bulwarks: but I heard theboatswain knocking off their irons in the boat below, and the objurgatingvoice of the man in the pearl buttons. 

"Give way!" shouted someone. I edged towards the gangway and stooped; andthen, peering between the legs of my superior officers, I saw the boatglide away from the frigate's side. Our friends lay piled on thebottom-boards and under the thwarts like a catch of fish. One or twolifted clenched fists: and the boatmen, eyeing them nervously, fell totheir oars for dear life. 

As the fog swallowed them, someone took me by the ear. 

"Hullo, young gentlemen, " said His Excellency, pinching me and reachingout a hand for Hartnoll, who evaded him, "it seems to me you deserve athrashing apiece for yesterday and a guinea apiece for to-day. Will youtake both, or shall we call it quits?"

Well, we called it quits for the time. But twenty years later, happeningupon me at Buckingham Palace at one of King William's last levees, heshook hands and informed me that the balance sheet at the time had beenwrongly struck: for I had provided him with a story which had served himfaithfully through half his distinguished career. A week later a drayrumbled up to the door of my lodgings in Jermyn Street, and two stout mendelivered from it a hogshead of the sherry you are now drinking. He had inquired for Hartnoll's address, but Hartnoll, poor lad, had lainfor fifteen years in the British burial-ground at Port Royal. 

THE BLACK JOKE. 

A REPORTED TALE OF TWO SMUGGLERS. 

I. 

My mother's grandfather, Dan'l Leggo, was the piousest man that ever wentsmuggling, and one of the peaceablest, and scrupulous to an extent youwouldn't believe. He learnt his business among the Cove boys atPorthleah--or Prussia Cove as it came to be called, after John Carter, thehead of the gang, that was nicknamed the King o' Prussia. Dan'l was JohnCarter's own sister's son, trained under his eye; and when the Cartersretired he took over the business in partnership with young Phoby Geen, a nephew by marriage to Bessie Bussow that still kept the Kiddlywink atPorthleah, and had laid by a stockingful of money. 

These two, Dan'l Leggo and Phoby Geen (which was short for Deiphobus), lived together and worked the business for five years in boundlessharmony; until, as such things happen, they both fell in love with onemaid, which brought out the differences in their natures to a surprisingdegree, converting Dan'l into an Early Christian for all to behold, whilePhoby turned to envy and spite, and to a disgraceful meanness of spirit. The reason of this to some extent was that the girl--Amelia Sanders byname--couldn't abide him because of the colour of his hair and his splayfeet: yet I believe she would have married him (her father being aboat-builder in a small way at Porthleven, and beholden to the Cove formost of his custom) if Dan'l hadn't come along first and cast eyes on her;whereby she clave to Dan'l and liked him better and better as time broughtout the beautiful little odds-and-ends of his character; and when Phobymade up, she took and told him, in all the boldness of affection, to makehimself scarce, for she wouldn't have him--no, not if he was the last manin the world and she the last woman. I daresay she overstated the case, as women will. But what appeared marvellous to all observers was that thegirl had no particular good looks that wouldn't have passed anywhere in acrowd, and yet these two had singled her out for their addresses. 

Dan'l (that had been the first in the field) pointed this out to hispartner in a very reasonable spirit; but somehow it didn't take effect. "If she's as plain-featured as you allow, " said Phoby, "why the dickenscan't _you_ stand aside?"

"Because of her affectionate natur', " answered Dan'l, "and likewise forher religious disposition, for the latter o' which you've got no more usethan a toad for side-pockets. "

"We'll see about that, " grumbled Phoby; and Dan'l, taking it for a threat, lost no time in putting up the banns. 

Apart from this he went on his way peaceably never doubting at all that, when the knot was tied, Phoby would let be bygones and pick up withanother maid; whereby he made the mistake of judging other folks'dispositions by his own. The smuggling, too, was going on morecomfortably than ever it had in John Carter's time, by reason that a newCollector had come to Penzance--a Mr. Pennefather, a nice little, pleasant-spoken, round-bellied man that asked no better than to live andlet live. Fifteen years this Pennefather held the collectorship, withfive-and-twenty men under him, besides a call on the military whenever hewanted 'em; and in all that time he never made an enemy. Every night ofhis life he stepped over from his lodgings in Market Jew Street for a gameof cards with old Dr. Chegwidden, who lived whereabouts they've built theEsplanade since then, on the Newlyn side of Morrab Gardens; and aftertheir cards--at which one would lose and t'other win half a crown, maybe--the doctor would out with a decanter of pineapple rum, and the pair woulddrink together and have a crack upon Natural History, which was a hobbywith both. Being both unmarried, they had no one to call bedtime; but theCollector was always back at his lodgings before the stroke of twelve. 

With such a Collector, as you may suppose, the free trade in Mount's Bayfound itself in easy circumstances; and the Covers (as they were called)took care in return to give Mr. Pennefather very little trouble. In particular, Dan'l had invented a contrivance which saved no end ofworry and suspicion, and was worked in this way:--Of their two principalboats Dan'l as a rule commanded the _Black Joke_, a Porthleven-builtlugger of about forty tons, as we measure nowadays (but upon the old planshe would work out nearer a hundred and forty); and Phoby a St. Ivesketch, the _Nonesuch_, of about the same size. But which was the _BlackJoke_ and which the _Nonesuch_ you never could be sure, for the luggercarried fids, topmast, crosstrees, and a spare suit of sails to turn herinto a ketch at twenty minutes' notice; and likewise the ketch could shiptopmast, shift her rigging, and hoist a spare suit of lug-sails in nolonger time. The pair of them, too, had false quarter-pieces to ship andunship for disguise, and each was provided with movable boards paintedwith the other's name, to cover up her own. The tale went that once whenthe pair happened to be lying together in New Grimsby Sound in theScillies, during an eclipse of the sun, Dan'l and Phoby took it into theirheads to change rigs in the darkness, just for fun; and that the RevenueOfficer, that had gone over to the island of Bryher to get a better viewof the eclipse, happening to lower his telescope on the vessels as thelight began to grow again, took fright, waded across to Tresco for hislife (the tide being low), and implored the Lord Proprietor's agent tolock him up; "for, " said he, "either the world or my head has turned roundin the last twenty minutes, and whichever 'tis, I want to be put in a coolplace out of temptation. " But the usual plan was, of course, for the twoto change rigs at night-time when on a trip, and by agreement, and for theone to slock off suspicion while the other ran the cargo. Yes, yes; Dan'lLeggo and Phoby Geen were both very ingenious young men, though bydisposition so different: and when John Carter in his retirement heard ofthe trick, he slapped his leg and said in his large-hearted way that dammyhe couldn't have invented a neater; and at the same time fined himselfsixpence for swearing, which had been his rule when he was Cove-master. I once saw a bill of his made out in form, and this was how it ran:--

 John CARTER in account with ROGER TRISCOTT otherwise CLICKPAW. 

 To I weeks arnins ten shillin

 Item share on 40 ankers at sixpence per anker one pound less two dams at 6d. And a worse word at (say) 1s. But more if it hapn again. Two shillin

 Balance due to R. T. One pound eight or value recd, as per margin. 

But the mildest of men will have their whimsies; and for some reason orother this same trick of the two boats--though designed, as you mightargue, to save him trouble--made Pennefather as mad as a sheep. He couldn't hear tell of the _Black Joke_ or the _Nonesuch_ but the bloodrushed into his head. He swore to old Dr. Chegwidden that the Covers, bymaking him an object of derision, were breaking all bounds of neighbourlyunderstanding: and at last one day, getting information that Dan'l Leggowas at Roscoff and loading-up to run a cargo into St. Austell Bay on theeast side of the Blackhead, he so far let his temper get the better of himas to sit down and warn the Collector at Fowey, telling him the when andhow of the randivoo, and bidding him look out as per description for thatnotorious lugger the _Black Joke_. 

The letter was scarcely sent before the good soul began to repent. He hadan honest liking for Dan'l Leggo, and would be sorry (even in the way ofduty) to see him in Bodmin Gaol. He believed in Mount's Bay keeping itstroubles to itself; and in short, knowing the Collector at Fowey to be apushing fellow, he had passed two days in a proper sweat of remorse, whento his great relief he ran up against Phoby Geen, that was walking thepavement with a scowl on his face and both hands deep in his trousers, he having been told that very morning by Amelia Sanders, and for thetwentieth time of asking, that sooner than marry him she would breakstones on the road. 

'Tis a good job, I reckon, that folks in a street can't read one another'sinside. Old Pennefather pulled up in a twitter, tapping his stick on thepavement. What he wanted to say was, "Your partner, Dan'l Leggo, has acargo for St. Austell Bay. He'll get into trouble there, and I'mresponsible for it; but I want you to warn him before 'tis too late. "What he did was to put on a frown, and, said he, "Looky here, Mr. Geen, I've been wanting to see you or Leggo for some days, to give you fairnotice. I happen to have lost sight of the _Nonesuch_ for some days;though I conclude, from meeting you, that she's back at Porthleah at hermoorings. But I know the movements of the _Black Joke_, and I've the bestreason to warn you that she had best give up her latest game, or she mustlook out for squalls. "

Well, this was a plain hint, and in an ordinary way Phoby Geen would havetaken it. But the devil stirred him up to remember the insult he'dreceived from Amelia Sanders that very day; and by and by, as he walkedhome to Porthleah, there came into his mind a far wickeder thought. Partners though he and Dan'l were, each owned the boat he commanded, or all but a few shares in her. The shares in the _Black Joke_ stood inDan'l's name, and if anything went wrong with her the main loss would beDan'l's. All the way home he kept thinking what a faithful partner he'dbeen to Dan'l in the past, and this was Dan'l's gratitude, to cut him outwith Amelia Sanders and egg the girl on to laugh at the colour of hishair. She would laugh to another tune if he chose to hold his tongue onMr. Pennefather's warning, and let Dan'l run his head into the trap. TheFowey Collector was a smart man, capable of using his information. (Phoby, who could see a hole through a ladder as quick as most men, guessed at once that Pennefather had laid the trap, and then repented andspoken to him in hope to undo the mischief. ) Like as not, St. Austell Baywould be patrolled by half a dozen man-of-war's boats in addition to thewater-guard: and this meant Dan'l's losing the lugger, losing his lifetoo, maybe, or at the least being made prisoner. Well, and why not?Wasn't one man master enough for Porthleah Cove? And hadn't Dan'l and thegirl deserved it?

I believe the miserable creature wrestled against his temptation: and Ibelieve that when he weighed next morning and hoisted sail in the_Nonesuch_ for Guernsey, where the _Black Joke_ was to meet him in caseof accident, he had two minds to play fair after all. 'Twas toldafterwards that, pretty well all the way, he locked himself inhis cabin, and for hours the crew heard him groaning there. But it seemsthat Satan was too strong for him; for instead of bearing straight up forGuernsey, where he well knew the _Black Joke_ would be waiting, he stoodover towards the French coast, and there dodged forth and back, underpretence of picking her up as she came out of Roscoff. His crew took itfor granted he was following out the plan agreed upon. All they did wasto obey orders, and of course they knew naught of Mr. Pennefather'swarning. 

To be short, Dan'l Leggo, after waiting the best part of two days at St. Peter's Port and getting no news to the contrary, judged that the coastmust be clear, and stood across with a light sou'-westerly breeze, timingit so as to make his landfall a little before sunset: which he did, andspeaking the crew of a Mevagissey boat some miles off the Deadman, wastold he might take the lugger in and bring her up to anchor without fearof interruption. (But whether or no they had been bribed to give thisinformation he never discovered. ) They told him, too, that his clients--aSt. Austell company--had the boats ready at Rope Hauen under theBlackhead, and would be out as soon as ever he dropped anchor. So he crept in under darkness and brought up under the loom of the shore--having shifted his large lug for a trysail and leaving that set, with hisjib and mizzen--and gave orders at once to cast off the hatches. While this was doing, sure enough he heard the boats putting off from thebeach a cable's length away, and was just congratulating himself on havingto deal with such business-like people, when his mate, Billy Tregaskis, caught hold of him by the elbow. 

"Hark to them oars, sir!" he whispered. 

"I hear 'em, " said Dan'l. 

"You never heard that stroke pulled by fishermen, " said Billy, strainingto look into the darkness. "They're man-o'-war's boats, sir, or you maycall me a Dutchman!"

"Cut the cable!" ordered Dan'l, sharp and prompt. 

Billy whipped out his knife, ran forward, and cut loose in a jiffy; butbefore the _Black Joke_ could gather headway the two boats had run upclose under her stern. The bow-man of the first sheared through themizzen-sheet with his cutlass, and boarding over the stern with three orfour others, made a rush upon Dan'l as he let go the helm and turned toface them; while the second boat's crew opened with a dozen musket-shots, firing high at the sails and rigging. In this they succeeded: for thesecond or third shot cut through the trysail tack and brought the saildown with a run; and almost at the same moment the boarders overpoweredDan'l and bore him down on deck, where they beat him silly with the flatof their cutlasses and so passed on to drive the rest of the lugger'screw, that were running below in a panic. 

The struggle had carried Dan'l forward, so that when he dropped 'twasacross the fallen trysail. This served him an ill turn: for one of thecutlasses, catching in a fold of it, turned aslant and cut him cruellyover the bridge of the nose. But the sail being tanned, and thereforealmost black in the darkness, it served him a good turn too; for after hisenemies had passed on and were busy making prisoners of the rest of thecrew, he lay there unperceived for a great while, listening to the racket, but faint and stunned, so that he could make neither head nor tail of it. At length a couple of men came aft and began handling the sail; and"Hullo!" says one of them, discovering him, "here's one as dead as ahaddock!"

"Put him below, " says the other. 

"What's the use?" asks the other, pulling Dan'l out by the legs andexamining him; "the poor devil's head is all jelly. " Just then a cry wasraised that one of the boats had gone adrift, the boarders havingforgotten to make her fast in their hurry, and someone called out an orderto man the other and pull in search of her. The two fellows that had beenhandling Dan'l dropped him and ran aft, and Dan'l--all sick and giddy ashe was--crawled into the scuppers and, pulling himself up till his eyeswere level with the bulwarks, tried to measure the distance between himand shore. Now the lugger (you'll remember) was adrift when the Navymenfirst boarded her, through Billy Tregaskis having cut the cable; and withthe set of the tide she must been carried close in-shore during thescrimmage before they brought her up: for, to Dan'l's amazement, she layhead-to-beach, and so close you could toss a biscuit ashore. There theshingle spread, a-glimmering under his nose, as you might say; and he putup a thanksgiving when he remembered that a minute ago his only hope hadbeen to swim ashore--a thing impossible in his weak state; but now, if hecould only drop overside without being observed, he verily believed hecould wade for it--that is, after the first few yards--for the_Black Joke_ drew from five to six feet of water, and since she lay afloat'twas certain the water right under him must be beyond his depth. Having made up his mind to the risk--for anything was better than Bodminprison--he heaved a leg across the bulwarks, and so very cautious-likerolled over and dropped. His toes--for he went down pretty plump--touchedbottom for a moment: but when he came to strike out he found he'dover-calculated his strength, and gave himself up for lost. He swallowedsome water, too, and was on the point of crying out to be taken aboardagain and not left to drown, when the set of the tide swept him forward, so that he fetched up with his breast against a shore-line that someonehad carried out from the bows: and hauling on this he dragged himselfalong till the water reached no higher than his knees. Twice he tried torun, and twice he fell through weakness, but he came ashore at last at aplace where the beach ended in a low ridge of rock covered with ore-weed. Between the rocks ran stretches of whity-grey shingle, and he lay stillfor a while and panted, considering how on earth he could cross thesewithout being spied by the Navymen, that had recovered their boat by thistime and were pulling back with her to the lugger. While he lay thereflat on his stomach, thinking as hard as his bruised head would let him, a voice spoke out of the darkness close by his ear, and said the voice, "You belong aboard the lugger, if I'm not mistook?"--which so terrifiedDan'l that he made no answer, but lifted himself and stared, with all histeeth chattering. "You stay still where you are, " the voice went on, "till the coast is a bit clearer, as 'twill be in a minute or two. There's a two-three friends up the beach, that were hired for thisbusiness; but the Preventive men have bested us this time. Hows'ever, you've had luck to get ashore--'tis better be lucky than rich, they say. Hutted, are 'ee?" The boats being gone by this time, the man that ownedthe voice stepped out of the darkness, lifted him--big-boned man though hewas--and hefted him over the rocks. A little higher up the foreshore hewas joined by two others, and the three between 'em took hold of Dan'l andhelped him up the cliff and through a furze-drake till they brought him toa cottage, where, in a kitchen full of people, he found half a dozen ofthe Cove-boys that had dropped overboard at the first alarm and swam forshore--the lot gathered about a young doctor from St. Austell that wasbinding up a man whose shoulder had been ripped open by a musket-ball. 

Poor Dan'l's injury being more serious, and his face a clot of blood fromthe cutlass-wound over his nose, the doctor turned to him at once andplastered him up for dear life; after which his friends, well knowing thata price would be set on him as skipper of the _Black Joke_, carried himoff to St. Austell in a cart that had been brought for the tubs; and atSt. Austell hired a chaise to carry him home to Marazion, taking theprecaution to wrap his head round with bandages, so that the post-boysmight not be able to swear to his looks. A Cover called Tummels drovewith him, bandaged also; and stopping the chaise a mile outside Marazion, lifted Dan'l out, managed to hire a cart from a farm handy-by the road, and so brought him, more dead than alive, home to Porthleah. 

But though more dead than alive, Dan'l had not lost his wits. Except forthe faithful Tummels and Bessie Bussow at the Kiddlywink, the Cove was alldeserted--the _Nonesuch_ and her crew being yet on the high seas. The very next day he sent Tummels over to Porthleven to tell AmeliaSanders of his mishap, and that he was going into hiding for a time, but would send her word of his movements; and on Tummels' return the pairsat down and cast about where the hiding had best be, Dan'l being greatlyuplifted by Tummels' report that the girl had showed herself as plucky asginger, in spite of the loss of the lugger, declaring that, come whatmight, she would rather have Dan'l with all his Christian virtues than afellow like Phoby Geen with all his riches and splay feet. Moreover--andsuch is the wondrous insight of woman--she maintained that Phoby Geen mustbe at the bottom of the whole mischief. 

Dan'l didn't pay much heed to this, but set it down to woman's prejudice. After talking the matter well out, he and Tummels decided on a very prettyhiding-place and a fairly comfortable one. This was a tenantless house onthe coast near St. Ives. A Bristol merchant had built it, meaning toretire there as soon as he'd made his fortune: but either the cost hadoutrun his plans or the fortune didn't come quite so soon as he expected. At any rate, neither he nor his family had ever taken up abode there. A fine house it was, too, and went in the neighbourhood by the name ofStack's Folly. It stood in the middle of a small farm of about a hundredand fifty acres, besides moor and waste; and, as luck would have it, abrother-in-law of Tummels, by name William Sleep, rented the farm and keptthe keys of the house, being supposed to look after it in the family'sabsence. 

Across to Stack's Folly, then, Dan'l was driven in a cart, under a greatpile of ore-weed; and William Sleep not only gave over the keys and helpedto rig up a bed of straw for him--for the house hadn't a stick offurniture--but undertook to keep watch against surprise and get a supplyof food carried up to him daily from the farmhouse, which stood in thevalley below, three-quarters of a mile away. So far so good: yet now anew trouble arose owing to Dan'l's wounds showing signs of inflammationand threatening to set up wildfire. Tummels and Sleep put their headstogether, and determined that a doctor must be fetched. 

Now Dr. Chegwidden, who was getting up in years, had engaged an assistantto take over the St. Ives part of his practice; a young fellow calledMartyn, a little on the right side of thirty, clever in his profession, and very well spoken of by all. (Indeed, Dr. Chegwidden, that had taken afancy to him first-along for his knowledge of Natural History, in due timepromoted him to be partner, so that when the old man died, five or sixyears later, Dr. Martyn stepped into the whole practice. ) William Sleep atfirst was for fetching this young doctor boldly; but Tummels argued thathe was a new-comer from the east part of the Duchy, if not from acrossTamar, and they didn't know enough of him to warrant the risk. So in theend, after many _pros_ and _cons_, they decided to trust themselves firstto Dr. Chegwidden. 

That same night, as the old doctor, after his game of cards with Mr. Pennefather, sat finishing his second glass of rum and thinking of bed, there came a ring at the night-bell, which of all sounds on earth was theone he most abominated. He went to the front door and opened it in apretty bad temper, when in walked Tummels and William Sleep together andtold their business. "A man--no need to give names--was lying hurt and indanger--no matter where. They had a horse and trap waiting, a littleabove Chyandour, and, if the doctor would come and ask no questions, thesame horse and trap should bring him home before morning. "

The old doctor asked no questions at all, but fetched his greatcoat, tobacco-pouch, tinder-box, and case of instruments, and walked with themto the hill over Chyandour, where he found the trap waiting, with a boy atthe horse's head. Tummels dismissed the boy, and in they all climbed; butbefore they had driven half a mile the doctor was asked very politely ifhe'd object to have his eyes blindfolded. 

He chuckled for a moment. "Of course I object, " said he; "for--you maybelieve it or not--if a man can't _see_ that his pipe's alight he loseshalf the enjoyment of it. But two is stronger than one, " said he; "and ifyou insist I shall submit. " So they blindfolded him. 

In this way they brought him to Stack's Folly, helped him down from thecart, and led him into the bare room where Dan'l lay in the straw; andthere by lantern-light the old man did his job very composedly. 

"You're not altogether a pair of fools, " said he, speaking for the firsttime as he tied the last bandage. "If you hadn't fetched someone, thisman would have been dead in three days from now. But you're fools enoughif you think I'm going to take this jaunt every night for a week andmore--as someone must, if Dan'l's to recover; and you're bigger fools ifyou imagine I don't know the inside of Stack's Folly. My advice is thatin future you save yourselves trouble and call up my assistant from St. Ives; and further, that you don't try his temper with any sillyblindfolding, but trust him for the gentleman and good sportsman I knowhim to be. If 'tis any help to you, he'll be stepping over to Penzanceto-day on business, and I'll take the opportunity to drop him a hint ofwarning. "

They thanked him, of course. "And sorry we are, doctor, " said Tummels, "to have put you to this inconvenience. But there's no friend like an oldfriend. "

"Talking of friends, " answered Dr. Chegwidden, "I think it well to set youon your guard. " He pulled out a handbill from his pocket. "I had thisfrom Mr. Pennefather to-night, " said he; "and by to-morrow it will beposted all over the country: an offer for the apprehension of DanielLeggo; the reward, two hundred and fifty pounds. "

"Two hundred and fifty pounds!" Weak as he was, Dan'l sat upright in thestraw, and the other two stared at the doctor with their jaws dropping--which Dan'l's jaw couldn't, by reason of the bandages. 

"And you ask us to trust this young furriner, with two hundred and fiftypounds for his hand to close on!" groaned Tummels. 

"I do, " said the doctor. "The man I would warn you against is a man you'dbe ten times apter to trust; and that is your partner, Deiphobus Geen. I understand he's away from home just now; but--reward or no reward--whenhe returns I advise you to watch that fellow closer than any of thePreventive men: for to my certain knowledge he had ample warning of whatwas to happen, and I leave you to judge if 'twas by accident he let hisfriend Dan'l, here, run into the trap. "

Tummels made a motion to draw out a musket from under the straw whereDan'l lay. "If I thought that, " he growled, "I'd walk straight over toPorthleah, wait for him, and blow his scheming brains out. "

"You'd be a bigger fool, then, than I take ye for, " answered the doctorquietly, "and I know you've but wits enough for one thing at a time. Your business now is to keep Dan'l hidden till you can smuggle him out ofthe country: and if Dr. Martyn or I can help, you may count on us, for Ihate such foul play as Deiphobus Geen's, and so, I believe, does myassistant. "

With that the doctor took his leave of Dan'l and was driven home byTummels, William Sleep remaining to stand guard: and next day, accordingto promise, Dr. Martyn was told the secret and trusted with the case. 

II. 

Sure enough, Dr. Martyn turned out to be most clever and considerate;a man that Dan'l took to and trusted from the first. His one fault wasthat when Dan'l began to converse with him on religious matters, he showedhimself a terrible free-thinker. The man was not content to be a doctor:night after night he'd sit up and tend Dan'l like a nurse, and would talkby the hour together when the patient lay wakeful. But his opinions wereenough to cut a religious man to the heart. 

Dan'l had plenty of time to think over them, too. From daybreak (when theyoung doctor took his leave), till between ten and eleven at night (whenhe came again) was a terrible lonely while for a man shut in an emptyhouse and unable to move for pain. As the days wore on and his woundbettered, he'd creep to the door and sit watching the fields and the shipsout at sea and William Sleep moving about the slope below. Sometimes hewould spend an hour in thinking out plans for his escape; but his moneyhad gone with the lugger, and without money no plan seemed workable. Sometimes he'd think upon the girl Amelia Sanders. But that was cruellerpain; for if he could not even escape, how on earth was he to get married?So he fell back on thoughts of religion and in making up answers to thedoctor's terrible arguments; and these he would muster up at night, tackling the young man finely, till the two were at it like a pair ofwrestlers. But when Dan'l began to grow flushed and excited, andstammered in his speech, the talk would be turned off somehow tosmuggling, or sport, or natural history--in all of which the doctor had ahundred questions to ask. I believe these discussions worked the curefaster than any ointments or lotions: but Dan'l used to say afterwardsthat the long days came nigh to driving him mad; and mad they would havedriven him but for a small bird--a wheatear--that perched itself every dayon the wall of the court and chittered to him by the hour together like anangel. 

Tummels, all this while, kept quiet at Porthleah, like a wise man, and satwatching Phoby Geen like a cat before a mousehole. Phoby had turned up atthe Cove in the _Nonesuch_ on the fourth day after the lugger was lost, and at once began crying out, as innocent as you please, upon the messthat Dan'l had made through his wrongheadedness. Also the crew of the_Nonesuch_ couldn't make out where the plan had broken down. But Tummels, piecing their information with what Dr. Chegwidden had told him, sawclearly enough what trick had been played. Also by pumping old BessieBussow (who had already been pumped by Phoby) he learned that Phoby knewof Dan'l's return to the Cove and disappearance into hiding. Tummels scratched his head. "The fellow knows that Dan'l is alive, " hereasoned. "He knows, too, there's a price on his head. Moreover he knowsmy share in hiding the man away. Then why, if he's playing honest evennow, doesn't he speak to me? . . . But no: he's watching to catch me offmy guard, in the hope that I'll give him the clue to Dan'l's hiding. "Thus Tummels reasoned, and, though it went hard with him to get no news, he decided that 'twas safer to trust in no news being good news than, by making the smallest move, to put Phoby Geen on the track. In this hedid wisely; but he'd have done wiser by not breathing a word to AmeliaSanders of where he'd stowed her sweetheart. For what must the lovesickwoman do--after a week's waiting and no news--but pack a basket and setout for St. Ives, under the pretence of starting for Penzance market?She carried out the deception very neatly, too; actually went intoPenzance and sold two couple of fowls, besides eggs of her own raising;and then, having spent the money in a few odds-and-ends her sweetheartwould relish, slipped out of the town and struck away north. 

What mischief would have followed but for a slant of luck, there's noknowing: for Master Phoby had caught sight of her on the Helston Road(where he kept a watch), pushed after her hot-foot, worked her through themarket like a stoat after a rabbit, and more than half-way to St. Ives(laughing up his sleeve), when his little design went pop! and all throughthe untying of a shoe-lace!

On the road after you pass Halsetown there's a sharp turn; and, a littleway farther, another sharp turn. For no reason that ever she discovered, 'twas just as she passed the first of these that her shoe-string cameuntied, and she sat down by the hedge to tie it; and here in tying it shebroke the lace, and, while mending it, looked up into Phoby Geen's face--that had come round the corner like the sneak he was and pulled up asfoolish as a sheep. 

In my experience a woman may be a fool, but 'tis within limits. Amelia Sanders, looking Phoby Geen in the face, went on tying her shoe;and, while she looked, she saw not only how terrible rash she had been, but also--without a guess at the particulars--that this man had been atthe bottom of the whole mischief and meant to be at the bottom of more. So, said she, very innocent-like--

"Aw, good-afternoon, Mr. Geen!"

"Good-afternoon!" responded Phoby. "Who'd ever ha' thought to meet youhere, Miss Sanders?"

"'Tis a tiring way from Porthleah to St. Ives, Mr. Geen. "

"Or from Porthleven, for that matter, Miss Sanders. "

"Especially when you walk it on tippy-toe, which must be extra-wearisometo a body on feet shaped like yours, Mr. Geen. "

Phoby saw that he was fairly caught. "Look here, " said he roughly, "you're bound on a randivoo with Dan'l Leggo, and you can't deny it. "

"I don't intend to, " she answered. "And you be bound on much the sameerrand, though you'd deny it if your face could back up your tongue. "

"Dan'l Leggo has a-been my partner in business for five years, Miss Sanders. Isn't it nat'ral enough I should want to visit and consulthim?"

"Nothing more natural, " answered the girl cheerfully. "I was justwonderin' where they'd hidden him: but since you know, my trouble's at anend. You can show me the way. Which is it, Mr. Geen--north, south, east, or west?"

Phoby understood that she was laughing at him. "Don't you think, MissSanders, " he suggested, "that 'twas pretty rash of you to give folks aclue as you've a-done to-day, and everybody knowing that you've been askedin church with Dan'l?"

"I do, " said she. "I've behaved foolish, Mr. Geen, and thank you forreminding me. He won't thank a _second_ partner for putting him in atrap, " she went on, speaking at a venture; but her words caught Phoby Geenlike a whip across the face, and, seeing him blanch, she dropped acurtsey. "I'll be going home, Mr. Geen, " she announced. "I might ha'walked farther without finding out so much as you've told me; and you maywalk twenty miles farther without finding out half so much. "

He glowered at her and let out a curse; but the girl was his match, thoughtimmersome enough in an ordinary way. 

"Iss, iss, " she said scornful-like; "I know the kind of coward you are, Mr. Phoby Geen. But I bless this here corner of the road twice over;first because it has given me a look into your sneaking heart, and nextbecause 'tis within earshot of Halsetown, where I've a brace of tallcousins living that would beat you to a jelly if you dared lift a handagainst me. I'm turning back to ask one of them to see me home; and he'llnot deny me, as he'll not be backward to pound every bone in yourill-shapen body if he hears what I've to tell. "

Phoby Geen glowered at her for half a minute longer, and then snapped hisfingers. 

"As it happens, " said he, "you're doing me a cruel injustice; but weneedn't talk of that. A man o' my savings--though you've sneezed at 'em--doesn't want to be searching the country for two-hundred-and-fiftypound. "

He swung on his heel and walked off towards St. Ives. Amelia Sanderswatched him round the next bend, and turning, began to run homewards fordear life, when, just at the corner, she fell into the arms of Tummels. 

"A nice dance you've led me, " grunted Tummels, as she fought down herhysterics. "I've been pulling hot-foot after the man all the way fromPenzance. I tracked him there; but you and he between you gave me theslip in the crowd. 'Tis the Lord's mercy you didn' lead him all the wayto Stack's Folly: for if I'd a-caught up with him there I must havecommitted murder upon him. "

"Oh, take me home!" sobbed Amelia Sanders. 

"Take you home? How the dickens be I to take you home?" Tummels demanded. "I've got to follow that villain into St. Ives if he goes so far, andstick to him like a shadow. "

So Amelia Sanders trudged it back to Porthleven, calling herself everyname but what she was christened: and Phoby Geen trudged it fore to St. Ives, cursing his luck, but working out a problem in his wicked littlemind. At the top of the hill over the town he stood quiet for a minuteand snapped his fingers again. Since 'twas near St. Ives that Dan'l layin hiding, what could the hiding-place be but Stack's Folly! Tummels hadhidden him: Tummels' brother-in-law rented the farm of Stack's Folly andkept the keys of the house. Why, the thing fitted in like a child'spuzzle! Why hadn't he thought of it before?

None the less he did not turn aside towards the great desolate barrack, though he eyed it as he went down the slope between it and the sea. He had not yet begun to think out a plan of action. He wanted Dan'ldisposed of without showing his hand in the business. As it was, the girl(and he cursed her) had guessed him to blame for the loss of the lugger. Was it more than a guess of hers? He couldn't say. He had told her atparting that he was walking to St. Ives on business. On a sudden thoughthe halted in the main street and turned to walk up towards Tregenna, thegreat house overlooking the town. Its owner, Squire Stephens, was an oldclient of his. 

Squire Stephens was at home, and Phoby Geen sat closeted with him for anhour and more. Nothing was talked of save business, and when the Squirementioned Dan'l Leggo and the price on his head, Phoby waved a handmute-like, as much as to beg off being questioned. 

Twilight was falling as he took the road back to Porthleah; and Tummels, who had been waiting behind a hedge above the town, dogged him homethrough the dusk and through the dark. 

Phoby's call on the Squire had begun and ended with business. The _Nonesuch_ had made another trip to Roscoff, and he had one hundredand fifty pounds' worth of white cognac to dispose of, all sunk--for Mr. Pennefather had put on a sudden activity--off Old Lizard Head. He hadreason to believe that the Preventive men were watching his usual routesinland. Since the accident to Dan'l he had felt, in his cunning way, a new watchfulness in the air. 

The day after his journey to St. Ives, the _Nonesuch_ sailed again forRoscoff. At the last moment he decided not to command her this trip; butturned the business over to his mate, Seth Rogers--a very dependable man, though not clever at all. So away she went, leaving the Cove empty butfor himself only and Bessie Bussow and Tummels, that lived in a freeholdcottage on his savings and didn't draw a regular wage, but only took ahand in a run when he chose. Moreover, Tummels had never sailed for yearspast but in the _Black Joke_, and the _Black Joke_ was taken and her crewin prison or in hiding. 

Phoby would lief enough have seen Tummels' back. For the job he meditatedthe man was not only worse than useless, but might even spy on him andcarry warning. His plan was to get the sunk crop of brandy round to St. Ives, deliver it to Squire Stephens, and, at the same time, under cover ofthe business, make sure of Dan'l's being at Stack's Folly, and treat withhim, under threats, to give up claim upon his sweetheart. To this end, one night while Tummels was sleeping, he unmoored the _Fly_ tender--atwenty-foot open boat carrying two sprit-sails, owned by him and Dan'l incommon, and used for all manner of odd jobs--worked her down to Old LizardHead single-handed, and crept up to the sunk crop of brandy. Back-breaking work it was to heave the kegs on board; but in an hourbefore midnight he had stowed the lot and was steering for St. Ives with astiffish breeze upon his port quarter. The weather couldn't have servedhim better. By daylight the _Fly_ was rounding in for St. Ives Quay, having sunk her crop again off the mouth of a handy cave on the town sideof Treryn Dinas; and Phoby Geen stepped ashore and ordered breakfast atthe George and Dragon before stepping up to talk with Squire Stephens. 

In the meantime, Tummels, waking up at four in the morning, as his customwas, and taking a look out of window, missed the _Fly_ from her moorings, which caused him to scratch his head and think hard for ten minutes. Then he washed and titivated himself and walked down to the Kiddlywink. 

"Hullo, Tummels!" said Bessie Bussow, hearing his footstep on the pebbles, and popping her old head out of window, nightcap and all. "What fetchesyou abroad so early?"

"Dress yourself, that's a dear woman! Dress yourself and come down!"Tummels waited in a sweat of impatience till the old woman opened herfront door. 

"What's the matter with the man?" she asked. "Thee'rt lookin' like athing hurried in mind. "

"I wants the loan of your horse and trap, missus, " said Tummels. 

"Sakes alive, is _that_ all? Why on the wide earth couldn't you ha' gonefore to stable an' fetched 'em, without spoilin' my beauty-sleep?" askedBessie. 

"No, missus. To be honest with 'ee that's not nearly all. "Tummels rubbed the back of his head. "Fact is, I'm off in s'arch of yournephew Phoby Geen, that has taken the _Fly_ round to St. Ives, unless I begreatly mistaken; and what's more, unless I be greatly mistaken, he meansto lay information against Dan'l. "

"If you can prove that to me, " says Bessie, "he's no nephew o' mine, andout he goes from my will as soon as you bring back the trap, and I candrive into Helston an' see Lawyer Walsh. "

"Well, I'm uncommon glad you look at it in that reasonable light, " saysTummels; "for, the man being your own nephew, so to speak, I didn' like toborry your horse an' trap to use against 'en without lettin' 'ee know thewhole truth. "

"I wish, " says Bessie, "you wouldn' keep castin' it in my teeth--or whatdoes dooty for 'em--that the man's my nephew. You'll see how much of anephew he is if you can prove what you charge against 'en. But family isfamily until proved otherwise; and so, Mr. Tummels, you shall harness upthe horse and bring him around, and I'll go with you to St. Ives to get tothe bottom o' this. On the way you shall tell me what you do know. "

She was a well-plucked woman for seventy-five, was Bessie Bussow; and hada head on her shoulders too. While Tummels was harnessing, she fit andboiled a dish o' tea to fortify herself, and after drinking it nipped intothe cart as spry as a two-year-old. Off they drove, and came within sightof Stack's Folly just about the time when Phoby Geen was bringing the_Fly_ into St. Ives harbour. 

They pulled up at the farmhouse under the hill, and out came William Sleepto welcome them. He listened to their errand and stood for a minuteconsidering. 

"There's only one thing to be done, " he announced; "and that is to fetchup Dr. Martyn. We're workin' that young man hard, " said he; "for he onlyleft the patient a couple of hours ago. " He invited Bessie to step insideand make herself at home; and while Tummels stalled the horse, he posteddown in search of the doctor. 

About an hour later the two came walking back together, William Sleep withnews that the _Fly_ was lying alongside St. Ives Quay. He had seennothing of Phoby Geen, and hadn't risked inquiring. The young doctor, though grey in the cheeks and worn with nursing, rang cheerful as a bell. 

"If you'd told me this a month ago, " said he, "I might have pulled a longface about it; but now the man's strong enough to bear moving. You, Mr. Sleep, must lend me a suit of clothes, with that old wideawake of yours. There's not the fellow to it in this parish. After that, all you can doat present is to keep watch here while I get Dan'l down to the sea. You, Mr. Tummels, by hook or crook, must beg, borrow, or steal a boat inSt. Ives, and one that will keep the sea for three or four days at apush. "

"If the fellow comes sneaking round the Folly here, William Sleep and Ican knock him on the head and tie him up. And then what's to prevent mymaking use of the _Fly_ hersel'?"

"That's not a bad notion, though we'll avoid violence if we can. The point is, you must bring along a boat, and as soon after nightfall asmay be. "

"You may count on it, " Tummels promised. "Next question is, where be I totake the poor chap aboard? There's good landing, and quiet too, at CawseOgo, a little this side of Treryn Dinas. " Tummels suggested it because heknew the depths there close in-shore, the spot being a favourite one withthe Cove boys for a straight run of goods. 

"Cawse Ogo be it, " said the doctor. "I know the place, and I think thepatient can walk the distance. Unless I'm mistaken it has a nice handycave, too; though I may think twice about using it. I don't like hidingwith only one bolt-hole. "

"You haven't found any part for me in your little plans, " put in BessieBussow. "Now, I'm thinkin' that when he finds himself on the high seasand wants to speak a foreign-bound ship, this here may come in handy. "She pulled out a bag from her under-pocket and passed it over to Tummels. 

"Gold?" said he. "Gold an' notes? 'Tis you have a head on your shoulders, missus. "

"Thank 'ee, " said she. "There's twenty pound, if you'll count it. An' 'tis only a first instalment; for the lad shall have the rest in time, if I live to alter my will. "

From the farmhouse Dr. Martyn walked boldly up to Stack's Folly with thebundle under his arm: and in twenty minutes had Dan'l rigged up in WilliamSleep's clothes. The day was turning bright and clear, and away over thewaste land towards Zennor you could see for miles. Tis the desolatestland almost in all Cornwall, and by keeping to the furze-brakes and spyingfrom one to the next, he steered his patient down for the coast andbrought him safe to the cliffs over Cawse Ogo. There in a lew place inthe middle of the bracken-fern they seated themselves, and the doctorpulled out his pocket spyglass and searched the coast to left and right. By and by he lowered the glass with a start, seemed to consider for amoment, and looked again. 

"See here, " said he, passing over the spyglass, "if you can keepcomfortable I've a notion that a bathe would do me good. "

Dan'l let him go. Ten minutes later, without help of the glass--his handbeing too shaky to hold it steady--he saw the doctor in the water belowhim, swimming out to sea with a strong breast-stroke. Three hundredyards, maybe, he swam out in a straight line, appeared to float and treadwater for a minute or two, and so made back for shore. In less than halfan hour he was back again at Dan'l's side, and his face changed from itsgrey look to the picture of health. 

"I want you to answer me a question if you can, " said he. "Does yourfriend, Mr. Phoby Geen, wear a peewit's wing-feather in his hat?"

"He does, or did, " answered Dan'l; "in one of his hats, at least. Did youmeet the man down there?"

"No; and I've never set eyes on him in my life, " said the doctor. "I just guessed. " He laughed cheerful-like, enjoying Dan'l's wonder. "But this guess, " he went on, "changes the campaign a little; and I'llhave to ask you to lie here alone for some while longer--maybe an hour andmore. "

He nodded and walked off, cautious at first, but with great strides assoon as he struck into the cliff-path. When he came in sight of the Follyhe spied a man's figure on the slope there among the furze, and the manwas working up towards the Folly on the side of the hill hidden fromWilliam Sleep's farm. 

"Lend me a gun, " panted the doctor, running into the farmhouse. "A gunand a powder-horn, quick! And a lantern and wads, and a spare flint ortwo--never mind the shot-flask--" He told what he had seen. "I'll keep the fellow under my eye now, and all you have to do, Mr. Tummels, is to take out his boat after sunset and bring her down to CawseOgo. "

He caught up the gun and ran out of the cottage, clucking under the hedgesuntil he came round again to the farther side of the hill; and there hesaw Master Phoby Geen come slamming out of the empty Folly and post downthe slope at a swinging pace towards Cawse Ogo. "And a pretty rage he'scarrying with him I'll wager, " said the doctor to himself. "The Lord sendhe doesn't stumble upon Dan'l, or I may have to hurt him, which I don'twant, and lose the fun of this. I wouldn't miss it now for five pounds. "

His heart jumped for joy when, still following, he saw the man turn downtowards the shore by a track a good quarter of a mile to the right of thespot where Dan'l lay. He was satisfied now; and creeping back to Dan'l, he dropped his full length in the bracken and lay and laughed. 

"But what's the gun for?" Dan'l demanded. 

"You've told me often enough about the seals on this bit of coast. Well, to-night, my friend, we're going to have some fun with them. "

"Doctor, doctor, think of the risk! Besides, I ben't strong enough forseal-hunting. "

"There's no risk, " the doctor promised him; "and all the hunting you'll becalled upon to do is to sit still and smile. Have I been a good friend toyou, or have I not?"

"The best friend in the world, " Dan'l answered fervent-like. 

"On the strength of that you'll have to trust me a little longer. I can'tafford you more than a little while longer, for my practice is going tothe dogs already. I've sent word home by Tummels that if anyone inSt. Ives falls sick to-day he'll have to send over to Penzance. "

The greater part of the afternoon Dan'l slept, and the doctor smoked hispipe and kept watch. At six o'clock they finished the loaf that had beenpacked up with William Sleep's clothes, emptied the doctor's flask, and fell to discoursing for the last time upon religion. They talked ofit till the sun went down in their faces, and then, just before darknesscame up over the sea, the doctor rose. 

There was just light enough for them to pick their way down over thecliff, treading softly; and just light enough to show that the beachbeneath them was empty. On the edge of the sand the doctor chose aconvenient rock and called a halt behind it. Peering round, he had themouth of the cave in full view till the darkness hid it. 

"Now's the time!" said he. He took off his coat and lit the lantern underit, muffling the light. "Seals? Come along, man; I promise you the caveis just full of sport!"

He crept for the cave, and Dan'l at his heels, the sand deadening allsound of their footsteps. Close by the cave's mouth he crouched for amoment, felt the hammer of his gun, and, uncovering the lantern with aquick turn of the hand, passed it to Dan'l and marched boldly in. 

The soft sand made a floor for the cave for maybe sixty feet within theentrance. It ended on the edge of a rock-pool a dozen yards across, anddeep enough to reach above a man's knees. As the doctor and Dan'l reachedthe pool they heard a sudden splashing on the far side of it. 

"Hold the lantern high!" sang out the doctor. Dan'l obeyed, and the lightfell full not only on his face, but on the figure of a man that cowereddown before it on the patch of shingle where the cave ended. 

"Seals?" cried the doctor, lifting his gun. "What did I promise you?"

With a scream, the poor creature flung himself on his knees. 

"Don't shoot! Oh, don't shoot!" His voice came across the pool to themin a squeal like a rabbit's. 

"Eh? Hullo!" said the doctor, but without lowering his gun. "Mr. Deiphobus Geen, I believe?"

"Don't shoot! Oh, don't shoot me!"

"Be so good as to step across here, " the doctor commanded. 

"You won't hurt me? Dan'l, make him promise he won't hurt me!"

"Come!" the doctor commanded again, and Phoby Geen came to them throughthe pool with his knees knocking together. "Put out your hands, please. Thank you. Dan'l, search, and you'll find a piece of cord in my pocket. Take it, and tie up his wrists. "

"I never meant you no harm, " whined Phoby; but he submitted. 

"And now, "--the doctor turned to Dan'l--"leave him to me, step outside andbring word as soon as you hear or glimpse a boat in the offing. At what time, Mr. Geen, are the carriers coming for the tubs out yonder?Answer me: and if I find after that you've answered me false, I'll blowyour brains out. "

"Two in the morning, " answered Phoby. 

"And Tummels will be here in an hour, " sighed the doctor, relieved in hismind on the one point he had been forced to leave to chance. "Step along, Dan'l; and don't you strain yourself in your weak state byhandling the tubs: Tummels can manage them single-handed. You see, Mr. Geen, plovers don't shed their feathers hereabouts in the summer months;and a feather floating on a tideway doesn't, as a rule, keep moored to oneplace. I took a swim this morning and cleared up those two points formyself. Step along, Dan'l, my friend; I seemed to hear Tummels outside, lowering sail. "

Twelve hours later, Dan'l, with a pocketful of money, was shipped on thehigh seas aboard a barque bound out of Bristol for Georgia; and there, sixmonths later, Amelia Sanders followed him out and married him. Not foryears did they return to Porthleven and live on Aunt Bussow's money, noman molesting them. The Cove had given up business, and Government letbygones be bygones, behaving very handsome for once. 

WHERE THE TREASURE IS. 

I. 

In Ardevora, a fishing-town on the Cornish coast not far from the Land'sEnd, lived a merchant whom everybody called 'Elder' Penno, or'The Elder'--not because he had any right, or laid any claim, to thattitle. His father and grandfather had worn it as office-bearers in alocal religious sect known as the Advent Saints; and it had survived theextinction of that sect and passed on to William John Penno, an orthodoxWesleyan, as a family sobriquet. 

He was sixty-three years old, a widower, and childless. His fellow-townsmen supposed him to be rich because he had so many ironsin the fire and employed, in one way and another, a great deal of labour. He held a number of shares in coasting vessels, and passed as owner ofhalf a dozen--all of them too heavily in debt to pay dividends. He managed (ostensibly as proprietor, but actually in dependence on thelocal bank) a shipbuilding-yard to which the fishermen came for theirboats. He had an interest in the profit of most of these boats when theywere launched, as also in a salt-store, a coal-store, a company for thecuring of pilchards, and an agency for buying and packing of fish for theLondon market. He kept a retail shop and sold almost everything the townneeded, from guernseys and hardware to tea, bacon, and tallow candles. He advanced money, at varying rates of interest, on anything from a shipto a frying-pan; and by this means had made himself accurately acquaintedwith his neighbours' varying degrees of poverty. But he was not rich, although generally reputed so: for Ardevora's population was not one outof which any man could make his fortune, and of poor folk who borrow orobtain goods on credit quite a large number do not seriously mean to pay--a fact often overlooked, and always by the borrowers themselves. 

Still, and despite an occasional difficulty in keeping so many balls inthe air at one time, Elder Penno was--as a widower, a childless man, andin comparison with his neighbours--well-to-do. Also he filled many smallpublic offices--district councillor, harbour commissioner, member of theSchool Board, and the like. They had come to him--he could not quitetell how. He took pride in them and discharged them conscientiously. He knew that envious tongues accused him of using them to feather hisnest, but he also knew that they accused him falsely. He wasthick-skinned, and they might go to the devil. In person he was stout ofhabit, brusque of bearing, with a healthy, sanguine complexion, a doublechin, shrewd grey eyes, and cropped hair which stood up straight as thebristles on a brush. He lived abstemiously, rose at six, went to bed atnine, and might be found, during most of the intervening hours, hard atwork at his desk in the little office behind his shop. The office had around window, and the window overlooked the quay, the small harbour(dry at low water), and the curve of a sandy bay beyond. 

One morning Elder Penno looked up from his desk and saw, beyond the mastsof the fishing-boats lying aslant as the tide had left them, a smallfigure--a speck, almost--on the sandy beach, about three furlongs away. 

He was engaged at the moment in adding up a column of figures. Having entered the total, he looked up again, laid down his pen, frownedwith annoyance, and picked up an old pair of field-glasses that stoodready to hand on the sill of his desk beside the ink-well. He glanced atthe clock on his chimney-piece before throwing up the window-sash. 

The hour was eleven--five minutes after eleven, to be exact; the monthApril; the day sunny, with a humming northerly wind; the tide drawing farout towards low-ebb, and the air so clear that the small figure standingon the edge of the waves could not be mistaken. 

As he threw up the sash Elder Penno caught sight of Tom Hancock, theschool attendance officer, lounging against a post on the quay below. 

"You're the very man I want, " said the Elder. "Isn't that Tregenza'sgrandchild over yonder?"

"Looks like her, " said the A. O. , withdrawing a short clay pipe from hismouth, and spitting. 

"Then why isn't she at school at this hour?"

"'Tis a hopeless case, if you ask me. " The A. O. Announced this with afine air of resignation. His pay was 2s. 6d. A week, and he never erredon the side of zeal. 

"Better fit you was lookin' up such cases than idlin' here and wastin'baccy. That's if you ask _me_, " retorted the Elder. 

"I've a-talked to the maid, an' I've a-talked to her gran'father, till I'mtired, " said Hancock, and spat again. "She'll be fourteen next May, an'then we can wash our hands of her. "

"A nice look-out it'd be if the eddication of England was left in yourhands, " said the Elder truthfully, if obviously. 

"You can't do nothin' with her. " The A. O. Was used to censure and wastedno resentment on it. "Nothin'. I give 'ee leave to try. "

The Elder stood for a moment watching the small figure across the sands. Then, with a snort of outraged propriety, he closed the window, reacheddown his hat from its peg, marched out of his office--through the shop--and forth upon the sunny quay. A flight of stone stairs led down to thebed of the harbour, now deserted by the tide; and across this, picking hisway among the boats and their moorings, he made for the beach where thesea broke and glittered on the firm sand in long curves of white. 

A tonic northerly breeze was blowing, just strongly enough to lift thebreakers in blue-green hollows against the sunshine and waft a delicatefilm of spray about the figure of the child moving forlornly on the edgeof the foam. She was not playing or running races with the waves, butwalking soberly and anon halting to scan the beach ahead. Her legs werebare to the knee, and she had hitched up her short skirt high about herlike a cockle-gatherer's. In the roar and murmur of the surf she did nothear the Elder approaching, but faced around with a start as he called toher. 

"What are you doing here?" he asked. 

For answer she held up a billet of wood, bleached and frayed with longtossing on the seas, worthless except for firewood, and almost worthlessfor that. The Elder frowned. "Look here, " he said, "you ought to be inschool at this moment instead of minchin[1] idle after a few bits o'stick, no good to anyone. A girl of your age, too! What's your name?"

"Please, sir, Liz, " the child stammered, looking down. 

"You're Sam Tregenza's grandchild, hey?"

"Please, sir. "

"Then do you go home an' tell your grandfather, with my compliments, heought to know better than to allow it. It's robbin' the ratepayers, that's what it is. "

"Yes, sir, " she murmured, glancing down dubiously at the piece of wood inher hand. 

"You don't understand me, " said the Elder. "The ratepayers spend money ona school here that the children of Ardevora mayn't grow up into littledunces. Now, if the children go to school as they ought, the Governmentup in London gives the ratepayers--me, for instance--some of their moneyback: so much money for each child. If a child minches, the money isn'paid. 'Tisn' the wood you pick up--that's neither here nor there--but themoney you're takin' out of folks' pockets. Didn' you know that?"

"No, sir. "

"Your grandfather knows it, anyway--not, " went on the Elder with suddenanger in his voice, "that Sam Tregenza cares what folks he robs!"He pulled himself up, slightly ashamed of this outburst. The child, however, did not appear to resent it, but stood thoughtful, as if workingout the logic of his argument. 

"It's the money, " he insisted. "As for the wood, why you might come to myyard and steal as much as you can carry, an' 'twouldn' amount to what yourob by playin' truant like this; no, nor half of it. That's one thing foryou to consider; and here's another: There's a truant-school, up toPlymouth; a sort of place that's half a school and half a prison, wherethe magistrates send children that won't take warning. How would you likeit, if a policeman came, one of these days, and took you off to that kindof punishment?"

He looked down on the child, and saw her under-lip working. She held backher tears bravely, but was shaking from head to foot. 

"There now!" said the Elder, in what for him was a soothing voice. "There's no danger if you behave an' go to school like other children. You just attend to that, an' we'll say no more about it. "

He turned back to his office. On the quay he paused to tell Tom Hancockthat he reckoned the child would be more careful in future: he had givenher something to think over. 

II. 

A week later, at nine o'clock, Elder Penno was retiring to rest in hisbedroom, which overlooked his boat-building yard, when a clattering noisebroke on the night without, and so startled him that he all but droppedhis watch in the act of winding it. 

The noise suggested an avalanche of falling boxes. The Elder blew out hiscandle, lit a bull's-eye lantern which he kept handy by his bed, and, throwing up the window, challenged loudly--"Who's there?"

For the moment the ray of the bull's-eye revealed no one. He turned itupon the corner of the yard where, as a rule, stood a pile of emptypacking-cases from the shop, 'empties' waiting to be sorted out andreturned, old butter-barrels condemned to be knocked to pieces forkindling-wood. Yes: the sound had come from there, for the pile hadtoppled over and lay in a long moraine across the entrance gate. "Must ha' been built up top-heavy, " said the Elder to himself: and withthat, running his lantern-ray along the yard wall, he caught sight of asmall bare leg and a few inches of striped skirt for an instant beforethey slid into darkness across the coping. He recognised them. 

"This beats Old Harry!" muttered the Elder. "Bringin' up the child to bea gaol-bird now--and on my premises! As if Sam Tregenza hadn' done meinjury enough without that!"

For two years the Elder had been unable to think of Sam Tregenza or tohear his name mentioned, but a mixture of rage and indignation boiled upwithin him. To be sure, the old man was ruined, had fallen on evil days, subsisted now with the help of half a crown a week parish relief. But he had behaved disgracefully, and his fall was a signal vindication ofGod's justice. How else could one account for it? The man had been awise fisherman, as knowledgable as any in Ardevora. He had been bred tothe fishing, and had followed it all his life, but always--until hissixtieth year--as a paid hand, with no more than a paid hand's share ofthe earnings. For this his wife had been to blame--an unthrifty woman, always out at heel and in debt to the shop; but with her death he startedon a new tack, began to hoard, and within five years owned a boat of hisown--the _Pass By_ lugger--bought with his own money, save for a borrowedseventy-five pounds. He worked her with his one son Seth, a widow-man offorty, and Seth's son, young Eli, aged fifteen, Liz's father and brother. The boat paid well from the first, and the Tregenzas--the threegenerations--took a monstrous pride in her. 

It was Elder Penno who had advanced the borrowed seventy-five pounds, ofcourse taking security in the boat and upon an undertaking that Tregenzakept her insured. But on the morrow of the black day when she foundered, drowning Seth and Eli, and leaving only the old man to be picked up by achance drifter running for harbour, it was discovered that the Tregenzashad missed by two months the date of renewing her premium of insurance. The boat was gone, and with it the Elder's seventy-five pounds. 

To think of recovering it upon Tregenza's sticks of furniture was idle. The Elder threatened it, but the whole lot would not have fetched twentypounds, and there were other creditors for small amounts. The old man, too, was picked up half crazy. He had been clinging to a fish-box forfive and twenty minutes in the icy-cold water; but whether his crazinesscame of physical exhaustion or the shock of losing boat, son, andgrandchild all in a few minutes, no one could tell. He never set foot onboard a boat again, but sank straight into pauperism and dotage. 

The Elder, for his part, considered such an end no more than the due ofone who had played him so inexcusable a trick over the insurance. From the first he had suspected this weakening of Tregenza's intellect tobe something less than genuine--a calculated infirmity, to excite publiccompassion and escape the blame his dishonest negligence so thoroughlydeserved. 

As he closed the window that night and picked up his watch to resume thewinding of it, the Elder felt satisfied that there were depths inTregenza's craziness which needed sounding. He would pay him a visitto-morrow. He had not exchanged a word with him for two years. Indeed, the old scoundrel seldom or never showed his face in the street. 

At eleven o'clock next morning he rapped at the door of Tregenza's hovel, which lay some way up the hill above the harbour, in a nexus of meanalleys and at the back of a tenement known as Ugnot's. His knock appearedto silence a hammering in the rear of the cottage. By and by the dooropened--but a very little way--and through the chink old Tregenza peeredout at him--gaunt, shaggy, grey of hair and of face, his beard and hisvery eyebrows powdered with sawdust. 

"Kindly welcome, " said Tregenza, blinking against the light. 

"You won't say that when I've done wi' you, " said the Elder to himself. 

III. 

"Won't you step inside?" asked Tregenza. 

"Yes, " said the Elder, "I will. I've a-got something serious to talkabout. "

The sight of Tregenza irritated him more than he had expected, andirritated him the worse because the old man appeared neither confused withshame nor contrite. 

"I've a-got something serious to talk about, " the Elder repeated in thekitchen; "though, as between you and me, any talk couldn't well bepleasant. No, I won't sit down--not in this house. 'Tis only a sense o'duty brings me to-day, though I daresay you've wondered often enough why Iha'n't been here before an' told you straight what I think o' you. "

"No, " said Tregenza simply, as the Elder paused for an answer. "I ha'n't wondered at all. I knowed 'ee better. "

"What's that you're sayin'?"

"I knowed 'ee better. First along--" the old man spoke as if with apainful effort of memory--"first along, to be sure, I reckined you mightha' come an' spoke a word o' comfort; not that speakin' comfort could ha'done any good, an' so I excused 'ee. "

"You excused me? Word of comfort! Word of comf--" The Elder gasped fora moment, his mouth opening and shutting without sound. "An' what aboutmy seventy-five pounds?--all lost to me through your not keepin' up theinsurance!"

"Ay, " assented old Tregenza. "Ay, to be sure. Terrible careless, thatwas. "

For a moment the Elder felt tempted to strike him. "Look here, " he said, tapping his stick sharply on the floor; "as it happens, I didn' come hereto lose my temper nor to talk about your conduct--leastways, not that partof it. 'Tis about your granddaughter. She've been stealin' my wood. "

"Liz?"

"Yes; I caught her in my yard at nine o'clock last night. No mistakin'what she was after. There, in the dark--she was stealin' my wood. "

"What sort o' wood?"

"Man alive! Does it matter what sort o' wood, when I tell you the childwas thievin'. You encourage her to play truant, defyin' the law; an' nowshe's doin' what'll bring her to Bodmin Gaol, as sure as fate. A childscarce over thirteen--an' you're makin' a gaol-bird o' her! The Lordknows, Sam Tregenza, I think badly enough of you, but will you stand therean' tell me 'tis no odds to you that your grandchild's a thief?"

"Liz wouldn' steal your wood, nor nobody's-else's, unless some person hadput her up to it, " answered the old man, knitting his brows to which thesawdust still adhered. "Come to think, now, the maid told me the otherday that you'd been speakin' to her, sayin' that minchin' from school wasrobbin' the public, an' she'd do honester to be stealin' it from you thanpickin' it up along the foreshore durin' school-hours. You may dependthat's what put it into her head. She's a very well-meanin' child. "

The Elder shook like a ship in stays. The explanation was monstrous--yetit was obviously the true one. What could he say to it? What could anysane man say to it?

While he stood and cast about for words, his face growing redder andredder, a breeze of air from the hill behind the cottage blew open theupper flap of its back door--which Tregenza had left on the latch--andpassing through the kitchen, slammed-to the door leading into the street. The noise of it made the Elder jump. The next moment he was gaspingagain, as his gaze travelled out to the back-court. 

"Good Lord, what's that?"

"Eh?"--Tregenza followed his gaze--"You mean to tell me you ha'n't heard?Well, well. . . . You live too much alone, Elder; you take my word. That's the terrible thing about riches. They cut you off from yourfellows. But only to think you never heard tell o' my boat!"

The old man led the way out into the yard; and there, indeed, amid anindescribable litter of timber--wreckwood in balks and boards, worthlesslengths of deck-planking, knees, and transoms, stem-pieces andstern-posts, and other odds and ends of bygone craft, condemned spars, barrel-staves, packing-cases--a boat reposed on the stocks; but such aboat as might make a sane man doubt his eyesight. The Elder staredat her slowly, incapable of speech; stared and pulled out a bandannahandkerchief and slowly wiped the back of his neck. She measured, infact, nineteen or twenty feet over-all, but to the eye she appearedconsiderably longer, having (as the Elder afterwards put it) as many linesin her as a patchwork quilt. Her ribs, rising above the unfinishedtop-strakes, claimed ancestry in a dozen vessels of varying sizes; and howthe builder had contrived to fix them into one keelson passed allunderstanding or guess. For over their unequal curves he had nailed asheath of packing-boards, eked out with patches of sheet-tin. Here andthere the eye, roaming over the structure, came to rest on a piece ofscarfing or dovetailing which must have cost hours of patient labour andcontrivance, cheek-by-jowl with work which would have disgraced a boy often. The whole thing, stuck there and filling the small back-court, was anightmare of crazy carpentry, a lunacy in the sun's eye. 

"Why, bless your heart!" said Tregenza, laying a hand on the boat'stransom with affectionate pride, "you must be the only man in Ardevorathat don't know about her. Scores of folk comes here, Sunday afternoons, an' passes me compliments upon her. " He passed a hand caressingly overher stern board. "There's a piece o' timber for you! Inch-an'-a-quarterteak, _an_' seasoned! That's where her name's to go--the _Pass By_. No; I couldn't fancy any other name. "

The Elder was dumb. He understood now, and pitied the man, whonevertheless (he told himself) deserved his affliction. 

"No, I couldn' fancy any other name, " went on Tregenza in a musing tone. "If the Lord has a grievance agen me for settin' too much o' my heart onthe old _Pass By_, He've a-took out o' me all the satisfaction He's likelyto get. 'Tisn' like the man that built a new Jericho an' set up thefoundations thereof 'pon his first-born an' the gates 'pon his youngest. The cases don't tally; for my son an' gran'son went down together in th'old boat, an' _I_ got nobody left. "

"There's your gran'daughter, " the Elder suggested. 

"Liz?" Tregenza shook his head. "I reckon she don't count. "

"She'll count enough to get sent to gaol, " said the Elder tartly, "if you encourage her to be a thief. And look here, Sam Tregenza, itseems to me you've very loose notions o' what punishment means, an' why'tis sent. The Lord takes away the _Pass By_, an' your son an' gran'sonalong with her, an' why? (says you). Because (says you) your heart wastoo much set 'pon the boat. Now to my thinkin' you was a deal likelierpunished because you'd forgot your duty to your neighbour an' neglected topay up the insurance. "

Tregenza shook his head again, slowly but positively. "'Tis curious tome, " he said, "how you keep harkin' back to that bit o' money you lost. But 'tis the same, I've heard, with all you rich fellows. Money's thebe-all and end-all with 'ee. "

The Elder at this point fairly stamped with rage; but before he couldmuster up speech the street-door opened and the child Lizzie slipped intothe kitchen. Slight noise though she made, her grandfather caught thesound of her footsteps. A look of greed crept into his face, as he madehurriedly for the back-doorway. 

"Liz!" he called. 

"Yes, gran'fer. "

"Where've yer been?"

"Been to school. "

"Brought any wood?"

"How could I bring any wood when--" Her voice died away as she caughtsight of the Elder following her grandfather into the kitchen; and in aflash, glancing from her to Tregenza, the Elder read the truth--that thechild was habitually beaten if she failed to bring home timber for theboat. 

She stood silent, at bay, eyeing him desperately. 

"Look here, " said the Elder, and caught himself wondering at the sound ofhis own voice; "if 'tis wood you want, let her come and ask for it. I'm not sayin' but she can fetch away an armful now an' then--in reason, you know. "

IV. 

The longer Elder Penno thought it over, the more he confessed himselfpuzzled, not with Tregenza, but with his own conduct. 

Tregenza was mad, and madness would account for anything. 

But why should he, Elder Penno, be moved to take a sudden interest, unnecessary as it was inquisitive, in this mad old man, who had fooled himout of seventy-five pounds?

Yet so it was. The Elder came again, two days later, and once againbefore the end of the week. By the end of the second week the visit hadbecome a daily one. What is more, day by day he found himself lookingforward to it. 

That Tregenza also looked forward to it might be read in the invariableeagerness of his welcome; and this was even harder to explain, because theElder never failed to harp--seldom, indeed, relaxed harping--on oldmisdeeds and the lost insurance money. Nay, perhaps in scorn of his ownweakness, he insisted on this more and more offensively; rehearsing eachday, as he climbed the hill, speeches calculated to offend or hurt. But in the intervals he would betray--as he could not help feeling--somecuriosity in the boat. 

One noonday--a few minutes after the children had been dismissed fromschool--he walked out into the yard, in the unconfessed hope of findingLizzie there: and there she was, engaged in filling her apron with wood. 

"Listen to me, " he said--for the two by this time had, without parley, grown into allies. "Your grandfather'll get along all right till he'vefinished buildin'. But what's to happen when the boat's ready to launch?Have you ever thought 'pon that?"

"Often an' often, " said Lizzie. 

"If 'twould even float--which I doubt--" said the Elder--"the drattedthing couldn' be got down to the water, without pullin' down seven feet o'wall an' the butt-end of Ugnot's pigsty. "

"We must lengthen out the time, " said the practical child. "Please God, he'll die afore it's finished. "

"You mustn' talk irreligious, " said her elderly friend. "Besides, there'snothin' amiss with him, settin' aside his foolishness. I've a-thoughtsometimes, now, o' buildin' a boat down here, an', when the time came, makin' believe to exchange. Boat-buildin' is slack just now, but I mighttrust to tradin' her off on someone--when he'd done with her--which in thenatur' of things can't be long. I've a model o' the old _Pass By_ hangin'up somewhere in the passage behind the shop. We might run her up in twomonths, fit to launch, an' finish her at leisure, call her the _Pass By_, and I daresay the Lord'll send along a purchaser in good time. "

Lizzie shook her head. She would have liked to call Mr. Penno the bestman in the world; but luckily--for it would have been an untruth--shefound herself unequal to it. 

V. 

Their apprehensions were vain. The whole town had entered into the fun ofTregenza's boat, and she was no sooner felt to be within measureabledistance of completion than committees--composed at first of the youngerfishermen (but, by and by, the elders joined shamefacedly), held informalmeetings, and devised a royal launch for her. What though she could not, as Mr. Penno had foreseen, be extricated from the yard but at the expenseof seven feet of wall and the butt-end of Ugnot's pigsty? Half a dozenyoung masons undertook to pull the wall down and rebuild it twice asstrong as before; and the landlord of Ugnot's, being interviewed, declaredthat he had been exercised in mind for thirty years over the propinquityof the pigsty and the dwelling-house, and would readily accept thirtyshillings compensation for all damage likely to be done. 

Report of these preparations at length reached Elder Penno's ears, andsurprised him considerably. He sent for the ringleaders and remonstratedwith them. 

"I've no cause to be friends with Tregenza, the Lord knows, " he said. "Still, the man's ailin' and weak in his mind. Such a shock as you'remakin' ready to give 'en, as like as not may land the fellow in hisgrave. "

"Land 'en in his grave?" they answered. "Why the old fool knows the wholeprogramme! He've a-sent down to the Ship Inn to buy a bottle o' wine forthe christenin' an' looks forward to enjoyin' hisself amazin'. "

The Elder went straight to Tregenza, and found this to be no more than thetruth. 

"And here have I been lyin' awake thinkin' how to spare your feelin's!" heprotested. 

"'Tis a very funny thing, " answered Tregenza, "that you, who in the way o'money make it your business to know every man's affairs in Ardevora, should be the last to get wind of a little innercent merrymakin'. That's your riches, again. "

After this one must allow that it was handsome of the Elder to summon thecommittee again and point out to them the uncertainty of the _Pass By_'sfloating when they got her down to the water. Had they considered this?They had not. So he offered them five hundredweight of lead to ballastand trim her; more, if it should be needed; and suggested their layingdown moorings for her, well on the outer side of the harbour, where fromhis garden the old man would have a good sight of her. He would, if thecommittee approved, provide the moorings gratis. 

On the day of the launch Ardevora dressed itself in all its bunting. A crowd of three hundred assembled in and around Tregenza's backyard andlined the adjacent walls to witness the ceremony and hear the speeches;but Elder Penno was neither a speech-maker nor a spectator. He could not, for nervousness, leave the quay, where he stood ready beside a cauldron ofbubbling tar and a pile of lead pegs, to pay the ship over before she tookthe water, and trim her as soon as ever she floated. But when, amidcheers and to the strains of the Temperance Brass Band, she lay moored atlength upon a fairly even keel, with the red ensign drooping from a staffover her stern, he climbed the hill to find Tregenza contemplating herwith pride through the gap in his ruined wall. 

"I missed 'ee at the christ'nin', " said the old man. "But it went offvery well. Lev' us go into the house an' touch pipe. "

"It surprises me, " said the Elder, "to find you so cheerful as you be. An occupation like this goin' out o' your life--I reckoned you might feelit, a'most like the loss of a limb. "

"A man o' my age ought to wean hisself from things earthly, " said the oldman; "an' besides, I've a-got _you_. "

"Hey?"

"Henceforth I've a-got you, an' all to yourself. "

"Seems a funny thing, " mused the Elder; "an' you at this moment owin' meno less than seventy-five pound!"

Sam Tregenza settled himself down in his chair and nodded as he lit pipe. "Nothin' like friendship, after all, " he said. "Now you're talkin'comfortable!"

[1] Playing truant. 

A JEST OF AMBIALET. 

He who has not seen Ambialet, in the Albigeois, has missed a wonder of theworld. The village rests in a saddle of crystalline rock between tworushing streams, which are yet one and the same river; for the Tarn(as it is called), pouring down from the Cevennes, is met and turned bythis harder ridge, and glances along one flank of Ambialet, to sweeparound a wooded promontory and double back on the other. So complete isthe loop that, while it measures a good two miles in circuit, across theneck of it, where the houses cluster, you might fling a pebble over theirroofs from stream to stream. 

High on the crupper of this saddle is perched a ruined castle, with achurch below it, and a cross and a graveyard on the cliff's edge; high onthe pommel you climb to another cross, beside a dilapidated house ofreligion, the Priory of Notre Dame de l'Oder. 

From the town--for Ambialet was once a town, and a flourishing one--youmount to the Priory by a Via Crucis, zigzagging by clusters of purplemarjoram and golden St. John's wort. Above these come broom and heatherand bracken, dwarf oaks and junipers, box-trees and stuntedchestnut-trees; and, yet above, on the summit, short turf and thyme, whichthe wind keeps close-trimmed about the base of the cross. 

The Priory, hard by, houses a number of lads whom Pere Philibert does hisbest to train for the religious life; but its church has been closed byorder of the Government, and tall mulleins sprout between the broad stepsleading to the porch. Pere Philibert will tell you of a time when thesesteps were worn by thousands of devout feet, and of the cause whichbrought them. 

A little below the summit you passed a railed box-tree, with an image ofthe Virgin against it. Here a palmer, travelling homeward from the HolyLand, planted his staff, which took root and threw out leaves andflourished; and in time the plant, called _oder_ in the Languedoc, earnedso much veneration that Our Lady of Ambialet changed her title and becameOur Lady of the Oder. 

This should be Ambialet's chief pride. But the monks of the Priory boastrather of Ambialet's natural marvel--the river looped round their demesne. 

"There is nothing like it, not in the whole of France!"

Pere Philibert said it with a wave of the hand. Brother Marc Antoine'spig, stretched at ease with her snout in the cool grass, grunted, as whoshould say _Bien entendu!_

We were three in the orchard below the Priory; or four, counting the pig--who is a sow, by the way, and by name Zephirine. Brother Marc Antoinelooks after her; a gleeful old fellow of eighty, with a twinkling eye, ascandalously dirty soutane, and a fund of anecdote not always sedate. The Priory excuses him on the ground that his intellectuals are notstrong--he has spent most of his life in Africa, and there taken a coupleof sunstrokes. Zephirine follows him about like a dog. The pair aremighty hunters of truffles, in the season. 

"--Not in the whole of France!" repeated Pere Philibert with conviction, nodding from the dappled shade of the orchard-boughs towards the river, where it ran sparkling far below, by grey willows and a margin ofmica-strewn sand; not 'apples of gold in a network of silver, ' but alandscape all silver seen through a frame of green foliage starred withgolden fruit. 

The orchard-gate clicked behind us. Brother Marc Antoine, recliningbeside the sow with his back against an apple-tree bole, slewed himselfround for a look. Pere Philibert and I, turning together, saw a man and awoman approaching, with hangdog looks, and a priest between them--theCure of Ambialet--who seemed to be exhorting them by turns to keep uptheir courage. 

"Pouf!" said the Curd, letting out a big sigh as he came to a standstilland mopped his brow. "Had ever poor man such trouble with his flock?--and the thermometer at twenty-eight, too! Advance, my children--youfirst, Maman Vacher; and Heaven grant the good father here may composeyour differences!"

Here the Cure--himself a peasant--flung out both hands as if resigning thecase. Pere Philibert, finger on chin, eyed the two disputants with an airof grave abstraction, waiting for one or the other to begin. Brother MarcAntoine leaned back against the apple-tree, and took snuff. His eyestwinkled. Clearly he expected good sport, and I gathered that this wasnot the first of Ambialet's social difficulties to be brought up to thePriory for solution. 

But for the moment both disputants hung back. The woman--an old crone, with a face like a carved nutcracker--dropped an obeisance and stood withher eyes fixed on the ground. The man shifted his weight from foot tofoot while he glanced furtively from one to the other of us. I recognisedhim for Ambialet's only baker, a black-avised fellow on the youthful sideof forty. Clearly, the grave dignity of Pere Philibert abashed them. "_Mais allez, donc! Allez!_" cried the Curd, much as one starts a team ofhorses. 

Pere Philibert turned slowly on his heel, and, waving a hand once moretoward the river, continued his discourse as though it had not beeninterrupted. 

"One might say almost the whole world cannot show its like! To be sure, the historian Herodotus tells us that, when Babylon stood in danger of theMedes, Queen Nitocris applied herself to dig new channels for theEuphrates to make it run crookedly. And in one place she made it wind sothat travellers down the river came thrice to the same village on threesuccessive days. "

"_Te-te!_" interrupted Brother Marc Antoine, with a chuckle. "Wake up, Zephirine--wake up, old lady, and listen to this. " Zephirine, smittenaffectionately on the ham, answered only with a short squeal like abagpipe, and buried her snout deeper in the grass. 

"I like that, " the old man went on. "To think of travelling down a riverthree days' journey, and putting up each night at the same _auberge!__Vieux drole d'Herodote!_ But does he really pitch that yarn, my father?"

"The village, if I remember, was called Arderica, and doubtless itsinhabitants were proud of it. Yet we of Ambialet have a better right tobe proud, since the wonder that encircles us is not of man's making but amiracle of God: although, "--and here Pere Philibert swung about and fixedhis eyes on the baker--"our local pride in Ambialet and its history, andits institutions and its immemorial customs, are of no moment toM. Champollion, who comes, I think, from Rodez or thereabouts. "

In an instant the old woman had seized on this cue. 

"_Te!_ Listen, then, to what the good father calls you!" she shrilled, advancing on the baker and snapping finger and thumb under his nose;"an interloper, a scoundrel from the Rouergue, where all are scoundrels!You with your yeast from Germany! It is such fellows as you that gave thePrussians our provinces, and now you must settle here, turning ourstomachs upside down--honest stomachs of Ambialet. "

"Bah!" exclaimed Champollion defiantly. "You!--a _sage femme--qui nefonctionne pas, d'ailleurs!_"

So the storm broke, and so for ten good minutes it raged. In thehurly-burly, from the clash and din of winged words, I disengagedsomething of the true quarrel. Champollion (it seemed) had bought abusiness and settled down as baker in Ambialet. Now, his predecessor hadalways bought yeast from the Widow Vacher, next door, who prepared it byan ancient family recipe; but this new-comer had introduced some new yeastof commerce--_levure viennoise_--and so deprived her of her smallearnings. In revenge--so he asserted, and she did not deny it--she hadbribed a travelling artist from Paris to decorate the bakery sign withcertain scurrilities, and the whole village had conned next morning a listof the virtues of the Champollion yeast and of the things--mostlyunmentionable--it was warranted _a faire sauter_. There were furthercharges and counter-charges--as that the widow's Cochin-China cock hadbeen found with its neck wrung; and that she, as _sage femme_, and theonly one in Ambialet, had denied her services to Madame Champollion at atime when humanity should override all private squabbles. Brother MarcAntoine rubbed his hands and repeatedly smote Zephirine on the flank. 

"The pity of it--the treat you are missing!"--but Zephirine snored on, contemptuous. 

After this had lasted, as I say, some ten minutes, Pere Philibert held upa hand. 

"I was about to tell you, " said he, "something of this Ambialet of whichyou two are citizens. It is a true tale; and if you can pierce to theinstruction it holds for you both, you will go away determined to end thisscandal of our town and live in amity. Shall I proceed?"

Champollion twirled his cap uneasily. The widow fell back a pace, pantingfrom her onslaught. Neither broke the sudden peace that had fallen on theorchard. 

"Very well! You must know, then, to begin with, that this Ambialet--whichyou occupy with your petty broils--was once an important burg with itscharters and liberties, its consul and council of _prud'hommes_ and itsown court of justice. It had its guilds, too--of midwives for instance, Maman Vacher, who were bound to obey any reasonable summons--"

"You, there, just listen to that!" put in the baker. 

"And of bakers, M. Champollion, who sold bread at a price regulated bylaw, with a committee of five _prohomes_ to see that they sold by justweight. "

"Eh? Eh? And I warrant the law allowed no yeast from Germany!"--Thisfrom the widow. 

"Beyond doubt, my daughter, it would have countenanced no such invention;for the town held its charter from the Viscounts of Beziers and Albi, andmight consume only such corn and wine as were grown in the Viscounty. "

"_Parbleu!_"--the baker shrugged his shoulders--"in the matter of wine weshould fare well nowadays under such a rule!"

"In these times Ambialet grew its own wine, and by the tun. Had you butused your eyes on the way hither they might have counted old vine-stocksby the score; they lie this way and that amid the heather on either sideof the calvary. Many of the inhabitants yet alive can remember thephylloxera destroying them. "

"Which came, moreover, from the Rouergue!" snapped Maman Vacher. 

"Be silent, my daughter. Yes! these were thriving times for Ambialetbefore ever the heresy infected the Albigeois, and when every year broughtthe Great Pilgrimage and the Retreat. For three days before the Retreat, while yet the inns were filling, the whole town made merry under apresident called the King of Youth--_rex juventutis_--who appointed hisown officers, levied his own fines, and was for three days a greater maneven than the Viscount of Beziers, from whom he derived his power bycharter: '_E volem e auctreiam quo lo Rei del Joven d'Ambilet puesco farsas fastas, tener ses senescals e sos jutges e sos sirvens_ . . . ' h'm, h'm. " Pere Philibert cast about to continue the quotation, but suddenlyrecollected that to his hearers its old French must be as good as Greek. 

"--Well, as I was saying, this King of Youth held his merrymaking once inevery year, at the time of the Great Pilgrimage. And on a certain yearthere came to Ambialet among the pilgrims one Tibbald, a merchant ofCahors, and a man (as you shall see) of unrighteous mind, in that hesnatched at privy gain under cover of his soul's benefit. This man, having arrived at Ambialet in the dusk, had no sooner sought out an innthan he inquired, 'Who regulated this feast?' The innkeeper directed himto the place, where he found the King of Youth setting up a maypole bytorchlight; whom he plucked by the sleeve and drew aside for a secrettalk. 

"Now the fines and forfeits exacted by the King of Youth during hisfestival were always paid in wine--a pail of wine apiece from the newestmarried couple in the Viscounty, a pail of wine from anyone proved to havecut or plucked so much as a leaf from the great elm-tree in the place, apail for damaging the Maypole, or stumbling in the dance, or hindering anyof the processions. 'We have granted this favour to our youth, ' says thecharter, 'because, having been witness of their merrymaking, we have takengreat pleasure and satisfaction therein. ' You may guess, then, that inone way and another the King and his seneschals accumulated good store ofwine by the end of the festival, when they shared it among the populace ina great carouse; nor were they held too strictly to account for thejustice of particular fines by which the whole commonalty profited. 

"This Tibbald, then, having drawn the King aside, began cautiously andanfractuously and _per ambages_ to unfold his plan. He had brought withhim (said he) on muleback twelve half-hogsheads of right excellent winewhich he had picked up as a bargain in the Rhone Valley. The same he hadsmuggled into Ambialet after dusk, covering his mules' panniers withcloths and skins of Damas and Alexandria, and it now lay stored in thestables at the back of his inn. This excellent wine (which in truth wasan infamous _tisane_ of the last pressings, and had never been nearer theRhone than Caylus) he proposed to barter secretly for that collectedduring the feast, and to pay the King of Youth, moreover, a bribe of onelivre in money on every hogshead exchanged. The populace (he promised)would be too well drunken to discover the trick; or, if they detected anydifference in the wine would commend it as better and stronger thanordinary. 

"The King of Youth, perceiving that he had to deal with a knave, pretendedto agree, but stipulated that he must first taste the wine; whereupon themerchant gave him to taste some true Rhone wine which he carried in aleather bottle at his belt. 'If the cask answer to the sample, ' said theKing, 'Ambialet is well off. ' 'By a good bargain, ' said Tibbald. 'Nay, by a godsend, ' said the King; and, stepping back into thetorchlight, he called to his officers to arrest the knave and hold himbound, while the seneschals went off to search the inn stables. 

"The seneschals returned by and by, trundling the casks before them; and, a Court of Youth being then and there empanelled, the wretched merchantwas condemned to be whipped three times around the Maypole, to have hisgoods confiscated, and to be driven out of the town _cum ludibrio_. 

"Now, the knave was clever. Though terrified by the sentence, he kept hiswits. The talk had been a private one without witnesses, and he began toshout and swear that the King of Youth had either heard amiss or wasmaliciously giving false evidence. He had proposed no bargain, nor hintedat one; he had come on a pilgrimage for his soul's sake, bringing the wineas a propitiatory offering to Our Lady of the Oder for the use of herpeople. Here was one man's oath against another's. Moreover, and even ifhis sentence were legal (which he denied), it could be revised and quashedby the Viscount of Beziers, as feudal lord of Ambialet, and to him heappealed. Nevertheless they whipped him; and the casks they broached, andhaving tasted the stuff, let it spill about the marketplace. 

"But when the whipping was done, the King of Youth stood up and said:'I have been considering, and I find that this fellow has some right onhis side. No one overheard our talk, and he sets his oath against mine. Let him go, therefore, under guard, to the Viscount and lodge hiscomplaint. For my part, I have my hands full just now, and after untilthe feast, and shall wait until my lord summon me. But I trust hisjudgment, knowing him to be a very Solomon. ' Then, turning to theculprit, 'You know my lord's chateau, of course? My guards will take youthere. ' 'The devil a furlong know I of this accursed spot, ' answeredTibbald viciously, 'seeing that I arrived here a good hour after dark, andby a road as heathenish as yourselves. '

"'You shall travel by boat, then, ' said the King, 'since the road mislikesyou. The chateau lies some two miles hence by water. ' This, you see, wasno more than the truth, albeit the chateau stood close at the back of himwhile he spoke, on the rock just overhead, but Tibbald could not see itfor the darkness. 

"So--the townsfolk smoking the King's jest--two stout servitors led themerchant down to the landing by the upper ferry, and there, having hoistedhim aboard a boat, thrust off into the stream. The current soon sweptthem past the town; and for a while, as the boat spun downward and thedark woods slipped past him, and he felt the night-wind cold on his brow, Master Tibbald sat in a mortal fright. But by and by, his anger rising ontop of his fear, he began to curse and threaten and promise what vengeancewould fall on Ambialet when the Viscount had heard his story, to all ofwhich the boatmen answered only that the Viscount was known to be a justlord, and would doubtless repay all as they deserved. 

"And so the boat sped downstream past the woods, and was brought to shoreat last under a cliff, with dim houses above it, and here and there alight shining. And this, of course, was Ambialet again; but the King ofYouth had given orders to clear the streets, close the inns, andextinguish all flambeaux; so that as the guards marched Tibbald on thecliffway to the chateau, never a suspicion had he that this sleeping townwas the same he had left in uproar. 

"Now, the Viscount, who meanwhile had been posted in the affair, sat inthe great hall of the chateau, with a cup of wine beside him and, at hiselbow, a flagon. He was a great lord, who dearly loved a jest; and, having given Master Tibbald audience, he listened to all his complaint, keeping a grave face. 

"'In truth, ' said he, 'you have suffered scurvy treatment; yet whataffects me is the waste of this wine which you intended for Our Lady ofthe Oder. As lord of Ambialet I am behoven to protect her offerings. '

"'But the stripes, monseigneur!' urged Tibbald. 'The stripes were givenme in her name. Listen, therefore, I pray you, to my suggestion: Let theburg pay me fair compensation for my wine. So she will miss her offering;her people will bleed in their purses; and I, being quits with both, willleave Ambialet the way I came. '

"'You call that being quits, Master Tibbald?' said the Viscount, musing. 'Truly, you are not vindictive!'

"'A merchant, my lord, has a merchant's way of looking at such affairs, 'answered Tibbald. 

"'So truly I perceive, ' said the Viscount, 'and, in faith, it soundsreasonable enough. But touching this compensation--my people are poor incoin. Shall it be wine for wine, then, or do you insist upon money?'And here he poured out a cupful from the flagon at his elbow and offeredit to the merchant, who drank and pulled a wry mouth, as well he might, for it had been saved from the spillings of his own _tisane_. 

"'The Viscount eyed him curiously. 'What! Master Tibbald? Is our nativewine so sour as all that?' He drained his own cup, which held a verydifferent liquor. 

"'Oh, monseigneur, ' began Tibbald, 'you will pardon my saying it, but such stuff ill becomes the palate of one of your lordship's quality. If, setting our little dispute aside for a moment, your lordship wouldentrust an honest merchant with the supply of your lordship's cellar--'Here he unslung the bottle at his belt, and took leave to replenish theViscount's cup. 'Will your lordship degustate, for example, this drop ofthe same divine liquor spilt to-night by your lordship's vassals?'

"'Why, this is nectar!' cried the Viscount, having tasted. 'And do youtell me that those ignorant louts poured six hogsheads of it to waste?'

"'The gutters ran with it, monseigneur! Rhone wine, that even at fourlivres the hogshead could not be sold at a profit. '

"'_Pardieu!_' The Viscount knitted his brow. 'I am an enemy to waste, Master Tibbald, and against such destroyers of God's good gifts my justicedoes not sleep. Retire you now; my servants will lead you to a chamberwhere you may take some brief repose; and before daybreak we will setforth together to my Council-house a few miles down the river, where thecouncillors will be met early, having to answer some demands of the HolySee upon our river-tolls conveyed to us through my lord of Leseure. There I will see your business expedited, the money paid, and receipt madeout. '

"Tibbald thanked the Viscount and repaired to his room, whence, an hour ortwo later, the chamberlain summoned him with news that my lord was readyand desired his company. The night was dark yet, and down throughAmbialet he was led to the self-same ferry-stage from which he had firstput forth, my lord taking heed to approach it by another stairway. At the foot lay moored the Viscount's state barge, into which they steppedand cast off downstream. 

"So once more Master Tibbald voyaged around the great loop of the river, and, arriving yet once again at Ambialet--which he deemed by this time tobe some leagues behind him--was met at the lower stage by a company ofhalberdiers, who escorted him, with his protector, to the great lightedHall, wherein sat a dozen grave men around a great oaken table, all deepin business. 

"They rose together and made obeisance as the Viscount walked to histhrone at the head of the table; and said he, seating himself--

"'Messieurs, I regret to break in upon your consultations, but an outragehas been committed in my town of Ambialet, demanding full and instantpunishment. This merchant came with six hogsheads of excellent Rhonewine, which the citizens, after afflicting him with stripes, spilt atlarge upon the market-place. What fine shall we decree?'

"Then said the eldest _prud'homme_:--'The answer, saving your lordship'sgrace, is simple. By our laws the payment must equal the market price ofthe wine. As for the stripes--'

"'We need not consider them, ' the Viscount interposed. 'Master Tibbaldhere will be satisfied with the fine, and engages--that being paid--toleave Ambialet by the way he came. Now, the wine, you say'--here heturned to Tibbald--'was worth four livres the hogshead?'

"But here our merchant, perceiving his case to go so fairly, allowed thedevil of avarice to tempt him. 

"'I said four livres to _you_, monseigneur, but the honest market price Icould not set at less than five and a half. '

"'Six times five and a half makes thirty-three. Very good, then, MasterTibbald: if you will pay the Council that sum, its secretary shall makeyou out a note of quittance. '

"'But, my lord, ' stammered poor Tibbald; 'my lord, I do not understand!'

"'It is very simple, ' said the Viscount. 'Our law requires that any manbringing alien wine into the Viscounty shall suffer its confiscation, andpay a fine equal to its market price. '

"The merchant flung himself upon his knees. 

"'My lord, my lord!' he pleaded, 'I am a poor man. I have not the money. I brought nothing save this wine to Ambialet. '

"'The day is breaking, ' said the Viscount. 'Take him to the window. '

"So to the window they led him. --And I leave you, my children, to guess ifhe rubbed his eyes as they looked out upon the market-place of Ambialet, and upon his own mules standing ready-caparisoned before the door of theCouncil-house, and, beyond them, upon the tall Maypole, and the King ofYouth, with his officers, fitting their ribbons upon it in the morningsunlight. 

"'But here is witchcraft!' cried he, spreading out both hands and gropingwith them, like a man in a fit. 'Two good leagues at the least have Itravelled downstream from Ambialet--'

"His speech failed. 

"'And still art face to face with thy wickedness, ' the Viscount concludedfor him. 'Pay us speedily, Master Tibbald, lest Our Lady work moremiracles upon thee. '

"'My lord, I have not the money!' wept Master Tibbald. 

"'Thou hast good silks and merchandise, and six good mules. We willcommute thy fine for these, and even give one mule into the bargain, but upon conditions. '

"'Nothing I gainsay, so that Our Lady lift this spell from me. '

"'The agreement was to quit Ambialet in the way thou camest. Now, 'tisapparent thy coming here has been by two ways--by road and by water. Take thy choice of return--shall it be by water?'

"'What! From a town that lieth three leagues downstream from itself!Nay, monseigneur, let it be by road, that at least I may keep my few witsremaining!'

"'By road, then, it shall be, and on muleback. But the way thou camestwas with a greedy face set towards Ambialet, and so will we send theeback. '

"As the Viscount promised so they did, my children; strapping MasterTibbald with his face to the mule's rump, and with a merry crowd speedinghim from the frontier. "

Brother Marc Antoine lay back against his apple-tree, laughing. Maman Vacher and the baker, seeing that the tale was done, continued toregard Pere Philibert each with a foolish grin. 

Pere Philibert took snuff slowly. 

"My children, " said he, tapping his box, "in this tale (which, by the way, is historical) there surely lurks a lesson for you both. You, PierreChampollion, may read in it that he who, with an eye to his privateprofit, only runs counter to ancient custom in such a town as ourAmbialet, may chance to knock his head upon stones. And you, MamanVacher--What was the price of that chanticleer of yours?"

"Indeed, reverend father, I could not have asked less than six francs. A prize-winner, if you remember. "

"You valued it at twelve in your threats and outcries, and that after youhad stewed his carcass down for a soup! . . . Tut, tut, my children!You have your lesson--take it and go in amity. "

 * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

 In "A Jest of Ambialet" "either side the calvary" was changed to "either side OF the calvary. "