NEWS FROM THE DUCHY. 

by

A. T. Quiller-Couch (Q). 

To My Friend AUSTIN M. PURVES of Philadelphia and Troy Town. 

Contents. 

PART I. 

 PIPES IN ARCADY. 

 OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN. 

 PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS. 

 THE MONT-BAZILLAC. 

 THE THREE NECKLACES. 

 THE WREN. 

 NOT HERE, O APOLLO. 

 FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM. 

 THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP. 

 LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE

 THE CASK ASHORE. 

PART II. 

 YE SEXES, GIVE EAR. 

 FRENCHMAN'S CREEK. 

PART I. 

PIPES IN ARCADY. 

I hardly can bring myself to part with this story, it has beensuch a private joy to me. Moreover, that I have lain awake in thenight to laugh over it is no guarantee of your being passablyamused. Yourselves, I dare say, have known what it is to awake inirrepressible mirth from a dream which next morning proved to be flatand unconvincing. Well, this my pet story has some of the qualitiesof a dream; being absurd, for instance, and almost incredible, andeven a trifle inhuman. After all, I had better change my mind, andtell you another--

But no; I will risk it, and you shall have it, just as it befel. 

I had taken an afternoon's holiday to make a pilgrimage: my goalbeing a small parish church that lies remote from the railway, fivegood miles from the tiniest of country stations; my purpose toinspect--or say, rather, to contemplate--a Norman porch, for which itought to be widely famous. (Here let me say that I have an unlearnedpassion for Norman architecture--to enjoy it merely, not to writeabout it. )

To carry me on my first stage I had taken a crawling local trainthat dodged its way somehow between the regular expresses and the"excursions" that invade our Delectable Duchy from June to October. The season was high midsummer, the afternoon hot and drowsy withscents of mown hay; and between the rattle of the fast trains itseemed that we, native denizens of the Duchy, careless ofobservation or applause, were executing a _tour de force_ in thatfine indolence which has been charged as a fault against us. That wehalted at every station goes without saying. Few sidings--howeverinconsiderable or, as it might seem, fortuitous--escaped theflattery of our prolonged sojourn. We ambled, we paused, almostwe dallied with the butterflies lazily afloat over the meadow-sweetand cow-parsley beside the line; we exchanged gossip withstation-masters, and received the congratulations of signalmen on theextraordinary spell of fine weather. It did not matter. Three market-women, a pedlar, and a local policeman made up with methe train's complement of passengers. I gathered that their businesscould wait; and as for mine--well, a Norman porch is by this timeaccustomed to waiting. 

I will not deny that in the end I dozed at intervals in my emptysmoking compartment; but wish to make it clear that I came on theVision (as I will call it) with eyes open, and that it left mestaring, wide-awake as Macbeth. 

Let me describe the scene. To the left of the line as you travelwestward there lies a long grassy meadow on a gentle acclivity, setwith three or four umbrageous oaks and backed by a steep plantationof oak saplings. At the foot of the meadow, close alongside theline, runs a brook, which is met at the meadow's end by a secondbrook which crosses under the permanent way through a culvert. The united waters continue the course of the first brook, beside theline, and maybe for half a mile farther; but, a few yards below theirjunction, are partly dammed by the masonry of a bridge over which acountry lane crosses the railway; and this obstacle spreads them intoa pool some fifteen or twenty feet wide, overgrown with the leaves ofthe arrow-head, and fringed with water-flags and the flowering rush. 

Now I seldom pass this spot without sparing a glance for it; firstbecause of the pool's still beauty, and secondly because many rabbitsinfest the meadow below the coppice, and among them for two or threeyears was a black fellow whom I took an idle delight in recognising. (He is gone now, and his place knows him no more; yet I continue tohope for sight of a black rabbit just there. ) But this afternoon Ilooked out with special interest because, happening to pass down theline two days before, I had noted a gang of navvies at work on theculvert; and among them, as they stood aside to let the train pass, Ihad recognised my friend Joby Tucker, their ganger, and an excellentfellow to boot. 

Therefore my eyes were alert as we approached the curve that opensthe meadow into view, and--as I am a Christian man, living in thetwentieth century--I saw this Vision: I beheld beneath the shade ofthe midmost oak eight men sitting stark naked, whereof one blew on aflute, one played a concertina, and the rest beat their palmstogether, marking the time; while before them, in couples on thesward, my gang of navvies rotated in a clumsy waltz watched by a ringof solemn ruminant kine!

I saw it. The whole scene, barring the concertina and the navvies'clothes, might have been transformed straight from a Greek vase ofthe best period. Here, in this green corner of rural England on aworkaday afternoon (a Wednesday, to be precise), in full sunlight, Isaw this company of the early gods sitting, naked and unabashed, andpiping, while twelve British navvies danced to their music. . . . I saw it; and a derisive whistle from the engine told me that driverand stoker saw it too. I was not dreaming, then. But what onearth could it mean? For fifteen seconds or so I stared at theVision . . . And so the train joggled past it and rapt it from myeyes. 

I can understand now the ancient stories of men who, having by hapsurprised the goddesses bathing, never recovered from the shock butthereafter ran wild in the woods with their memories. 

At the next station I alighted. It chanced to be the station forwhich I had taken my ticket; but anyhow I should have alighted there. The spell of the vision was upon me. The Norman porch might wait. It is (as I have said) used to waiting, and in fact it has waited. I have not yet made another holiday to visit it. Whether or no themarket-women and the local policeman had beheld, I know not. I hopenot, but now shall never know. . . . The engine-driver, leaning inconverse with the station-master, and jerking a thumb backward, hadcertainly beheld. But I passed him with averted eyes, gave up myticket, and struck straight across country for the spot. 

I came to it, as my watch told me, at twenty minutes after five. The afternoon sunlight still lay broad on the meadow. The place wasunchanged save for a lengthening of its oak-tree shadows. But thepersons of my Vision--naked gods and navvies--had vanished. Only thecattle stood, knee-deep in the pool, lazily swishing their tails inprotest against the flies; and the cattle could tell me nothing. 

Just a fortnight later, as I spent at St. Blazey junction the fortyodd minutes of repentance ever thoughtfully provided by our railwaycompany for those who, living in Troy, are foolish enough to travel, I spied at some distance below the station a gang of men engaged inunloading rubble to construct a new siding for the clay-traffic, andat their head my friend Mr. Joby Tucker. The railway company wasconsuming so much of my time that I felt no qualms in returning somepart of the compliment, and strolled down the line to wish Mr. Tuckergood day. "And, by the bye, " I added, "you owe me an explanation. What on earth were you doing in Treba meadow two Wednesdays ago--youand your naked friends?"

Joby leaned on his measuring rod and grinned from ear to ear. 

"You see'd us?" he asked, and, letting his eyes travel along theline, he chuckled to himself softly and at length. "Well, now, I'mglad o' that. 'Fact is, I've been savin' up to tell 'ee about it, but (thinks I) when I tells Mr. Q. He won't never believe. "

"I certainly saw you, " I answered; "but as for believing--"

"Iss, iss, " he interrupted, with fresh chucklings; "a fair knock-out, wasn' it? . . . You see, they was blind--poor fellas!"

"Drunk?"

"No, sir--blind--'pity the pore blind'; three-parts blind, anyways, an' undergoin' treatment for it. "

"Nice sort of treatment!"

"Eh? You don't understand. See'd us from the train, did 'ee?Which train?"

"The 1. 35 ex Millbay. "

"Wish I'd a-knowed you was watchin' us. I'd ha' waved my hat as youwent by, or maybe blawed 'ee a kiss--that bein' properer to theoccasion, come to think. "

Joby paused, drew the back of a hand across his laughter-moistenedeyes, and pulled himself together, steadying his voice for the story. 

"I'll tell 'ee what happened, from the beginnin'. A gang of us hadbeen sent down, two days before, to Treba meadow, to repair theculvert there. Soon as we started to work we found the wholemasonry fairly rotten, and spent the first afternoon (that wasMonday) underpinnin', while I traced out the extent o' the damage. The farther I went, the worse I found it; the main mischief bein' aleak about midway in the culvert, on the down side; whereby thewater, perc'latin' through, was unpackin' the soil, not only behindthe masonry of the culvert, but right away down for twenty yards andmore behind the stone-facing where the line runs alongside the pool. All this we were forced to take down, shorein' as we went, till wecut back pretty close to the rails. The job, you see, had turned outmore serious than reported; and havin' no one to consult, I kept themen at it. 

"By Wednesday noon we had cut back so far as we needed, shorein' verycareful as we went, and the men workin' away cheerful, with thefootboards of the expresses whizzin' by close over their heads, so'sit felt like havin' your hair brushed by machinery. By the time weknocked off for dinner I felt pretty easy in mind, knowin' we'd brokethe back o' the job. 

"Well, we touched pipe and started again. Bein' so close to the lineI'd posted a fella with a flag--Bill Martin it was--to keep a lookout for the down-trains; an' about three o'clock or a little after hewhistled one comin'. I happened to be in the culvert at the time, but stepped out an' back across the brook, just to fling an eye alongthe embankment to see that all was clear. Clear it was, an'therefore it surprised me a bit, as the train hove in sight aroundthe curve, to see that she had her brakes on, hard, and was slowin'down to stop. My first thought was that Bill Martin must have takensome scare an' showed her the red flag. But that was a mistake;besides she must have started the brakes before openin' sight onBill. "

"Then why on earth was she pulling up?" I asked. "It couldn't besignals. "

"There ain't no signal within a mile of Treba meadow, up or down. She was stoppin' because--but just you let me tell it in my own way. Along she came, draggin' hard on her brakes an' whistlin'. I knew her for an excursion, and as she passed I sized it up for abig school-treat. There was five coaches, mostly packed withchildren, an' on one o' the coaches was a board--'Exeter toPenzance. ' The four front coaches had corridors, the tail one justord'nary compartments. 

"Well, she dragged past us to dead-slow, an' came to a standstillwith her tail coach about thirty yards beyond where I stood, and, asyou might say, with its footboard right overhangin' the pool. You mayn't remember it, but the line just there curves pretty sharpto the right, and when she pulled up, the tail coach pretty well hidthe rest o' the train from us. Five or six men, hearin' the brakes, had followed me out of the culvert and stood by me, wonderin' why thestoppage was. The rest were dotted about along the slope of th'embankment. And then the curiousest thing happened--about thecuriousest thing I seen in all my years on the line. A door of thetail coach opened and a man stepped out. He didn't jump out, youunderstand, nor fling hisself out; he just stepped out into air, andwith that his arms and legs cast themselves anyways an' he went downsprawlin' into the pool. It's easy to say we ought t' have run thenan' there an' rescued him; but for the moment it stuck us up starin'an', --Wait a bit! You han't heard the end. 

"I hadn't fairly caught my breath, before another man stepped out!He put his foot down upon nothing, same as the first, overbalancedjust the same, and shot after him base-over-top into the water. 

"Close 'pon the second man's heels appeared a third. . . . Yes, sir, I know now what a woman feels like when she's goin' to have thescritches. I'd have asked someone to pinch me in the fleshy part o'the leg, to make sure I was alive an' awake, but the power o' speechwas taken from us. We just stuck an' stared. 

"What beat everything was the behaviour of the train, so to say. There it stood, like as if it'd pulled up alongside the pool for thevery purpose to unload these unfort'nit' men; an' yet takin' nonotice whatever. Not a sign o' the guard--not a head poked outanywheres in the line o' windows--only the sun shinin', an' the steamescapin', an' out o' the rear compartment this procession droppin'out an' high-divin' one after another. 

"Eight of 'em! Eight, as I am a truth-speakin' man--but there! yousaw 'em with your own eyes. Eight! and the last of the eight scarcein the water afore the engine toots her whistle an' the train startson again, round the curve an' out o' sight. 

"She didn' leave us no time to doubt, neither, for there the poorfellas were, splashin' an' blowin', some of 'em bleatin' for help, an' gurglin', an' for aught we know drownin' in three-to-four feet o'water. So we pulled ourselves together an' ran to give 'em firstaid. 

"It didn' take us long to haul the whole lot out and ashore; and, asProvidence would have it, not a bone broken in the party. One or twowere sufferin' from sprains, and all of 'em from shock (but so werewe, for that matter), and between 'em they must ha' swallowed a bra'few pints o' water, an' muddy water at that. I can't tell ezacklywhen or how we discovered they was all blind, or near-upon blind. It may ha' been from the unhandiness of their movements an' the waythey clutched at us an' at one another as we pulled 'em ashore. Hows'ever, blind they were; an' I don't remember that it struck us asanyways singular, after what we'd been through a'ready. We fishedout a concertina, too, an' a silver-mounted flute that was bobbin'among the weeds. 

"The man the concertina belonged to--a tall fresh-complexioned youngfella he was, an' very mild of manner--turned out to be a sort o'leader o' the party; an' he was the first to talk any sense. 'Th-thank you, ' he said. 'They told us Penzance was the next stop. '

"'Hey?' says I. 

"'They told us, ' he says again, plaintive-like, feelin' for hisspectacles an' not finding 'em, 'that Penzance was the next stop. '

"'Bound for Penzance, was you?' I asks. 

"'For the Land's End, ' says he, his teeth chatterin'. I set it downthe man had a stammer, but 'twas only the shock an' the chill of hisduckin'. 

"'Well, ' says I, 'this ain't the Land's End, though I dessay it feelsa bit like it. Then you wasn' _thrown_ out?' I says. 

"'Th-thrown out?' says he. 'N-no. They told us Penzance was thenext stop. '

"'Then, ' says I, 'if you got out accidental you've had a mostprovidential escape, an' me an' my mates don't deserve less than tohear about it. There's bound to be inquiries after you when theguard finds your compartment empty an' the door open. May be thetrain'll put back; more likely they'll send a search-party; butanyways you're all wet through, an' the best thing for health is tooff wi' your clothes an' dry 'em, this warm afternoon. '

"'I dessay, ' says he, 'you'll have noticed that our eyesight isaffected. '

"'All the better if you're anyways modest, ' says I. 'You couldn'find a retirededer place than this--not if you searched: an' _we_don't mind. '

"Well, sir, the end was we stripped 'em naked as Adam, an' spreadtheir clothes to dry 'pon the grass. While we tended on 'em the mildyoung man told us how it had happened. It seems they'd come byexcursion from Exeter. There's a blind home at Exeter, an' likewisea cathedral choir, an' Sunday school, an' a boys' brigade, with othersundries; an' this year the good people financin' half a dozen o'these shows had discovered that by clubbin' two sixpences together ashillin' could be made to go as far as eighteenpence; and how, doin'it on the co-op, instead of an afternoon treat for each, they couldmanage a two days' outin' for all--Exeter to Penzance an' the Land'sEnd, sleepin' one night at Penzance, an' back to Exeter at someungodly hour the next. It's no use your askin' me why a manthree-parts blind should want to visit the Land's End. There's anattraction about that place, an' that's all you can say. Everybodyknows as 'tisn' worth seein', an' yet everybody wants to see it. So why not a blind man?

"Well, this Happy Holiday Committee (as they called themselves) gotthe Company to fix them up with a special excursion; an' our blindfriends--bein' sensitive, or maybe a touch above mixin' wi' theschoolchildren an' infants--had packed themselves into this rearcompartment separate from the others. One of 'em had brought hisconcertina, an' another his flute, and what with these an' other waysof passin' the time they got along pretty comfortable till they cameto Gwinear Road: an' there for some reason they were held up an' hadto show their tickets. Anyways, the staff at Gwinear Road went alongthe train collectin' the halves o' their return tickets. 'What's thename o' this station?' asks my blind friend, very mild an' polite. 'Gwinear Road, ' answers the porter;' Penzance next stop. ' Somehowthis gave him the notion that they were nearly arrived, an' so, yousee, when the train slowed down a few minutes later an' came to astop, he took the porter at his word, an' stepped out. Simple, wasn't it? But in my experience the curiousest things in life arethe simplest of all, once you come to inquire into 'em. "

"What I don't understand, " said I, "is how the train came to stopjust there. "

Mr. Tucker gazed at me rather in sorrow than in anger. "I thought, "said he, "'twas agreed I should tell the story in my own way. Well, as I was saying, we got those poor fellas there, all as nakedas Adam, an' we was helpin' them all we could--some of us wringin'out their underlinen an' spreading it to dry, others collectin' theirhats, an' tryin' which fitted which, an' others even dredgin' thepool for their handbags an' spectacles an' other small articles, an'in the middle of it someone started to laugh. You'll scarce believeit, but up to that moment there hadn't been so much as a smile tohand round; an' to this day I don't know the man's name that startedit--for all I can tell you, I did it myself. But this I do know, that it set off the whole gang like a motor-engine. There was a sortof 'click, ' an' the next moment--

"Laugh? I never heard men laugh like it in my born days. Sort ofrecoil, I s'pose it must ha' been, after the shock. Laugh?There was men staggerin' drunk with it and there was men rollin' onthe turf with it; an' there was men cryin' with it, holdin' on to astitch in their sides an' beseechin' everyone also to hold hard. The blind men took a bit longer to get going; but by gosh, sir! oncestarted they laughed to do your heart good. O Lord, O Lord! I wishyou could ha' see that mild-mannered spokesman. Somebody had fishedout his spectacles for en, and that was all the clothing he stoodin--that, an' a grin. He fairly beamed; an' the more he beamed themore we rocked, callin' on en to take pity an' stop it. 

"Soon as I could catch a bit o' breath, 'Land's End next stop!'gasped I. 'O, but this _is_ the Land's End! This is what the Land'sEnd oughter been all the time, an' never was yet. O, for the Lord'ssake, ' says I, 'stop beamin', and pick up your concertina an' pitchus a tune!'

"Well, he did too. He played us 'Home, sweet home' first of all--'mid pleasure an' palaces--an' the rest o' the young men sat arounden an' started clappin' their hands to the tune; an' then some foolslipped an arm round my waist. I'm only thankful he didn't kiss me. Didn't think of it, perhaps; couldn't ha' been that he wasn'tcapable. It must ha' been just then your train came along. An' about twenty minutes later, when we was gettin' our friends backinto their outfits, we heard the search-engine about half a milebelow, whistlin' an' feelin' its way up very cautious towards us. 

"They was sun-dried an' jolly as sandhoppers--all their eightof 'em--as we helped 'em on board an' wished 'em ta-ta!The search-party couldn' understand at all what had happened--in soshort a time, too--to make us so cordial; an' somehow we didn'explain--neither we nor the blind men. I reckon the whole businesshad been so loonatic we felt it kind of holy. But the pore fellaskept wavin' back to us as they went out o' sight around the curve, an' maybe for a mile beyond. I never heard, " Mr. Tucker wound upmeditatively, "if they ever reached the Land's End. I wonder?"

"But, excuse me once more, " said I. "How came the train to stop asit did?"

"To be sure. I said just now that the curiousest things in lifewere, gen'rally speakin', the simplest. One o' the schoolchildren inthe fore part of the train--a small nipper of nine--had put his headout o' the carriage window and got his cap blown away. That's all. Bein' a nipper of some resource, he wasted no time, but touched offthe communicatin' button an' fetched the whole train to a standstill. George Simmons, the guard, told me all about it last week, when Ihappened across him an' asked the same question you've been askin'. George was huntin' through the corridors to find out what had gonewrong; that's how the blind men stepped out without his noticin'. He pretended to be pretty angry wi' the young tacker. 'Do 'ee know, 'says George, 'it's a five pound fine if you stop a train without goodreason?' 'But I _had_ a good reason, ' says the child. 'My mothergave 'levenpence for that cap, an' 'tis a bran' new one. '"

OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN. 

 "Mary, mother, well thou be! Mary, mother, think on me; Sweete Lady, maiden clean, Shield me from ill, shame, and teen; Shield me, Lady, from villainy And from all wicked company!" Speculum Christiani. 

Here is a little story I found one day among the legends of theCornish Saints, like a chip in porridge. If you love simplicity, Ithink it may amuse you. 

Lovey Bussow was wife of Daniel Bussow, a tin-streamer of GwithianParish. He had brought her from Camborne, and her neighbours agreedthat there was little amiss with the woman if you overlooked herbeing a bit weak in the head. They set her down as "not exactly. "At the end of a year she brought her husband a fine boy. It happenedthat the child was born just about the time of year the tin-merchantsvisited St. Michael's Mount; and the father--who streamed in a smallway, and had no beast of burden but his donkey, or "naggur"--had toload up panniers and drive his tin down to the shore-market with therest, which for him meant an absence of three weeks, or a fortnightat the least. 

So Daniel kissed his wife and took his leave; and the neighbours, whocame to visit her as soon as he was out of the way, all told her thesame story--that until the child was safely baptised it behoved herto be very careful and keep her door shut for fear of the Piskies. The Piskies, or fairy-folk (they said), were themselves the spiritsof children that had died unchristened, and liked nothing better thanthe chance to steal away an unchristened child to join their nationof mischief. 

Lovey listened to them, and it preyed on her mind. She reckoned thather best course was to fetch a holy man as quickly as possible tobaptise the child and make the cross over him. So one afternoon, themite being then a bare fortnight old, she left him asleep in hiscradle and, wrapping a shawl over her head, hurried off to seekMeriden the Priest. 

Meriden the Priest dwelt in a hut among the sandhills, a bowshotbeyond St. Gwithian's Chapel on the seaward side, as you go out toGodrevy. He had spent the day in barking his nets, and was spreadingthem out to dry on the short turf of the towans; but on hearingLovey's errand, he good-naturedly dropped his occupation and, stayingonly to fill a bottle with holy water, walked back with her to herhome. 

As they drew near, Lovey was somewhat perturbed to see that the door, which she had carefully closed, was standing wide open. She guessed, however, that a neighbour had called in her absence, and would beinside keeping watch over the child. As she reached the threshold, the dreadful truth broke upon her: the kitchen was empty, and so wasthe cradle!

It made her frantic for a while. Meriden the Priest offered whatconsolation he could, and suggested that one of her neighbours hadcalled indeed, and finding the baby alone in the cottage, had takenit off to her own home to guard it. But this he felt to be a forlornhope, and it proved a vain one. Neither search nor inquiry couldtrace the infant. Beyond a doubt the Piskies had carried him off. 

When this was established so that even the hopefullest of thegood-wives shook her head over it, Lovey grew calm of a sudden and(as it seemed) with the calm of despair. She grew obstinate too. 

"My blessed cheeld!" she kept repeating. "The tender worm of 'en!But I'll have 'en back, if I've to go to the naughty place to fetch'en. Why, what sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comeshome and his firstborn gone?"

They shook their heads again over this. It would be a brave blow forthe man, but (said one to another) he that marries a fool must lookfor thorns in his bed. 

"What's done can't be undone, " they told her. "You'd best let atwo-three of us stay the night and coax 'ee from frettin'. It's badfor the system, and you so soon over child-birth. "

Lovey opened her eyes wide on them. 

"Lord's sake!" she said, "you don't reckon I'm goin' to sit downunder this? What?--and him the beautifullest, straightest cheeldthat ever was in Gwithian Parish! Go'st thy ways home, every wan. Piskies steal my cheeld an' Dan'l's, would they? I'll pisky 'em!"

She showed them forth--"put them to doors" as we say in the Duchy--every one, the Priest included. She would have none of theirconsolation. 

"You mean it kindly, naybors, I don't say; but tiddn' what I happento want. I wants my cheeld back; an' I'll _have'n_ back, what'smore!"

They went their ways, agreeing that the woman was doited. Loveyclosed the door upon them, bolted it, and sat for hours staring atthe empty cradle. Through the unglazed window she could see thestars; and when these told her that midnight was near, she put on hershawl again, drew the bolt, and fared forth over the towans. At first the stars guided her, and the slant of the night-wind on herface; but by and by, in a dip between the hills, she spied her markand steered for it. This was the spark within St. Gwithian's Chapel, where day and night a tiny oil lamp, with a floating wick, burnedbefore the image of Our Lady. 

Meriden the Priest kept the lamp filled, the wick trimmed, year inand year out. But he, good man, after remembering Lovey in hisprayers, was laid asleep and snoring within his hut, a bowshot away. The chapel-door opened softly to Lovey's hand, and she crept up toMary's image, and abased herself before it. 

"Dear Aun' Mary, " she whispered, "the Piskies have taken my cheeld!You d'knaw what that means to a poor female--you there, cuddlin' yourliddle Jesus in the crook o' your arm. An' you d'knaw likewise whatthese Piskies be like; spiteful li'l toads, same as you or I might beif happen we'd died unchristened an' hadn' no share in heaven norhell nor middle-earth. But that's no excuse. Aun' Mary, my dear, Iwant my cheeld back!" said she. That was all Lovey prayed. Withoutmore ado she bobbed a curtsy, crept from the chapel, closed the door, and way-to-go back to her cottage. 

When she reached it and struck a light in the kitchen she more thanhalf expected to hear the child cry to her from his cradle. But, forall that Meriden the Priest had told her concerning the Virgin andher power, there the cradle stood empty. 

"Well-a-well!" breathed Lovey. "The gentry are not to be hurried, Ireckon. I'll fit and lie down for forty winks, " she said; "though Ido think, with her experience Mary might have remembered the poormite would be famished afore this, not to mention that the milk in meis beginnin' to hurt cruel. "

She did off some of her clothes and lay down, and even slept a littlein spite of the pain in her breasts; but awoke a good two hoursbefore dawn, to find no baby restored to her arms, nor even (when shelooked) was it back in its cradle. 

"This'll never do, " said Lovey. On went her shawl again, and onceagain she faced the night and hurried across the towans to St. Gwithian's Chapel. There in her niche stood Our Lady, quite asthough nothing had happened, with the infant Christ in her arms andthe tiny lamp burning at her feet. 

"Aun' Mary, Aun' Mary, " said Lovey, speaking up sharp, "this iddn' nosense 't all! A person would think time was no objic, the way youstick there starin', ain' my poor cheeld leary with hunger aforenow--as you, bein' a mother, oft to knaw. Fit an' fetch 'en home tome quick. Aw, do'ee co', that's a dear soul!"

But Our Lady stood there and made no sign. 

"I don't understand 'ee 't all, " Lovey groaned. "'Tiddn' the wayI'd behave in your place, and you d'knaw it. "

Still Our Lady made no sign. 

Lovey grew desperate. 

"Aw, very well, then!" she cried. "Try what it feels like withoutyour liddle Jesus!"

And reaching up a hand, she snatched at and lifted the Holy Childthat fitted into a stone socket on Our Lady's arm. It came away inher grasp, and she fled, tucking it under her shawl. 

All the way home Lovey looked for the earth to gape and swallow her, or a hand to reach down from heaven and grip her by the hair; and allthe way she seemed to hear Our Lady's feet padding after her in thedarkness. But she never stopped nor stayed until she reached home;and there, flinging in through the door and slamming to the boltbehind her, she made one spring for the bed, and slid down in it, cowering over the small stone image. 

_Rat-a-tat! tat!_--someone knocked on the door so that the cottageshook. 

"Knock away!" said Lovey. "Whoever thee be, thee 'rt not my cheeld. "

_Rat-a-tat! tat!_

"My cheeld wouldn' be knockin': he's got neither strength nor sproilfor it. An' you may fetch Michael and all his Angels, to tear me inpieces, " said Lovey; "but till I hear my own cheeld creen to me, I'llkeep what I have!"

Thereupon Lovey sat up, listening. For outside she heard a feeblewail. 

She slipped out of bed. Holding the image tight in her right arm, she drew the bolt cautiously. On the threshold at her feet, lay herown babe, nestling in a bed of bracken. 

She would have stooped at once and snatched him to her. But thestone Christling hampered her, lying so heavily in her arm. For amoment, fearing trickery, she had a mind to hurl it far out of doorsinto the night. . . . It would fall without much hurt into the softsand of the towans. But on a second thought she held it forth gentlyin her two hands. 

"I never meant to hurt 'en, Aun' Mary, " she said. "But a firstborn'sa firstborn, be we gentle or simple. "

In the darkness a pair of invisible hands reached forward and tookher hostage. 

When it was known that the Piskies had repented and restored LoveyBussow's child to her, the neighbours agreed that fools have most ofthe luck in this world; but came nevertheless to offer theircongratulations. Meriden the Priest came also. He wanted to knowhow it had happened; for the Piskies do not easily surrender a childthey have stolen. 

Lovey--standing very demure, and smoothing her apron down along herthighs--confessed that she had laid her trouble before Our Lady. 

"A miracle, then!" exclaimed his Reverence. "What height! Whatdepth!"

"That's of it, " agreed Lovey. "Aw, b'lieve me, your Reverence, wemothers understand wan another. "

PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS. 

Pilot Matthey came down to the little fishing-quay at five p. M. Orthereabouts. He is an elderly man, tall and sizable, with a grizzledbeard and eyes innocent-tender as a child's, but set in deepcrow's-feet at the corners, as all seamen's eyes are. It comes offacing the wind. 

Pilot Matthey spent the fore-half of his life at the fishing. Thence he won his way to be a Trinity pilot, and wears such portionsof an old uniform as he remembers to don. He has six sons and fourdaughters, all brought up in the fear of the Lord, and is very muchof a prophet in our Israel. One of the sons works with him asapprentice, the other five follow the fishing. 

He came down to the quay soon after tea-time, about half an hourbefore the luggers were due to put out. Some twenty-five or thirtymen were already gathered, dandering to and fro with hands inpockets, or seated on the bench under the sea wall, waiting for thetide to serve. About an equal number were below in the boats, getting things ready. 

There was nothing unusual about Matthey, save that, although it was awarm evening in August, he wore a thick pea-jacket, and had turnedthe collar up about his ears. Nor (if you know Cornish fishermen)was there anything very unusual in what he did, albeit a strangermight well have thought it frantic. 

For some time he walked to and fro, threading his way in and out ofthe groups of men, walking much faster than they--at the best theywere strolling--muttering the while with his head sunk low in hisjacket collar, turning sharply when he reached the edge of the quay, or pausing a moment or two, and staring gloomily at the water. The men watched him, yet not very curiously. They knew what wascoming. 

Of a sudden he halted and began to preach. He preached of Redemptionfrom Sin, of the Blood of the Lamb, of the ineffable bliss ofSalvation. His voice rose in an agony on the gentle twilight: itcould be heard--entreating, invoking, persuading, wrestling--faracross the harbour. The men listened quite attentively until thetime came for getting aboard. Then they stole away by twos andthrees down the quay steps. Meanwhile, and all the while, preparations on the boats had been going forward. 

He was left alone at length. Even the children had lost interest inhim, and had run off to watch the boats as they crept out on thetide. He ceased abruptly, came across to the bench where I satsmoking my pipe, and dropped exhausted beside me. The fire had diedout of him. He eyed me almost shamefacedly at first, by and by moreboldly. 

"I would give, sir, " said Pilot Matthey, "I would give half myworldly goods to lead you to the Lord. "

"I believe you, " said I. "To my knowledge you have often risked morethan that--your life--to save men from drowning. But tell me--youthat for twenty minutes have been telling these fellows how Christfeels towards them--how can you know? It is hard enough, surely, toget inside any man's feelings. How can you pretend to know whatChrist feels, or felt--for an instance, in the Judgment Hall, whenPeter denied?"

"Once I did, sir, " said Pilot Matthey, smoothing the worn knees ofhis trousers. "It was just that. I'll tell you:"

"It happened eighteen or twenty years ago, on the old _Early andLate_--yes, twenty years come Christmas, for I mind that my eldestdaughter was expectin' her first man-child, just then. You saw himget aboard just now, praise the Lord! But at the time we was allnervous about it--my son-in-law, Daniel, bein' away with me on theEast Coast after the herrings. I'd as good as promised him to beback in time for it--this bein' my first grandchild, an' due (so wellas we could calculate) any time between Christmas an' New Year. Well, there was no sacrifice, as it happened, in startin' for home--the weather up there keepin' monstrous, an' the catches not worth thelabour. So we turned down Channel, the wind strong an' dead foul--south at first, then west-sou'-west--headin' us all the way, andalways blowin' from just where 'twasn't wanted. This lasted us downto the Wight, and we'd most given up hope to see home beforeChristmas, when almost without warnin' it catched in off the land--pretty fresh still, but steady--and bowled us down past the Bill andhalfway across to the Start, merry as heart's delight. Then it fellaway again, almost to a flat calm, and Daniel lost his temper. I never allowed cursin' on board the Early and Late--nor, for thatmatter, on any other boat of mine; but if Daniel didn't swear a bitout of hearin', well then--poor dear fellow, he's dead and gone thesetwelve years (yes, sir--drowned)--well then I'm doin' him aninjustice. One couldn't help pitying him, neither. Didn't I knowwell enough what it felt like? And the awe of it, to think it'shappenin' everywhere, and ever since world began--men fretting forthe wife and firstborn, and gettin' over it, and goin' down to thegrave leavin' the firstborn to fret over _his_ firstborn! It puts mein mind o' the old hemn, sir: 'tis in the Wesley books, and I can'tthink why church folk leave out the verse--

 "The busy tribes o' flesh and blood, With all their cares and fears--"

Ay, 'cares and fears'; that's of it--

 "Are carried downward by the flood, And lost in followin' years. "

"Poor Daniel--poor boy!"

Pilot Matthey sat silent for a while, staring out over the water inthe wake of the boats that already had begun to melt into the shadowof darkness. 

"'Twas beautiful sunshiny weather, too, as I mind, " he resumed. "Oneo' those calm spells that happen, as often as not, just aboutChristmas. I remember drawin' your attention to it, sir, oneChristmas when I passed you the compliments of the season; and youput it down to kingfishers, which I thought strange at the time. "

"Kingfishers?" echoed I, mystified for the moment. "Oh, yes"--aslight broke on me--"Halcyon days, of course!"

"That's right, " Pilot Matthey nodded. "That's what you called 'em. . . . It took us a whole day to work past the tides of the Start. Then, about sunset, a light draught off the land helped us to BoltTail, and after that we mostly drifted all night, with here and therea cat's-paw, down across Bigbury Bay. By five in the morning we wereinside the Eddystone, with Plymouth Sound open, and by twelve noon wewas just in the very same place. It was Christmas Eve, sir. 

"I looked at Daniel's face, and then a notion struck me. It wasfoolish I hadn't thought of it before. 

"'See here, boys, ' I says. (There was three. My second son, Sam, Daniel, and Daniel's brother, Dick, a youngster of sixteen or so. )'Get out the boat, ' I says, ' and we'll tow her into Plymouth. If you're smart we may pluck her into Cattewater in time for Danielto catch a train home. Sam can go home, too, if he has a mind, andthe youngster can stay and help me look after things. I've seen amany Christmasses, ' said I, 'and I'd as lief spend this one atPlymouth as anywhere else. You can give 'em all my love, and turn upagain the day after Boxin' Day--and mind you ask for excursiontickets, ' I said. 

"They tumbled the boat out fast enough, you may be sure. Leastwaysthe two men were smart enough. But the boy seemed ready to cry, sothat my heart smote me. 'There!' said I, 'and Dicky can go too, ifhe'll pull for it. I shan't mind bein' left to myself. A redeemedman's never lonely--least of all at Christmas time. '

"Well, sir, they nipped into the boat, leavin' me aboard to steer;and they pulled--pulled--like as if they'd pull their hearts out. But it happened a strongish tide was settin' out o' the Sound, andlong before we fetched past the breakwater I saw there was no chanceto make Cattewater before nightfall, let alone their gettin' to therailway station. I blamed myself that I hadn't thought of itearlier, and so, steppin' forward, I called out to them to ease up--we wouldn't struggle on for Cattewater, but drop hook in JennycliffBay, somewhere inside of the Merchant Shipping anchorage. As thingswere, this would save a good hour--more likely two hours. 'And, 'said I, 'you can take the boat, all three, and leave her at Barbicansteps. Tell the harbour-master where she belongs, and where I'mlaying. He'll see she don't take no harm, and you needn't fear butI'll get put ashore to her somehow. There's always somebody passin'hereabouts. '

"'But look 'ee here, father, ' said the boys--good boys they were, too--'What's to happen if it comes on to blow from south orsou'-west, same as it blew at the beginning of the week?'

"''Tisn't goin' to do any such thing, ' said I, for I'd been studyin'the weather. 'And, even if it should happen, I've signals aboard. 'Tisn't the first time, sonnies, I've sat out a week-end on board aboat, alone wi' the Redeemer. '

"That settled it, sir. It relieved 'em a bit, too, when they spiedanother lugger already lyin' inside the anchorage, and made her outfor a Porthleven boat, the_ Maid in Two Minds_, that had been afterthe herrings with the rest of us up to a fortni't ago, or maybe threeweeks: since when we hadn't seen her. As I told you, the weather hadbeen cruel, and the catches next to nothing; and belike she'd givenit up earlier than we and pushed for home. At any rate, here shewas. We knowed her owners, as fishermen do; but we'd never passedword with her, nor with any of her crew. I'd heard somewhere--butwhere I couldn't recollect--that the skipper was a blasphemous man, given to the drink, and passed by the name of Dog Mitchell; but 'twashearsay only. All I noted, or had a mind to note, as we droppedanchor less than a cable length from her, was that she had no boatastern or on deck (by which I concluded the crew were ashore), andthat Dog Mitchell himself was on deck. I reckernised him through theglass. He made no hail at all, but stood leanin' by the mizen andsmokin', watchin' what we did. By then the dark was comin' down. 

"Well, sir, I looked at my watch, and there was no time to be choiceabout position; no time even for the lads to get aboard and packtheir bags. I ran forward, heaved anchor, cast off tow-line, an'just ran below, and came up with an armful o' duds which I tossedinto the boat as she dropped back alongside. I fished the purse outof my pocket, and two sovereigns out o' the purse. 'That'll take 'eehome and back, ' said I, passin' the money to Daniel. 'So long, children! You haven't no time to spare. '

"Away they pulled, callin' back, 'God bless 'ee, father!' and thelike; words I shan't forget. . . . Poor Daniel! . . . And there, allof a sudden, was I, left to spend Christmas alone: which didn'ttrouble me at all. 

"'Stead o' which, as you might say, havin' downed sail and madethings pretty well shipshape on deck, I went below and trimmed andlit the riding light. When I came on deck with it the _Maid in TwoMinds_ was still in darkness. 'That's queer, ' thought I; but maybethe _Early and Late's_ light reminded Dog Mitchell of his, for a fewminutes later he fetched it up and made it fast, takin' an uncommonlong time over the job and mutterin' to himself all the while. (For I should tell you that, the weather bein' so still and thedistance not a hundred yards, I could hear every word. )

"'Twas then, I think, it first came into my mind that the man wasdrunk, and five minutes later I was sure of it: for on his way aft hecaught his foot and tripped over something--one o' the deck-leadsmaybe--and the words he ripped out 'twould turn me cold to repeat. His voice was thick, too, and after cursin' away for half a minute itdropped to a sort of growl, same as you'll hear a man use when he'sfull o' drink and reckons he has a grudge against somebody orsomething--he doesn't quite know which, or what. Thought I, ''Tis arisky game o' those others to leave a poor chap alone in that state. He might catch the boat afire, for one thing: and, for another, hemight fall overboard. ' It crossed my mind, too, that if he felloverboard I hadn't a boat to pull for him. 

"He went below after that, and for a couple of hours no sound camefrom the _Maid in Two Minds_. 'Likely enough, ' thought I, 'he'sturned in, to sleep it off; and that's the best could happen to him';and by and by I put the poor fellow clean out o' my head. I mademyself a dish o' tea, got out supper, and ate it with a thankfulheart, though I missed the boys; but, then again, I no sooner missedthem than I praised God they had caught the train. They would benearin' home by this time; and I sat for a while picturin' it: thekitchen, and the women-folk there, that must have made up their mindsto spend Christmas without us; particularly Lisbeth Mary--that's mydaughter, Daniel's wife--with her mother to comfort her, an' thefirelight goin' dinky-dink round the cups and saucers on thedresser. I pictured the joy of it, too, when Sam or Daniel struckrat-tat and clicked open the latch, or maybe one o' the gals prickedup an ear at the sound of their boots on the cobbles. I 'most hopedthe lads hadn't been thoughtful enough to send on a telegram. My mind ran on all this, sir; and then for a moment it ran back tomyself, sittin' there cosy and snug after many perils, many joys;past middle-age, yet hale and strong, wi' the hand o' the Lordprotectin' me. 'The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lacknothing. He shall feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forthbeside the waters of comfort. He shall convert my soul . . . '

"I don't know how it happened, sir, but of a sudden a well o' warmthran through me and all over me, just like a spring burstin'. 'Waterso' Comfort?' Ay, maybe . . . Maybe. Funny things happen onChristmas Eve, they say. My old mother believed to her last day thatevery Christmas Eve at midnight the cattle in their challs went downon their knees, throughout the land . . . 

"But the feelin', if you understand me, wasn't Christmas-like at all. It had started with green pastures: and green pastures ran in myhead, with brooks, and birds singin' away up aloft and bees hummin'all 'round, and the sunshine o' the Lord warmin' everything andwarmin' my heart . . . I felt the walls of the cuddy chokin' me of asudden, an' went on deck. 

"A fine night it was, up there. Very clear with a hint o' frost--nomoon. As I remember, she was in her first quarter and had gone downsome while. The tide had turned and was makin' in steady. I couldhear it clap-clappin' past the _Maid in Two Minds_--she lay a littleoutside of us, to seaward, and we had swung so that her ridin' lightcome over our starboard how. Out beyond her the lighthouse on thebreakwater kept flashin'--it's red over the anchorage--an' awaybeyond that the 'Stone. Astern was all the half-circle o' Plymouthlights--like the front of a crown o' glory. And the stars overhead, sir!--not so much as a wisp o' cloud to hide 'em. 

"'Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen Hisstar in the east . . . 'I'd always been curious about that star, sir, --whether 'twas an ordinary one or one sent by miracle: and, years before, I'd argued it out that the Lord wouldn't send one likea flash in the pan, but--bein' thoughtful in all things--would leaveit to come back constant every year and bring assurance, if ye lookedfor it. After that, I began to look regularly, studying the sky fromthe first week of December on to Christmas: and 'twasn't long beforeI felt certain. 'Tis a star--they call it Regulus in the books, forI've looked it out--that gets up in the south-east in December month:pretty low, and yet full high enough to stand over a cottage; one o'the brightest too, and easily known, for it carries five other starsset like a reap-hook just above it. 

"Well, I looked to the south-east, and there my star stood blazin', just over the dark o' the land, with its reap-hook over its forehead. 'The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light . . . '

"While I stood staring at it, thinkin' my thoughts, there came anoise all of a sudden from the other lugger, as if someone had kickedover a table down below, and upset half a dozen pots and pans. Then, almost before I had time to wonder, I heard Dog Mitchellscramble forth on deck, find his feet in a scrufflin' way, and starttravisin' forth and back, forth and back, talkin' to himself all thewhile and cursin'. He was fairly chewin' curses. I guessed what wasthe matter. He had been down below toppin' things up with a lastsoak of neat whisky, and now he had the shakes on him, or thebeginnings of 'em. 

"You know the sayin', 'A fisherman's walk--two steps, an' overboard'?. . . I tell you I was in misery for the man. Any moment he mightlurch overboard, or else throw himself over--one as likely as anotherwith a poor chap in that state. Yet how could I help--cut off, without boat or any means to get to him?

"Forth and back he kept goin', in his heavy sea-boots. I could hearevery step he took, and when he kicked against the hatchway-coamin'(he did this scores o' times) and when he stood still and spatoverboard. Once he tripped over the ship's mop--got the handlea-foul of his legs, and talked to it like a pers'nal enemy. Terrible language--terrible!

"It struck me after a bit"--here Pilot Matthey turned to me with oneof those shy smiles which, as they reveal his childish, simple heart, compel you to love the man. "It struck me after a bit that ahemn-tune mightn't come amiss to a man in that distress of mind. So I pitched to sing that grand old tune, 'Partners of a glorioushope, ' a bit low at first, but louder as I picked up confidence. Soon as he heard it he stopped short, and called out to me to shut myhead. So, findin' that hemns only excited him, I sat quiet, while hepicked up his tramp again. 

"I had allowed to myself that 'twould be all right soon after eleven, when the publics closed, and his mates would be turnin' up, to takecare of him. But eleven o'clock struck, back in the town; and thequarters, and then twelve; and still no boat came off from shore. Then, soon after twelve, he grew quiet of a sudden. The trampin'stopped. I reckoned he'd gone below, though I couldn't be certain. But bein' by this time pretty cold with watchin', and dog-tired, Itumbled below and into my bunk. I must have been uneasy though, forI didn't take off more'n my boots. 

"What's more I couldn't have slept more than a dog's sleep. For Iwoke up sudden to the noise of a splash--it seemed I'd been waitin'for it--and was up on deck in two shakes. 

"Yes, the chap was overboard, fast enough--I heard a sort of gurgleas he came to the surface, and some sort of attempt at a cry. Before he went under again, the tide drifted his head like a littleblack buoy across the ray of our ridin' light. So overboard Ijumped, and struck out for him. "

At this point--the exciting point--Pilot Matthey's narrative halted, hesitated, grew meagre and ragged. 

"I got a grip on him as he rose. He couldn't swim better'n a fewstrokes at the best. (So many of our boys won't larn to swim--theysay it only lengthens things out when your time comes. ) . . . The manwas drownin', but he had sproil enough to catch at me and try to pullme under along with him. I knew that trick, though, luckily. . . . I got him round on his back, with my hands under his armpits, andkicked out for the _Maid in Two Minds_. 

"'Tisn't easy to climb straight out o' the water and board a lugger--not at the best of times, when you've only yourself to look after;and the _Maid in Two Minds_ had no accommodation-ladder hungout . . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack andclose to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till Ihad it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by--which he had thesense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that Iscrambled on to the mizen-boom somehow and hauled him aboard mainlyby his collar and seat of his trousers. It was a job, too; and thefirst thing he did on deck was to reach his head overside and bevi'lently sick. 

"He couldn't have done better. When he'd finished I took charge, hurried him below--my! the mess down there!--and got him intosomebody's dry clothes. All the time he was whimperin' andshiverin'; and he whimpered and shivered still when I coaxed him intohis bunk and tucked him up in every rug I could find. There was abottle of whisky, pretty near empty, 'pon the table. Seein' howwistful the poor chap looked at it, and mindin' how much whisky andsalt water he'd got rid of, I mixed the dregs of it with a little hotwater off the stove, and poured it into him. Then I filled up thebottle with hot water, corked it hard, and slipped it down under theblankets, to warm his feet. 

"'That's all right, matey, ' said he, his teeth chatterin' as Isnugged him down. 'But cut along and leave me afore the otherscome. '

"Well, that was sense in its way, though he didn't seem to takeaccount that there was only one way back for me--the way I'd come. 

"'You'll do, all right?' said I. 

"'I'll do right enough now, ' said he. 'You cut along. '

"So I left him. I was that chilled in my drippin' clothes, thesecond swim did me more good than harm. When I got to the _Early andLate_, though, I was pretty dead beat, and it cost me half a dozentries before I could heave myself on to the accommodation-ladder. Hows'ever, once on board I had a strip and a good rub-down, andtumbled to bed glowin' like a babby. 

"I slept like a top, too, this time. What woke me was a voice closeabeam, hailin' the _Early and Late_; and there was a brisk, brass-bound young chap alongside in a steam-launch, explainin' ashe'd brought out the boat, and why the harbour-master hadn't sent herout last night. 'As requested by your crew, Cap'n. ' 'That's verypolite o' them and o' you, and o' the harbour-master, ' said I; 'and Iwish you the compliments o' the season. ' For I liked the looks ofhim there, smiling up in an obliging way, and Plymouth bells behindhim all sounding to Church together for Christmas. 'Same to you, Cap'n!' he called out, and sheered off with a wave o' the hand, having made the boat fast astern. 

"I stared after him for a bit, and then I turned my attention to the_Maid in Two Minds_. Her boat, too, lay astern of her; and one ofher crew was already on deck, swabbin' down. After a bit, anothershowed up. But Dog Mitchell made no appearance. 

"Nat'rally enough my thoughts ran on him durin' breakfast; and, when'twas done, I dressed myself and pulled over to inquire. By thistime all three of his mates were on deck, and as I pulled close theydrew together--much as to ask what I wanted. 

"'I came across, ' says I, 'to ask after the boss. Is he all rightthis morning?'

"'Why not?' asked one o' the men, suspicious-like, with a glance atthe others. They were all pretty yellow in the gills after theirnight ashore. 

"'What's up?' says Dog Mitchell's own voice on top o' this: and theman heaved himself on deck and looked down on me. 

"'It's the skipper of the _Early and Late_, ' said one of the fellowsgrinning; 'as seems to say he has the pleasure o' your acquaintance. '

"'Does he?' said Dog Mitchell slowly, chewing. The man's eyes werebleared yet, but the drink had gone out of him with his shock: or thefew hours' sleep had picked him round. He hardened his eyes on me, anyway, and says he--'Does he? Then he's a bloody liar!'

"I didn't make no answer, sir. I saw what he had in mind--that I'dcome off on the first opportunity, cadgin' for some reward. I turnedthe boat's head about, and started to pull back for the _Early andLate_. The men laughed after me, jeering-like. And Dog Mitchell, helaughed, too, in the wake o' them, with a kind of challenge as he sawmy lack o' pluck. And away back in Plymouth the bells kept onringing. 

"That's the story. You asked how I could tell what the blessed Lordfelt like when Peter denied. I don't know. But I seemed to feellike it, just that once. "

THE MONT-BAZILLAC. 

I have a sincere respect and liking for the Vicar of Gantick--"th'old Parson Kendall, " as we call him--but have somewhat avoided hishospitality since Mrs. Kendall took up with the teetotal craze. I say nothing against the lady's renouncing, an she choose, the lightdinner claret, the cider, the port (pale with long maturing in thewood) which her table afforded of yore: nor do I believe that theVicar, excellent man, repines deeply--though I once caught the faintsound of a sigh as we stood together and conned his cider-appletrees, un-garnered, shedding their fruit at random in the longgrasses. For his glebe contains a lordly orchard, and it used to bea treat to watch him, his greenish third-best coat stuck all overwith apple-pips and shreds of pomace, as he helped to work the pressat the great annual cider-making. But I agree with their son, MasterDick, that "it's rough on the guests. "

Master Dick is now in his second year at Oxford; and it was probablyfor his sake, to remove temptation from the growing lad, that Mrs. Kendall first discovered the wickedness of all alcoholic drink. Were he not an ordinary, good-natured boy--had he, as they say, anounce of vice in him--I doubt the good lady's method might go someway towards defeating her purpose. As things are, it will probablytake no worse revenge upon her solicitude than by weaning himinsensibly away from home, to use his vacation-times in learning tobe a man. 

Last Long Vacation, in company with a friend he calls Jinks, MasterDick took a Canadian canoe out to Bordeaux by steamer, and spent sixadventurous weeks in descending the Dordogne and exploring theGaronne with its tributaries. On his return he walked over to findme smoking in my garden after dinner, and gave me a gleeful accountof his itinerary. 

". . . And the next place we came to was Bergerac, " said he, afterten minutes of it. 

"Ah!" I murmured. "Bergerac!"

"You know it?"

"Passably well, " said I. "It lies toward the edge of the claretcountry; but it grows astonishing claret. When I was about your ageit grew a wine yet more astonishing. "

"Hallo!" Master Dick paused in the act of lighting his pipe anddropped the match hurriedly as the flame scorched his fingers. 

"It was grown on a hill just outside the town--the Mont-Bazillac. Ionce drank a bottle of it. "

"Lord! You too? . . . _Do_ tell me what happened!"

"Never, " I responded firmly. "The Mont-Bazillac is extinct, sweptout of existence by the phylloxera when you were a babe in arms. _Infandum jubes renovare--_ no one any longer can tell you what thatwine was. They made it of the ripe grape. It had the raisin flavourwith something--no more than a hint--of Madeira in it: the leatherytang--how to describe it?"

"You need not try, when I have two bottles of it at home, at thismoment!"

"When I tell you--" I began. 

"Oh, but wait till you've heard the story!" he interrupted. "As Iwas saying, we came to Bergerac and put up for the night at the_Couronne d'Or_--first-class cooking. Besides ourselves there werethree French bagmen at the _table d'hote_. The usual sort. Jinks, who talks worse French than I do (if that's possible), and doesn'tmind, got on terms with them at once. . . . For my part I can alwayshit it off with a commercial--it's the sort of mind that appeals tome--and these French bagmen _do_ know something about eating anddrinking. That's how it happened. One of them started chaffing usabout the _ordinaire_ we were drinking--quite a respectable tap, bythe way. He had heard that Englishmen drank only the strongest wine, and drank it in any quantities. Then another said: 'Ah, messieurs, if you would drink for the honour of England, _justement_ you shouldmatch yourselves here in this town against the famous Mont-Bazillac. ''What is this Mont-Bazillac?' we asked: and they told us--well, pretty much what you told me just now--adding, however, that thelandlord kept a few precious bottles of it. They were quite fair intheir warnings. "

"Which, of course, you disregarded. "

"For the honour of England. We rang for the landlord--a decentfellow, Sebillot by name--and at first, I may tell you, he wasn't atall keen on producing the stuff; kept protesting that he had but asmall half-dozen left, that his daughter was to be married in theautumn, and he had meant to keep it for the wedding banquet. However, the bagmen helping, we persuaded him to bring up twobottles. A frantic price it was, too--frantic for _us_. Seven francs a bottle. "

"It was four francs fifty even in my time. "

"The two bottles were opened. Jinks took his, and I took mine. We had each _arrosed_ the dinner with about a pint of Bordeaux;nothing to count. We looked at each other straight. I said, 'Be aman, Jinks! _A votre sante messieurs!_' and we started. . . . As yousaid just now, it's a most innocent-tasting wine. "

"As a matter of fact, I didn't say so. Still, you are right. "

"The fourth and fifth glasses, too, seemed to have no more kick inthem than the first. . . . Nothing much seemed to be happening, except that Sebillot had brought in an extra lamp--at any rate, theroom was brighter, and I could see the bagmen's faces more distinctlyas they smiled and congratulated us. I drank off the last glass'to the honour of England, ' and suggested to Jinks--who had kept pacewith me, glass for glass--that we should take a stroll and view thetown. There was a fair (as I had heard) across the bridge. . . . We stood up together. I had been feeling nervous about Jinks, and itcame as a relief to find that he was every bit as steady on his legsas I was. We said good evening to the bagmen and walked out into thestreet. 'Up the hill or down?' asked Jinks, and I explained to himvery clearly that, since rivers followed the bottoms of theirvalleys, we should be safe in going downhill if we wanted to find thebridge. And I'd scarcely said the words before it flashed across methat I was drunk as Chloe. 

"Here's another thing. --I'd never been drunk before, and I haven'tbeen drunk since: but all the same I knew that this wasn't the leastlike ordinary drunkenness: it was too--what shall I say?--toobrilliant. The whole town of Bergerac belonged to me: and, what wasbetter, it was lit so that I could steer my way perfectly, althoughthe street seemed to be quite amazingly full of people, jostling andchattering. I turned to call Jinks's attention to this, and wassaying something about a French crowd--how much cheerfuller it wasthan your average English one--when all of a sudden Jinks wasn'tthere! No, nor the crowd! I was alone on Bergerac bridge, and Ileaned with both elbows on the parapet and gazed at the Dordogneflowing beneath the moon. 

"It was not an ordinary river, for it ran straight up into the sky:and the moon, unlike ordinary moons, kept whizzing on an axis like aCatherine-wheel, and swelled every now and then and burst intoshowers of the most dazzling fireworks. I leaned there and stared atthe performance, feeling just like a king--proud, you understand, butwith a sort of noble melancholy. I knew all the time that I wasdrunk; but that didn't seem to matter. The bagmen had told me--"

I nodded again. 

"That's one of the extraordinary things about the Mont-Bazillac, " Icorroborated. "It's all over in about an hour, and there's not (asthe saying goes) a headache in a hogshead. "

"I wouldn't quite say that, " said Dick reflectively. "But you'repartly right. All of a sudden the moon stopped whizzing, the riverlay down in its bed, and my head became clear as a bell. 'Thetrouble will be, ' I told myself, 'to find the hotel again. ' But Ihad no trouble at all. My brain picked up bearing after bearing. I worked back up the street like a prize Baden-Powell scout, foundthe portico, remembered the stairway to the left, leading to thelounge, went up it, and recognising the familiar furniture, droppedinto an armchair with a happy sigh. My only worry, as I picked up acopy of the _Gil Blas_ and began to study it, was about Jinks. But, you see, there wasn't much call to go searching after him whenmy own experience told me it would be all right. 

"There were, maybe, half a dozen men in the lounge, scattered aboutin the armchairs and smoking. By and by, glancing up from mynewspaper, I noticed that two or three had their eyes fixed on mepretty curiously. One of them--an old boy with a grizzledmoustache--set down his paper, and came slowly across the room. 'Pardon, monsieur, ' he said in the politest way, 'but have we thehonour of numbering you amongst our members?' 'Good Lord!' cried I, sitting up, 'isn't this the _Couronne d'Or?_' 'Pray let monsieur notdiscommode himself, ' said he, with a quick no-offence sort of smile, 'but he has made a little mistake. This is the _Cercle Militaire_. '

"I must say those French officers were jolly decent about it:especially when I explained about the Mont-Bazillac. They saw meback to the hotel in a body; and as we turned in at the porchway, whoshould come down the street but Jinks, striding elbows to side, likea man in a London-to-Brighton walking competition! . . . He told me, as we found our bedrooms, that '_of course_, he had gone up the hill, and that the view had been magnificent. ' I did not argue about it, luckily: for--here comes in another queer fact--_there was no moon atall that night_. Next morning I wheedled two more bottles of thestuff out of old Sebillot--which leaves him two for the wedding. I thought that you and I might have some fun with them. . . . Nowtell me _your_ experience. "

"That, " said I, "must wait until you unlock my tongue; if indeed youhave brought home the genuine Mont-Bazillac. "

As it happened, Master Dick was called up to Oxford unexpectedly, aweek before the beginning of term, to start practice in his college"four. " Our experiment had to be postponed; with what result youshall hear. 

About a fortnight later I read in our local paper that the Bishophad been holding a Confirmation service in Gantick Parish Church. The paragraph went on to say that "a large and reverent congregationwitnessed the ceremony, but general regret was expressed at theabsence of our respected Vicar through a temporary indisposition. We are glad to assure our readers that the reverend gentleman is wellon the way to recovery, and indeed has already resumed hisministration in the parish, where his genial presence and quicksympathies, etc. "

This laid an obligation upon me to walk over to Gantick and inquireabout my old friend's health: which I did that same afternoon. Mrs. Kendall received me with the information that her husband wasquite well again, and out-and-about; that in fact he had started, immediately after luncheon, to pay a round of visits on the outskirtsof the parish. On the nature of his late indisposition she showedherself reticent, not to say "short" in her answers; nor, though thehour was four o'clock, did she invite me to stay and drink tea withher. 

On my way back, and just within the entrance-gate of the vicaragedrive, I happened on old Trewoon, who works at odd jobs under thegardener, and was just now busy with a besom, sweeping up the firstfall of autumn leaves. Old Trewoon, I should tell you, is aWesleyan, and a Radical of the sardonic sort; and, as a jobbing man, holds himself free to criticise his employers. 

"Good afternoon!" said I. "This is excellent news that I hear aboutthe Vicar. I was afraid, when I first heard of his illness, that itmight be something serious--at his age--"

"Serious?" Old Trewoon rested his hands on the besom-handle and eyedme, with a twist of his features. "Missus didn' tell you the natur'of the complaint, I reckon?"

"As a matter of fact she did not. "

"I bet she didn'. Mind you, _I_ don't know, nuther. " He up-ended hisbesom and plucked a leaf or two from between the twigs before adding, "And what, makin' so bold, did she tell about the Churchwardens?"

"The Churchwardens?" I echoed. 

"Aye, the Churchwardens: Matthey Hancock an' th' old Farmer Truslove. They was took ill right about the same time. Aw, my dear"--Mr. Trewoon addresses all mankind impartially as "my dear"--"th' hullparish knaws about _they_. Though there warn't no concealment, forthat matter. "

"What about the Churchwardens?" I asked innocently, and of a suddenbecame aware that he was rocking to and fro in short spasms of inwardlaughter. 

"--It started wi' the Bishop's motor breakin' down; whereby he andhis man spent the better part of two hours in a God-forsaken lanesomewhere t'other side of Hen's Beacon, tryin' to make her go. He'd timed hisself to reach here punctual for the lunchin' the Missusalways has ready on Confirmation Day: nobody to meet his Lordship buttheirselves and the two Churchwardens; an' you may guess that Hancockand Truslove had turned up early in their best broadcloth, lookin' tohave the time o' their lives. 

"They were pretty keen-set, too, by one o'clock, bein' used to eattheir dinners at noon sharp. One o'clock comes--no Bishop: twoo'clock and still no Bishop. 'There's been a naccydent, ' says theMissus: 'but thank the Lord the vittles is cold!' 'Maybe he've forgotthe day, ' says the Vicar; 'but any way, we'll give en anotherha'f-hour's grace an' then set-to, ' says he, takin' pity on thenoises old Truslove was makin' inside his weskit. . . . So said, sodone. At two-thirty--service bein' fixed for ha'f-after-three--theyall fell to work. 

"You d'know, I dare say, what a craze the Missus have a-took o' lateagainst the drinkin' habit. Sally, the parlourmaid, told me as how, first along, th' old lady set out by hintin' that the Bishop, bein' arespecter o' conscience, wouldn' look for anything stronger on thetable than home-brewed lemonade. But there the Vicar struck; andfindin' no way to shake him, she made terms by outin' with twobottles o' wine that, to her scandal, she'd rummaged out from acupboard o' young Master Dick's since he went back to Oxford College. She decanted 'em [chuckle], an' th' old Vicar allowed, havin' tastedthe stuff, that--though he had lost the run o' wine lately, an' didn'reckernise whether 'twas port or what-not--seemin' to him 'twas asound wine and fit for any gentleman's table. 'Well, at any rate, 'says the Missus, 'my boy shall be spared the temptation: an' I hope'tis no sign he's betaken hisself to secret drinkin'!'

"Well, then, it was decanted: an' Hancock and Truslove, nothin'doubtful, begun to lap it up like so much milk--the Vicar helpin', and the Missus rather encouragin' than not, to the extent o' thefirst decanter; thinkin' that 'twas good riddance to the stuff andthat if the Bishop turned up, he wouldn't look, as a holy man, formore than ha'f a bottle. I'm tellin' it you as Sally told it to me. She says that everything went on as easy as eggs in a nest until shestarted to hand round the sweets, and all of a sudden she didn' knowwhat was happenin' at table, nor whether she was on her head or herheels. . . . All I can tell you, sir, is that me and Battershall"--Battershall is the vicarage gardener, stableman, and factotum--"waswaitin' in the stables, wonderin' when in the deuce the Bishop wouldturn up, when we heard the whistle blown from the kitchen: which wasthe signal. Out we ran; an' there to be sure was the Bishop comin'down the drive in a hired trap. But between him and the house--slap-bang, as you might say, in the middle of the lawn--was our twoChurchwardens, stripped mother-naked to the waist, and sparring: andfrom the window just over the porch th' old Missus screaming out tous to separate 'em. No, nor that wasn't the worst: for, as hisLordship's trap drove up, the two tom-fools stopped their boxin' tostand 'pon their toes and blow kisses at him!

"I must say that Battershall showed great presence o' mind. He shouted to me to tackle Truslove, while he ran up to MattheyHancock an' butted him in the stomach; an' together we'd heaved thetwo tom-fools into the shrubbery almost afore his Lordship couldbelieve his eyes. I won't say what had happened to the Vicar, for Idon't rightways know. All I can get out o' Sally--she's a modestwench--is that--that--_he wanted to be a Statoo!_ . . . "

"Quite so, " I interrupted, edging towards the gate and signifyingwith a gesture of the hand that I had heard enough. 

Old Trewoon's voice followed me. 

"I reckon, sir, we best agree, for the sake o' the dear old fella, that such a sight as them two Churchwardens was enough to make anygentleman take to his bed. But"--as the gate rang on its hasp andrang again--"I've been thinkin' powerful _what might ha' happened ifhis Lordship had turned up in due time to partake_. "

Master Dick is a good boy; and when we met in the Christmas vacationno allusion was made to the Mont-Bazillac. On my part, I am absolvedfrom my promised confession, and my lips shall remain locked. That great, that exhilarating, that redoubtable wine, has--with thenuptials of M. Sebillot's daughter--perished finally from earth. I wonder what happened in Bergerac on that occasion, and if it had acomparable apotheosis!

THE THREE NECKLACES. 

"A great nation!" said the little Cure. "But yes, indeed, theEnglish are a very great nation. And now I have seen them at home!But it passes expression, monsieur, what a traveller I find myself!"

We stood together on the deck of the steamer, watching--after aneight hours' passage from Plymouth--the Breton coast as it loomedout of the afternoon haze. Our crossing had been smooth, yetsea-sickness had prostrated all his compatriots on board--five or sixpriests, as many religieuses, and maybe a dozen peasants, whom Isupposed to be attached in some way to the service of the religiousorders the priests represented. (Of late years, since the FrenchGovernment expelled them, quite a number of these orders have found ahome in our West Country. ) On my way to the docks that morning I hadovertaken and passed them straggling by twos and threes to thesteamer, the men in broad-brimmed hats with velvet ribbons, the womencoifed and bodiced after the fashion of their country, each groupshepherded by a priest; and I had noted how strange and almostforlorn a figure they cut in the grey English streets. If some ofthe strangeness had worn off, they certainly appeared no less forlornas they sat huddled in physical anguish, dumb, immobile, staring atthe sea. 

The little Cure, however, was vivacious enough for ten. It wasimpossible to avoid making friends with him. He had nothing to do, he told me, with his companions, but was just a plain parish priestreturning from an errand of business. 

He announced this with a fine roll of the voice. 

"Of business, " he repeated. "The English are a great nation forbusiness. But how warm of heart, notwithstanding!"

"That is not always reckoned to us, " said I. 

"But _I_ reckon it . . . _Tenez_, that will be Ile Vierge--there, with the lighthouse standing white--as it were, beneath the cliffs;but the cliffs belong in fact to the mainland. . . . And now in a fewminutes we come abreast of _my_ parish--the Ile Lezan. . . . See, see!" He caught my arm as the tide raced us down through the Passagedu Four. "My church--how her spire stands up!" He turned to me, hisvoice shaking with emotion. "You English are accustomed to travel. Probably you do not guess, monsieur, with what feelings I see againIle Lezan--I, who have never crossed the Channel before nor indeedhave visited any foreign land. But I am glad: it spreads the mind. "Here he put his hands together and drew them apart as thoughextending a concertina. "I have seen you English at home. If monsieur, who is on tour, could only spare the time to visit me onIle Lezan!"

Well, the end of it was that before we parted on the quay at Brest Ifound myself under half a promise, and a week later, having (as I putit to myself) nothing better to do, I took the train to a littlewind-swept terminus, whence a ramshackle cart jolted me to PortLezan, on the coast, whence again by sail and oar a ferry-boatconveyed me over to the Island. 

My friend the Cure greeted me with something not far short ofecstasy. 

"But this is like you English--you keep your word. . . . You willhardly believe, " he confided, as I shared his admirable dejeuner--soup, langouste, an incomparable omelet, stuffed veal, and I forgetwhat beside--"you will hardly believe with what difficulty I bringmyself back to this horizon. " He waved a hand to the blue sea-linebeyond his window. "When one has tasted progress--" He broke off. "But, thanks be to God, we too, on Ile Lezan, are going to progress. You will visit my church and see how much we have need. "

He took me to it: a bleak, decayed building, half ruinated, theslated pavement uneven as the waves of the sea, the plastered wallsdripping with saline ooze. From the roof depended three or fourrudely carved ships, hung there _ex voto_ by parishioners preservedfrom various perils of the deep. He narrated their histories atlength. 

"The roof leaks, " he said, "but we are to remedy that. At length theblessed Mary of Lezan will be housed, if not as befits her, at leastnot shamefully. " He indicated a niched statue of the Virgin, withdaubed red cheeks and a robe of crude blue overspread with blotchesof sea-salt. "Thanks to your England, " he added. 

"Why 'thanks to England'?"

He chuckled--or perhaps I had better say chirruped. 

"Did I not say I had been visiting your country on business? Eh?You shall hear the story--only I tell no names. "

He took snuff. 

"We will call them, " he said, "only by their Christian names, whichare Lucien and Jeanne. . . . I am to marry them next month, whenLucien gets his relief from the lighthouse on Ile Ouessant. 

"They are an excellent couple. As between them, the wits are withLucien, who will doubtless rise in his profession. He has beenthrough temptation, as you shall hear. For Jeanne, she is _un coeursimple_, as again you will discover; not clever at all--oh, by nomeans!--yet one of the best of my children. It is really to Jeannethat we owe it all. . . . I have said so to Lucien, and just at themoment Lucien was trying to say it to me. 

"They were betrothed, you understand. Lucien was nineteen, andJeanne maybe a year younger. From the beginning, it had been anunderstood thing: to this extent understood, that Lucien, instead ofsailing to the fishery (whither go most of the young men of Ile Lezanand the coast hereabouts) was destined from the first to enter thelighthouse service under Government. The letters I have written toGovernment on his behalf! . . . I am not one of those who quarrelwith the Republic. Still--a priest, and in this out-of-the-wayspot--what is he?

"However, Lucien got his appointment. The pay? Enough to marry on, for a free couple. But the families were poor on both sides--longfamilies, too. Folk live long on Ile Lezan--women-folk especially;accidents at the fishery keep down the men. Still, and allowing forthat, the average is high. Lucien had even a great-grandmotheralive--a most worthy soul--and on Jeanne's side the grandparentssurvived on both sides. Where there are grandparents they must bemaintained. 

"No one builds on Ile Lezan. Luden and Jeanne--on either side theirfamilies crowded to the very windows. If only the smallest hovelmight fall vacant! . . . For a week or two it seemed that a cottagemight drop in their way; but it happened to be what you callpicturesque, and a rich man snapped it up. He was a stranger fromParis, and called himself an artist; but in truth he painted little, and that poorly--as even _I_ could see. He was fonder of planningwhat he would have, and what not, to indulge his mood when it shouldbe in the key for painting. Happening here just when the cottagefell empty, he offered a price for it far beyond anything Luciencould afford, and bought it. For a month or two he played with thisnew toy, adding a studio and a veranda, and getting over many largecrates of furniture from the mainland. Then by and by a restlessnessovertook him--that restlessness which is the disease of the rich--andhe left us, yet professing that it delighted him always to keep hislittle _pied-a-terre_ in Ile Lezan. He has never been at pains tovisit us since. 

"But meanwhile Lucien and Jeanne had no room to marry and set uphouse. It was a heavy time for them. They had some talk together ofcrossing over and finding a house on the mainland; but it came tonothing. The parents on both sides would not hear of it, and intruth Jeanne would have found it lonely on the mainland, away fromher friends and kin; for Lucien, you see, must in any case spend halfhis time on the lighthouse on Ile Ouessant. So many weeks on duty, so many weeks ashore--thus it works, and even so the loneliness wearsthem; though our Bretons, being silent men by nature, endure itbetter than the rest. 

"Lucien and Jeanne must wait--wait for somebody to die. In plainwords it came to that. Ah, monsieur! I have heard well-to-do folktalk of our poor as unfeeling. That is an untruth. But suppose itwere true. Where would the blame lie in such a story as this?Like will to like, and young blood is hot. . . . Lucien and Jeanne, however, were always well conducted. . . . Yes, yes, my story?Six months passed, and then came word that our rich artist desired tosell his little _pied-a-terre_; but he demanded the price he hadgiven for it, and, moreover, what he called compensation for thebuildings he had added. Also he would only sell or let it with thefurniture; he wished, in short, to disencumber himself of hispurchase, and without loss. This meant that Lucien less than evercould afford to buy; and there are no money-lenders on Ile Lezan. The letter came as he was on the point of departing for another sixweeks on Ile Ouessant: and that evening the lovers' feet took them tothe nest they had so often dreamed of furnishing. There is noprettier cottage on the island--I will show it to you on our wayback. Very disconsolately they looked at it, but there was no cure. Lucien left early next morning. 

"That was last autumn, a little before the wreck of your greatEnglish steamship the _Rougemont Castle_. Days after, the tidescarried some of the bodies even here, to Ile Lezan; but not many--four or five at the most--and we, cut off from shore around thiscorner of the coast, were long in hearing the terrible news. Even the lighthouse-keepers on Ile Ouessant knew nothing of it untilmorning, for she struck in the night, you remember, attempting to runthrough the Inner Passage and save her time. 

"I believe--but on this point will not be certain--that the alarmfirst came to Lucien, and in the way I shall tell you. At any ratehe was walking alone in the early morning, and somewhere along theshore to the south of the lighthouse, when he came on a body lying onthe seaweed in a gully of the rocks. 

"It was the body of a woman, clad only in a nightdress. As hestooped over her, Lucien saw that she was exceeding beautiful; yetnot a girl, but a well-developed woman of thirty or thereabouts, withheavy coils of dark hair, well-rounded shoulders, and (as hedescribed it to me later on) a magnificent throat. 

"He had reason enough to remark her throat, for as he turned the bodyover--it lay on its right side--to place a hand over the heart, ifperchance some life lingered, the nightdress, open at the throat, disclosed one, two, three superb necklaces of diamonds. There wererings of diamonds on her fingers, too, and afterwards many fine gemswere found sewn within a short vest or camisole of silk she woreunder her nightdress. But Lucien's eyes were fastened on the threenecklaces. 

"Doubtless the poor lady, aroused in her berth as the ship struck, had clasped these hurriedly about her throat before rushing on deck. So, might her life be spared, she would save with it many thousandsof pounds. They tell me since that in moments of panic women alwaysthink first of their jewels. 

"But here she lay drowned, and the jewels--as I said, Lucien couldnot unglue his eyes from them. At first he stared at them stupidly. Not for some minutes did his mind grasp that they represented greatwealth; and even when the temptation grew, it whispered no more thanthat here was money--maybe even a hundred pounds--but enough, at allevents, added to his savings, to purchase the cottage at home, andmake him and Jeanne happy for the rest of their lives. 

"His fingers felt around to the clasps. One by one he detached thenecklaces and slipped them into his trousers' pocket. 

"He also managed to pull off one of the rings; but found this a moredifficult matter, because the fingers were swollen somewhat with thesalt water. So he contented himself with one, and ran back to thelighthouse to give the alarm to his comrades. 

"When his comrades saw the body there was great outcry upon thejewels on its fingers; but none attempted to disturb them, and Lucienkept his own counsel. They carried the poor thing to a store-chamberat the base of the lighthouse, and there before nightfall they hadcollected close upon thirty bodies. There was much talk in thenewspapers afterwards concerning the honesty of our poor Bretons, whopillaged none of the dead, but gave up whatever they found. The relatives and the great shipping company subscribed a fund, ofwhich a certain small portion came even to Ile Lezan to beadministered by me. 

"The poor lady with the necklaces? If you read the accounts in thenewspapers, as no doubt you did, you will already have guessed hername. Yes, in truth, she was your great soprano, whom they calledMadame Chiara, or La Chiara: so modest are you English, at least inall that concerns the arts, that when an incomparable singer is bornto you she must go to Italy to borrow a name. She was returning fromSouth Africa, where the finest of the three necklaces had beenpresented to her by subscription amongst her admirers. They say hervoice so ravished the audiences at Johannesburg and Pretoria that shemight almost, had she willed, have carried home the great diamondthey are sending to your King. But that, no doubt, was an inventionof the newspapers. 

"For certain, at any rate, the necklace was a superb one; nor do Ispeak without knowledge, as you shall hear. Twenty-seven largestones--between each a lesser stone--and all of the purest water!The other two were scarcely less magnificent. It was a brother whocame over and certified the body; for her husband she had divorced inAmerica, and her father was an English clergyman, old and infirm, seldom travelling beyond the parish where he lives in a chateau andreigns as a king. It seems that these things happen in England. At first he was only a younger son, and dwelt in the rectory as aplain parish priest, and there he married and brought up his family;but his elder brother dying, he became seigneur of the parish too, and moved into a great house, yet with little money to support ituntil his only daughter came back from studying at Milan andconquered London. The old gentleman speaks very modestly about it. Oh, yes, I have seen and talked with him. And what a garden!The azaleas! the rhododendrons! But he is old, and his sensessomewhat blunted. He lives in the past--not his own, but hisfamily's rather. He spoke to me of his daughter without emotion, andsaid that her voice was undoubtedly derived from three generationsback, when an ancestor--a baronet--had married with an opera-singer. 

"But we were talking of the necklaces and of the ring which Lucienhad taken. . . . He told his secret to nobody, but kept them ever inhis trousers' pocket. Only, when he could escape away from hiscomrades to some corner of the shore, he would draw the gems forthand feast his eyes on them. I believe it weighed on him very littlethat he had committed a crime or a sin. Longshore folk have greatease of conscience respecting all property cast up to them by thesea. They regard all such as their rightful harvest: the feeling isin their blood, and I have many times argued in vain against it. Once while I argued, here in Ile Lezan, an old man asked me, 'But, Father, if it were not for such chances, why should any man choose todwell by the sea?' If, monsieur, you lived among them and knew theirhardships, you would see some rude sense in that question. 

"To Lucien, feasting his eyes by stealth on the diamonds and countingthe days to his relief, the stones meant that Jeanne and happinesswere now close within his grasp. There would be difficulty, to besure, in disposing of them; but with Jeanne's advice--she had apractical mind--and perhaps with Jeanne's help, the way would not behard to find. He was inclined to plume himself on the ease withwhich, so far, it had been managed. His leaving the rings, and thegems sewn within the camisole--though to be sure these were notdiscovered for many hours--had been a masterstroke. He and hiscomrades had been complimented together upon their honesty. 

"The relief came duly; and in this frame of mind--a little sly, but more than three parts triumphant--he returned to Ile Lezan andwas made welcome as something of a hero. (To do him credit, he hadworked hard in recovering the bodies from the wreck. ) At all timesit is good to arrive home after a spell on the lighthouse. The smell of nets drying and of flowers in the gardens, the faces onthe quay, and the handshakes, and the first church-going--they allcount. But to Lucien these things were for once as little comparedwith the secret he carried. His marriage now was assured, and thatfirst evening--the Eve of Noel--he walked with Jeanne up the road tothe cottage, and facing it, told her his secret. They could bemarried now. He promised it, and indicated the house with a wave ofthe hand almost proprietary. 

"But Jeanne looked at him as one scared, and said: 'Shall I marry athief?'

"Then, very quietly, she asked for a look at the jewels, and hehanded them to her. She had never set eyes on diamonds before, butall women have an instinct for jewels, and these made her gasp. 'Yes, ' she owned, 'I could not have believed that the world containedsuch beautiful things. I am sorry thou hast done this wickedness, but I understand how they tempted thee. '

"'What is this you are chanting?' demanded Lucien. 'The stones werenothing to me. I thought only that by selling them we two could setup house as man and wife. '

"'My dear one, ' said Jeanne, 'what happiness could we have known withthis between us?' What with the diamonds in her hand and the littlecottage there facing her, so long desired, she was forced to shut hereyes for a moment; but when she opened them again her voice was quitefirm. 'We must restore them where they belong. It may be that PereThomas can help us; but I must think of a way. Give them to me, andlet me keep them while I think of a way. '

"'You do not love me as I love you, ' said Lucien in his anger anddisappointment; but he knew, all the same, that he spoke an untruth. 

"Jeanne took the diamonds home with her, to her bedroom, and sat forsome time on the edge of her bed, thinking out a way. In the midstof her thinking she stood up, walked over to the glass, and claspedthe finest of the necklaces about her throat. . . . I suppose nowoman of this country ever wore the like of it--no, not in the dayswhen there were kings and queens of Leon. . . . Jeanne was notbeautiful, but she gazed at herself with eyes like those of a patientin a fever. . . . Then of a sudden she felt the stones burning her asthough they had been red-hot coals. She plucked them off, and castherself on her knees beside the bed. "

"You will remember that this was the Eve of Noel, when the childrenof the parish help me to deck the _creche_ for the infant Christ. Wetake down the images--see, there is St. Joseph, and there yonder OurLady, in the side chapel; the two oxen and a sheep are put away inthe vestry, in a cupboard full of camphor. We have the Three Kingstoo. . . . In short, we put our hearts into the dressing-up. By nightfall all is completed, and I turn the children out, reservingsome few last touches which I invent to surprise them when they comeagain on Christmas morning. Afterwards I celebrate the Mass for theVigil, and then always I follow what has been a custom in thisparish, I believe, ever since the church was built. I blow out allthe candles but two, and remain here, seated, until the day breaks, and the folk assemble to celebrate the first Mass of Noel. Eh?It is discipline, but I bring rugs, and I will not say that all thetime my eyes are wide open. 

"Certainly I closed them on this night of which I am telling. For Iwoke up with a start, and almost, you might say, in trepidation, forit seemed to me that someone was moving in the church. My firstthought was that some mischievous child had crept in, and was playingpranks with my _creche_, and to that first I made my way. Beyond thewindow above it rode the flying moon, and in the rays of it what didI see?

"The figures stood as I had left them. But above the manger, overthe shoulders of the Virgin, blazed a rope of light--of diamonds suchas I have never seen nor shall see again--all flashing green and blueand fieriest scarlet and piercing white. Of the Three Kings, alsoeach bore a gift, two of them a necklace apiece, and the third aring. I stood before the miracle, and my tongue clave to the roof ofmy mouth, and then a figure crept out of the shadows and knelt in thepool of moonlight at my feet. It was Jeanne. She caught at theskirt of my soutane, and broke into sobbing. 

"'My father, let the Blessed One wear them ever, or else help me togive them back!'

"You will now guess, monsieur, on what business I have been visitingEngland. It is a great country. The old clergyman sat among hisazaleas and rhododendrons and listened to all my story. Then he tookthe box that held his daughter's jewels, and, emptying it upon thetable, chose out one necklace and set it aside. 'This one, ' said he, 'shall be sold, my friend, and with the money you shall, after givingthis girl a marriage portion, re-adorn your church on Ile Lezan tothe greater glory of God!'"

On our way back to his lodging the little Cure halted me before thecottage. Gay curtains hung in the windows, and the veranda had beenfreshly painted. 

"At the end of the month Lucien gets his relief, and then they are tobe married, " said the little Cure. 

THE WREN. 

A LEGEND. 

Early on St. Stephen's Day--which is the day after Christmas--youngJohn Cara, son of old John Cara, the smith of Porthennis, took downhis gun and went forth to kill small birds. He was not a sportsman;it hurt him to kill any living creature. But all the young men inthe parish went slaughtering birds on St. Stephen's Day; and theParson allowed there was warrant for it, because, when St. Stephenhad almost escaped from prison, a small bird (by tradition a wren)had chirped, and awakened his gaolers. 

Strange to say, John Cara's dislike of gunning went with a singularaptitude for it. He had a quick sense with birds; could guess theirnext movements just as though he read their minds; and rarely missedhis aim if he took it without giving himself time to think. 

Now the rest of youths, that day, chose the valley bottoms as amatter of course, and trooped about in parties, with much whacking ofbushes. But John went up to Balmain--which is a high stony mooroverlooking the sea--because he preferred to be alone, and alsobecause, having studied their ways, he knew this to be the favouritewinter haunt of the small birds, especially of the wrens and thetitlarks. 

His mother had set her heart on making a large wranny-pie (that is, wren-pie, but actually it includes all manner of birdlings). It wasto be the largest in the parish. She was vain of young John'sprowess, and would quote it when old John grumbled that the lad wasslow as a smith. "And yet, " said old John, "backward isn't the wordso much as foolish. Up to a point he understands iron 'most so wellas I understand it myself. Then some notion takes him, and my back'sno sooner turned than he spoils his job. Always trying to make irondo what iron won't do--that's how you may put it. " The wife, who wasa silly woman, and (like many another such) looked down on herhusband's trade, maintained that her boy ought to have been born asquire, with game of his own. 

Young John went up to Balmain; and there, sure enough, he foundwrens and titlarks flitting about everywhere, cheeping amid thefurze-bushes on the low stone hedges and the granite boulders, where the winter rains had hollowed out little basins for themselves, little by little, working patiently for hundreds of years. The weather was cold, but still and sunny. As he climbed, the sea atfirst made a blue strip beyond the cliff's edge on his right, thenspread into a wide blue floor, three hundred feet below him, and allthe width of it twinkling. Ahead and on his left all the moorlandtwinkled too, with the comings and goings of the birds. The wrensmostly went about their business--whatever that might be--in a sharp, practical way, keeping silence; but the frail note of the titlarkssounded here, there, everywhere. 

Young John might have shot scores of them. But, as he headed for theold mine-house of Balmain and the cromlech, or Main-Stone, whichstands close beside it--and these are the only landmarks--he did noteven trouble to charge his gun. For the miracle was happeningalready. 

It began--as perhaps most miracles do--very slowly and gently, without his perceiving it; quite trivially, too, and even absurdly. It started within him, upon a thought that wren-pie was a foolishdish after all! His mother, who prided herself upon making it, didbut pretend to enjoy it after it was cooked. His father did not evenpretend: the mass of little bones in it cheated his appetite andspoiled his temper. From this, young John went on to consider. "Was it worth while to go on killing wrens and shamming an appetitefor them, only because a wren had once informed against St. Stephen?How were _these_ wrens guilty? And, anyway, how were the titlarksguilty?" Young John reasoned it out in this simple fashion. He cameto the Main-Stone, and seating himself on the turf, leaned his backagainst one of the blocks which support the huge monolith. He satthere for a long while, puckering his brows, his gun idle beside him. At last he said to himself, but firmly and aloud:

"Parson and the rest say 'tis true. But I can't believe it, andsomething inside says 'tis wrong. . . . There! I won't shoot anotherbird--and that settles it!"

"Halleluia!" said a tiny voice somewhere above him. 

The voice, though' tiny, was shrill and positive. Young Johnrecognised, and yet did not recognise it. He stared up at the wallof the old mine-house from which it had seemed to speak, but he couldsee no one. Next he thought that the word must have come from hisown heart, answering a sudden gush of warmth and happiness that sethis whole body glowing. It was as if winter had changed to summer, within him and without, and all in a moment. He blinked in thestronger sunshine, and felt it warm upon his eyelids. 

"Halleluia!" said the voice again. It certainly came from the wall. He looked again, and, scanning it in this strange, new light, wasaware of a wren in one of the crevices. 

"Will he? will he?" piped another voice, pretty close behind his ear. Young John, now he had learnt that wrens can talk, had no difficultyin recognising this other voice: it was the half-hearted note of thetitlark. He turned over on his side and peered into the shadow ofthe Main-Stone; but in vain, for the titlark is a hesitating, unhappylittle soul that never quite dares to make up its mind. It used tobe the friend of a race that inhabited Cornwall ages ago. It buildsin their cromlechs, and its song remembers them. It is the bird, too, in whose nest the cuckoo lays; so it knows all about losingone's children and being dispossessed. 

"We will give him a gift, " chirruped the wren, "and send him abouthis business. He is the first man that has the sense to leave us toours. "

"But will he?--will he?" the titlark piped back ghostlily. "One cannever be sure. I have known men long, long before ever you camehere. I knew King Arthur. This rock was his table, and he dinedhere with seven other kings on the night after they had beaten theDanes at Vellandruchar. I hid under the stone and listened to thempassing the cups, and between their talk you could hear the streamrunning down the valley--it turned the two mill-wheels, Vellandrucharand Vellandreath, with blood that night. Even at daybreak it ranhigh over the legs of the choughs walking on the beach below--that iswhy the choughs go red-legged to this day. . . . They are few now, but then they were many: and next spring they came and built in therigging of the Danes' ships, left ashore--for not a Dane had escaped. But King Arthur had gone his way. Ah, he was a man!"

"Nevertheless, " struck in the wren, "this is a good fellow too; and asmith, whose trade is as old as your King Arthur's. We will prosperhim in it. "

"What will you give him?" asked the titlark. 

"He is lying at this moment on the trefoil that commands all metals. Let him look to his gun when he awakes. "

"Ah!" said the titlark, "I told you that secret. I was with Teaguethe Smith when he discovered it. . . . But he discovered it too late;and, besides, he was a dreamer, and used it only to make crosses andcharms and womanish ornaments. "

"It's no use to _us_, anyhow, " said the practical wren. "So let usgive it away. I hate waste. "

"I doubt, " said the titlark, "it will be much profit to him, wonderful though it is. "

"Well, " said the wren, "a present's a present. Folks with a livingto get must give what they can afford. "

It is not wise, as a rule, to sleep on the bare ground in December. But Young John awoke warm and jolly as a sandboy. He picked up hisgun. It was bent and curiously twisted in the barrel. "Hallo!" saidhe, and peered closely into the short turf where it had lain. . . . 

When he reached home his mother cried out joyfully, seeing hisgame-bag and how it bulged. She cried out to a different tune whenhe showed her what it contained--clods and clumps of turf, mattedover with a tiny close-growing plant that might have been any commonmoss for aught she knew (or recked) of the difference. 

"But where are all the birds you promised me?"

He held out his gun--he had promised no birds, but that matterednothing. His father took it to the lamp and glanced at it; put onhis horn spectacles slowly, and peered at it. He was silent for along while. Young John had turned inattentively from his mother'sreproaches, and stood watching him. 

The old man swung about at length. "When did ye contrive this?" heasked, rubbing the twist of the gun-barrel with his thumb. "And theforge not heated all this day!"

"We'll heat it to-night after supper, " said Young John. 

In the Church of Porthennis, up to twenty-five years ago, therestood a screen of ironwork--a marvel of arabesques and intricatetraceries, with baskets of flowers, sea-monsters, Cherubim, tying thefiligree-work and looping it together in knots and centres. One panel had for subject a spider midmost in a web, to visit whichsmiths came hundreds of miles, from all over the country, andwondered. For it was impossible to guess how iron had ever beenbeaten to such thinness or drawn so ductile. But unhappily-andpriceless as was the secret Young John Cara had chosen to let diewith him--the art of it was frail, frail as the titlark's song. His masterpiece, indeed, had in it the corruption of Celtic art. It could not endure its native weather, and rusted away almost tonothingness. When the late Sir Gilbert Aubyn, the famous neo-Gothicarchitect, was called in (1885) to restore Porthennis Church--or, aswe say in Cornwall, to "restroy" it--he swept the remnants away. But the legend survives, _ferro perennius_. 

NOT HERE, O APPOLLO!

A CHRISTMAS STORY HEARD AT MIDSUMMER. 

We sat and talked in the Vicarage garden overlooking Mount's Bay. The long summer day lingered out its departure, although the fullmoon was up and already touching with a faint radiance the towers onSt. Michael's Mount--'the guarded Mount'--that rested as though atanchor in the silver-grey offing. The land-breeze had died downwith sunset; the Atlantic lay smooth as a lake below us, and melted, league upon league, without horizon into the grey of night. Between the Vicar's fuchsia-bushes we looked down on it, we three--the Vicar, the Senior Tutor and I. 

I think the twilit hour exactly accorded with our mood, and it didnot need the scent of the Vicar's ten-week stocks, wafted across thegarden, to touch a nerve of memory. For it was twenty years since wehad last sat in this place and talked, and the summer night seemed tobe laden with tranquil thoughts, with friendship and old regard. . . . Twenty years ago I had been an undergraduate, and had made oneof a reading-party under the Senior Tutor, who annually in the LongVacation brought down two or three fourth-year men to bathe and boatand read Plato with him, for no pay but their friendship: and, generation after generation, we young men had been made welcome inthis garden by the Vicar, who happened to be an old member of ourCollege and (as in time I came to see) delighted to renew his youthin ours. There had been daughters, too, in the old days. . . . But they had married, and the Vicarage nest was empty long since. 

The Senior Tutor, too, had given up work and retired upon hisFellowship. But every summer found him back at his old haunts; andstill every summer brought a reading-party to the Cove, in conductnow of a brisk Junior Fellow, who had read with me in our time andachieved a "first. " In short, things at the Cove were pretty muchthe same after twenty years, barring that a small colony of paintershad descended upon it and made it their home. With them theundergraduates had naturally and quickly made friends, and the resultwas a cricket match--a grand Two-days' Cricket Match. They were allextremely serious about it, and the Oxford party--at their wits' end, no doubt, to make up a team against the Artists--had bethoughtthemselves of me, who dwelt at the other end of the Duchy. They hadwritten--they had even sent a two-page telegram--to me, who had nothandled a bat for more years than I cared to count. It is deliciousto be flattered by youth, especially for gifts you never possessed orpossess no longer. I yielded and came. The season was Midsummer, ora little after; the weather golden and glorious. 

We had drawn stumps after the first day's play, and the evening wasto be wound up with a sing-song in the great tent erected--a marvelto the "Covers, " or native fishermen--on the cricket-field. But I nolonger take kindly to such entertainments; and so, after a bathe anda quiet dinner at the inn, it came into my mind to take a stroll upthe hill and along the cliffs, and pay an evening call on the oldVicar, wondering if he would remember me. 

I found him in his garden. The Senior Tutor was there too--"thegrave man, nicknamed Adam"--and the Vicar's wife, seated in abee-hive straw chair, knitting. So we four talked happily for awhile, until she left us on pretence that the dew was falling; andwith that, as I have said, a wonderful silence possessed the gardenfragrant with memories and the night-scent of flowers. . . 

Then I let fall the word that led to the Vicar's story. In oldrambles, after long mornings spent with Plato, my eyes (by mirage, nodoubt) had always found something Greek in the curves and colour ofthis coast; or rather, had felt the want of it. What that somethingwas I could hardly have defined: but the feeling was always with me. It was as if at each bend of the shore I expected to find a templewith pillars, or a column crowning the next promontory; or, where thecoast-track wound down to the little haven, to happen on a votivetablet erected to Poseidon or to "Helen's brothers, lucent stars";nay, to meet with Odysseus' fisherman carrying an oar on hisshoulder, or even, in an amphitheatre of the cliffs, to surpriseApollo himself and the Nine seated on a green plat whence a waterfallgushed down the coombe to the sandy beach . . . . This evening on myway along the cliffs--perhaps because I had spent a day bathing insunshine in the company of white-flannelled youths--the old sensationhad returned to haunt me. I spoke of it. 

"'Not here, O Apollo--'" murmured the Senior Tutor. 

"You quote against your own scepticism, " said I. "The coast is rightenough; it _is_"

 Where Helicon breaks down In cliff to the sea. 

"It was made to invite the authentic gods--only the gods never foundit out. "

"Did they not?" asked the Vicar quietly. The question took us alittle aback, and after a pause his next words administered anothersmall shock. "One never knows, " he said, "when, or how near, thegods have passed. One may be listening to us in this garden, to-night. . . . As for the Greeks--"

"Yes, yes, we were talking of the Greeks, " the Senior Tutor (aconvinced agnostic) put in hastily. "If we leave out Pytheas, noGreeks ever visited Cornwall. They are as mythical hereabouts as"--he hesitated, seeking a comparison--"as the Cornish wreckers; and_they_ never existed outside of pious story-books. "

Said the Vicar, rising from his garden-chair, "I accept the omen. Wait a moment, you two. " He left us and went across the dim lawn tothe house, whence by and by he returned bearing a book under his arm, and in his hand a candle, which he set down unlit upon the wickertable among the coffee-cups. 

"I am going, " he said, "to tell you something which, a few years ago, I should have scrupled to tell. With all deference to your opinions, my dear Dick, I doubt if they quite allow you to understand theclergy's horror of chancing a heresy; indeed, I doubt if either ofyou quite guess what a bridle a man comes to wear who preaches ahundred sermons or so every year to a rural parish, knowing thatnine-tenths of his discourse will assuredly be lost, while at anypoint in the whole of it he may be fatally misunderstood. . . . Yetas a man nears his end he feels an increasing desire to be honest, neither professing more than he knows, nor hiding any small articleof knowledge as inexpedient to the Faith. The Faith, he begins tosee, can take care of itself: for him, it is important to await hismarching-orders with a clean breast. Eh, Dick?"

The Senior Tutor took his pipe from his mouth and nodded slowly. 

"But what is your book?" he asked. 

"My Parish Register. Its entries cover the years from 1660 to 1827. Luckily I had borrowed it from the vestry box, and it was safe on myshelf in the Vicarage on the Christmas Eve of 1870, the night whenthe church took fire. That was in my second year as incumbent, andbefore ever you knew these parts. "

"By six months, " said the Senior Tutor. "I first visited the Cove inJuly, 1871, and you were then beginning to clear the ruins. All thevillage talk still ran on the fire, with speculations on the cause ofit. "

"The cause, " said the Vicar, "will never be known. I may say thatpretty confidently, having spent more time in guessing than will everbe spent by another man. . . . But since you never saw the old churchas it stood, you never saw the Heathen Lovers in the south aisle. "

"Who were they?"

"They were a group of statuary, and a very strange one; executed, asI first believed, in some kind of wax--but, pushing my researches(for the thing interested me) I found the material to be a whitesoapstone that crops out here and there in the crevices of ourserpentine. Indeed, I know to a foot the spot from which thesculptor took it, close on two hundred years ago. "

"It was of no great age, then?"

"No: and yet it bore all the marks of an immense age. For to beginwith, it had stood five-and-twenty years in this very garden, exposedto all weathers, and the steatite (as they call it) is of allsubstances the most friable--is, in fact, the stuff used by tailorsunder the name of French chalk. Again, when, in 1719, mypredecessor, old Vicar Hichens, removed it to the church and set itin the south aisle--or, at any rate, when he died and ceased toprotect it--the young men of the parish took to using it for ahatstand, and also to carving their own and their sweethearts' namesupon it during sermon-time. The figures of the sculpture were two; ayouth and a maid, recumbent, and naked but for a web of drapery flungacross their middles; and they lay on a roughly carved rock, overwhich the girl's locks as well as the drapery were made to hang limp, as though dripping with water. . . . One thing more I must tell you, risking derision; that to my ignorance the sculpture proclaimed itsage less by these signs of weather and rough usage than by thesimplicity of its design, its proportions, the chastity (there's noother word) of the two figures. They were classical, my dear Dick--what was left of them; Greek, and of the best period. "

The Senior Tutor lit a fresh pipe, and by the flare of the match Isaw his eyes twinkling. 

"Praxiteles, " he jerked out, between the puffs, "and in the age ofKneller! But proceed, my friend. "

"And do you wait, my scoffer!" The Vicar borrowed the box ofmatches, lit the candle--which held a steady flame in the stillevening air--opened the book, and laid it on his knee while headjusted his spectacles. "The story is here, entered on a separateleaf of the Register and signed by Vicar Hichens' own hand. With your leave--for it is brief--I am going to read it through toyou. The entry is headed:"

'_Concerning a group of Statuary now in the S. Aisle of LezardewParish Church: set there by me in witness of God's Providence inoperation, as of the corruption of man's heart, and for a warning tosinners to amend their ways_. 

'In the year 1694, being the first of my vicariate, there lived inthis Parish as hind to the farmer of Vellancoose a young manexceeding comely and tall of stature, of whom (when I came to ask)the people could tell me only that his name was Luke, and that as achild he had been cast ashore from a foreign ship; they said, aPortugal ship. [But the Portugals have swart complexions and areless than ordinary tall, whereas this youth was light-coloured andonly brown by sunburn. ] Nor could he tell me anything when Iquestioned him concerning his haveage; which I did upon report thathe was courting my housemaiden Grace Pascoe, an honest good girl, whom I was loth to see waste herself upon an unworthy husband. Upon inquiry I could not discover this Luke to be any way unworthy, saving that he was a nameless man and a foreigner and a backwardchurch-goer. He told me with much simplicity that he could notremember to have had any parents; that Farmer Lowry had brought himup from the time he was shipwrecked and ever treated him kindly; andthat, as for church-going, he had thought little about it, but wouldamend in this matter if it would give me pleasure. Which I thought astrange answer. When I went on to hint at his inclination for GracePascoe, he confused me by asking, with a look very straight andgood-natured, if the girl had ever spoken to me on the matter; towhich I was forced to answer that she had not. So he smiled, and Icould not further press him. 

'Yet in my mind they would have made a good match; for the girl toowas passing well-featured, and this Luke had notable gifts. He couldread and write. The farmer spoke well of him, saying, "He hasrewarded me many times over. Since his coming, thanks to the Lord, my farm prospers: and in particular he has a wonderful way with thebeasts. Cattle or sheep, fowls, dogs, the wild things even, come tohim almost without a call. " He had also (the farmer told me) awonderful knack of taking clay or mud and moulding it with his handsto the likeness of living creatures, of all sorts and sizes. In thekitchen by the great fire he would work at these images by hourstogether, to the marvel of everyone: but when the image was made, after a little while he always destroyed it; nor was it ever beggedby anyone for a gift, there being a belief that, being fashioned bymore than a man's skill, such things could only bring ill-luck to thepossessors of them. 

'For months then I heard no more of Grace Pascoe's lover: nor (thoughhe now came every Sunday to church) did I ever see looks pass betweenthe Vicarage pew (where she sat) and the Vellancoose pew (where he). But at the end of the year she came to me and told me she had givenher word to a young farmer of Goldsithney, John Magor by name. In aworldly way this was a far better match for her than to take anameless and landless man. Nor knew I anything against John Magorbeyond some stray wildness natural to youth. He came of clean blood. He was handsome, almost as the other; tall, broad of chest, aprizewinner at wrestling-matches; and of an age when a good wife isusually a man's salvation. 

'I called their banns, and in due time married them. On thewedding-day, after the ceremony, I returned from church to find theyoung man Luke awaiting me by my house-door; who very civilly desiredme to walk over to Vellancoose with him, which I did. There, takingme aside to an unused linhay, he showed me the sculpture, telling me(who could not conceal my admiration) that he had meant it for Johnand Grace Magor (as she now was) for a wedding-gift, but that theyoung woman had cried out against it as immodest and, besides, unlucky. On the first count I could understand her rejecting such agift; for the folk of these parts know nothing of statuary and countall nakedness immodest. Indeed, I wondered that the bridegroom hadnot taken Luke's freedom in ill part, and I said so: to which heanswered, smiling, that no man ever quarrelled with him or couldquarrel. "And now, sir, " he went on, "my apprenticeship is up, and Iam going on a long journey. Since you find my group pleasing I wouldbeg you to accept it, or--if you had liefer--to keep it for me untilI come again, as some day I shall. " "I do not wonder, " said I, "atyour wish to leave Lezardew Parish for the world where, as I augur, great fortune awaits you. " He smiled again at this and said that, touching his future, he had neither any hope nor any fear: and againhe pressed me to accept the statuary. For a time I demurred, and inthe end made it a condition that he altered the faces somewhat, concealing the likeness to John and Grace Magor: and to this heconsented. "Yet, " said he, "it will be the truer likeness when thetime comes. "

'He was gone on the morrow by daybreak, and late that afternoon thefarmer brought me the statuary in his hay-wagon. I had it set in thegarden by the great filberd-tree, and there it has stood for nearfive-and-twenty years. (I ought to say that he had kept his promiseof altering the faces, and thereby to my thinking had defaced theirbeauty: but beneath this defacement I still traced their firstlikeness. )

'Now to speak of the originals. My way lying seldom by Goldsithney, I saw little of John and Grace Magor during the next few years, andnothing at all of them after they had left Goldsithney (theirfortunes not prospering) and rented a smaller farm on the coastsouthward, below Rosudgeon: but what news came to me was ever of thesame tenour. Their marriage had brought neither children nor otherblessings. There were frequent quarrels, and the man had yielded todrinking; the woman, too, it was reported. She, that had been sotrim a serving-maid, was become a slut with a foul tongue. They werecruelly poor with it all; for money does not always stick to uncleanhands. I write all this to my reproach as well as to theirs, foralbeit they dwelt in another parish it had been my Christian duty toseek them out. I did not, and I was greatly to blame. 

'To pass over many years and come to the 2nd of December last (1718). That night, about 11 o'clock, I sat in my library reading. It wasblowing hard without, the wind W. N. W. ; but I had forgotten the galein my book, when a sound, as it were a distant outcry of many voices, fetched me to unbar the shutters and open the window to listen. The sound, whatever it was, had died away: I heard but the windroaring and the surf on the beaches along the Bay: and I was closingthe window again when, close at hand, a man's voice called to me toopen the front door. I went out to the hall, where a lamp stood, andopened to him. The light showed me the young man Luke, on whom I hadnot set eyes for these four-and-twenty years: nor, amazed andperturbed as I was, did it occur to me as marvellous that he had notaged a day. "There is a wreck, " said he, "in the Porth below here;and you, sir, are concerned in it. Will you fetch a lantern and comewith me?" He put this as a question, but in his tone was a command:and when I brought the lantern he took it from me and led the way. We struck across the Home Parc southward, thence across Gew Down andthe Leazes, and I knew that he was making for the track which leadsdown to the sea by Prah Sands. At the entry of the track he took offhis coat and wrapped the lantern in it, though just there its lightwould have been most useful, or so I thought. But he led the wayeasily, and I followed with scarce a stumble. "We shall not needit, " he said; "for see, there they are!" pointing to a small lightthat moved on the sands below us. "But who are they?" I asked. He strode down ahead of me, making swiftly for the light, and comingupon them in the noise of the gale we surprised a man and a woman, who at first cowered before us and then would have cast down theirlight and run. But my companion, unwrapping the lantern, held ithigh and so that the light shone on their faces. They were JohnMagor and his wife Grace. 

'Then I, remembering what cry of shipwrecked souls had reached to mylibrary in the Vicarage, and well guessing what work these wretcheshad been at, lifted my voice to accuse them. But the young man Lukestepped between us, and said he to them gently, "Come, and I willshow what you seek. " He went before us for maybe two hundred yardsto the northern end of the beach, they behind him quaking, and Ishepherding them in my righteous wrath. "Behold you, " said he, andagain lifted the lantern over a rock dark with seaweed (and yet theweed shone in the light)--"Behold you, what you have wrecked. "

'On their backs along the flat of the rock lay two naked bodies, of ayouth and a maid, half-clasped one to another. He handed me thelantern for a better look, and in the rays of it the two wretchespeered forward as if drawn against their will. I cannot well say ifthey or I first perceived the miracle; that these corpses, as theylay in the posture, so bore the very likeness of the two lovers on mysculptured slab. But I remember that, as John and Grace Magorscreamed back and clung to me, and as by the commotion of themclutching at my knees the lantern fell and was extinguished, I heardthe young man Luke say, "Yourselves, yourselves!"

'I called to him to pick up the lantern; but he did not answer, andthe two clinging wretches encumbered me. After a long while theclouds broke and the moon shone through them; and where he had stoodthere was no one. Also the slab of rock was dark, and the twodrowned corpses had vanished with him. I pointed to it; but therewas no tinder-box at hand to light the lantern again, and in thebitter weather until the dawn the two clung about me, confessing andrehearsing their sins. 

'I have great hopes that they are brought to a better way of life;and because (repent they never so much) no one is any longer likelyto recognise in these penitents the originals upon whom it wasmoulded these many years ago, I am determined to move the statuary toa place in the S. Aisle of our parish church, as a memorial, themoral whereof I have leave of John and Grace Magor to declare to allthe parish. I choose to defer making it public, in tenderness, whilethey live: for all things point as yet to the permanent saving oftheir souls. But, as in the course of nature I shall predeceasethem, I set the record here in the Parish Register, as its bestplace. 

'(Signed) Malachi Hichens, B. D. '21st Jan. , 1719. '

"And is that all?" I asked. 

"Yes and no, " said the Vicar, closing the book. "It is all that Mr. Hichens has left to help us: and you may or may not connect with itwhat I am going to relate of my own experience. . . . The old church, as you know, was destroyed by fire in the morning hours of ChristmasDay, 1870. Throughout Christmas Eve and for a great part of thenight it had been snowing, but the day broke brilliantly, on a skywithout wind or cloud; and never have my eyes seen anything soterribly beautiful--ay, so sublime--as the sight which met them atthe lych-gate. The old spire--which served as a sea-mark for thefishermen, and was kept regularly white-washed that it might be themore conspicuous--glittered in the morning sunshine from base tosummit, as though matching its whiteness against that of thesnow-laden elms: and in this frame of pure silver-work, burningwithout noise and with scarcely any smoke--this by reason of theexcessive dryness of the woodwork--the church stood one glowing vaultof fire. There was indeed so little smoke that at the first alarm, looking from my bedroom window, I had been incredulous; and still Iwondered rather than believed, staring into this furnace whereinevery pillar, nook, seat or text on the wall was distinctly visible, the south windows being burnt out and the great door thrown open andon fire. 

"There was no entrance possible here, or indeed anywhere: but, beinghalf-distraught, I ran around to the small door of the north aisle. This, too, was on fire--or, rather, was already consumed; and youwill say that I must have been wholly distraught when I tell you whatI saw, looking in through the aperture through which it would havebeen death to pass. I saw _him_. "

"You saw the young man Luke?" I asked, as he paused, inviting a word. 

"He was standing by the stone figures within the porch. . . . Andthey crumbled--crumbled before my eyes in the awful heat. But hestood scatheless. He was young and comely; the hair of his head wasnot singed. He was as one of the three that walked in the midst ofNebuchadnezzar's furnace. . . . When the stone slab was crumbled to ahandful of dust, he moved up the aisle and was gone. . . . That isall: but, as you accept your friend for a truthful man, explain, Osceptic!"

--And again there fell a silence in the garden. 

FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM. 

In the days of my childhood, and up to the year 1886, the Justices ofthe Peace for the Gantick Division of Hundred of Powder, in thecounty of Cornwall, held their Petty Sessions at Scawns, a bleak, foursquare building set on the knap of a windy hill, close beside thehigh road that leads up from the sea to the market town ofTregarrick. The house, when the county in Quarter Sessions purchasedit to convert it into a police station and petty sessional court, hadbeen derelict for twenty years--that is to say, ever since the winterof 1827, when Squire Nicholas, the last owner to reside in it(himself an ornament in his time of the Gantick Bench), broke hisneck in the hunting field. With his death, the property passed tosome distant cousin in the North, who seldom visited Cornwall. This cousin leased the Scawns acres to a farmer alongside of whosefields they marched, and the farmer, having no use for the mansion, gladly sub-let it. The county authorities, having acquired thelease, did indeed make certain structural adaptations, providingtolerable quarters for the local constabulary, with a lockup in thecellarage (which was commodious), but apart from this did little toarrest the general decay of the building. In particular, thedisrepair of the old dining-room, where the magistrates now heldSession, had become a public scandal. The old wall-paper dropped intatters, the ceiling showed patches where the plaster had broken fromthe battens, rats had eaten holes in the green baize table-cloth, andthe whole place smelt of dry-rot. From the wall behind themagistrates' table, in the place where nations more superstitiousthan ours suspend a crucifix, an atrocious portrait of the lateSquire Nicholas surveyed the desolated scene of his former carousals. An inscription at the base of the frame commemorated him as one whohad consistently "Done Right to all manner of People after the Lawsand Usages of the Realm, without Fear or Favour, Affection orIll-will. "

Beneath this portrait, on the second Wednesday in June, 1886, weregathered no fewer than six Justices of the Peace, a number the moreastonishing because Petty Sessions chanced to clash with the annualmeeting of the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Society, held that yearat the neighbouring market town of Tregarrick. Now, the reason ofthis full bench was at once simple and absurd, and had causedmerriment not unmixed with testiness in the magistrates' privateroom. Each Justice, counting on his neighbour's delinquency, hadseparately resolved to pay a sacrifice to public duty, and to drop into dispose of the business of Sessions before proceeding to the Show. The charge-sheet, be it noted, was abnormally light: it comprised onesingle indictment. 

"Good Lord!" growled Admiral Trist, Chairman of the Bench, Master ofthe famous Gantick Harriers. "Six of us to hear a case of sleepingout!"

"Who's the defendant?" asked Sir Felix Felix-Williams. "'ThomasEdwards'--Don't know the name in these parts. "

"I doubt if he knows it himself, Sir Felix, " answered Mr. Batty, theJustices' Clerk. "The Inspector tells me it's a tramping fellow thepolice picked up two nights ago. He has been in lock-up ever since. "

"Then why the devil couldn't they have sent round and fished up oneof us--or a couple--to deal with the case out of hand?"

"Damned shame, the way the police nurse this business!" murmured LordRattley, our somewhat disreputable local peer. "They're wanted atTregarrick to-day, and, what's more, they want the fun of the Show. So they take excellent care to keep the charge-list light. But sincePetty Sessions must be held, whether or no, they pounce on some poordevil of a tramp to put a face on the business. "

"H'm, h'm. " The Admiral, friend of law and order, dreaded LordRattley's tongue, which was irresponsible and incisive. "Well, ifthis is our only business, gentlemen--"

"There _is_ another case, sir, " put in Mr. Batty. "Wife--Trudgian byname--wants separation order. Application reached me too late to beincluded in the list. "

"Trudgian?" queried Parson Voisey. "Not Selina Magor, I hope, thatmarried young Trudgian a year or so back? Husband a clay-labourer, living somewhere outside Tregarrick. "

"That's the woman. Young married couple--first quarrel. The wife, on her own admission, had used her tongue pretty sharply, and, Idon't doubt, drove the man off to the public-house, where he satuntil sulky-drunk. A talking-to by the Chairman, if I mightsuggest--"

"Yes, yes, " agreed Parson Voisey. "And I'll have a word with Selinaafterwards. She used to attend my Young Women's Class--one of mymost satisfactory girls. "

"We'll see--we'll see, " said the Admiral. "Are we ready, gentlemen?"

He led the way into Court, where all rose in sign of respect--Mr. Batty's confidential clerk, the Inspector, a solitary constable, atattered old man in the constable's charge, and the two Trudgians. These last occupied extreme ends of the same form; the husbandsullen, with set jaw and eyes obstinately fixed on his boots, theyoung wife flushed of face and tearful, stealing from time to time adefiant glance at her spouse. 

In face of this scanty audience the six Justices solemnly took theirseats. 

"Thomas Edwards!" called the Clerk. 

The tattered old man cringed up to the table, with an embarrassedsmile, which yet had a touch of impudence about the corners of themouth. 

"Thomas Edwards, you stand charged for that on a certain date, towit, June 6th, you, not having any visible means of subsistence, andnot giving a good account of yourself, were found lodging in acertain outhouse known as Lobb's Barn, in the Parish of Gantick, contrary, etc. Do you plead Guilty or Not Guilty?"

"Guilty, y'r Worships. "

The constable, on a nod from the Inspector, cleared his throat, andstated the charge: "On the 6th instant, y'r Worships, at 10. 45 in theevening, being on duty in the neighbourhood of Lobb's Barn, " etc. Defendant, on being arrested, had used the filthiest language, andhad for some time stoutly resisted being marched off to the lock-up. 

"That will do, " the Chairman interrupted. "You, Edwards--if that'syour real name--"

"It'll do for this job, " put in the prisoner. 

"Very well. Have you anything to say?"

The prisoner ran his eye along the array of Justices. 

"Seems a lot o' dogs for one bone!"

The Admiral stiffened with wrath, and the crimson of his facedeepened as Lord Rattley threw himself back in his chair, laughing. 

"Forty shillings, or a month!"

"Oh, come--I say!" Lord Rattley murmured. 

The Admiral, glancing to right and left, saw, too, that three or fourof his colleagues were lifting their eyebrows in polite protest. 

"I--I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for not consulting you! Correctme, if you will. I would point out, however, that in addition to theoffence with which he is charged, this fellow was guilty of violentand disgusting language, and, further, of resisting the police. "

But his colleagues made no further protest, and Thomas Edwards, having but two coppers to his name, was conducted below to thecellarage, there to await transference to the County Jail. 

"Selina Trudgian!"

The Admiral, viewing the young couple as they stood sheepishly beforehim, commanded Selina to state her complaint as briefly as possible, avoiding tears. 

But this was beyond her. 

"He came home drunk, your Worship, " she sobbed, twisting herhandkerchief. 

"I didn', " corrected her husband. 

"He came home d-drunk, your Worship . . . He c-came home d-drunk--"

"Now hearken to me, you two!"

The Admiral, fixing a severe eye on them, started to read them alesson on married life, with its daily discipline, its constantobligation of mutual forbearance. For a confirmed bachelor, he didit remarkably well; but it must be recorded that this was not by anymeans his first essay in lecturing discordant spouses from the Bench. Lord Rattley, whose own matrimonial ventures had been (like Mr. Weller's researches in London) extensive and peculiar, leaned backand followed the discourse with appreciation, his elbows resting onthe arms of his chair, his finger-tips delicately pressed together, his gaze pensively tracking the motions of a bumblebee that hadstrayed in at an open window and was battering its head against thedusty pane of a closed one. 

Just then the Admiral, warming to his theme, pushed back his chair afew inches. . . . 

For some days previously a stream of traction-engines had passedalong the high road, dragging timber-wagons, tent-wagons, machinery, exhibits of all kinds, towards the Tregarrick Show. This heavytraffic (it was afterwards surmised) had helped what Wordsworth calls"the unimaginable touch of Time, " shaking the dry-rotted joists ofScawns House, and preparing the catastrophe. 

The Admiral was a heavy-weight. He rode, in those days, at closeupon seventeen stone. As he thrust back his chair, there came fromthe floor beneath--from the wall immediately behind him--an ominous, rending sound. The hind legs of his chair sank slowly, the seat ofjustice tilted farther and farther; as he clutched wildly at thetable, the table began to slide upon him, and with an uproar ofcracking timber, table, chairs, magistrates, clerks, together, in oneburial blent, were shot downwards into the cellarage. 

The Inspector--a tall man--staggering to his feet as the table slidfrom him into the chasm, leapt and clutched a crazy chandelier thatdepended above him. His weight tore it bodily from the ceiling, witha torrential downrush of dust and plaster, sweeping him over the edgeof the gulf and overwhelming the Trudgians, husband and wife, on thebrink of it. 

At this moment the constable, fresh from locking up Thomas Edwardsbelow, returned, put his head in at the door, gasped at sight of adevastation which had swallowed up every human being, and with greatpresence of mind, ran as hard as he could pelt for the hamlet of HighLanes, half a mile away, to summon help. 

Now the Inspector, as it happened, was unhurt. Picking himself up, digging his heels into the moraine of plaster, and brushing the gritfrom his eyes, he had the pleasure of recognising Lord Rattley, theParson, Mr. Humphry Felix-Williams (son of Sir Felix), and Mr. Batty, as they scrambled forth successively, black with dust but unhurt, save that the Parson had received a slight scalp-wound. Then Mr. Humphry caught sight of a leg clothed in paternal shepherd's-plaid, and tugged at it until Sir Felix was restored, choking, to the lightof day--or rather, to the Cimmerian gloom of the cellarage, in whichan unexpected figure now confronted them. 

It was the prisoner, Thomas Edwards. A collapsing beam had torn awaysome bricks from the wall of his cell, and he came wriggling throughthe aperture, using the most dreadful oaths. 

"Stir yourselves--Oh, --, --, stir yourselves! Standin' there likea--lot of stuck pigs! Get out the Admiral! The Admiral, I tell you!. . . . Hark to the poor old devil, damnin' away down ther, wi' twohundredweight o' table pressin' against his belly!"

Mr. Edwards, in fact, used an even more vulgar word. But he was notstopping to weigh words. Magistrates, Inspector, Clerk--he tookcharge of them all on the spot--a master of men. The Admiral, in theunfathomed dark of the cellar, was indeed uttering language to makeyour hair creep. 

"Oh, cuss away, y' old varmint!" sang down Mr. Edwards cheerfully. "The louder you cuss, the better the hearin'; 'means ye have air tobreathe an' nothin' broke internal. . . . Eh? Oh, _I_ knows th' oldwarrior! Opened a gate for en once when he was out hare-huntin', upSt. Germans way--I likes a bit o' sport, I do, when I happens on it. Lord love ye, the way he damned my eyes for bein' slow about it! . . . Aye, aye, Admiral! Cuss away, cuss away--proper quarter-deckyou're givin' us! But we're gettin' to you fast as we can. . . . England can't spare the likes o' you--an' she won't, not if we canhelp it!"

The man worked like a demon. What is more, he was making the otherswork, flailing them all--peer and baronet and parson--withslave-driver's oaths, while they tugged to loosen the timbers underwhich the magistrates' table lay wedged. 

"Lift, I tell ye! Lift! . . . What the--'s wrong with that end o'the beam? Stuck, is it? Jammed? Jammed your grandmothers!Nobbut a few pounds o' loose lime an' plaster beddin' it. Get downon your knees an' clear it. . . . That's better! And now pull!PULL, I say! Oh, not _that_ way, you rabbits!--here, let me showyou!"

By efforts Herculean, first digging the rubbish clear with clawedhands, then straining and heaving till their loins had almostcracked, they levered up the table at length, and released not onlythe Admiral, but the two remaining magistrates, whom they foundpinned under its weight, one unharmed, but in a swoon, the othermoaning feebly with the pain of two broken ribs. 

"Whew! What the devil of a smell of brandy!" observed Lord Rattley, mopping his brow in the intervals of helping to hoist the rescuedones up the moraine. At the top of it, the Inspector, lifting hishead above the broken flooring to shout for help, broke into furiousprofanity; for there, in the empty court-room, stood young Trudgianand his wife, covered, indeed, with white dust, but blissfully wraptin their own marvellous escape; and young Trudgian for the moment waswholly preoccupied in probing with two fingers for a piece of plasterwhich had somehow found its way down his Selina's back between thenape of the neck and the bodice. 

"Drop it, you fool, and lend a hand!" objurgated the Inspector;whereupon Mrs. Trudgian turned about, bridling. 

"You leave my Tom alone, please! A man's first call is on his weddedwife, I reckon. "

The rescued magistrates were lifted out, carried forth into freshair, and laid on the turf by the wayside to recover somewhat whilethe rescuers again wiped perspiring brows. 

"A thimbleful o' brandy might do the Admiral good, " suggested theprisoner. 

"Brandy?" cried Lord Rattley. "The air reeks of brandy!Where the--?"

"The basement's swimmin' with it, m' lord. " The fellow touched hishat. "Two casks stove by the edge o' the table. I felt around thestaves, an' counted six others, hale an' tight. Thinks I, 'tis whattheir Worships will have been keepin' for private use, betweenwhiles. Or elst--"

"Or else?"

"Or else maybe we've tapped a private cellar. "

Lord Rattley slapped his thigh. 

"A _cache_, by Jove! Old Squire Nicholas--I remember, as a boy, hearing it whispered he was hand-in-glove with the Free Trade. "

The prisoner touched his hat humbly. 

"This bein' a magistrates' matter, m' lord, an' me not wishin' tointerfere--"

"Quite so. " Lord Rattley felt in his pockets. "You have done us aconsiderable service, my man, and--er--that bein' so--"

"Forty shillin' it was. _He's_ cheap at it"--with a nod towards theAdmiral. "A real true-blue old English gentleman! You can alwaystell by their conversations. "

"The fine shall be paid. "

"I counted six casks, m'lord, so well as I could by the feel--"

"Yes, yes! And here's a couple of sovereigns for yourself--all Ihappen to have in my pocket--"

Lord Rattley bustled off to the house for brandy. 

"England's old England, hows'ever you strike it!" chirruped theprisoner gleefully, and touched his forehead again. "See you at theShow, m' lord, maybe? 'Will drink your lordship's health there, anyway. "

He skipped away up the road towards Tregarrick. In the oppositedirection young Mr. And Mrs. Trudgian could be seen just passing outof sight, he supporting her with his arm, pausing every now and then, bending over her uxoriously. 

THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP. 

I. 

"'Erbert 'Enery Bates!"

"Wot cheer!"

It was the morning of Speech-day on board the Industrial TrainingShip _Egeria_--July the 31st, to be precise. At 3 p. M. Sir FelixFelix-Williams, Baronet, would arrive to distribute the prizes. He would be attended by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen; and thespeeches, delivered beneath an awning on the upper deck, would befully reported next day in the local newspapers. The weather waspropitious. 

Just now (11 a. M. ) some half a dozen of the elder boys, attired indirty white dungaree and barefooted, were engaged in swabbing outwhat, in her sea-going days, had been the _Egeria's_ ward-room, making ready to set out tables for an afternoon tea to follow theceremony. They were nominally under supervision of the ship'sSchoolmaster, who, however, had gone off to unpack a hamper offlowers--the gift of an enthusiastic subscriber. 

"Step this way, 'Erbert 'Enery Bates. "

"You go to hell, Link Andrew!" But the boy stopped his work and facedabout, nevertheless. 

"See this flag?" Link Andrew dived his long arms into a pile ofbunting that lay ready for decorating the tea-room. "Wot is it?"

"Union Jack o' course, you silly rotter!"

"Oh, you good, good boy! . . . Yes, dear lads, " went on Link Andrew, in a mimicking voice, "it is indeed the meet-your-flag of our 'olyMotherland, and 'Erbert 'Enery Bates, our Good Conduck Medallist, will now oblige by going down on his knees and kissing it. Else I'llput an eye on him!"

Master Bates--"Good Conduct Bates"--stepped forward, with his fistsup. He was something of a sneak and a sucker-up, yet by no means acoward. He advanced bravely enough, although he knew that LinkAndrew--the best boxer in the ship--was provoking him of set purpose. 

The rest of the boys liked Link and disliked Bates; yet their senseof fair play told them that Link was putting himself in the wrong;and yet again, despite their natural eagerness to see a fight, theywanted to save Link from what could but end in folly. He was playingfor a fall. 

"Here comes Schoolmaster!" shouted one, at a venture. 

At that moment, indeed, the Schoolmaster appeared in the doorway. 

"What's this noise about?" he demanded. "You, Link Andrew?I thought your interest was to avoid trouble for twenty-four hours. "

II. 

By the Industrial Schools Act of 1866, 29 & 30 Vict. C. 118, it isordained that any youngster apparently under the age of fourteenfound begging, or wandering destitute, or consorting with thieves, orobstinately playing truant from school, or guilty of being neglectedby his parents, or of defying his parents, or of having a parent whohas incurred a sentence of penal servitude--may by any two justicesbe committed to a certified Industrial School, there to be detaineduntil he reaches the age of sixteen, or for a shorter term if theJustices shall so direct. Such an Industrial School was theex-battleship _Egeria_. 

She had carried seventy-four guns in her time; and though gunless nowand jury-masted, was redolent still of the Nelson period from herwhite-and-gold figure-head to the beautiful stern galleries whichCommander Headworthy had adorned with window-boxes of Henry Jacobygeraniums. The Committee in the first flush of funds had spared nopains to reproduce the right atmosphere, and in that atmosphereCommander Headworthy laudably endeavoured to train up his crew ofgraceless urchins, and to pass them out at sixteen, preferably intothe Navy or the Merchant Service, but at any rate as decent membersof society. Nor were the boys' nautical experiences entirelystationary, since a wealthy sympathiser (lately deceased) hadbequeathed his fine brigantine yacht to serve the ship as a tenderand take a few score of the elder or more privileged lads on anannual summer cruise, that they might learn something of practicalseamanship. 

The yacht--by name the _Swallow_--an old but shapely craft of sometwo hundred tons, lay just now a short cable's length from the parentship, with sails bent and all ready for sea; for by custom the annualcruise started on the day next after the prize-giving. 

The question was: Would Link Andrew be allowed to go?

He would have sold his soul to go. He even meditated ways ofsuicide if the Commander, for a punishment, should veto his going. During the last three weeks he had run up an appalling tally of blackmarks, and yet it was generally agreed that the Commander wouldrelent if Link would only keep his temper and behave with commonprudence for another twenty-four hours. 

But this was just what Link seemed wholly unable to do. He hated theship, the officers, everything in life; and the hot July weatherworked upon this hatred until it became a possessing fury. 

III. 

At dinner-time he very nearly wrecked his chance for good and all. 

Shortly before noon a diminutive, mild-looking gentleman, noticeablefor his childlike manner and a pair of large round spectacles, camealongside the _Egeria_ in a shore-boat. It appeared that he bore avisitor's ticket for the afternoon function and had arrived thusearly by invitation of one of the Committee to take a good look overthe ship before the proceedings began. Apparently, too, theCommittee-man had sent Commander Headworthy no warning--to judge fromthat officer's wrathful face and the curt tone in which he invitedhis visitor to luncheon. 

The mild-looking gentleman--who gave his name as Harris--declinedcourteously, averring that he had brought a sandwich with him. The Commander thereupon turned him over to the Second Officer underwhose somewhat impatient escort Mr. Harris made a thorough tour ofthe ship, peering into everything and asking a number of questions. The boys--whom he amused by opening a large white umbrella, green-lined, to shield him from the noonday sun on the upper deck--promptly christened him "Moonface. "

This Mr. Harris, still in charge of the Second Officer, happenedalong the gun-deck as they finished singing "_Be present at ourtable, Lord_, " and were sitting down to dinner. From their placesthey marched up one by one, each with his dinner-basin, to have itfilled at the head of the table. 

"Hallo, you, Andrew!" called out the Second Officer. "Fetch thatbasin along here. I want the gentleman to have a look at the ship'sfood. "

Link came forward, stretched out a long arm, and thrust the basinunder the visitor's nose. 

"Perhaps, " said he, "the toff would like a sniff at the same time?There's Sweet Williams for a summer's day!"

"There, that'll do, Link! Go to your place, my lad, and don't beinsolent, " said the Second Officer hastily, with a nervous glance atMr. Harris. 

But Mr. Harris merely blinked behind his glasses. 

"Yes, yes, to be sure, " he agreed. "Pork _is_ tricky diet in suchweather as we're having!"

IV. 

Half an hour later, having detached himself gently from his escort, Mr. Harris wandered back to the upper deck. It appeared to bedeserted; and Mr. Harris, unfolding his umbrella against the sun'srays, wandered at will. 

In the waist of the vessel, on the port side, he came upon a dais anda baize-covered table with an awning rigged over them; and upon theship's Schoolmaster, who was busily engaged in arranging theprize-books. 

"Good afternoon, sir!" The Schoolmaster, affecting to be busy andpolite at the same time, picked out a book and held it up to view. "_Smiles on Self Help_, " he announced. 

"You don't say so!" answered Mr. Harris, halting. "But--I mean--theycan't very well, can they?"

"_Eric, or Little by Little_, by the late Archdeacon Farrar. My choice, sir: some light, you see, and others solid, but all _pure_literature. . . . They value it, too, in after life. Ah, sir, they've a lot of good in 'em! There's many worse characters than myboys walking the world. "

Mild Mr. Harris removed his glasses. "Are you talking like that fromforce of habit?" he asked. "If so, I shall not be so much annoyed. "

The Schoolmaster was fairly taken aback. He stared for a moment andshifted his helm, so to speak, with a grin of intelligence and ashort laugh. 

"Not quite so bad as that, sir, " he remonstrated. "It's--it's--well, you may call it the _atmosphere_. On Speech-day the ship fairlyreeks of it. "

"And, like the pork, eh! it's just a little bit 'off'?" suggested thevisitor, returning his smile. "By the way, I want to ask you aquestion or two about a boy. His name is Link--Something-or-other. "

"Link Andrew?" The Schoolmaster gave him a quick look. "You don'ttell me he's in trouble again? Not been annoying you, sir, I hope?"

"On the contrary, I've taken a fancy to the lad; and, by the wayagain, Link can't be his real name?"

"Short for Abraham Lincoln, as baptised, " explained the Schoolmaster. "At least, that's one theory. According to another it's short for'Missing Link. ' Not that the boy's bad-looking; but did you happento notice the length of his arms--like a gorilla's?"

"I could not avoid doing so. "

Mr. Harris related the incident. 

"It was exceedingly kind of you, sir, to pass over his conduct solightly. The fact is, if Link Andrew had been reported again he'dhave lost his hammock in the yacht. We all want him to go; some toget rid of him for a spell, and others because we can't help likingthe boy. He hates us back, you bet, and has hated us from the momenthe set foot on deck, five years ago . . . Whitechapel-reared, Ibelieve. . . . Yet fond of the sea in his way. Once shipped on theyacht he'll behave like an angel. But here on board he's like ayoung beast in a trap. "

V. 

Mr. Harris mooned away to the poop-deck, from the rail of which hewatched the guests arriving. As Sir Felix's gig was descried puttingoff from the shore, the boys swarmed up the ratlines and out on theyards, where they dressed ship very prettily. A brass band in thewaist hailed his approach with the strains of "Rule, Britannia!"At the head of the accommodation-ladder a guard of honour welcomedhim with a hastily rehearsed "Present Arms!" and the boys aloftaccompanied it with three shrill British cheers. The dear oldgentleman gazed up and around him, and positively beamed. 

By this time a crowd of boats had put off, and soon the guests camepouring up the ladder in a steady stream. There were ladies inpicture hats. A reporter stood by the gangway taking notes of theircostumes. They fell to uttering the prettiest exclamations upon theshipshapeness of everything on board. Mr. Harris saw the FirstOfficer inviting numbers of them to lean over the bulwarks andobserve a scar the old ship had received--or so he alleged--atTrafalgar. "How interesting!" they cried. 

Well, to be sure, it was interesting. Nelson himself--there was goodauthority for this at any rate--had once stood on the _Egeria's_poop; had leaned, perhaps, against the very rail on which Mr. Harris's hand rested. . . . And the function went off very well. The boys clambered down upon deck again, the band played--

 "'Tis a Fine Old English Gentleman, "

And all gathered about the awning. Sir Felix, nobly expansive in abuff waistcoat, cleared his throat and spoke of the Empire in a waycalculated to bring tears to the eyes. The prize-giving followed. 

As it proceeded, Mr. Harris stole down the poop-ladder and edged hisway around the back of the crowd to the waist of the ship, where theboys were drawn up with a few officers interspersed to keepdiscipline. He arrived there just as Link Andrew returned from thedais with two books--the boxing and gymnasium prizes. The boy wasfoaming at the mouth. 

"See, here--_Fights for the Flag!_ And, on top of it, _Deeds WhatWon the Silly Empire!_ And the old blighter 'oped that I'd be a goodboy, and grow up, and win some more. For the likes of _him_, hemeant--Yuss, I _don't_ think! . . . Oh, hold my little hand and checkthe tearful flow, for I'm to be a ship's boy at 'arf-a-crown a month, and go Empire buildin'!"

"There!" said Mr. Harris, indicating a coil of rope. "Sit down andhave it out. "

VI. 

Some five or six years later, Mr. Harris--who resides in a small WestCountry town, the name of which does not concern us--was seated inhis library reading, when his parlourmaid brought him a card--"Mr. Wilkins, I. T. S. _Egeria_. "

"I scarcely hoped that you would remember me, sir, " began theSchoolmaster, on being introduced. "But, happening to pass through--on a holiday trip, a walking tour--I ventured to call and ask news ofLink Andrew. You may remember our having a conversation about himonce on board the _Egeria_?"

"I remember it perfectly, " said Mr. Harris; "and you'll be glad tohear that Andrew is doing remarkably well; is saving money, in fact, and contemplates getting married. "

"Indeed, sir, that is good hearing. I was afraid that he might haveleft your employment. "

"So, to be sure, he has; taking with him, moreover, an excellentcharacter. He is now a second gardener at a steady wage. "

"You can't think, sir, how you relieve my mind. To tell the truth, Imet him, less than an hour ago; and by his manner . . . But I hadbetter tell you how it happened: I knew, of course, that you hadinterested yourself in Link and found a job for him. But after he'dleft the ship he never let us hear word of his doings. . . . Well, passing through your town just now, I ran up against him. He wascoming along the street, and I recognised him on the instant; but allof a sudden he turned and began to stare in at a shop-window--anironmonger's--giving me his back. I made sure, of course, that hehadn't spied me; so I stepped up and said I, 'Hallo, Link, my lad!'clapping a hand on his shoulder. He turned about, treated me to along stare, and says he, 'Aren't you makin' some mistake, mister?''Why, ' says I, 'surely I haven't changed so much as all that sincethe days I taught you vulgar fractions on board the old _Egeria_?I'm Mr. Wilkins, ' says I. 'Oh, are you?' says he. 'Then, Mr. Wilkins, you can go back to hell and take 'em my complimentsthere. ' That's all he said, and he walked away down the street. "

"That's queer, " said Mr. Harris, polishing his spectacles. "Yes, hecame to me as gardener's boy--I thought it would be a pleasant changeafter the ship; and he served his apprenticeship well. I rememberthat in answer to my application the Secretary wrote: 'Of course weprefer to train our lads to the sea; but when one has no aptitude forit--'"

Mr. Harris paused, for the Schoolmaster was smiling broadly. 

"Good Lord, sir!--if you'll excuse me. Link Andrew no aptitude forthe sea! Why, that lad's seamanship saved my life once: and, what'smore, it saved the whole yacht's company! Hasn't he ever told youabout it?"

"Not a word. I think, " said Mr. Harris, "our friend Link chooses tokeep his past in watertight compartments. Sit down and tell me aboutit. "

VII. 

This was the Schoolmaster's story:

"It happened on that very cruise, sir. The _Swallow_ had beenknocking around at various West Country regattas--Weymouth, Torquay, Dartmouth, finishing up with Plymouth. From Plymouth we were to sailfor home. 

"We had dropped hook in the Merchant Shipping Anchorage, as theycall it; which is the eastern side of the Sound, by Jennycliff Bay. That last day of the regattas--a Saturday--the wind had been almosttrue north, and freshish, but nothing to mention: beautiful sailingweather for the small boats. The big cracks had finished theirengagements and were making back for Southampton. 

"Well, as I say, this north wind was a treat; especially coming, asit did, after a week of light airs and calms that had spoilt most ofthe yacht-racing. Some time in the afternoon I heard talk that ourskipper--well, I won't mention names--and, as it turned out in theend, everyone was implicated. Anyhow, at six o'clock or thereaboutsthe gig was ordered out, and every blessed officer on board wentashore in her; which was clean contrary to regulations, of course, but there happened to be a cinematograph show they all wanted to seeat the big music-hall--some prize-fight or other. I don't set muchstore by prize-fights for my part, and living pictures give me theheadache: so, to salve everybody's conscience, I was left in solecharge of the ship. 

"Everything went smooth as a buttered cake until about nine o'clock, when the wind, that had been dying down all the time, suddenly flewwest and began to gather strength hand over fist. . . . I never, notbeing a seaman, could have believed--till I saw and felt it--thechange that came over Plymouth Sound in the space of one half-hour. The gig had been ordered again for nine-thirty, to pull to theBarbican Steps and be ready at ten to bring the officers on board. But before nine-thirty I began to have my serious doubts aboutsending her. It was just as well I had. 

"For by nine-forty-five it was blowing a real gale, and by teno'clock something like a hurricane. Just then, to top my terror, Master Link Andrew came aft to me--the wind seemed to blow himalong--and 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Wilkins, ' said he, 'but in myopinion she's dragging. '

"Just think of it, sir! There was I, in sole charge of a hundred boysor so, and knowing no more what to do than the ship's cat. . . . She_was_ dragging, too; sagging foot by foot in towards the dark ofJennycliff Bay. 

"'If you'll take a word from me, sir, ' said Link, 'we'd best up sailand get out of this. '

"'What about the other anchor?' I suggested. 

"' Try it if you like, ' said he. 'In my belief it won't hold anymore than a tin mustard-pot. '

"Nor did it, when we let go. He came back after a few minutes fromthe darkness forward. 'No go, ' said he. 'Nothing to do but slip andclear. '

"There was no question, either, that he spoke sense. 'But where?' Ishouted at him. 'Drake's Island? . . . And who's to do it, even so?'

"'The anchorage is crowded under Drake's Island, ' he shouted back. 'It's the devil-among-the-tailors we'd play there, if we everfetched. . . . Breakwater's no shelter either. '

"He seemed to whistle to himself for a moment; and the next I heardhim yell out sharply to the boys forward to tumble on the mainsail, strip her covers off, double-reef and hoist her. He took commandfrom that moment. While a score of them flew to tackle this job, hebeat his way forward and called on another lot to get out thestaysail. Back he ran again, cursing and calling on all and sundryto look smart. Next he was at my side ordering me to unlash thewheel and stand by. 'It's touch-and-go, sir. '

"'Hadn't we better send up a flare?' I suggested feebly. 

"'Flare your bloomin' grandmother!' From this moment I regret to saythat Link Andrew treated me with contempt. He next ordered a dozensmall boys aloft, to reef and set her upper square-sail. When Iurged that it was as good as asking them to commit suicide, he cursedme openly. 'Drown the poor pups, will I? I thought--damn you all!--you laid yourselves out to breed seamen! You _say_ you do, atprize-givings!' He ran forward again to get the hawsers buoyedbefore slipping them. 

"I never remember a sound more sickening to the stomach than thosechains made as they ran out through the hawse-holes. The one mistakeLink committed was in ordering the upper square-sail to be reefed. By the mercy of God not a child was blown off the yards in thatoperation; yet it was no sooner concluded than, having by this timefound a megaphone, he shouted up to them to undo their work and shakeout the reef. 

"'That's madness!' I yelled from the wheel, where I clung dripping, blindly pressing down the spokes and easing them as he checked me. 'Look to leeward, you blighter!' he yelled back. 

"The ship had payed off slowly, and while she gathered way, wasdrifting straight down upon an Italian barque that two hours ago hadlain more than a cable's length from us. . . . I thought our loweryard--we heeled so--would have smacked against her bowsprit-end; andfrom the outcries on board the Italian I rather fancy her crewexpected it. But we shaved her by a yard or so, as Link pushed meaway from the wheel and took charge. A moment later she had droppedbehind us into the night, and we were surging in full-tilt forPlymouth, heaving over at the Lord knows what angle. 

"But we were off; we were clear; and, strange to say, the worst of itwas over. The wind was worsening, if anything, and we continued todrive at a frightful angle. Now and again we slanted to a squallthat fairly dipped us till the sea poured half-way across her decks. As I staggered forward--clutching at anything handy--to assure myselfthat none of the boys had been flung off the fore-yard and overboard, I heard a sea burst the starboard bulwarks, and in another moment, while I yet wondered if the sound came from something parting aloft, with a 'Wa-ay-oh!' Link had put over her helm, and the suddenlyaltered slant flung me into the scuppers, where I dropped aftertaking a knock against the standing rigging, the mark of which Ishall carry on my forehead till I die. 

"By this time, sir, I was pretty well dazed. I forget if it was in acouple of short tacks, or in three, that we fetched Picklecombe Pointon the western side. Then we put about on a long tack that carriedus well outside the breakwater and came in for Cawsand Bay andsafety. On this last fetch Link kicked me up and gave me the wheelagain, while he went forward to hunt up the spare anchor. 

"We brought up, well in shelter, at something before two in themorning, not a hand lost. Before anyone was allowed to turn in, Linkhad every sail stowed and covered--'for the honour of the blastedship, ' as he put it. 

"The skipper and his precious lot came aboard next day not longbefore noon, and after a wholesome scare. It seems they were late, and all pretty so-so by the time they reached the Barbican Steps;and, let be that there was no boat for them, the watermen one and alldeclined to take them off in any such weather. Nothing for it but todoss the night ashore, which they did. But I wouldn't give much fortheir feelings next morning when they put off and, lo! there was no_Swallow_ in the Merchant Shipping Anchorage. In Cawsand Bay, youunderstand, we were well hidden by the land, and it cost them atleast a couple of hours to guess our whereabouts. 

"Long as the time was, it wasn't enough to wear out the effects ofthe--well, the Cinematograph. A yellower set, or a bluer in thegills, you never set eyes on. They came aboard, and the skipper, having made some inquiries of me, called up Link, cleared his throatquite in the old approved style, and began to make a speech. 

"Link cut it short. 

"'All right, my precious swine! Now step below and wash off thetraces. If you behave pretty, maybe I'll not report you. '"

VIII. 

"That finished the lot, " wound up the Schoolmaster. "There _was_ noanswer to it, if you come to think. "

"And Link never told?"

"Never a word, sir. Nor did I. But the story leaked out somehow, and it gave the Commander the whip-hand of his Committee, to ship anew set of officers. Ship and tender, sir, the _Egeria_ nowadays issomething to be proud of. But for my part I don't go on any more ofthese summer cruises. The open sea never suited my stomach, and Iprefer a walk for my holiday. "

LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE. 

The night-porter at the Admiralty had been sleeping in his chair. He was red-eyed and wore his livery coat buttoned at random. He grumbled to himself as he opened the great door. 

He carried a glass-screened candle, and held it somewhat above thelevel of his forehead--which was protuberant and heavily pock-marked. Under the light he peered out at the visitor, who stood tall andstiff, with uniform overcoat buttoned to the chin, between the Ionicpillars of the portico. 

"Who's there?"

"Lieutenant Lapenotiere, of the _Pickle_ schooner--with dispatches. "

"Dispatches?" echoed the night-porter. Out beyond the screen ofmasonry that shut off the Board of Admiralty's forecourt fromWhitehall, one of the tired post-horses started blowing through itsnostrils on this foggy night. 

"From Admiral Collingwood--Mediterranean Fleet off Cadiz--sixteendays, " answered the visitor curtly. "Is everyone abed?"

"Admiral Collingwood? Why Admiral Collingwood?" The night-porterfell back a pace, opening the door a trifle wider. "Good God, sir!You don't say as how--"

"You can fetch down a Secretary or someone, I hope?" said LieutenantLapenotiere, quickly stepping past him into the long dim hall. "My dispatches are of the first importance. I have posted up fromFalmouth without halt but for relays. "

As the man closed the door, he heard his post-boy of the last relayslap one of the horses encouragingly before heading home to stable. The chaise wheels began to move on the cobbles. 

"His Lordship himself will see you, sir. Of that I make no doubt, "twittered the night-porter, fumbling with the bolt. "There was aterrible disturbance, back in July, when Captain Betteswortharrived--not so late as this, to be sure, but towards midnight--andthey waited till morning, to carry up the dispatches with hisLordship's chocolate. Thankful was I next day not to have been onduty at the time. . . . If you will follow me, sir--"

Lieutenant Lapenotiere had turned instinctively towards a door on theright. It admitted to the Waiting Room, and there were few officersin the service who did not know--and only too well--that Chamber ofHope Deferred. 

"No, sir, . . . This way, if you please, " the night-porter correctedhim, and opened a door on the left. "The Captains' Room, " heannounced, passing in and steering for the chimney-shelf, on whichstood a pair of silver sconces each carrying three wax candles. These he took down, lit and replaced. "Ah, sir! Many's the timeI've showed Lord Nelson himself into this room, in the days beforeSir Horatio, and even after. And you were sayin'--"

"I said nothing. "

The man moved to the door; but halted there and came back, as thoughin his own despite. 

"I can't help it, sir. . . . Half a guinea he used to give me, regular. But the last time--and hard to believe 'twas little morethan a month ago--he halts on his way out, and says he, searchin'awkward-like in his breeches' pocket with his left hand, 'Ned, ' sayshe, 'my old friend'--aye, sir, his old friend he called me--'Ned, 'says he, pullin' out a fistful o' gold, 'my old friend, ' says he, 'I'll compound with you for two guineas, this bein' the last time youmay hold the door open for me, in or out. But you must pick 'emout, ' says he, spreadin' his blessed fingers with the gold in 'em:'for a man can't count money who's lost his right flapper. 'Those were his words, sir. 'Old friend, ' he called me, in that wayof his. "

Lieutenant Lapenotiere pointed to his left arm. Around the sleeve ablack scarf was knotted. 

"_Dead_, sir, " the night-porter hushed his voice. 

"Dead, " echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, staring at the Turkey carpet, of which the six candles, gaining strength, barely illumined thepattern. "Dead, at the top of victory; a great victory. Go: fetchsomebody down. "

The night-porter shuffled off. Lieutenant Lapenotiere, erect andsombre, cast a look around the apartment, into which he had neverbefore been admitted. The candles lit up a large painting--a queerbird's-eye view of Venice. Other pictures, dark and bituminous, decorated the panelled walls--portraits of dead admirals, a sea-pieceor two, some charts. . . . This was all he discerned out in the dimlight; and in fact he scanned the walls, the furniture of the room, inattentively. His stomach was fasting, his head light with rapidtravel; above all, he had a sense of wonder that all this should behappening to _him_. For, albeit a distinguished officer, he was amodest man, and by habit considered himself of no great importance;albeit a brave man, too, he shrank at the thought of the message hecarried--a message to explode and shake millions of men in aconfusion of wild joy or grief. 

For about the tenth time in those sixteen days it seemed to burst andescape in an actual detonation, splitting his head--there, as hewaited in the strange room where never a curtain stirred. . . . It was a trick his brain played him, repeating, echoing the awfulexplosion of the French seventy-four _Achille_, which had blown uptowards the close of the battle. When the ship was ablaze andsinking, his own crew had put off in boats to rescue the Frenchmen, at close risk of their own lives, for her loaded guns, as they grewred-hot, went off at random among rescuers and rescued. . . . 

As had happened before when he felt this queer shock, his mindtravelled back and he seemed to hear the series of discharges runningup at short intervals to the great catastrophe. . . . To divert histhoughts, he turned to study the view of Venice above thechimney-piece . . . And on a sudden faced about again. 

He had a sensation that someone was in the room--someone standingclose behind him. 

But no. . . . For the briefest instant his eyes rested on anindistinct shadow--his own perhaps, cast by the candle-light?Yet why should it lie lengthwise there, shaped like a coffin, on thedark polished table that occupied the middle of the room?

The answer was that it did not. Before he could rub his eyesit had gone. Moreover, he had turned to recognise a livingbeing . . . And no living person was in the room, unless by chance(absurd supposition) one were hidden behind the dark red windowcurtains. 

"Recognise" may seem a strange word to use; but here had lain thestrangeness of the sensation--that the someone standing there was afriend, waiting to be greeted. It was with eagerness and a curiouswarmth of the heart that Lieutenant Lapenotiere had faced about--uponnothing. 

He continued to stare in a puzzled way at the window curtains, when avoice by the door said:

"Good evening!--or perhaps, to be correct, good morning! You are Mr. --"

"Lapenotiere, " answered the Lieutenant, who had turned sharply. The voice--a gentleman's and pleasantly modulated--was not one heknew; nor did he recognise the speaker--a youngish, shrewd-lookingman, dressed in civilian black, with knee-breeches. "Lapenotiere--ofthe _Pickle_ schooner. "

"Yes, yes--the porter bungled your name badly, but I guessed. Lord Barham will see you personally. He is, in fact, dressing withall haste at this moment. . . . I am his private secretary, "explained the shrewd-looking gentleman in his quiet, business-likevoice. "Will you come with me upstairs?"

Lieutenant Lapenotiere followed him. At the foot of the greatstaircase the Secretary turned. 

"I may take it, sir, that we are not lightly disturbing hisLordship--who is an old man. "

"The news is of great moment, sir. Greater could scarcely be. "

The Secretary bent his head. As they went up the staircaseLieutenant Lapenotiere looked back and caught sight of thenight-porter in the middle of the hall, planted there and gazing up, following their ascent. 

On the first-floor landing they were met by a truly ridiculousspectacle. There emerged from a doorway on the left of the widecorridor an old gentleman clad in night-cap, night-shirt and bedroomslippers, buttoning his breeches and cursing vigorously; while closeupon him followed a valet with dressing-gown on one arm, waistcoatand wig on the other, vainly striving to keep pace with his master'simpatience. 

"The braces, my lord--your Lordship has them forepart behind, if Imay suggest--"

"Damn the braces!" swore the old gentleman. "Where is he? Hi, Tylney!" as he caught sight of the Secretary. "Where are we to go?My room, I suppose?"

"The fire is out there, my lord. . . . 'Tis past three in themorning. But after sending word to awake you, I hunted round and bygood luck found a plenty of promising embers in the Board Room grate. On top of these I've piled what remained of my own fire, and Dobsonhas set a lamp there--"

"You've been devilish quick, Tylney. Dressed like a buck you are, too!"

"Your Lordship's wig, " suggested the valet. 

"Damn the wig!" Lord Barham snatched it and attempted to stick it ontop of his night-cap, damned the night-cap, and, plucking it off, flung it to the man. 

"I happened to be sitting up late, my lord, over the _Aeolus_papers, " said Mr. Secretary Tylney. 

"Ha?" Then, to the valet, "The dressing-gown there! Don't fumble! . . . So this is Captain--"

"Lieutenant, sir: Lapenotiere, commanding the _Pickle_ schooner. "

The Lieutenant saluted. 

"From the Fleet, my lord--off Cadiz; or rather, off Cape Trafalgaro. "

He drew the sealed dispatch from an inner breast-pocket and handed itto the First Lord. 

"Here, step into the Board Room. . . . Where the devil are myspectacles?" he demanded of the valet, who had sprung forward to holdopen the door. 

Evidently the Board Room had been but a few hours ago the scene of alarge dinner-party. Glasses, dessert-plates, dishes of fruit, decanters empty and half empty, cumbered the great mahogany tableas dead and wounded, guns and tumbrils, might a battlefield. Chairs stood askew; crumpled napkins lay as they had been dropped ortossed, some on the floor, others across the table between thedishes. 

"Looks cosy, eh?" commented the First Lord. "Maggs, set a screenaround the fire, and look about for a decanter and some cleanglasses. "

He drew a chair close to the reviving fire, and glanced at the coverof the dispatch before breaking its seal. 

"Nelson's handwriting?" he asked. It was plain that his old eyes, unaided by spectacles, saw the superscription only as a blur. 

"No, my lord: Admiral Collingwood's, " said Lieutenant Lapenotiere, inclining his head. 

Old Lord Barham looked up sharply. His wig set awry, he made aridiculous figure in his hastily donned garments. Yet he did notlack dignity. 

"Why Collingwood?" he asked, his fingers breaking the seal. "God! you don't tell me--"

"Lord Nelson is dead, sir. "

"Dead--dead? . . . Here, Tylney--you read what it says. Dead? . . . No, damme, let the captain tell his tale. Briefly, sir. "

"Briefly, sir--Lord Nelson had word of Admiral Villeneuve coming outof the Straits, and engaged the combined fleets off Cape Trafalgaro. They were in single line, roughly; and he bore down in two columns, and cut off their van under Dumanoir. This was at dawn orthereabouts, and by five o'clock the enemy was destroyed. "

"How many prizes?"

"I cannot say precisely, my lord. The word went, when I wassignalled aboard the Vice-Admiral's flagship, that either fifteen orsixteen had struck. My own men were engaged, at the time, inrescuing the crew of a French seventy-four that had blown up; and Iwas too busy to count, had counting been possible. One or two of myofficers maintain to me that our gains were higher. But the dispatchwill tell, doubtless. "

"Aye, to be sure. . . . Read, Tylney. Don't sit there clearing yourthroat, but read, man alive!" And yet it appeared that while theSecretary was willing enough to read, the First Lord had no capacity, as yet, to listen. Into the very first sentence he broke with--

"No, wait a minute. 'Dead, ' d'ye say? . . . My God! . . . Lieutenant, pour yourself a glass of wine and tell us first how ithappened. "

Lieutenant Lapenotiere could not tell very clearly. He had twicebeen summoned to board the _Royal Sovereign_--he first time toreceive the command to hold himself ready. It was then that, comingalongside the great ship, he had read in all the officers' faces ananxiety hard to reconcile with the evident tokens of victory aroundthem. At once it had occurred to him that the Admiral had fallen, and he put the question to one of the lieutenants--to be told thatLord Nelson had indeed been mortally wounded and could not live long;but that he must be alive yet, and conscious, since the _Victory_ wasstill signalling orders to the Fleet. 

"I think, my lord, " said he, "that Admiral Collingwood must have beendoubtful, just then, what responsibility had fallen upon him, or howsoon it might fall. He had sent for me to 'stand by' so to speak. He was good enough to tell me the news as it had reached him--"

Here Lieutenant Lapenotiere, obeying the order to fill his glass, letspill some of the wine on the table. The sight of the dark trickleon the mahogany touched some nerve of the brain: he saw it widen intoa pool of blood, from which, as they picked up a shattered seaman andbore him below, a lazy stream crept across the deck of the flag-shiptowards the scuppers. He moved his feet, as he had moved them then, to be out of the way of it: but recovered himself in another momentand went on--

"He told me, my lord, that the _Victory_ after passing under the_Bucentaure's_ stern, and so raking her that she was put out ofaction, or almost, fell alongside the _Redoutable_. There was a longswell running, with next to no wind, and the two ships could hardlyhave cleared had they tried. At any rate, they hooked, and it wasthen a question which could hammer the harder. The Frenchman hadfilled his tops with sharp-shooters, and from one of these--the mizen-top, I believe--a musket-ball struck down the Admiral. He was walking at the time to and fro on a sort of gangway he hadcaused to be planked over his cabin sky-light, between the wheel andthe ladder-way. . . . Admiral Collingwood believed it had happenedabout half-past one . . . "

"Sit down, man, and drink your wine, " commanded the First Lord as thedispatch-bearer swayed with a sudden faintness. 

"It is nothing, my lord--"

But it must have been a real swoon, or something very like it: for herecovered to find himself lying in an arm-chair. He heard theSecretary's voice reading steadily on and on. . . . Also they musthave given him wine, for he awoke to feel the warmth of it in hisveins and coursing about his heart. But he was weak yet, and for themoment well content to lie still and listen. 

Resting there and listening, he was aware of two sensations thatalternated within him, chasing each other in and out of hisconsciousness. He felt all the while that he, John RichardsLapenotiere, a junior officer in His Majesty's service, was assistingin one of the most momentous events in his country's history; andalone in the room with these two men, he felt it as he had neverbegun to feel it amid the smoke and roar of the actual battle. He had seen the dead hero but half a dozen times in his life: he hadnever been honoured by a word from him: but like every other navalofficer, he had come to look up to Nelson as to the splendidparticular star among commanders. _There_ was greatness: _there_ wasthat which lifted men to such deeds as write man's name across thefirmament! And, strange to say, Lieutenant Lapenotiere recognisedsomething of it in this queer old man, in dressing-gown andill-fitting wig, who took snuff and interrupted now with a curse andanon with a "bravo!" as the Secretary read. He was absurd: but hewas no common man, this Lord Barham. He had something of theineffable aura of greatness. 

But in the Lieutenant's brain, across this serious, even awful senseof the moment and of its meaning, there played a curious secondarysense that the moment was not--that what was happening before hiseyes had either happened before or was happening in some vacuum inwhich past, present, future and the ordinary divisions of time hadlost their bearings. The great twenty-four-hour clock at the end ofthe Board Room, ticking on and on while the Secretary read, wore anunfamiliar face. . . . Yes, time had gone wrong, somehow: and theevents of the passage home to Falmouth, of the journey up to thedoors of the Admiralty, though they ran on a chain, had no intervalsto be measured by a clock, but followed one another like pictures ona wall. He saw the long, indigo-coloured swell thrusting the brokenships shoreward. He felt the wind freshening as it southered and heleft the Fleet behind: he watched their many lanterns as they sankout of sight, then the glow of flares by the light of whichdead-tired men were repairing damages, cutting away wreckage. His ship was wallowing heavily now, with the gale after her, --and nowdawn was breaking clean and glorious on the swell off Lizard Point. A Mount's Bay lugger had spied them, and lying in wait, had sheeredup close alongside, her crew bawling for news. He had not forbiddenhis men to call it back, and he could see the fellows' faces now, asit reached them from the speaking-trumpet: "Great victory--twentytaken or sunk--Admiral Nelson killed!" They had guessed something, noting the _Pickle's_ ensign at half-mast: yet as they took in thepurport of the last three words, these honest fishermen had turnedand stared at one another; and without one answering word, the luggerhad been headed straight back to the mainland. 

So it had been at Falmouth. A ship entering port has a thousand eyesupon her, and the _Pickle's_ errand could not be hidden. The newsseemed in some mysterious way to have spread even before he steppedashore there on the Market Strand. A small crowd had collected, and, as he passed through it, many doffed their hats. There was nocheering at all--no, not for this the most glorious victory of thewar--outshining even the Nile or Howe's First of June. 

He had set his face as he walked to the inn. But the news hadflown before him, and fresh crowds gathered to watch him off. The post-boys knew . . . And _they_ told the post-boys at the nextstage, and the next--Bodmin and Plymouth--not to mention the boatmenat Torpoint Ferry. But the countryside did not know: nor thelabourers gathering in cider apples heaped under Devon apple-trees, nor, next day, the sportsmen banging off guns at the partridgesaround Salisbury. The slow, jolly life of England on either side ofthe high road turned leisurely as a wagon-wheel on its axle, whilebetween hedgerows, past farm hamlets, church-towers and through thecobbled streets of market towns, he had sped and rattled withCollingwood's dispatch in his sealed case. The news had reachedLondon with him. His last post-boys had carried it to their stables, and from stable to tavern. To-morrow--to-day, rather--in an hour ortwo--all the bells of London would be ringing--or tolling! . . . 

"He's as tired as a dog, " said the voice of the Secretary. "Seems almost a shame to waken him. "

The Lieutenant opened his eyes and jumped to his feet with anapology. Lord Barham had gone, and the Secretary hard by wasspeaking to the night-porter, who bent over the fire, raking it witha poker. The hands of the Queen Anne clock indicated a quarter tosix. 

"The First Lord would like to talk with you . . . Later in the day, "said Mr. Tylney gravely, smiling a little these last words. He himself was white and haggard. "He suggested the early afternoon, say half-past two. That will give you time for a round sleep. . . . You might leave me the name of your hotel, in case he should wish tosend for you before that hour. "

"'The Swan with Two Necks, ' Lad Lane, Cheapside, " said LieutenantLapenotiere. 

He knew little of London, and gave the name of the hostelry at which, many years ago, he had alighted from a West Country coach with hisbox and midshipman's kit . . . . A moment later he found himselfwondering if it still existed as a house of entertainment. Well, hemust go and seek it. 

The Secretary shook hands with him, smiling wanly. 

"Few men, sir, have been privileged to carry such news as you havebrought us to-night. "

"And I went to sleep after delivering it, " said LieutenantLapenotiere, smiling back. 

The night-porter escorted him to the hall, and opened the great doorfor him. In the portico he bade the honest man good night, and stoodfor a moment, mapping out in his mind his way to "The Swan with TwoNecks. " He shivered slightly, after his nap, in the chill of theapproaching dawn. 

As the door closed behind him he was aware of a light shining, outbeyond the screen of the fore-court, and again a horse blew throughits nostrils on the raw air. 

"Lord!" thought the Lieutenant. "That fool of a post-boy cannot havemistaken me and waited all this time!"

He hurried out into Whitehall. Sure enough a chaise was drawn upthere, and a post-boy stood by the near lamp, conning a scrap ofpaper by the light of it. No, it was a different chaise, and adifferent post-boy. He wore the buff and black, whereas the otherhad worn the blue and white. Yet he stepped forward confidently, andwith something of a smile. 

"Lieutenant Lapenotiere?" he asked, reaching back and holding up hispaper to the lamp to make sure of the syllables. 

"That is my name, " said the amazed Lieutenant. 

"I was ordered here--five-forty-five--to drive you down to Merton. "

"To Merton?" echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, his hand going to hispocket. The post-boy's smile, or so much as could be seen of it bythe edge of the lamp, grew more knowing. 

"I ask no questions, sir. "

"But--but who ordered you?"

The post-boy did not observe, or disregarded, his bewilderment. 

"A Briton's a Briton, sir, I hope? I ask no questions, knowing myplace. . . . But if so be as you were to tell me there's been a greatvictory--" He paused on this. 

"Well, my man, you're right so far, and no harm in telling you. "

"Aye, " chirruped the post-boy. "When the maid called me up with theorder, and said as how _he_ and no other had called with it--"

"He?"

The fellow nodded. 

"She knew him at once, from his portraits. Who wouldn't? With hisright sleeve pinned across so. . . . And, said I, 'Then there's beena real victory. Never would you see him back, unless. And I wasright, sir!' he concluded triumphantly. 

"Let me see that piece of paper. "

"You'll let me have it back, sir?--for a memento, " the post-boypleaded. Lieutenant Lapenotiere took it from him--a plain half-sheetof note-paper roughly folded. On it was scribbled in pencil, back-hand wise, "Lt. Lapenotiere. Admiralty, Whitehall. At 6. 30a. M. , not later. For Merton, Surrey. "

He folded the paper very slowly, and handed it back to the post-boy. 

"Very well, then. For Merton. "

The house lay but a very little distance beyond Wimbledon. Its blinds were drawn as Lieutenant Lapenotiere alighted from thechaise and went up to the modest porch. 

His hand was on the bell-pull. But some pressure checked him as hewas on the point of ringing. He determined to wait for a while andturned away towards the garden. 

The dawn had just broken; two or three birds were singing. It didnot surprise--at any rate, it did not frighten--LieutenantLapenotiere at all, when, turning into a short pleached alley, helooked along it and saw _him_ advancing. 

--Yes, _ him_, with the pinned sleeve, the noble, seamed, eager face. They met as friends. . . . In later years the lieutenant could neverremember a word that passed, if any passed at all. He was inclinedto think that they met and walked together in complete silence, formany minutes. Yet he ever maintained that they walked as two friendswhose thoughts hold converse without need of words. He was notterrified at all. He ever insisted, on the contrary, that there, inthe cold of the breaking day, his heart was light and warm as thoughflooded with first love--not troubled by it, as youth in first loveis wont to be--but bathed in it; he, the ardent young officer, bathedin a glow of affection, ennobling, exalting him, making him free of abrotherhood he had never guessed. 

He used also, in telling the story, to scandalise the clergyman ofhis parish by quoting the evangelists, and especially St. John'snarrative of Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre. 

For the door of the house opened at length; and a beautiful woman, scarred by knowledge of the world, came down the alley, slowly, unaware of him. Then (said he), as she approached, his hand went upto his pocket for the private letter he carried, and the shade at hisside left him to face her in the daylight. 

THE CASK ASHORE. (1807). 

I. 

RUM FOR BOND. 

At the head of a diminutive creek of the Tamar River, a little aboveSaltash on the Cornish shore, stands the village of Botusfleming; andin early summer, when its cherry-orchards come into bloom, you willsearch far before finding a prettier. 

The years have dealt gently with Botusfleming. As it is to-day, so--or nearly so--it was on a certain sunny afternoon in the year 1807, when the Reverend Edward Spettigew, Curate-in-Charge, sat in thegarden before his cottage and smoked his pipe while he meditated asermon. That is to say, he intended to meditate a sermon. But theafternoon was warm: the bees hummed drowsily among the wallflowersand tulips. From the bench his eyes followed the vale's descentbetween overlapping billows of cherry blossom to a gap wherein shonethe silver Tamar--not, be it understood, the part called Hamoaze, where lay the warships and the hulks containing the French prisoners, but an upper reach seldom troubled by shipping. 

Parson Spettigew laid the book face-downwards on his knee while hislips murmured a part of the text he had chosen: "_A place of broadrivers and streams . . . Wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby_. . . . " His pipe went out. The book slipped from his knee to the ground. He slumbered. 

The garden gate rattled, and he awoke with a start. In the pathwaybelow him stood a sailor; a middle-sized, middle-aged man, rigged outin best shore-going clothes--shiny tarpaulin hat, blue coat andwaistcoat, shirt open at the throat, and white duck trousers withbroad-buckled waistbelt. 

"Beggin' your Reverence's pardon, " began the visitor, touching thebrim of his hat, and then upon second thoughts uncovering, "but myname's Jope--Ben Jope. "

"Eh? . . . What can I do for you?" asked Parson Spettigew, a trifleflustered at being caught napping. 

"--Of the _Vesoovius_ bomb, bo's'n, " pursued Mr. Jope, with a smilethat disarmed annoyance, so ingenuous it was, so friendly, and withalso respectful: "but paid off at eight this morning. Maybe yourReverence can tell me whereabouts to find an embalmer in theseparts?"

"A--a _what?_"

"Embalmer. " Mr. Jope chewed thoughtfully for a moment or two upon aquid of tobacco. "Sort of party you'd go to supposin' as you had acorpse by you and wanted to keep it for a permanency. You take a lotof gums and spices, and first of all you lays out the deceased, andnext--"

"Yes, yes, " the Parson interrupted hurriedly; "I know the process, ofcourse. "

"What? to _practise_ it?" Hope illumined Mr. Jope's countenance. 

"No, most certainly not. . . . But, my good man, --an embalmer! and atBotusfleming, of all places!"

The sailor's face fell. He sighed patiently. 

"That's what they said at Saltash, more or less. I got a sisterliving there--Sarah Treleaven her name is--a widow-woman, and sellsfish. When I called on her this morning, 'Embalmer?' she said; 'Goand embalm your grandmother!' Those were her words, and the rest ofSaltash wasn't scarcely more helpful. But, as luck would have it, while I was searchin', Bill Adams went for a shave, and inside of thebarber's shop what should he see but a fair-sized otter in a glasscase? Bill began to admire it, and it turned out the barber hadstuffed the thing. Maybe your Reverence knows the man?--'A. Griggand Son, ' he calls hisself. "

"Grigg? Yes, to be sure: he stuffed a trout for me last summer. "

"What weight, makin' so bold?"

"Seven pounds. "

Mr. Jope's face fell again. 

"Well-a-well! I dare say the size don't matter, once you've got theknack. We've brought him along, anyway; and, what's more, we've madehim bring all his tools. By his talk, he reckons it to be a shavin'job, and we agreed to wait before we undeceived him. "

"But--you'll excuse me--I don't quite follow--"

Mr. Jope pressed a forefinger mysteriously to his lip, then jerked athumb in the direction of the river. 

"If your Reverence wouldn' mind steppin' down to the creek with me?"he suggested respectfully. 

Parson Spettigew fetched his hat, and together the pair descended thevale beneath the dropping petals of the cherry. At the foot of itthey came to a creek, which the tide at this hour had flooded andalmost overbrimmed. Hard by the water's edge, backed by tall elms, stood a dilapidated fish-store, and below it lay a boat with noseaground on a beach of flat stones. Two men were in the boat. The barber--a slip of a fellow in rusty top-hat and suit of rustyblack--sat in the stern-sheets face to face with a large cask; a caskso ample that, to find room for his knees, he was forced to crookthem at a high, uncomfortable angle. In the bows, boathook in hand, stood a tall sailor, arrayed in shore-going clothes similar to Mr. Jope's. His face was long, sallow, and expressive of taciturnity, and he wore a beard--not, however, where beards are usually worn, butas a fringe beneath his clean-shaven chin. 

"Well, here we are!" announced Mr. Jope cheerfully. "Your Reverenceknows A. Grigg and Son, and the others you can trust in all weathers;bein' William Adams, otherwise Bill, and Eli Tonkin--friends o' minean' shipmates both. "

The tall seaman touched his hat by way of acknowledging theintroduction. 

"But--but I only see _one!_" protested Parson Spettigew. 

"This here's Bill Adams, " said Mr. Jope, and again the tall seamantouched his hat. "Is it Eli you're missin'? He's in the cask. "

"Oh!"

"We'll hoick him up to the store, Bill, if you're ready? It looks anice cool place. And while you're prizin' him open, I'd best explainto his Reverence and the barber. Here, unship the shore-plank; andyou, A. Grigg and Son, lend a hand to heave. . . . Aye, you're right:it weighs more'n a trifle--bein' a quarter-puncheon, an' the bestproof-spirits. Tilt her _this_ way, . . . Ready? . . . Thenw'y-ho! and away she goes!"

With a heave and a lurch that canted the boat until the water pouredover her gunwale, the huge tub was rolled overside into shallowwater. The recoil, as the boat righted herself, cast the smallbarber off his balance, and he fell back over a thwart with heels inair. But before he picked himself up, the two seamen, encouragingone another with strange cries, had leapt out and were trundling thecask up the beach, using the flats of their hands. With another_w'y-ho!_ and a tremendous lift, they ran it up to the turfy plat, whence Bill Adams steered it with ease through the ruinated doorwayof the store. Mr. Jope returned, smiling and mopping his brow. 

"It's this-a-way, " he said, addressing the Parson. "Eli Tonkin hisname is, or was; and, as he said, of this parish. "

"Tonkin?" queried the Parson. "There are no Tonkins surviving inBotusfleming parish. The last of them was a poor old widow I laid torest the week after Christmas. "

"Belay there! . . . Dead, is she?" Mr. Jope's face exhibited theliveliest disappointment. "And after the surprise we'd planned forher!" he murmured ruefully. "Hi! Bill!" he called to his shipmate, who having stored the cask, was returning to the boat. 

"Wot is it?" asked Bill Adams inattentively. "Look here, where didwe stow the hammer an' chisel?"

"Take your head out o' the boat an' listen. The old woman's dead!"

The tall man absorbed the news slowly. 

"That's a facer, " he said at length. "But maybe we can fix _her_ up, too? I'll stand my share. "

"She was buried the week after Christmas. "

"Oh?" Bill scratched his head. "Then we can't--not very well. "

"Times an' again I've heard Eli talk of his poor old mother, " saidMr. Jope, turning to the Parson. "Which you'll hardly believe it, but though I knowed him for a West Country man, 'twas not till thelast I larned what parish he hailed from. It happened verycuriously. Bill, rout up A. Grigg and Son, an' fetch him forra'dhere to listen. You'll find the tools underneath him in thestern-sheets. "

Bill obeyed, and possessing himself of hammer and chisel lounged offto the shore. The little barber drew near, and stood at Mr. Jope'selbow. His face wore an unhealthy pallor, and he smelt potently ofstrong drink. 

"Brandy it is, " apologised Mr. Jope, observing a slight contractionof the Parson's nostril. "I reckoned 'twould tauten him a bit forwhat's ahead. . . . Well, as I was sayin', it happened verycuriously. This day fortnight we were beatin' up an' across the Bayo' Biscay, after a four months' to-an'-fro game in front of ToolonHarbour. Blowin' fresh it was, an' we makin' pretty poor weather ofit--the _Vesoovius_ bein' a powerful wet tub, an' a slug at the besto' times. 'Tisn' her fault, you understand: aboard a bombshipeverything's got to be heavy--timbers, scantling, everything abouther--to stand the concussion. What with this an' her mortars, shesits pretty low; but to make up for it, what with all this deadweight, and bein' short-sparred, she can carry all sail in a breezethat would surprise you. Well, sir, for two days she'd been carryin'canvas that fairly smothered us, an' Cap'n Crang not a man to carehow we fared forra'd, so long as the water didn' reach aft to his ownquarters. But at last the First Lootenant, Mr. Wapshott, took pityon us, and--the Cap'n bein' below, takin' his nap after dinner--sendsthe crew o' the maintop aloft to take a reef in the tops'le. Poor Eli was one. Whereby the men had scarcely reached the top aforeCap'n Crang comes up from his cabin an' along the deck, not troublin'to cast an eye aloft. Whereby he missed what was happenin'. Whereby he had just come abreast of the mainmast, when--sock at hisvery feet--there drops a man. 'Twas Eli, that had missed his hold, an' dropped somewhere on the back of his skull. 'Hallo!' says theCap'n, 'an' where the devil might _you_ come from?' Eli heard it, poor fellow--an' says he, as I lifted him, 'If you please, sir, fromBotusfleming, three miles t'other side of Saltash. ' 'Then you've hada damn quick passage, ' answers Cap'n Crang, an' turns on his heel. 

"Well, sir, we all agreed the Cap'n might ha' showed more feelin', specially as poor Eli'd broke the base of his skull, an' by eightbells handed in the number of his mess. Five or six of us talked itover, agreein' as how 'twas hardly human, an' Eli such a good fellow, too, let alone bein' a decent seaman. Whereby the notion came to methat, as he'd come from Botusfieming--those bein' his last words--back to Botusfleming he should go, an' on that we cooked up a plan. Bill Adams being on duty in the sick-bay, there wasn' no difficultyin sewin' up a dummy in Eli's place; an' the dummy, sir, nex' day wedooly committed to the deep, Cap'n Crang hisself readin' the service. The real question was, what to do with Eli? Whereby, the purser andme bein' friends, I goes to him an' says, 'Look here, ' I says, 'we'llbe paid off in ten days or so, an' there's a trifle o' prize-money, too. 'What price'll you sell us a cask o' the ship's rum--say aquarter-puncheon for choice?' 'What for?' says he. 'For shore-goingpurposes, ' says I. 'Bill Adams an' me got a use for it. ' 'Well, 'says the purser--a decent chap, an' by name Wilkins--'I'm an honestman, ' says he, 'an' to oblige a friend you shall have it atstore-valuation rate. An' what's more, ' said he, 'I got the wind o'your little game, an'll do what I can to help it along; for I al'aysliked the deceased, an' in my opinion Captain Crang behaved mostunfeelin'. You tell Bill to bring the body to me, an' there'll be nomore trouble about it till I hand you over the cask at Plymouth. 'Well, sir, the man was as good as his word. We smuggled the caskashore last evenin', an' hid it in the woods this side o' MountEdgcumbe. This mornin' we re-shipped it as you see. First along weintended no more than just to break the news to Eli's mother, an'hand him over to her; but Bill reckoned that to hand him over, caskan' all, would look careless; for (as he said) 'twasn' as if youcould _bury_ 'im in a cask. We allowed your Reverence would draw theline at that, though we hadn' the pleasure o' knowin' you at thetime. "

"Yes, " agreed the Parson, as Mr. Jope paused, "I fear it could not bedone without scandal. "

"That's just how Bill put it. 'Well then, ' says I, thinkin' it over, 'why not do the handsome while we're about it? You an' me ain't thesort of men, ' I says, 'to spoil the ship for a ha'porth o' tar. ''Certainly we ain't, ' says Bill. 'An' we've done a lot for Eli, 'says I. 'We have, ' says Bill. 'Well then, ' says I, 'let's put acoat o' paint on the whole business an' have him embalmed. ' Bill wasenchanted. "

"I--I beg your pardon, " put in the barber, edging away a pace. 

"Bill was enchanted. Hark to him in the store, there, knockin' awayat the chisel. "

"But there's some misunderstanding, " the little man protestedearnestly. "I understood it was to be a _shave_. "

"You can shave him, too, if you like. "

"If I th--thought you were s--serious--"

"Have some more brandy. " Mr. Jope pulled out and proffered a flask. "Only don't overdo it, or it'll make your hand shaky. . . . Serious?You may lay to it that Bill's serious. He's that set on the idea, itdon't make no difference to him, as you may have noticed, Eli'smother not bein' alive to take pleasure in it. Why, he wanted toembalm _her_, too! He's doin' this now for his own gratification, isBill, an' you may take it from me when Bill sets his heart on a thinghe sees it through. Don't you cross him, that's my advice. "

"But--but--"

"No, you don't. " As the little man made a wild spring to flee up thebeach, Mr. Jope shot out a hand and gripped him by the coat collar. "Now look here, " he said very quietly, as the poor wretch would havegrovelled at the Parson's feet, "you was boastin' to Bill, not anhour agone, as you could stuff _anything_. "

"Don't hurt him, " Parson Spettigew interposed, touching Mr. Jope'sarm. 

"I'm not hurtin' him, your Reverence, only--Eh? What's that?"

All turned their faces towards the store. 

"Your friend is calling to you, " said the Parson. 

"Bad language, too . . . That's not like Bill, as a rule. Ahoy there, Bill!"

"Ahoy!" answered the voice of Mr. Adams. 

"What's up?" Without waiting for an answer Mr. Jope ran the barberbefore him up the beach to the doorway, the Parson following. "What's up?" he demanded again, as he drew breath. 

"Take an' see for yourself, " answered Mr. Adams darkly, pointing withhis chisel. 

A fine fragrance of rum permeated the store. 

Mr. Jope advanced, and peered into the staved cask. 

"Gone?" he exclaimed, and gazed around blankly. 

Bill Adams nodded. 

"But _where?_ . . . You don't say he's _dissolved?_"

"It ain't the usual way o' rum. An' it _is_ rum?"

Bill appealed to the Parson. 

"By the smell, undoubtedly. "

"I tell you what's happened. That fool of a Wilkins has made amistake in the cask. . . . "

"An' Eli?--oh, Lord!" gasped Mr. Jope. 

"They'll have returned Eli to the Victuallin' Yard before this, " saidBill gloomily. "I overheard Wilkins sayin' as he was to pass overall stores an' accounts at nine-thirty this mornin'. "

"An', once there, who knows where he's got mixed? . . . He'll go theround o' the Fleet, maybe. Oh, my word, an' the ship that broacheshim!"

Bill Adams opened and shut his mouth quickly, like a fish ashore. 

"They'll reckon they've got a lucky-bag, " he said weakly. 

"An' Wilkins paid off with the rest, an' no address, even if he couldhelp--which I doubt. "

"Eh? I got a note from Wilkins, as it happens. " Bill Adams took offhis tarpaulin hat, and extracted a paper from the lining of thecrown. "He passed it down to me this mornin' as I pushed off fromthe ship. Said I was to keep it, an' maybe I'd find it useful. I wondered what he meant at the time, me takin' no particular truckwith pursers ashore. . . . It crossed my mind as I'd heard he meantto get married, and maybe he wanted me to stand best man at theweddin'. W'ich I didn' open the note at the time; not likin' torefuse him, after he'd behaved so well to me. "

"Pass it over, " commanded Mr. Jope. He took the paper and unfoldedit, but either the light was dim within the store, or the handwritinghard to decipher. "Would your Reverence read it out for us?"

Parson Spettigew carried the paper to the doorway. He read itscontents aloud, and slowly:

 To Mr. Bill Adams, Capt. Of the Fore-top, H. M. S. _Vesuvius_. 

 Sir, --It was a dummy Capt. Crang buried. We cast the late E. Tonkin overboard the second night in lat. 46/30, long. 7/15, or thereabouts. By which time the feeling aboard had cooled down and it seemed a waste of good spirit. The rum you paid for is good rum. Hoping that you and Mr. Jope will find a use for it, Your obedient servant, S. Wilkins. 

There was a long pause, through which Mr. Adams could be heardbreathing hard. 

"But what are we to do with it?" asked Mr. Jope, scratching his headin perplexity. 

"Drink it. Wot else?"

"But where?"

"Oh, " said Mr. Adams, "anywhere!"

"That's all very well, " replied his friend. "You never had noproperty, an' don't know its burdens. We'll have to hire a house forthis, an' live there till it's finished. "

II. 

THE MULTIPLYING CELLAR. 

St. Dilp by Tamar has altered little in a hundred years. As itstands to-day, embowered in cherry-trees, so (or nearly so) it stoodon that warm afternoon in the early summer of 1807, when twoweather-tanned seamen of His Majesty's Fleet came along its forestreet with a hand-barrow and a huge cask very cunningly lashedthereto. On their way they eyed the cottages and gardens to rightand left with a lively curiosity; but "Lord, Bill, " said the shorterseaman, misquoting Wordsworth unawares, "the werry houses lookasleep!"

At the "Punch-Bowl" Inn, kept by J. Coyne, they halted by silentconsent. Mr. William Adams, who had been trundling the barrow, setit down, and Mr. Benjamin Jope--whose good-natured face would haverecommended him anywhere--walked into the drinking-parlour and rappedon the table. This brought to him the innkeeper's daughter, MissElizabeth, twenty years old and comely. "What can I do for you, sir?" she asked. 

"Two pots o' beer, first-along, " said Mr. Jope. 

"Two?"

"I got a shipmate outside. "

Miss Elizabeth fetched the two pots. 

"Here, Bill!" he called, carrying one to the door. Returning, heblew at the froth on his own pot meditatively. "And the next thingis, I want a house. "

"A house?"

"'Stonishing echo you keep here. . . . Yes, miss, a house. My name'sJope--Ben Jope--o' the _Vesuvius_ bomb, bo's'un; but paid off ateight this morning. My friend outside goes by the name of BillAdams; an' you'll find him livelier than he looks. Everyone does. But I forgot; you ha'n't seen him yet, and he can't come in, havin'to look after the cask. "

"The ca--" Miss Elizabeth had almost repeated the word, but managedto check herself. 

"You ought to consult someone about it, at your age, " said Mr. Jopesolicitously. "Yes, the cask. Rum it is, an' a quarter-puncheon. Bill and me clubbed an' bought it off the purser las' night, thechaplain havin' advised us not to waste good prize-money ashore butinvest it in something we really wanted. But I don't know if you'veever noticed how often one thing leads to another. You can't godrinkin' out a quarter-puncheon o' rum in the high road, not verywell. So the next thing is, we want a house. "

"But, " said the girl, "who ever heard of a house to let hereabouts!"

Mr. Jope's face fell. 

"Ain't there none? An' it seemed so retired, too, an' handy nearPlymouth. "

"There's not a house to let in St. Dilp parish, unless it be theRectory. "

Mr. Jope's face brightened. 

"Then we'll take the Rectory, " he said. "Where is it?"

"Down by the river. . . . But 'tis nonsense you're tellin'. The Rectory indeed! Why, it's a seat!"

Mr. Jope's face clouded. 

"Oh, " he said, "is that all?"

"It's a fine one, too. "

"It'd have to be, to accomydate Bill an' me an' the cask. I wanted ahouse, as I thought I told ye. "

"Oh, but I meant a country-seat, " explained Miss Elizabeth. "The Rectory is a house. "

Again Mr. Jope's face brightened. 

"An' so big, " she went on, "that the Rector can't afford to live init. That's why 'tis to let. The rent's forty pound. "

"Can I see him?"

"No, you can't; for he lives up to Lunnon an' hires Parson Spettigewof Botusfleming to do the work. But it's my father has the lettin'o' the Rectory if a tenant comes along. He keeps the keys. "

"Then I 'd like to talk with your father. "

"No you wouldn't, " said the girl frankly; "because he's asleep. Father drinks a quart o' cider at three o'clock every day of hislife, an' no one don't dare disturb him before six. "

"Well, I like reggilar habits, " said Mr. Jope, diving a hand into hisbreeches' pocket and drawing forth a fistful of golden guineas. "But couldn't you risk it?"

Miss Elizabeth's eyes wavered. 

"No, I couldn', " she sighed, shaking her head. "Father's veryviolent in his temper. But I tell you what, " she added: "I mightfetch the keys, and you might go an' see the place for yourself. "

"Capital, " said Mr. Jope. While she was fetching these he finishedhis beer. Then, having insisted on paying down a guinea forearnest-money, he took the keys and her directions for finding thehouse. She repeated them in the porch for the benefit of the tallerseaman; who, as soon as she had concluded, gripped the handles of hisbarrow afresh and set off without a word. She gazed after the pairas they passed down the street. 

At the foot of it a by-lane branched off towards the creek-side. It led them past a churchyard and a tiny church almost smothered incherry-trees--for the churchyard was half an orchard: past a tumblingstream, a mill and some wood-stacks; and so, still winding downwards, brought them to a pair of iron gates, rusty and weather-greened. The gates stood unlocked; and our two seamen found themselves next ina carriage-drive along which it was plain no carriage had passed fora very long while. It was overgrown with weeds, and stragglinglaurels encroached upon it on either hand; and as it rounded one ofthese laurels Mr. Jope caught his breath sharply. 

"Lor' lumme!" he exclaimed. "It is a seat, as the gel said!"

Mr. Adams, following close with the wheelbarrow, set it down, stared, and said:

"Then she's a liar. It's a house. "

"It's twice the size of a three-decker, anyway, " said his friend, andtogether they stood and contemplated the building. 

It was a handsome pile of old brickwork, set in a foundation of rockalmost overhanging the river--on which, however, it turned its back;in design, an oblong of two storeys, with a square tower at each ofthe four corners, and the towers connected by a parapet of freestone. The windows along the front were regular, and those on theground-floor less handsome than those of the upper floor, where(it appeared) were the staterooms. For--strangest feature of all--the main entrance was in this upper storey, with a dozen broad stepsleading down to the unkempt carriage-way and a lawn, across which amagnificent turkey oak threw dark masses of shadow. 

But the house was a picture of decay. Unpainted shutters blocked thewindows; tall grasses sprouted in the crevices of the entrance stepsand parapet; dislodged slates littered the drive; smears of old rainsran down the main roof and from a lantern of which the louvers wereall in ruin, some hanging by a nail, others blown on edge bylong-past gales. The very nails had rusted out of the walls, and thecreepers they should have supported hung down in ropy curtains. 

Mr. Adams scratched his head. 

"What I'd like to know, " said he after a while, "is how to get thecask up them steps. "

"There'll be a cellar-door for sartin, " Mr. Jope assured himcheerfully. "You don't suppose the gentry takes their beer in at thefront, hey?"

"This, " said Mr. Adams, "is rum; which is a totally different thing. "But he set down his barrow, albeit reluctantly, and followed hisshipmate up the entrance steps. The front door was massive, andsheeted over with lead embossed in foliate and heraldic patterns. Mr. Jope inserted the key, turned it with some difficulty, and pushedthe door wide. It opened immediately upon the great hall, and aftera glance within he removed his hat. 

The hall, some fifty feet long, ran right across the waist of thehouse, and was lit by tall windows at either end. Its floor was ofblack and white marble in lozenge pattern. Three immense chandeliersdepended from its roof. Along each of the two unpierced walls, against panels of peeling stucco, stood a line of statuary--heathengoddesses, fauns, athletes and gladiators, with here and there a vaseor urn copied from the antique. The furniture consisted of half adozen chairs, a settee, and an octagon table, all carved out of woodin pseudo-classical patterns, and painted with a grey wash toresemble stone. 

"It's a fine room, " said Mr. Jope, walking up to a statue of Diana:"but a man couldn' hardly invite a mixed company to dinner here. "

"Symonds's f'r instance, " suggested Mr. Adams. Symonds's being asomewhat notorious boarding-house in a street of Plymouth which shallbe nameless. 

"You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, Bill, " said Mr. Jope sternly. 

"They're anticks, that's what they are. "

Mr. Adams drew a long breath. 

"I shouldn' wonder, " he said. 

"Turnin' 'em wi' their faces to the wall 'd look too marked, " musedMr. Jope. "But a few tex o' Scripture along the walls might easethings down a bit. "

"Wot about the hold?" Mr. Adams suggested. 

"The cellar, you mean. Let's have a look. "

They passed through the hall; thence down a stone stairway into anample vaulted kitchen, and thence along a slate-flagged corridorflanked by sculleries, larders and other kitchen offices. The twoseamen searched the floors of all in hope of finding a cellar trap orhatchway, and Mr. Adams was still searching when Mr. Jope called tohim from the end of the corridor:

"Here we are!"

He had found a flight of steps worthy of a cathedral crypt, leadingdown to a stone archway. The archway was closed by an iron-studdeddoor. 

"It's like goin' to church, " commented Mr. Jope, bating his voice. "Where's the candles, Bill?"

"In the barrer 'long wi' the bread an' bacon. "

"Then step back and fetch 'em. "

But from the foot of the stairs Mr. Jope presently called up thatthis was unnecessary, for the door had opened to his hand--smoothly, too, and without noise; but he failed to note this as strange, beingtaken aback for the moment by a strong draught of air that met him, blowing full in his face. 

"There's daylight here, too, of a sort, " he reported: and so therewas. It pierced the darkness in a long shaft, slanting across from adoorway of which the upper panel stood open to the sky. 

"Funny way o' leavin' a house, " he muttered, as he stepped across thebare cellar floor and peered forth. "Why, hallo, here's water!"

The cellar, in fact, stood close by the river's edge, with a broadpostern-sill actually overhanging the tide, and a flight of steps, scarcely less broad, curving up and around the south-west angle ofthe house. 

While Mr. Jope studied these and the tranquil river flowing, all greyand twilit, at his feet, Mr. Adams had joined him and had also takenbearings. 

"With a check-rope, " said Mr. Adams, "--and I got one in the barrer--we can lower it down here easy. "

He pointed to the steps. 

"Hey?" said Mr. Jope. "Yes, the cask--to be sure. "

"Wot else?" said Mr. Adams. "An' I reckon we'd best get to work, ifwe're to get it housed afore dark. "

They did so: but by the time they had the cask bestowed and triggedup, and had spiled it and inserted a tap, darkness had fallen. If they wished to explore the house farther, it would be necessary tocarry candles; and somehow neither Mr. Jope nor Mr. Adams felt eagerfor this adventure. They were hungry, moreover. So they decided tomake their way back to the great hall, and sup. 

They supped by the light of a couple of candles. The repastconsisted of bread and cold bacon washed down by cold rum-and-water. At Symonds's--they gave no utterance to this reflection, but eachknew it to be in the other's mind--at Symonds's just now there wouldbe a boiled leg of mutton with turnips, and the rum would be hot, with a slice of lemon. 

"We shall get accustomed, " said Mr. Jope with a forced air ofcheerfulness. 

Mr. Adams glanced over his shoulder at the statuary and answered"yes" in a loud unfaltering voice. After a short silence he arose, opened one of the windows, removed a quid from his cheek, laid itcarefully on the outer sill, closed the window, and resumed his seat. Mr. Jope had pulled out a cake of tobacco, and was slicing it intosmall pieces with his clasp-knife. 

"Goin' to smoke?" asked Mr. Adams, with another glance at the Diana. 

"It don't hurt this 'ere marble pavement--not like the other thing. "

"No"--Mr. Adams contemplated the pavement while he, too, drew forthand filled a pipe--"a man might play a game of checkers on it; thatis, o' course, when no one was lookin'. "

"I been thinking, " announced Mr. Jope, "over what his Reverence saidabout bankin' our money. "

"How much d'ye reckon we've got?"

"Between us? Hundred an' twelve pound, fourteen and six. That's after paying for rum, barrer and oddments. We could live, "said Mr. Jope, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stemat his friend in expository fashion--"we could live in this herehouse for more'n three years. "

"Oh!" said Mr. Adams, but without enthusiasm. "Could we now?"

"That is, if we left out the vittles. "

"But we're not goin' to. "

"O' course not. Vittles for two'll run away with a heap of it. And then there'll be callers. "

"Callers?" Mr. Adams's face brightened. 

"Not the sort you mean. Country folk. It's the usual thing whenstrangers come an' settle in a place o' this size. . . . But, all thesame, a hundred an' twelve pound, fourteen and six is a heap: an' asI say, we got to think over bankin' it. A man feels solid settin'here with money under his belt; an' yet between you an' me I wouldn'tmind if it was less so, in a manner o' speakin'. "

"Me, either. "

"I was wonderin' what it would feel like to wake in the night an'tell yourself that someone was rollin' up money for you like asnowball. "

"There might be a certain amount of friskiness in that. Butcontrariwise, if you waked an' told yourself the fella was runnin'off with it, there wuldn'. "

"Shore-living folks takes that risk an' grows accustomed to it. W'y look at the fellow in charge o' this house. "

"Where?" asked Mr. Adams nervously. 

"The landlord-fellow, I mean, up in the village. His daughter saidhe went to sleep every afternoon, an' wouldn' be waked. How could aman afford to do that if his money wasn' rollin' up somewhere forhim? An' the place fairly lined with barrels o' good liquor. "

"Mightn't liquor accumylate in the same way?" asked Mr. Adams, withsudden and lively interest. 

"No, you nincom', " began Mr. Jope--when a loud knocking on the outerdoor interrupted him. "Hallo!" he sank his voice. "Callersalready!"

He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A heavy-shouldered, bull-necked man stood outside in the dusk. 

"Good evenin'. "

"Evenin', " said the stranger. "My name is Coyne an' you must get outo' this. "

"I don't see as it follows, " answered Mr. Jope meditatively. "Buthadn't you better step inside?"

"I don't want to bandy words--" began the publican, entering asthough he shouldered his way. 

"That's right! Bill, fetch an' fill a glass for the gentleman. "

"No, thank you. . . . Well, since you have it handy. But look here:I got nothin' particular to say against you two men, only you can'tstop here to-night. That's straight enough, I hope, and no bonesbroken. "

"Straight it is, " Mr. Jope agreed: "and we'll talk o' the bones byan' by. Wot name, sir?--makin' so bold. "

"My name's Coyne. "

"An' mine's Cash. " Mr. Jope fumbled with the fastening of a pouchunderneath his broad waistbelt. "So we're well met. How much?"

"Eh?"

"How much? Accordin' to your darter 'twas forty pound a year, an'money down: but whether monthly or quarterly she didn' say. "

"It's no question of money. It's a question of you two clearin' out, and at once. I'm breakin' what I have to say as gently as I can. If you don't choose to understand plain language, I must go an' fetchthe constable. "

"I seen him, up at the village this afternoon, an' you'd better not. Bill, why can't ye fill the gentleman's glass?"

"Because the jug's empty, " answered Mr. Adams. 

"Then slip down to the cellar again. "

"No!" Mr. Coyne almost screamed it, rising from his chair. Droppingback weakly, he murmured, panting, "Not for me: not on any account!"His face was pale, and for the moment all the aggressiveness had goneout of him. He lifted a hand weakly to his heart. 

"A sudden faintness, " he groaned, closing his eyes. "If you two menhad any feelin's, you'd offer to see me home. "

"The pair of us?" asked Mr. Jope suavely. 

"I scale over seventeen stone, " murmured Mr. Coyne, still with hiseyes closed; "an' a weight like that is no joke. "

Mr. Jope nodded. 

"You're right there; so you'd best give it over. Sorry to seemheartless, sir, but 'tis for your good: an' to walk home in yourstate would be a sin, when we can fix you up a bed in the house. "

Mr. Coyne opened his eyes, and they were twinkling vindictively. 

"Sleep in this house?" he exclaimed. "I wouldn't do it, not for athousand pound!"

"W'y not?"

"You'll find out 'why not, ' safe enough, afore the mornin'!Why 'twas in kindness--pure kindness--I asked the pair of ye to seeme home. I wouldn't be one to stay in this house alone arternightfall--no, or I wouldn't be one to leave a dog alone here, let bea friend. My daughter didn't tell, I reckon, as this place washa'nted?"

"Ha'nted?"

"Aye. By females too. "

"O--oh!" Mr. Adams, who had caught his breath, let it escape in along sigh of relief. "Like Symonds's, " he murmured. 

"Not a bit like Symonds's, " his friend corrected snappishly. "He's talkin' o' dead uns--ghosts--that is, if I take your meanin', sir?"

Mr. Coyne nodded. 

"That's it. Ghosts. "

"Get out with you!" said Mr. Adams, incredulous. 

"You must be a pair of very simple men, " said landlord Coyne, half-closing his eyes again, "if you reckoned that forty pound wouldrent a place like this without some drawbacks. Well, the drawbacksis ghosts. Four of 'em, and all females. "

"Tell us about 'em, sir, " requested Mr. Jope, dropping into his seat. "An' if Bill don't care to listen, he can fill up his time by takin'the jug an' steppin' down to the cellar. "

"Damned if I do, " said Mr. Adams, stealing a glance over his shoulderat the statues. 

"It's a distressin' story, " began Mr. Coyne with a very slightflutter of the eyelids. "Maybe my daughter told you--an' if shedidn't, you may have found out for yourselves--as how this here houseis properly speakin' four houses--nothing in common but the roof, an'the cellar, an' this room we're sittin' in. . . . Well, then, backalong there lived an old Rector here, with a man-servant calledOliver. One day he rode up to Exeter, spent a week there, an'brought home a wife. Footman Oliver was ready at the door to receive'em, an' the pair went upstairs to a fine set o' rooms he'd madeready in the sou'-west tower, an' there for a whole month they livedtogether, as you might say, in wedded happiness. 

"At th' end o' the month th' old Rector discovered he had businesstakin' him to Bristol. He said his farewells very lovin'ly, promisedto come back as soon as he could, but warned the poor lady againstsetting foot outside the doors. The gardens an' fields (he said)swarmed with field-mice, an' he knew she had a terror of mice of allsorts. So off he rode, an' by an' by came back by night with asecond young lady: and Oliver showed 'em up to the nor'-east towerfor the honeymoon. 

"A week later my gentleman had a call to post down to Penzance. He warned his second wife that it was a terrible year for adders an'the ground swarmin' with 'em, for he knew she had a horror o' snakes. Inside of a fortnight he brought home a third--"

"Bill, " said Mr. Jope, sitting up sharply, "what noise was that?"

"I didn't hear it, " answered Mr. Adams, who was turning up histrousers uneasily. "Adders, maybe. "

"Seemed to me it sounded from somewheres in the cellar. Maybe youwouldn't mind steppin' down, seein' as you don't take no interest inwhat Mr. Coyne's tellin'. "

"I'm beginning to. "

"The cellar's the worst place of all, " said Mr. Coyne, blinking. "It's there that the bodies were found. "

"Bodies?"

"Bodies. Four of 'em. I was goin' to tell you how he brought homeanother, havin' kept the third poor lady to her rooms with some taleabout a mad dog starvin' to death in his shrubberies--he didn't knowwhere--"

"If you don't mind, " Mr. Jope interposed, "I've a notion to hear therest o' the story some other evenin'. It's--it's agreeable enough tobear spinnin' out, an' I understand you're a fixture in thisneighbourhood. "

"Certainly, " said Mr. Coyne, rising. "But wot about _you_?"

"I'll tell you to-morrow. "

Mr. Jope gripped the arms of his chair, having uttered the bravestspeech of his life. He sat for a while, the sound of his own voiceechoing strangely in his ears, even when Mr. Coyne rose to take hisleave. 

"Well, I can't help admirin' you, " said Mr. Coyne handsomely. "By the way the rent's by the quarter, an' in advance--fours intoforty is ten; I mention it as a matter of business, and in case wedon't meet again. "

Mr. Jope counted out the money. 

When Mr. Coyne had taken his departure the pair sat a long while insilence, their solitary candle flickering an the table between them. 

"You spoke out very bold, " said Mr. Adams at length. 

"Did I?" said Mr. Jope. "I didn't feel it. "

"What cuts me to the quick is the thought o' them adders outside. "

"Ye dolt! There ain't no real adders outside. They're what the chapinvented to frighten the women. "

"Sure? Then, " mused Mr. Adams, after a pause, "maybe there ain't noreal ghosts neither, but he invented the whole thing. "

"Maybe. What d'ye say to steppin' down an' fetchin' up anothermugful o' liquor?"

"I say, " answered Mr. Adams slowly, "as how I won't. "

"Toss for it, " suggested Mr. Jope. "You refuse? Very well, then, Imust go. Only I thought better of ye, Bill--I did indeed. "

"I can't help what ye thought, " Mr. Adams began sulkily; and then, ashis friend rose with the face of a man who goes to meet the worst, hesprang up quaking. "Lord's sake, Ben Jope! You ain't a-goin' to takethe candle an' leave me!"

"Bill Adams, " said Mr. Jope with fine solemnity, "if I was to put aname on your besettin' sin, it would be cowardice--an' you can justsit here in the dark an' think it over. "

"When I was on the p'int of offering to go with ye!"

"Ho! Was you? Very well, then, I accept the offer, an' you can walkfirst. "

"But I don't see--"

"Another word, " announced Mr. Jope firmly, "an' you won't! _For I'llblow out the candle_. "

Mr. Adams surrendered, and tottered to the door. They passed out, and through the vaulted kitchen, and along the slate-flaggedcorridor--very slowly here, for a draught fluttered the candle flame, and Mr. Jope had to shield it with a shaking palm. Once with ahoarse "What's that?" Mr. Adams halted and cast himself into aposture of defence--against his own shadow, black and amorphous, wavering on the wall. 

They came to the iron-studded door. 

"Open, you, " commanded Mr. Jope under his breath. "And not too fast, mind--there was a breeze o' wind blowin' this arternoon. Steady doesit--look out for the step, an' then straight forw--"

A howl drowned the last word, as Mr. Adams struck his shin againstsome obstacle and pitched headlong into darkness--a howl of painblent with a dull jarring rumble. Silence followed, and out of thesilence broke a faint groan. 

"Bill! Bill Adams! Oh, Bill, for the Lord's sake--!"Still mechanically shielding his candle, Mr. Jope staggered back apace, and leaned against the stone door-jamb for support. 

"Here!" sounded the voice of Bill, very faint in the darkness. "Here! fetch along the light, quick!"

"Wot's it?"

"Casks. "

"Casks?"

"Kegs, then. I ought to know, " responded Bill plaintively, "seeingas I pretty near broke my leg on one!"

Mr. Jope peered forward, holding the light high. In the middle ofthe cellar stood the quarter-puncheon and around it a whole regimentof small barrels. Half doubting his eyesight, he stooped to examinethem. Around each keg was bound a sling of rope. 

"Rope?" muttered Mr. Jope, stooping. "Foreign rope--left-handedrope--" And with that of a sudden he sat down on the nearest keg andbegan to laugh. "The old varmint! the darned old sinful methodeerin'varmint!"

"Oh, stow it, Ben! 'Tisn' manly. " But still the unnatural laughtercontinued. "What in thunder--"

Bill Adams came groping between the kegs. 

"Step an' bar the outer door, ye nincom! _Can't you see?_ There'sbeen a run o' goods; an' while that Coyne sat stuffin' us up with hisghosts, his boys were down below here loadin' us up with neat furrinsperrits--_loadin' us up_, mark you. My blessed word, the fun we'llhave wi' that Coyne to-morrow!"

Mr. Adams in a mental fog groped his way to the door opening on theriver steps, bolted it, groped his way back and stood scratching hishead. A grin, grotesque in the wavering light, contorted the longlower half of the face for a moment and was gone. He seldom smiled. 

"On the whole, " said Mr. Adams, indicating the kegs, "I fancy thesebetter'n the naked objects upstairs. Suppose we spend the rest o'the night here? It's easier, " he added, "than runnin' to and fro forthe drink. But what about liquor not accumylatin'?"

PART II. 

YE SEXES, GIVE EAR!

A STORY FROM A CHIMNEY-CORNER. 

A good song, and thank' ee, Sir, for singing it! Time was, you'dnever miss hearing it in these parts, whether 'twas feast orharvest-supper or Saturday night at the public. A virtuous goodsong, too; and the merry fellow that made it won't need to cast aboutand excuse himself when the graves open and he turns out with hisfiddle under his arm. My own mother taught it to me; the more bytoken that she came from Saltash, and "Ye sexes, give ear" was aterrible favourite with the Saltash females by reason of SallyHancock and her turn-to with the press-gang. Hey? You don't tellme, after singing the song, that you never heard tell of SallyHancock? Well, if--! Here, take and fill my mug, somebody!

'Tis an instructive tale, too. . . . This Sally was a Saltashfishwoman, and you must have heard of _them_, at all events. There was Bess Rablin, too, and Mary Kitty Climo, and ThomasineOliver, and Long Eliza that married Treleaven the hoveller, andPengelly's wife Ann; these made up the crew Sally stroked in thegreat race. And besides these there was Nan Scantlebury--she tookBess Rablin's oar the second year, Bess being a bit too fond oflifting her elbow, which affected her health--and Phemy Sullivan, anIrishwoman, and Long Eliza's half-sister Charlotte Prowse, andRebecca Tucker, and Susan Trebilcock, that everybody called "Apern, "and a dozen more maybe: powerful women every one, and proud of it. The town called them Sally Hancock's Gang, she being their leader, though they worked separate, shrimping, cockling, digging for lug andlong-lining, bawling fish through Plymouth streets, even a hovellingjob at times--nothing came amiss to them, and no weather. For a tripto Plymouth they'd put on sea-boots belike, or grey stockings andclogs: but at home they went bare-legged, and if they wore anything'pon their heads 'twould be a handkerchief, red or yellow, with aman's hat clapped a-top; coats too, and guernseys like men's, andpetticoats a short few inches longer; for I'm telling of thatback-along time when we fought Boney and while seafaring men stillwore petticoats--in these parts at any rate. Well, that's how Sallyand her mates looked on week-a-days, and that's how they behaved: butyou must understand that, though rough, they were respectable; themost of them Wesleyan Methodists; and on Sundays they'd put on bonnetand sit in chapel, and drink their tea afterwards and pick theirneighbours to pieces just like ordinary Christians. Sal herself wasa converted woman, and greatly exercised for years about herhusband's condition, that kept a tailor's shop halfway down ForeStreet and scoffed at the word of Grace; though he attended publicworship, partly to please his customers and partly because his wifewouldn't let him off. 

The way the fun started was this. In June month of the year 'five(that's the date my mother always gave) the Wesleyans up at theLondon Foundry sent a man down to preach a revival through Cornwall, starting with Saltash. He had never crossed the Tamar before, buthad lived the most of his life near Wolverhampton--a bustious littleman, with a round belly and a bald head and high sense of his ownimportance. He arrived on a Saturday night, and attended servicenext morning, but not to take part in it: he "wished to look round, "he said. So the morning was spent in impressing everyone with hisshiny black suit of West-of-England broadcloth and his beautifulneckcloth and bunch of seals. But in the evening he climbed thepulpit; and there Old Nick himself, that lies in wait for preachers, must have tempted the poor fellow to preach on Womanly Perfection, taking his text from St. Paul. 

He talked a brave bit about subjection, and how a woman ought tosubmit herself to her husband, and keep her head covered in places ofpublic worship. And from that he passed on to say that 'twas to thisbeautiful submissiveness women owed their amazing power for good, andhe, for his part, was going through Cornwall to tackle the womenfolkand teach 'em this beautiful lesson, and he'd warrant he'd leave thewhole county a sight nearer righteousness than he found it. Withthat he broke out into extempory prayer for our dear sisters, as hecalled them, dusted his knees, and gave out the hymn, all as pleasedas Punch. 

Sal walked home from service alongside of her husband, verythoughtful. Deep down in the bottom of his heart he was afraid ofher, and she knew it, though she made it a rule to treat him kindly. But knowing him for a monkey-spirited little man, and spiteful aswell as funny, you could never be sure when he wouldn't break out. To-night he no sooner gets inside his own door than says he with adry sort of a chuckle:

"Powerful fine sermon, this evenin'. A man like that makes you_think_. "

"Ch't!" says Sally, tossing her bonnet on to the easy chair andgroping about for the tinder-box. 

"Sort of doctrine that's badly needed in Saltash, " says he. "But I'dha' bet 'twould be wasted on you. Well, well, if you can'tunderstand logic, fit and fetch supper, that's a good soul!"

"Ch't!" said Sally again, paying no particular attention, butwondering what the dickens had become of the tinder-box. She couldn't find it on the chimney-piece, so went off to fetch thekitchen one. 

When she came back, there was my lord seated in the easy chair--thatwas hers by custom--and puffing away at his pipe--a thing not alloweduntil after supper. You see, he had collared the tinder-box when hefirst came in, and had hidden it from her. 

Sal lit the lamp, quiet-like. "I s'pose you know you're sittin' 'ponmy best bonnet?" said she. 

This took him aback. He jumped up, found the bonnet underneathhim sure enough, and tossed it on to the table. "Gew-gaws!" said he, settling himself again and puffing. "Gew-gaws and frippery!That man'll do good in this country; he's badly wanted. "

Sal patted the straw of her bonnet into something like shape andsmoothed out the ribbons. "If it'll make you feel like abreadwinner, " said she, "there's a loaf in the bread-pan. The coldmeat and pickles are under lock and key, and we'll talk o' themlater. " She fitted the bonnet on and began to tie the strings. 

"You don't tell me, Sarah, that you mean to go gadding out at thistime of the evening?" cries he, a bit chapfallen, for he knew shecarried the keys in an under-pocket beneath her skirt. 

"And you don't suppose, " answers she, "that I can spare the time towatch you play-actin' in my best chair? No, no, my little man!Sit there and amuse yourself: what _you_ do don't make a ha'porth ofodds. But there's others to be considered, and I'm going to put anend to this nonsense afore it spreads. "

The time of the year, as I've told you, was near about midsummer, when a man can see to read print out-of-doors at nine o'clock. Service over, the preacher had set out for a stroll across thehayfields towards Trematon, to calm himself with a look at thescenery and the war-ships in the Hamoaze and the line of prison-hulksbelow, where in those days they kept the French prisoners. He wasstrolling back, with his hands clasped behind him under hiscoat-tails, when on the knap of the hill, between him and the town, he caught sight of a bevy of women seated among the hay-pooks--staidmiddle-aged women, all in dark shawls and bonnets, chattering therein the dusk. As he came along they all rose up together and droppedhim a curtsy. 

"Good evenin', preacher dear, " says Sally, acting spokeswoman; "and avery fine night for the time of year. "

I reckon that for a moment the preacher took a scare. Monstrous finewomen they were to be sure, looming up over him in the dimmety light, and two or three of them tall as Grenadiers. But hearing himselfforespoken so pleasantly, he came to a stand and peered at themthrough his gold-rimmed glasses. 

"Ah, good evening, ladies!" says he. "You are, I presoom, membersof the society that I've just had the privilege of addressin'?"And thereupon they dropped him another curtsy all together. "Like me, I dare say you find the scent of the new-mown hayrefreshingly grateful. And what a scene! What a beautiful porch, soto speak, to the beauties of Cornwall!--beauties of which I haveoften heard tell. "

"Yes, Sir, " answers Sal demurely. "Did you ever hear tell, too, whyOld Nick never came into Cornwall?"

"H'm--ha--some proverbial saying, no doubt? But--you will excuseme--I think we should avoid speaking lightly of the great Enemy ofMankind. "

"He was afraid, " pursued Sal, "of being put into a pie. " She pausedat that, giving her words time to sink in. The preacher didn'tnotice yet awhile that Long Eliza Treleaven and Thomasine Oliver hadcrept round a bit and planted themselves in the footpath behind him. 

After a bit Sal let herself go in a comfortable smile, and says she, in a pretty, coaxing voice, "Sit yourself down, preacher, that's adear: sit yourself down, nice and close, and have a talk!"

The poor fellow fetched a start at this. He didn't know, of course, that everyone's "my dear" in Cornwall, and I'm bound to say I've seenforeigners taken aback by it--folks like commercial travellers, notgiven to shyness as a rule. 

"You'll excuse me, Madam. "

"No, I won't: not if you don't come and sit down quiet. Bless theman, I'm not going to eat 'ee--wouldn't harm a hair of your dearlittle head, if you had any! What? You refuse?"

"How dare you, Madam!" The preacher drew himself up, mightydignified. "How dare you address me in this fashion!"

"I'm addressin' you for your good, " answered Sally. "We've beentalkin' over your sermon, me and my friends here--all veryrespectable women--and we've made up our minds that it won't do. We can't have it 'pon our conscience to let a gentleman with yourviews go kicking up Jack's delight through the West. We owesomething more to our sex. 'Wrestlin' with 'em--that was one of yourexpressions--'wrestlin' with our dear Cornish sisters'!"

"In the spirit--a figure of speech, " explained the poor man, snappy-like. 

Sal shook her head. "They know all about wrestlin' down yonder. I tell you, 'twon't do. You're a well-meaning man, no doubt; butyou're terribly wrong on some points. You'd do an amazing amount ofmischief if we let you run loose. But we couldn't take no suchresponsibility--indeed we couldn't: and the long and short of it is, you've got to go. "

She spoke these last words very firmly. The preacher flung a glanceround and saw he was in a trap. 

"Such shameless behaviour--" he began. 

"You've got to go back, " repeated Sally, nodding her head at him. "Take my advice and go quiet. "

"I can only suppose you to be intoxicated, " said he, and swung roundupon the path where Thomasine Oliver stood guard. "Allow me to pass, Madam, if you please!"

But here the mischief put it into Long Eliza to give his hat a flipby the brim. It dropped over his nose and rolled away in the grass. "Oh, what a dear little bald head!" cried Long Eliza; "I declare Imust kiss it or die!" She caught up a handful of hay as he stooped, and--well, well, Sir! Scandalous, as you say! Not a word beyondthis would any of them tell: but I do believe the whole gang rolledthe poor man in the hay and took a kiss off him--"making sweet hay, "as 'tis called. 'Twas only known that he paid the bill for hislodging a little after dawn next morning, took up his bag, and passeddown Fore Street towards the Quay. Maybe a boat was waiting for himthere: at all events, he was never seen again--not on this side ofTamar. 

Sal went back, composed as you please, and let herself in by thefront door. In the parlour she found her man still seated in theeasy chair and smoking, but sulky-like, and with most of hismonkey-temper leaked out of him. 

"What have you been doin', pray?" asks he. 

Sal looked at him with a twinkle. "Kissin', " says she, untying herbonnet: and with that down she dropped on a chair and laughed tillher sides ached. 

Her husband ate humble pie that night before ever he set fork in thecold meat: and for some days after, though she kept a close eye onhim, he showed no further sign of wanting to be lord of creation. "Nothing like promptness, " thought Sally to herself. "If I hadn'ttaken that nonsense in hand straight off, there's no telling where itwouldn't have spread. " By the end of the week following she had putall uneasiness out of her mind. 

Next Saturday--as her custom was on Saturdays--she traded inPlymouth, and didn't reach home until an hour or more past nightfall, having waited on the Barbican for the evening fish-auction, to seehow prices were ruling. 'Twas near upon ten o'clock before she'dmoored her boat, and as she went up the street past the "Fish andAnchor" she heard something that fetched her to a standstill. 

She stood for a minute, listening; then walked in without more ado, set down her baskets in the passage, and pushed open the door of thebar-room. There was a whole crowd of men gathered inside, and theplace thick with tobacco-smoke. And in the middle of this crew, withhis back to the door, sat her husband piping out a song:

 Ye sexes, give ear to my fancy; In the praise of good women I sing; It is not of Doll, Kate, or Nancy, The mate of a clown nor a King-- With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!

 Old Adam, when he was creyated, Was lord of the Universe round; Yet his happiness was not complated Until that a helpmate he'd found. With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!

 He had all things for food that was wanting, Which give us content in this life; He had horses and foxes for hunting, Which many love more than a wife, --

He had sung so far and was waving his pipe-stem for the chorus whenthe company looked up and saw Sal straddling in the doorway with herfists on her hips. The sight daunted them for a moment: but she heldup a finger, signing them to keep the news to themselves, and leanedher shoulder against the doorpost with her eyes steady on the back ofher husband's scrag neck. His fate was upon him, poor varmint, andon he went, as gleeful as a bird in a bath:

 He'd a garden so planted by natur' As man can't produce in this life; But yet the all-wise great Creaytor Perceived that he wanted a wife. -- With his fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!

"You chaps might be a bit heartier with the chorus, " he put in. "A man would almost think you was afraid of your wives overhearin':"

 Old Adam was laid in a slumber, And there he lost part of his side; And when he awoke in great wonder He beyeld his beyeautiful bride. _With_ my fol-de-rol, tooral--

"Why, whatever's wrong with 'ee all? You're as melancholy as a passelof gib-cats. " And with that he caught the eye of a man seatedopposite, and slewed slowly round to the door. 

I tell you that even Sal was forced to smile, and the rest, as youmay suppose, rolled to and fro and laughed till they cried. But whenthe landlord called for order and they hushed themselves to hearmore, the woman had put on a face that made her husband quake. 

"Go ahead, Hancock!" cried one or two. "'With transport he gazed--'Sing away, man:"

"I will not, " said the tailor, very sulky. "This here's no fit placefor women: and a man has his feelin's. I'm astonished at you, Sarah--I reely am. The wife of a respectable tradesman!" But hecouldn't look her straight in the face. 

"Why, what's wrong with the company?" she asks, looking around. "Old, young, and middle-aged, I seem to know them all for Saltashmen: faults, too, they have to my knowledge: but it passes me what Ineed to be afeared of. And only a minute since you was singing thatyour happiness wouldn't be completed until that a helpmate you'dfound. Well, you've found her: so sing ahead and be happy. "

"I will not, " says he, still stubborn. 

"Oh, yes you will, my little man, " says she in a queer voice, whichmade him look up and sink his eyes again. 

"Well, " says he, making the best of it, "to please the missus, naybours, we'll sing the whole randigal through. And after that, Sarah"--here he pretended to look at her like one in command--"you'll walk home with me straight. "

"You may lay to that, " Sal promised him: and so, but in no very firmvoice, he pitched to the song again:

 With transport he gazed upon her, His happiness then was complate; And he blessed the celestial donor That on him bestowed such a mate--

"I reckon, friends, we'll leave out the chorus!"

They wouldn't hear of this, but ri-tooralled away with a will, Salwatching them the while from the doorway with her eyebrows drawndown, like one lost in thought. 

 She was not took out of his head, To reign or to triumph o'er man; She was not took out of his feet, By man to be tramped upon: With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!

 But she was took out of his side, His equal and partner to be: Though they be yunited in one, Still the man is the top of the tree! With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!

"Well, and what's wrong wi' that?" Hancock wound up, feeling for hiscourage again. 

"Get along with 'ee, you ninth-part-of-a-man! _Me_ took out of_your_ side!"

"Be that as it may, the 'Fish and Anchor' is no place for discussingof it, " the man answered, very dignified. "Enough said, my dear!We'll be getting along home. " He stood up and knocked the ashes outof his pipe. 

But Sally was not to be budged. "I knew how 'twould be, " she spokeup, facing the company. "I took that preacher-fellow 'pon the groundhop, as I thought, and stopped his nonsense; but something whisperedto me that 'twas a false hope. Evil communications corrupt goodmanners, and now the mischief's done. There's no peace for Saltashtill you men learn your place again, and I'm resolved to teach it to'ee. You want to know how? Well, to start with, by means of a boardand a piece o' chalk, same as they teach at school nowadays. "

She stepped a pace farther into the room, shut home the door behindher, and cast her eye over the ale-scores on the back of it. There were a dozen marks, maybe, set down against her own man's name;but for the moment she offered no remark on this. 

"Mr. Oke, " says she, turning to the landlord, "I reckon you never gowithout a piece o' chalk in your pocket. Step this way, if youplease, and draw a line for me round what these lords of creation oweye for drink. Thank'ee. And now be good enough to fetch a chair andstand 'pon it; I want you to reach so high as you can--Ready?Now take your chalk and write, beginning near the top o' the door:'I, Sarah Hancock--'"

Landlord Oke gave a flourish with his chalk and wrote, Sallydictating, --

"'I, Sarah Hancock--do hereby challenge all the men in SaltashBorough--that me and five other females of the said Borough--will rowany six of them any distance from one to six statute miles--and willbeat their heads off--pulling either single oars or double paddles orin ran-dam--the stakes to be six pound a side. And I do furtherpromise, if beaten, to discharge all scores below. '

"Now the date, please--and hand me the chalk. "

She reached up and signed her name bold and free, being a fairscholar. "And now, my little fellow, " says she, turning to herhusband, "put down that pipe and come'st along home. The man's atthe top of the tree, is he? You'll wish you were, if I catch you atany more tricks!"

Well, at first the mankind at the "Fish and Anchor" allowed that Salcouldn't be in earnest; this challenge of hers was all braggadoshy;and one or two went so far as to say 'twould serve her right if shewas taken at her word. In fact, no one treated it seriously untilfour days later, at high-water, when the folks that happened to beidling 'pon the Quay heard a splash off Runnell's boat-building yard, and, behold! off Runnell's slip there floated a six-oared gig, brightas a pin with fresh paint. 'Twas an old condemned gig, that hadlain in his shed ever since he bought it for a song off the_Indefatigable_ man-o'-war, though now she looked almost too smart tobe the same boat. Sally had paid him to put in a couple of newstrakes and plane out a brand-new set of oars in place of the oldashen ones, and had painted a new name beneath the old one on thesternboard, so that now she was the _Indefatigable Woman_ for all theworld to see. And that very evening Sally and five of her matespaddled her past the Quay on a trial spin, under the eyes of thewhole town. 

There was a deal of laughing up at the "Fish and Anchor" that night, the most of the customers still treating the affair as a joke. But Landlord Oke took a more serious view. 

"'Tis all very well for you fellows to grin, " says he, "but I've beentrying to make up in my mind the crew that's going to beat thesefemales, and, by George! I don't find it so easy. There's the boat, too. "

"French-built, and leaks like a five-barred gate, " said somebody. "The Admiralty condemned her five year' ago. "

"A leak can be patched, and the Admiralty's condemning goes fornothing in a case like this. I tell you that boat has handsomelines--handsome as you'd wish to see. You may lay to it that whatSal Hancock doesn't know about a boat isn't worth knowing. "

"All the same, I'll warrant she never means to row a race in thatcondemned old tub. She've dragged it out just for practice, andpainted it up to make a show. When the time comes--if ever it do--she'll fit and borrow a new boat off one of the war-ships. We can dothe same. "

"Granted that you can, there's the question of the crew. Sal has herthwarts manned--or womanned, as you choose to put it--and maybe adozen reserves to pick from in case of accident. She means business, I tell you. There's Regatta not five weeks away, and pretty fools weshall look if she sends round the crier on Regatta Day 'O-yessing' toall the world that Saltash men can't raise a boat's crew to match apassel of females, and two of 'em"--he meant Mary Kitty Climo and AnnPengelly--"mothers of long families. "

They discussed it long and they discussed it close, and this wayand that way, until at last Landlord Oke had roughed-out a crew. There was no trouble about a stroke. That thwart went _nem. Con. _to a fellow called Seth Ede, that worked the ferry and had won prizesin his day all up and down the coast: indeed, the very Plymouth menhad been afraid of him for two or three seasons before he gave upracing, which was only four years ago. Some doubted that old RoperRetallack, who farmed the ferry that year, would spare Seth onRegatta Day: but Oke undertook to arrange this. Thwart No. 4 wentwith no more dispute to a whackin' big waterman by the name ofTremenjous Hosken, very useful for his weight, though a trifle thickin the waist. As for strength, he could break a pint mug with onehand, creaming it between his fingers. Then there was Jago thePreventive man, light but wiry, and a very tricky wrestler: "a properangle-twitch of a man, " said one of the company; "stank 'pon bothends of 'en, and he'll rise up in the middle and laugh at 'ee. "So they picked Jago for boat-oar. For No. 5, after a little dispute, they settled on Tippet Harry, a boat-builder working in Runnell'syard, by reason that he'd often pulled behind Ede in thedouble-sculling, and might be trusted to set good time to thebow-side. Nos. 2 and 3 were not so easily settled, and theydiscussed and put aside half a score before offering one of theplaces to a long-legged youngster whose name I can't properly giveyou: he was always called Freckly-Faced Joe, and worked as asaddler's apprentice. In the end he rowed 2; but No. 3 they leftvacant for the time, while they looked around for likely candidates. 

Landlord Oke made no mistake when he promised that Sally meantbusiness. Two days later she popped her head in at his bar-parlour--'twas in the slack hours of the afternoon, and he happened to besitting there all by himself, tipping a sheaf of churchwarden clayswith sealing-wax--and says she:

"What's the matter with your menkind?"

"Restin', " says Oke with a grin. "I don't own 'em, missus; but, fromwhat I can hear, they're restin' and recoverin' their strength. "

"I've brought you the stakes from our side, " says Sally, and down sheslaps a five-pound note and a sovereign upon the table. 

"Take 'em up, missus--take 'em up. I don't feel equal to theresponsibility. This here's a public challenge, hey?"

"The publicker the better. "

"Then we'll go to the Mayor about it and ask his Worship to hold thestakes. " Oke was chuckling to himself all this while, the reasonbeing that he'd managed to bespeak the loan of a six-oared galleybelonging to the Water-Guard, and, boat for boat, he made no doubtshe could show her heels to the _Indefatigable Woman_. He unlockedhis strong-box, took out and pocketed a bag of money, and reached hishat off its peg. "I suppose 'twouldn't do to offer you my arm?" sayshe. 

"Folks would talk, Mr. Oke--thanking you all the same. "

So out they went, and down the street side by side, and knocked atthe Mayor's door. The Mayor was taking a nap in his back-parlourwith a handkerchief over his face. He had left business soonafter burying his wife, who had kept him hard at work at thecheese-mongering, and now he could sleep when he chose. But he wokeup very politely to attend to his visitors' business. 

"Yes, for sure, I'll hold the stakes, " said he: "and I'll see it putin big print on the Regatta-bill. It ought to attract a lot ofvisitors. But lor' bless you, Mr. Oke!--if you win, it'll do _me_ nogood. She"--meaning his wife--"has gone to a land where I'll neverbe able to crow over her. "

"Your Worship makes sure, I see, that we women are going to be beat?"put in Sal. 

"Tut-tut!" says the Mayor. "They've booked Seth Ede for stroke. "And with that he goes very red in the gills and turns to LandlordOke. "But perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned that?" says he. 

"Well, " says Sal, "you've a-let the cat out of the bag, and I seethat all you men in the town are in league. But a challenge is achallenge, and I mustn't go back on it. " Indeed, in her secret heartshe was cheerful, knowing the worst, and considering it none so bad:and after higgling a bit, just to deceive him, she took pretty wellall the conditions of the race as Oke laid 'em down. A tearing longcourse it was to be, too, and pretty close on five miles: start fromnear-abouts where the training-ship lays now, down to a mark-boatsomewheres off Torpoint, back, and finish off Saltash Quay. 

"My dears, " she said to her mates later on, "I don't mind telling youI was all of a twitter, first-along, wondering what card that man Okewas holding back--he looked so sly and so sure of hisself. But ifhe've no better card to play than Seth Ede, we can sleep easy. "

"Seth Ede's a powerful strong oar, " Bess Rablin objected. 

"_Was_, you mean. He've a-drunk too much beer these four years pastto last over a five-mile course; let be that never was his distance. And here's another thing: they've picked Tremenjous Hosken for oneth'art. "

"And he's as strong as a bullock. "

"I dessay: but Seth Ede pulls thirty-eight or thirty-nine to theminute all the time he's racing--never a stroke under. I've watchedhim a score o' times. If you envy Hosken his inside after two mileso' _that_, you must be like Pomery's pig--in love with pain. They've hired or borrowed the Preventive boat, I'm told; and it's thebest they could do. She's new, and she looks pretty. She'll dragaft if they put their light weights in the bows: still, she's a goodboat. I'm not afeared of her, though. From all I can hear, the_Woman_ was known for speed in her time, all through the fleet. You can _feel_ she's fast, and _see_ it, if you've half an eye: andthe way she travels between the strokes is a treat. The Mounseerscan build boats. But oh, my dears, you'll have to pull and stay thecourse, or in Saltash the women take second place for ever!"

"Shan't be worse off than other women, even if that happens, " saidRebecca Tucker, that was but a year married and more than half inlove with her man. Sally had been in two minds about promotingRebecca to the bow-oar in place of Ann Pengelly, that had beenclipping the stroke short in practice: but after that speech shenever gave the woman another thought. 

Next evening the men brought out their opposition boat--she wascalled the _Nonpareil_--and tried a spin in her. They had found aman for No. 3 oar--another of the Water-Guard, by name Mick Guppy andby nation Irish, which Sal swore to be unfair. She didn't lodge anycomplaint, however: and when her mates called out that 'twas taking amean advantage, all she'd say was: "Saltash is Saltash, my dears; andI won't go to maintain that a Saltash crew is anyways improved by achap from Dundalk. "

So no protest was entered. I needn't tell you that, by this time, news of the great race had spread to Plymouth, and north away toCallington and all the country round. Crowds came out every eveningto watch the two boats at their practising; and sometimes, as theypassed one another, Seth Ede, who had the reputation for a wag, wouldcall out to Sal and offer her the odds by way of chaff. Sal neveranswered. The woman was in deadly earnest, and moreover, I dare say, a bit timmersome, now that the whole Borough had its eyes on her, anddefeat meant disgrace. 

She never showed a sign of any doubt, though; and when the great daycame, she surpassed herself by the way she dressed. I dare sayyou've noticed that when women take up a man's job they're inclinedto overdo it; and when Sal came down that day with a roundtarpaulin-hat stuck on the back of her head, and her hair plaited ina queue like a Jack Tar's, her spiteful little husband fairly danced. 

"'Tis onwomanly, " said he. "Go upstairs and take it off!"

"Ch't, " said she, "if you're so much upset by a tarpaulin-hat, you'vehad a narra escape; for 'tis nothing to the costume I'd a mind towear--and I'd a mind to make you measure the whole crew for it. "

And as it was, I'm told, half the sightseers that poured into Saltashthat day in their hundreds couldn't tell the women's crew from themen's by their looks or their dress. And these be the names andweights, more or less:

The _Indefatigable Woman_: Bow, Ann Pengelly, something under elevenstone; No. 2, Thomasine Oliver, ditto; No. 3, Mary Kitty Climo, eleven and a half; No. 4, Long Eliza, thirteen and over, a woman veryheavy in the bone; No. 5, Bess Rablin, twelve stone, most of it inthe ribs and shoulders; Stroke, Sarah Hancock, twelve stone four;Coxswain, Ann Pengelly's fourth daughter Wilhelmina, weight about sixstone. The _Indefatigable Woman_ carried a small distaff in thebows, and her crew wore blue jerseys and yellow handkerchiefs. 

The _Nonpareil_: Bow, T. Jago, ten stone and a little over; No. 2, Freckly-Faced Joe, twelve stone; No. 3, M. Guppy, twelve stone and ahalf; No. 4, Tremenjous Hosken, eighteen stone ten; No. 5, TippetHarry, twelve stone eight; Stroke, Seth Ede, eleven six. And I don'tknow who the boy was that steered. The _Nonpareil_ carried a red, white, and blue flag, and her crew wore striped jerseys, white andblue. 

They were started by pistol; and Seth Ede, jumping off with a strokeof forty to the minute, went ahead at once. In less than twentystrokes he was clear, the _Nonpareil_ lifting forward in great heavesthat made the spectators tell each other that though 'twas no racethey had seen something for their money. They didn't see how sweetlythe other boat held her way between the strokes, nor note that Sallyhad started at a quiet thirty-four, the whole crew reaching well outand keeping their blades covered to the finish--coming down to thestroke steadily, too, though a stiffish breeze was with them as wellas the tide. 

I suppose the longest lead held by the _Nonpareil_ during the racewas a good forty yards. She must have won this within four minutesof starting, and for half a mile or so she kept it. Having so muchin hand, Ede slowed down--for flesh and blood couldn't keep up such arate of striking over the whole course--and at once he found out hismistake. The big man Hosken, who had been pulling with his armsonly, and pulling like a giant, didn't understand swinging out; triedit, and was late on stroke every time. This flurried Ede, who wasalways inclined to hurry the pace, and he dropped slower yet--droppedto thirty-five, maybe, a rate at which he did himself no justice, bucketting forward fast, and waiting over the beginning till he'dmissed it. In discontent with himself he quickened again; but nowthe oars behind him were like a peal of bells. By sheer strengththey forced the boat along somehow, and with the tide under her shetravelled. But the _Indefatigable Woman_ by this time was creepingup. 

They say that Sally rowed that race at thirty-four from the start towithin fifty yards of the finish; rowed it minute after minutewithout once quickening or once dropping a stroke. Folks along shoretimed her with their watches. If that's the truth, 'twas amarvellous feat, and the woman accounted for it afterwards bydeclaring that all the way she scarcely thought for one second of theother boat, but set her stroke to a kind of tune in her head, sayingthe same verse over and over:

 But she was took out of his side, His equal and partner to be: Though they be yunited in one, Still the man is the top of the tree! With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay--We'll see about _that!_

The _Indefatigable Woman_ turned the mark not more than four lengthsastern. They had wind and tide against them now, and with her crewswinging out slow and steady, pulling the stroke clean through with ahard finish, she went up hand-over-fist. The blades of the_Nonpareil_ were knocking up water like a moorhen. Tremenjous Hoskenhad fallen to groaning between the strokes, and I believe that fromthe mark-boat homeward he was no better than a passenger--aneighteen-stone passenger, mind you. The only man to keep it livelywas little Jago at bow, and Seth Ede--to do him justice--pulled agrand race for pluck. He might have spared himself, though. Another hundred yards settled it: the _Indefatigable Woman_ made heroverlap and went by like a snake, and the Irishman pulled in his oarand said:

"Well, Heaven bless the leddies, anyway!"

Seth Ede turned round and swore at him vicious-like, and he fell torowing again: but the whole thing had become a procession. "Eyes inthe boat!" commanded Sal, pulling her crew together as they caughtsight of their rivals for the first time and, for a stroke or two, let the time get ragged. She couldn't help a lift in her voice, though, any more than she could help winding up with a flourish asthey drew level with Saltash town, a good hundred yards ahead, andheard the band playing and the voices cheering. "Look out for thequicken!"--and up went a great roar as the women behind her pickedthe quicken up and rattled past the Quay and the winning-gun at fortyto the minute!

They had just strength enough left to toss oars: and then they leanedforward with their heads between their arms, panting and gasping out, "Well rowed, Sal!" "Oh--oh--well rowed all!" and letting the delightrun out of them in little sobs of laughter. The crowd ashore, too, was laughing and shouting itself hoarse. I'm sorry to say a few ofthem jeered at the _Nonpareil_ as she crawled home: but, on thewhole, the men of Saltash took their beating handsome. 

This don't include Sal's husband, though. Landlord Oke was one ofthe first to shake her by the hand as she landed, and the Mayorturned over the stakes to her there and then with a neat littlespeech. But Tailor Hancock went back home with all kinds of uglinessand uncharitableness working in his little heart. He cursed RegattaDay for an interruption to trade, and Saltash for a town given up toidleness and folly. A man's business in this world was to toil forhis living in the sweat of his brow; and so, half an hour later, hetold his wife. 

The crowd had brought her along to her house door: and there sheleft 'em with a word or two of thanks, and went in very quiet. Her victory had uplifted her, of course; but she knew that her manwould be sore in his feelings, and she meant to let him down gently. She'd have done it, too, if he'd met her in the ordinary way: butwhen, after searching the house, she looked into the little backworkshop and spied him seated on the bench there, cross-legged andsolemn as an idol, stitching away at a waistcoat, she couldn't holdback a grin. 

"Why, whatever's the matter with you?" she asked. 

"Work, " says he, in a hollow voice. "Work is the matter. I can'tsee a house--and one that used to be a happy home--go to rack andruin without some effort to prevent it. "

"I wouldn't begin on Regatta Day, if I was you, " says Sal cheerfully. "Has old Smithers been inquiring again about that waistcoat?"

"He have not. "

"Then he's a patient man: for to my knowledge this is the third weekyou've been putting him off with excuses. "

"I thank the Lord, " says her husband piously, "that more work getsput on me than I can keep pace with. And well it is, when a man'swife takes to wagering and betting and pulling in low boat-races tothe disgrace of her sex. _Someone_ must keep the roof over ourheads: but the end may come sooner than you expect, " says he, andwinds up with a tolerable imitation of a hacking cough. 

"I took three pairs of soles and a brill in the trammel this verymorning; and if you've put a dozen stitches in that old waistcoat, 'tis as much as ever! I can see in your eye that you know all aboutthe race; and I can tell from the state of your back that you watchedit from the Quay, and turned into the 'Sailor's Return' for a drink. Hockaday got taken in over that blue-wash for his walls: it comes offas soon as you rub against it. "

"I'll trouble you not to spy upon my actions, Madam, " says he. 

"Man alive, _I_ don't mind your taking a glass now and then inreason--specially on Regatta Day! And as for the 'Sailor's Return, ''tis a respectable house. I hope so, anyhow, for we've orderedsupper there to-night. "

"Supper! You've ordered supper at the 'Sailor's Return'?"

Sal nodded. "Just to celebrate the occasion. We thought, first-along, of the 'Green Dragon': but the 'Dragon's' too grand aplace for ease, and Bess allowed 'twould look like showing off. She voted for cosiness: so the 'Sailor's Return' it is, with roastducks and a boiled leg of mutton and plain gin-and-water. "

"Settin' yourselves up to be men, I s'pose?" he sneered. 

"Not a bit of it, " answered Sal. "There'll be no speeches. "

She went off to the kitchen, put on the kettle, and made him a dishof tea. In an ordinary way she'd have paid no heed to his tantrums:but just now she felt very kindly disposed t'wards everybody, andreally wished to chat over the race with him--treating it as a jokenow that her credit was saved, and never offering to crow over him. But the more she fenced about to be agreeable the more he stitchedand sulked. 

"Well, I can't miss _all_ the fun, " said she at last: and so, havinglaid supper for him, and put the jug where he could find it and drawhis cider, she clapped on her hat and strolled out. 

He heard her shut-to the front door, and still he went on stitching. When the dusk began to fall he lit a candle, fetched himself a jugfulof cider, and went back to his work. For all the notice Sal was everlikely to take of his perversity, he might just as well have steppedout into the streets and enjoyed himself: but he was wrought up intothat mood in which a man will hurt himself for the sake of having agrievance. All the while he stitched he kept thinking, "Look at mehere, galling my fingers to the bone, and that careless fly-by-nightwife o' mine carousin' and gallivantin' down at the 'Sailor'sReturn'! Maybe she'll be sorry for it when I'm dead and gone; but atpresent if there's an injured, misunderstood poor mortal in SaltashTown, I'm that man. " So he went on, until by and by, above the noiseof the drum and cymbals outside the penny theatre, and thehurdy-gurdies, and the showmen bawling down by the waterside, heheard voices yelling and a rush of folks running down the street pasthis door. He knew they had been baiting a bull in a field at thehead of the town, and, the thought coming into his head that theanimal must have broken loose, he hopped off his bench, ran fore tothe front door, and peeked his head out cautious-like. 

What does he see coming down the street in the dusk but half a dozensailor-men with an officer in charge! Of course he knew the meaningof it at once. 'Twas a press-gang off one of the ships in Hamoaze orthe Sound, that was choosing Regatta Night to raid the streets andhad landed at the back of the town and climbed over the hill to takethe crowds by surprise. They'd made but a poor fist of this, byreason of the officer letting his gang get out of hand at the start;and by their gait 'twas pretty plain they had collared a plenty ofliquor up the street. But while Hancock peeped out, taking stock ofthem, a nasty monkey-notion crept into his head, and took hold of allhis spiteful little nature; and says he, pushing the door a bit wideras the small officer--he was little taller than a midshipman--cameswearing by:

"Beg your pardon, Sir!"

"You'd best take in your head and close the door upon it, " snaps thelittle officer. "These fools o' mine have got their shirts out, andare liable to make mistakes to-night. "

"What, _me?_--a poor tailor with a hackin' cough!" But to himself:"So much the better, " he says, and up he speaks again. "Beggin' yourpardon humbly, Commander; but I might put you in the way of theprettiest haul. There's a gang of chaps enjoyin' theirselves down atthe 'Sailor's Return, ' off the Quay, and not a 'protection' amongthem. Fine lusty fellows, too! They might give your men a bit oftrouble to start with--"

"Why are you telling me this?" the officer interrupts, suspicious-like. 

"That's my affair, " says Hancock boldly, seeing that he nibbled. "Put it down to love o' my country, if you like; and take my adviceor leave it, just as you please. I'm not asking for money, so youwon't be any the poorer. "

"Off the Quay, did you say? Has the house a Quay-door?"

"It has: but you needn't to trouble about that. They can't escapethat way, I promise you, having no boat alongside. "

The little officer turned and whispered for a while with two of thesoberest of his gang: and presently these whispered to two more, andthe four of them marched away up the hill. 

"'HANCOCK--TAILOR, '" reads out the officer aloud, stepping back intothe roadway and peering up at the shop-front. "Very well, my man, you'll hear from us again--"

"I'm not askin' for any reward, Sir. "

"So you've said: and I was about to say that, if this turns out to bea trick, you'll hear from us again, and in a way you'll be sorry for. And now, once more, take your ugly head inside. 'Tis my duty to acton information, but I don't love informers. "

For the moment the threat made the tailor uncomfortable: but he feltpretty sure the sailors, when they discovered the trick, wouldn't beable to do him much harm. The laugh of the whole town would beagainst them: and on Regatta Night the press--unpopular enough at thebest of times--would gulp down the joke and make the best of it. He went back to his bench; but on second thoughts not to his work. 'Twould be on the safe side, anyway, to be not at home for an hour ortwo, in case the sailors came back to cry quits. Playing the lonelymartyr, too, wasn't much fun with this mischief working inside of himand swelling his lungs like barm. He took a bite of bread and a supof cider, blew out the candle, let himself forth into the streetafter a glance to make sure that all was clear, and headed for the"Fish and Anchor. "

He found the bar-room crowded, but not with the usual Regatta Nightthrong of all-sorts. The drinkers assembled were either burgesseslike himself or waterside men with protection-papers in theirpockets: for news of the press-gang had run through the town likewildfire, and the company had given over discussing the race of theday and taken up with this new subject. Among the protected men hiseye lit on Treleaven the hoveller, husband to Long Eliza, and CaiusPengelly, husband to Ann, that had pulled bow in the race. He winkedto them mighty cunning. The pair of 'em seemed dreadfully cast down, and he knew a word to put them in heart again. 

"Terrible blow for us, mates, this woman's mutiny!" says he, droppinginto a chair careless-like, pulling out a short pipe, and speakinghigh to draw the company's attention. 

"Oh, stow it!" says Caius Pengelly, very sour. "We'd found suthin'else to talk about; and if the women have the laugh of us to-day, who's responsible, after all? Why, you--_you_, with your darnedsilly song about Adam and Eve! If you hadn't provoked your wife, this here wouldn't ha' happened. "

"Indeed?" says the monkey-fellow, crossing his legs and puffing. "So you've found something better to talk about? What's that, I'dlike to know?"

"Why, there's a press-gang out, " says Treleaven. "But there! a fellowwith your shaped legs don't take no interest in press-gangs, Ireckon. "

"Ah, to be sure, " says the little man--but he winced and uncrossed hislegs all the same, feeling sorry he'd made 'em so conspicuous--"ah, to be sure, a press-gang! I met 'em; but, as it happens, that's nochange of subject. "

"Us don't feel in no mood to stomach your fun to-night, Hancock; andso I warn 'ee, " put in Pengelly, who had been drinking more thanusual and spoke thick. "If you've a meaning up your sleeve, you'dbest shake it out. "

Hancock chuckled. "You fellows have no invention, " he said; "noresource at all, as I may call it. You stake on this race, and, whenthe women beat you, you lie down and squeal. Well, you may thank methat I'm built different: I bide my time, but when the clock strikesI strike with it. I never did approve of women dressing man-fashion:but what's the use of making a row in the house? 'The time is boundto come, ' said I to myself; and come it has. If you want a goodstory cut short, I met the press-gang just now and turned 'em on toraid the 'Sailor's Return': and if by to-morrow the women down therehave any crow over us, then I'm a Dutchman, that's all!"

"Bejimbers, Hancock, " says Treleaven, standing up and looking uneasy, "you carry it far, I must say!"

"Far? A jolly good joke, _I_ should call it, " answers Hancock, making bold to cross his legs again. 

And with that there comes a voice crying pillaloo in the passageoutside; and, without so much as a knock, a woman runs in with a facelike a sheet--Sam Hockaday's wife, from the "Sailor's Return. "

"Oh, Mr. Oke--Mr. Oke, whatever is to be done! The press hascollared Sally Hancock and all her gang! Some they've kilt, andwounded others, and all they've a-bound and carried off and shippedat the Quay-door. Oh, Mr. Oke, our house is ruined for ever!"

The men gazed at her with their mouths open. Hancock found his legssomehow; but they shook under him, and all of a sudden he felthimself turning white and sick. 

"You don't mean to tell me--" he began. 

But Pengelly rounded on him and took him by the ear so that hesqueaked. "Where's my wife, you miserable joker, you?" demandedPengelly. 

"They c-can't be in earnest!"

"You'll find that I am, " said Pengelly, feeling in hisbreeches-pocket, and drawing out a clasp-knife almost a foot long. "What's the name of the ship?"

"I--I don't know! I never inquired! Oh, please let me go, Mr. Pengelly! Han't I got my feelings, same as yourself?"

"There's a score of vessels atween this and Cawsand, " put inTreleaven, catching his breath like a man hit in the wind, "and halfa dozen of 'em ready to weigh anchor any moment. There's naught forit but to take a boat and give chase. "

Someone suggested that Sal's own boat, the _Indefatigable Woman_, would be lying off Runnell's Yard; and down to the waterside they allran, Pengelly gripping the tailor by the arm. They found the gigmoored there on a frape, dragged her to shore, and tumbled in. Half a dozen men seized and shipped the oars: the tailor pitchedforward and driven to take the bow oar. Voices from shore sang outall manner of different advice: but twas clear that no one knew whichway the press-boat had taken, nor to what ship she belonged. 

To Hancock 'twas all like a sick dream. He hated the water; he hadon his thinnest clothes; the night began to strike damp and chilly, with a lop of tide running up from Hamoaze and the promise of worsebelow. Pengelly, who had elected himself captain, swore to hailevery ship he came across: and he did--though from the first he metwith no encouragement. "Ship, ahoy!" he shouted, coming down with arush upon the stern-windows of the first and calling to all to holdwater. "Ahoy! Ship!"

A marine poked his head over the taffrail. "Ship it is, " said he. "And what may be the matter with you?"

"Be you the ship that has walked off with half a dozen women fromSaltash?"

The marine went straight off and called the officer of the watch, "Boat-load of drunk chaps under our stern, Sir, " says he, saluting. "Want to know if we've carried off half a dozen women from Saltash. "

"Empty a bucket of slops on 'em, " said the officer of the watch, "andtell 'em, with my compliments, that we haven't. "

The marine saluted, hunted up a slop-bucket, and poured it over withthe message. "If you want to know more, try the guard-ship, " saidhe. 

"That's all very well, but where in thunder _be_ the guard-ship?"said poor Pengelly, scratching his head. 

Everyone knew, but everyone differed by something between a quarterand half a mile. They tried ship after ship, getting laughter fromsome and abuse from others. And now, to make matters worse, the windchopped and blew up from the sou'-west, with a squall of rain and awobble of sea that tried Hancock's stomach sorely. At one time theywent so far astray in the dark as to hail one of the prison-hulks, and only sheered off when the sentry challenged and brought hismusket down upon the bulwarks with a rattle. A little later, offTorpoint, they fell in with the water-police, who took them for aparty rowing home to Plymouth from the Regatta, and threatened 'emwith the lock-up if they didn't proceed quiet. Next they fell foulof the guard-ship, and their palaver fetched the Admiral himself outupon the little balcony in his nightshirt. When he'd done talkingthey were a hundred yards off, and glad of it. 

Well, Sir, they tried ship after ship, the blessed night through, till hope was nigh dead in them, and their bodies ached withweariness and hunger. Long before they reached Devil's Point thetumble had upset Hancock's stomach completely. He had lost his oar;somehow it slipped off between the thole-pins, and in his weakness heforgot to cry out that 'twas gone. It drifted away in the dark--thenight all round was black as your hat, the squalls hiding the stars--and he dropped off his thwart upon the bottom-boards. "I'm a dyingman, " he groaned, "and I don't care. I don't care how soon it comes!'Tis all over with me, and I shall never see my dear Sally no more!"

So they tossed till day broke and showed Drake's Island ahead ofthem, and the whole Sound running with a tidy send of sea from thesouth'ard, grey and forlorn. Some were for turning back, butPengelly wouldn't hear of it. "We must make Cawsand Bay, " says he, "if it costs us our lives. Maybe we'll find half a dozen shipsanchored there and ready for sea. "

So away for Cawsand they pulled, hour after hour, Hancock all thewhile wanting to die, and wondering at the number of times an emptyman could answer up to the call of the sea. 

The squalls had eased soon after daybreak, and the sky cleared andlet through the sunshine as they opened the bay and spied twosloops-of-war and a frigate riding at anchor there. Pulling nearwith the little strength left in them, they could see that thefrigate was weighing for sea. She had one anchor lifted and theother chain shortened in: her top-sails and topgallant sails werecast off, ready to cant her at the right moment for hauling in. An officer stood ready by the crew manning the capstan, and right afttwo more officers were pacing back and forth with their hands claspedunder their coat-tails. 

"Lord!" groaned Pengelly, "if my poor Ann's aboard of she, we'llnever catch her!" He sprang up in the stern sheets and hailed withall his might. 

Small enough chance had his voice of reaching her, the wind beingdead contrary: and yet for the moment it looked as if the twoofficers aft had heard; for they both stepped to the ship's side, andone put up a telescope and handed it to the other. And still thecrew of the gig, staring over their shoulders while they pulledweakly, could see the men by the capstan standing motionless andwaiting for orders. 

"Seems a'most as if they were expectin' somebody, " says Pengelly witha sudden hopefulness: and with that Treleaven, that was pullingstroke, casts his eyes over his right shoulder and gives a gasp. 

"Good Lord, look!" says he. "The tender!"

And sure enough, out of the thick weather rolling up away overBovisand they spied now a Service cutter bearing across close-hauled, leaning under her big tops'l and knocking up the water likeginger-beer with the stress of it. When first sighted she couldn'thave been much more than a mile distant, and, pull as they did withthe remains of their strength, she crossed their bows a goodhalf-mile ahead, taking in tops'l as she fetched near the frigate. 

"Use your eyes--oh, use your eyes!" called out Pengelly: but no soulcould they see on her besides two or three of the crew forward and alittle officer standing aft beside the helmsman. Pengelly ranforward, leaping the thwarts, and fetched the tailor a rousing kick. "Sit up!" he ordered, "and tell us if that's the orficer you spoke tolast night!"

The poor creature hoisted himself upon his thwart, looking as yellowas a bad egg. "I--I think that's the man, " said he, straining hiseyes, and dropped his head overside. 

"Pull for your lives, boys, " shouted Pengelly. And they did pull, tothe last man. They pulled so that they reached the frigate just asthe tender, having run up in the wind and fallen alongside, beganuncovering hatches. 

Two officers were leaning overside and watching--and a couple of thetender's crew were reaching down their arms into the hold. They werelifting somebody through the hatchway, and the body they lifted clungfor a moment to the hatchway coaming, to steady itself. 

"Sally!" screamed a voice from the gig. 

The little officer in the stern of the tender cast a glance back atthe sound and knew the tailor at once. He must have owned sharpsight, that man. 

"Oh, you've come for your money, have you?" says he. And, looking upat the two officers overhead, he salutes, saying: "We've made a tidyhaul, Sir--thanks to that man. "

"I don't want your money. I want my wife!" yelled Hancock. 

"And I mine!" yelled Pengelly. 

"And I mine!" yelled Treleaven. 

By this time the gig had fallen alongside the tender, and the womenin the tender's hold were coming up to daylight, one by one. Sal herself stood watching the jail-delivery; and first of all sheblinked a bit, after the darkness below, and next she let out alaugh, and then she reached up a hand and began unplaiting herpigtail. 

"Be you the Captain of this here ship?" asks she, looking up andaddressing herself to one of the officers leaning overside. 

"Yes, my man; this here's the _Ranger_ frigate, and I'm her Captain. I'm sorry for you--it goes against my grain to impress men in thisfashion: but the law's the law, and we're ready for sea, and ifyou've any complaints to make I hope you'll cut 'em short. "

"I don't know, " says Sal, "that I've any complaints to make, exceptthat I was born a woman. That I went on to marry that pea-greentailor yonder is my own fault, and we'll say no more about it. "

By this time all the women on the tender were following Sal's exampleand unshredding their back-hair. By this time, too, every man aboardthe frigate was gathered at the bulwarks, looking down in wonderment. There beneath 'em stood a joke too terrible to be grasped in onemoment. 

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rogers, " says the Captain in a voice cold asa knife, "but you appear to have made a mistake. "

The little officer had turned white as a sheet: but he managed to getin his say before the great laugh came. "I have, Sir, to my sorrow, "says he, turning viciously on Hancock; "a mistake to be cast upagainst me through my career. But I reckon, " he adds, "I leave thepunishment for it in good hands. " He glanced at Sally. 

"You may lay to that, young man!" says she heartily. "You may lay tothat every night when you says your prayers. "

FRENCHMAN'S CREEK. 

A REPORTED TALE. 

Frenchman's Creek runs up between overhanging woods from thewestern shore of Helford River, which flows down through an earthlyparadise and meets the sea midway between Falmouth and the dreadfulManacles--a river of gradual golden sunsets such as Wilson painted;broad-bosomed, holding here and there a village as in an armmaternally crook'd, but with a brooding face of solitude. Off themain flood lie creeks where the oaks dip their branches in the hightides, where the stars are glassed all night long without a ripple, and where you may spend whole days with no company but herons andsandpipers:

 Helford River, Helford River, Blessed may you be! We sailed up Helford River By Durgan from the sea. . . . 

And about three-quarters of a mile above the ferry-crossing (where isthe best anchorage) you will find the entrance of the creek they callFrenchman's, with a cob-built ruin beside it, and perhaps, if youcome upon it in the morning sunlight, ten or a dozen herons alignedlike statues on the dismantled walls. 

Now, why they call it Frenchman's Creek no one is supposed to know, but this story will explain. And the story I heard on the spot froman old verderer, who had it from his grandfather, who bore nounimportant part in it--as will be seen. Maybe you will find it outof keeping with its scenery. In my own words you certainly would:and so I propose to relate it just as the verderer told it to me. 

I. 

First of all you'll let me say that a bad temper is an affliction, whoever owns it, and shortening to life. I don't know what youropinion may be: but my grandfather was parish constable in theseparts for forty-seven years, and you'll find it on his headstone inManaccan churchyard that he never had a cross word for man, woman, orchild. He took no credit for it: it ran in the family, and to thisday we're all terribly mild to handle. 

Well, if ever a man was born bad in his temper, 'twas Captain Bligh, that came from St. Tudy parish, and got himself known to all theworld over that dismal business aboard the _Bounty_. Yes, Sir, that's the man--"Breadfruit Bligh, " as they called him. They made anAdmiral of him in the end, but they never cured his cussedness: andmy grandfather, that followed his history (and good reason for why)from the day he first set foot in this parish, used to rub his handsover every fresh item of news. "Darn it!" he'd say, "here's that oldTurk broke loose again. Lord, if he ain't a warrior!" Seemed as ifhe took a delight in the man, and kept a sort of tenderness for himtill the day of his death. 

Bless you, though folks have forgotten it, that little affair of the_Bounty_ was only the beginning of Bligh. He was a left'nant when ithappened, and the King promoted him post-captain straight away. Later on, no doubt because of his experiences in mutinies, he wassent down to handle the big one at the Nore. "Now, then, youdogs!"--that's how he began with the men's delegates--"His Majestywill be graciously pleased to hear your grievances: and afterwardsI'll be graciously pleased to hang the lot of you and rope-end everyfifth man in the Fleet. That's plain sailing, I hope!" says he. The delegates made a rush at him, triced him up hand and foot, and intwo two's would have heaved him to the fishes with an eighteen-poundshot for ballast if his boat's crew hadn't swarmed on by the chainsand carried him off. After this he commanded a ship at Camperdown, and another at Copenhagen, and being a good fighter as well as a manof science, was chosen for Governor of New South Wales. He hadn'tbeen forty-eight hours in the colony, I'm told, before the musicbegan, and it ended with his being clapped into irons by the militaryand stuck in prison for two years to cool his heels. At last theytook him out, put him on board a ship of war and played farewell tohim on a brass band: and, by George, Sir, if he didn't fight with thecaptain of the ship all the way home, making claim that as senior inthe service he ought to command her! By this time, as you may guess, there was nothing to be done with the fellow but make him an Admiral;and so they did; and as Admiral of the Blue he died in the year'seventeen, only a couple of weeks ahead of my poor grandfather, thatwould have set it down to the finger of Providence if he'd only livedto hear the news. 

Well, now, the time that Bligh came down to Helford was a few monthsbefore he sailed for Australia, and that will be a hundred years agonext summer: and I guess the reason of his coming was that the folksat the Admiralty couldn't stand him in London, the weather just thenbeing sultry. So they pulled out a map and said, "This Helford looksa nice cool far-away place; let the man go down and take soundingsand chart the place"; for Bligh, you must know, had been a pupil ofCaptain Cook's, and at work of this kind there was no man cleverer inthe Navy. 

To do him justice, Bligh never complained of work. So off he packedand started from London by coach in the early days of June; and withhim there travelled down a friend of his, a retired naval officer bythe name of Sharl, that was bound for Falmouth to take passage in theLisbon packet; but whether on business or a pleasure trip is morethan I can tell you. 

So far as I know, nothing went wrong with them until they came toTorpoint Ferry: and there, on the Cornish side of the water, stoodthe Highflyer coach, the inside of it crammed full of parcelsbelonging to our Vicar's wife, Mrs. Polwhele, that always visitedPlymouth once a year for a week's shopping. Having all these parcelsto bring home, Mrs. Polwhele had crossed over by a waterman's boattwo hours before, packed the coach as full as it would hold, andstepped into the Ferry Inn for a dish of tea. "And glad I am to beacross the river in good time, " she told the landlady; "for by thelook of the sky there's a thunderstorm coming. "

Sure enough there was, and it broke over the Hamoaze with a bangjust as Captain Bligh and his friend put across in the ferry-boat. The lightning whizzed, and the rain came down like the floods ofDeva, and in five minutes' time the streets and gutters of Torpointwere pouring on to the Quay like so many shutes, and turning all theinshore water to the colour of pea-soup. Another twenty minutes and'twas over; blue sky above and the birds singing, and the roof andtrees all a-twinkle in the sun; and out steps Mrs. Polwhele verygingerly in the landlady's pattens, to find the Highflyer ready tostart, the guard unlashing the tarpaulin that he'd drawn over theoutside luggage, the horses steaming and anxious to be off, and onthe box-seat a couple of gentlemen wet to the skin, and one of themlooking as ugly as a chained dog in a street fight. This was Bligh, of course. His friend, Mr. Sharl, sat alongside, talking low andtrying to coax him back to a good temper: but Mrs. Polwhele missedtaking notice of this. She hadn't seen the gentlemen arrive, byreason that, being timid of thunder, at the very first peal she'd runupstair, and crawled under one of the bed-ties: and there she bideduntil the chambermaid brought word that the sky was clear and thecoach waiting. 

If ever you've had to do with timmersome folks I dare say you'venoted how talkative they get as soon as danger's over. Mrs. Polwheletook a glance at the inside of the coach to make sure that herbelongings were safe, and then, turning to the ladder that the Bootswas holding for her to mount, up she trips to her outside placebehind the box-seat, all in a fluff and commotion, and chatteringso fast that the words hitched in each other like beer in anarrow-necked bottle. 

"Give you good morning, gentlemen!" said Mrs. Polwhele, "and I dohope and trust I haven't kept you waiting; but thunder makes me_that_ nervous! 'Twas always the same with me from a girl; and la!what a storm while it lasted! I declare the first drops looked to mea'most so big as crown-pieces. Most unfortunate it should come onwhen you were crossing--most unfortunate, I vow! There's nothing sounpleasant as sitting in damp clothes, especially if you're notaccustomed to it. My husband, now--if he puts on a shirt that hasn'tbeen double-aired I always know what's going to happen: it'll belumbago next day to a certainty. But maybe, as travellers, you'renot so susceptible. I find hotel-keepers so careless with their dampsheets! May I ask, gentlemen, if you've come from far? You'll bebound for Falmouth, as I guess: and so am I. You'll find much on theway to admire. But perhaps this is not your first visit toCornwall?"

In this fashion she was rattling away, good soul--settling her wrapsabout her and scarcely drawing breath--when Bligh slewed himselfaround in his seat, and for answer treated her to a long stare. 

Now, Bligh wasn't a beauty at the best of times, and he carried ascar on his cheek that didn't improve matters by turning white whenhis face was red, and red when his face was white. They say the Kingstepped up to him at Court once and asked him how he came by it andin what action. Bligh had to tell the truth--that he'd got it in theorchard at home: he and his father were trying to catch a horsethere: the old man flung a hatchet to turn the horse and hit his boyin the face, marking him for life. Hastiness, you see, in thefamily. 

Well, the sight of his face, glowering back on her over his shoulder, was enough to dry up the speech in Mrs. Polwhele or any woman. But Bligh, it seems, couldn't be content with this. After witheringthe poor soul for ten seconds or so, he takes his eyes off her, turnsto his friend again in a lazy, insolent way, and begins to talk loudto him in French. 

'Twas a terrible unmannerly thing to do for a fellow supposed to be agentleman. I've naught to say against modern languages: but when Isee it on the newspaper nowadays that naval officers ought to givewhat's called "increased attention" to French and German, I hope thatthey'll use it bettern than Bligh, that's all! Why, Sir, my eldestdaughter threw up a situation as parlour-maid in London because hermaster and mistress pitched to parleyvooing whenever they wanted totalk secrets at table. "If you please, Ma'am, " she told the lady, "you're mistaking me for the governess and I never could abidecompliments. " She gave a month's warning then and there, and Icommend the girl's spirit. 

But the awkward thing for Bligh, as it turned out, was that Mrs. Polwhele didn't understand his insolence. Being a woman thatwouldn't hurt a fly if she could help it, and coming from a parishwhere every man, her husband included, took pleasure in treating herrespectfully, she never dreamed that an affront was meant. From themoment she heard Bligh's lingo, she firmly believed that here weretwo Frenchies on the coach; and first she went white to the lips andshivered all over, and then she caught at the seat to steady herself, and then she flung back a look at Jim the Guard, to make sure he hadhis blunderbuss handy. She couldn't speak to Sammy Hosking, thecoachman, or touch him by the arm without reaching across Bligh: andby this time the horses were at the top of the hill and settling intoa gallop. She thought of the many times she'd sat up in bed at homein a fright that the Frenchmen had landed and were marching up toburn Manaccan Vicarage: and how often she had warned her husbandagainst abusing Boney from the pulpit--'twas dangerous, she alwaysmaintained, for a man living so nigh the seashore. The very shawlbeside her was scarlet, same as the women-folk wore about the fieldsin those days in hopes that the invaders, if any came, would mistakethem for red-coats. And here she was, perched up behind two of hercountry's enemies--one of them as ugly as Old Nick or Boney himself--and bowling down towards her peaceful home at anything from sixteento eighteen miles an hour. 

I dare say, too, the thunderstorm had given her nerves a shaking; atany rate, Jim the Guard came crawling over the coach-roof after awhile, and, said he, "Why, Mrs. Polwhele, whatever is the matter?I han't heard you speak six words since we started. "

And with that, just as he settled himself down for a comfortable chatwith her, after his custom, the poor lady points to the twostrangers, flings up both hands, and tumbles upon him in a fit ofhysterics. 

"Stop the hosses!" yells Jim; but already Sammy Hosking was pullingup for dear life at the sound of her screams. 

"What in thunder's wrong with the female?" asks Bligh. 

"Female yourself!" answers up Sammy in a pretty passion. "Mrs. Polwhele's a lady, and I reckon your cussed rudeness upset her. I say nothing of your face, for that you can't help. "

Bligh started up in a fury, but Mr. Sharl pulled him down on theseat, and then Jim the Guard took a turn. 

"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" for this, you mustknow, was the reason of Bligh's sulkiness at starting. He had comeup soaking from Torpoint Ferry, walked straight to the coach, andpulled the door open to jump inside, when down on his head camerolling a couple of Dutch cheeses that Mrs. Polwhele had crammed onthe top of her belongings. This raised his temper, and he began todrag parcel after parcel out and fling them in the mud, shouting thatno passenger had a right to fill up the inside of a coach in thatfashion. Thereupon Jim sent an ostler running to the landlady thatowned the Highflyer, and she told Bligh that he hadn't booked hisseat yet: that the inside was reserved for Mrs. Polwhele: and that hecould either take an outside place and behave himself, or be leftbehind to learn manners. For a while he showed fight: but Mr. Sharlmanaged to talk sense into him, and the parcels were stowed again andthe door shut but a minute before Mrs. Polwhele came downstairs andtook her seat as innocent as a lamb. 

"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" struck in Jim theGuard, making himself heard above the pillaloo. "Carry on as if thecoach belonged to ye, hey? Come down and take your coat off, like aman, and don't sit there making fool faces at me!"

"My friend is not making faces, " began Mr. Sharl, very gentle-like, trying to keep the peace. 

"Call yourself his friend!" Jim snapped him up. "Get off, the pairof you. Friend indeed! Go and buy him a veil. "

But 'twas easily seen that Mrs. Polwhele couldn't be carried farther. So Sammy Hosking pulled up at a farmhouse a mile beyond St. Germans:and there she was unloaded, with her traps, and put straight to bed:and a farm-boy sent back to Torpoint to fetch a chaise for her assoon as she recovered. And the Highflyer--that had been delayedthree-quarters of an hour--rattled off at a gallop, with all on boardin the worst of tempers. 

When they reached Falmouth--which was not till after ten o'clock atnight--and drew up at the "Crown and Anchor, " the first man to hailthem was old Parson Polwhele, standing there under the lamp in theentry and taking snuff to keep himself awake. 

"Well, my love, " says he, stepping forward to help his wife down andgive her a kiss. "And how have you enjoyed the journey?"

But instead of his wife 'twas a bull-necked-looking man that swunghimself off the coach-roof, knocking the Parson aside, and bouncedinto the inn without so much as a "beg your pardon. "

Parson Polwhele was taken aback for the moment by reason that he'dpretty nigh kissed the fellow by accident; and before he couldrecover, Jim the Guard leans out over the darkness, and, says he, speaking down: "Very sorry, Parson, but your missus wasn't taken verywell t'other side of St. Germans, and we've been forced to leave her'pon the road. "

Now, the Parson doted on his wife, as well he might. He was a verylearned man, you must know, and wrote a thundering great history ofCornwall: but outside of book-learning his head rambled terribly, andMrs. Polwhele managed him in all the little business of life. "'Tis like looking after a museum, " she used to declare. "I don'tunderstand the contents, I'm thankful to say; but, please God, I cankeep 'em dusted. " A better-suited couple you couldn't find, nor amore affectionate; and whenever Mrs. Polwhele tripped it to Plymouth, the Parson would be at Falmouth to welcome her back, and they'd sleepthe night at the "Crown and Anchor" and drive home to Manaccan nextmorning. 

"Not taken well?" cried the Parson. "Oh, my poor Mary--my poor, dearMary!"

"'Tisn' so bad as all that, " says Jim, as soothing as he could; buthe thought it best to tell nothing about the rumpus. 

"If 'tis on the wings of an eagle, I must fly to her!" cries theParson, and he hurried indoors and called out for a chaise and pair. 

He had some trouble in persuading a post-boy to turn out at such anhour, but before midnight the poor man was launched and rattling awayeastward, chafing at the hills and singing out that he'd pay forspeed, whatever it cost. And at Grampound in the grey of the morninghe almost ran slap into a chaise and pair proceeding westward, andlikewise as if its postilion wanted to break his neck. 

Parson Polwhele stood up in his vehicle and looked out ahead. The two chaises had narrowly missed doubling each other into a cockedhat; in fact, the boys had pulled up within a dozen yards of smash, and there stood the horses face to face and steaming. 

"Why, 'tis my Mary!" cries the Parson, and takes a leap out of thechaise. 

"Oh, Richard! Richard!" sobs Mrs. Polwhele. "But you can't possiblycome in here, my love, " she went on, drying her eyes. 

"Why not, my angel?"

"Because of the parcels, dearest. And Heaven only knows what'sunderneath me at this moment, but it feels like a flat-iron. Besides, " says she, like the prudent woman she was, "we've paid fortwo chaises. But 'twas good of you to come in search of me, and I'llsay what I've said a thousand times, that I've the best husband inthe world. "

The Parson grumbled a bit; but, indeed, the woman was piled aboutwith packages up to the neck. So, very sad-like, he went back to hisown chaise--that was now slewed about for Falmouth--and off theprocession started at an easy trot, the good man bouncing up in hisseat from time to time to blow back a kiss. 

But after awhile he shouted to the post-boy to pull up again. 

"What's the matter, love?" sings out Mrs. Polwhele, overtaking himand coming to a stand likewise. 

"Why, it occurs to me, my angel, that _you_ might get into _my_chaise, if you're not too tightly wedged. "

"There's no saying what will happen when I once begin to move, " saidMrs. Polwhele: "but I'll risk it. For I don't mind telling you thatone of my legs went to sleep somewhere near St. Austell, and 'tisdreadfully uncomfortable. "

So out she was fetched and climbed in beside her husband. 

"But what was it that upset you?" he asked, as they started again. 

Mrs. Polwhele laid her cheek to his shoulder and sobbed aloud; and soby degrees let out her story. 

"But, my love, the thing's impossible!" cried Parson Polwhele. "There's no Frenchman in Cornwall at this moment, unless maybe 'tisthe Guernsey merchant or some poor wretch of a prisoner escaped fromthe hulks in the Hamoaze. "

"Then, that's what these men were, you may be sure, " said Mrs. Polwhele. 

"Tut-tut-tut! You've just told me that they came across the ferry, like any ordinary passengers. "

"Did I? Then I told more than I know; for I never saw them cross. "

"A couple of escaped prisoners wouldn't travel by coach in broaddaylight, and talk French in everyone's hearing. "

"We live in the midst of mysteries, " said Mrs. Polwhele. "There's myparcels, now--I packed 'em in the Highflyer most careful, and I'msure Jim the Guard would be equally careful in handing them out--youknow the sort of man he is: and yet I find a good dozen of themplastered in mud, and my new Moldavia cap, that I gave twenty-threeshillings for only last Tuesday, pounded to a jelly, quite as ifsomeone had flung it on the road and danced on it!"

The poor soul burst out into fresh tears, and there against herhusband's shoulder cried herself fairly asleep, being tired out withtravelling all night. By and by the Parson, that wanted a nap justas badly, dozed off beside her: and in this fashion they were broughtback through Falmouth streets and into the yard of the "Crown andAnchor, " where Mrs. Polwhele woke up with a scream, crying out:"Prisoners or no prisoners, those men were up to no good: and I'llsay it if I live to be a hundred!"

That same afternoon they transhipped the parcels into a cart, anddrove ahead themselves in a light gig, and so came down, a littlebefore sunset, to the "Passage Inn" yonder. There, of course, theyhad to unload again and wait for the ferry to bring them across totheir own parish. It surprised the Parson a bit to find theferry-boat lying ready by the shore and my grandfather standing therehead to head with old Arch'laus Spry, that was constable of Mawnanparish. 

"Hallo, Calvin!" the Parson sings out. "This looks bad--Mawnan andManaccan putting their heads together. I hope there's nothing gonewrong since I've been away?"

"Aw, Parson dear, " says my grandfather, "I'm glad you've come--yea, glad sure 'nuff. We've a-been enjoying a terrible time!"

"Then something _has_ gone wrong?" says the Parson. 

"As for that, " my grandfather answers, "I only wish I could say yesor no: for 'twould be a relief even to know the worst. " He beckonedvery mysterious-like and led the Parson a couple of hundred yards upthe foreshore, with Arch'laus Spry following. And there they came toa halt, all three, before a rock that someone had been daubing withwhitewash. On the top of the cliff, right above, was planted a stickwith a little white flag. 

"Now, Sir, as a Justice of the Peace, what d'ee think of it?"

Parson Polwhele stared from the rock to the stick and couldn't say. So he turns to Arch'laus Spry and asks: "Any person taken ill in yourparish?"

"No, Sir. "

"You're sure Billy Johns hasn't been drinking again?" Billy Johnswas the landlord of the "Passage Inn, " a very ordinary man by rule, but given to breaking loose among his own liquors. "He seemed allright yesterday when I hired the trap off him; but he does the mostunaccountable things when he's taken bad. "

"He never did anything so far out of nature as this here; and I canmind him in six outbreaks, " answered my grandfather. "Besides, 'tisnot Billy Johns nor anyone like him. "

"Then you know who did it?"

"I do and I don't, Sir. But take a look round, if you please. "

The Parson looked up and down and across the river; and, sure, enough, whichever way he turned, his eyes fell on splashes ofwhitewash and little flags fluttering. They seemed to stretch rightaway from Porthnavas down to the river's mouth; and though hecouldn't see it from where he stood, even Mawnan church-tower hadbeen given a lick of the brush. 

"But, " said the Parson, fairly puzzled, "all this can only havehappened in broad daylight, and you must have caught the fellow atit, whoever he is. "

"I wouldn't go so far as to say I caught him, " answered mygrandfather, modest-like; "but I came upon him a little above Bosahanin the act of setting up one of his flags, and I asked him, in theKing's name, what he meant by it. "

"And what did he answer?"

My grandfather looked over his shoulder. "I couldn't, Sir, not for apocketful of crowns, and your good lady, so to speak, withinhearing. "

"Nonsense, man! She's not within a hundred yards. "

"Well, then, Sir, he up and hoped the devil would fly away with me, and from that he went on to say--" But here my grandfather came to adead halt. "No, Sir, I can't; and as a Minister of the Gospel, you'll never insist on it. He made such horrible statements that Ihad to go straight home and read over my old mother's marriage lines. It fairly dazed me to hear him talk so confident, and she in hergrave, poor soul!"

"You ought to have demanded his name. "

"I did, Sir; naturally I did. And he told me to go to the naughtyplace for it. "

"Well, but what like is he?"

"Oh, as to that, Sir, a man of ordinary shape, like yourself, in aplain blue coat and a wig shorter than ordinary; nothing about him toprepare you for the language he lets fly. "

"And, " put in Arch'laus Spry, "he's taken lodgings down to Durganwith the Widow Polkinghorne, and eaten his dinner--a fowl and a jugof cider with it. After dinner he hired Robin's boat and went for arow. I thought it my duty, as he was pushing off, to sidle up in afriendly way. I said to him, 'The weather, Sir, looks nice andsettled': that is what I said, neither more nor less, but using thosevery words. What d'ee think he answered? He said, 'That's capital, my man: now go along and annoy somebody else. ' Wasn't that adisconnected way of talking? If you ask my opinion, putting two andtwo together, I say he's most likely some poor wandering loonatic. "

The evening was dusking down by this time, and Parson Polwhele, though a good bit puzzled, called to mind that his wife would begetting anxious to cross the ferry and reach home before dark: so hedetermined that nothing could be done before morning, when hepromised Arch'laus Spry to look into the matter. My grandfather hetook across in the boat with him, to look after the parcels and helpthem up to the Vicarage: and on the way they talked about a gravethat my grandfather had been digging--he being sexton and parishclerk, as well as constable and the Parson's right-hand man, as youmight call it, in all public matters. 

While they discoursed, Mrs. Polwhele was taking a look about her tomake sure the country hadn't altered while she was away at Plymouth. And by and by she cries out:

"Why, my love, whatever are these dabs o' white stuck up and down theforeshore?"

The Parson takes a look at my grandfather before answering:"My angel, to tell you the truth, that's more than we know. "

"Richard, you're concealing something from me, " said Mrs. Polwhele. "If the French have landed and I'm going home to be burnt in my bed, it shall be with my eyes open. "

"My dear Mary, " the Parson argued, "you've a-got the French on yourbrain. If the French landed they wouldn't begin by sticking dabs ofwhitewash all over the parish; now, would they?"

"How in the world should I know what a lot of Papists would do or notdo?" she answered. "'Tis no more foolish to my mind than eatingfrogs or kissing a man's toe. "

Well, say what the Parson would, the notion had fixed itself in thepoor lady's head. Three times that night she woke in the bed withher curl-papers crackling for very fright; and the fourth time 'twasat the sound of a real dido below stairs. Some person was down bythe back door knocking and rattling upon it with all his might. 

The sun had been up for maybe an hour--the time of year, as I toldyou, being near about mid-summer--and the Parson, that never wantedfor pluck, jumped out and into his breeches in a twinkling, while hiswife pulled the counterpane over her head. Down along the passage heskipped to a little window opening over the back porch. 

"Who's there!" he called, and out from the porch stepped mygrandfather, that had risen early and gone to the churchyard tofinish digging the grave before breakfast. "Why, what on the earthis wrong with ye? I made sure the French had landed, at the least. "

"Couldn't be much worse if they had, " said my grandfather. "Some person 've a-stole my shovel, pick, and biddicks. "

"Nonsense!" said the Parson. 

"The corpse won't find it nonsense, Sir, if I don't get 'em back intime. I left 'em lying, all three, at the bottom of the graveovernight. "

"And now they're missing?"

"Not a trace of 'em to be seen. "

"Someone has been playing you a practical joke, Calvin. Here, stop amoment--" The Parson ran back to his room, fetched a key, and flungit out into the yard. "That'll unlock the tool-shed in the garden. Get what you want, and we'll talk about the theft after breakfast. How soon will the grave be ready?"

"I can't say sooner than ten o'clock after what has happened. "

"Say ten o'clock, then. This is Saturday, and I've my sermon toprepare after breakfast. At ten o'clock I'll join you in thechurchyard. "

II. 

My grandfather went off to unlock the tool-shed, and the Parson backto comfort Mrs. Polwhele--which was no easy matter. "There'ssomething wrong with the parish since I've been away, and that youcan't deny, " she declared. "It don't feel like home any longer, andmy poor flesh is shivering like a jelly, and my hand almost too hotto make the butter. " She kept up this lidden all through breakfast, and the meal was no sooner cleared away than she slipped on a shawland stepped across to the churchyard to discuss the robbery. 

The Parson drew a chair to the window, lit his pipe, and pulled outhis pocket-Bible to choose a text for his next day's sermon. But hecouldn't fix his thoughts. Try how he would, they kept harking backto his travels in the post-chaise, and his wife's story, and thoseunaccountable flags and splashes of whitewash. His pipe went out, and he was getting up to find a light for it, when just at thatmoment the garden gate rattled, and, looking down the path towardsthe sound, his eyes fell on a square-cut, fierce-looking man in blue, standing there with a dirty bag in one hand and a sheaf of tools overhis right shoulder. 

The man caught sight of the Parson at the window, and set down histools inside the gate--shovel and pick and biddicks. 

"Good-mornin'! I may come inside, I suppose?" says he, in a grufftone of voice. He came up the path and the Parson unlatched thewindow, which was one of the long sort reaching down to the ground. 

"My name's Bligh, " said the visitor, gruff as before. "You're theParson, eh? Bit of an antiquarian, I'm given to understand?These things ought to be in your line, then, and I hope they are notbroken: I carried them as careful as I could. " He opened the bag andemptied it out upon the table--an old earthenware pot, a rusted ironring, four or five burnt bones, and a handful or so of ashes. "Human, you see, " said he, picking up one of the bones and holding itunder the Parson's nose. "One of your ancient Romans, no doubt. "

"Ancient Romans? Ancient Romans?" stammered Parson Polwhele. "Pray, Sir, where did you get these--these articles?"

"By digging for them, Sir; in a mound just outside that old Romancamp of yours. "

"Roman camp? There's no Roman camp within thirty miles of us as thecrow flies: and I doubt if there's one within fifty!"

"Shows how much you know about it. That's what I complain about inyou parsons: never glimpse a thing that's under your noses. Now, Icome along, making no pretence to be an antiquarian, and the firstthing I see out on your headland yonder, is a Roman camp, with agreat mound beside it--"

"No such thing, Sir!" the Parson couldn't help interrupting. 

Bligh stared at him for a moment, like a man hurt in his feelings butkeeping hold on his Christian compassion. "Look here, " he said; "youmayn't know it, but I'm a bad man to contradict. This here Romancamp, as I was sayin'--"

"If you mean Little Dinnis Camp, Sir, 'tis as round as my hat. "

"Damme, if you interrupt again--"

"But I will. Here, in my own parlour, I tell you that Little Dinnisis as round as my hat!"

"All right; don't lose your temper, shouting out what I never denied. Round or square, it don't matter a ha'porth to me. This here roundRoman camp--"

"But I tell you, once more, there's no such thing!" cried the Parson, stamping his foot. "The Romans never made a round camp in theirlives. Little Dinnis is British; the encampment's British; themound, as you call it, is a British barrow; and as for you--"

"As for me, " thunders Bligh, "I'm British too, and don't you forgetit. Confound you, Sir! What the devil do I care for yourpettifogging bones? I'm a British sailor, Sir; I come to yourGod-forsaken parish on a Government job, and I happen on a wholeshopful of ancient remains. In pure kindness--pure kindness, markyou--I interrupt my work to dig 'em up; and this is all the thanks Iget!"

"Thanks!" fairly yelled the Parson. "You ought to be horsewhipped, rather, for disturbing an ancient tomb that's been the apple of myeye ever since I was inducted to this parish!" Then, as Bligh drewback, staring: "My poor barrow!" he went on; "my poor, ransackedbarrow! But there may be something to save yet--" and he fairly ranfor the door, leaving Bligh at a standstill. 

For awhile the man stood there like a fellow in a trance, opening andshutting his mouth, with his eyes set on the doorway where the Parsonhad disappeared. Then, his temper overmastering him, with a sweep ofhis arm he sent the whole bag of tricks flying on to the floor, kicked them to right and left through the garden, slammed the gate, pitched across the road, and flung through the churchyard towards theriver like a whirlwind. 

Now, while this was happening, Mrs. Polwhele had picked her wayacross the churchyard, and after chatting a bit with my grandfatherover the theft of his tools, had stepped into the church to see thatthe place, and especially the table and communion-rails and theparsonage pew, was neat and dusted, this being her regular customafter a trip to Plymouth. And no sooner was she within the porchthan who should come dandering along the road but Arch'laus Spry. The road, as you know, goes downhill after passing the parsonagegate, and holds on round the churchyard wall like a sunk way, thesoil inside being piled up to the wall's coping. But, my grandfatherbeing still behindhand with his job, his head and shoulders showedover the grave's edge. So Arch'laus Spry caught sight of him. 

"Why, you're the very man I was looking for, " says Arch'laus, stopping. 

"Death halts for no man, " answers my grandfather, shovelling away. 

"That furrin' fellow is somewhere in this neighbourhood at this verymoment, " says Arch'laus, wagging his head. "I saw his boat mooreddown by the Passage as I landed. And I've a-got something to report. He was up and off by three o'clock this morning, and knocked up theWidow Polkinghorne, trying to borrow a pick and shovel. "

"Pick and shovel!" My grandfather stopped working and slapped histhigh. "Then he's the man that 've walked off with mine: and abiddicks too. "

"He said nothing of a biddicks, but he's quite capable of it. "

"Surely in the midst of life we are in death, " said my grandfather. "I was al'ays inclined to believe that text, and now I'm sure of it. Let's go and see the Parson. "

He tossed his shovel on to the loose earth above the grave and wasjust about to scramble out after it when the churchyard gate shook onits hinges and across the path and by the church porch went Bligh, asI've said, like a whirlwind. Arch'laus Spry, that had pulled hischin up level with the coping, ducked at the sight of him, and evenmy grandfather clucked down a little in the grave as he passed. 

"The very man!" said Spry, under his breath. 

"The wicked flee, whom no man pursueth, " said my grandfather, lookingafter the man; but Bligh turned his head neither to the right handnor to the left. 

"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed a voice inside the church. 

"Whatever was _that_, " cries Arch'laus Spry, giving a jump. Theyboth stared at the porch. 

"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed the voice again. 

"It certainly comes from inside, " said Arch'laus Spry. 

"It's Mrs. Polwhele!" said my grandfather; "and by the noise of itshe's having hysterics. "

And with that he scrambled up and ran; and Spry heaved himself overthe wall and followed. And there, in the south aisle, they foundMrs. Polwhele lying back in a pew and kicking like a stallion in aloose-box. 

My grandfather took her by the shoulders, while Spry ran for the jugof holy water that stood by the font. As it happened, 'twas empty:but the sight of it fetched her to, and she raised herself up with ashiver. 

"The Frenchman!" she cries out, pointing. "The Frenchman--on thecoach! O Lord, deliver us!"

For a moment, as you'll guess, my grandfather was puzzled: but hestared where the poor lady pointed, and after a bit he began tounderstand. I dare say you've seen our church, Sir, and if so, youmust have taken note of a monstrous fine fig-tree growing out of thesouth wall--"the marvel of Manaccan, " we used to call it. When theyrestored the church the other day nobody had the heart to destroy thetree, for all the damage it did to the building--having come therethe Lord knows how, and grown there since the Lord knows when. So they took and patched up the wall around it, and there it thrives. But in the times I'm telling of, it had split the wall so that frominside you could look straight through the crack into the churchyard;and 'twas to this crack that Mrs. Polwhele's finger pointed. 

"Eh?" said my grandfather. "The furriner that went by just now, wasit he that frightened ye, Ma'am?"

Mrs. Polwhele nodded. 

"But what put it into your head that he's a Frenchman?"

"Because French is his language. With these very ears I heard himtalk it! He joined the coach at Torpoint, and when I spoke him fairin honest English not a word could he answer me. Oh, Calvin, Calvin!what have I done--a poor weak woman--to be mixed up in these plotsand invasions?"

But my grandfather couldn't stop to answer that question, for aterrible light was breaking in upon him. "A Frenchman?" he calledout. "And for these twenty-four hours he's been marking out theriver and taking soundings!" He glared at Arch'laus Spry, andArch'laus dropped the brazen ewer upon the pavement and smote hisforehead. "The Devil, " says he, "is among us, having great wrath!"

"And for aught we know, " says my grandfather, speaking in a slow andfearsome whisper, "the French ships may be hanging off the coastwhile we'm talking here!"

"You don't mean to tell us, " cried Mrs. Polwhele, sitting up stiff inthe pew, "that this man has been mapping out the river under yourvery noses!"

"He has, Ma'am. Oh, I see it all! What likelier place could theychoose on the whole coast? And from here to Falmouth what is it buta step?"

"Let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains, " said Arch'lausSpry solemn-like. 

"And me just home from Plymouth with a fine new roasting-jack!"chimed in Mrs. Polwhele. "As though the day of wrath weren't badenough without that waste o' money! Run, Calvin--run and tell theVicar this instant--no, no, don't leave me behind! Take me home, that's a good man: else I shall faint at my own shadow!"

Well, they hurried off to the Vicarage: but, of course, there was noParson to be found, for by this time he was half-way towards LittleDinnis, and running like a madman under the hot sun to see whatdamage had befallen his dearly-loved camp. The servants hadn't seenhim leave the house; ne'er a word could they tell of him except thatMartha, the cook, when she cleared away the breakfast things, hadleft him seated in his chair and smoking. 

"But what's the meaning of this?" cried out Mrs. Polwhele, pointingto the tablecloth that Bligh had pulled all awry in his temper. "And the window open too!"

"And--hallo!" says my grandfather, staring across the patch of turfoutside. "Surely here's signs of a violent struggle. Human, by thelook of it, " says he, picking up a thigh-bone and holding it outtowards Mrs. Polwhele. 

She began to shake like a leaf. "Oh, Calvin!" she gasps out. "Oh, Calvin, not in this short time--it couldn't be!"

"Charred, too, " says my grandfather, inspecting it: and with thatthey turned at a cry from Martha the cook, that was down on hands andknees upon the carpet. 

"Ashes! See here, mistress--ashes all over your best carpet!"

The two women stared at the fireplace: but, of course, that told themnothing, being empty, as usual at the time of year, with only a fewshavings stuck about it by way of ornament. Martha, the first topick up her wits, dashed out into the front hall. 

"Gone without his hat, too!" she fairly screamed, running her eyealong the row of pegs. 

Mrs. Polwhele clasped her hands. "In the midst of life we are indeath, " said Arch'laus Spry: "that's my opinion if you ask it. "

"Gone! Gone without his hat, like the snuff of a candle!" Mrs. Polwhele dropped into a chair and rocked herself and moaned. 

My grandfather banged his fist on the table. He never could abidethe sight of a woman in trouble. 

"Missus, " says he, "if the Parson's anywhere alive, we'll find 'en:and if that Frenchman be Old Nick himself, he shall rue the day heever set foot in Manaccan parish! Come'st along, Arch'laus--"

He took Spry by the arm and marched him out and down the garden path. There, by the gate, what should his eyes light upon but his ownstolen tools! But by this time all power of astonishment was driedup within him. He just raised his eyes aloft, as much as to say, "Let the sky open and rain miracles!" and then and there he saw, coming down the road, the funeral that both he and the Parson hadclean forgotten. 

The corpse was an old man called 'Pollas Hockaday; and Sam Trewhella, a fish-curer that had married Hockaday's eldest daughter, walked nextbehind the coffin as chief mourner. My grandfather waited by thegate for the procession to come by, and with that Trewhella caughtsight of him, and, says he, taking down the handkerchief from hisnose:

"Well, you're a pretty fellow, I must say! What in thunder d'ee meanby not tolling the minute-bell?"

"Tak 'en back, " answers my grandfather, pointing to the coffin. "Take 'en back, 'co!"

"Eh?" says Trewhella. "Answer my question, I tell 'ee. You've hurtmy feelings and the feelings of everyone connected with the deceased:and if this weren't not-azackly the place for it, I'd up and give youa dashed good hiding, " says he. 

"Aw, take 'en back, " my grandfather goes on. "Take 'en back, mydears, and put 'en somewhere, cool and temporary! The grave's notdigged, and the Parson's kidnapped, and the French be upon us, anddown by the river ther's a furrin spy taking soundings at thismoment! In the name of King George, " said he, remembering that hewas constable, "I command you all except the females to come alongand collar 'en!"

While this was going on, Sir, Bligh had found his boat--which he'dleft by the shore--and was pulling up the river to work off his rage. Ne'er a thought had he, as he flounced through the churchyard, of thetrain of powder he dribbled behind him: but all the way he blew offsteam, cursing Parson Polwhele and the whole cloth from Land's End toJohnny Groats, and glowering at the very gates by the road as thoughhe wanted to kick 'em to relieve his feelings. But when he reachedhis boat and began rowing, by little and little the exercise tamedhim. With his flags and whitewash he'd marked out most of the lineshe wanted for soundings: but there were two creeks he hadn't yetfound time to explore--Porthnavas, on the opposite side, and the verycreek by which we're sitting. So, as he came abreast of this one, hedetermined to have a look at it; and after rowing a hundred yards orso, lay on his oars, lit his pipe, and let his boat drift up with thetide. 

The creek was just the same lonesome place that it is to-day, theonly difference being that the pallace at the entrance had a roof onit then, and was rented by Sam Trewhella--the same that followed oldHockaday's coffin, as I've told you. But above the pallace the woodsgrew close to the water's edge, and lined both shores with never aclearing till you reached the end, where the cottage stands now andthe stream comes down beside it: in those days there wasn't anycottage, only a piece of swampy ground. I don't know that Bligh sawmuch in the scenery, but it may have helped to soothe his mind: forby and by he settled himself on the bottom-boards, lit another pipe, pulled his hat over his nose, and lay there blinking at the sky, while the boat drifted up, hitching sometimes in a bough andsometimes floating broadside-on to the current, until she reachedthis bit of marsh and took the mud very gently. 

After a while, finding she didn't move, Bligh lifted his head for alook about him and found that he'd come to the end of the creek. He put out a hand and felt the water, that was almost luke-warm withrunning over the mud. The trees shut him in; not a living soul wasin sight; and by the quietness he might have been a hundred milesfrom anywhere. So what does my gentleman do but strip himself for acomfortable bathe. 

He folded his clothes very neatly in the stern-sheets, waded outacross the shallows as naked as a babe, and took to the water with somuch delight that after a minute or so he must needs lie on his backand kick. He splashed away, one leg after the other, with his faceturned towards the shore, and was just on the point of rolling overfor another swim, when, as he lifted a leg for one last kick, hiseyes fell on the boat. And there on the top of his clothes, in thestern of her, sat my grandfather sucking a pipe. 

Bligh let down his legs and stood up, touching bottom, but neck-deepin water. 

"Hi, you there!" he sings out. 

"Wee, wee, parleyvou!" my grandfather answers, making use of prettywell all the French he knew. 

"Confound you, Sir, for an impident dirty dog! What in the name ofjiminy"--I can't give you, Sir, the exact words, for my grandfathercould never be got to repeat 'em--"What in the name of jiminy d'eemean by sitting on my clothes!"

"Wee, wee, " my grandfather took him up, calm as you please. "You shocked me dreadful yesterday with your blasphemious talk: butnow, seeing 'tis French, I don't mind so much. Take your time: butwhen you come out you go to prison. Wee, wee--preeson, " says mygrandfather. 

"Are you drunk?" yells Bligh. "Get off my clothes this instant, youhobnailed son of a something-or-other!" And he began striding forshore. 

"In the name of His Majesty King George the Third I charge you tocome along quiet, " says my grandfather, picking up a stretcher. 

Bligh, being naked and unarmed, casts a look round for some way tohelp himself. He was a plucky fellow enough in a fight, as I'vesaid: but I leave you to guess what he felt like when to right andleft of him the bushes parted, and forth stepped half a dozen men inblack suits with black silk weepers a foot and a half wide tied ingreat bunches round their hats. These were Sam Trewhella, of course, and the rest of the funeral-party, that had left the coffin in a niceshady spot inside the Vicarage garden gate, and come along to assistthe law. They had brought along pretty nearly all the menkind of theparish beside: but these, being in their work-a-day clothes, didn'tappear, and for a reason you'll learn by and by. All that Bligh sawwas this dismal company of mourners backed by a rabble ofschool-children, the little ones lining the shore and staring at himfearsomely with their fingers in their mouths. 

For the moment Bligh must have thought himself dreaming. But therethey stood, the men in black and the crowd of children, and mygrandfather with the stretcher ready, and the green woods so quietall round. And there he stood up to the ribs in water, and the tideand his temper rising. 

"Look here, you something-or-other yokels, " he called out, "if thisis one of your village jokes, I promise you shall smart for it. Leave the spot this moment, fetch that idiot out of the boat, andtake away the children. I want to dress, and it isn't decent!"

"Mounseer, " answers my grandfather, "I dare say you've a-done it foryour country; but we've a-caught you, and now you must go to prison--wee, wee, to preeson, " he says, lisping it in a Frenchified way so asto make himself understood. 

Bligh began to foam. "The longer you keep up this farce, my finefellows, the worse you'll smart for it! There's a Magistrate in thisparish, as I happen to know. "

"There _was_, " said my grandfather; "but we've strong reasons tobelieve he's been made away with. "

"The only thing we could find of 'en, " put in Arch'laus Spry, "was ashin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticedit, but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about thepremises; and I've always been remarkable for my sense of smell. "

"You won't deny, " my grandfather went on, "that you've been making amap of this here river; for here it is in your tail-coat pocket. "

"You insolent ruffian, put that down at once! I tell you that I'm aBritish officer and a gentleman!"

"_And_ a Papist, " went on my grandfather, holding up a ribbon with abullet threaded to it. ('Twas the bullet Bligh used to weigh outallowances with on his voyage in the open boat after the mutineershad turned him adrift from the _Bounty_, and he wore it ever after. )"See here, friends: did you ever know an honest Protestant to wearsuch a thing about him inside his clothes?"

"Whether you're a joker or a numskull is more than I can fathom, "says Bligh; "but for the last time I warn you I'm a British officer, and you'll go to jail for this as sure as eggs. "

"The question is, Will you surrender and come along quiet?"

"No, I won't, " says Bligh, sulky as a bear; "not if I stay here allnight!"

With that my grandfather gave a wink to Sam Trewhella, and SamTrewhella gave a whistle, and round the point came Trewhella'ssean-boat that the village lads had fetched out and launched from hisstore at the mouth of the creek. Four men pulled her with all theirmight; in the stern stood Trewhella's foreman, Jim Bunt, with histwo-hundred-fathom net: and along the shore came running the rest ofthe lads to see the fun. 

"Heva, heva!" yelled Sam Trewhella, waving his hat with the blackstreamers. 

The sean-boat swooped up to Bligh with a rush, and then, just as hefaced upon it with his fists up, to die fighting, it swerved off on acurve round him, and Jim Bunt began shooting the sean hand over handlike lightning. Then the poor man understood, and having no mind tobe rolled up and afterwards tucked in a sean-net, he let out an oath, ducked his head, and broke for the shore like a bull. But 'twas nomanner of use. As soon as he touched land a dozen jumped for him andpulled him down. They handled him as gentle as they could, for hefought with fists, legs, and teeth, and his language was awful: butmy grandfather in his foresight had brought along a couple ofwainropes, and within ten minutes they had my gentleman trussed, heaved him into the boat, covered him over, and were rowing him offand down the creek to land him at Helford Quay. 

By this 'twas past noon; and at one o'clock, or a little before, Parson Polwhele come striding along home from Little Dinnis. He hadtied a handkerchief about his head to keep off the sun; his hands andknees were coated with earth; and he sweated like a furze-bush in amist, for the footpath led through cornfields and the heat wassomething terrible. Moreover, he had just called the funeral tomind; and this and the damage he'd left at Little Dinnis fairlyhurried him into a fever. 

But worse was in store. As he drew near the Parsonage, he spied aman running towards him: and behind the man the most dreadful noiseswere sounding from the house. The Parson came to a halt and swayedwhere he stood. 

"Oh, Calvin! Calvin!" he cried--for the man running was mygrandfather--"don't try to break it gently, but let me know theworst!"

"Oh, blessed day! Oh, fearful and yet blessed day!" cries mygrandfather, almost catching him in both arms. "So you're not dead!So you're not dead, the Lord be praised, but only hurt!"

"Hurt?" says the Parson. "Not a bit of it--or only in my feelings. Oh, 'tis the handkerchief you're looking at? I put that up againstsunstroke. But whatever do these dreadful sounds mean? Tell me theworst, Calvin, I implore you!"

"Oh, as for that, " says my grandfather cheerfully, "the Frenchman'sthe worst by a long way--not but what your good lady made noiseenough when she thought you'd been made away with: and afterwards, when she went upstairs and, taking a glance out of window, spied along black coffin laid out under the lilac bushes, I'm told you couldhear her a mile away. But she've been weakening this half-hour: hernature couldn't keep it up: whereas the longer we keep thatFrenchman, the louder he seems to bellow. "

"Heaven defend us, Calvin!"--the Parson's eyes fairly rolled in hishead--"are you gone clean crazed? Frenchman! What Frenchman?"

"The same that frightened Mrs. Polwhele, Sir, upon the coach. We caught him drawing maps of the river, and very nigh tucked him inSam Trewhella's sean: and now he's in your tool-shed right and tight, and here's the key, Sir, making so bold, that you gave me thismorning. But I didn't like to take him into the house, with yourgood lady tumbling out of one fit into another. Hark to 'en, now!Would you ever believe one man could make such a noise?"

"Fits! My poor, dear, tender Mary having fits!" The Parson brokeaway for the house and dashed upstairs three steps at a time: andwhen she caught sight of him, Mrs. Polwhele let out a louder squealthan ever. But the next moment she was hanging round his neck, andlaughing and sobbing by turns. And how long they'd have clung to oneanother there's no knowing, if it hadn't been for the languagepouring from the tool-shed. 

"My dear, " said the Parson, holding himself up and listening. "I don't think that can possibly be a Frenchman. He's too fluent. "

Mrs. Polwhele listened too, but after a while she was forced to coverher face with both hands. "Oh, Richard, I've often heard 'endescribed as gay, but--but they can't surely be so gay as all that!"

The Parson eased her into an armchair and went downstairs to thecourtyard, and there, as you may suppose, he found the parishgathered. 

"Stand back all of you, " he ordered. "I've a notion that somemistake has been committed: but you had best hold yourselves ready incase the prisoner tries to escape. "

"But Parson dear, you're never going to unlock that door!" cried mygrandfather. 

"If you'll stand by me, Calvin, " says the Parson, plucky as ginger, and up he steps to the very door, all the parish holding its breath. 

He tapped once--no answer: twice--and no more answer than before. There was a small trap open in the roof and through this the languagekept pouring with never a stop, only now and then a roar like abull's. But at the third knock it died down to a sort of rumbling, and presently came a shout, "Who's there?"

"A clergyman and justice of the peace, " answers the Parson. 

"I'll have your skin for this!"

"But you'll excuse me--"

"I'll have your skin for this, and your blood in a bottle! I'm aBritish officer and a gentleman, and I'll have you stuffed and put ina glass case, as sure as my name's Bligh!"

"Bligh?" says the Parson, opening the door. "Any relation to theBlighs of St. Tudy? Oh, no it can't be!" he stammered, taken allaback to see the man stark naked on the threshold. "Why--why, you'rethe gentleman that called this morning!" he went on, the lightbreaking in upon him: "excuse me, I recognise you by--by the slightscar on your face. "

Well, Sir, there was nothing for Bligh to do--the whole parishstaring at him--but to slip back into the shed and put on the clothesmy grandfather handed in at the door: and while he was dressing thewhole truth came out. I won't say that he took the Parson'sexplanations in a nice spirit: for he vowed to have the law oneveryone concerned. But that night he walked back to Falmouth andtook the London coach. As for Helford River, 'twasn't charted thatyear nor for a score of years after. And now you know how this creekcame by its name; and I'll say again, as I began, that a bad temperis an affliction, whoever owns it.