{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_12277/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_12277","id":"gutenberg_12277","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12277","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction","Short stories, English"],"text":"THE DELECTABLE DUCHY\n\n\nBY Q\n\n1906\n\n\n\n\nSHORT STORY\n\nTo\n\nALFRED PARSONS\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPROLOGUE\nTHE SPINSTER'S MAYING\nDAPHNIS\nWHEN THE SAP ROSE\nTHE PAUPERS\nCUCKOO VALLEY RAILWAY\nTHE CONSPIRACY ABOARD THE \"MIDAS\"\nLEGENDS OF ST. PIRAN.\n  I St. Piran: the Millstone\n  II St. Piran: the Visitation\nIN THE TRAIN.\n  I. Punch's Understudy\n  II. A Corrected Contempt\nWOON GATE\nFROM A COTTAGE IN GANTICK.\n  I. The Mourner's Horse\n  II. Silhouettes\nTHE DRAWN BLIND\nA GOLDEN WEDDING\nSCHOOL FRIENDS\nPARENTS AND CHILDREN.\n  I. The Family Bible\n  II. Boanerges\nTWO MONUMENTS\nEGG-STEALING\nSEVEN-AN'-SIX\nTHE REGENT'S WAGER\nLOVE OF NAOMI\nTHE PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA'S POST-BAG.\n  I. An Interruption\n  II. The Great Fire on Freethy's Quay\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE.\n\n\nA week ago, my friend the Journalist wrote to remind me that once upon\na time I had offered him a bed in my cottage at Troy and promised to\nshow him the beauties of the place. He was about (he said) to give\nhimself a fortnight's holiday, and had some notion of using that time\nto learn what Cornwall was like. He could spare but one day for Troy,\nand hardly looked to exhaust its attractions; nevertheless, if my\npromise held good.... By anticipation he spoke of my home as a \"nook.\"\nIts windows look down upon a harbour, wherein, day by day, vessels\nof every nation and men of large experience are for ever going and\ncoming; and beyond the harbour, upon leagues of open sea, highway\nof the vastest traffic in the world: whereas from his own far more\nexpensive house my friend sees only a dirty laurel-bush, a high green\nfence, and the upper half of a suburban lamp post. Yet he is convinced\nthat I dwell in a nook.\n\nI answered his letter, warmly repeating the invitation; and last week\nhe arrived. The change had bronzed his face, and from his talk I\nlearnt that he had already seen half the Duchy, in seven days. Yet he\nhad been unreasonably delayed in at least a dozen places, and used the\nstrongest language about 'bus and coach communication, local trains,\nmisleading sign-posts, and the like. Our scenery enraptured him--every\naspect of it. He had travelled up the Tamar to Launceston, crossed\nthe moors, climbing Roughtor and Brown Willy on his way, plunged down\ntowards Camelford, which he appeared to have reached by following two\nvalleys simultaneously, coached to Boscastle, walked to Tintagel,\nclimbed up to Uther's Castle, diverged inland to St. Nectan's Kieve,\ndriven on to Bedruthan Steps, Mawgan, the Vale of Lanherne, Newquay,\ntaken a train thence to Truro, a steamer from Truro to Falmouth,\ncrossed the ferry to St. Mawes, walked up the coast to Mevagissey,\ndriven from Mevagissey to St. Austell, and at St. Austell taken\nanother train for Troy. This brought half his holiday to a close: the\nremaining half he meant to devote to the Mining District, St. Ives,\nthe Land's End, St. Michael's Mount, the Lizard, and perhaps the\nScilly Isles.\n\nThen I began to feel that I lived in a nook, and to wonder how I could\nspin out its attractions to cover a whole day: for I could not hear to\nthink of his departing with secret regret for his lavished time. In\na flash I saw the truth; that my love for this spot is built up of\nnumberless trivialities, of small memories all incommunicable, or\nridiculous when communicated; a scrap of local speech heard at this\ncorner, a pleasant native face remembered in that doorway, a battered\nvessel dropping anchor--she went out in the spring with her crew\nsinging dolefully; and the grey-bearded man waiting in his boat\nbeneath her counter till the custom-house officers have made their\nsurvey is the father of one among the crew, and is waiting to take\nhis son's hand again, after months of absence. Would this interest my\nfriend, if I pointed it out to him? Or, if I walk with him by the path\nabove the creek, what will he care to know that on this particular\nbank the violets always bloom earliest--that one of a line of\nyews that top the churchyard wall is remarkable because a pair of\nmissel-thrushes have chosen it to build in for three successive years?\nThe violets are gone. The empty nest has almost dissolved under the\nlate heavy rains, and the yew is so like its fellows that I myself\nhave no idea why the birds chose it. The longer I reflected the\nmore certain I felt that my friend could find all he wanted in the\nguide-books.\n\nNone the less, I did my best: rowed him for a mile or two up the\nriver; took him out to sea, and along the coast for half a dozen\nmiles. The water was choppy, as it is under the slightest breeze from\nthe south-east; and the Journalist was sea-sick; but seemed to mind\nthis very little, and recovered sufficiently to ask my boatman two or\nthree hundred questions before we reached the harbour again. Then\nwe landed and explored the Church. This took us some time, owing to\nseveral freaks in its construction, for which I blessed the memory\nof its early-English builders. We went on to the Town Hall, the old\nStannary Prison (now in ruins), the dilapidated Block-houses, the\nBattery. We traversed the town from end to end and studied the\nbarge-boards and punkin-ends of every old house. I had meanly ordered\nthat dinner should he ready half-an-hour earlier than usual, and, as\nit was, the objects of interest just lasted out.\n\nAs we sat and smoked our cigarettes after dinner, the Journalist\nsaid--\n\n\"If you don't mind, I'll he off in a few minutes and shut myself up in\nyour study. I won't he long turning out the copy; and after that I can\ntalk to you without feeling I've neglected my work. There's an early\npost here, I suppose?\"\n\n\"Man alive!\" said I, \"you don't mean to tell me that you're working,\nthis holiday?\"\n\n\"Only a letter for the 'Daily ----' three times a week--a column and a\nhalf, or so.\"\n\n\"The subject?\"\n\n\"Oh, descriptive stuff about the places I've been visiting. I call it\n'An Idler in Lyonesse.'\"\n\n\"Why Lyonesse?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Well, Lyonesse has lain at the bottom of the Atlantic, between Land's\nEnd and Scilly, these eight hundred years. The chroniclers relate that\nit was overwhelmed and lost in 1099, A.D. If your Constant Readers\ncare to ramble there, they're welcome, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"I had thought\" said he, \"it was just a poet's name for Cornwall.\nWell, never mind, I'll go in presently and write up this place: it's\njust as well to do it while one's impressions are still fresh.\"\n\nHe finished his coffee, lit a fresh cigarette, and strolled off to the\nlittle library where I usually work. I stepped out upon the verandah\nand looked down on the harbour at my feet, where already the vessels\nwere hanging out their lamps in the twilight. I had looked down thus,\nand at this hour, a thousand times; and always the scene had something\nnew to reveal to me, and much more to withhold--small subtleties such\nas a man finds in his wife, however ordinary she may appear to other\npeople. And here, in the next room, was a man who, in half-a-dozen\nhours, felt able to describe Troy, to deck her out, at least, in\nlanguage that should captivate a million or so of breakfasting\nBritons.\n\n\"My country,\" said I, \"if you have given up, in these six hours, a\ntithe of your heart to this man--if, in fact, his screed be not\narrant bosh--then will I hie me to London for good and all, and write\npolitical leaders all the days of my life.\"\n\nIn an hour's time the Journalist came sauntering out to me, and\nannounced that his letter was written.\n\n\"Have you sealed it up?\"\n\n\"Well, no. I thought you might give me an additional hint or two; and\nmaybe I might look it over again and add a few lines before turning\nin.\"\n\n\"Do you mind my seeing it?\"\n\n\"Not the least in the world, if you care to. I didn't think, though,\nthat it could possibly interest you, who know already every mortal\nthing that is to be known about the place.\"\n\n\"You're mistaken. I may know all about this place when I die, but not\nbefore. Let's hear what you have to say.\"\n\nWe went indoors, and he read it over to me.\n\nIt was a surprisingly brilliant piece of description; and accurate,\ntoo. He had not called it \"a little fishing-town,\" for instance, as so\nmany visitors have done in my hearing, though hardly a fishing-boat\nputs out from the harbour. The guide-books call it a fishing-town, but\nthe Journalist was not misled, though he had gone to them for a number\nof facts. I corrected a date and then sat silent. It amazed me that a\nman who could see so much, should fail to perceive that what he had\nseen was of no account in comparison with what he had not: or that,\nif he did indeed perceive this, he could write such stuff with such\ngusto. \"To be capable of so much and content with so little,\" I\nthought; and then broke off to wonder if, after all, he were not\nright. To-morrow he would be on his way, crowding his mind with quick\nand brilliant impressions, hurrying, living, telling his fellows a\nthousand useful and pleasant things, while I pored about to discover\none or two for them.\n\n\"I thought,\" said the Journalist, swinging his gold pencil-case\nbetween finger and thumb, \"you might furnish me with just a hint or\nso, to give the thing a local colour. Some little characteristic of\nthe natives, for instance. I noticed, this afternoon, when I was most\nsea-sick, that your fellow took off his hat and pulled something out\nof the lining. I was too ill to see what it was; but he dropped it\noverboard the next minute and muttered something.\"\n\n\"Oh, you remarked that, did you?\"\n\n\"Yes, and meant to ask him about it afterwards; but forgot, somehow.\"\n\n\"Do you remember where we were--what we were passing--when he did\nthis?\"\n\n\"Not clearly. I was infernally ill just then. Why did he do it?\"\n\nI was silent.\n\n\"I suppose it had some meaning?\" he went on.\n\n\"Yes, it had. And excuse me when I say that I'm hanged if either you\nor your Constant Readers shall know what that meaning was. My dear\nfellow, you belong to a strong race--a race that has beaten us and\ntaken toll of us, and now carves 'Smith' and 'Thompson' and such names\nupon our fathers' tombs. But there are some things you have not laid\nhands on yet; secrets that we all know somehow, but never utter, even\namong ourselves, nor allude to. If I told you what Billy Tredegar did\nto-day, and why he did it, I tell you frankly your article would\nmake some thousands of Constant Readers open wide eyes over their\nbreakfast-cups. But you won't know. Why, after all, should I say\nanything to spoil Cornwall's prospects as a health-resort?\"\n\nMy friend took this very quietly, merely observing that it was rather\nlate in the day to take sides against Hengist and Horsa. But he was\nsorry, I could see, to lose his local colour. And as I looked down,\nfor the last time that night, upon Troy, this petition escaped me--\n\n\"O my country, if I keep your secrets, keep for me your heart!\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPINSTER'S MAYING.\n\n  \"_The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,\n  Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit;\n  In every street these tunes our ears do greet--\n           Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-wee, to-witta-woo!\n                       Spring, the sweet Spring_.\"\n\n\nAt two o'clock on May morning a fishing-boat, with a small row-boat in\ntow, stole up the harbour between the lights of the vessels that lay\nat anchor. She came on a soundless tide, with her sprit-mainsail\nwide and drawing, and her foresail flapping idle; and although her\ncuddy-top and gunwale glistened wet with a recent shower, the man who\nsteered her looked over his shoulder at the waning moon, and decided\nthat the dawn would be a fine one. A furlong below the Town Quay he\nleft the tiller and lowered sail: two furlongs above, he dropped\nanchor: then, having made all ship-shape, he lit a pipe and pulled an\nenormous watch from his fob. The vessels he had passed since entering\nthe harbour's mouth seemed one and all asleep. But a din of horns,\nkettles, and tea-trays, and a wild tattoo of door-knockers, sounded\nalong the streets behind the stores and houses that lined the\nwater-side. Already the town-boys were ushering in the month of May.\n\nThe man waited until the half-hour chimed over the 'long-shore roofs\nfrom the church-tower up the hill; set his watch with care; and sat\ndown to wait for the sun. Upon the wooded cliff that faces the town\nthe birds were waking; and by-and-bye, from the three small quays came\nthe sound of voices laughing, and then a boat or two stealing out of\nthe shadow, each crowded with boys and maids. Before the dawn grew red\nabove the cliff where the birds sang, a dozen boats had gone by him on\ntheir way up the river, the chatter and broken laughter returning down\nits dim reaches long after the rowers had passed out of sight.\n\nFor some moments longer he watched the broadening daylight, till the\nsun, mounting above the cliff, blazed on the watch he had again pulled\nout and now shut with a brisk snap. His round, shaven face, still\nboyish in middle age, wore the shadow of a solemn responsibility. He\nclambered out into the small boat astern, and, casting loose, pulled\ntowards a bright patch of colour in the grey shore wall: a blue\nquay-door overhung with ivy. The upper windows of the cottage behind\nit were draped with snowy muslin, and its walls, coated with recent\nwhitewash, shamed its neighbours to right and left.\n\nAs the boat dropped under this blue quay-door, its upper flap opened\nsoftly, and a voice as softly said--\n\n\"Thank you kindly, John. And how d'ye do this May morning?\"\n\n\"Charming,\" the man answered frankly. \"Handsome weather 'tis, to be\nsure.\"\n\nHe looked up and smiled at her, like a lover.\n\n\"I needn't to ask how _you_ be; for you'm looking sweet as blossom,\"\nhe went on.\n\nAnd yet the woman that smiled down on him was fifty years old at\nleast. Her hair, which usually lay in two flat bands, closely drawn\nover the temples, had for this occasion been worked into waves\nby curling-papers, and twisted in front of either ear, into that\nparticular ringlet locally called a kiss-me-quick. But it was streaked\nwith grey, and the pinched features wore the tint of pale ivory.\n\n\"D'ye think you can clamber down the ladder, Sarah? The tide's fairly\nhigh.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I'll be showing my ankles.\"\n\n\"I was hoping so. Wunnerful ankles you've a-got, Sarah, and a\nwunnerful cage o' teeth. Such extremities 'd well beseem a king's\ndaughter, all glorious within!\"\n\nSarah Blewitt pulled open the lower flap of the door and set her foot\non the ladder. She wore a white print gown beneath her cloak, and a\nsmall bonnet of black straw decorated with sham cowslips. The cloak,\nhitching for a moment on the ladder's side, revealed a beaded reticule\nthat hung from her waist, and clinked as she descended.\n\n\"I reckon there's scarce an inch of paint left on my front door,\" she\nobserved, as the man steadied her with an arm round her waist, and\nsettled her comfortably in the stern-sheets.\n\nHe unshipped his oars and began to pull.\n\n\"Ay. I heard 'em whackin' the door with a deal o' tow-row. They was\ngoing it like billy-O when I came past the Town Quay. But one mustn'\ncomplain, May-mornin's.\"\n\n\"I wasn' complaining,\" said the woman; \"I was just remarking. How's\nMaria?\"\n\n\"She's nicely, thank you.\"\n\n\"And the children?\"\n\n\"Brave.\"\n\n\"I've put up sixpennyworth of nicey in four packets--that's one\napiece--and I've written the name on each, for you to take home to\n'em.\"\n\nShe fumbled in her reticule and produced the packets. The\npeppermint-drops and brandy-balls were wrapped in clean white paper,\nand the names written in a thin Italian hand. John thanked her and\nstowed them in his trousers pockets.\n\n\"You'll give my love to Maria? I take it very kindly her letting you\ncome for me like this.\"\n\n\"Oh, as for that--\" began John, and broke off; \"I don't call to mind\nthat ever I saw a more handsome morning for the time o' year.\"\n\nThey had made this expedition together more than a score of times, and\nalways found the same difficulty in conversing. The boat moved easily\npast the town, the jetties above it, and the vessels that lay off them\nawaiting their cargoes; it turned the corner and glided by woods where\nthe larches were green, the sycamores dusted with bronze, the wild\ncherry-trees white with blossom, and all voluble. Every little bird\nseemed ready to burst his throat that morning with the deal he had to\nsay. But these two--the man especially--had nothing to say, yet ached\nfor words.\n\n\"Nance Treweek's married,\" the woman managed to tell him at last.\n\n\"I was thinking it likely, by the way she carried on last Maying.\"\n\n\"That wasn' the man. She've kept company with two since him, and\nmated with a fourth man altogether--quite a different sort, in the\ncommercial traveller line.\"\n\n\"Did he wear a seal weskit?\"\n\n\"Well, he might have; but not to my knowledge. What makes you ask?\"\n\n\"Because I used to know a Johnny Fortnight that wore one in these\nparts; and I thought it might be he, belike.\"\n\n\"Jim had a greater gift o' speech than you can make pretence to,\" said\nthe woman abruptly. \"I often wonder that of two twin-brothers one\nshould be so glib and t'other so mum-chance.\"\n\n\"'Tis the Lord's ways,\" the man answered, resting on his oars. \"Will\nyou be dabblin' your feet as usual, Sarah?\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\nHe turned the boat's nose to a small landing-place cut in the solid\nrock, where a straight pathway dived between hazel-bushes and appeared\nagain twenty feet above, winding inland around the knap of a green\nhill. Here he helped her to disembark, and waited with his back to\nthe shore. The spinster behind the hazel screen pulled off shoes and\nstockings, and paddled about for a minute in the dewy grass that\nfringed the meadow's lower slope. Then, drawing a saucer from her\nreticule, she wrung some dew into it and bathed her face. Ten minutes\nlater she re-appeared on the river's bank.\n\n\"A happy May, John!\"\n\n\"A happy May to _you_, Sarah!\"\n\nJohn stepped out beside her, and making his boat fast, followed her\nup the narrow path and around the shoulder of the steep meadow. They\novered a stile, then a second, and were among pink slopes of orchards\nin bloom. Ahead of them a church tower rose out of soft billows of\napple-blossom, and above the tower a lark was singing. A child\ncame along the footpath from the village with two garlands mounted\ncross-wise on a pole and looped together with strings of painted\nbirds' eggs. John gave him a penny for his show.\n\n\"Here's luck to your lass!\" said the wise child.\n\nSarah was pleased, and added a second penny from her reticule. The boy\nspat on it for luck, slipped it into his breeches pocket, and went on\nhis way skipping.\n\nThey stood still and looked after him for some moments, out of pure\npleasure in his good humour; then descended among the orchards to the\nvillage. Half-way up the street stood the inn, the Flowing Source,\nwith whitewashed front and fuchsia-trees that reached to the\nfirst-floor windows; and before it a well enclosed with a round stone\nwall, over which the toadflax spread in a tangle. Around the well,\nin the sunshine, were set a dozen or more small tables, covered with\nwhite cloths, and two score at least of young people eating bread and\ncream and laughing. The landlady, a broad woman in a blue print gown,\nand large apron, came forward.\n\n\"Why, Miss Sarah, I'd nigh 'pon given you up. Your table's been spread\nthis hour, an' at last I was forced to ask some o' the young folks if\nyou was dead or no.\"\n\n\"Why should I be dead more than another?\"\n\n\"Well, well--in the midst o' life, we're told. 'Tisn' only the ripe\napples that the wind scatters. He that comes by your side to-day is\nbut twin-brother to him that came wi' you the first time I mind 'ee,\nseemin' but yesterday. Eh, Miss Sarah, but I envied 'ee then, sittin'\nwi' hand in hand, an' but one bite taken out o' your bread an' cream;\nbut I was just husband-high myself i' those days, an' couldn't make\nthe men believe it.\"\n\n\"Mary Ann Jacobs,\" Miss Sarah broke out, \"if 'twas not for the quality\nof your cream, I'd go a-mayin' elsewhere, for I can truly say I hate\nyour way of talkin' from the bottom of my soul.\"\n\n\"Sarah,\" said John, wiping his mouth as he finished his bread and\ncream, \"I'm a glum man, as you well know; an' why Providence drowned\npoor Jim, when it might have taken his twin image that hadn' half his\nmouth--speech, is past findin' out. But 'tis generally allowed that\nthe grip o' my hand is uncommon like what Jim's used to be; an' when I\ngets home to-night, the first thing my old woman'll be sure to ask is\n'Did 'ee give Sarah poor Jim's hand-clasp?'--an' what to say I shan't\nknow, unless you honours me so far.\"\n\n\"'Tis uncommon good of Maria,\" said the woman simply, and stole her\nthin hand into his horny palm. She had done so, in answer to the same\nspeech, more than twenty times.\n\n\"Not at all,\" said John.\n\nHis fingers closed over hers, and rested so. All but a few of the\nmayers had risen from the table, and were romping and chasing each\nother back to the boats, for the majority were shop-girls and\napprentices, and must be back in time for business. But Miss Sarah was\nin no hurry.\n\n\"Not yet,\" she entreated, as John's grasp began to relax. He tightened\nit again and waited, while she leant back, breathing short, with\nhalf-closed eyes.\n\nAt length she said he might release her.\n\n\"I'm sure 'tis uncommon kind of Maria,\" she repeated.\n\n\"I don't see where the kindness comes in. Maria can have as good any\nday o' the year, an' don't appear to value it to that extent.\"\n\nThey walked back through the orchards in silence. At Miss Sarah's\nquay-door they parted, and John hoisted sail for his home around the\ncorner of the coast.\n\n\n\n\nDAPHNIS.\n\n  _Has olim exuvias mihi perfidus ille reliquit,\n  Pignora cara sui: quae nunc ego limine in ipso,\n  Terra, tibi mando; debent haec pignora Daphnin--\n  Ducite ab urbe domum, mea, carmina, ducite Daphnin_.\n\n\nI knew the superstition lingered along the country-side: and I was\nsworn to find it. But the labourers and their wives smoothed all\nintelligence out of their faces as soon as I began to hint at it. Such\nis the way of them. They were my good friends, but had no mind to help\nme in this. Nobody who has not lived long with them can divine the\nnumber of small incommunicable mysteries and racial secrets chambered\nin their inner hearts and guarded by their hospitable faces. These\nalone the Celt withholds from the Saxon, and when he dies they are\nburied with him.\n\nA chance word or two of my old nurse, by chance caught in some cranny\nof a child's memory and recovered after many days, told me that the\ncharm was still practised by the woman-folk, or had been practised not\nlong before her death. So I began to hunt for it, and, almost as soon,\nto believe the search hopeless. The new generation of girls, with\ntheir smart frocks, in fashion not more than six months behind London,\ntheir Board School notions, and their consuming ambition to \"look\nlike a lady\"--were these likely to cherish a local custom as rude and\nprimitive as the long-stone circles on the tors above? But they were\nCornish; and of that race it is unwise to judge rashly. For years I\nhad never a clue: and then, by Sheba Farm, in a forsaken angle of the\ncoast, surprised the secret.\n\nSheba Farm stands high above Ruan sands, over which its windows flame\nat sunset. And I sat in the farm kitchen drinking cider and eating\npotato-cake, while the farmer's wife, Mrs. Bolverson, obligingly\nattended to my coat, which had just been soaked by a thunder-shower.\nIt was August, and already the sun beat out again, fierce and strong.\nThe bright drops that gemmed the tamarisk-bushes above the wall of the\ntown-place were already fading under its heat; and I heard the voices\nof the harvesters up the lane, as they returned to the oat-field\nwhence the storm had routed them. A bright parallelogram stretched\nfrom the window across the white kitchen-table, and reached the dim\nhollow of the open fire-place. Mrs. Bolverson drew the towel-horse, on\nwhich my coat was stretched, between it and the wood fire, which (as\nshe held) the sunshine would put out.\n\n\"It's uncommonly kind of you, Mrs. Bolverson,\" said I, as she turned\none sleeve of the coat towards the heat. \"To be sure, if the women in\nthese parts would speak out, some of them have done more than that for\nthe men with an old coat.\"\n\nShe dropped the sleeve, faced round, and eyed me.\n\n\"What do you know of that?\" she asked slowly, and as if her chest\ntightened over the words. She was a woman of fifty and more, of fine\nfigure but a worn face. Her chief surviving beauty was a pile of light\ngolden hair, still lustrous as a girl's. But her blue eyes--though now\nthey narrowed on me suspiciously--must have looked out magnificently\nin their day.\n\n\"I fancy,\" said I, meeting them frankly enough, \"that what you know\nand I don't on that matter would make a good deal.\"\n\nShe laughed harshly, almost savagely.\n\n\"You'd better ask Sarah Gedye, across the coombe. She buried a man's\nclothes one time, and--it might be worth your while to ask her what\ncame o't.\"\n\nIf you can imagine a glint of moonlight running up the blade of\na rapier, you may know the chill flame of spite and despite that\nflickered in her eyes then as she spoke.\n\n\"I take my oath,\" I muttered to myself, \"I'll act on the invitation.\"\n\nThe woman stood straight upright, with her hands clasped behind her,\nbefore the deal table. She gazed, under lowered brows, straight out of\nwindow; and following that gaze, I saw across the coombe a mean\nmud hut, with a wall around it, that looked on Sheba Farm with the\nobtrusive humility of a poor relation.\n\n\"Does she--does Sarah Gedye--live down yonder?\"\n\n\"What is that to you?\" she enquired fiercely, and then was silent for\na moment, and added, with another short laugh--\n\n\"I reckon I'd like the question put to her: but I doubt you've got the\npluck.\"\n\n\"You shall see,\" said I; and taking my coat off the towel-horse, I\nslipped it on.\n\nShe did not turn, did not even move her head, when I thanked her for\nthe shelter and walked out of the house.\n\nI could feel those steel-blue eyes working like gimlets into my back\nas I strode down the hill and passed the wooden plank that lay across\nthe stream at its foot. A climb of less than a minute brought me to\nthe green gate in the wall of Sarah Gedye's garden patch; and here I\ntook a look backwards and upwards at Sheba. The sun lay warm on its\nwhite walls, and the whole building shone against the burnt hillside.\nIt was too far away for me to spy Mrs. Bolverson's blue print gown\nwithin the kitchen window, but I knew that she stood there yet.\n\nThe sound of a footstep made me turn. A woman was coming round the\ncorner of the cottage, with a bundle of mint in her hand.\n\nShe looked at me, shook off a bee that had blundered against her\napron, and looked at me again--a brown woman, lean and strongly made,\nwith jet-black eyes set deep and glistening in an ugly face.\n\n\"You want to know your way?\" she asked.\n\n\"No. I came to see you, if your name is Sarah Gedye.\"\n\n\"Sarah Ann Gedye is my name. What 'st want?\"\n\nI took a sudden resolution to tell the exact truth.\n\n\"Mrs. Gedye, the fact is I am curious about an old charm that was\npractised in these parts, as I know, till recently. The charm is\nthis--When a woman guesses her lover to be faithless to her, she\nburies a suit of his old clothes to fetch him back to her. Mrs.\nBolverson, up at Sheba yonder--\"\n\nThe old woman had opened her mouth (as I know now) to curse me. But\nas Mrs. Bolverson's name escaped me, she turned her back, and walked\nstraight to her door and into the kitchen. Her manner told me that I\nwas expected to follow.\n\nBut I was not prepared for the face she turned on me in the shadow of\nthe kitchen. It was grey as wood-ash, and the black eyes shrank into\nit like hot specks of fire.\n\n\"She--_she_ set you on to ask me that?\" She caught me by the coat and\nhissed out: \"Come back from the door--don't let her see.\" Then she\nlifted up her fist, with the mint tightly clutched in it, and shook it\nat the warm patch of Sheba buildings across the valley.\n\n\"May God burn her bones, as He has smitten her body barren!\"\n\n\"What do you know of this?\" she cried, turning upon me again.\n\n\"I know nothing. That I have offered you some insult is clear: but--\"\n\n\"Nay, you don't know--you don't know. No man would be such a hound.\nYou don't know; but, by the Lord, you shall hear, here where you'm\nstandin', an' shall jedge betwix' me an' that pale 'ooman up yonder.\nStand there an' list to me.\n\n\"He was my lover more'n five-an'-thirty years agone. Who? That\n'ooman's wedded man, Seth Bolverson. We warn't married\"--this with\na short laugh. \"Wife or less than wife, he found me to his mind.\nShe--she that egged you on to come an' flout me--was a pale-haired\ngirl o' seventeen or so i' those times--a church-goin' mincin' strip\nof a girl--the sort you men-folk bow the knee to for saints. Her\nfather owned Sheba Farm, an' she look'd across on my man, an' had envy\non 'en, an' set her eyes to draw 'en. Oh, a saint she was! An' he, the\npoor shammick, went. 'Twas a good girl, you understand, that wished\nfor to marry an' reform 'en. She had money, too. _I_? I'd ha' poured\nout my blood for 'en: that's all I cud do. So he went.\n\n\"As the place shines this day, it shone then. Like a moth it drew 'en.\nLate o' summer evenin's its windeys shone when down below here 'twas\nchill i' the hill's shadow. An' late at night the candles burned up\nthere as he courted her. Purity and cosiness, you understand, an' down\nhere--he forgot about down here. Before he'd missed to speak to me for\na month, I'd hear 'en whistlin' up the hill, so merry as a grig. Well,\nhe married her.\n\n\"They was married three months, an' 'twas harvest time come round, an'\nI in his vield a-gleanin'. For I was suffered near to that extent,\nseem' that the cottage here had been my fathers', an' was mine, an'\nout o't they culdn' turn me. One o' the hands, as they was pitchin',\npasses me an empty keg, an' says, 'Run you to the farm-place an' get\nit filled.' So with it I went to th' kitchen, and while I waited\noutside I sees his coat an' wesket 'pon a peg i' the passage. Well I\nknew the coat; an' a madness takin' me for all my loss, I unhitched it\nan' flung it behind the door, an', the keg bein' filled, picked it up\nagen and ran down home-along.\n\n\"No thought had I but to win Seth back. 'Twas the charm you spoke\nabout: an' that same midnight I delved a hole by the dreshold an'\nburied the coat, whisperin', '_Man, come back, come back to me_!' as\nAun' Lesnewth had a-taught me, times afore.\n\n\"But she, the pale woman, had a-seen me, dro' a chink o' the\nparlour-door, as I tuk the coat down. An' she knowed what I tuk it\nfor. I've a-read it, times and again, in her wifely eyes; an' to-day\nyou yoursel' are witness that she knowed. If Seth knowed--\"\n\nShe clenched and unclenched her fist, and went on rapidly.\n\n\"Early next mornin', and a'most afore I was dressed, two constables\ncame in by the gate, an' she behind 'em treadin' delicately, an' _he_\nat her back, wi' his chin dropped. They charged me wi' stealin' that\ncoat--wi' stealin' it--that coat that I'd a-darned an' patched years\nafore ever _she_ cuddled against its sleeve!\"\n\n\"What happened?\" I asked, as her voice sank and halted.\n\n\"What happened? She looked me i' the eyes scornfully; an' her own were\nfull o' knowledge. An' wi' her eyes she coaxed and dared me to abase\nmysel' an' speak the truth an' win off jail. An' I, that had stole\nnowt, looked back at her an' said, 'It's true. I stole the coat. Now\ncart me off to jail; but handle me gently for the sake o' my child\nunborn.' When I spoke these last two words an' saw her face draw up\nwi' the bitterness o' their taste, I held out my wrists and clapped\nthe handcuffs together like cymbals and laughed wi' a glad heart.\"\n\nShe caught my hand suddenly, and drawing me to the porch, pointed high\nabove Sheba, to the yellow upland where the harvesters moved.\n\n\"Do 'ee see 'en there?--that tall young man by the hedge--there where\nthe slope dips? That's my son, Seth's son, the straightest man among\nall. Neither spot has he, nor wart, nor blemish 'pon his body; and\nwhen she pays 'en his wages, Saturday evenin's, he says 'Thank 'ee,\nma'am,' wi' a voice that's the very daps o' his father's. An' she's\nchildless. Ah, childless woman! Childless woman! Go back an' carry\nword to her o' the prayer I've spoken upon her childlessness.\"\n\nAnd \"Childless woman!\" \"Childless woman!\" she called twice again,\nshaking her fist at the windows of Sheba Farm-house, that blazed back\nangrily against the westering sun.\n\n\n\n\nWHEN THE SAP ROSE.\n\nA FANTASIA.\n\n\nAn old yellow van--the _Comet_--came jolting along the edge of the\ndowns and shaking its occupants together like peas in a bladder. The\nbride and bridegroom did not mind this much; but the Registrar of\nBirths, Deaths, and Marriages, who had bound them in wedlock at the\nBible Christian Chapel two hours before, was discomforted by a pair\nof tight boots, that nipped cruelly whenever he stuck out his feet to\nkeep his equilibrium.\n\nNevertheless, his mood was genial, for the young people had taken his\nsuggestion and acquired a copy of their certificate. This meant five\nextra shillings in his pocket. Therefore, when the van drew up at\nthe cross-roads for him to alight, he wished them long life and a\nmultitude of children with quite a fatherly air.\n\n\"You can't guess where I'm bound for. It's to pay my old mother a\nvisit. Ah, family life's the pretty life--that ever _I_ should say\nit!\"\n\nThey saw no reason why he should be cynical, more than other men. And\nthe bride, in whose eyes this elderly gentleman with the tight boots\nappeared a rosy winged Cupid, waved her handkerchief until the vehicle\nhad sidled round the hill, resembling in its progress a very infirm\ncrab in a hurry.\n\nAs a fact, the Registrar wore a silk hat, a suit of black\nWest-of-England broadcloth, a watch-chain made out of his dead wife's\nhair, and two large seals that clashed together when he moved.\nHis face was wide and round, with a sanguine complexion, grey\nside-whiskers, and a cicatrix across the chin. He had shaved in a\nhurry that morning, for the wedding was early, and took place on the\nextreme verge of his district. His is a beautiful office--recording\nday by day the solemnest and most mysterious events in nature. Yet,\nstanding at the cross-roads, between down and woodland, under an April\nsky full of sun and south-west wind, he threw the ugliest shadow in\nthe landscape.\n\nThe road towards the coast dipped--too steeply for tight boots--down a\nwooded coombe, and he followed it, treading delicately. The hollow of\nthe V ahead, where the hills overlapped against the pale blue, was\npowdered with a faint brown bloom, soon to be green--an infinity\nof bursting buds. The larches stretched their arms upwards, as men\nwaking. The yellow was out on the gorse, with a heady scent like a\npineapple's, and between the bushes spread the grey film of coming\nblue-bells. High up, the pines sighed along the ridge, turning paler;\nand far down, where the brook ran, a mad duet was going on between\nthrush and chaffinch--\"_Cheer up, cheer up, Queen!\" \"Clip clip, clip,\nand kiss me--Sweet_!\"--one against the other.\n\nNow, the behaviour of the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages\nchanged as he descended the valley. At first he went from side to\nside, because the loose stones were sharp and lay unevenly; soon he\nzig-zagged for another purpose--to peer into the bank for violets, to\nfind a gap between the trees where, by bending down with a hand\non each knee and his head tilted back, he could see the primroses\nstretching in broad sheets to the very edge of the pine-woods. By\nfrequent tilting his collar broke from its stud and his silk hat\nsettled far back on his neck. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and\nloosened his braces; but no, he could not skip--his boots were too\ntight. He looked at each tree as he passed. \"If I could only see\"--he\nmuttered. \"I'll swear there used to be one on the right, just here.\"\n\nBut he could not find it here--perhaps his memory misgave him--and\npresently turned with decision, climbed the low fence on his left,\nbetween him and the hollow of the coombe, and dropped into the\nplantation on the other side. Here the ground was white in patches\nwith anemones; and as his feet crushed them, descending, the babel of\nthe birds grew louder and louder.\n\nHe issued on a small clearing by the edge of the brook, where the\ngrass was a delicate green, each blade pushing up straight as a\nspear-point from the crumbled earth. Here were more anemones, between\npatches of last year's bracken, and on the further slope a mass of\ndaffodils. He pulled out a pocket-knife that had sharpened some\nhundreds of quill pens, and looking to his right, found what he wanted\nat once.\n\nIt was a sycamore, on which the buds were swelling. He cut a small\ntwig, as big round as his middle finger, and sitting himself down on a\nbarked log, close by, began to measure and cut it to a span's length,\navoiding all knots. Then, taking the knife by the blade between finger\nand thumb, he tapped the bark gently with the tortoise-shell handle.\nAnd as he tapped, his face went back to boyhood again, in spite of the\nside-whiskers, and his mouth was pursed up to a silent tune.\n\nFor ten minutes the tapping continued; the birds ceased their\ncontention, and broke out restlessly at intervals. A rabbit across\nthe brook paused and listened at the funnel-shaped mouth of his hole,\nwhich caught the sound and redoubled it.\n\n\"Confound these boots!\" said the Registrar, and pulling them off,\ntossed them among the primroses. They were \"elastic-sides.\"\n\nThe tapping ceased. A breath of the land-ward breeze came up, combing\nout the tangle that winter had made in the grass, caught the brook on\nthe edge of a tiny fall, and puffed it back six inches in a spray of\nsmall diamonds. It quickened the whole copse. The oak-saplings rubbed\ntheir old leaves one on another, as folks rub their hands, feeling\nlife and warmth; the chestnut-buds groped like an infant's fingers;\nand the chorus broke out again, the thrush leading--\"_Tiurru, tiurru,\nchippewee; tio-tee, tio-tee; queen, queen, que-een_!\"\n\nIn a moment or two he broke off suddenly, and a honey-bee shot out\nof an anemone-bell like a shell from a mortar. For a new sound\ndisconcerted them--a sound sharp and piercing. The Registrar had\nfinished his whistle and was blowing like mad, moving his fingers\nup and down. Having proved his instrument, he dived a hand into his\ntail-pocket and drew out a roll, tied around with ribbon. It was the\nfolded leather-bound volume in which he kept his blank certificates.\nAnd spreading it on his knees, he took his whistle again and blew,\nreading his music from the blank pages, and piping a strain he had\nnever dreamed of. For he whistled of Births and Marriages.\n\nO, happy Registrar! O, happy, happy Registrar! You will never get into\nthose elastic-sides again. Your feet swell as they tap the swelling\nearth, and at each tap the flowers push, the sap climbs, the speck of\nlife moves in the hedge-sparrow's egg; while, far away on the downs,\nwith each tap, the yellow van takes bride and groom a foot nearer\nfelicity. It is hard work in worsted socks, for you smite with the\nvehemence of Pan, and Pan had a hoof of horn.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Registrar's mother lived in the fishing-village, two miles down\nthe coombe. Her cottage leant back against the cliff so closely, that\nthe boys, as they followed the path above, could toss tabs of turf\ndown her chimney: and this was her chief annoyance.\n\nNow, it was close on the dinner-hour, and she stood in her kitchen\nbeside a pot of stew that simmered over the wreck-wood fire.\n\nSuddenly a great lump of earth and grass came bouncing down the\nchimney, striking from side to side, and soused into the pot,\nscattering the hot stew over the hearth-stone and splashing her from\nhead to foot.\n\nQuick as thought, she caught up a besom and rushed out around the\ncorner of the cottage.\n\n\"You stinking young adders!\" she began.\n\nA big man stood on the slope above her.\n\n\"Mother, cuff my head, that's a dear. I couldn' help doin' it.\"\n\nIt was the elderly Registrar. His hat, collar, tie, and waistcoat were\nawry; his boots were slung on the walking-stick over his shoulder;\nstuck in his mouth and lit was a twist of root-fibre, such as country\nboys use for lack of cigars, and he himself had used, forty years\nbefore.\n\nThe old woman turned to an ash-colour, leant on her besom, and gasped.\n\n\"William Henry!\"\n\n\"I'm not drunk, mother: been a Band of Hope these dozen years.\" He\nstepped down the slope to her and bent his head low. \"Box my ears,\nmother, quick! You used to have a wonderful gift o' cuffin'.\"\n\n\"William Henry, I'm bound to do it or die.\"\n\n\"Then be quick about it.\"\n\nHalf-laughing, half-sobbing, she caught him a feeble cuff, and next\ninstant held him close to her old breast. The Registrar disengaged\nhimself after a minute, brushed his eyes, straightened his hat, picked\nup the besom, and offered her his arm. They passed into the cottage\ntogether.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PAUPERS\n\n\nI.\n\n[Greek: ou men gar tou ge kreisson kai areion, ae hoth homophroneonte\nnoaemasin oikon echaeton anaer aede gunae.]\n\n\nRound the skirts of the plantation, and half-way down the hill, there\nruns a thick fringe of wild cherry-trees. Their white blossom makes,\nfor three weeks in the year, a pretty contrast with the larches and\nScotch firs that serrate the long ridge above; and close under their\nbranches runs the line of oak rails that marks off the plantation from\nthe meadow.\n\nA labouring man came deliberately round the slope, as if following\nthis line of rails. As a matter of fact, he was treading the\nlittle-used footpath that here runs close alongside the fence for\nfifty yards before diverging down-hill towards the village. So narrow\nis this path that the man's boots were powdered to a rich gold by the\nbuttercups they had brushed aside.\n\nBy-and-bye he came to a standstill, looked over the fence, and\nlistened. Up among the larches a faint chopping sound could just be\nheard, irregular but persistent. The man put a hand to his mouth, and\nhailed--\n\n\"Hi-i-i! Knock off! Stable clock's gone noo-oon!\"\n\nCame back no answer. But the chopping ceased at once; and this\napparently satisfied the man, who leaned against the rail and waited,\nchewing a spear of brome-grass, and staring steadily, but incuriously,\nat his boots. Two minutes passed without stir or sound in this corner\nof the land. The human figure was motionless. The birds in the\nplantation were taking their noonday siesta. A brown butterfly rested,\nwith spread wings, on the rail--so quietly, he might have been pinned\nthere.\n\nA cracked voice was suddenly lifted a dozen yards off, and within the\nplantation--\n\n\"Such a man as I be to work! Never heard a note o' that blessed clock,\nif you'll believe me. Ab-sorbed, I s'pose.\"\n\nA thin withered man in a smock-frock emerged from among the\ncherry-trees with a bill-hook in his hand, and stooped to pass under\nthe rail.\n\n\"Ewgh! The pains I suffer in that old back of mine you'll never\nbelieve, my son, not till the appointed time when you come to suffer\n'em yoursel'. Well-a-well! Says I just now, up among the larches,\n'Heigh, my sonny-boys, I can crow over you, anyways; for I was a man\ngrown when Squire planted ye; and here I be, a lusty gaffer, markin'\nye down for destruction.' But hullo! where's the dinner?\"\n\n\"There bain't none.\"\n\n\"Hey?\"\n\n\"There bain't none.\"\n\n\"How's that? Damme! William Henry, dinner's dinner, an' don't you joke\nabout it. Once you begin to make fun o' sacred things like meals and\nvittles--\"\n\n\"And don't you flare up like that, at your time o' life. We're\nfashionists to-day: dining out. 'Quarter after nine this morning I was\npassing by the Green wi' the straw-cart, when old Jan Trueman calls\nafter me, 'Have 'ee heard the news?'' What news?' says I. 'Why,' says\nhe, 'me an' my missus be going into the House this afternoon--can't\nmanage to pull along by ourselves any more,' he says; 'an' we wants\nyou an' your father to drop in soon after noon an' take a bite wi' us,\nfor old times' sake. 'Tis our last taste o' free life, and we'm going\nto do the thing fittywise,' he says.\"\n\nThe old man bent a meditative look on the village roofs below.\n\n\"We'll pleasure 'en, of course,\" he said slowly. \"So 'tis come round\nto Jan's turn? But a' was born in the year of Waterloo victory, ten\nyear' afore me, so I s'pose he've kept his doom off longer than most.\"\n\nThe two set off down the footpath. There is a stile at the foot of the\nmeadow, and as he climbed it painfully, the old man spoke again.\n\n\"And his doorway, I reckon, 'll be locked for a little while, an' then\nopened by strangers; an' his nimble youth be forgot like a flower o'\nthe field; an' fare thee well, Jan Trueman! Maria, too--I can mind her\nwell as a nursing mother--a comely woman in her day. I'd no notion\nthey'd got this in their mind.\"\n\n\"Far as I can gather, they've been minded that way ever since their\ndaughter Jane died, last fall.\"\n\nFrom the stile where they stood they could look down into the village\nstreet. And old Jan Trueman was plain to see, in clean linen and his\nSunday suit, standing in the doorway and welcoming his guests.\n\n\"Come ye in--come ye in, good friends,\" he called, as they approached.\n\"There's cold bekkon, an' cold sheep's liver, an' Dutch cheese,\nbesides bread, an' a thimble-full o' gin-an'-water for every soul\namong ye, to make it a day of note in the parish.\"\n\nHe looked back over his shoulder into the kitchen. A dozen men and\nwomen, all elderly, were already gathered there. They had brought\ntheir own chairs. Jan's wife wore her bonnet and shawl, ready to start\nat a moment's notice. Her luggage in a blue handkerchief lay on the\ntable. As she moved about and supplied her guests, her old lips\ntwitched nervously; but when she spoke it was with no unusual tremor\nof the voice.\n\n\"I wish, friends, I could ha' cooked ye a little something hot; but\nthere'd be no time for the washing-up, an' I've ordained to leave the\nplace tidy.\"\n\nOne of the old women answered--\n\n\"There's nought to be pardoned, I'm sure. Never do I mind such a gay\nset-off for the journey. For the gin-an'-water is a little addition\nbeyond experience. The vittles, no doubt, you begged up at the\nVicarage, sayin' you'd been a peck o' trouble to the family, but this\nwas going to be the last time.\"\n\n\"I did, I did,\" assented Mr. Trueman.\n\n\"But the gin-an'-water--how on airth you contrived it is a riddle!\"\n\nThe old man rubbed his hands together and looked around with genuine\npride.\n\n\"There was old Miss Scantlebury,\" said another guest, a smock-frocked\ngaffer of seventy, with a grizzled shock of hair. \"You remember Miss\nScantlebury?\"\n\n\"O' course, o' course.\"\n\n\"Well, she did it better 'n anybody I've heard tell of. When she fell\ninto redooced circumstances she sold the eight-day clock that was the\nonly thing o' value she had left. Brown o' Tregarrick made it, with\na very curious brass dial, whereon he carved a full-rigged ship that\nrocked like a cradle, an' went down stern foremost when the hour\nstruck. 'Twas worth walking a mile to see. Brown's grandson bought\nit off Miss Scantlebury for two guineas, he being proud of his\ngrandfather's skill; an' the old lady drove into Tregarrick Work'us\nbehind a pair o' greys wi' the proceeds. Over and above the carriage\nhire, she'd enough left to adorn the horse wi' white favours an' give\nthe rider a crown, large as my lord. Aye, an' at the Work'us door she\nsaid to the fellow, said she, 'All my life I've longed to ride in a\nbridal chariot; an' though my only lover died of a decline when I was\nscarce twenty-two, I've done it at last,' said she; 'an' now heaven\nan' airth can't undo it!'\"\n\nA heavy silence followed this anecdote, and then one or two of the\nwomen vented small disapproving coughs. The reason was the speaker's\nloud mention of the Workhouse. A week, a day, a few-hours before, its\nname might have been spoken in Mr. and Mrs. Trueman's presence. But\nnow they had entered its shadow; they were \"going\"--whether to the dim\nvale of Avilion, or with chariot and horses of fire to heaven, let\nnobody too curiously ask. If Mr. and Mrs. Trueman chose to speak\ndefinitely, it was another matter.\n\nOld Jan bore no malice, however, but answered, \"That beats me, I own.\nYet we shall drive, though it be upon two wheels an' behind a single\nhorse. For Farmer Lear's driving into Tregarrick in an hour's time,\nan' he've a-promised us a lift.\"\n\n\"But about that gin-an'-water? For real gin-an'-water it is, to sight\nan' taste.\"\n\n\"Well, friends, I'll tell ye: for the trick may serve one of ye in the\ndays when you come to follow me, tho' the new relieving officer may\nhave learnt wisdom before then. You must know we've been considering\nof this step for some while, but hearing that old Jacobs was going to\nretire soon, I says to Maria, 'We'll bide till the new officer comes,\nand if he's a green hand, we'll diddle 'en.' Day before yesterday,' as\nyou, was his first round at the work; so I goes up an' draws out my\nha'af-crown same as usual, an' walks straight off for the Four Lords\nfor a ha'af-crown's worth o' gin. Then back I goes, an' demands\nan admission order for me an' the missus. 'Why, where's your\nha'af-crown?' says he. 'Gone in drink,' says I. 'Old man,' says he,\n'you'm a scandal, an' the sooner you're put out o' the way o' drink,\nthe better for you an' your poor wife.' 'Right you are,' I says; an' I\ngot my order. But there, I'm wasting time; for to be sure you've most\nof ye got kith and kin in the place where we'm going, and 'll be\nwanting to send 'em a word by us.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was less than an hour before Farmer Lear pulled up to the door in\nhis red-wheeled spring-cart.\n\n\"Now, friends,\" said Mrs. Trueman, as her ears caught the rattle of\nthe wheels, \"I must trouble ye to step outside while I tidy up the\nfloor.\"\n\nThe women offered their help, but she declined it. Alone she put the\nsmall kitchen to rights, while they waited outside around the door.\nThen she stepped out with her bundle, locked the door after her, and\nslipped the key under an old flower-pot on the window ledge. Her eyes\nwere dry.\n\n\"Come along, Jan.\"\n\nThere was a brief hand-shaking, and the paupers climbed up beside\nFarmer Lear.\n\n\"I've made a sort o' little plan in my head,\" said old Jan at parting,\n\"of the order in which I shall see ye again, one by one. 'Twill be a\ngreat amusement to me, friends, to see how the fact fits in wi' my\nlittle plan.\"\n\nThe guests raised three feeble cheers as the cart drove away, and hung\nabout for several minutes after it had passed out of sight, gazing\nalong the road as wistfully as more prosperous men look in through\nchurchyard gates at the acres where their kinsfolk lie buried.\n\n\nII.\n\n\nThe first building passed by the westerly road as it descends into\nTregarrick is a sombre pile of some eminence, having a gateway and\nlodge before it, and a high encircling wall. The sun lay warm on its\nlong roof, and the slates flashed gaily there, as Farmer Lear came\nover the knap of the hill and looked down on it. He withdrew his eyes\nnervously to glance at the old couple beside him. At the same moment\nhe reined up his dun-coloured mare.\n\n\"I reckoned,\" he said timidly, \"I reckoned you'd be for stopping\nhereabouts an' getting down. You'd think it more seemly--that's what I\nreckoned: an' 'tis down-hill now all the way.\"\n\nFor ten seconds and more neither the man nor the woman gave a sign of\nhaving heard him. The spring-cart's oscillatory motion seemed to have\nentered into their spinal joints; and now that they had come to\na halt, their heads continued to wag forward and back as they\ncontemplated the haze of smoke spread, like a blue scarf over the\ntown, and the one long slate roof that rose from it as if to meet\nthem. At length the old woman spoke, and with some viciousness, though\nher face remained as blank as the Workhouse door.\n\n\"The next time I go back up this hill, if ever I do, I'll be carried\nup feet first.\"\n\n\"Maria,\" said her husband, feebly reproachful, \"you tempt the Lord,\nthat you do.\"\n\n\"Thank 'ee, Farmer Lear,\" she went on, paying no heed; \"you shall\nhelp us down, if you've a mind to, an' drive on. We'll make shift to\ntrickly 'way down so far as the gate; for I'd be main vexed if anybody\nthat had known me in life should see us creep in. Come along, Jan.\"\n\nFarmer Lear alighted, and helped them out carefully. He was a clumsy\nman, but did his best to handle them gently. When they were set on\ntheir feet, side by side on the high road, he climbed back, and fell\nto arranging the reins, while he cast about for something to say.\n\n\"Well, folks, I s'pose I must be wishing 'ee good-bye.\" He meant\nto speak cheerfully, but over-acted, and was hilarious instead.\nRecognising this, he blushed.\n\n\"We'll meet in heaven, I daresay,\" the woman answered. \"I put\nthe door-key, as you saw, under the empty geranium-pot 'pon the\nwindow-ledge; an' whoever the new tenant's wife may be, she can eat\noff the floor if she's minded. Now drive along, that's a good soul,\nand leave us to fend for ourselves.\"\n\nThey watched him out of sight before either stirred. The last decisive\nstep, the step across the Workhouse threshold, must be taken with none\nto witness. If they could not pass out of their small world by the\nmore reputable mode of dying, they would at least depart with this\namount of mystery. They had left the village in Farmer Lear's cart,\nand Farmer Lear had left them in the high road; and after that,\nnothing should be known.\n\n\"Shall we be moving on?\" Jan asked at length. There was a gate beside\nthe road just there, with a small triangle of green before it, and\na granite roller half-buried in dock-leaves. Without answering, the\nwoman seated herself on this, and pulling a handful of the leaves,\ndusted her shoes and skirt.\n\n\"Maria, you'll take a chill that'll carry you off, sitting 'pon that\ncold stone.\"\n\n\"I don't care. 'Twon't carry me off afore I get inside, an' I'm going\nin decent, or not at all. Come here, an' let me tittivate you.\"\n\nHe sat down beside her, and submitted to be dusted.\n\n\"You'd as lief lower me as not in their eyes, I verily believe.\"\n\n\"I always was one to gather dust.\"\n\n\"An' a fresh spot o' bacon-fat 'pon your weskit, that I've kept the\nmoths from since goodness knows when!\"\n\nOld Jan looked down over his waistcoat. It was of good\n\"West-of-England broadcloth, and he had worn it on the day when he\nmarried the woman at his side.\n\n\"I'm thinking--\" he began.\n\n\"Hey?\"\n\n\"I'm thinking I'll find it hard to make friends in--in there. 'Tis\nsuch a pity, to my thinking, that by reggilations we'll be parted so\nsoon as we get inside. You've a-got so used to my little ways\nan' corners, an' we've a-got so many little secrets together an'\nold-fash'ned odds an' ends o' knowledge, that you can take my meaning\nalmost afore I start to speak. An' that's a great comfort to a man o'\nmy age. It'll be terrible hard, when I wants to talk, to begin at the\nbeginning every time. There's that old yarn o' mine about Hambly's cow\nan' the lawn-mowing machine--I doubt that anybody 'll enjoy it so\nmuch as you always do; an' I've so got out o' the way o' telling the\nbeginning--which bain't extra funny, though needful to a stranger's\nunderstanding the whole joke--that I 'most forgets how it goes.\"\n\n\"We'll see one another now an' then, they tell me. The sexes meet for\nChris'mas-trees an' such-like.\"\n\n\"I'm jealous that 'twon't be the same. You can't hold your triflin'\nconfabs with a great Chris'mas-tree blazin' away in your face as\nimportant as a town afire.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm going to start along,\" the old woman decided, getting on\nher feet; \"or else someone 'll be driving by and seeing us.\"\n\nJan, too, stood up.\n\n\"We may so well make our congees here,\" she went on, \"as under the\nporter's nose.\"\n\nAn awkward silence fell between them for a minute, and these two old\ncreatures, who for more than fifty years had felt no constraint in\neach other's presence, now looked into each other's eyes with a\nfearful diffidence. Jan cleared his throat, much as if he had to make\na public speech.\n\n\"Maria,\" he began in an unnatural voice, \"we're bound for to part, and\nI can trewly swear, on leaving ye, that--\"\n\n\"--that for two-score year and twelve It's never entered your head to\nconsider whether I've made 'ee a good wife or a bad. Kiss me, my old\nman; for I tell 'ee I wouldn' ha' wished it other. An' thank 'ee for\ntrying to make that speech. What did it feel like?\"\n\n\"Why, 't rather reminded me o' the time when I offered 'ee marriage.\"\n\n\"It reminded me o' that, too. Com'st along.\"\n\nThey tottered down the hill towards the Workhouse gate. When they were\nbut ten yards from it, however, they heard the sound of wheels on\nthe road behind them, and walked bravely past, pretending to have no\nbusiness at that portal. They had descended a good thirty yards\nbeyond (such haste was put into them by dread of having their purpose\nguessed) before the vehicle overtook them--a four-wheeled dog-cart\ncarrying a commercial traveller, who pulled up and offered them a lift\ninto the town.\n\nThey declined.\n\nThen, as soon as he passed out of sight, they turned, and began\npainfully to climb back towards the gate. Of the two, the woman had\nshown the less emotion. But all the way her lips were at work, and as\nshe went she was praying a prayer. It was the only one she used night\nand morning, and she had never changed a word since she learned it as\na chit of a child. Down to her seventieth year she had never found it\nabsurd to beseech God to make her \"a good girl\"; nor did she find it\nso as the Workhouse gate opened, and she began a new life.\n\n\n\n\nCUCKOO VALLEY RAILWAY\n\n\nThis century was still young and ardent when ruin fell upon Cuckoo\nValley. Its head rested on the slope of a high and sombre moorland,\nscattered with granite and china-clay; and by the small town of\nPonteglos, where it widened out into arable and grey pasture-land, the\nCuckoo river grew deep enough to float up vessels of small tonnage\nfrom the coast at the spring tides. I have seen there the boom of\na trading schooner brush the grasses on the river-bank as she came\nbefore a southerly wind, and the haymakers stop and almost crick their\nnecks staring up at her top-sails. But between the moors and Ponteglos\nthe valley wound for fourteen miles or so between secular woods, so\nsteeply converging that for the most part no more room was left at the\nbottom of the V than the river itself filled. The fisherman beside it\ntrampled on pimpernels, sundew, watermint, and asphodels, or pushed\nbetween clumps of _Osmunda regalis_ that overtopped him by a couple of\nfeet. If he took to wading, there was much ado to stand against the\ncurrent. Only here and there it spread into a still black pool,\ngreased with eddies; and beside such a pool, it was odds that he found\na diminutive meadow, green and flat as a billiard-table, and edged\nwith clumps of fern. To think of Cuckoo Valley is to call up the smell\nof that fern as it wrapped at the bottom of the creel the day's catch\nof salmon-peal and trout.\n\nThe town of Tregarrick (which possessed a gaol, a workhouse, and a\nlunatic asylum, and called itself the centre of the Duchy) stood\nthree miles back from the lip of this happy valley, whither on summer\nevenings its burghers rambled to eat cream and junket at the Dairy\nFarm by the river bank, and afterwards sit to watch the fish rise,\nwhile the youngsters and maidens played hide-and-seek in the woods.\nBut there came a day when the names of Watt and Stephenson waxed great\nin the land, and these slow citizens caught the railway frenzy.\nThey took it, however, in their own fashion. They never dreamed of\nconnecting themselves with other towns and a larger world, but of\naggrandisement by means of a railway that should run from Tregarrick\nto nowhere in particular, and bring the intervening wealth to their\ndoors. They planned a railway that should join Tregarrick with Cuckoo\nValley, and there divide into two branches, the one bringing ore and\nclay from the moors, the other fetching up sand and coal from the sea.\nSurveyors and engineers descended upon the woods; then a cloud of\nnavvies. The days were filled with the crash of falling timber and the\nrush of emptied trucks. The stream was polluted, the fish died, the\nfairies were evicted from their rings beneath the oak, the morals of\nthe junketing houses underwent change. The vale knew itself no longer;\nits smoke went up week by week with the noise of pick-axes and oaths.\n\nOn August 13th, 1834, the Mayor of Tregarrick declared the new line\nopen, and a locomotive was run along its rails to Dunford Bridge, at\nthe foot of the moors. The engine was christened _The Wonder of the\nAge_; and I have before me a handbill of the festivities of that proud\nday, which tells me that the mayor himself rode in an open truck,\n\"embellished with Union Jacks, lions and unicorns, and other loyal\ndevices.\" And then Nature settled down to heal her wounds, and the\nCuckoo Yalley Railway to pay no dividend to its promoters.\n\nIt is now two years and more since, on an August day, I wound up my\nline by Dunford Bridge, and sauntered towards the Light Horseman Inn,\ntwo gunshots up the road. The time was four o'clock, or thereabouts,\nand a young couple sat on a bench by the inn-door, drinking cocoa out\nof one cup. Above their heads and along the house-front a vine-tree\nstraggled, but its foliage was too thin to afford a speck of shade as\nthey sat there in the eye of the westering sun. The man (aged about\none-and-twenty) wore the uncomfortable Sunday-best of a mechanic,\nwith a shrivelled, but still enormous, bunch of Sweet-William in his\nbuttonhole. The girl was dressed in a bright green gown and a white\nbonnet. Both were flushed and perspiring, and I still think they must\nhave ordered hot cocoa in haste, and were repenting it at leisure.\nThey lifted their eyes and blushed with a yet warmer red as I passed\ninto the porch.\n\nTwo men were seated in the cool tap-room, each with a pasty and a mug\nof beer. A composition of sweat and coal-dust had caked their faces,\nand so deftly smoothed all distinction out of their features that\nit seemed at the moment natural and proper to take them for twins.\nPerhaps this was an error: perhaps, too, their appearance of extreme\nage was produced by the dark grey dust that overlaid so much of them\nas showed above the table. As twins, however, I remember them, and\ncannot shake off the impression that they had remained twins for an\nunusual number of years.\n\nOne addressed me. \"Parties outside pretty comfortable?\" he asked.\n\n\"They were drinking out of the same cup,\" I answered.\n\nHe nodded. \"Made man and wife this mornin'. I don't fairly know\nwhat's best to do. Lord knows I wouldn' hurry their soft looks and\ndilly-dallyin'; but did 'ee notice how much beverage was left in the\ncup?\"\n\n\"They was mated at Tregarrick, half-after-nine this mornin',\" observed\nthe other twin, pulling out a great watch, \"and we brought 'em\ndown here in a truck for their honeymoon. The agreement was for an\nafternoon in the woods; but by crum! sir, they've sat there and held\none another's hand for up'ards of an hour after the stated time to\nstart. And we ha'nt the heart to tell 'em so.\"\n\nHe walked across to the window and peered over the blind.\n\n\"There's a mort of grounds in the cocoa that's sold here,\" he went\non, after a look, \"and 'tisn't the sort that does the stomach good,\nneither. For their own sakes, I'll give the word to start, and chance\ntheir thankin' me some day later when they learn what things be made\nof.\"\n\nThe other twin arose, shook the crumbs off his trousers, and stretched\nhimself. I guessed now that this newly-married pair had delayed\ntraffic at the Dunford terminus of the Cuckoo Valley Railway for\nalmost an hour and a half; and I determined to travel into Tregarrick\nby the same train.\n\nSo we strolled out of the inn towards the line, the lovers following,\narm-in-arm, some fifty paces behind.\n\n\"How far is it to the station?\" I inquired.\n\nThe twins stared at me.\n\nPresently we turned down a lane scored with dry ruts, passed an oak\nplantation, and came on a clearing where the train stood ready. The\nline did not finish: it ended in a heap of sand. There were eight\ntrucks, seven of them laden with granite, and an engine, with a\nprodigiously long funnel, bearing the name _The Wonder of the Age_ in\nbrass letters along its boiler.\n\n\"Now,\" said one of the twins, while the other raked up the furnace,\n\"you can ride in the empty truck with the lovers, or on the engine\nalong with us--which you like.\"\n\nI chose the engine. We climbed on board, gave a loud whistle, and\njolted oil. Far down, on our right, the river shone between the\ntrees, and these trees, encroaching on the track, almost joined their\nbranches above us. Ahead, the moss that grew upon the sleepers gave\nthe line the appearance of a green glade, and the grasses, starred\nwith golden-rod and mallow, grew tall to the very edge of the rails.\nIt seemed that in a few more years Nature would cover this scar\nof 1834, and score the return match against man. Hails, engine,\nofficials, were already no better than ghosts: youth, and progress lay\nin the pushing trees, the salmon leaping against the dam below, the\nyoung man and maid sitting with clasped hands and amatory looks in the\nhindmost truck.\n\nAt the end of three miles or so we gave an alarming whistle, and\nslowed down a bit. The trees were thinner here, and I saw that a\nhigh-road came down the hill, and cut across our track some fifty\nyards ahead. We prepared to cross it cautiously.\n\n\"Ho-o-oy! Stop!\"\n\nThe brake was applied, and as we came to a standstill a party of men\nand women descended the hill towards us.\n\n\"'Tis Susan Warne's seventh goin' to be christen'd, by the look of\nit,\" said the engine-driver beside me; \"an', by crum! we've got the\nKimbly.\"\n\nThe procession advanced. In the midst walked a stout woman, carrying a\nbaby in long clothes, and in front a man bearing in both hands a plate\ncovered with a white cloth. He stepped up beside the train, and,\nalmost before I had time to be astonished, a large yellow cake was\nthrust into my hands. Engine-driver and stoker were also presented\nwith a cake apiece, and then the newly-married pair, who took and ate\nwith some shyness and giggling.\n\n\"Is it a boy or a girl?\" asked the stoker, with his mouth full.\n\n\"A boy,\" the man answered; \"and I count it good luck that you men of\nmodern ways should be the first we meet on our way to church. The\nchild 'll be a go-ahead if there's truth in omens.\"\n\n\"You're right, naybour. We're the speediest men in this part of the\nuniverse, I d' believe. Here's luck to 'ee, Susan Warne!\" he piped\nout, addressing one of the women; \"an' if you want a name for your\nseventh, you may christen 'en after the engine here, the _Wonder of\nthe Age_.\"\n\nWe waved our hats and jolted off again towards Tregarrick. At the\nend of the journey the railway officials declined to charge for\nthe pleasure of my company. But after some dispute, they agreed to\ncompromise by adjourning to the Railway Inn, and drinking prosperity\nto Susan Warne's seventh.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONSPIRACY ABOARD THE _MIDAS_.\n\n\n\"Are you going home to England? So am I. I'm Johnny; and I've never\nbeen to England before, but I know all about it. There's great palaces\nof gold and ivory--that's for the lords and bishops--and there's\nWindsor Castle, the biggest of all, carved out of a single\ndiamond--that's for the queen. And she's the most beautiful lady in\nthe whole world, and feeds her peacocks and birds of paradise out of\na ruby cup. And there the sun is always shining, so that nobody wants\nany candles. O, words would fail me if I endeavoured to convey to you\none-half of the splendours of that enchanted realm!\"\n\nThis last sentence tumbled so oddly from the childish lips, that I\ncould not hide a smile as I looked down on my visitor. He stood just\noutside my cabin-door--a small serious boy of about eight, with long\nflaxen curls hardly dry from his morning bath. In the pauses of\nconversation he rubbed his head with a big bath-towel. His legs\nand feet were bare, and he wore only a little shirt and velveteen\nbreeches, with scarlet ribbons hanging untied at the knees.\n\n\"You're laughing!\"\n\nI stifled the smile.\n\n\"What were you laughing at?\"\n\n\"Why, you're wrong, little man, on just one or two points,\" I answered\nevasively.\n\n\"Which?\"\n\n\"Well, about the sunshine in England. The sun is not always shining\nthere, by any means.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid you know very little about it,\" said the boy, shaking his\nhead.\n\n\"Johnny! Johnny!\" a voice called down the companion-ladder at this\nmoment. It was followed by a thin, weary-looking man, dressed in\ncarpet slippers and a suit of seedy black. I guessed his age at fifty,\nbut suspect now that the lines about his somewhat prim mouth were\ntraced there by sorrows rather than by years. He bowed to me shyly,\nand addressed the boy.\n\n\"Johnny, what are you doing here? in bare feet!\"\n\n\"Father, here is a man who says the sun doesn't always shine in\nEngland.\"\n\nThe man gave me a fleeting embarrassed glance, and echoed, as if to\nshirk answering--\n\n\"In bare feet!\"\n\n\"But it does, doesn't it? Tell him that it does,\" the child insisted.\n\nDriven thus into a corner, the father turned his profile, avoiding my\neyes, and said dully--\n\n\"The sun is always shining in England.\"\n\n\"Go on, father; tell him the rest.\"\n\n\"--and the use of candles, except as a luxury, is consequently unknown\nto the denizens of that favoured clime,\" he wound up, in the tone of a\nman who repeats an old, old lecture.\n\nJohnny was turning to me triumphantly, when his father caught him by\nthe hand and led him back to his dressing. The movement was hasty,\nalmost rough. I stood at the cabin-door and looked after them.\n\nWe were fellow-passengers aboard the _Midas_, a merchant barque of\nnear on a thousand tons, homeward bound from Cape Town; and we had\nlost sight of the Table Mountain but a couple of days before. It was\nthe first week of the new year, and all day long a fiery sun made life\nbelow deck insupportable. Nevertheless, though we three were the only\npassengers on board, and lived constantly in sight of each other, it\nwas many days before I made any further acquaintance with Johnny and\nhis father. The sad-faced man clearly desired to avoid me, answering\nmy nod with a cold embarrassment, and clutching Johnny's hand whenever\nthe child called \"Good-morning!\" to me cordially. I fancied him\nashamed of his foolish falsehood; and I, on my side, was angry because\nof it. The pair were for ever strolling backwards and forwards on\ndeck, or resting beneath the awning on the poop, and talking--always\ntalking. I fancied the boy was delicate; he certainly had a bad cough\nduring the first few days. But this went away as our voyage proceeded,\nand his colour was rich and rosy.\n\nOne afternoon I caught a fragment of their talk as they passed, Johnny\nbrightly dressed and smiling, his father looking even more shabby and\nweary than usual. The man was speaking.\n\n\"And Queen Victoria rides once a year through the streets of London on\nher milk-white courser, to hear the nightingales sing in the Tower.\nFor when she came to the throne the Tower was full of prisoners, but\nwith a stroke of her sceptre she changed them all into song-birds.\nEvery year she releases fifty; and that is why they sing so\nrapturously, because each one hopes his turn has come at last.\"\n\nI turned away. It was unconscionable to cram the child's mind\nwith these preposterous fables. I pictured the poor little chap's\ndisappointment when the bleak reality came to stare him in the face.\nTo my mind, his father was worse than an idiot, and I could hardly\nbring myself to greet him next morning, when we met.\n\nMy disgust did not seem to trouble him. In a timid way, even, his eyes\nexpressed satisfaction. For a week or two I let him alone, and then\nwas forced to speak.\n\nIt happened in this way. We had spun merrily along the tail of the\nS.E. trades and glided slowly to a standstill on a glassy ocean, and\nbeneath a sun that at noon left us shadowless. A fluke or two of wind\nhad helped us across the line; but now, in 2\u00b0 27' north latitude, the\n_Midas_ slept like a turtle on the greasy sea. The heat of the near\nAfrican coast seemed to beat like steam against our faces. The pitch\nbubbled like caviare in the seams of the white deck, and the shrouds\nand ratlines ran with tears of tar. To touch the brass rail of the\npoop was to blister the hand, to catch a whiff from the cook's galley\nwas to feel sick for ten minutes. The hens in their coops lay with\neyes glazed and gasped for air. If you hung forward over the bulwarks\nyou stared down into your own face. The sailors grumbled and cursed\nand panted as they huddled forward under a second awning that was\nrigged up to give them shade rather than coolness; for coolness was\nnot to be had.\n\nOn the second afternoon of the calm I happened to pass this awning,\nand glanced in. Pretty well all the men were there, lounging, with\nshirts open and chests streaming with sweat; and in their midst on a\nbarrel, sat Johnny, with a flushed face.\n\nThe boatswain--Gibbings by name--was speaking. I heard him say--\"An'\nthe Lord Mayor 'll be down to meet us, sonny, at the docks, wi' his\nfive-an'-fifty black boys all ablowin' blowin' Hallelujarum on their\nsilver key-bugles. An' we'll be took in tow to the Mansh'n 'Ouse an'\nfed--\" here he broke off and passed the back of his hand across his\nmouth, with a glance at the ship's cook, who had been driven from his\ngalley by the heat. But the cook had no suggestions to make. His soul\nwas still sick with the reek of the boiled pork and pease pudding he\nhad cooked two hours before under a torrid and vertical sun.\n\n\"We'll put it at hokey-pokey, nothin' a lump, if you _don't_ mind,\nsonny,\" the boatswain went on; \"in a nice airy parlour painted white,\nwith a gilt chandelier an' gilt combings to the wainscot.\" His picture\nof the Mansion House as he proceeded was drawn from his reading in\nthe Book of Revelations and his own recollections of Thames-side\ngin-palaces and the saloons of passenger steamers, and gave the\nimpression of a virtuous gambling-hell. The whole crew listened\nadmiringly, and it seemed they were all in the stupid conspiracy. I\nresolved, for Johnny's sake, to protest, and that very evening drew\nGibbings aside and expostulated with him.\n\n\"Why,\" I asked, \"lay up this cruel, this certain disappointment for\nthe little chap? Why yarn to him as if he were bound for the New\nJerusalem?\"\n\nThe boatswain stared at me point-blank, at first incredulously, then\nwith something like pity.\n\n\"Why, sir, don't you know? Can't you see for yoursel'? It's because\nhe _is_ bound for the New Jeroosalem; because--bless his tender\nsoul!--that's all the land he'll ever touch.\"\n\n\"Good Lord!\" I cried. \"Nonsense! His cough's better; and look at his\ncheeks.\"\n\n\"Ay--we knows that colour on this line. His cough's better, you say;\nand I say this weather's killing him. You just wait for the nor'-east\ntrades.\"\n\nI left Gibbings, and after pacing up and down the deck a few times,\nstepped to the bulwarks, where a dark figure was leaning and gazing\nout over the black waters. Johnny was in bed; and a great shame swept\nover me as I noted the appealing wretchedness of this lonely form.\n\nI stepped up and touched him softly on the arm.\n\n\"Sir, I am come to beg your forgiveness.\"\n\nNext morning I joined the conspiracy.\n\nAfter his father, I became Johnny's most constant companion. \"Father\ndisliked you at first,\" was the child's frank comment; \"he said you\ntold fibs, but now he wants us to be friends.\" And we were excellent\nfriends. I lied from morning to night--lied glibly, grandly.\nSometimes, indeed, as I lay awake in my berth, a horror took me lest\nthe springs of my imagination should run dry. But they never did. As a\nliar, I out-classed every man on board.\n\nBut by-and-bye, as we caught the first draught of the trades, the boy\nbegan to punctuate my fables with that hateful cough. This went on for\na week; and one day, in the midst of our short stroll, his legs gave\nway under him. As I caught him in my arms, he looked up with a smile.\n\n\"I'm very weak, you know. But it'll be all right when I get to\nEngland.\"\n\nBut it was not till we had passed well beyond the equatorial belt that\nJohnny grew visibly worse. In a week he had to lie still on his couch\nbeneath the awning, and the patter of his feet ceased on the deck. The\ncaptain, who was a bit of a doctor, said to me one day--\n\n\"He will never live to see England.\"\n\nBut he did.\n\nIt was a soft spring afternoon when the _Midas_ sighted the Lizard,\nand Johnny was still with us, lying on his couch, though almost too\nweak to move a limb. As the day wore on we lifted him once or twice to\nlook.\n\n\"Can you see them quite plain?\" he asked; \"and the precious stones\nhanging on the trees? And the palaces--and the white elephants?\"\n\nI stared through my glass at the serpentine rocks and white-washed\nlighthouse above them, all powdered with bronze and gold by the\nsinking sun, and answered--\n\n\"Yes, they are all there.\"\n\nAll that afternoon we were beside him, looking out and peopling the\nshores of home with all manner of vain shows and pageants; and when\none man broke down another took his place.\n\nAs the sun fell, and twilight drew on, the bright revolving lights on\nthe two towers suddenly flashed out their greeting. We were about to\ncarry the child below, for the air was chilly; but he saw the flash,\nand held up a feeble hand.\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"Those two lights,\" I answered, telling my final lie, \"are the\nlanterns of Cormelian and Cormoran, the two Cornish giants. They'll\nbe standing on the shore to welcome us. See--each swings his lantern\nround, and then for a moment it is dark; now wait a moment, and you'll\nsee the light again.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the child, with a smile and a little sigh, \"it is good to\nbe--home!\"\n\nAnd with that word on his lips, as he waited for the next flash,\nJohnny stretched himself and died.\n\n\n\n\nLEGENDS OF ST. PIRAN.\n\n\nI.--SAINT PIRAN AND THE MILLSTONE.\n\nShould you visit the Blackmore tin-streamers on their feast-day, which\nfalls on Friday-in-Lide (that is to say, the first Friday in March),\nyou may note a truly Celtic ceremony. On that day the tinners pick out\nthe sleepiest boy in the neighbourhood and send him up to the highest\n_bound_ in the works, with instructions to sleep there as long as he\ncan. And by immemorial usage the length of his nap will be the measure\nof the tinners' afternoon siesta for twelve months to come.\n\nNow, this first week in March is St. Piran's week: and St. Piran is\nthe miners' saint. To him the Cornishmen owe not only their tin, which\nhe discovered on the spot, but also their divine laziness, which he\nbrought across from Ireland and naturalised here. And I learned his\nstory one day from an old miner, as we ate our bread and cheese\ntogether on the floor of Wheal Tregobbin, while the Davy lamp between\nus made wavering giants of our shadows on the walls of the adit, and\nthe sea moaned as it tossed on its bed, two hundred feet above.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSt. Piran was a little round man; and in the beginning he dwelt on\nthe north coast of Ireland, in a leafy mill, past which a stream came\ntumbling down to the sea. After turning the saint's mill-wheel, the\nstream dived over a fall into the Lough below, and the _lul-ul-ur-r-r_\nof the water-wheel and fall was a sleepy music in the saint's ear noon\nand night.\n\nIt must not be imagined that the mill-wheel ground anything. No; it\nwent round merely for the sake of its music. For all St. Piran's\nbusiness was the study of objects that presented themselves to his\nnotice, or, as he called it, the \"Rapture av Contemplation\"; and as\nfor his livelihood, he earned it in the simplest way. The waters of\nthe Lough below possessed a peculiar virtue. You had only to sink a\nlog or stick therein, and in fifty years' time that log or stick would\nbe turned to stone. St. Piran was as quick as you are to divine the\npossibilities of easy competence offered by this spot. He took time by\nthe forelock, and in half a century was fairly started in business.\nHenceforward he passed all his days among the rocks above the fall,\nwhistling to himself while he whittled bits of cork and wood into\nquaint shapes, attached them to string, weighted them with pebbles,\nand lowered them over the fall into the Lough--whence, after\nfifty years he would draw them forth, and sell them to the simple\nsurrounding peasantry at two hundred and fifty _per centum per annum_\non the initial cost.\n\nIt was a tranquil, lucrative employment, and had he stuck to the\nRapture of Contemplation, he might have ended his days by the fall.\nBut in an unlucky hour he undertook to feed ten Irish kings and their\narmies for three weeks anend on three cows. Even so he might have\nescaped, had he only failed. Alas! As it was, the ten kings had no\nsooner signed peace and drunk together than they marched up to St.\nPiran's door, and began to hold an Indignation Meeting.\n\n\"What's ailing wid ye, then?\" asked the saint, poking his head out at\nthe door; \"out wid ut! Did I not stuff ye wid cow-mate galore when the\nland was as nakud as me tonshure? But 'twas three cows an' a miracle\nwasted, I'm thinkin'.\"\n\n\"Faith, an' ye've said ut!\" answered one of the kings. \"Three cows\nbetween tin Oirish kings! 'Tis insultin'! Arrah, now, make it foive,\nSt. Piran darlint!\"\n\n\"Now may they make your stummucks ache for that word, ye marautherin'\nthieves av the world!\"\n\nAnd St. Piran slammed the door in their faces.\n\nBut these kings were Ulstermen, and took things seriously. So they\nwent off and stirred up the people: and the end was that one sunshiny\nmorning a dirty rabble marched up to the mill and laid hands on the\nsaint. On what charge, do you think? Why, for _Being without Visible\nMeans of Support!_\n\n\"There's me pethrifyin' spicimins!\" cried the saint: and he tugged at\none of the ropes that stretched down into the Lough.\n\n\"Indade!\" answered one of the ten kings: \"Bad luck to your spicimins!\"\nsays he.\n\n\"Fwhat's that ye're tuggin.' at?\" asks a bystander.\n\n\"Now the Holy Mother presarve your eyesight, Tim Coolin,\" answers St.\nPiran, pulling it in, \"if ye can't tell a plain millstone at foive\npaces! I never asked ye to see _through_ ut,\" he added, with a\ntwinkle, for Tim had a plentiful lack of brains, and that the company\nknew.\n\nSure enough it was a millstone, and a very neat one; and the saint,\nhaving raised a bit of a laugh, went on like a cheap-jack:\n\n\"Av there's any gintleman prisunt wid an eye for millstones, I'll\nthrouble him to turn ut here. Me own make,\" says he, \"jooled in wan\nhole, an' dog-chape at fifteen shillin'--\"\n\nHe was rattling away in this style when somebody called out, \"To think\nav a millstone bein' a visible means av support!\" And this time the\nlaugh turned against the saint.\n\n\"St. Piran dear, ye've got to die,\" says the spokesman.\n\n\"Musha, musha!\"--and the saint set up a wail and wrung his hands. \"An'\nhow's it goin' to be?\" he asked, breaking off; \"an' if 'tis by Shamus\nO'Neil's blunderbust that he's fumblin' yondther, will I stand afore\nor ahint ut? for 'tis fatal both ends, I'm thinkin', like Barney\nSullivan's mule. Wirra, wirra! May our souls find mercy, Shamus\nO'Neil, for we'll both, be wantin' ut this day. Better for you,\nShamus, that this millstone was hung round your black neck, an' you\ndrownin' in the dept's av the Lough!\"\n\nThe words were not spoken before they all set up a shout. \"The\nmillstone! the millstone!\" \"Sthrap him to ut!\" \"He's named his\ndeath!\"--and inside of three minutes there was the saint, strapped\ndown on his own _specimen_.\n\n\"Wirra, wirra!\" he cried, and begged for mercy; but they raised a\ndevastating shindy, and gave the stone a trundle. Down the turf it\nrolled and rolled, and then _whoo!_ leaped over the edge of the fall\ninto space and down--down--till it smote the waters far below, and\nknocked a mighty hole in them, and went under--\n\nFor three seconds only. The next thing that the rabble saw as they\ncraned over the cliff was St. Piran floating quietly out to sea on the\nmillstone, for all the world as if on a life-belt, and untying his\nbonds to use for a fishing-line! You see, this millstone had been made\nof cork originally, and was only half petrified; and the old boy had\njust beguiled them. When he had finished undoing the cords, he stood\nup and bowed to them all very politely.\n\n\"Visible Manes av Support, me childher--merely Visible Manes av\nSupport!\" he called back.\n\n'Twas a sunshiny day, and while St. Piran chuckled the sea twinkled\nall over with the jest. As for the crowd on the cliff, it looked\nfor five minutes as if the saint had petrified them harder than the\nmillstone. Then, as Tim Coolin told his wife, Mary Dogherty, that same\nevening, they dispersed promiscuously in groups of one each.\n\nMeanwhile, the tides were bearing St. Piran and his millstone out into\nthe Atlantic, and he whiffed for mackerel all the way. And on the\nmorrow a stiff breeze sprang up and blew him sou'-sou-west until he\nspied land; and so he stepped ashore on the Cornish coast.\n\nIn Cornwall he lived many years till he died: and to this day there\nare three places named after him--Perranaworthal, Perranuthno and\nPerranzabuloe. But it was in the last named that he took most delight,\nbecause at Perranzabuloe (Perochia Sti. Pirani in Sabulo) there was\nnothing but sand to distract him from the Study of Objects that\nPresented Themselves to his Notice: for he had given up miracles. So\nhe sat on the sands and taught the Cornish people how to be idle. Also\nhe discovered tin for them; but that was an accident.\n\n\nII.--SAINT PIRAN AND THE VISITATION.\n\nA full fifty years had St. Piran dwelt among the sandhills between\nPerranzabuloe and the sea before any big rush of saints began to pour\ninto Cornwall: for 'twas not till the old man had discovered tin for\nus that they sprang up thick as blackberries all over the county; so\nthat in a way St. Piran had only himself to blame when his idle ways\ngrew to be a scandal by comparison with the push and bustle of the\nnewcomers.\n\nNever a notion had he that, from Rome to Land's End, all his holy\nbrethren were holding up their hands over his case. He sat in his\ncottage above the sands at Perranzabuloe and dozed to the hum of the\nbreakers, in charity with all his parishioners, to whom his money\nwas large as the salt wind; for his sleeping partnership in the\ntin-streaming business brought him a tidy income. And the folk knew\nthat if ever they wanted religion, they had only to knock and ask for\nit.\n\nBut one fine morning, an hour before noon, the whole parish sprang to\nits feet at the sound of a horn. The blast was twice repeated, and\ncame from the little cottage across the sands.\n\n\"'Tis the blessed saint's cow-horn!\" they told each other. \"Sure the\ndear man must be in the article of death!\" And they hurried off to the\ncottage, man, woman, and child: for 'twas thirty years at least since\nthe horn had last been sounded.\n\nThey pushed open the door, and there sat St. Piran in his arm-chair,\nlooking good for another twenty years, but considerably flustered. His\ncheeks were red, and his fingers clutched the cow-horn nervously.\n\n\"Andrew Penhaligon,\" said he to the first man that entered, \"go you\nout and ring the church bell.\"\n\nOff ran Andrew Penhaligon. \"But, blessed father of us,\" said one or\ntwo, \"we're all _here_! There's no call to ring the church bell, seem'\nyou're neither dead nor afire, blessamercy!\"\n\n\"Oh, if you're all here, that alters the case; for 'tis only a\nproclamation I have to give out at present. To-morrow mornin'--Glory\nbe to God!--I give warnin' that Divine service will take place in the\nparish church.\"\n\n\"You're sartin you bain't feelin' poorly, St. Piran dear?\" asked one\nof the women.\n\n\"Thank you, Tidy Mennear, I'm enjoyin' health. But, as I was sayin',\nthe parish church 'll be needed to-morrow, an' so you'd best set to\nand clean out the edifice: for I'm thinkin',\" he added, \"it'll be\nneedin' that.\"\n\n\"To be sure, St. Piran dear, we'll humour ye.\"\n\n\"'Tisn' that at all,\" the saint answered; \"but I've had a vision.\"\n\n\"Don't you often?\"\n\n\"H'm! but this was a peculiar vision; or maybe a bit of a birdeen\nwhispered it into my ear. Anyway, 'twas revealed to me just now in a\ndream that I stood on the lawn at Bodmin Priory, and peeped in at the\nPriory window. An' there in the long hall sat all the saints together\nat a big table covered with red baize and plotted against us. There\nwas St. Petroc in the chair, with St. Guron by his side, an' St. Neot,\nSt. Udy, St. Teath, St. Keverne, St. Wen, St. Probus, St. Enodar, St.\nJust, St. Fimbarrus, St. Clether, St. Germoe, St. Veryan, St. Winnock,\nSt. Minver, St. Anthony, with the virgins Grace, and Sinara, and\nIva--the whole passel of 'em. An' they were agreein' there was no\nholiness left in this parish of mine; an' speakin' shame of me, my\nchilder--of me, that have banked your consciences these fifty years,\nand always been able to pay on demand: the more by token that I kept a\nbig reserve, an' you knew it. Answer me: when was there ever a panic\nin Perranzabuloe? ''Twas all very well,' said St. Neot, when his turn\ncame to speak, 'but this state o' things ought to be exposed.' He's\nas big as bull's beef, is St. Neot, ever since he worked that miracle\nover the fishes, an' reckons he can disparage an old man who was\nmakin' millstones to float when he was suckin' a coral. But the upshot\nis, they're goin' to pay us a Visitation to-morrow, by surprise. And,\nif only for the parish credit, we'll be even wid um, by dad!\"\n\nSt. Piran still lapsed into his native brogue when strongly excited.\n\nBut he had hardly done when Andrew Penhaligon came running in--\n\n\"St. Piran, honey, I've searched everywhere; an' be hanged to me if I\ncan find the church at all!\"\n\n\"Fwhat's become av ut?\" cried the saint, sitting up sharply.\n\n\"How should I know? But devil a trace can I see!\"\n\n\"Now, look here,\" St. Piran said; \"the church was there, right\nenough.\"\n\n\"That's a true word,\" spoke up an old man, \"for I mind it well. An\nelegant tower it had, an' a shingle roof.\"\n\n\"Spake up, now,\" said the saint, glaring around; \"fwich av ye's gone\nan' misbestowed me parush church? For I won't believe,\" he said, \"that\nit's any worse than carelussness--at laste, not yet-a-bit.\"\n\nSome remembered the church, and some did not: but the faces of all\nwere clear of guilt. They trooped out on the sands to search.\n\nNow, the sands by Perranzabuloe are for ever shifting and driving\nbefore the northerly and nor'-westerly gales; and in time had heaped\nthemselves up and covered the building out of sight. To guess this\ntook the saint less time than you can wink your eye in; but the bother\nwas that no one remembered exactly where the church, had stood, and as\nthere were two score at least of tall mounds along the shore, and all\nof pretty equal height, there was no knowing where to dig. To uncover\nthem all was a job to last till doomsday.\n\n\"Blur-an'-agurs, but it's ruined I am!\" cried St. Piran. \"An' the\nVisitashun no further away than to-morra at tin a.m.!\" He wrung his\nhands, then caught up a spade, and began digging like a madman.\n\nThey searched all day, and with lanterns all the night through: they\nsearched from Ligger Point to Porth Towan: but came on never a sign of\nthe missing church.\n\n\"If it only had a spire,\" one said, \"there'd be some chance.\" But as\nfar as could be recollected, the building had a dumpy tower.\n\n\"Once caught, twice shy,\" said another; \"let us find it this once, an'\nnext time we'll have landmarks to dig it out by.\"\n\nIt was at sunrise that St. Piran, worn-out and heart-sick, let fall\nhis spade and spoke from one of the tall mounds, where he had been\ndigging for an hour.\n\n\"My children,\" he began, and the men uncovered their heads, \"my\nchildren, we are going to be disgraced this day, and the best we can\ndo is to pray that we may take it like men. Let us pray.\"\n\nHe knelt down on the great sand-hill, and the men and women around\ndropped on their knees also. And then St. Piran put up the prayer that\nhas made his name famous all the world over.\n\n_THE PRAYER OF ST. PIRAN.\n\nHarr us, O Lord, and be debonair: for ours is a particular case. We\nare not like the men of St. Neot or the men of St. Udy, who are for\never importuning Thee upon the least occasion, praying at all hours\nand every day of the week. Thou knowest it is only with extreme\ncause that we bring ourselves to trouble Thee. Therefore regard our\nmoderation in time past, and be instant to help us now. Amen_.\n\nThere was silence for a full minute as he ceased; and then the\nkneeling parishioners lifted their eyes towards the top of the mound.\n\nSt. Piran was nowhere to be seen!\n\nThey stared into each other's faces. For a while not a sound was\nuttered. Then a woman began to sob--\n\n\"We've lost 'en! We've lost 'en!\"\n\n\"Like Enoch, he's been taken!\"\n\n\"Taken up in a chariot an' horses o' fire. Did any see 'en go?\"\n\n\"An' what'll we do without 'en? Holy St. Piran, come back to us!\"\n\n\"Hullo! hush a bit an' hearken!\" cried Andrew Penhaligon, lifting a\nhand.\n\nThey were silent, and listening as he commanded, heard a muffled voice\nand a faint, calling as it were from the bowels of the earth.\n\n\"Fetch a ladder!\" it said: \"fetch a ladder! It's meself that's found\nut, glory be to God! Holy queen av heaven! but me mouth is full av\nsand, an' it's burstin' I'll be if ye don't fetch a ladder quick!\"\n\nThey brought a ladder and set it against the mound. Three of the men\nclimbed up. At the top they found a big round hole, from the lip of\nwhich they scraped the sand away, discovering a patch of shingle roof,\nthrough which St. Piran--whose weight had increased of late--had\nbroken and tumbled heels over head into his own church.\n\nThree hours later there appeared on the eastern sky-line, against the\nyellow blaze of the morning, a large cavalcade that slowly pricked its\nway over the edge and descended the slopes of Newlyn Downs. It was the\nVisitation. In the midst rode St. Petroc, his crozier tucked under his\narm, astride a white mule with scarlet ear-tassels and bells and a\nsaddle of scarlet leather. He gazed across the sands to the sea, and\nturned to St. Neot, who towered at his side upon a flea-bitten grey.\n\n\"The parish seems to be deserted,\" said he: \"not a man nor woman can I\nsee, nor a trace of smoke above the chimneys.\"\n\nSt. Neot tightened his thin lips. In his secret heart he was mightily\npleased.\n\n\"Eight in the morning,\" he answered, with a glance back at the sun.\n\"They'll be all abed, I'll warrant you.\"\n\nSt. Petroc muttered a threat.\n\nThey entered the village street. Not a soul turned out at their\ncoming. Every cottage door was fast closed, nor could any amount of\nknocking elicit an answer or entice a face to a window. In gathering\nwrath the visiting saints rode along the sea-shore to St. Piran's\nsmall hut.\n\nHere the door stood open: but the hut was empty. A meagre breakfast of\nherbs was set out on the table, and a brand new scourge lay somewhat\nostentatiously beside the platter. The visitors stood nonplussed,\nlooked at each other, then eyed the landscape. Between barren sea\nand barren downs the beach stretched away, with not a human shape in\nsight. St. Petroc, choking with impotent wrath, appeared to study the\nhollow green breakers from between the long ears of his mule, but with\nquick sidelong glances right and left, ready to jump down the throat\nof the first saint that dared to smile.\n\nAfter a minute or so St. Enodar suddenly turned his face inland, and\nheld up a finger.\n\n\"Hark!\" he shouted above the roar of the sea.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"It sounds to me,\" said St. Petroc, after listening for some moments\nwith his head on one side, \"it sounds to me like a hymn.\"\n\n\"To be sure 'tis a hymn,\" said St. Enodar, \"and the tune is 'Mullyon,'\nfor a crown.\" And he pursed up his lips and followed the chant,\nbeating time with his forefinger--\n\n  _When, like a thief, the Midianite\n  Shall steal upon the camp,\n  O, let him find our armour bright,\n  And oil within our lamp!_\"\n\n\"But where in the world does it come from?\" asked St. Neot.\n\nThis could not be answered for the moment; but the saints turned their\nhorses' heads from the sea, and moved slowly on the track of the\nsound, which at every step grew louder and more distinct.\n\n  \"_It is at no appointed hours,\n  It is not by the dock,\n  That Satan, grisly wolf, devours\n  The unprotected flock_\"\n\nThe visitors found themselves at the foot of an enormous sand-hill,\nfrom the top of which the chant was pouring as lava from a crater.\nThey set their ears to the sandy wall. They walked round it, and\nlistened again.\n\n  \"_But ever prowls th' insidious foe,\n  And listens round the fold_\"\n\nThis was too much. St. Petroc smote twice upon the sand-hill with his\ncrozier, and shouted--\n\n\"Hi, there!\"\n\nThe chant ceased. For at least a couple of minutes nothing happened;\nand then St. Piran's bald head was thrust cautiously forward over the\nsummit.\n\n\"Holy St. Petroc! Was it only you, after all? And St. Neot--and St.\nUdy O, glory be!\"\n\n\"Why, who did you imagine we were?\" St. Petroc asked, still in\namazement.\n\n\"Why, throat-cutting Danes, to be sure, by the way you were comin'\nover the hills when we spied you, three hours back. An' the trouble\nwe've had to cover up our blessed church out o' sight of thim\nmarautherin' thieves! An' the intire parish gathered inside here an'\nsingin' good-by songs in expectation of imminent death! An' to think\n'twas you holy men, all the while! But why didn't ye send word ye was\ncomin', St. Petroc, darlint? For it's little but sand ye'll find in\nyour mouths for breakfast, I'm thinkin'.\"\n\n\n\n\nIN THE TRAIN.\n\n\nI.--PUNCH'S UNDERSTUDY.\n\nThe first-class smoking compartment was the emptiest in the whole\ntrain, and even this was hot to suffocation, because my only companion\ndenied me more than an inch of open window. His chest, he explained\ncurtly, was \"susceptible.\" As we crawled westward through the glaring\ncountry, the sun's rays reverberated on the carriage roof till I\nseemed to be crushed under an anvil, counting the strokes. I had\ndropped my book, and was staring listlessly out of the window. At the\nother end of the compartment my fellow-passenger had pulled down the\nblinds, and hidden his face behind the _Western Morning News_. He\nwas a red and choleric little man of about sixty, with a protuberant\nstomach, a prodigious nose, to which he carried snuff about once in\ntwo minutes, and a marked deformity of the shoulders. For comfort--and\nalso, perhaps, to hide this hump--he rested his back in the angle\nby the window. He wore a black alpaca coat, a high stock, white\nwaistcoat, and trousers of shepherd's plaid. On these and a few other\ntrivial details I built a lazy hypothesis that he was a lawyer, and\nunmarried.\n\nJust before entering the station at Lostwithiel, our train passed\nbetween the white gates of a level crossing. A moment before I had\ncaught sight of the George drooping from the church spire, and at the\ncrossing I saw it was regatta-day in the small town. The road was\nthick with people and lined with sweet-standings; and by the near end\nof the bridge a Punch-and-Judy show had just closed a performance. The\norchestra had unloosed his drum, and fallen to mopping the back of his\nneck with the red handkerchief that had previously bound the panpipes\nto his chin. A crowd still loitered around, and among it I noted\nseveral men and women in black--ugly stains upon the pervading\nsunshine.\n\nThe station platform was cram-full as we drew up, and it was clear at\nonce that all the carriages in the train would be besieged, without\nregard to class. By some chance, however, ours was neglected, and\nuntil the very last moment we seemed likely to escape. The guard's\nwhistle was between his lips when I heard a shout, then one or two\nfeminine screams, and a company of seven or eight persons came\ncharging out of the booking-office. Every one of them was apparelled\nin black: they were, in fact, the people I had seen gaping at the\nPunch-and-Judy show.\n\nIn a moment one of the men tore open the door of our compartment, and\nwe were invaded. One--two--four--six--seven--in they poured, tumbling\nover my legs, panting, giggling inanely, exhorting each other to\nhurry--an old man, two youths, three middle-aged women, and a little\ngirl about four years old. I heard a fierce guttural sound, and saw my\nfellow-passenger on his feet, choking with wrath and gesticulating.\nBut the guard slammed the door on his resentment, and the train moved\non. As it gathered speed he fell back, all purple above his stock,\nsnatched his malacca walking-cane from under the coat-tails of a\nsubsiding youth, stuck it upright between his knees, and glared round\nupon the intruders. They were still possessed with excitement over\ntheir narrow escape, and unconscious of offence. One of the women\ndropped into the corner seat, and took the little girl on her lap. The\nchild's dusty boots rubbed against the old gentleman's trousers. He\nshifted his position, grunted, and took snuff furiously.\n\n\"That was nibby-jibby,\" observed the old man of the party, while his\neyes wandered round for a seat.\n\n\"I declare I thought I should ha' died,\" panted a robust-looking woman\nwith a wart on her cheek, and a yard of crape hanging from her bonnet.\n\"Can't 'een find nowhere to sit, uncle?\"\n\n\"Reckon I must make shift 'pon your lap, Susannah.\"\n\nThis was said with a chuckle, and the woman tittered.\n\n\"What new-fang'd game be this o' the Great Western's? Arms to the\nseats, I vow. We'll have to sit intimate, my dears.\"\n\n\"'Tis First Class,\" one of the young men announced in a chastened\nwhisper: \"I saw it written on the door.\"\n\nThere was a short silence of awe.\n\n\"Well!\" ejaculated Susannah: \"I thought, when first I sat down, that\nthe cushions felt extraordinary plum. You don't think they'll fine\nus?\"\n\n\"It all comes of our stoppin' to gaze at that Punch-an'-Judy,\" the old\nfellow went on, after I had shown them how to turn back the arm-seats,\nand they were settled in something like comfort. \"But I never _could_\nrefrain from that antic, though I feels condemned too, in a way, an'\npoor Thomas laid in earth no longer ago than twelve noon. But in the\nmidst of life we are in death.\"\n\n\"I don't remember a more successful buryin',\" said the woman who held\nthe little girl.\n\n\"That was partly luck, as you may say, it bein' regatta-day an' the\nfun o' the fair not properly begun. I counted a lot at the cemetery I\ndidn' know by face, an' I set 'em down for excursionists, that caught\nsight of a funeral, an' followed it to fill up the time.\"\n\n\"It all added.\"\n\n\"Oh, aye; Thomas was beautifully interred.\"\n\nBy this time the heat in the carriage was hardly more overpowering\nthan the smell of crape, broadcloth, and camphor. The youth who had\nwedged himself next to me carried a large packet of \"fairing,\" which\nhe had bought at one of the sweet-stalls. He began to insert it into\nhis side pocket, and in his struggles drove an elbow sharply into my\nribs. I shifted my position a little.\n\n\"Tom's wife would ha' felt it a source o' pride, had she lived.\"\n\nBut I ceased to listen; for in moving I had happened to glance at the\nfurther end of the carriage, and there my attention was arrested by\na curious little piece of pantomime. The little girl--a dark-eyed,\nintelligent child, whose pallor was emphasised by the crape which\nsmothered her--was looking very closely at the old gentleman with the\nhump--staring at him hard, in fact. He, on the other hand, was leaning\nforward, with both hands on the knob of his malacca, his eyes bent on\nthe floor and his mouth squared to the surliest expression. He\nseemed quite unconscious of her scrutiny, and was tapping one foot\nimpatiently on the floor.\n\nAfter a minute I was surprised to see her lean forward and touch him\ngently on the knee.\n\nHe took no notice beyond shuffling about a little and uttering a\nslight growl. The woman who held her put out an arm and drew back\nthe child's hand reprovingly. The child paid no heed to this, but\ncontinued to stare. Then in another minute she again bent forward, and\ntapped the old gentleman's knee.\n\nThis time she fetched a louder growl from him, and an irascible glare.\nNot in the least daunted, she took hold of his malacca, and shook it\nto and fro in her small hand.\n\n\"I wish to heavens, madam, you'd keep your child to yourself!\"\n\n\"For shame, Annie!\" whispered the poor woman, cowed by his look.\n\nBut again Annie paid no heed. Instead, she pushed the malacca towards\nthe old gentleman, saying--\n\n\"Please, sir, will 'ee warm Mister Barrabel wi' this?\"\n\nHe moved uneasily, and looked harshly at her without answering. \"For\nshame, Annie!\" the woman murmured a second time; but I saw her lean\nback, and a tear started and rolled down her cheek.\n\n\"If you please, sir,\" repeated Annie, \"will 'ee warm Mister Barrabel\nwi' this?\"\n\nThe old gentleman stared round the carriage. In his eyes you could\nread the question, \"What in the devil's name does the child mean?\" The\nrobust woman read it there, and answered him huskily--\n\n\"Poor mite! she's buried her father this mornin'; an' Mister Barrabel\nis the coffin-maker, an' nailed 'en down.\"\n\n\"Now,\" said Annie, this time eagerly, \"will 'ee warm him same as the\nbig doll did just now?\"\n\nLuckily, the old gentleman did not understand this last allusion. He\nhad not seen the group around the Punch-and-Judy show; nor, if he had,\nis it likely he would have guessed the train of thought in the child's\nmind. But to me, as I looked at my fellow-passenger's nose and the\ndeformity of his shoulders, and remembered how Punch treats the\nundertaker in the immortal drama, it was all plain enough. I glanced\nat the child's companions. Nothing in their faces showed that they\ntook the allusion; and the next moment I was glad to think that I\nalone knew what had prompted Annie's speech.\n\nFor the next moment, with a beautiful change on his face, the old\ngentleman had taken the child on his knee, and was talking to her as I\ndare say he had never talked before.\n\n\"Are you her mother?\" he asked, looking up suddenly, and addressing\nthe woman opposite.\n\n\"Her mother's been dead these two year. I'm her aunt, an' I'm takin'\nher home to rear 'long wi' my own childer.\"\n\nHe was bending over Annie, and had resumed his chat. It was all\nnonsense--something about the silver knob of his malacca--but it took\nhold of the child's fancy and comforted her. At the next station I had\nto alight, for it was the end of my journey. But looking back into\nthe carriage as I shut the door, I saw Annie bending forward over the\nwalking-stick, and following the pattern of its silverwork with her\nsmall finger. Her face was turned from the old gentleman's, and behind\nher little black hat his eyes were glistening.\n\n\nII.--A CORRECTED CONTEMPT.\n\nThe whistles had sounded, and we were already moving slowly out of St.\nDavid's Station, Exeter, to continue our journey westward, when\nthe door was pulled open and a brown bag, followed by a whiff of\n_Millefleurs_ and an over-dressed young man, came flying into the\ncompartment where I sat alone and smoked.\n\nThe youth scrambled to a seat as the door slammed behind him; remarked\nthat it was \"a near shave\"; and laughed nervously as if to assure\nme that he found it a joke. His face was pink with running, and the\ncolour contrasted unpleasantly with his pale sandy hair and moustache.\nHe wore a light check suit, a light-blue tie knotted through a\n\"Mizpah\" ring, a white straw hat with a blue ribbon, and two\nfinger-rings set with sham diamonds--altogether the sort of outfit\nthat its owner would probably have described as \"rather nobby.\"\nFeeling that just now it needed a few repairs, he opened the bag,\npulled out a duster and flicked away for half-a-minute at his brown\nboots. Next with a handkerchief he mopped his face and wiped round the\ninner edge first of his straw hat, and then of his collar and cuffs.\nAfter this he stood up, shook his trousers till they hung with\na satisfying gracefulness, produced a cigar-case--covered with\nforget-me-nots in crewel work--and a copy of the _Sporting Times_, sat\ndown again, and asked me if I could oblige him with a light.\n\nI think the train had neared Dawlish before the cigar was fairly\nstarted, and his pink face hidden behind the pink newspaper. But even\nso between the red sandstone cliffs and the wholesome sea this pink\nthing would not sit still. His diamond rings kept flirting round the\nedge of the _Sporting Times_, his brown boots shifting their position\non the cushion in front of him, his legs crossing, uncrossing,\nrecrossing, his cigar-smoke rising in quick, uneasy puffs.\n\nBetween Teignmouth and Newton Abbot this restlessness increased. He\ndropped some cigar-ash on his waistcoat and arose to shake it off.\nTwice or thrice he picked up the paper and set it down again. As we\nran into Newton Abbot Station, he came over to my side of the carriage\nand scanned the small crowd upon the platform. Suddenly his pink\ncheeks flushed to crimson. The train was slowing to a standstill, and\nwhile he hesitated with a hand on the door, a little old man came\ntrotting down the platform--a tremulous little man, in greenish black\nbroadcloth, eloquent of continued depression in some village retail\ntrade. His watery eyes shone brimful of pride and gladness.\n\n\"Whai, Charley, lad, there you be, to be shure; an' lookin' as peart\nas a gladdy! Sha\u00e4ke your old vather's vist, lad--ees fay, you be\nlookin' well!\"\n\nThe youth, scorched with a miserable shame, stepped out, put his hand\nin his father's, and tried to withdraw him a little up the platform\nand out of my hearing.\n\n\"Noa, noa; us'll bide where us be, zoa's to be 'andy vur the train\nwhen her starts off. Her doan't stay no while. I vound Zam Emmet\nzarving here as porter--you mind Zam? Danged if I knawed 'en, vurst\nalong, the vace of 'en's that altered: grawed a beard, her hev. But\nher zays to me, 'How be gettin' 'long, Isaac?' an' then I zaw who\n'twas--an' us fell to talkin', and her zaid the train staps vaive\nminnits, no more nor less.\"\n\nHis son interrupted him with mincing haughtiness.\n\n\"'Ow's mothaw?\"\n\n\"Weist an' ailin', poor crittur--weist an' ailin'. Dree times her've\na-been through the galvanic battery, an' might zo well whistle. Turble\nlot o' zickness about. An' old Miss Ruby's resaigned, an' a new\npostmistress come in her pla\u00e4ce--a tongue-tight pore crittur, an'\ntalks London. If you'll b'lieve _me_, Miss Ruby's been to Plymouth\n'pon her zavings an' come back wi' vifteen pound' worth of valse teeth\nin her jaws, which, as I zaid, 'You must excoose my plain speakin',\nbut they've a-broadened your mouth, Miss Ruby, an' I laiked 'ee better\nas you was bevore.' 'Never mind,' her zays, 'I can chow.' There now,\nCharley--zimme I've been doing arl the tarlk, an' thy mother'll be\nwaitin' wi' dree-score o' questions, zoon as I gets whome. Her'd ha'\ncorned to gie thee a kiss, if her'd a-been 'n a vit sta\u00e4te; but her's\nzent thee zummat--\"\n\nHe foraged in the skirt pockets of his threadbare coat and brought\nout a paper of sandwiches and a long-nosed apple. I saw the young man\nwince.\n\n\"Her reckoned you'd veel a wamblin' in the stommick, travellin' arl\nthe wa\u00e4y from Hexeter to Plymouth. There, stow it awa\u00e4y. Not veelin'\npeckish? Never maind: there's a plenty o' taime betwix' this an'\nPlymouth.\"\n\n\"No, thanks.\"\n\n\"Tut-tut, now--\" He insisted, and the packet, on the white paper\nwrapper of which spots of grease were spreading, changed hands. The\nlittle man peered wistfully up into his son's face: his own eyes were\nfull of love, but seemed to search for something.\n\n\"How dost laike it, up to Hexeter: an' how't get along?\"\n\n\"Kepital--kepital. Give mothaw my love.\"\n\n\"E'es be shure. Fainely plaized her'll be to hear thee'rt zo naicely\nadrest. Her'd ma\u00e4de up her maind, pore zowl, that arl your buttons ud\nbe out, wi' nobody to zee arter 'en. But I declare thee'rt drest laike\na topsawyer.\"\n\nAnd with this a dead silence fell between the two. The old man shifted\nhis weight from one foot to another, and twice cleared his throat. The\nyoung counter-jumper averted his eyes from his father's quivering lip\nto stare up the platform. The minutes ran on.\n\nAt last the old man found his voice--\n\n\"Thic' there's a stubbard apple you've got in your hand.\"\n\n\"Take your seats, please!\"\n\nThe guard held the door while they shook hands again. \"Charley\" leaned\nout at the window as our train began to move.\n\n\"Her comes from the zeccond 'spalier past the inyon-bed; al'ays the\nvurst to raipen, thic' there tree.\"\n\nThe old fellow broke into something resembling a run as he followed\nour carriage to shout--\n\n\"Turble bad zayson vur zaider!\"\n\nWith that he halted at the end of the platform, and watched us out of\nsight. His son flung himself on the seat with--I could have kicked him\nfor it--a deprecatory titter. Then he drew a long breath; but it was\ntwenty minutes before his blush faded, and he regained confidence to\nask me for another light.\n\nJust eighteen months after I was travelling up to London in the Zulu\nexpress. A large Fair Trade meeting had been held at Plymouth the\nnight before, and three farmers in the compartment with me were\ndiscussing that morning's leader in the _Western Daily Mercury_. One\nof them had already been goaded into violent speech when we halted at\nNewton Abbot and another passenger stepped in--a little old man in a\nsuit of black.\n\nI recognised him at once. And yet he was changed woefully. He had\nfallen away in flesh; the lines had deepened beside his upper lip; and\nin spite of a glossier suit he had an appearance of hopelessness which\nhe had not worn when I saw him for the first time.\n\nHe took his seat, looked about him vacantly and caught the eye of the\nangry farmer, who nodded, broke off his speech in the middle of a\nsentence, and asked in a curiously gentle voice--\n\n\"Travellin' up to Exeter?\"\n\nThe old man bent his head for \"yes,\" and I saw the tears well up in\nhis weak eyes.\n\n\"There's no need vur to ax your arrand.\" The farmer here dropped his\ntone almost to a whisper.\n\n\"Naw, naw. I be goin' up to berry 'en. Ees, vriends,\" he went on,\nlooking around and asking, with that glance, the sympathy of all\npresent, \"to berry my zon, my clever zon, my only zon.\"\n\nNobody spoke for a few seconds. Then the kindly farmer observed--\n\n\"Aye, I've heerd zay a' was very clever to his tra\u00e4de. 'Uxtable an'\nCo., his employers, spoke very handsome of 'en, they tell me. I can't\ncall to maind, tho', that I've a-zet eyes 'pon the young man since he\nwas a little tacker.\"\n\nThe old man began to fumble in his breastpocket, and drawing out a\nphotograph, handed it across.\n\n\"That's the last that was took of 'en.\"\n\n\"Pore young chap,\" said the farmer, holding the likeness level with\nhis eyes and studying it; \"Pore young chap! Zuch a respectable lad to\nlook at! They tell me a' made ye a gude zon, too.\"\n\n\"Gude?\" The tears ran down the father's face and splashed on his\nhands, trembling as they folded over the knob of his stout stick.\n\"Gude? I b'lieve, vriends, ye'll call it gude when a young man zends\nthe third o' his earnin's week by week to help his parents. That's\nwhat my zon did, vrum the taime he left whome. An' presunts--never a\nmonth went by, but zome little gift ud come by the postman; an' little\n'twas he'd got to live 'pon, at the best, the dear lad--\"\n\nThe farmer was passing back the photograph. \"May I see it?\" I asked:\nand the old man nodded.\n\nIt was the same face--the same suit, even--that had roused my contempt\neighteen months before.\n\n\n\n\nWOON GATE.\n\nIt was on a cold and drenching afternoon in October that I spent an\nhour at Woon Gate: for in all the homeless landscape this little\nround-house offers the only shelter, its windows looking east and west\nalong the high-road and abroad upon miles of moorland, hedgeless,\ndotted with peat-ricks, inhabited only by flocks of grey geese and a\ndeclining breed of ponies, the chartered vagrants of Woon Down. Two\nmiles and more to the north, and just under the rim of the horizon,\nstraggle the cottages of a few tin-streamers, with their backs to the\nwind. These look down across an arable country, into which the women\ndescend to work at seed-time and harvest, and whence, returning, they\nbring some news of the world. But Woon Gate lies remoter. It was never\nmore than a turnpike; and now the gate is down, the toll-keeper dead,\nand his widow lives alone in the round-house. She opened the door\nto me--a pleasant-faced old woman of seventy, in a muslin cap, red\nturnover, and grey gown hitched very high. She wore no shoes inside\nher cottage, but went about in a pair of coarse worsted stockings on\nall days except the very rawest, when the chill of the lime-ash floor\nstruck into her bones.\n\n\"May I wait a few minutes till the weather lifts?\" I asked.\n\nShe smiled and seemed almost grateful.\n\n\"You'm kindly welcome, be sure: that's if you don't mind the\nVaccination.\"\n\nI suppose that my face expressed some wonder: for she went on, shaking\nmy dripping hat and hanging it on a nail by the fire--\n\n\"Doctor Rodda'll be comin' in half-an-hour's time. 'Tis district\nVaccination to-day, and he always inoculates here, 'tis so handy.\"\n\nShe nodded her head at half a dozen deal chairs and a form arrayed\nround the wall under a row of sacred texts and tradesmen's almanacks.\n\n\"There'll be nine to-day, as I makes it out. I counted 'em up several\ntimes last night.\"\n\nIt was evidently a great day in her eyes.\n\n\"But you've allowed room for many more than nine,\" I pointed out.\n\n\"Why, of course. There's some brings their elder childer for a\ntreat--an' there's always 'Melia Penaluna.\"\n\nI was on the point of asking who Amelia Penaluna might be, when my\nattention was drawn to the small eastern window. Just outside, and\nbut a dozen paces from the house, there stretched a sullen pond,\nover which the wind drove in scuds and whipped the sparse reeds that\nencroached around its margin. Beside the further bank of the pond\nthe high-road was joined by a narrow causeway that led down from\nthe northern fringe of Woon Down; and along this causeway moved a\nprocession of women and children.\n\nThey were about twenty in all, and, as they skirted the pond, their\nfigures were sharply silhouetted against the grey sky. Each of the\nwomen held a baby close to her breast and bent over it as she advanced\nagainst the wind, that beat her gown tightly against her legs and\nblew it out behind in bellying folds. Yet beneath their uncouth and\nbedraggled garments they moved like mothers of a mighty race, tall,\nlarge-limbed, broad of hip, hiding generous breasts beneath the\nshawls--red, grey, and black--that covered their babes from the wind\nand rain. A few of the children struggled forward under ricketty\numbrellas; but the mothers had their hands full, and strode along\nunsheltered. More than one, indeed, faced the storm without bonnet or\ncovering for the head; and all marched along the causeway like figures\non some sculptured frieze, their shadows broken beneath them on the\nruffled surface of the pond. I said that each of the women carried a\nbabe: but there was one who did not--a plain, squat creature, at the\ntail of the procession, who wore a thick scarf round her neck, and a\nshawl of divers bright colours. She led a small child along with one\nhand, and with the other attempted to keep a large umbrella against\nthe wind.\n\n\"Nineteen--twenty--twenty-one,\" counted the toll-keeper's widow behind\nme as I watched the spasmodic jerkings of this umbrella. \"I wasn't far\nout in my reckon. And you, sir, make twenty-two. It niver rains but it\npours, they say. Times enow I don't see a soul for days together, not\nto hail by name, an' now you drops in on top of a Vaccination.\"\n\nHer sigh over this plethora of good fortune was interrupted by a\nknocking at the door, and the mothers trooped in, their clothes\ndripping pools of water on the sanded lime-ash. One or two of them,\nafter exchanging greetings with their hostess, bade me Good-morning:\nothers eyed me in silence as they took their seats round the wall.\nAll whose babes were not sound asleep quietly undid their bodices and\nbegan to give them suck. The older children scrambled into chairs and\nsat kicking their heels and tracing patterns on the floor with the\nwater that ran off their umbrellas. They were restless but rather\nsilent, as if awed by the shadow of the coming Vaccination. The woman\nwho had brought up the procession, found a place in the far corner,\nand began to unwind the comforter around her neck. Her eyes were\nbrighter and more agitated than any in the room.\n\n\"A brave trapse all the way from Upper Woon,\" remarked the youngest\nmother, wiping a smear of rain from her baby's forehead.\n\n\"Ah, 'tis your first, Mary Polsue. Wait till you've carried twelve\nsuch loads, my dear,\" said a tall middle-aged woman, whose black hair,\ncoarse as a mane, was powdered grey with, raindrops.\n\n\"Dear now, Ellen; be this the twelfth?\" our hostess exclaimed. \"I was\nreckonin' it the 'leventh.\"\n\n\"Ay, th' twelfth--tho' I've most lost count. I buried one, you know.\"\n\n\"For my part,\" put in a pale-eyed blonde, who sat near the door, \"'t\nseems but yestiddy I was here with Alsia yonder.\" She nodded her head\ntowards a girl of five who was screwing herself round in her chair and\ntrying to peep out of the window.\n\n\"Ay, they come and come: the Lord knows wherefore,\" the tall woman\nassented. \"When they'm young they make your arms ache, an' when they\ngrow up they make your heart ache.\"\n\n\"But 'Melia Penaluna's been here more times than any of us,\" said the\nblonde with a titter, directing her eyes towards a corner of the room.\nThe rest looked too, and laughed. Turning, I saw that the plain-faced\nwoman had unwound her comforter, and now I could see, hanging low on\nher chest, an immense lump wrapped in clean white linen and bound up\nwith a gaudy yellow handkerchief. It was a go\u00eetre.\n\n\"Iss, my dears,\" she answered, touching it and smiling, but with tears\nin her eyes; \"this here's my only child, an' iver will be. Ne'er a\nman'll look 'pon me, so I'm forced to be content wi' this babe and\nclothe 'en pretty, as you see. Ah, you'm lucky, you'm lucky, though\nyou talk so!\"\n\n\"She's terrible fond o' childer,\" said one of the women audibly,\naddressing me. \"How many 'noculations have you 'tended, 'Melia?\"\n\n\"Six-an'-twenty, countin' to-day,\" 'Melia announced with pride in her\ntrembling voice. But at this point one of the infants began to cry,\nand before he could be hushed the noise of wheels sounded down the\nroad, and Dr. Rodda drove up in his reedy gig.\n\nHe was a round, dapper practitioner, with slightly soiled cuffs and\nan extremely business-like manner. On entering the room he jerked his\nhead in a general nod to all present, and stepping to the table, drew\na small packet from his waistcoat, and unfolded it. It contained about\na score of small pieces of ivory, pointed like pens, but flat. Then,\npulling out a paper and consulting it hastily, he set to work,\nbeginning with the child that lay on the blonde woman's lap, next to\nthe door.\n\nI looked around. The children were staring with wide, admiring eyes.\nTheir mothers also watched, but listlessly, still suckling their babes\nas each waited its turn. Only 'Melia Penaluna winced and squeezed her\nhands together whenever a feeble wailing told that one of the vaccine\npoints had made itself felt.\n\n\"Do 'ee think it hurts the poor mites?\" the youngest mother asked.\n\n\"Not much, I reckon,\" answered the big woman.\n\nNevertheless her own child cried pitifully when its turn came. And as\nit cried, the childless woman in the corner got off her chair and ran\nforward tremulously.\n\n\"'Becca, let me take him. Do'ee, co!\"\n\n\"'Melia Penaluna, you'm no better 'n a fool.\"\n\nBut poor, misnamed Amelia was already back in her corner with the\nchild, hugging it, kissing it, rocking it in her arms, crooning over\nit, holding it tightly against the lump that hung down on her barren\nbosom. Long after the baby had ceased to cry she sat crooning and\nyearning over it. And the mothers watched her, with wonder and\nscornful amusement in their eyes.\n\n\n\n\nFROM A COTTAGE IN GANTICK.\n\n\nI.--THE MOURNER'S HORSE.\n\nThe Board Schoolmaster and I are not friends. He is something of\na zealot, and conceives it his mission to weed out the small\nsuperstitions of the countryside and plant exact information in their\nstead. He comes from up the country--a thin, clean-shaven town-bred\nman, whose black habit and tall hat, though considerably bronzed,\nrefuse to harmonise with the scenery amid which they move. His speech\nis formal and slightly dogmatic, and in argument he always gets the\nbetter of me. Therefore, feeling sure it will annoy him excessively, I\nam going to put him into this book. He laid himself open the other day\nto this stroke of revenge, by telling me a story; and since he loves\nprecision, I will be very precise about the circumstances.\n\nAt the foot of my garden, and hidden from my window by the clipt\nbox hedge, runs Sanctuary Lane, along which I see the heads of the\nvillagers moving to church on Sunday mornings. But in returning they\ninvariably keep to the raised footpath on the far side, that brings\nthe women's skirts and men's smallclothes into view. I have made many\nattempts to discover how this distinction arose, and why it is adhered\nto, but never found a satisfying explanation. It is the rule, however.\n\nFrom the footpath a high bank (where now the primroses have given\nplace to stitchwort and ragged robin) rises to an orchard; so steeply\nthat the apple-blossom drops into the lane. Just now the petals lie\nthickly there in the early morning, to be trodden into dust as soon\nas the labourers fare to work. Beyond and above the orchard comes a\nstretch of pastureland and then a young oak-coppice, the fringe of a\ngreat estate, with a few Scotch firs breaking the sky-line on top of\nall. The head gamekeeper of this estate tells me we shall have a hot\nsummer, because the oak this year was in leaf before the ash, though\nonly by a day. The ash was foliating on the 29th of April, the oak\non the 28th. Up there the blue-bells lie in sheets of mauve, and the\ncuckoo is busy. I rarely see him; but his three notes fill the hot\nnoon and evening. When he spits (says the gamekeeper again) it is time\nto be sheep-shearing. My talk with the gamekeeper is usually held at\nsix in the morning, when he comes down the lane and I am stepping\nacross to test the water in Scarlet's Well.\n\nThis well bubbles up under a low vault scooped in the bank by the\nfootpath and hung with hart's-tongue ferns. It has two founts, close\ntogether; but whereas one of them oozes only, the other is bubbling\nperennially, and, as near as I have observed, keeps always the same.\nIts specific gravity is that of distilled water--1.000\u00b0; and though,\nto be sure, it upset me, three weeks back, by flying up to 1.005\u00b0, I\nthink that must have come from the heavy thunderstorms and floods of\nrain that lately visited us and no doubt imported some ingredients\nthat had no business there. As for its temperature, I will select a\nnote or two of the observations I made with a Fahrenheit thermometer\nthis last year:--\n\n_June 12th_.--Temperature in shade of well, 62\u00b0; of water, 51\u00b0.\n\n_August 25th_.--In shade of well (at noon), 73\u00b0; of water, 52\u00b0.\n\n_November 20th_.--In shade of well, 43\u00b0; of water, 52\u00b0.\n\n_January 1st_.--External air, 56\u00b0; enclosure, 53\u00b0; water, 52\u00b0.\n\n_March 11th_.--A bleak, sunless day. Temperature in shade of well, at\nnoon, 54\u00b0; water, 51\u00b0. The _Chrysosplenium Oppositiflorium_ in rich\ngolden bloom within the enclosure.\n\nBut the spring has other properties besides its steady temperature. I\nwas early abroad in my garden last Thursday week, and in the act of\ntossing a snail over my box hedge, when I heard some girls' voices\ngiggling, and caught a glimpse of half-a-dozen sun-bonnets gathered\nabout the well. Straightening myself up, I saw a group of maids\nfrom the village, and, in the middle, one who bent over the water.\nPresently she scrambled to her feet, glanced over her shoulder and\ngave a shrill scream.\n\nI, too, looked up the lane and saw, a stone's throw off, the\nschoolmaster advancing with long and nervous strides. He was furiously\nangry.\n\n\"Thomasine Slade,\" said he, \"you are as shameless as you are\nignorant!\"\n\nThe girl tossed her chin and was silent, with a warm blush on her\ncheek and a lurking imp of laughter in her eye. The schoolmaster\nfrowned still more darkly.\n\n\"Shameless as well as ignorant!\" he repeated, bringing the ferule of\nhis umbrella smartly down upon the macadam; \"and you, Jane Hewitt, and\nyou, Lizzie Polkinghorne!\"\n\n\"Why, what's the matter?\" I asked, stepping out into the road.\n\nAt sight of me the girls broke into a peal of laughter, gathered up\ntheir skirts and fled, still laughing, down the road.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" I asked again.\n\n\"The matter?\" echoed the schoolmaster, staring blankly after the\nretreating skirts; then more angrily--\"The matter? come and look\nhere!\" He took hold of my shirt-sleeve and led me to the well.\nStooping, I saw half-a-dozen pins gleaming in its brown depths.\n\n\"A love-charm.\"\n\nThe schoolmaster nodded.\n\n\"Thomasine Slade has been wishing for a husband. I see no sin in that.\nWhen she looked up and saw you coming down the lane--\"\n\nI paused. The schoolmaster said nothing. He was leaning over the well,\ngloomily examining the pins.\n\n\"--your aspect was enough to scare anyone,\" I wound up lamely.\n\n\"I wish,\" the schoolmaster hastily began, \"I wish to Heaven I had the\ngift of humour! I lose my temper and grow positive. I'd kill these\nstupid superstitions with ridicule, if I had the gift. It's a great\ngift. My God, I do hate to be laughed at!\"\n\n\"Even by a fool?\" I asked, somewhat astonished at his heat.\n\n\"Certainly. There's no comfort in comparing the laugh of fools with\nthe crackling of thorns under a pot, if you happen to be inside the\npot and in process of cooking.\"\n\nHe took off his hat, brushed it on the sleeve of his coat, and resumed\nin a tone altogether lighter--\n\n\"Yes, I hate to be laughed at; and I'll tell you a tale on this point\nthat may amuse you at my expense.\n\n\"I am London-bred, as you know, and still a Cockney in the grain,\nthough when I came down here to teach school I was just nineteen and\nnow I'm over forty. It was during the summer holidays that I first set\nfoot in this neighbourhood--a week before school re-opened. I came\nearly, to look for lodgings and find out a little about the people and\nsettle down a bit before beginning work.\n\n\"The vicar--the late vicar, I mean--commended me to old Retallack, who\nused to farm Rosemellin, up the valley, a widower and childless. His\nsister, Miss Jane Ann, kept house for him, and these were the only two\nsouls on the premises till I came and was boarded by them for thirteen\nshillings a week. For that price they gave me a bedroom, a fair-sized\nsitting-room and as much as I could eat.\n\n\"A month after my arrival, Farmer Retallack was put to bed with a\nslight attack of colic. This was on a Wednesday, and on Saturday\nmorning Miss Jane Ann came knocking at my door with a message that the\nold man would like to see me. So I went across to his room and found\nhim propped up in the bed with three or four pillows and looking very\nyellow in the gills, though clearly convalescent.\n\n\"'Schoolmaster,' said he, 'I've a trifling favour to beg of ye. You\ngive the children a half-holiday, Saturdays--hey? Well, d'ye think ye\ncould drive the brown hoss, Trumpeter, into Tregarrick this afternoon?\nThe fact is, my old friend Abe Walters, that kept the Packhorse Inn is\nlying dead, and they bury 'en at half after two to-day. I'd be main\nglad to show respect at the funeral and tell Mrs. Walters how much\ndeceased 'll be missed, ancetera; but I might so well try to fly in\nthe air. Now if you could attend and just pass the word that I'm on my\nback with the colic, but that you've come to show respect in my place,\nI'd take it very friendly of ye. There'll be lashins o' vittles an'\ndrink. No Walters was ever interred under a kilderkin.'\" Now the fact\nwas, I had never driven a horse in my life and hardly knew (as they\nsay) a horse's head from his tail till he began to move. But that is\njust the sort of ignorance no young man will readily confess to. So\nI answered that I was engaged that evening. We were just organising\nnight-classes for the young men of the parish, and the vicar was to\nopen the first, with a short address, at half-past six.\n\n\"'You'll be back in lashins o' time,' the farmer assured me.\n\n\"This put me fairly in a corner. 'To tell you the truth,' said I, 'I'm\nnot accustomed to drive much.' But of course this was wickedly short\nof the truth.\n\n\"He declared that it was impossible to come to grief on the way, the\nbrown horse being quiet as a lamb and knowing every stone of the road.\nAnd the end was that I consented. The brown horse was harnessed by the\nfarm-boy and led round with the gig while Miss Jane Ann and I were\nfinishing our midday meal. And I drove off alone in a black suit and\nwith my heart in my mouth.\n\n\"Trumpeter, as the farmer had promised, was quiet as a lamb. He went\nforward at a steady jog, and even had the good sense to quarter on\nhis own account for the one or two vehicles we met on the broad road.\nPretty soon I began to experiment gingerly with the reins; and by the\ntime we reached Tregarrick streets, was handling them with quite an\nair, while observing the face of everyone I met, to make sure I\nwas not being laughed at. The prospect of Tregarrick Fore Street\nfrightened me a good deal, and there was a sharp corner to turn at the\nentrance of the inn-yard. But the old horse knew his business so well\nthat had I pulled on one rein with all my strength I believe it would\nhave merely annoyed, without convincing, him. He took me into the yard\nwithout a mistake, and I gave up the reins to the ostler, thanking\nHeaven and looking careless.\n\n\"The inn was crowded with mourners, eating and drinking and discussing\nthe dead man's virtues. They packed the Assembly Room at the back,\nwhere the subscription dances are held, and the reek of hot joints was\nsuffocating. I caught sight of the widow Walters bustling up and down\nbetween the long tables and shedding tears while she changed her\nguests' plates. She heard my message, welcomed me with effusion, and\nthrusting a plateful of roast beef under my nose, hurried away to put\non her bonnet for the funeral.\n\n\"A fellow on my right paused with his mouth full to bid me eat. 'Thank\nyou,' I said, 'my only wish is to get out of this as quickly as\npossible.'\n\n\"He contemplated me for half a minute with an eye like an ox's;\nremarked 'You'll be a furriner, no doubt;' and went on with his meal.\n\n\"If the feasting was long, the funeral was longer. We sang so many\nburying-tunes, and the widow so often interrupted the service to\nululate, that the town clock had struck four when I hurried back from\nthe churchyard to the inn, and told the ostler to put my horse in the\ngig. I had little time to spare.\n\n\"'Beg your pardon, sir,' the ostler said, 'but I'm new to this\nplace--only came here this day week. Which is your horse?'\n\n\"'Oh,' I answered, 'he's a brown. Make haste, for I'm in a hurry.'\n\n\"He went off to the stables and returned in about two minutes.\n\n\"'There's six brown hosses in the stable, sir. Would you mind coming\nand picking out yours?'\n\n\"I followed him with a sense of impending evil. Sure enough there were\nsix brown horses in the big stable, and to save my life I couldn't\nhave told which was Trumpeter. Of any difference between horses,\nexcept that of colour, I hadn't an idea. I scanned them all anxiously,\nand felt the ostler's eye upon me. This was unbearable. I pulled out\nmy watch, glanced at it carelessly, and exclaimed--\n\n\"'By George, I'd no notion it was so early! H'm, on second thoughts, I\nwon't start for a few minutes yet.'\n\n\"This was my only course--to wait until the other five owners of brown\nhorses had driven home. I strolled back to the inn and talked and\ndrank sherry, watching the crowd thin by degrees, and speeding the\nlingering mourners with all my prayers. The minutes dragged on till\nnothing short of a miracle could take me back in time to open the\nnight-class. The widow drew near and talked to me. I answered her at\nrandom.\n\n\"Twice I revisited the stable, and the second time found but three\nhorses left. I walked along behind them, murmuring, 'Trumpeter,\nTrumpeter!' in the forlorn hope that one of the three brutes would\ngive a sign.\n\n\"'I beg your pardon, sir,' said the ostler; 'were you saying\nanything?'\n\n\"'No--nothing,' said I, and luckily he was called away at this moment\nto the further end of the stable. 'Oh,' sighed I, 'for Xanthus, horse\nof Achilles!'\n\n\"I felt inclined to follow and confide my difficulty to the ostler,\nbut reflected that this wouldn't help me in the least: whereas, if\nI applied to a fellow-guest, he must (if indeed he could give the\ninformation) expose my previous hypocrisy to the ostler. After all,\nthe company was dwindling fast. I went back and consumed more sherry\nand biscuits.\n\n\"By this six o'clock had gone, and no more than a dozen guests\nremained. One of these was my bovine friend, my neighbour at the\nfuneral banquet, who now accosted me as I struggled with a biscuit.\n\n\"'So you've got over your hurry. Glad to find ye settlin' down so\nquick to our hearty ways.'\n\n\"He shook hands with the widow and sauntered out. Ten more minutes\npassed and now there were left only the widow herself and a trio of\nelderly men, all silent. As I hung about, trying to look unbounded\nsympathy at the group, it dawned upon me that they were beginning to\neye me uneasily. I took a sponge cake and another glass of wine. One\nof the men--who wore a high stock and an edging of stiff grey hair\naround his bald head--advanced to me.\n\n\"'This funeral,' said he, 'is over.'\n\n\"'Yes, yes,' I stammered, and choked over a sip of sherry.\n\n\"'We are waiting--let me tap you on the back--'\n\n\"'Thank you.'\n\n\"'We are waiting to read the will.'\n\n\"I escaped from the room and rushed down to the stables. The ostler\nwas harnessing the one brown horse that remained.\n\n\"I was thinking you wouldn't be long, sir. You're the very last, I\nbelieve, and here ends a long day's work.'\n\n\"I drove off. It was near seven by this, but I didn't even think of\nthe night-class. I was wondering if the horse I drove were really\nTrumpeter. Somehow--whether because his feed of corn pricked him or no\nI can't say--he seemed a deal livelier than on the outward journey. I\nlooked at him narrowly in the twilight, and began to feel sure it was\nanother horse. In spite of the cool air a sweat broke out upon me.\n\n\"Farmer Retallack was up and dressed and leaning on a stick in the\ndoorway as I turned into the yard.\n\n\"'I've been that worried about ye,' he began, 'I couldn't stay abed.\nParson's been up twice from the schoolhouse to make inquiries. Where\nin the name o' goodness have 'ee been?'\n\n\"'That's a long story,' said I, and then, feigning to speak\ncarelessly, though I heard my heart go thump--'How d'ye think\nTrumpeter looks after the journey?'\n\n\"'Oh, _he's_ all right,' the old man replied indifferently; 'but come\nalong in to supper.'\n\n\"Now, my dear sir\"--the schoolmaster thus concluded his tale,\ntucking his umbrella tightly under his armpit, and tapping his right\nforefinger on the palm of his left hand--\"these pagans whom I teach\nare as sensitive as I to ridicule. If I only knew how to take them--if\nonly I could lay my finger on the weak spot--I'd send their whole\nfabric of silly superstitions tumbling like a house of cards.\"\n\nThis happened last Thursday week. Early this morning I crossed the\nroad as usual with my thermometer, and found a strip of pink calico\nhanging from the brambles by the mouth of Scarlet's Well. I had seen\nthe pattern before on a gown worn by one of the villager's wives, and\nknew the rag was a votive offering, hung there because her child, who\nhas been ailing all the winter, is now strong enough to go out into\nthe sunshine. As I bent the bramble carefully aside, before stooping\nover the water, Lizzie Polkinghorne came up the lane and halted behind\nme.\n\n\"Have 'ee heard the news?\" she asked.\n\n\"No.\" I turned round, thermometer in hand.\n\n\"Why, Thomasine Slade's goin' to marry the schoolmaster! Their banns\n'll be called first time nest Sunday.\"\n\nWe looked at each other, and she broke into a shout of laughter.\nLizzie's laugh is irresistible.\n\n\nII.--SILHOUETTES.\n\nThe small rotund gentleman who had danced and spun all the way to\nGantick village from the extreme south of France, and had danced and\nsmiled and blown his flageolet all day in Gantick Street without\nconciliating its population in the least, was disgusted. Towards dusk\nhe crossed the stile which divides Sanctuary Lane from the churchyard,\nand pausing with a leg on either side of the rail, shook his fist back\nat the village which lay below, its grey roofs and red chimneys just\ndistinguishable here and there between a foamy sea of apple-blossom\nand a haze of bluish smoke. He could not well shake its dust off his\nfeet, for this was hardly separable on his boots from the dust of many\nother villages, and also it was mostly mud. But his gesture betokened\nextreme rancour.\n\n\"These Cor-rnishmen,\" he said, \"are pigs all! There is not a\nCor-rnishman that is not a big pig!\"\n\nHe lifted the second leg wearily over the rail.\n\n\"As for Art--\"\n\n\"Words failed him here, and he spat upon the ground, adding--\n\n\"Moreover, they shut up their churches!\"\n\nThis was really a serious matter; for he had not a penny-piece in his\npocket--the last had gone to buy a loaf--and there was no lodging to\nbe had in the village. The month was April--a bad time to sleep in\nthe open; and though the night drew in tranquilly upon a day of broad\nsunshine, the earth had by no means sucked down the late heavy rains.\nThe church porch, however, had a broad bench on either side and faced\nthe south, away from the prevailing wind. He had made a mental note of\nthis early in the day, being schooled to anticipate such straits as\nthe present. While, with a gait like a limping hare's, he passed up\nthe narrow path between the graves, his eyes were busy.\n\nThe churchyard was narrow and surrounded by a high grey wall, mostly\nhidden by an inner belt of well-grown cypresses. On the south side the\nranks of these trees were broken for some thirty feet, and here the\nback of a small dwelling-house abutted on the cemetery. There was one\nwindow only in the yellow-washed wall, and this window--a melancholy\nsquare framed in moss-stained plaster--looked straight into the church\nporch. The flageolet-player eyed it suspiciously; but the casement\nwas shut and the blind drawn down. The whole aspect of the cottage\nproclaimed that its inhabitants were very poor folk--not at all the\nsort to tell tales upon a casual tramp if they spied him bivouacking\nupon holy ground.\n\nHe limped into the porch, and cast off the blue bag that was strapped\nupon his shoulders. Out of it he drew a sheep's-wool cape, worn very\nthin; and then turned the bag inside out, on the chance of a forgotten\ncrust. The disappointment that followed he took calmly--being on the\nwhole a sweet-tempered man, nor easily angered except by an affront on\nhis vanity. His violent rancour against the people of Gantick\narose from their indifference to his playing. Had they taken him\nseriously--had they even run out at their doors to listen and\nstare--he would not have minded their stinginess.\n\nHe who sleeps, sups. The little man passed the flat of his hand,\nin the dusk, over the two benches, chose the one which had fewest\nasperities of surface, tossed his bag and flageolet upon the other,\npulled off his boots, folded his cape to make a pillow, and stretched\nhimself at length. In less than ten minutes he was sleeping\ndreamlessly.\n\nFor four hours he slept without movement. But just above his head\nthere hung a baize-covered board containing a list or two of the\nparish ratepayers and the usual notice of the spring training of the\nRoyal Cornwall Eangers Militia. This last placard had broken from two\nof its fastenings, and towards midnight flapped loudly in an eddy of\nthe light wind. The sleeper stirred, and passed a languid hand over\nhis face. A spider within the porch had been busy while he slept, and\nhis hand encountered gossamer.\n\nHis eyes opened. He sat upright, and lowered his bare feet upon\nthe flags. Outside, the blue firmament was full of stars sparkling\nunevenly, as though the wind were trying in sport to puff them out.\nIn the eaves of the porch he could hear the martins rustling in the\ncrevices--they had returned but a few days back to their old quarters.\nBut what drew the man to step out under the sky was the cottage-window\nover the wall.\n\nThe lattice was pushed back and the room inside was brightly lit. But\nbetween him and the lamp a white sheet had been stretched right across\nthe window; and on this sheet two quick hands were weaving all kinds\nof clever shadows, shaping them, moving them, or reshaping them with\nthe speed of summer lightning.\n\nIt was certainly a remarkable performance. The shadows took the forms\nof rabbits, swans, foxes, elephants, fairies, sailors with wooden\nlegs, old women who smoked pipes, ballet-girls who pirouetted, anglers\nwho bobbed for fish, twirling harlequins, and the profiles of eminent\nstatesmen--all made with two hands and, at the most, the help of a\ntiny stick or piece of string. They danced and capered, grew large\nand then small, with such profusion of odd turns and changes that the\nflageolet-player began to giggle as he wondered. He remarked that the\nhands, whenever they were disentwined for a moment, appeared to be\nvery small and plump.\n\nIn about ten minutes the display ceased, and the shadow of a woman's\nhead and neck crossed the sheet, which was presently drawn back at one\ncorner.\n\n\"Is that any better?\" asked a woman's voice, low but distinct.\n\nThe flageolet-player started and bent his eyes lower, across the\ngraves and into the shadow beneath the window. For the first time he\nwas aware of a figure standing there, a little way out from the wall.\nAs well as he could see, it was a young boy.\n\n\"Much better, mother. You can't think how you've improved at it this\nweek.\"\n\n\"Any mistakes?\"\n\n\"The harlequin and columbine seemed a little jerky. But your hands\nwere tired, I know.\"\n\n\"Never mind that: they mustn't be tired and it's got to be perfect.\nWe'll try them again.\"\n\nShe was about to drop the corner of the sheet when the listener sprang\nout towards the window, leaping with bare feet over the graves and\nwaving his flageolet wildly.\n\n\"Ah, no--no, madame!\" he cried. \"Wait one moment, the littlest, and I\nshall inspire you.\"\n\n\"Whoever is that?\" cried the woman's voice at the window.\n\nThe youth below faced round on the intruder. He was white in the face\nand had wanted to run, but mastered his voice and enquired gruffly--\n\n\"Who the devil are you?\"\n\n\"I? I am an artist, and as such I salute madame and monsieur her son.\nShe is greater artist than I, but I shall help her. They shall dance\nbetter this time, her harlequin and columbine. Why? Because they shall\ndance to my music--the music that I shall make here, on this spot,\nunder the stars. _Tiens!_ I shall play as if possessed. I feel that. I\nbet you. It is because I have found an artist--an artist in Gantick.\nO-my-good-lor! It makes me expand!\"\n\nHe had pulled off his greasy hat, and stood bowing and smiling,\nshowing his white teeth and holding up his flageolet, that the woman\nmight see and be convinced.\n\n\"That's all very well,\" said the boy; \"but my mother doesn't want it\nknown that she practises at these shadows.\"\n\n\"Ha? It is perhaps forbidden by law?\"\n\n\"Since you have found us out, sir,\" said the woman, \"I will tell you\nwhy we are behaving like this, and trust you to tell nobody. I have\nbeen left a widow, in great poverty, and with this one son, who must\nbe educated as well as his father was. Richard is a promising boy, and\ncannot be satisfied to stand lower in the world than his father stood.\nHis father was an auctioneer. But we are left very poor--poor as mice:\nand how was I to get him better teaching than the Board Schools here?\nWell, six months ago, when sadly perplexed, I found out by chance that\nthis small gift of mine might earn me a good income in London, at--at\na music-hall--\"\n\n\"Mother!\" interjected the youth reprovingly.\n\n\"Pursue, madame,\" said the flageolet-player.\n\n\"Of course, sir, Richard doesn't like or approve of me performing at\nsuch places, but he agrees with me that it is necessary. So we are\nhiding it from everybody in the village, because we have always been\nrespected here. We never guessed that anybody would see us from the\nchurchyard, of all places, at this time of night. As soon as I have\npractised enough, we mean to travel up to London. Of course I shall\nchange my name to something French or Italian, and hope nobody will\ndiscover--\"\n\nBut the flageolet-player sat suddenly down upon a damp grave, and\nbroke into hysterical laughter.\n\n\"Oh-oh-oh! Quick, madame! dance your pretty figures while yet I laugh\nand before I curse. O stars and planets, look down on this mad world,\nand help me play! And, O monsieur, your pardon if I laugh; for that\neither you or I are mad is a cock-sure. Dance, madame!\"\n\nHe put the flageolet to his lips and blew. In a moment or two\nharlequin and columbine appeared on the screen, and began to caper\nnimbly, naturally, with the airiest graces. The tune was a jigging\nreel, and soon began to inspire the performer above. Her small dancers\nin a twinkling turned into a gambolling elephant, then to a pair\nof swallows. A moment after they were flower and butterfly, then\na jigging donkey, then harlequin and columbine again. With each\nfantastic change the tune quickened and the dance grew wilder. At\nlength, tired out, the woman spread her hands out wide against the\nsheet, as if imploring mercy.\n\nThe player tossed his flageolet over a headstone, and rolled back on\nthe grave in a paroxysm of laughter. Above him the rooks had poured\nout of their nests, and were cawing in flustered circles.\n\n\"Monsieur,\" he gasped out, sitting up and wiping his eyes, \"was it\ngood this time?\"\n\n\"Yes, it was.\"\n\n\"Then could you spare from the house one little crust of bread? For I\nam famished.\"\n\nThe youth went round the churchyard wall, and came back in a couple of\nminutes with some bread and cold bacon.\n\n\"Of course,\" said he, \"if you should meet either of us in the village\nto-morrow, you will not recognise us.\"\n\nThe little man bowed. \"I agree,\" said he, \"with your mother, monsieur,\nthat you must be educated at all costs.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE DRAWN BLIND.\n\n\nSilver trumpets sounded a flourish, and the javelin-men came pacing\ndown Tregarrick Fore Street, with the sheriff's coach swinging behind\nthem, its panels splendid with fresh blue paint and florid blazonry.\nIts wheels were picked out with yellow, and this scheme of colour\nextended to the coachman and the two lackeys, who held on at the back\nby leathern straps. Each wore a coat and breeches of electric\nblue, with a canary waistcoat, and was toned off with powder and\nflesh-coloured stockings at the extremities. Within the coach, and\nfacing the horses, sat the two judges of the Crown Court and _Nisi\nPrius_, both in scarlet, with full wigs and little round patches of\nblack plaister, like ventilators, on top; facing their lordships sat\nSir Felix Felix-Williams, the sheriff, in a tightish uniform of the\nyeomanry with a great shako nodding on his knees, and a chaplain bolt\nupright by his side. Behind trooped a rabble of loafers and small\nboys, who shouted, \"Who bleeds bran?\" till the lackeys' calves itched\nwith indignation.\n\nI was standing in the archway of the Packhorse Inn, among the maids\nand stable-boys gathered to see the pageant pass on its way to hear\nthe Assize sermon. And standing there, I was witness of a little\nincident that seemed to escape the rest.\n\nAt the moment when the trumpets rang out, a very old woman, in a blue\ncamlet cloak, came hobbling out of a grocer's shop some twenty yards\nup the pavement, and tottered down ahead of the procession as fast as\nher decrepit legs would move. There was no occasion for hurrying to\navoid the crowd; for the javelin-men had barely rounded the corner\nof the long street, and were taking the goosestep very seriously\nand deliberately. But she went by the Packhorse doorway as if swift\nhorsemen were after her, clutching the camlet cloak across her bosom,\nglancing over her shoulder, and working her lips inaudibly. I could\nnot help remarking the position of her right arm. She held it bent\nexactly as though she held an infant to her old breast, and shielded\nit while she ran.\n\nA few paces beyond the inn-door she halted on the edge of the kerb,\nflung another look up the street, and darted across the roadway. There\nstood a little shop--a watchmaker's--just opposite, and next to the\nshop a small ope with one dingy window over it. She vanished up the\npassage, at the entrance of which I was still staring idly, when, half\na minute later, a skinny trembling hand appeared at the window and\ndrew down the blind.\n\nI looked round at the men and maids; but their eyes were all for the\npageant, now not a stone's-throw away.\n\n\"Who is that old woman?\" I asked, touching Caleb, the head ostler, on\nthe shoulder.\n\nCaleb--a small bandy-legged man, with a chin full of furrows, and the\nfurrows full of grey stubble--withdrew his gaze grudgingly from the\nsheriff's coach.\n\n\"What woman?\"\n\n\"She that went by a moment since.\"\n\n\"She in the blue cloak, d'ee mean?--an old, ancient, wisht-lookin'\nbody?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"A timmersome woman, like?\"\n\n\"That's it.\"\n\n\"Well, her name's Cordely Pinsent.\"\n\nThe procession reclaimed his attention. He received a passing wink\nfrom the charioteer, caught it on the volley and returned it with a\nsolemn face; or rather, the wink seemed to rebound as from a blank\nwall. As the crowd closed in upon the circumstance of Justice, he\nturned to me again, spat, and went on--\n\n\"--Cordely Pinsent, widow of old Key Pinsent, that was tailor to\nall the grandees in the county so far back as I can mind. She's\neighty-odd; eighty-five if a day. I can just mind Key Pinsent--a\ngreat, red, rory-cumtory chap, with a high stock and a wig like King\nGeorge--'my royal patron' he called 'en, havin' by some means got\nleave to hoist the king's arms over his door. Such mighty portly\nmanners, too--Oh, very spacious, I assure 'ee! Simme I can see the old\nTrojan now, with his white weskit bulgin' out across his doorway like\na shop-front hung wi' jewels. Gout killed 'en. I went to his buryin';\nsuch a stretch of experience does a young man get by time he reaches\nmy age. God bless your heart alive, _I_ can mind when they were hung\nfor forgery!\"\n\n\"Who were hung?\"\n\n\"People,\" he answered vaguely; \"and young Willie Pinsent.\"\n\n\"This woman's son?\"\n\n\"Ay, her son--her ewe-lamb of a child. 'Tis very seldom brought up\nagen her now, poor soul! She's so very old that folks forgits about\nit. Do 'ee see her window yonder, over the ope?\"\n\nHe was pointing across to the soiled white blind that still looked\nblankly over the street, its lower edge caught up at one corner by a\ndusty geranium.\n\n\"I saw her pull it down.\"\n\n\"Ah, you would if you was lookin' that way. I've a-seed her do 't a\nscore o' times. Well, when the gout reached Key Pinsent's stomach and\nhe went off like the snuff of a candle at the age of forty-two, she\nwas left unprovided, with a son of thirteen to maintain or go 'pon the\nparish. She was a Menhennick, tho', from t'other side o' the Duchy--a\nvery proud family--and didn't mean to dip the knee to nobody, and all\nthe less because she'd demeaned hersel', to start with, by wedding a\ntailor. But Key Pinsent by all allowance was handsome as blazes, and\nwell-informed up to a point that he read Shakespeare for the mere\npleasure o't.\n\n\"Well, she sold up the stock-in-trade an' hired a couple o' rooms--the\nself-same rooms you see: and then she ate less 'n a mouse an' took in\nneedle-work, plain an' fancy: for a lot o' the gentry's wives round\nthe neighbourhood befriended her--though they had to be sly an' hide\nthat they meant it for a favour, or she'd ha' snapped their heads off.\nAn' all the while, she was teachin' her boy and tellin' 'en, whatever\nhappened, to remember he was a gentleman, an' lovin' 'en with all the\nstrength of a desolate woman.\n\n\"This Willie Pinsent was a comely boy, too: handsome as old Key, an'\nquick at his books. He'd a bold masterful way, bein' proud as ever his\nmother was, an' well knowin' there wasn' his match in Tregarrick for\nhead-work. Such a beautiful hand he wrote! When he was barely turned\nsixteen they gave 'en a place in Gregory's Bank--Wilkins an' Gregory\nit was in those aged times. He still lived home wi' his mother,\nrentin' a room extra out of his earnin's, and turnin' one of the\nbedrooms into a parlour. That's the very room you're lookin' at. And\nwhen any father in Tregarrick had a bone to pick with his sons, he'd\nadvise 'em to take example by young Pinsent--'so clever and good, too,\nthere was no tellin' what he mightn't come to in time.'\n\n\"Well-a-well, to cut it short, the lad was too clever. It came out,\nafter, that he'd took to bettin' his employers' money agen the rich\nmen up at the Royal Exchange. An' the upshot was that one evenin',\nwhile he was drinkin' tea with his mother in his lovin' light-hearted\nway, in walks a brace o' constables, an' says, 'William Pinsent,\nyoung chap, I arrest thee upon a charge o' counterfeitin' old\nGregory's handwritin', which is a hangin' matter!'\n\n\"An' now, sir, comes the cur'ous part o' the tale; for, if you'll\nbelieve me, this poor woman wouldn' listen to it--wouldn' hear a word\no't. 'What! my son Willie,' she flames, hot as Lucifer--'my son Willie\na forger! My boy, that I've missed, an' reared up, an' studied,\nmarkin' all his pretty takin' ways since he learn'd to crawl!\nGentlemen,' she says, standin' up an' facin' 'em down, 'what mother\nknows her son, if not I? I give you my word it's all a mistake.'\n\n\"Ay, an' she would have it no other. While her son was waitin' his\ntrial in jail, she walked the streets with her head high, scornin' the\nfolk as she passed. Not a soul dared to speak pity; an' one afternoon,\nwhen old Gregory hissel' met her and began to mumble that 'he\ntrusted,' an' 'he had little doubt,' an' 'nobody would be gladder than\nhe if it proved to be a mistake,' she held her skirt aside an' went by\nwith a look that turned 'en to dirt, as he said. 'Gad!' said he, 'she\ncouldn' ha' looked at me worse if I'd been a tab!' meanin' to say\n'instead o' the richest man in Tregarrick.'\n\n\"But her greatest freak was seen when th' Assizes came. Sir, she\nwouldn' even go to the trial. She disdained it. An' when, that\nmornin', the judges had driven by her window, same as they drove\nto-day, what d'ee think she did?\n\n\"She began to lay the cloth up in the parlour yonder, an' there set\nout the rarest meal, ready for her boy. There was meats, roasted\nchickens, an' a tongue, an' a great ham. There was cheese-cakes that\nshe made after a little secret of her own; an' a bowl of junket,\nan inch deep in cream, that bein' his pet dish; an' all kind o'\nknick-knacks, wi' grapes an' peaches, an' apricots, an' decanters o'\nwine, white an' red. Ay, sir, there was even crackers for mother an'\nson to pull together, with scraps o' poetry inside. An' flowers--the\ntable was bloomin' with flowers. For weeks she'd been plannin' it: an'\nall the forenoon she moved about an' around that table, givin' it\na touch here an' a touch there, an' takin' a step back to see how\nbeautiful it looked. An' then, as the day wore on, she pulled a chair\nover by the window, an' sat down, an' waited.\n\n\"In those days a capital trial was kept up till late into the night,\nif need were. By-an'-by she called up her little servin' gal that was\nthen (she's a gran'mother now), an' sends her down to the court-house\nto learn how far the trial had got, an' run back with the news.\n\n\"Down runs Selina Mary, an' back with word--\n\n\"'They're a-summin'-up,' says she.\n\n\"Then Mrs. Pinsent went an' lit eight candles. Four she set 'pon the\ntable, an' four 'pon the mantel-shelf. You could see the blaze out\nin the street, an' the room lit up, wi' the flowers, an' fruit, an'\nshinin' glasses--red and yellow dahlias the flowers were, that bein'\nthe time o' year. An' over each candle she put a little red silk\nshade. You never saw a place look cosier. Then she went back an'\nwaited: but in half-an-hour calls to Selina Mary agen:\n\n\"'Selina Mary, run you back to the courthouse, an' bring word how far\nthey've got.'\n\n\"So the little slip of a maid ran back, and this time 'twas--\n\n\"'Missis, the judge has done; an' now they're considerin' about Master\nWillie.'\n\n\"So the poor woman sat a while longer, an' then she calls:\n\n\"'Selina Mary, run down agen, an' as he comes out, tell 'en to hurry.\nThey must be finished by now.'\n\n\"The maid was gone twenty minutes this time. The evenin' was hot an'\nthe window open; an' now all the town that wasn' listenin' to the\ntrial was gathered in front, gazin' cur'ously at the woman inside. She\nwas tittivatin' the table for the fiftieth time, an' touchin' up the\nflowers that had drooped a bit i' the bowls.\n\n\"But after twenty minutes Selina Mary came runnin' up the street, an'\nfetched her breath at the front door, and went upstairs slowly and\n'pon tip-toe. Her face at the parlour door was white as paper; an'\nwhile she stood there the voices o' the crowd outside began to take\nall one tone, and beat into the room like the sound o' waves 'pon a\nbeach.\n\n\"'Oh, missis--' she begins.\n\n\"'Have they finished?'\n\n\"The poor cheald was only able to nod.\n\n\"'Then, where's Willie? Why isn't he here?'\n\n\"'Oh, missis, they're goin' to hang 'en!'\n\n\"Mrs. Pinsent moved across the room, took her by the arm, led her\ndownstairs, an' gave her a little push out into the street. Not a word\ndid she say, but shut the door 'pon her, very gentle-like. Then she\nwent back an' pulled the blind down slowly. The crowd outside watched\nher do it. Her manner was quite ord'nary. They stood there for a\nminute or so, an' behind the blind the eight candles went out, one by\none. By the time the judges passed homeward 'twas all dark, only the\nblind showin' white by the street lamp opposite. From that year to\nthis she has pulled it down whenever a judge drives by.\"\n\n\n\n\nA GOLDEN WEDDING.\n\n\nOn the very spot which the railway station has usurped, with its long\nslate roof, wooden signal-box, and advertisements in blue and white\nenamel, I can recall a still pool shining between beds of the\nflowering rush; and to this day, as I wait for the train, the whir of\na vanished water-wheel comes up the valley. Sometimes I have caught\nmyself gazing along the curve of the narrow-gauge in full expectation\nto see a sagged and lichen-covered roof at the end of it. And\nsometimes, of late, it has occurred to me that there never was such a\nmill as I used to know down yonder; and that the miller, whose coat\nwas always powdered so fragrantly, was but a white ghost, after all.\nThe station-master and porters remember no such person.\n\nBut he was no ghost; for I have met him again this week, and upon the\nstation platform. I had started at daybreak to fish up the stream\nthat runs down the valley in curves roughly parallel to the railway\nembankment; and coming within sight of the station, a little before\nnoon, I put up my tackle and strolled towards the booking-office. The\nwater was much too fine for sport, and it seemed worth while to break\noff for a pipe and a look at the 12.26 train. Such are the simple\npleasures of a country life.\n\nI leant my rod against the wall, and was setting down my creel, when,\nglancing down the platform, I saw an old man seated on the furthest\nbench. Everybody knows how a passing event, or impression, sometimes\nappears but a vain echo of previous experience. Something in the lines\nof this old man's figure, as he leaned forward with both hands clasped\nupon his staff, gave me the sensation. \"All this has happened before,\"\nI told myself. \"He and I are playing over again some small and futile\nscene in our past lives. I wonder who he is, and what is the use of\nit?\"\n\nBut there was something wanting in the picture to complete its\nresemblance to the scene for which I searched my memory.\n\nThe man had bent further forward, and was resting his chin on his\nhands and staring apathetically across the rails. Suddenly it dawned\non me that there ought to be another figure on the bench--the figure\nof an old woman; and my memory ran back to the day after this railway\nwas opened, when this man and his wife had sat together on the\nplatform waiting to see the train come in--that fascinating monster\nwhose advent had blotted out the very foundations of the old mill and\ndriven its tenants to a strange home.\n\nThe mill had disappeared many months before that, but the white dust\nstill hung in the creases of the miller's clothes. He wore his Sunday\nhat and the Sunday polish on his shoes; and his wife was arrayed in\nher best Paisley shawl. She carried also a bunch of cottage flowers,\nwithering in her large hot hand. It was clear they had never seen a\nlocomotive before, and wished to show it all respect. They had taken\na smaller house in the next valley, where they attempted to live on\ntheir savings; and had been trying vainly and pitifully to struggle\nwith all the little habits that had been their life for thirty-five\nyears, and to adapt them to new quarters. Their faces were weary,\nbut flushed with expectation. The man kept looking up the line, and\ndeclaring that he heard the rumble of the engine in the distance; and\nwhenever he said this, his wife pulled the shawl more primly about her\nshoulders, straightened her back, and nervously re-arranged her posy.\n\nWhen at length the whistle screamed out, at the head of the vale, I\nthought they were going to tumble off the bench. The woman went white\nto the lips, and stole her disengaged hand into her husband's.\n\n\"Startlin' at first, hey?\" he said, bravely winning back his\ncomposure: \"but 'tis wunnerful what control the driver has, they tell\nme. They only employ the cleverest men--\"\n\nA rattle and roar drowned the rest of his words, and he blinked and\nleant back, holding the woman's hand and tapping it softly as the\nengine rushed down with a blast of white vapour hissing under its fore\nwheels, and the carriages clanked upon each other, and the whole train\ncame to a standstill before us.\n\nThe station-master and porter walked down the line of carriages,\nbawling out the name of the station. The driver leaned out over his\nrail, and the guard, standing by the door of his van, with a green\nflag under his arm, looked enquiringly at me and at the old couple on\nthe bench. But I had only strolled up to have a look at the new train,\nand meant to resume my fishing as soon as it had passed. And the\nmiller sat still, holding his wife's hand.\n\nThey were staring with all their eyes--not resentfully, though face to\nface with the enemy that had laid waste their habitation and swept all\ncomfort out of their lives; but with a simple awe. Manifestly, too,\nthey expected something more to happen. I saw the old woman searching\nthe incurious features of the few passengers, and I thought her own\nfeatures expressed some disappointment.\n\n\"This,\" observed the guard scornfully, pulling out his watch as he\nspoke, \"is what you call traffic in these parts.\"\n\nThe station-master was abashed, and forced a deprecatory laugh. The\nguard--who was an up-country man--treated this laugh with contempt,\nand blew his whistle sharply. The driver answered, and the train moved\non.\n\nI was gazing after it when a woeful exclamation drew my attention back\nto the bench.\n\n\"Why, 'tis gone!\"\n\n\"Gone?\" echoed the miller's wife. \"Of course 'tis gone; and of all the\ndilly-dallyin' men, I must say, John, you'm the dilly-dalliest. Why\ndidn' you say we wanted to ride?\"\n\n\"I thought, maybe, they'd have axed us. 'Twouldn' ha' been polite to\nthrust oursel's forrard if they didn' want our company. Besides, I\nthought they'd be here for a brave while--\"\n\n\"You was always a man of excuses. You knew I'd set my heart 'pon this\nfeat.\"\n\nI had left them to patch up their little quarrel. But the scene stuck\nin my memory, and now, as I walked down the platform towards the\nsingle figure on the bench, I wondered, amusedly, if the woman had at\nlength taken the ride alone, and if the procrastinating husband sat\nhere to welcome her back.\n\nAs I drew near, I took note of his clothes for the first time.\nThere was no white dust in the creases to-day. In fact, he wore the\nworkhouse suit.\n\nI sat down beside him, and asked if he remembered a certain small boy\nwho had used to draw dace out of his mill-pond. With some difficulty\nhe recalled my features, and by decrees let out the story of his life\nduring the last ten years.\n\nHe and his wife had fought along in their new house, hiding their\ndiscomfort from each other, and abiding the slow degrees by which\ntheir dwelling should change into a home. But before that change was\nworked, the woman fell under a paralytic stroke, and their savings, on\nwhich they had just contrived to live, threatened to be swallowed up\nby the doctor's bill. After considering long, the miller wrote off to\nhis only son, a mechanic in the Plymouth Dockyard, and explained the\ncase. This son was a man of forty or thereabouts, was married, and had\na long family. He could not afford to take the invalid into his house\nfor nothing; but his daughters would look after their grandmother and\nshe should have good medical care as well, if she came on a small\nallowance.\n\n\"So the only thing to be done, sir, was for my old woman to go.\"\n\n\"And you--?\"\n\n\"Oh, I went into the 'House.' You see, there wasn' enough for both,\nlivin' apart.\"\n\nI stared down the line to the spot where the mill-wheel had hummed\nso pleasantly, and the compassionate sentence I was about to utter\nwithered up and died on my lips.\n\n\"But to-day--Oh, to-day, sir--\"\n\n\"What's happening to-day?\"\n\n\"She's comin' down to see me for an hour or two; an' I've got a\nholiday to meet her. 'Tis our Golden Weddin', sir.\"\n\n\"But why are you meeting her at this station instead of Tregarrick?\nShe can't walk, and you have no horse and trap; whereas there's always\na 'bus at Tregarrick.\"\n\n\"Well, you see, sir, there's a very tidy little cottage below where\nthey sell ginger-beer, an' I've got a whack o' vittles in the basket\nhere, besides what William is bringin'--William an' his wife are\ncomin' down with her. They'll take her back by the last train up; an'\nI thought, as 'twas so little a while, an' the benches here are so\ncomfortable, we'd pass our day 'pon the platform here. 'Tis within\nsight o' the old home, too, or ruther o' the spot where the old home\nused to be: an' though 'tis little notice she seems to take o' things,\none never can tell if poor creatures in that state _hain't_ pleased\nbehind all their dazed looks. What do you think, sir?\"\n\nThe whistle sounded up the valley, and mercifully prevented my answer.\nI saw the woman for an instant as she was brought out of the train and\ncarried to the bench. She did not recognise the man she had married\nfifty years before: but as we moved out of the station, he was sitting\nbeside her, his face transfigured with a solemn joy.\n\n\n\n\nSCHOOL FRIENDS.\n\n\n\"What ho, there!\"\n\nAt this feudal summons I turned, and spied the Bashaw elbowing his way\ntowards me through the Fleet Street crowd, his hat and tie askew and\nhis big face a red beacon of goodwill. He fell on my neck, and we\nembraced.\n\n\"Is me recreant child returned? Is he tired at last av annihilatin'\nall that's made to a green thought in a green shade? An' did he\nhomesickun by the Cornish Coast for the Street that Niver Sleeps,\nan' the whirroo an' stink av her, an' the _foomum et opase\nstrepitumk\u00e9_--to drink delight av battle with his peers, an' see the\ngreat Achilles whom he knew--meanin' meself?\" The Bashaw's style in\nconversation, as in print, bristles with allusion.\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"I go back to-morrow, I hope. Business brought me up, and as soon as\nit's settled I pack.\"\n\n\"Too quick despairer--but I take it ye'll be bound just now for the\nCheese. Right y'are; and I'll do meself the honour to lunch wid ye, at\nyour expense.\"\n\nEveryone knows and loves the Bashaw, _alias_ the O'Driscoll, that\ngenial failure. Generations of Fleet Street youths have taken advice\nand help from him: have prospered, grown reputable, rich, and even\nfamous: and have left him where he stood. Nobody can remember the time\nwhen O'Driscoll was not; though, to judge from his appearance, he must\nhave stepped upon the town from between the covers of an illustrated\nkeepsake, such as our grandmothers loved--so closely he resembles the\nCorsair of that period, with his ripe cheeks, melting eyes, and black\ncurls that twist like the young tendrils of a vine. The curls are\ndyed now-a-days, and his waist is not what it used to be in the\npicture-books; but time has worn nothing off his temper. He is\nperennially enthusiastic, and can still beat any journalist in London\nin describing a Lord Mayor's Show.\n\n\"You behould in me,\" he went on, with a large hand on my shoulder,\n\"the victum av a recent eviction--a penniless outcast. 'Tis no\nbeggar's petition that I'll be profferin', however, but a bargun. Give\nme a salad, a pint av hock, an' fill me pipe wid the Only Mixture,\nan' I'll repay ye across the board wid a narrative--the sort av\nGod-forsaken, ord'nary thrifle that you youngsters turn into copy--may\nye find forgiveness! 'Tis no use to me whatever. Ted O'Driscoll's\ninstrument was iver the big drum, and he knows his limuts.\"\n\n\"Yes, me boy,\" he resumed, five minutes later, as he sat in the\nCheshire Cheese, beneath Dr. Johnson's portrait, balancing a\nblack-handled knife between his first and second fingers, and nodding\ngood-fellowship to every journalist in the room, \"the apartment in\nBloomsbury is desolut; the furnichur'--what was lift av ut--disparsed;\nthe leopard an' the lizard keep the courts where O'Driscoll gloried\nan' drank deep; an' the wild ass--meanin' by that the midical student\non the fourth floor--stamps overhead, but cannot break his sleep. I've\nbeen evicted: that's the long and short av ut. Lord help me!--I'd have\nfared no worse in the ould country--here's to her! Think what immortal\ncopy I'd have made out av the regrettable incident over there!\" His\nvoice broke, but not for self-pity. It always broke when he mentioned\nIreland.\n\n\"Is it comfort ye'd be speakin'?\" he began again, filling his glass.\n\"Me dear fellow, divvle a doubt I'll fetch round tight an' safe. Ould\nMick Sullivan--he that built the _Wild Girl_, the fastest vessel that\niver put out av Limerick--ould Mick Sullivan used to swear he'd make\nany ship seaworthy that didn' leak worse than a five-barred gate. An'\nthat's me, more or less. I'm an ould campaigner. But listen to this.\nMe feelin's have been wrung this day, and that sorely. I promised ye\nthe story, an' I must out wid ut, whether or no.\"\n\nIt was the hour when the benches of the Cheese begin to empty. My work\nwas over for the day, and I disposed myself to listen.\n\n\"The first half I spent at the acadimy where they flagellated the\nrudiments av polite learnin' into me small carcuss, I made a friend.\nHe was the first I iver made, though not the last, glory be to God!\nBut first friendship is like first love for the sweet taste it puts in\nthe mouth. Niver but once in his life will a man's heart dance to that\nchune. 'Twas a small slip of a Saxon lad that it danced for then: a\nson av a cursed agint, that I should say it. But sorra a thought had I\nfor the small boccawn's nationality nor for his own father's trade.\nI only knew the friendship in his pretty eyes an' the sweetness that\nknit our two sowls togither, like David's an' Jonathan's. Pretty it\nwas to walk togither, an' discourse, an' get the strap togither for\nheaven knows what mischief, an' consowl each other for our broken\nskins. He'd a wonderful gift at his books, for which I reverenced um,\nand at the single-stick, for which I loved um. Niver to this day did\nI call up the ould play-ground widout behowldin' that one boy, though\nall the rest av the faces (the master's included) were vague as\nwather--wather in which that one pair av eyes was reflected.\n\n\"The school was a great four-square stone buildin' beside a windy\nroad, and niver a tree in sight; but pastures where the grass would\ncut your boot, an' stone walls, an' brown hills around, like the rim\nav a saucer. All belonged to the estate that Jemmy Nichol's father\nmanaged--a bankrupt property, or next door to that. It's done better\nsince he gave up the place; but when I've taken a glance at the\nlandscape since (as I have, once or twice) I see no difference. To me\n'tis the naked land I looked upon the last day av the summer half,\nwhen I said good-bye to Jemmy; for he was lavin' the school that same\nafternoon for Dublin, to cross over to England wid his father.\n\n\"Sick at heart was I, an' filled already wid the heavy sense of\nsolitariness, as we stood by the great iron gate wishin' one another\nfare-ye-well.\n\n\"'Jemmy avick,' says I, 'dull, dull will it be widout ye here. And,\nJemmy--send some av my heart back to me when ye write, as ye promise\nto do.'\n\n\"'Wheniver I lay me down, Ned,' he answered me (though by nature a\nclose-hearted English boy), 'I'll think o' ye; an' wheniver I rise up\nI'll think o' ye. May the Lord do so to me, an' more also, if I cease\nfrom lovin' ye till my life's end.'\n\n\"So we kissed like a pair av girls, and off he was driven, leavin' a\ngreat hollow inside the rim av the hills. An' I ran up to the windy\ndormitory, stumblin' at ivery third step for the blindin' tears, and\nwatched um from the window there growin' small along the road. 'Ye\nMountains av Gilboa,' said I, shakin' my fist at the hills, 'let there\nbe no dew, neither let there be rain upon ye;' for I hated the place\nnow that Jemmy was gone.\n\n\"Well, 'twas the ould story--letters at first in plenty, then fewer,\nthen none at all. Long before I came over to try my luck I'd lost all\nnews of Jem: didn't know his address, even. Nor till to-day have I set\neyes on um. He's bald-headed, me boy, and crooked-faytured, to-day;\nbut I knew him for Jemmy in the first kick av surprise.\n\n\"I was evicted this mornin', as I've towld ye. Six years I've hung me\nhat up in those same apartments in Bloomsbury; and, till last year,\naisy enough I found me landlord over a quarter's rent or two overjue.\nBut last midsummer year the house changed hands; and bedad it began to\nbe 'pay or quit.' This day it was 'quit.' The new landlord came up the\nstairs at the head av the ejectin' army: I got up from breakfast to\nopen the door to um. I'd never set eyes on um since I'd been his\ntenant. Bedad, it was Jemmy!\"\n\nO'Driscoll paused, and poured himself another glass of hock.\n\n\"So I suppose,\" I said, \"you ran into each other's arms, and kissed\nagain with tears?\"\n\n\"Then you suppose wrong,\" said he, and sat for a moment or two silent,\nfingering the stem of his glass. Then he added, more gently--\n\n\"I looked in the face av um, and said to meself, 'Jemmy doesn't\nremember me. If I introduce meself, I wonder what'll he do? Will he\nlove me still, or will he turn me out?' An' by the Lord I didn't care\nto risk ut! I couldn't dare to lose that last illusion; an' so I put\non me hat an' walked out, tellin' him nothing at all.\"\n\n\n\n\nPARENTS AND CHILDREN.\n\n\nI.--THE FAMILY BIBLE\n\nThere lived a young man at Tregarrick called Robert Haydon. His father\nwas not a native of the town, but had settled there early in life and\nbecame the leading solicitor of the place. At the age of thirty-seven\nhe married the daughter of a county magistrate, and by this step\nbettered his position considerably. By the time that Robert was born\nhis parents' standing was very satisfactory. They were living well\ninside an income of \u00a31,200 a year, had about \u00a38,000 (consisting\nof Mrs. Haydon's dowry and Mr. Haydon's bachelor savings) safely\ninvested, and were on visiting terms with several of the lesser county\nfamilies.\n\nIn other respects they were just as fortunate. They had a sincere\naffection for each other, and coincident opinions on the proper\nconduct of life. They were people into whose heads a misgiving seldom\nor never penetrated. Their religious beliefs and the path of social\nduty stood as plain before them as their front gate and as narrow as\nthe bridge which Mohammedans construct over hell. They loved Bob--who\nof four children was their only son--and firmly intended to do their\nbest for him; and as they knew what was best for him, it followed\nthat Bob must conform. He was a light-coloured, docile boy, with a\npleasantly ingenuous face and an affectionate disposition; and he\nloved his parents, and learned to lean on them.\n\nThey sent him in time to Marlborough, where he wrote Latin verses of\nslightly unusual merit, and bowled with a break from the off which\nmeant that there lay a thin vein of genius somewhere inside of him.\nWhen once collared, his bowling became futile; success made it deadly,\nand on one occasion in a school match against the M.C.C. he did things\nat Lord's which caused a thin gathering of spectators--the elderly\nmen who never miss a match--to stare at him very attentively as he\nreturned to the pavilion. They thought it worth while to ask, \"Which\n'Varsity was he bound for?\"\n\nBob was bound for neither. He had to inherit, and consented to\ninherit, his father's practice without question. His consuming desire\nto go up to Oxford he hinted at once, and once only, in a conversation\nwith his father; but Mr. Haydon \"did not care to expose his son to the\ntemptations which beset young men at the Universities\"--this was\nthe very text--and preferred to keep him under his own eye in the\nseclusion of Tregarrick.\n\nTo a young man who is being shielded from temptation in a small\nprovincial town there usually happens one of two things. Either he\ntakes to drink or to discreditable essays in love-making. It is to\nBob's credit that he did neither; a certain delicate sanity in the\nfellow kept him from these methods of killing time. Instead, he spent\nhis evenings at home; listened to his parents' talk; accepted their\nopinions on human conduct and affairs; and tumbled honourably into\nlove with his sisters' governess.\n\nEthel Ormiston, the governess, was about a year older than Bob, good\nto look at, and the only being who understood what ailed Bob's soul\nduring this time. She was in prison herself, poor woman. Mrs. Haydon\nasserted afterwards that Miss Ormiston had \"deliberately set herself\nto inveigle\" the boy; but herein Mrs. Haydon was mistaken. As a matter\nof fact Bob, having discovered someone obliging and intelligent enough\nto listen, dinned the story of his aspirations into the girl's ear\nwith the persistent egoism of a hobbedehoy. It must be allowed,\nhowever, that the counsel she gave him would have annoyed his parents\nexcessively.\n\n\"But I do sympathise with you,\" she said after listening to an\nimmoderately long and peevish harangue; \"and I should advise you to\ngo to your father, as a first step, and ask to be paid a very small\nsalary for the work you do--enough to set up in lodgings alone. At\npresent you are pauperising yourself.\"\n\nBob did not quite understand--so she explained:\n\n\"You are twenty-one, and still receiving food and lodging from your\nparents as a dole. At your age, if a man receives anything at all from\nfather or mother, he should be earning it as a right.\"\n\nShe spoke impatiently, and longed to add that he was also\nimpoverishing his intellect. She felt a touch of contempt for him; but\na touch of contempt may go with love, and, indeed, competent observers\nhave held that this mixture makes the very finest cement. Certain it\nis that when Bob answered pathetically, \"But I don't want to leave\nthis roof, I--I _can't_, Miss Ormiston, you know!\" she missed her\nopportunity of pointing out that this confession stultified every one\nof his previous utterances. She began a sentence, indeed, but broke\noff, with her grey eyes fixed on the ground; and when at length she\nlifted them, Bob felt something take him by the throat. The few\nwords he proceeded to blurt out stunned him much as if a grenade had\nexploded close at hand. But when Miss Ormiston burst into tears and\ndeclared she must go upstairs at once and pack her box, he recovered,\nand, looking about, found the aspect of the world bewilderingly\nchanged. There were valleys where hills had stood a moment before.\n\n\"I'll go at once and tell my father,\" he said, drawing a full breath\nand looking like the man he was for the moment.\n\n\"And,\" sobbed Miss Ormiston, \"I'll go at once and pack my box.\"\n\nHerein she showed foresight, for as soon as Bob's interview with his\nfather was over, she was commanded to leave the premises in time to\ncatch the early train next morning.\n\nThen the Haydon family sat down and talked to Bob.\n\nThey began by pooh-poohing the affair. Then, inconsequently, they\ntalked of disgrace, and of scratching his name out of the Family\nBible, and said they would rather follow him to his grave than see him\nmarried to Miss Ormiston. Lastly, Mrs. Haydon asked Bob who had nursed\nhim, and taught him to walk, and read and know virtue when he saw it.\nBob, in the words of the poet, replied, \"My mother.\" \"Very well then,\"\nsaid Mrs. Haydon.\n\nAfter forty-eight hours of this Bob wrote to Miss Ormiston, saying,\n\"My father's indignation is natural, and can only be conquered by\ntime. But I love you always.\"\n\nMiss Ormiston replied, \"Your father's indignation is natural, perhaps.\nBut if you love me, it might be conquered by something else,\" or words\nto that effect. At any rate, her letter implied that as it was Bob,\nand not his father, who proposed to make her a wife, it was on Bob,\nand not on his father, that she laid the responsibility of fulfilling\nthe promise.\n\nBut Bob was weak as water. Love had given him one brief glimpse of the\nreal world: then his father and mother began to talk, and the covers\nof the Family Bible closed like gates upon his prospect. At the end\nof a week he wrote--\"Nothing shall shake me, dear Ethel. Still, some\nconsideration is due to them; for I am their only son.\"\n\nTo this Ethel Ormiston sent no answer; but reflected \"And what\nconsideration is due to me? for you are my only lover.\"\n\nFor a while Bob thought of enlisting, and then of earning an honest\nwage as a farm-labourer; but rejected both notions, because his\ntraining had not taught him that independence is better than\nrespectability--yea, than much broadcloth. It was not that he hankered\nafter the fleshpots, but that he had no conception of a world without\nfleshpots. In the end his father came to him and said--\n\n\"Will you give up this girl?\"\n\nAnd Bob answered--\n\n\"I'm sorry, father, but I can't.\"\n\n\"Very well. Rather than see this shame brought on the family, I will\nsend you out to Australia. I have written to my friend Morris, at\nBallawag, New South Wales, three hundred miles from Sydney, and he is\nready to take you into his office. You have broken my heart and your\nmother's, and you must go.\"\n\nAnd Bob--this man of twenty-one or more--obeyed his father in this,\nand went. I can almost forgive him, knowing how the filial habit\nblinds a man. But I cannot forgive the letter he wrote to Miss\nOrmiston--whom he wished to make his wife, please remember.\nNevertheless she forgave him. She had found another situation, and was\nworking on. Her parents were dead.\n\nFive years passed, and Bob's mother died--twelve years, and his father\ndied also, leaving him the lion's share of the money. During this time\nBob had worked away at Ballawag and earned enough to set up as lawyer\non his own account. But because a man cannot play fast and loose with\nthe self-will that God gave him and afterwards expect to do much\nin the world, he was a moderately unsuccessful man still when the\ninheritance dropped in. It gave him a fair income for life. When the\nletter containing the news reached him, he left the office, walked\nback to his house, and began to think. Then he unlocked his safe and\ntook out Ethel Ormiston's letters. They made no great heap; for of\nlate their correspondence had dwindled to an annual exchange of\ngood wishes at Christmas. She was still earning her livelihood as a\ngoverness.\n\nBob thought for a week, and then wrote. He asked Ethel Ormiston to\ncome out and be his wife. You will observe that the old curse still\nlay on him. A man--even a poor one--that was worth kicking would have\ngone and fetched her; and Bob had plenty of money. But he asked her to\ncome out and begged her to cable \"Yes\" or \"No.\"\n\nShe cabled \"Yes.\" She would start within the month from Plymouth, in\nthe sailing-ship _Grimaldi_. She chose a sailing-ship because it was\ncheaper.\n\nSo Bob travelled down to Sydney to welcome his bride. He stepped on\nthe _Grimaldi's_ deck within five minutes of her arrival, and asked\nif a Miss Ormiston were on board. There advanced a middle-aged woman,\ngaunt, wrinkled and unlovely--not the woman he had chosen, but the\nwoman he had made.\n\n\"Ethel?\" was all he found to say.\n\n\"Yes, Bob; I am Ethel. And God forgive you.\"\n\nOf the change in him she said nothing; but held out her hand with a\nsmile.\n\n\"Marry me, Bob, or send me back: I give you leave to do either, and\nadvise you to send me back. Twelve years ago you might have been proud\nof me, and so I might have helped you. As it is, I have travelled far,\nand am tired. I can never help you now.\"\n\nAnd though he married her, she never did.\n\n\nII.--BOANERGES.\n\n\"Bill Penberthy's come back, I hear.\"\n\nThe tin-smith was sharpening his pocket-knife on the parapet of the\nbridge, and, without troubling to lift his eyes, threw just enough\ninterrogation into the remark to show that he meant it to lead to\nconversation. Every one of the dozen men around him held a knife, so\nthat a stranger, crossing the bridge, might have suspected a popular\nrising in the village. But, as a matter of fact, they were merely\nwaiting for their turn. There is in the parapet one stone upon which\nknives may be sharpened to an incomparable edge; and, for longer\nthan I can remember, this has supplied the men of Gantick with the\nnecessary excuse for putting their heads together on fine evenings and\ndiscussing the news.\n\n\"Ay, he's back.\"\n\n\"Losh, Uncle, I'd no idea you was there,\" said the tin-smith, wheeling\nround. \"And how's your lad looking?\"\n\n\"Tolerable--tolerable. 'A's got a black suit, my sonnies, and a white\ntie, and a soft hat that looks large on the head, but can be folded\nand stowed in your tail pocket.\" Complacency shone over the speaker's\nshrivelled cheeks, and beamed from his horn-spectacles. \"You can tell\n'en at a glance for a Circuit-man and no common Rounder.\"\n\n\"'A's fully knowledgeable by all accounts; learnt out, they tell me.\"\n\n\"You shall hear 'en for yourselves at meeting to-morrow. He conducts\nboth services. Now don't tempt me any more, that's good souls: for\nwhen he'd no sooner set foot in th' house and kissed his mother than\nhe had us all down on our knees giving hearty thanks in the most\nbeautiful language, I said to myself, 'many's the time I've had two\nminds about the money spent in making ye a better man than your\nfather;' but fare thee well, doubt! I don't begrudge it, an' there's\nan end.\"\n\nA small girl came running down the street to the bridge-end.\n\n\"Uncle Penberthy,\" she panted, \"your tall son--Mr. William--said I\nwas to run down and fetch 'ee home at once.\"\n\n\"Nothin' wrong with 'en, I hope?\"\n\n\"I think he's going to hold a prayer.\"\n\nThe little man looked at the blade of his knife for a moment, half\nregretfully: then briskly clasped it, slipped it into his pocket, and\nhobbled away after the messenger.\n\nThe whitewashed front of the Meeting House was bathed, next evening,\nwith soft sunset yellow when Mr. Penberthy the elder stole down\nthe stairs between the exhortations, as his custom was, and stood\nbareheaded in the doorway respiring the cool air. As a deacon he\ntemperately used the privileges of his office, and one of these was\na seat next the door. The Meeting House was really no more than a\nroom--a long upper chamber over a store; and its stairway descended\ninto the street so sharply that it was possible, even for a\nshort-armed man, to sit on the lowest step and shake hands with a\nfriend in the street.\n\nThe roadway was deserted for a while. Across the atmosphere there\nreigned that hush which people wonder at on Sundays, forgetting that\nnature is always still and that nine-tenths of the week's hubbub is\nmade by man. Down the pale sky came a swallow, with another in chase:\ntheir wings were motionless as they swept past the doorway, but the\nair whizzed with the speed of their flight, and in a moment was silent\nagain. Then from the upper room a man's voice began to roar out upon\nthe stillness. It roared, it broke out in thick sobs that shook the\nclosed windows in their fastenings, it wrestled with emotion for\nutterance, and, overcoming it, rose into a bellow again; but, whether\nsoaring or depressed, the strain upon it was never relaxed. Uncle\nPenberthy, listening to his son, felt an oppression of his own chest\nand drew his breath uneasily.\n\nThe tin-smith came round the corner and halted by the door.\n\n\"That son o' yours is a boundless man,\" he observed with an upward\nnod.\n\n\"How did he strike ye this morning?\"\n\n\"I don't remember to have been so powerfully moved in my life. Perhaps\nyou and me being cronies for thirty year, and he your very son, may\nhave helped to the more effectual working; but be that as it may, I\ncouldn't master my dinner afterwards, and that's the trewth. Ah, he's\na man, Uncle; and there's no denying we wanted one of that sort to\nawaken us to a fit sense. What a dido he do kick up, to be sure!\"\n\nThe tin-smith shifted his footing uneasily as if he had something to\nadd.\n\n\"I hope you won't think it onneighbourly or disrespectful that I didn'\ncome agen this evenin',\" he begun, after a pause.\n\n\"Not at all, Jem, not at all.\"\n\n\"Because, you see--\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I quite see.\"\n\n\"I wouldn' have ye think--but there, I'm powerful glad you see.\" His\nface cleared. \"Good evenin' to ye, Uncle!\"\n\nHe went on with a brisker step, while Uncle Penberthy drew a few more\nlingering breaths and climbed the stairs again to the close air of the\nmeeting-room.\n\n\"I'm afraid, father, that something in my second exhortation\ndispleased you,\" said the Rev. William Penberthy as he walked home\nfrom service between his parents. He was a tall fellow with a\nhatchet-shaped face and eyes set rather closely together.\n\n\"Not at all, my son. What makes ye deem it?\" The little man tilted\nback his bronzed top-hat and looked up nervously.\n\n\"Because you went out in the middle of service.\"\n\n\"'Tis but father's habit, William,\" old Mrs. Penberthy made haste to\nexplain, laying a hand on his arm. She was somewhat stouter of build\nand louder of voice than her husband, but stood in just the same awe\nof her son. \"He's done it regular since he was appointed deacon.\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked William, stonily.\n\nUncle Penberthy pulled off his hat to extract a red handkerchief from\nits crown, removed his spectacles, and wiped them hurriedly.\n\n\"Them varmints of boys,\" he stammered, \"be so troublesome round the\ndoor--occasion'lly, that is.\"\n\n\"Was that so to-night?\"\n\n\"Why, no.\"\n\n\"But you were absent at least twenty minutes--all through the silent\nprayer and half way through the third exhortation.\" He gazed sternly\nat the amiable old man. \"You didn't hear me treat that difficulty\nin Colossians, two, twenty to twenty-three? If you have time, we'll\ndiscuss it after private worship to-night. If I can make you see it\nin what I am sure is the right light, it will lead you to think more\nseriously of that glass of beer you have fallen into the habit of\ntaking with your supper.\"\n\nIt is but a fortnight since the Rev. William Penberthy came home; but\nin that fortnight his father and mother have aged ten years. The\nold man, when I took him my watch to regulate the other day--for on\nweek-days he is a watch-maker--began to ask questions, as eagerly as a\nchild, about the village news. It turned out that, for a whole week,\nhe had not been down to sharpen his knife upon the bridge. He has\ngiven up his glass of beer, too, and altogether the zeal of his house\nis eating him up.\n\nThis morning the new minister climbed into the van with his\ncarpet-bag. He is off to some Conference or other, and will be back\nagain the day after to-morrow. Ten minutes after he had gone his\nfather and mother shut up the shop and went out together. They mean\nto take a whole holiday and hear all the news. It was pitiful to\nsee their fumbling haste as they helped one another to put up the\nshutters; and almost more pitiful to mark, as they hurried down the\nstreet arm in arm, their conscientious but feeble endeavour to look\nsomething more staid than a couple of children just out of school.\n\n\n\n\nTWO MONUMENTS.\n\n\nMY DEAR YOUNG LADY,--\n\nOur postman here does not deliver parcels until the afternoon--which\nnobody grumbles at, because of his infirmity and his long and useful\ncareer. The manuscript, therefore, of your novel, _Sunshine and\nShadow_, has not yet reached me. But your letter--in which, you beg me\nto send an opinion upon the work, with some advice upon your chances\nof success in literature--I found on my breakfast-table, as well\nas the photograph which you desire (perhaps wisely) to face the\ntitle-page. I trust you will forgive the slight stain in the lower\nleft-hand corner of the portrait, which I return: for it is the\nstrawberry-season here, and in course of my reflections I had the\nmisfortune to let the cardboard slip between my fingers and fall\nacross the edge of the plate.\n\nI have taken the resolution to send my advice before it can be\nshaken by a perusal of _Sunshine and Shadow_. But it is difficult\nnevertheless. I might say bluntly that, unless the camera lies, your\nface is not one to stake against Fame over a game of hazard. You\nremember John Lyly's \"Cupid and my Campaspe\"?--and how Cupid losing,\n\n                     \"_down he throws\n  The coral of his lip, the rose\n  Growing on's cheek (but none lenows how)_ ...\"\n\n--and so on, with the rest of his charms, one by one? I might assure\nyou that when maidens play against Fame they risk all these treasures\nand more, without hope of leniency from their opponent, who (you will\nnote) is the same sex. But you will answer by return of post, that\nthis is no business of mine, and that I exhibit the usual impertinence\nof man when asked to consider woman's serious aspiration. You will\nprotest that you are ready to stake all this. Very well, then: listen,\nif you have patience, to a little story that I came upon, a week\nsince, about a man who spent his days at this game of hazard. It was\ncalled _The Two Monuments_.\n\nWhen the Headmaster of the Grammar-School came to add up the marks\nfor the term's work and examination--which he always did without a\nmistake--it was discovered that in the Upper Fourth (the top form)\nThompson had beaten Jenkins _major_ by sixteen. So Thompson received\na copy of the _Memoirs of Eminent Etonians_, bound in tree-calf, and\ntook it home under his arm, wondering what \"Etonians\" were, but too\nproud to ask. And Jenkins _major_ received nothing; and being too weak\nto punch Thompson's head (as he desired) waylaid him opposite the\ncemetery gate on his way home, and said--\n\n\"_Parvenu!_\"\n\n--which was doubly insulting; for, in the first place, French was\nThompson's weakest subject, and secondly, his father was a haberdasher\nin a small way, who spoke with awe of the Jenkinses as a family that\nhad practised law in the town for six generations. Thompson himself\nwas aware of the glamour such a lineage conferred. It was wholly due\nto his ignorance of French that he retorted--\n\n\"You're another!\"\n\nYoung Jenkins explained the term, with a wave of his hand towards the\ncemetery gate.\n\n\"You'll find my family in there, and inside a rail of their own. And\nyou needn't think I wanted that prize. _I_'ve got a grandfather.\"\n\nSo, no doubt, had Thompson; but, to find him, he must have consulted\nthe parish books and searched among the graves at the northern end of\nthe burial-ground for one decorated with a tin label and the number\n2054. He gazed in at the sacred acre of the Jenkinses and the\nmonuments emblazoned with \"J.P.,\" \"Recorder of this Borough,\" \"Clerk\nof the Peace for the County,\" and other proud appendices in gilt\nlettering: and, in the heat of his heart, turned upon Jenkins _major_.\n\n\"You just wait till we die, and see which of us two has the finer\ntombstone!\"\n\nThereupon he stalked home and read the _Memoirs of Eminent Etonians_,\nand learnt from their perusal that it was indeed possible to earn\na finer tombstone than any Jenkins possessed. At the end of the\nChristmas term, too, he acquired a copy of Dr. Smiles's famous work on\n_Self-Help_, and this really set his feet in the path to his desire.\n\nHe determined, after weighing the matter carefully, to be a poet: for\nit seemed to him that of all the noble professions this was the only\none the initial expense of which could be covered by his patrimony.\nThe paper, ink, and pens came cheaply enough (though the waste was\nexcessive); and for his outfit of high thoughts and emotions he pawned\nnot merely the possessions that you, my dear young lady, are\nso willing to cast on the table--charms of face and graces of\nperson--for, as a man, he valued these lightly; but the strength in\nhis arms, the taste of meat and wine, the cunning of horsemanship, of\nboat-sailing, of mountain-climbing, the breathless joy of the diver,\nthe languid joy of the dancer, the feel of the canoe-paddle shaken\nin the rapid, the delicious lassitude of sleep in wayside-inns, and\nlastly the ecstasy of love and fatherhood--all these he relinquished\nfor a tombstone that should be handsomer than Jenkins's. Jenkins,\nmeanwhile, was articled to his father, and, having passed the\nnecessary examinations with credit, became a solicitor and married\ninto a county family.\n\nThompson, I need hardly tell you, was by this time settled in London\nand naturally spent a good deal of his leisure time in Westminster\nAbbey. The monuments there profoundly affected his imagination, and\ngave him quite new ambitions with regard to the tombstone that towered\nat the back of all his day-dreams. When first he trod the Embankment,\nin thin boots with a few pence in his pocket, it had appeared to him\nin slate with a terrific inscription in gilt letters--inscriptions in\nwhich \"Benefactor of His Species,\" \"Take him for All in All We shall\nnot Look upon his Like Again\" took the place of the pettifogging\n\"Clerk of the Peace\" or \"J.P.\" tagged on to the names of the\nJenkinses. By degrees, however, he abated a little of the inscription\nand made up for it by trebling the costliness of the stone.\n\nFrom slate it grew to granite--to marble--to alabaster, with painted\ncherubs and a coat of arms. At one time he brooded, for a whole week,\nover a flamboyant design with bosses of lapis lazuli at the four\ncorners; and only gave it up for a life-size recumbent figure in\nalabaster with four gryphons supporting the sarcophagus. As the soles\nof his boots thickened with prosperity, so did his stone grow in\nsolidity. Finally an epic of his--_Adrastus_--took the town by\nstorm, and three editions were exhausted in a single week. When this\nhappened, he sat down with a gigantic sheet of cartridge paper before\nhim and spent a whole year in setting out the elaborated design. By\nhis will he left all his money to pay for the structure: for his\nfather and mother were dead and he had neither wife nor child.\n\nWhen all was finished he rubbed his hands, packed up his bag and took\na third-class ticket down to his native town, to have a contemptuous\nlook at the Jenkins monuments and see how Jenkins _major_ was getting\non.\n\nJenkins _major_ was up in the cemetery, among his fathers. And on top\nof Jenkins rested a granite cross--sufficiently handsome, to be sure,\nfor a solicitor, but nothing out of the way. \"J.P.\" was carved upon\nit; though, as Jenkins had an absurdly long Christian name (Marmaduke\nAugustus St. John), these letters were squeezed a bit in the right arm\nof the cross. Underneath was engraved--\n\n  \"_ERECTED BY HIS DISCONSOLATE\n  WIFE AND CHILDREN.\n\n  A Father kind, a Husband dear,\n  A faithful Friend, lies buried here_.\"\n\nThompson perused the doggerel once, twice, and a third time; and\nchuckled contemptuously. \"So Jenkins has come to this. God bless me,\nhow life in a provincial town does narrow a man!\"\n\n  \"_A Father kind, a Husband dear_...\"\n\n--and he went away chuckling, but with no malice at all in his breast.\n\nJenkins slept forgiven beneath his twopenny-halfpenny tombstone, and\nThompson, reflecting that not only was his own monument designed (with\na canopy of Carrara marble), but the cost of it invested in the three\nper cents., walked contentedly back to the station, repeating on his\nway with gentle scorn--\n\n  \"_A Father kind, a Husband dear,\n  A faithful Friend, lies buried here_.\"\n\nThe jingle lulled him asleep in his railway carriage, and he awoke in\nLondon. Driving home, he paid the cabby, rushed up to his room three\nstairs at a bound, unlocked his safe and pulled out the great design.\nIn one corner he had even drawn up a list of the eminent men who\nshould be his pall-bearers. Certainly such a tomb would make Jenkins\nturn in his grave.\n\nHe spread the plan on the table, with a paper-weight on each corner,\nand sat down before it. After considering it for an hour, he arose\ndissatisfied.\n\n\"Jenkins had a heap of flowers over him--common flowers, to be sure,\nbut fresh enough. I dare say I could arrange for a supply, though.\nIt's that confounded doggerel--\n\n  '_A Father kind, a Husband dear_.'\n\n\"That's Mrs. Jenkins's taste, I suppose. Still--of course I could\nbetter the verse; but one can't stick up a lie over one's remains. I\nwish to God I had a disconsolate wife, or a child, if only to spite\nJenkins.\"\n\nAnd I believe, my dear young lady, that underneath his tomb (whereon\nthere now stands a marble figure of Fame and blows a gilt trumpet) he\nis still wishing it.\n\n\n\n\nEGG-STEALING.\n\n\nIt wanted less than an hour to high water when Miss Marty Lear heard\nher brother's boat take ground on the narrow beach below the garden,\nand set the knives and glasses straight while she listened for the\nclick of the garden-latch.\n\nA line of stunted hazels ran along the foot of the garden and hid the\nlanding-place from Miss Lear as she stood at the kitchen window gazing\ndown steep alleys of scarlet runners. But above the hazels she could\nlook across to the fruit-growing village of St. Kits, and catch a\nglimpse at high tide of the intervening river, or towards low water of\nthe mud-banks shining in the sun.\n\nIt was Miss Lear's custom to look much on this landscape from this\nwindow: had, in fact, been her habit for close upon forty years. And\nthis evening, when the latch clicked at length, and her brother in\nhis market-suit come slouching up the path between the parallels of\ngarden-stuff, her eyes rested all the while upon the line of grey\nwater above and beyond his respectable hat.\n\nNor, when he entered the kitchen, hitched this hat upon a peg in the\nwall--where its brim accurately fitted a sort of dull halo in the\nwhitewash--did he appear to want any welcome from her. He was a\nlong-jawed man of sixty-five, she a long-jawed woman of sixty-one; and\nthey understood each other's ways, having kept this small and desolate\nfarm together for thirty years--that is, since their father's death.\n\nA cold turnip-pasty stood on the table, with the cider-jug that Job\nLear regularly emptied at supper. These suggested no small-talk, and\nthe pair sat down to eat in silence.\n\nIt was only while holding out his plate for a second helping of the\npasty that Job spoke with a full mouth.\n\n\"Who d'ee reckon I ran across to-day, down in Troy?\"\n\nMiss Marty cut the slice without troubling to say that she had not a\nnotion.\n\n\"Why, that fellow Amos Trudgeon,\" he went on.\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"'Pears to me you must be failin' if you disremembers 'en: son of old\nSal Trudgeon, that used to keep the jumble-shop 'cross the water: him\nthat stole our eggs back-along, when father was livin'.\"\n\n\"I remember.\"\n\n\"I thought you must. Why, you gave evidence, to be sure. Be dashed!\nnow I come to mind, if you wasn' the first to wake the house an' say\nyou heard a man hollerin' out down 'pon the mud.\"\n\n\"Iss, I was.\"\n\n\"An' saved his life, though you did get 'en two months in Bodmin Gaol\nby it. Up to the arm-pits he was, an' not five minutes to live, when\nwe hauled 'en out, an' wonderin' what he could be doin' there, found\nhe'd been stealin' our eggs. He inquired after you to-day.\"\n\n\"Did he?\"\n\n\"Iss. 'How's Miss Marty?' says he. 'Agein' rapidly,' says I. The nerve\nthat some folks have! Comes up to me as cool as my lord and holds\nout a hand. He've a-grown into a sort of commercial; stomach like a\nbow-window, with a watch-guard looped across. I'd a mind to say 'Eggs'\nto 'en, it so annoyed me.\"\n\n\"I hope you didn't.\"\n\n\"No. 'Twould have seemed like bearin' malice. 'Tis an old tale, after\nall, that feat of his.\"\n\n\"Nine an' thirty year, come seventeenth o' September next. Did he say\nany more?\"\n\n\"Said the weather-glass was risin', but too fast to put faith in.\"\n\n\"I mean, did he ask any more about me?\"\n\n\"Iss: wanted to know if you was married. I reckon he meant that for a\nbit o' pleasantness.\"\n\n\"Not that! Ah, not that!\"\n\nJob laid down knife and fork with their points resting on the rim\nof his plate, and, with a lump of pasty in one cheek, looked at his\nsister. She had pushed back her chair a bit, and her fingers were\nplucking the edge of the table-cloth.\n\n\"Not that!\" she repeated once more, and hardly above a whisper. She\ndid not lift her eyes. Before Job could speak--\n\n\"He was my lover,\" she said, and shivered.\n\n\"Mar--ty--\"\n\nShe looked up now, hardened her ugly, twitching face, forced her eyes\nto meet her brother's, and went on breathlessly--\n\n\"I swear to you, Job--here, across this table--he was my lover; and\nI ruined 'en. He was the only man, 'cept you and father, that ever\nkissed me; and I betrayed 'en. As the Lord liveth, I stood up in the\nbox and swore away his name to save mine. An' what's more, he made\nme.\"\n\n\"Mar--ty Lear!\"\n\n\"Don't hinder me, Job. It's God's truth I'm tellin' 'ee. His folks\nwere a low lot, an' father'd have broken every bone o' me. But we used\nto meet in the orchard 'most every night. Don't look so, brother. I'm\npast sixty, an' nothin' known; an' now evil an' good's the same to\nme.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"Well, the last night he came over 'twas spring tides, an' past the\nflood. I was waitin' for 'en in the orchard, down in the corner by the\nAdam's Pearmain. We could see the white front o' the house from there,\nand us in the dark shadow: and there was the gap handy, that Amos\ncould snip through at a pinch--you fenced it up yoursel' the very\nsummer that father died in the fall. That night, Amos was late an' the\ndew heavy, an' no doubt I lost my temper waitin' out there in the long\ngrass. We had words, I know; an' I reckon the tide ran far out while\nwe quarrelled. Anyway, he left me in wrath, an' I stood there under\nthe appletree, longin' for 'en to come back an' make friends again.\nBut the time went on, an' I didn' hear his footstep--no, nor his oars\npullin' away--though hearkenin' with all my ears.\n\n\"An' then I heard a terrible sound.\" Miss Marty paused and drew the\nback of her hand across her dry lips before proceeding.\n\n\"--a terrible sound--a sort of low breathin', but fierce; an'\nsomething worse, a suck-suckin' of the mud below; an' I ran down. I\nsuppose, in his anger, he took no care how he walked round the point\n(for he al'ays moored his boat round the point, out o' sight), an'\nwent wide an' was taken. There he was, above his knees in it, and\nfar out it seemed to me, in the light o' the young moon. For all his\nfightin', he heard me, and whispers out o' the dark--\n\n\"'Little girl, it's got me. Hush! don't shout, or they'll catch you.'\n\n\"'Can't you get out?' I whispered back.\n\n\"'No,' says he, 'I'm afraid I can't, unless you run up to the linhay\nan' fetch a rope.'\n\n\"It was no more I stayed to hear, but ran up hot-foot to the linhay\nand back inside the minute, with the waggon rope.\n\n\"'Hold the end,' he panted, 'and throw with all your strength.' And I\nthrew, but the rope fell short. Twice again I threw, but missed each\ncast by a yard and more. He wouldn't let me come near the mud.\n\n\"Then I fell to runnin' to an' fro on the edge o' the firm ground, an'\nsobbin' between my teeth because I could devise nothin'. And all the\nwhile he was fightin' hard.\n\n\"'I'll run an' call father an' Job,' says I.\n\n\"'Hush'ee now! Be you crazed? Do you want to let 'em know all?'\n\n\"'But it'll kill you, dear, won't it?'\n\n\"'Likely it will,' said he. Then, after a while of battlin', he\nwhispers again, 'Little girl, I don't want to die. Death is a cold\nend. But I reckon you shall save me an' your name as well. Take the\nrope, coil it as you run, and hang it back in the linhay, quick! Then\nrun you to the hen-house an' bring me all the eggs you can find. Be\nquick and ax no questions, for it's little longer I can hold up. It's\nabove my waist,' he says.\n\n\"I didn' know what he meant, but ran for my life to the linhay, and\nhung up the rope, an' then to the hen-house. I could tell prety well\nwhere to find a dozen eggs or more in the dark, an' in three minutes\nI'd groped about an' gathered 'em in the lap o' my dress. Then back I\nran. I could just spy 'en--a dark spot out there in the mud.\n\n\"'How many?' he axed, an' his voice was like a rook's.\n\n\"'A dozen, or near.'\n\n\"'Toss 'em here. Don't come too nigh, an' shy careful, so's I can\ncatch.'\n\n\"I stepped down pretty nigh to the brim o' the mud an' tossed 'em out\nto him. Three fell short in my hurry, but the rest he got hold of\nsomehow.\n\n\"'That's right,' he calls, hoarse and low, 'they'll think\negg-stealin' nateral to a low family like our'n. Now back to your\nroom--undress--an' cry out, sayin', there's a man shoutin' for help\ndown 'pon the mud; and, dear, be quick! When you wave your candle\ntwice at the window, I'll shout like a Trojan.'\n\n\"An' I did it, Job; for the cruelty in a fearful woman passes\nknowledge. An' you rescued 'en an' he went to gaol. For he said 'twas\nthe only way. An' his mother took it as quite reasonable that her\nhusband's son should take to the bad--'twas the way of all them\nTrudgeons. Father to son, they was of no account. Egg-stealin' was\njust the little hole-an'-corner wickedness that 'd come nateral to\n'em.\"\n\n\"I rec'lect now,\" said Job Lear very slowly, \"that the wain-rope was\nwet i' my hands when I unhitched 'en that night from the hook, an' I\nwondered, it bein' the end of a week's dryth. But in the dark an' the\nconfusion o' savin' the wastrel's life it slipped my thoughts, else--\"\n\n\"Else you'd ha' wetted it wi' the blood o' my back, Job. But the\nrope's been frayed to powder this many year. An' you needn't look at\nme like that. I'm past sixty, an' I've done my share of repentin'. He\ndidn't say if he was married, did he?\"\n\n\n\n\nSEVEN-AN'-SIX.\n\n\nThe old fish-market at Troy was just a sagged lean-to roof on the\nnorthern side of the Town Quay, resting against the dead wall of the\nharbour-master's house, and propped in front by four squat granite\ncolumns. This roof often let in rain enough to fill the pits worn in\nthe paving-stones by the feet of gossiping generations; and the whole\nwas wisely demolished a few years back to make place for a Working\nMen's Institute--a red building, where they take in all the chief\nLondon newspapers. Nevertheless I have, in some moods, caught myself\nhankering after the old shelter, where the talk was unchartered\nalways, and where no notices were suspended against smoking; and I\nknow it used to be worth visiting on dirty evenings about the time of\nthe Equinox, when the town-folk assembled to watch the high tide and\nthe chances of its flooding the streets about the quay.\n\nEarly one September afternoon, about two years before its destruction,\na small group of watermen, a woman or two, and a fringe of small\nchildren were gathered in the fish-market around a painter and his\neasel. The painter--locally known as Seven-an'-Six--was a white-haired\nlittle man, with a clean-shaven face, a complexion of cream and\nroses, a high unwrinkled brow, and blue eyes that beamed an engaging\ntrustfulness on his fellow-creatures, of whom he stood ready to paint\nany number at seven shillings and sixpence a head. As this method\nof earning a livelihood did not allow him to sojourn long in one\nplace--which, indeed, was far from his desire--he spent a great part\nof his time upon the cheaper seats of obscure country vehicles. He\ndelighted in this life of perennial transience, and enjoyed painting\nthe portraits which justified it; and was, on the whole, one of the\nhappiest of men.\n\nJust now he was enjoying himself amazingly, being keenly alive not\nmerely to the crowd's admiration, but to the rare charm of that which\nhe was trying to paint. Some six paces before him there leant against\none of the granite pillars a woman of exceeding beauty: her figure\ntall, supple, full of strength, in every line, her face brown and\nbroad-browed, with a heavy chin that gave character to the rest of her\nfeatures, and large eyes, black as sloes, that regarded the artist and\nthe group at his elbow with a sombre disdain. The afternoon sunshine\nslanted down the pillar, was broken by the mass of dark hair she\nrested against it, and ran down again along her firm and rounded arm\nto the sun-bonnet she dangled by its strings. Behind her, the quay's\nedge shone bright against the green water of the harbour, where, half\na cable's length from shore, a small three-masted schooner lay at\nanchor, with her Blue Peter fluttering at the fore.\n\n\"He's gettin' her to-rights,\" observed one of the crowd.\n\nA woman said, \"I wish I'd a-been took in my young days, when I was\ncomely.\"\n\n\"Then, whyever wasn't 'ee, Mrs. Slade?\"\n\n\"Well-a-well, my dear, I'm sure I dunno. Three ha'af-crowns is a\nlot o' money to see piled in your palm, an' say 'Fare thee well;\nincrease!' Store 's no sore, as my old mother used to say.\"\n\n\"But,\" argued a man, \"when once you've made up your mind to the\ngallant speckilation, you never regret it--danged if you do!\"\n\n\"Then why hasn't 'ee been took, Thomas, in all these years?\"\n\n\"Because that little emmet o' doubt gets the better o' me every time.\n'Tis like holdin' back from the Fifteen Balls: you feel sure in your\nown mind you'll be better wi'out the drink, but for your life you\ndurstn't risk the disapp'intment. Over this matter I'll grant ye\nthat I preaches what I can't practise. But my preachin' is sound.\nTherefore, I bid ye all follow the example o' Cap'n Hosken here,\nwho, bein' possessed wi' true love for 'Liza Saunders, is havin' her\nportrait took for to hang up in his narrow cabin out to sea, an'\nremind hissel' o' the charms that bide at home a-languishin'.\"\n\n\"That's not my reason, though,\" said Captain Hosken, a sunburnt and\nserious man, at the painter's elbow.\n\n\"Then what may it be, makin' so bold?\"\n\n\"I'll tell ye when the painting's done.\"\n\n\"A couple of strokes, and it's finished,\" said the artist, cocking his\nhead on one side and screwing up his blue eyes. \"There, I'll tell you\nplainly, friend, that my skill is but a seven-and-sixpenny matter, or\na trifle beyond. It does well enough what it pretends to do; but this\nis a subject I never ought to have touched. I know my limits. You'll\nsee, sir,\" he went on, in a more business-like tone, \"I've indicated\nyour ship here in the middle distance. I thought it would give the\nportrait just that touch of sentiment you would desire.\"\n\nThe faces gathered closer to stare. 'Liza left the pillar, stretched\nherself to her full height, and came forward, tying the strings of her\nsun-bonnet.\n\n\"'Tis the very daps of her!\" was Captain Hosken's comment as he pulled\nout his three half-crowns. \"As for the _Rare Plant_, what you've put\nin might be took for a vessel; and if a man took it for a vessel, he\nmight go on to take it for a schooner; but I'd be tolerable sorry if\nhe took it for a schooner o' which I was master. Hows'ever, you've put\nin all 'Liza's good looks an' enticingness. 'Tis a picture I'm glad to\nown, an' be dashed to the sentiment you talked about!\"\n\nHe took the portrait carefully from the easel, and held it before him,\nbetween his open palms.\n\n\"Neighbours all,\" he began, his rather stupid face overspread with an\nexpression of satisfied cunning, \"I promised to tell 'ee my reasons\nfor havin' 'Liza's portrait took. They're rather out o' the common,\nan' 'Liza hersel' don't guess what they be, no more than the biggest\nfool here present amongst us.\"\n\nHe looked from the man Thomas, from whose countenance this last\ninnuendo glanced off as from a stone wall, to 'Liza, who answered\nhim with a puzzled scowl. Her foot began to tap the paving-stone\nimpatiently.\n\n\"When I gazes 'pon 'Liza,\" he pursued, \"my eyes be fairly dazzled wi'\nthe looks o' her. I allow that. She's got that build, an' them lines\nabout the neck an' waist, an' them red-ripe lips, that I feels no\ncare to look 'pon any other woman. That's why I took up wi' her, an'\noffered her my true heart. But strike me if I'd counted 'pon her\ntemper; an' she's got the temper of Old Nick! Why, only last\nevenin'--the very evenin' before I sailed, mark ye--she slapped my\near. She did, though! Says I, down under my breath, 'Right you are my\nlady! we'll be quits for that.' But, you see, I couldn' bear to break\nit off wi' her, because I didn' want to miss her beautiful looks.\"\n\nThe women began to titter, and 'Liza's face to flame, but her lover\nproceeded with great complacency:\n\n\"Well, I was beset in my mind till an hour agone, when--as I walked\ndown here with 'Liza, half mad to take leave of her, and sail for Rio\nGrande, and likewise sick of her temper--I sees this gentleman a-doin'\npictures at seven-an'-six; and thinks I, 'If I can get 'en to make a\ncopy of 'Liza's good looks, then I shall take off to sea as much as I\nwant of her, an' the rest, temper included, can bide at home till I\ncalls for it. That's all I've got to say. 'Liza's a beauty beyond\ncompare, an' her beauty I worships, an' means to worship. But if any\nyoung man wants to take her, I tell him he's welcome. So long t' ye\nall!\"\n\nStill holding the canvas carefully a foot from his waistcoat, to avoid\nsmearing it, he sauntered off to the quay-steps, and hailed his boat\nto carry him aboard the _Rare Plant_. As he passed the girl he had\nthus publicly jilted, her fingers contracted for a second like a\nhawk's talons; but she stood still, and watched him from under\nher brows as he descended the steps. Then with a look that, as it\ntravelled in a semi-circle, obliterated the sympathy which most of the\nmen put into their faces, and the sneaking delight which all the women\nwore on theirs, she strode out of the fish-market and up the street.\n\nSeven-an'-Six squeezed the paint out of his brushes, packed up his\neasel and japanned box, wished the company good-day, and strolled back\nto his inn. He was sincerely distressed, and regretted a hundred times\nin the course of that evening that he had parted with the portrait\nand received its price before Captain Hosken had made that speech. He\nwould (he told himself) have run his knife through the canvas, and\ngladly forfeited the money. As it was, he lingered long over the\nsupper it procured, and ate heartily.\n\nA mile beyond the town, next morning, Boutigo's van, in which he was\nthe only passenger, pulled up in front of a roadside cottage. A bundle\nand a tin box were hoisted up by Boutigo, and a girl climbed in. It\nwas 'Liza.\n\n\"Oh, good morning!\" stammered the little painter.\n\n\"I'm going to stay with my aunt in Truro, and seek service,\" the girl\nannounced, keeping her eye upon him, and her colour down with an\neffort. \"Where are you bound?\"\n\n\"I? Oh, I travel about, now in one place, next day in another--always\nmoving. It's the breath of life to me, moving around.\"\n\n\"That must be nice! I often wonder why men tie themselves up to a wife\nwhen they might be free to move about like you, and see the world.\nWhat does a man want to tack a wife on to him when he can always carry\nher image about?\" She laughed, without much bitterness.\n\n\"But--\" began the amiable painter, and checked himself. He had been\nabout to confess that he himself owned a wife and four healthy\nchildren. He saw this family about once in two months, and it existed\nby letting out lodgings in a small unpaintable town. He was sincerely\nfond of his wife, who made every allowance for his mercurial nature;\nbut it suddenly struck him that her portrait hung in the parlour at\nhome, and had never accompanied him on his travels.\n\nHe was silent for a minute or two, and then began to converse on\nordinary topics.\n\n\n\n\nTHE REGENT'S WAGER.\n\n\nBoutigo's van--officially styled _The Vivid_--had just issued from\nthe Packhorse Yard, Tregarrick, a leisurely three-quarters of an hour\nbehind its advertised time, and was scaling the acclivity of St.\nFimbar's Street in a series of short tacks. Now and then it halted\nto take up a passenger or a parcel; and on these occasions Boutigo\nproduced a couple of big stones from his hip-pockets and slipped them\nunder the hind-wheels, while we, his patrons within the van, tilted\nat an angle of 15\u00b0 upon cushions of American cloth, sought for new\ncentres of gravity, and earnestly desired the summit.\n\nIt was on the summit, where the considerate Boutigo gave us a minute's\npause to rearrange ourselves and our belongings, that we slipped into\neasy and general talk. An old countryman, with an empty poultry-basket\non his knees, and a battered top-hat on the back of his head, gave us\nthe cue.\n\n\"When Boutigo's father had the accident--that was back in 'fifty-six,'\nand it broke his leg an' two ribs--the van started from close 'pon the\nknap o' the hill here, and scat itself to bits against the bridge at\nthe foot just two and a half minutes after.\"\n\nI suggested that this was not very fast for a runaway horse.\n\n\"I dessay not,\" he answered; \"but 'twas pretty spry for a van slippin'\n_backwards_, and the old mare diggin' her toes in all the way to hold\nit up.\"\n\nOne or two of the passengers grinned at my expense, and the old man\npursued--\n\n\"But if you want to know how fast a hoss _can_ get down St. Fimbar's\nhill, I reckon you've lost your chance by not axin' Dan'l Best, that\ndied up to the 'Sylum twelve years since; though, poor soul, he'd but\none answer for every question from his seven-an'-twentieth year to his\nend, an' that was 'One, two, three, four, five, sis, seven.\"\n\n\"Ah, the poor body! his was a wisht case,\" a woman observed from the\ncorner furthest from the door.\n\n\"Ay, Selina, and fast forgotten, like all the doin's and sufferin's of\nthe men of old time.\" He reached a hand round his basket, and touching\nme on the knee, pointed back on Tregarrick. \"There's a wall,\" he said,\nand I saw by the direction of his finger that he meant the wall of the\ncounty prison, \"and beneath that wall's a road, and across that road's\na dismal pool, and beyond that pool's a green hillside, with a road\nathurt it that comes down and crosses by the pool's head. Standin'\n'pon that hillside you can see a door in the wall, twenty feet above\nthe ground, an' openin' on nothing. Leastways, you could see it once;\nan' even now, if ye've good eyesight, ye can see where they've bricked\nit up.\"\n\nI could, in fact, even at our distance, detect the patch of recent\nstone-work; and knew something of its history.\n\n\"Now,\" the old man continued, \"turn your looks to the right and mark\nthe face of Tregarrick town-clock. You see it, hey?\"--and I had time\nto read the hour on its dial before Boutigo jolted us over the ridge\nand out of sight of it--\"Well, carry them two things in your mind: for\nthey mazed Dan'l Best an' murdered his brother Hughie.\"\n\nAnd, much as I shall repeat it, he told me this tale, pausing now and\nagain to be corroborated by the woman in the corner. The history, my\ndear reader, is accurate enough--for Boutigo's van.\n\nThere lived a young man in Tregarrick in the time of the French War.\nHis name was Dan'l Best, and he had an only brother Hughie, just three\nyears younger than himself. Their father and mother had died of the\nsmall-pox and left them, when quite young children, upon the parish:\nbut old Walters of the Packhorse--he was great-grandfather of the\nWalters that keeps it now--took a liking to them and employed them,\nfirst about his stables and in course of time as post-boys. Very good\npost-boys they were, too, till Hughie took to drinking and wenching\nand cards and other devil's tricks. Dan'l was always a steady sort:\nwalked with a nice young woman that was under-housemaid up to the old\nLord Bellarmine's at Castle Cannick, and was saving up to be married,\nwhen Hughie robbed the mail.\n\nHughie robbed the mail out of doubt. He did it up by Tippet's Barrow,\njust beyond the cross-roads where the scarlet gig used to meet the\ncoach and take the mails for Castle Cannick and beyond to Tolquite.\nBilly Phillips, that drove the gig, was found in the ditch with his\nmouth gagged, and swore to Hughie's being the man. The Lord Chief\nJustice, too, summed up dead against him, and the jury didn't even\nleave the box. And the moral was, \"Hughie Best, you're to be taken to\nthe place whence you come from, ancetera, and may the Lord have mercy\nupon your soul!\"\n\nYou may fancy what a blow this was to Dan'l; for though fine and vexed\nwith Hughie's evil courses, he'd never guessed the worst, nor anything\nlike it. Not a doubt had he, nor could have, that Hughie was guilty;\nbut he went straight from the court to his young woman and said, \"I've\nsaved money for us to be married on. There's little chance that I can\nwin Hughie a reprieve; and, whether or no, it will eat up all, or\nnearly all, my savings. Only he's my one brother. Shall I go?\" And she\nsaid, \"Go, my dear, if I wait ten years for you.\" So he borrowed a\nhorse for a stage or two, and then hired, and so got to London, on a\nfool's chase, as it seemed.\n\nThe fellow's purpose, of course, was to see King George. But King\nGeorge, as it happened, was daft just then; and George his son reigned\nin his stead, being called the Prince Regent. Weary days did Dan'l air\nhis heels with one Minister of the Crown after another before he could\nget to see this same Regent, and 'tis to be supposed that the great\ncity, being new to him, weighed heavy on his spirits. And all the\ntime he had but one plea, that his brother was no more than a boy and\nhadn't an ounce of vice in his nature--which was well enough beknown\nto all in Tregarrick, but didn't go down with His Majesty's advisers:\nwhile as for the Prince Regent, Dan'l couldn't get to see him till the\nWednesday evening that Hughie was to be hanged on the Friday, and then\nhis Royal Highness spoke him neither soft nor hopeful.\n\n\"The case was clear as God's daylight,\" said he: \"the Lord Chief\nJustice tells me that the jury didn't even quit the box.\"\n\n\"Your Royal Highness must excuse me,\" said Dan'l, \"but I never shall\nbe able to respect that judge. My opinion of a judge is, he should\nbe like a stickler and see fair play; but this here chap took sides\nagainst Hughie from the first. If I was you,\" he said, \"I wouldn't\ntrust him with a Petty Sessions.\"\n\n\"Well, you may think how likely this kind of speech was to please the\nPrince Regent. And I've heard that Dan'l; was in the very article of\nbeing pitched out, neck and crop, when he heard a regular caprouse\nstart up in the antechamber behind him, and a lord-in-waiting, or\nwhatever he's called, comes in and speaks a word very low to the\nPrince.\n\n\"Show him in at once,\" says he, dropping poor Dan'l's petition upon\nthe table beside him; and in there walks a young officer with his\nboots soiled with riding and the sea-salt in his hair, like as if he'd\njust come off a ship; and hands the Prince a big letter. The Prince\nhardly cast his eye over what was written before he outs with a lusty\nhurrah, as well he might, for this was the first news of the taking of\nSt. Sebastian.\n\n\"Here's news,\" said he, \"to fill the country with bonfires this\nnight.\"\n\n\"Begging your Royal Highness's pardon,\" answers the officer,\npulling out his watch; \"but the mail coaches have left St. Martin's\nLane\"--that's where they started from, as I've heard tell--\"these\ntwenty minutes.\"\n\n\"Damn it!\" says Dan'l Best and the Prince Regent, both in one breath.\n\n\"Hulloa! Be you here still?\" says the Prince, turning sharp round at\nthe sound of Dan'l's voice. \"And what be you waiting for?\"\n\n\"For my brother Hughie's reprieve,\" says Dan'l.\n\n\"Well, but 'tis too late now, anyway,\" says the Prince.\n\n\"I'll bet 'tis not,\" says Dan'l, \"if you'll look slippy and make out\nthe paper.\"\n\n\"You can't do it. 'Tis over two hundred and fifty miles, and you can't\ntravel ten miles an hour all the way like the coach.\"\n\n\"It'll reach Tregarrick to-morrow night,\" says Dan'l, \"an' they won't\nhang Hughie till seven in the morning. So I've an hour or two to\nspare, and being a post-boy myself, I know the ropes.\"\n\n\"Well,\" says his Royal Highness, \"I'm in a very good temper because\nof this here glorious storming of St. Sebastian. So I'll wager your\nbrother's life you don't get there in time to stop the execution.\"\n\n\"Done with you, O King!\" says Dan'l, and the reprieve was made out,\nquick as lightning.\n\nWell, sir, Dan'l knew the ropes, as he said; and moreover, I reckon\nthere was a kind of freemasonry among post-boys; and the two together,\ntaken with his knowledge o' horseflesh, helped him down the road as\nnever a man was helped before or since. 'Twas striking nine at night\nwhen he started out of London with the reprieve in his pocket, and by\nhalf-past five in the morning he spied Salisbury spire lifting out of\nthe morning light. There was some hitch here--the first he met--in\ngetting a relay; but by six he was off again, and passed through\nExeter early in the afternoon. Down came a heavy rain as the evening\ndrew in, and before he reached Okehampton the roads were like a bog.\nHere it was that the anguish began, and of course to Dan'l, who found\nhimself for the first time in his life sitting in the chaise instead\nof in the saddle, 'twas the deuce's own torment to hold himself still,\nfeel the time slipping away, and not be riding and getting every ounce\nout of the beasts: though, even to _his_ eye, the rider in front\nwas no fool. But at Launceston soon after daybreak he met with a\nmisfortune indeed. A lot of folks had driven down overnight to\nTregarrick to witness the day's sad doings, and there wasn't a chaise\nto be had in the town for love or money.\n\n\"What do I want with a chaise?\" said Dan'l, for of course he was in\nhis own country now, and everybody knew him. \"For the love of God,\ngive me a horse that'll take me into Tregarrick before seven and save\nHughie's life! Man, I've got a reprieve!\"\n\n\"Dear lad, is that so?\" said the landlord, who had come down, and was\nstanding by the hotel door in nightcap and bedgown. \"I thought, maybe,\nyou was hurrying to see the last of your brother. Well, there's but\none horse left in stable, and that's the grey your master sold me two\nmonths back; and he's a screw, as you must know. But here's the stable\nkey. Run and take him out yourself, and God go with 'ee!\"\n\nNone knew better than Dan'l that the grey was a screw. But he ran down\nto the stable, fetched the beast out, and didn't even wait to shift\nhis halter for a bridle, but caught up the half of a broken mop-handle\nthat lay by the stable door, and with no better riding whip galloped\noff bare-back towards Tregarrick.\n\nAye, sir, and he almost won his race in spite of all. The hands o' the\ntown clock were close upon seven as he came galloping over the knap\nof the hill and saw the booths below him and sweet-stalls and\nstandings--for on such days 'twas as good as a fair in Tregarrick--and\nthe crowd under the prison wall. And there, above them, he could see\nthe little open doorway in the wall, and one or two black figures\nthere, and the beam. Just as he saw this the clock struck its first\nnote, and Dan'l, still riding like a madman, let out a scream, and\nwaved the paper over his head; but the distance was too great. Seven\ntimes the clapper struck, and with each stroke Dan'l screamed, still\nriding and keeping his eyes upon that little doorway. But a second or\ntwo after the last stroke he dropped his arm suddenly as if a bullet\nhad gone through it, and screamed no more. Less than a minute after,\nsir, he pulled up by the bridge on the skirt of the crowd, and looked\nround him with a silly smile.\n\n\"Neighbours,\" says he, \"I've a-got great news for ye. We've a-taken\nSt. Sebastian, and by all acounts the Frenchies'll be drove out of\nSpain in less'n a week.\"\n\nThere was silence in Boutigo's van for a full minute; and then the old\nwoman spoke from the corner:\n\n\"Well, go on, Sam, and tell the finish to the company.\"\n\n\"Is there more to tell?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Sam, leaning forward again, and tapping my knee very\ngently, \"there were _two men_ condemned at Tregarrick, that Assize;\nand two men put to death that morning. The first to go was a\nsheep-stealer. Ten minutes after, Dan'l saw Hughie his brother led\nforth; and stood there and watched, with the reprieve in his hand.\nHis wits were gone, and he chit-chattered all the time about St.\nSebastian.\"\n\n\n\n\nLOVE OF NAOMI.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe house known as Vellan's Rents stands in the Chy-pons over the\nwaterside, a stone's throw beyond the ferry and the archway where\nthe toll-keeper used to live. You may know it by its exceeding\ndilapidation and by the clouds of steam that issue on the street from\none of its windows. The sill of this window stands a bare foot above\nthe causeway, and glancing down into the room as you pass, you will\nsee the shoulders of a woman stooping over a wash-tub. When first I\nused to pass this window the woman was called Naomi Bricknell; later\nit was Sarah Ann Polgrain; and now it is (euphemistically) Pretty\nAlice. One goes and makes way for another, but the wash-tub is always\nthere and the rheumatic fever; and while these remain they will never\nlack, as they have never lacked yet, for a woman to do battle for dear\nlife between them.\n\nBut my story concerns the first of these only, Naomi Bricknell. She\nand her mother occupied two rooms in Vellan's Rents as far back as I\ncan remember, and were twisted with the fever about once in every six\nmonths. For this they paid one shilling a week rent. If you lift the\nlatch and push the front door open, you seem at first to be looking\ndown a well; for a flight of thirty-two steps plunges straight from\nthe threshold to the quay door and a square of green water there. And\nwhen the sun is on the water at the bottom of this funnel, the effect\nis pretty. But taking note of the cold wind that rushes up this\nstairway and into the steaming room where the wash-tub stands, you\nwill understand how it comes that each new tenant takes over the\nrheumatic fever as one of the fixtures.\n\nIn a room to the right of the stairway, and facing Naomi's, lived a\nmiddle-aged man who was always known as Long Oliver. This man was a\nnative of the port, and it was understood that he and Naomi had been\nwell acquainted, years ago, before he started on his first voyage and\nsome time before Naomi married. Tiring of the sea in time, he had\nfound work on the jetties and rented this room for sixpence a week. In\nthese days he and Naomi rarely spoke to each other beyond exchanging\na \"Good-morning\" when they met on the stairway, nor did he show any\nfriendliness beyond tapping at her mother's door and inquiring about\nher once a day whenever she happened to be down with the fever. I have\nmade researches and find that the rest of the house was tenanted at\nthat time by a working block-maker, with his wife and four children;\na widow and her son just returned from sea with an injured spine; a\nyoung couple without children. But these do not come into the tale.\n\nNow the history of Naomi was this. She was married at three-and-twenty\nto Abe Bricknell, a young sailor of the port, and as steady as a woman\ncould wish. In the third year of their married life, and a week\nafter obtaining his certificate, he sailed out of Troy as mate of a\nfruit-ship, a barque, that never came back, nor was sighted again\nafter passing the Lizard lights.\n\nNaomi--a tall up-standing woman with deep, gentle eyes, like a cow's,\nand a firm mouth that seldom spoke--took her affliction oddly. She\nneither wailed nor put on mourning. She looked upon it as a matter\nbetween herself and her Maker, and said:\n\n\"God has done this thing to me; therefore I have finished with Him. I\nam no man to go and revenge myself by breaking all the Commandments.\nBut I am a woman and can suffer. Let Him do His worst: I defy Him.\"\n\nSo she never set foot inside church again, nor offered any worship.\nThe week long she worked as a laundress, and sat through the Sundays\nwith her arms folded, gloomily fighting her duel. When the fever\nwrenched her arms and lips as she stood by the wash-tub, she set her\nteeth and said, \"I can stand it. I can match all this with contempt.\nHe can kill, but that's not beating me.\"\n\nHer mother, a large and pale-faced woman of sixty, with an apparently\nthoughtful contraction of the lips, in reality due to a habit of\ncarrying pins in her mouth, watched Naomi anxiously during this period\nof her life. And Long Oliver watched her too, though secretly, with\neyes screwed up after the fashion of men who have followed the sea.\n\nOne day he stopped her on the stairs and asked, abruptly:\n\n\"When be you thinkin' to marry again?\"\n\n\"Never,\" she answered, straight and at once, halting with a hand on\nher hip and eyeing him.\n\n\"Dear me; but you will, I hope.\"\n\n\"Not to you, anyway.\"\n\n\"Laws me, no! I don't want 'ee; haven't wanted 'ee these ten years.\nBut I'd a reason for askin'.\"\n\n\"Then I'm sure I don't know what it can be.\"\n\n\"True--true. Look'ee here, my dear; 'tis ordained for you to marry\nagen.\"\n\n\"Aw? Who by?\"\n\n\"Providence.\"\n\nNaomi had treated Long Oliver badly in days gone by, but could still\ntalk to him with more freedom than to other men. Still standing with\na hand on her hip, she let fall a horrible sentence about the\nAlmighty--all the more horrible in that it came deliberately, without\nemphasis, and from quiet lips.\n\n\"Woman!\" cried a voice above them.\n\nThey turned, looked up, and saw the bent figure of a man framed in the\nstreet doorway. This was William Geake, who walked in from Gantick\nevery Saturday to collect the sixpences and shillings of Vellan's\nRents for its landlord, a well-to-do wine and spirit merchant at\nTregarrick. As a man of indisputable probity and an unwearying walker,\nGeake was entrusted with many odd jobs of this kind in the country\nround, filling in with them such idle corners as his trade of\ncarpenter and undertaker to Gantick village might leave in the six\nworking days. On Sundays he put on a long black coat, and became a\nRounder, or Methodist local-preacher, walking sometimes twenty miles\nthere and back to terrify the inhabitants of outlying hamlets about\ntheir future state.\n\n\"Woman!\" cried William Geake, \"Down 'pon your knees an' pray God the\nroof don't fall on 'ee for your vile words.\"\n\n\"I reckon,\" retorted Naomi quietly, with a glance up at the\nworm-riddled rafters, \"you'd do more good by speakin' to the\nlandlord.\"\n\nWilliam Geake had a high brow and bright, nervous eyes, betokening\nenthusiasm; but he had also a long and square jaw that meant\nstubbornness. This jaw now began to protrude and his lips to\nstraighten.\n\n\"Down 'pon your knees!\" he repeated.\n\nNaomi turned her eyes from him to Long Oliver, who leant against the\nstaircase wall with his arms crossed and a veiled amusement in his\nface. With a slightly heightened colour, but no flutter of the voice,\nshe repeated her blasphemy; and then, pulling a shilling from her worn\npurse, tendered it to Geake. This, of course, meant \"Mind your own\nbusiness\"; but he waved her hand aside.\n\n\"Down 'pon your knees, woman!\" he shouted thunderously. Then, as she\nshowed no disposition to obey, he added, grimly, \"Eh? but somebody\nshall intercede for thee afore thou'rt a minute older.\"\n\nAnd pulling off his hat there and then, he knelt down on the doorstep,\nwith the soles of his hob-nailed boots showing to the street.\n\n\"Get up, an' don't make yoursel' a may-game,\" said Naomi hurriedly, as\none or two children stopped their play, and drew around to stare.\n\n\"Father in heaven,\" began William Geake, in a voice that fetched the\nwomen-folk, all up and down the Chy-pons, to their doors, \"Thou, whose\nproperty is ever to have mercy, forgive this blaspheming woman! Suffer\none who is Thy servant, though a grievous sinner, to intercede for her\nafore she commits the sin that cannot be forgiven; to pluck her as a\nbrand from the burning--\"\n\nBy this, the women and a loafing man or two had clustered round, and\nColliver's coal-cart had rattled up and come to a standstill. The\nChy-pons is the narrowest street in Troy, and Colliver's driver could\nhardly pass now, except over William Geake's legs.\n\n\"Draw in your feet, brother Geake,\" he called out, \"or else pray\nshort.\"\n\nOne or two women giggled at this. But Geake did not seem to hear.\nFor five good minutes he prayed vociferously, as was his custom in\nmeeting-house; then rose, replaced his hat, dusted his knees, held out\nhis hand for Naomi's shilling, and wrote her the customary voucher in\nhis most business-like manner, and without another word. But there was\na triumphant look in his eyes that dared Naomi to repeat her offence,\nand she very nearly wept as she felt that the words would not come.\nThis and the shame of publicity drove her back into her room as Geake\npassed down the stairs to collect the other rents. A few women still\nhung about the doorway as he emerged, some twenty minutes later. But\nhe marched down Chy-pons with head erect and eyes fixed straight\nahead.\n\n\nII.\n\nOn the following Saturday, when Geake called, Naomi was standing at\nher wash-tub. She had seen him pass the window, and, hurriedly wiping\nher hands, and pulling out her shilling, placed it ostentatiously in\nthe very centre of the deal table by the door; then had just time to\nplunge her hands in the soap-suds again before he knocked. Try as she\nwould, she could not keep back a blush at the remembrance of last\nweek's scene, and half looked for him to make some allusion to it.\n\nHis extremely business-like air reassured her. She nodded towards\nthe shilling without removing her hands from the tub. He took it,\nincluding in a polite good-morning both Naomi and her mother, who was\nhuddled in an arm-chair before the fire and recovering from an attack\nof the fever, wrote out his voucher solemnly, set it in the exact spot\nwhere the shilling had stood, took up his hat, hesitated for less than\na second, replaced his hat on the table, and, pulling a chair towards\nhim, dropped on his knees, and began to pray aloud.\n\nThe old woman by the fire slewed her head painfully round and stared\nat him, then at Naomi. But Naomi was standing with her back to them\nboth, and her hands soaping the linen in the tub--gently, however, and\nwithout any splashing. She therefore let her head sink back on the\ncushion, and assumed that peculiarly dejected air, commonly reserved\nby her for the consolations of religion.\n\nOn this occasion William Geake prayed in a low and level tone, and\nvery briefly. He made no allusion to last Saturday, but put up an\nearnest petition for blessings upon \"our two sisters here,\" and that\nthey might learn to accept their appointed portion with resignation,\nyea, even with a holy joy. At the end of two minutes he rose, and\nwas about to dust his knees, after his usual custom, but, becoming\nsuddenly aware of the difference in cleanliness between Naomi's\nlime-ash and the floors of the various meeting-houses of his\nacquaintance, refrained. This little piece of delicacy did not escape\nNaomi, though her shoulders were still bent over the tub, to all\nseeming as resolutely as ever.\n\n\"Well, I swow that was very friendly of Mister Geake!\" the old woman\nejaculated, as the door closed behind him. \"'Tisn't everybody'd ha'\nthought what a comfort a little scrap o' religion can be to an old\nwoman in my state.\"\n\n\"He took a great liberty,\" said Naomi snappishly.\n\n\"Well, he might ha' said as much as 'By your leave,' to be sure;\nan' now you say so, 'twas makin' a bit free to talk about our\ndependence--an' in my own kitchen too.\"\n\n\"He meant our dependence on th' Almighty,\" Naomi corrected, still more\nsnappishly. \"William Geake's an odd-fangled man, but you might give\n'en credit for good-feelin'. An', what's more, though I don't hold\nwi' Christian talk, if a man have a got beliefs, I respect 'en for\nstandin' to 'em without shame.\"\n\n\"But I thought, a moment ago--\" her mother began, and then subsided.\nShe was accustomed to small tangles in her own processes of thought,\nand quite incapable, after years of blind acceptance, of correcting\nNaomi's logic.\n\nNo more was said on the matter. The next Saturday, after receiving his\nshilling, Mr. Geake knelt down without any hesitation. It was clear he\nwished this prayer to be a weekly institution, and an institution it\nbecame.\n\nThe women never knelt. Naomi, indeed, had never sanctioned the\ninnovation, unless by her silence, and her mother assisted only with a\nvery lugubrious \"Amen,\" being too weak to stir from her chair. As the\nmonths passed, it became evident to Geake that her strength would\nnever come back. The fever had left her, apparently for good; but the\nrheumatism remained, and closed slowly upon the heart. The machine was\nworn out.\n\nWhen the end came, Naomi had been doing the work single-handed for\nclose upon twelve months. She could always get a plenty of work, and\nnow took in a deal too much for her strength, to settle the doctor's\nand undertaker's bills, and buy herself a black gown, cape, and\nbonnet. The funeral, of course, took place on a Sunday. Geake, on the\nSaturday afternoon, knocked gently at Naomi's door. His single\nintent was to speak a word or two of sympathy, if she would listen.\nRemembering her constant attitude under the Divine scourge, he felt a\ntrifle nervous.\n\nBut there lay the shilling in the centre of the table, and there stood\nNaomi in a cloud of steam, hard at work on an immoderate pile of\nwashing--even a man's miscalculating eye could see that it was\nimmoderate.\n\n\"I didn't call--\" he began, with a glance towards the shilling.\n\n\"No; I know you didn't. But you may so well take it all the same.\"\n\nGeake had rehearsed a small speech, but found himself making out and\nsigning the voucher as usual; and, as usual, when it was signed, he\ndrew over a chair, and dropped on his knees. In prayer-meeting he was\na great hand at \"improving\" an occasion of bereavement; but here again\nhis will to speak impressively suddenly failed him. His words were:\n\n\"Lord, there were two women grinding at a mill; the one was taken, and\nt'other left. She that you took, you've a-carr'd beyond our prayers;\nbut O, be gentle, be gentle, to her that's left!\"\n\nHe arose, and looked shyly, almost shamefacedly, at Naomi. She had not\nturned. But her head was bowed; and, drawing near, he saw that the\nscalding tears were falling fast into the wash-tub. She had not wept\nwhen her husband was lost, nor since.\n\n\"Go away!\" she commanded, before he could speak, turning her shoulders\nresolutely towards him.\n\nHe took up his hat, and went out softly, closing the door softly\nbehind him.\n\nHis eye, which was growing quick to read Naomi's face, saw at once,\nas he entered the room a week later, that she deprecated even the\nslightest reference to her weakness. It also told him--he had not\nguessed it before--that her emotional breakdown had probably more to\ndo with physical exhaustion than with any eloquence of his. The pile\nof washing had grown, and the woman's face was grey with fatigue.\n\nGeake, as he made out the voucher, cast about for a polite mode of\nhinting that this kind of thing must not go on. Nevertheless it was\nNaomi who began.\n\n\"Look here,\" she said, as he put down the voucher; \"there ain't goin'\nto be no more prayin', eh?\"\n\n\"Why, to be sure there is,\" he answered with a show of great\ncheerfulness; and reached for a chair.\n\n\"I'd liefer you didn't. I don't want it. I don't hold by any o't.\nYou'm very kind,\" she went on, her voice trembling for an instant and\nthen recovering its firmness, \"and I reckon it soothed mother. But I\nreckon it don't soothe me. I reckon it rubs me the wrong way. There's\ntimes, when I hears a body prayin', that I wishes we was Papists again\nand worshipped images, that I might throw stones at 'em!\"\n\nShe paused, looked up into Geake's devouring eyes, and added, with a\npoor attempt at a laugh:\n\n\"So you see, I'm wicked, an' don't want to be saved.\"\n\nThen the man broke forth:\n\n\"Saved? No, I reckon you don't! Wicked? Iss, I reckon you be! But\nsaved you shall be--ay, if you was twice so wicked. Who'll do it? I'll\ndo it--I alone. I don't want your help. I want to do it in spite of\n'ee: an' I'll lay that I do! Be your wickedness deep as hell, an' I'll\nreach down a hand to the roots and pluck it up: be your salvation\nstubborn as Death, I'll wrestle wi' the Lord for it. If I sell my own\nsoul for't, yours shall be redeemed!\"\n\nHe slammed down his fist on the rickety deal table, which promptly\ncollapsed flat on the floor, with its four legs splayed under the\ncircular cover.\n\n\"Bein' a carpenter--\" Geake began to stammer apologetically, and in a\ntotally different tone.\n\nFor a second--two seconds--the issue hung between tears and laughter.\nAn hysterical merriment twinkled in Naomi's eyes.\n\nBut the strength of Geake's passion saved the situation. He stepped up\nto Naomi, laid a hand on each shoulder, and shook her gently to and\nfro.\n\n\"Listen to me! As I hold 'ee now, so I take your fate in my hands.\nNaomi Bricknell, you've got to be my wife, so make up your mind to\nthat.\"\n\nShe cowered a little under his grasp; put out a hand to push him off;\ndrew it back; and broke into helpless sobbing. But this time she did\nnot command him to go away.\n\nFifteen minutes later William Geake left Vellan's Rents with joy on\nhis face and a broken table under his arm.\n\nAnd two days later Naomi's face wore a look of demure happiness when\nLong Oliver stopped her on the staircase and asked,\n\n\"Is it true, what I hear?\"\n\n\"It is true,\" she answered.\n\n\"An' when be the banns called?\"\n\n\"There ain't goin' to be no banns.\"\n\n\"Hey?\"\n\n\"There ain't goin' to be no banns; leastways, there ain't goin' to be\nnone called. We'm goin' to the Registry Office. You look all struck of\na heap. Was you hopin' to be best man?\"\n\n\"Well, I reckoned I'd take a hand in the responses,\" he answered; and\nseemed about to say more, but turned on his heel and went back to his\nroom, shutting the door behind him.\n\n\nIII.\n\nWe pass to a Saturday morning, two years later, and to William Geake's\ncottage at the western end of Gantick village.\n\nNaomi had plucked three fowls and trussed them, and wrapping each in a\nwhite napkin, had packed them in her basket with a dozen and a half of\neggs, a few pats of butter, and a nosegay or two of\ngarden-flowers--Sweet Williams, marigolds, and heart's-ease: for it was\nmarket-day at Tregarrick. Then she put on boots and shawl, tied her\nbonnet, and slung a second pair of boots across her arm: for the roads\nwere heavy and she would leave the muddy pair with a friend who lived at\nthe entrance of the town, not choosing to appear untidy as she walked up\nthe Fore Street. These arrangements made, she went to seek her husband,\nwho was busy planing a coffin-lid in the workshop behind the cottage,\nand ruminating upon to-morrow's sermon.\n\n\"You'll be about startin',\" he said, lifting his head and pushing his\nspectacles up over his eye-brows.\n\nNaomi set her basket down on his work-table, and drew her breath back\nbetween her teeth--which is the Cornish mode of saying \"Yes.\" \"I want\nyou to make me a couple of skivers,\" she said. \"Aun' Hambly sent over\nword she'd a brace o' chicken for me to sell, an' I was to call for\n'em: an' I'd be ashamed to sell a fowl the way she skivers it.\"\n\nWilliam set down his plane, picked up an odd scrap of wood and cut out\nthe skewers with his pocket-knife; while Naomi watched with a smile\non her face. Whether or no William had recovered her soul, as he\npromised, she had certainly given her heart into his keeping. The love\nof such a widow, he found, is as the surrender of a maid, with wisdom\nadded.\n\nThe skewers finished, he walked out through the house with her and\ndown the garden-path, carrying the basket as far as the gate. The\nscent of pine-shavings came with him. Half-way down the path Naomi\nturned aside and picking a sprig of Boy's Love, held it up for him\nto smell. The action was trivial, but as he took the sprig they both\nlaughed, looking in each other's eyes. Then they kissed; and the staid\nwoman went her way down the road, while the staid man loitered for a\nmoment by the gate and watched her as she went.\n\nNow as he took his eyes away and glanced for an instant in the other\ndirection, he was aware of a man who had just come round the angle of\nthe garden hedge and, standing in the middle of the road, not a dozen\nyards off, was also staring after his wife.\n\nThis stranger was a broad-shouldered fellow in a suit of blue seaman's\ncloth, the trousers of which were tucked inside a pair of Wellington\nboots. His complexion was brown as a nut, and he wore rings in his\nears: but the features were British enough. A perplexed, ingratiating\nand rather silly smile overspread them.\n\nThe two men regarded each other for a bit, and then the stranger drew\nnearer.\n\n\"I do believe that was Na'mi,\" he said, nodding his head after the\nwoman's figure, that had not yet passed out of sight.\n\nWilliam Geake opened his eyes wide and answered curtly, \"Yes: that's\nmy wife--Naomi Geake. What then?\"\n\nThe man scratched his head, contemplating William as he might some\nillegible sign-post set up at an unusually bothersome cross-road.\n\n\"She keeps very han'some, I will say.\" His smile grew still more\ningratiating.\n\n\"Was you wishin' to speak wi' her?\"\n\n\"Well, there! I was an' yet I wasn't. 'Tis terrible puzzlin'. You\ndon't know me, I dessay.\"\n\n\"No, I don't.\"\n\n\"I be called Abe Bricknell--A-bra-ham Bricknell. I used to be\nNa'mi's husband, one time. There now\"--with an accent of genuine\ncontrition--\"I felt sure 'twould put you out.\"\n\nThe tongue grew dry in William Geake's mouth, and the sunlight died\noff the road before him. He stared at a blister in the green paint of\nthe garden-gate and began to peel it away slowly with his thumb-nail:\nthen, pulling out his handkerchief, picked away at the paint that had\nlodged under the nail, very carefully, while he fought for speech.\n\n\"I be altered a brave bit,\" said Naomi's first husband, still with his\nsilly smile.\n\n\"Come into th' house,\" William managed to say at last; and turning,\nled the way to the door. On his way he caught himself wondering why\nthe hum of the bees had never sounded so loudly in the garden before:\nand this was all he could think about till he reached the doorstep.\nThen he turned.\n\n\"Th' Lord's ways be past findin' out,\" he said, passing a hand over\nhis eyes.\n\n\"That's so: that's what _I_ say mysel',\" the other assented\ncheerfully, as if glad to find their wits jumping together.\n\n\"Man!\" William rounded on him fiercely. \"What's kept 'ee, all these\nyears? Aw, man, man! do 'ee know what you've done?\"\n\n\"I'd a sun-stroke,\" said the wanderer, tapping his head and still\nwearing his deprecatory smile; \"a very bad sun-stroke. I sailed in the\n_John S. Hancock_. I dessay Na'mi told you about that, eh?\"\n\n\"Get on wi' your tale.\"\n\n\"Pete Hancock was cap'n. The vessel was called after his uncle, you\nknow, an' the Hancocks had a-bought up most o' the shares in her.\nThat's how Pete came to be cap'n. We sailed on a Friday--unlucky, I've\nheard that is. But Pete said them that laid th' Atlantic cable had\nstarted that day an' broke the spell. Pete had a lot o' tales, but he\nmade a poor cap'n; no head.\"\n\n\"Look here,\" put in \"William with desperate calm,\" I don't want to\nknow about Peter Hancock.\"\n\n\"There's not much to know if you did. He made a very poor cap'n,\nthough it don't become one to say so, now he's gone. An affectionate\nman, though, for all his short-comin's. The last time he brought his\nvessel home from New Orleans he was in that pore to get back to his\nwife an' childer, he ripped along the Gulf Stream and pretty well\nribbed the keelson out of her. Thought, I reckon, that since all the\nshareholders belonged to his family th' expense wouldn' be grudged.\nBut I guess it made her tender. That's how she came to go down so\nsuddent.\"\n\n\"She foundered?\"\n\n\"I'm comin' to that. We'd just run our nose into the tropics an' was\nheadin' down for Kingston Harbour--slippin' along at five knots easy\nan' steady, an' not a sign of trouble. The time, so far as I can tell,\nwas somewhere near five bells in the middle watch. I'd turned in,\nleavin' Pete on deck, an' was fast asleep; when all of a suddent a\ngreat jolt sent me flyin' out o' the berth. As soon as I got my legs\nan' wits again I was up on deck, and already the barque was settlin'\nby the head like a burst crock. She'd crushed her breastbone in on a\nsunken tramp of a derelict--a dismasted water-logged lump, that maybe\nhad been washin' about the Atlantic for twenty year' an' more before\nher app'inted time came to drift across our fair-way an' settle the\nhash o' the _John S. Hancock_. Sir, I reckon she went down inside o'\nfive minutes. We'd but bare time to get out one boat and push clear\no' the whirl of her. All hands jumped in; she was but a sixteen foot\nboat, an' we loaded her down to the gun'l a'most. There was a brave\nstar-shine, but no moon. Cruel things happen 'pon the sea.\"\n\nHe passed a hand over his eyes, as if to brush off the film his\nsufferings had drawn across them. Then he pursued:\n\n\"Cruel things happen 'pon the sea. We'd no food nor drink but a tin o'\npreserved pears; Lord knows how that got there; but 'twas soon done.\nPete had a small compass, a gimcrack affair hangin' to his watch-chain,\nan' we pulled by it west-sou'-west towards the nighest land, which we\nmade out must be some one or another o' the Leeward Islands; but 'twas\nmore to keep ourselves busy than for aught else: the boat was so low in\nthe water that even with the Trade to help us, we made but a mile an\nhour, an' had to be balin' all day and all night. The third day, as the\nsun grew hot, two o' the men went mad. We had to pitch 'em overboard an'\nbeat 'em off wi' the oars till they drowned: else they'd ha' sunk the\nboat. This seemed to hang on Pete's mind, in a way. All the next night\nhe talked light-headed; said he could hear the dead men hailin' their\nnames. About midnight he jumped after 'em--to fetch 'em, he said--an'\nwas drowned. He took his compass with him, but that didn't make much\nodds. The boat was lighter now, an' we hadn' to bale. Pretty soon I got\ntoo weak to notice how the men went. I was lyin' wi' my head under the\nstern sheets an' only pulled mysel' up, now an' then, to peer out over\nthe gun'l. I s'pose 'twas the splashes as the men went over that made me\ndo this. I don't know for certain. There was sharks about: cruel things\nhappen 'pon the sea. The boat was in a gashly cauch of blood too. One\nchap--Jeff Tresawna it was: his mother lived over to Looe--had tried to\nopen a vein, to drink, an' had made a mess o't an' bled to death. Far as\nI know there was no fightin' to eat one another, same as one hears tell\nof now an' then. The men just went mad and jumped like sheep: 'twas a\nreg'lar disease. Two would go quick, one atop of t'other; an' then\nthere'd be a long stillness, an' then a yellin' again an' two more\nsplashes, maybe three. All through it I was dozin', off an' on; an' I\nreckon these things got mixed up an' repeated in my head: for our crew\nwas only sixteen all told, an' it seemed to me I'd heard scores go over.\nAnyway I opened my eyes at last--night it was, an' all the stars\nblazin'--an' the boat was empty all except me an' Jeff Tresawna, him\nthat had bled to death. He was lying up high in the bows, wi' his legs\nstretched Out towards me along the bottom-boards. There was a twinkle o'\ndew 'pon the thwarts an' gun'l, an' I managed to suck my shirt-sleeve,\nthat was wringin' wet, an' dropped off dozin' again belike. The nex'\nthing I minded was a sort o' dream that I was home to Carne again, over\nPendower beach--that's where my father an' mother lived. I heard the\nbreakers quite plain. The sound of 'em woke me up. This was a little\nafter daybreak. The sound kept on after I'd opened my eyes, though not\nso loud. I took another suck at my shirt-sleeve an' pulled myself up to\nmy knees by the thwart an' looked over. 'Twas the sound o' broken water,\nsure enough, that I'd been hearing; an' 'twas breakin' round half a\ndozen small islands, to leeward, between me an' the horizon. I call 'em\nislands; but they was just rocks stickin' up from the sea, and birds on\n'em in plenty; but otherwise, if you'll excuse the liberty, as bare as\nthe top o' your head.\"\n\nGeake nodded gravely, with set face.\n\n\"I've heard since,\" went on the seaman, \"that these were bits, so to\nsay, belongin' to the Leeward Islands, about eighty miles sou'west o'\nSt. Kitt's. Our boat must ha' driven past St. Kitt's, but just out o'\nsight; or perhaps we'd passed a peep of it in the night-time. Well, as\nyou'll be guessin' the boat was pretty nigh to one o' these islands,\nor I shouldn' ha' heard the wash. Half a mile off it was, I dessay,\nan' a pretty big wash. This was caused by the current, no doubt, for\nthe wind was nex' to nothin', an' no swell around the boat. What's\nmore, the current was takin' us, broadside on, pretty well straight\nfor the rocks. There was no rudder an' only one oar left i' the boat;\nan' that was broke off short at the blade. But I managed to slip it\nover the starn an' made shift to keep her head straight. Her nose went\nbump on the shore, an' then she swung round an' went drivin' past: me\nnot havin' strength left to put out a hand, much less to catch hold\nan' stop the way on us. We might ha' driven past an' off to sea again,\nif it hadn' been for a spit o' rock that reached out ahead. This\nbrought us up short, an' there we lay an' bump'd for a bit. I dessay\nit took me half an hour to get out over the side: an' all the time I\nkept hold o' the broken oar. I dunno why I did this: but it saved my\nlife afterwards. Hav'ee got such a thing as a drop o' cider in the\nhouse?\"\n\n\"We go upon temperance principles here,\" said Geake. He rose and\nbrought a jug of water and a glass.\n\n\"That'll do,\" said the wanderer, and helped himself. \"Na'mi used to\ntake a glass o' beer wi' her meals, I remember. Well, as I was agoin'\nto tell you, havin' got out o' the boat, I'd just sense enough left to\nclamber up above high-water mark, an' there I sat starin' stupid-like\nan' wonderin' how I'd done it. Down below, the boat was heavin' i' the\nwash an' joltin' 'pon the rocks, an' I watched her--bump, bump, up an'\ndown, up an' down--wi' Jeff jamm'd by the shoulders i' the bows, and\nglazin' up at me wi' a silly blank face, like as if he couldn' make it\nall out. As the tide rose him up nearer, I crawled away further up.\nSeemed to me he an' the boat was after me like a sick dream, an' I\ngrinned every time the timbers gave an extry loud crack. At last her\nbottom was stove, an' she filled very quiet an' went down. The wind\nwas fresher by this an' some heavy clouds comin' up. Then it rained.\nI don't rightly know if this was the same day or no: can't fit in the\ndays an' nights. But it rained heavy. There was a quill-feather lyin'\nclose by my hand--the rock was strewed wi' feathers an' the birds'\ndroppin's--an' with it I tried to get at the rain-water that was\ncaught in the crannies o' the rocks. While I was searchin' about I\ncame across an egg. It was stinkin', but I ate it. After that, feelin'\na bit stronger, I'd a mind to fix up the oar for a mark, in case any\nvessel passed near an' me asleep or too weak to make a signal. I found\na handy chink i' the rock to plant it in, an' a rovin' pain I had in\nmy stomach while I was fixin' it. That was the egg, I dessay. An' my\nhead in a maze, too: but I'd sense enough to think now what a fool\nI was not to have took Jeff's shirt off'n, to serve me for a flag.\nHows'ever, my own bein' wringin' wet, an' the sun pretty strong just\nthen, I slipped it off an' hitched it atop o' the oar to dry an' be a\nflag at the same time, till I could rig up some kind o' streamer, out\no' the seaweed. An' then I was forced to vomit. And that's about the\nlast thing, Mister Geake, I can mind doin'. 'Tis all foolishness after\nthat. They tell me that a 'Merican schooner, the _Shawanee_, sighted\nmy shirt flappin', an' sent a boat an' took me off an' landed me at\nNew Orleens. My head was bad--oh, very bad--an' they put me in a\n'sylum an' cured me. But they took eight year' over it, an' I doubt if\n'tis much of a job after all. I wasn' bad all the time, I must tell\nyou, sir; but 'tis only lately my mem'ry would work any further back\n'n the wreck o' the barque. Everything seemed to begin an' end wi'\nthat. 'Tis about a year back that some visitors came to the 'sylum.\nThere was a lady in the party, an' something in her face, when she\nspoke to me, put me in mind o' Na'mi, an' I remembered I was a married\nman. Inside of a fortnight, part by thinkin'--'tis hard work still\nfor me to think--part by dreamin', I'd a-worried it all out. I was\nbetterin' fast by that. Soon as I was well enough to be discharged, I\nworked my passage home in a grain ship, the _Druid_, o' Liverpool. I\nwas reckonin' all the way back that Na'mi'd be main glad to see me\nagen. But now I s'pose she won't.\"\n\n\"It'll come nigh to killin' her.\"\n\n\"I dessay, now, you two have got to be very fond? She used to be a\npartic'lar lovin' sort o' woman.\"\n\n\"I love her more 'n heaven!\" William broke out; and then cowered as if\nhe half expected to be struck with lightning for the words.\n\n\"I heard of her havin' married, down at the Fifteen Balls, at Troy. I\ndropped in there to pick up the news.\"\n\n\"What! You've been tellin' folks who you be!\"\n\n\"Not a word. First of all I was minded to play off a little surprise\n'pon old Toms, the landlord, who didn' know me from Adam. But hearin'\nthis, just as I was a-leadin' up to my little joke, I thought maybe\n'twould annoy Na'mi. She used to be very strict in some of her\nnotions.\"\n\nWilliam Geake took two hasty turns up and down the little parlour. His\nBible, in which before breakfast he had been searching for a text,\nlay open on the side table. Behind its place on the shelf was a\nsmall skivet he had let into the wall; and in that drawer was stored\nsomething over twenty-five pounds, the third of his savings. Geake\nkept a bank-account, and the balance lay at interest with Messrs.\nClimo and Hodges, of St. Austell. But he had the true countryman's\naversion to putting all his eggs in one basket; and although Messrs.\nClimo and Hodges were safe as the Bank of England, preferred to keep\nthis portion of his wealth in his own stocking. He closed the Bible\nhastily; rammed it back, upside down, in its place; then took it out\nagain, and stood holding it in his two hands and trembling. He was\nliving in sin: he was minded to sin yet deeper. And yet what had he\ndone to deserve Naomi in comparison with the unspeakable tribulations\nthis simple mariner had suffered? Sure, God must have preserved the\nfellow with especial care, and of wise purpose brought him through\nshipwreck, famine, and madness home to his lawful wife. The man had\nmade Naomi a good husband. Had William Geake made her a better?\n(Husband?)--here he dropped the Bible down on the table again as if it\nburned his fingers. Whatever had to be done must be done quickly. Here\nwas the innocent wrecker of so much happiness hanging on his lips for\nthe next word, watching wistfully for his orders, like any spaniel\ndog. And Naomi would be back before nightfall. God was giving him no\ntime: it was unfair to hustle a man in this way. In the whirl of his\nthoughts he seemed to hear Naomi's footfall drawing nearer and nearer\nhome. He could almost upbraid the Almighty here for leaving him and\nNaomi childless. A child would have made the temptation irresistible.\n\n\"I wish a'most that I'd never called, if it puts you out so terrible,\"\nwas the wanderer's plaintive remark after two minutes of silent\nwaiting.\n\nThis sentence settled it. The temptation _was_ irresistible. Geake\nunlocked the skivet, plunged a hand in and banged down a fistful of\nnotes on the table.\n\n\"Here,\" said he; \"here's five-an'-twenty pound'. You shall have it all\nif you'll go straight out o' this door an' back to America.\"\n\n\nIV.\n\nHalf-an-hour later, William Geake was standing by his garden-gate\nagain. Every now and then he glanced down the road towards St.\nAustell, and after each glance resumed his nervous picking at the\nblister of green paint that had troubled him earlier in the day. He\nwas face to face with a new and smaller, but sufficiently vexing,\ndifficulty. Abe Bricknell had gone, taking with him the five\nfive-pound notes. So far so good, and cheap at the price. But the\nskivet was empty: and the day was Saturday: and every Saturday\nevening, as regularly as he wound up the big eight-day clock in the\nkitchen, Naomi and he would sit down and count over the money. True he\nhad only to go to St. Austell and Messrs. Climo and Hodges would let\nhim draw five new notes. The numbers would be different, and Naomi\n(prudent woman) always took note of the numbers: but some explanation\nmight be invented. The problem was: How to get to St. Austell and back\nbefore Naomi's return? The distance was too great to be walked in\nthe time; and besides, the coffin must be ready by nightfall. He had\npromised it; he was known for a man of his word; and owing to the\nmorning's interruption it would be a tough job to finish, at the\nbest. There was no help for it; and--so easy is the descent of\nAvernus--Geake's unaccustomed wits were already wandering in a\nwilderness of improbable falsehoods, when he heard the sound of wheels\nup the road, and Long Oliver came along in Farmer Lear's red-wheeled\ntrap and behind Farmer Lear's dun-coloured mare. As he drew near at a\ntrot he eyed Geake curiously, and for a moment seemed inclined to pull\nup, but thought better of it, and was passing with no more than a nod\nof the head and \"good-day.\"\n\nIt was unusual, though, to see Long Oliver driving a horse and trap;\nand Geake, moreover, had a sudden notion.\n\n\"Good-mornin',\" he answered; \"whither bound?\"\n\n\"St. Austell. I've a bit of business to do, so I'm takin' a holiday;\nin style, as you see.\"\n\n\"I wonder now,\" Geake suggested, forgetting all about the coffin, \"if\nyou'd give me a lift. I was just thinkin' this moment that I'd a bit\no' business there that had clean slipped my mind this week.\"\n\nThis was transparently false to any one acquainted with Geake's\nmethodical habits. Long Oliver screwed up his eyes.\n\n\"Can't, I'm afraid. I'm engaged to take up old Missus Oke an' her\nniece at Tippet's corner; an' the niece's box. The gal's goin' in to\nSt. Austell, into service. So there's no room. But if there's any\nlittle message I can take--\"\n\n\"When'll you be back?\"\n\n\"Somewhere's about five I'll be passin'.\"\n\n\"Would 'ee mind waitin' a moment? I've a cheque I want cashed at Climo\nand Hodges for a biggish sum: but you'm a man I can trust to bring\nback the money safe.\"\n\n\"Sutt'nly,\" said Long Oliver.\n\nGeake went into the house and wrote a short letter to the bankers.\nHe asked them to send back by messenger, and in return for cheque\nenclosed, the sum of twenty-five pounds, in five new five-pound notes.\nHe was aware (he said) that the balance of his running account was but\na pound or two: but as they held something over fifty pounds of his on\ndeposit, he felt sure they would oblige him and enable him to meet a\nsudden call.\n\n\"Twenty-five pounds is the sum,\" he explained; \"an' you must be sure\nto get it in five-pound notes--_new five-pound notes_. You'll not\nforget that?\" He closed the envelope and handed it up to Long Oliver,\nwho buttoned it in his breast-pocket.\n\n\"You shall have it, Mr. Geake, by five o'clock this evenin',\" said he,\ngiving the reins a shake on the mare's back; \"so 'long!\" and he rattled\noff.\n\nA mile, and a trifle more, beyond Geake's cottage, he came in sight\nof a man clad in blue sailor's cloth, trudging briskly ahead. Long\nOliver's lips shaped themselves as if to whistle; but he made no sound\nuntil he overtook the pedestrian, when he pulled up, looked round in\nthe man's face, and said--\n\n\"Abe Bricknell!\"\n\nThe sailor came to a sudden halt, and went very white in the face.\n\n\"How do you know my name?\" he asked, uneasily.\n\n\"'Recognised 'ee back in Troy, an' borrowed this here trap to drive\nafter 'ee. Get up alongside. I've summat to say to 'ee.\"\n\nBricknell climbed up without a word, and they drove along together.\n\n\"Where was you goin'?\" Long Oliver asked, after a bit.\n\n\"To Charlestown.\"\n\n\"To look for a ship?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Goin' back to America?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You've been callin' on William Geake: an' you didn' find Naomi at\nhome.\"\n\n\"Geake don't want it known.\"\n\n\"That's likely enough. You've got twenty-five pound' o' his in your\npocket.\"\n\nAbe Bricknell involuntarily put up a hand to his breast.\n\n\"Ay, it's there,\" said Long Oliver, nodding. \"It's odd now, but I've\ngot twenty-five pound in gold in _my_ pocket; an' I want you to swop.\"\n\n\"I don't take ye, Mister--\"\n\n\"Long Oliver, I'm called in common. Maybe you remembers me?\"\n\n\"Why, to be sure! I thought I minded your face. But still I don't take\nyour meanin' azactly.\"\n\n\"I didn' suppose you would. So I'm goin' to tell 'ee. Fourteen year'\nback I courted Naomi, an' she used me worse 'n a dog. Twelve year'\nback she married you. Nine year' back you went to sea in the _John S.\nHancock_, an' was wrecked off the Leeward Isles an' cast up on a spit\no' rock. I'd been hangin' about New Orleens, just then, at a loose\nend, an' bein' in want o' cash, took a scamper in the _Shawanee_, a\ndirty tramp of a schooner knockin' in an' out and peddlin' notions\namong the West Indy Islanders. As you know we caught sight o' your\nsignal an' took you off, an' you went to a mad-house. You was clean\noff your head an' didn' know me from Adam; an' I never let on that I\nknew you or the ship you'd sailed in. 'Seemed to me the hand o' God\nwas in it, an' I saw my way to cry quits wi' Naomi.\"\n\n\"I don't see.\"\n\n\"I don't suppose you do. But 'twas this way:--Naomi (thinks I) 'll be\ngivin' this man up afore long. She's a takeable woman, an' by-'n-bye,\nsome new man'll set eyes on her. Then, thinks I, her banns'll be\ncalled in Church, an' I'll be there an' forbid 'em. Do 'ee see now?\"\n\n\"That was very clever o' you,\" replied the simple seaman, and added\nwith obvious sincerity, \"I'm sure I should never ha' thought 'pon\nanything so clever as that. But why didn' you carry it out?\"\n\n\"Because God Almighty was cleverer. Times an' times I'd pictured it up\nin my head how 'twould all work out; an' the parson in his surplice\nstuck all of a heap; an' the heads turnin' to look; an' the women\nfaintin'. An' when the moment came for a man to claim her, what d'ye\nthink she did? But there, a head like yours 'd never guess--_why she\nwent to a Registry Office, an' there weren't no banns at all_. That\novercame me. I seed the wisdom o' Providence from that hour. I be a\nconverted man. An' I'm damned if I'll let you come along an' upset the\napple-cart after all these years. Can 'ee write?\"\n\n\"Tolerable, though I'm no hand at spellin'.\"\n\n\"Very well. We'll have a drink together at St. Austell, an' while\nwe're there you shall do up Geake's notes in an envelope with a note\nsayin' your compliments, but on second thoughts you couldn't think o'\ntakin' his money.\"\n\nBricknell's face fell somewhat.\n\n\"You gowk! You'll have twenty-five pound' o' mine in exchange: solid\nmoney, an' my own earnin's. I've more 'n that in my pocket here.\"\n\n\"But I don't see why _you_ should want to give me money.\"\n\n\"An' you'm too mad to see if I explained. 'Tis a matter o' conscience,\nan' you may take it at that. When the letter's wrote--best not sign\nit, by the way, for fear of accidents--you give it to me an' I'll see\nGeake gets it to-night. After that's written I'll pay your fare to\nLiverpool, an' then you'll get a vessel easy. Now I see your mouth\nopenin' and makin' ready to argue--\"\n\n\"I was goin' to say, Long Oliver, that you seem to be actin' very\nnoble, now: but 'twas a bit hard on _me_, your holdin' your tongue as\nyou did.\"\n\n\"So 'twas, so 'twas. I reckon some folks is by nature easy forgotten,\nan' you'm one. If that's your character, I hope to gracious you'm\ngoin' to keep it up. An' twenty-five pound' is a heap o' money for\nsuch a man as you.\"\n\n\"It is,\" the wanderer asserted. \"Ay, I feel that.\"\n\nAt twenty minutes to five that evening, Long Oliver pulled up again by\nthe green garden-gate. William Geake from his workshop had caught the\nsound of the mare's hoofs three minutes before, and awaited him.\n\n\"One, two, three, four, five.\" The notes were counted out\ndeliberately. Long Oliver, having been thanked, gathered up his reins\nand suddenly set them down again.\n\n\"Dear me,\" said he, \"if I hadn' almost forgot! I've a letter for 'ee,\ntoo.\"\n\n\"Eh?\"\n\n\"Iss. A kind of a sailor-like lookin' chap came up to me i' the Half\nMoon yard as I was a takin' out the mare. 'Do you come from Gantick?'\nsays he, seein' no doubt Farmer Lear's name 'pon the cart. 'There or\nthereabouts,' says I. 'Know Mister W. Geake?' says he. 'Well,' says\nI. 'Then, if you're passin', I wish you'd give 'en this here letter,'\nsays he, an' that's all 'e said.\"\n\n\"I wonder who 'twas,\" said Geake. But his face was white.\n\n\"Don't know 'en by sight. Said 'e was in a great hurry for to catch\nthe up train. Which puts me i' mind I must be movin' on. Good-night\nt'ye, neighbour!\"\n\nAs soon as he had turned the corner, Geake opened the letter.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Naomi returned, half-an-hour later, she found him standing at the\ngate as if he had spent the day there: as, indeed, he might have, for\nall the work done to the coffin.\n\n\"I must bide up to-night an' finish that job,\" he said, when they were\nindoors and she began asking how in the world he had been spending his\ntime. \"I've been worryin' mysel' all day.\"\n\n\"It's those sermons agen,\" Naomi decided. \"They do your head no good,\nan' I wish you'd give up preachin'.\"\n\n\"Now that's just what I'm goin' to do,\" he answered, pushing the\nBible far into the shelf till its edges knocked on the wood of the\nskivet-drawer.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA'S POST-BAG.\n\n\nI.--AN INTERRUPTION:\n\n_From Algernon Dexter, writer of Vers de Societe, London, to Rasselas,\nPrince of Abyssinia_.\n\n\nMy dear prince,--Our correspondence has dwindled of late. Indeed, I do\nnot remember to have heard from you since I wrote to acknowledge your\nkindness in standing godfather to my boy Jack (now rising two), and\nthe receipt of the beautiful scimitar which, as a christening present,\naccompanied your consent. Still I do not forget the promise you\nexacted from \"Q.\" and myself after lunch at the Mitre, on the day when\nwe took our bachelors' degrees together--that if in our paths through\nlife we happened upon any circumstance that seemed to throw fresh\nlight on the dark, complex workings of the human heart, or at least\nlikely to prove of interest to a student of his fellow men, we would\nwrite it down and despatch it to you, under cover of The Negus. During\nthe months of my engagement to Violet these communications of mine\n(you will allow) were frequent enough: since our marriage they have\ngrown shamefully fewer. Possibly I lose alertness while I put on\nflesh: it is the natural hebetudus of happiness. \"Q.\"--who is never\nseen now upon London stones--no doubt sends you a plenty of what\npasses for news in that parish which it is his humour to prefer to the\nImperial City. But, believe me, the very finest romance is still to be\nhad in London: and to prove this I am going to tell you a story that,\nupon my soul, Prince, will make you sit up.\n\nUntil last night the Seely-Hardwickes were a force in this capital.\nThey were three,--Seely-Hardwicke himself, who owned a million or\nmore, and to my knowledge drank Hollands and smoked threepenny Returns\nin his Louis Quinze library; Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke, as beautiful as\nthe moon and clever to sinfulness; and Billy, their child, aged\nseven-and-a-half. To-day their whereabouts would be as difficult to\nfind as that of the boy in Mrs. Hemans's ballad. You jump to the guess\nthat they have lost their money. You are wrong.\n\nIt was amassed in the canned-fruit trade, which, I understand,\ndoes not fluctuate severely, though doubtless in the last instance\ndependent on the crops. Seely-Hardwicke and his wife were ready to\nlose any amount of it at cards, which accounts for a measure of their\nsuccess. It had been found (with Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke) somewhere\non the Pacific Slope, by a destitute Yorkshireman who had tired of\ndriving rivets on the Clyde and betaken himself across the Atlantic,\nfor a change, in front of a furnace some thirty-odd feet below decks.\nOf his adventures in the Great Republic nothing is known but this,\nthat he drove into the silence of its central plain at the tail of a\ntraction engine and emerged on its western shore, three years later,\nwith a wife, a child and a growing pile. With this pile there grew\na desire to spend it in his own country; and the family landed at\nLiverpool on Billy's sixth birthday. I think their double-barrelled\nname must have been invented by Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke on the voyage.\n\nI first made Billy's acquaintance in the Row, where a capable groom\nwas teaching him to ride a very small skewbald pony. This happened in\nthe week after our Jack was born, when I was perforce companionless:\nbut as soon as Violet could ride again, she too fell a victim to the\nred curls and seraphic face of this urchin. And so, when Billy's\nmother began, later in the season, to appear in the Row, Billy (now\npromoted to a larger pony) introduced us in his own fashion and we\nquickly made friends. By this time she had been \"presented,\" and was\nfairly on her feet in London: and henceforward her career resembled\nnot so much a conquest as the progress of a Roman Emperor. I am not\nreferring to the vulgar achievements of mere wealth. Wherever these\npeople went, to be sure, they left outposts--a Mediterranean villa,\na deer forest behind the Grampians, small Saturday-to-Monday\nestablishments beside the Thames and the North Sea, and furnished\nabodes on short leases near Newmarket and Ascot Heaths; not to mention\nnomadic trifles such as houseboats and yachts. Any one with money can\npurchase these, and any one having a cook can fill them with people\nof a sort. The quality of Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke's success was seen in\nthis, that from the first she knew none but the right people: and\nthough, as her circle widened, it included names of higher and yet\nhigher lustre, yet (if I may press a somewhat confused metaphor) its\nrings were concentric and hardly distinct. She never, I believe, was\nforced to drop an old acquaintance because she had found a new one.\nThe just estimate of our Western manners which you, my dear Prince,\nformed at Balliol, will enable you to grasp the singularity of such a\ntriumph. Its rapidity, I must admit, perplexes me still. But in\nthose old days we studied Arnold Toynbee overmuch and neglected\nthe civilising influences of the card-table. By the time the\nSeely-Hardwickes took their house near Hyde Park Corner, philanthropy\nwas beginning to stale and our leaders to perceive that the\nrejuvenation of society must be effected (if at all) not by bestowing\nmoney on the poor, but by losing it to the rich. Seely-Hardwicke\nhimself was understood to spend most of his time in the City, looking\nafter the interests of canned fruits and making small fortunes out of\nhis redundant cash.\n\nYou will readily understand that we soon came to see little of our new\nacquaintances. A small private income and the trivial wage commanded\nby society verses in this country (so different in many respects from\nAbyssinia) confined us to a much narrower orbit. But we were invited\npretty often to their dinners, and the notes I have given you were\ntaken on these occasions. Last night there were potentates at Mrs.\nSeely-Hardwicke's--several imported, and one of British growth.\nTo-day--but you shall hear it in the fewest words.\n\nThree days back, Billy failed to turn up in the Row. We met his mother\nriding alone and asked the reason. She told us the child had a cough\nand something of a sore throat and she thought it wiser to keep him at\nhome.\n\nOn the next day, and yesterday, he was still absent. In the evening we\nwent to the Seely-Hardwicke's dance. The thing was wonderfully done.\nAn exuberant vegetation that suggested a virgin forest was qualified\nby the presence of several hundred people. It was impossible to dance\nor to feel lonely; and our hostess looked radiant as the moon in\nthe reflected rays of her success. We shook hands with her and were\nswallowed in the crowd.\n\nAbout half-an-hour later, as I watched the crush from a recess beside\nan open window and listened to the waltz that the band was playing,\nSeely-Hardwicke himself thrust his way towards me. He was crumpled and\nperspiring copiously: but the glory of it all sat on his blunt face\nyet more openly than on his wife's lovely features.\n\n\"I've not been here above ten minutes,\" he explained. \"Had to run\ndown to Liverpool suddenly last night, and only reached King's Cross\nsomething less 'n an hour back. Quick work.\"\n\n\"How's Billy?\" I asked, after a few commonplace words.\n\n\"Off colour, still. I went up to see him, just now: but the nurse\nwouldn't let him be disturbed; said he was sleepin'. Best thing for\nhim. You'll see him out, as lively as a lark, to-morrow.\"\n\n\"And getting stopped, as usual, by the police for expounding his idea\nof a canter in the Ladies' Mile.\"\n\nHe laughed. \"Hey? I like that. I like spirit. He looks fragile--he's\nlike his mother for that--but they're game every inch, the pair of\n'em. You may think me silly, but I don't know that I can last out this\nwithout runnin' up to have a look at him. I haven't seen him for two\ndays.\"\n\nI believe he was on the point of launching out into any number\nof fatherly confidences. But at this point he was claimed by an\nacquaintance some ten paces off; and, plunging among his guests, was\nlost to me.\n\nI cannot tell you, my dear Prince, how much time elapsed between this\nand the arrival of the home-grown Potentate--as you must allow me to\ncall him until we meet and I can whisper his august name. But I know\nthat shortly after his arrival, while I still loafed in my recess and\nhoped that Violet would soon drift in my direction and allow herself\nto be taken home, the throng around me began to thin in a most curious\nmanner. How it happened--whence it started and how it spread--I cannot\ntell you. Only it seemed as if something began to be whispered, and\nthe whisper melted the crowd like sugar. Almost before I grew aware\nof what was happening, I could see the far side of the room, and the\nPotentate there by Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke's side; and could mark their\nfaces. His was cast in a polite, but slightly rigid smile. His eyes\nwandered. That supernumerary sense which all his family possesses had\nwarned him that something was wrong. Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke's face was\nwhite as chalk, though her eyes returned his smile.\n\nAt this moment Violet came towards me.\n\n\"Take me home,\" she commanded, but under her breath. As she said it\nshe shivered.\n\n\"What on earth is the matter?\" I demanded.\n\nShe pulled me by the sleeve. I looked up and saw a white-haired man,\nof military carriage, walking towards His Royal Highness. He came to\na halt, a pace off, and stood as if anxious to speak. I saw also\nthat Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke would not allow him a chance, but talked\ndesperately. I saw groups of people, up and down the room, regarding\nher even as we. And then the door was flung open.\n\nSeely-Hardwicke came running in with Billy in his arms--or rather,\nwith Billy's body. The child had died at four that afternoon, of\ndiphtheria.\n\nI got Violet out of the room as soon as I could. The man's language\nwas frightful--filthy. And his wife straightened herself up and\nanswered him back. It was a babel of obscene Frisco curses: but I\nremember one clear sentence of hers from the din--\n\n\"You--, you! And d'ye think _my_ heart won't go to pieces when my\nstays are cut?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll the way home Violet kept sobbing and crying out that she was never\ndriven so slowly. She was convinced that some harm had happened to\nher own Jack. She ran up to the night-nursery at once and woke your\ngod-child out of a healthy sleep. And he arose in his full strength\nand yelled.\n\n\nII.--THE GREAT FIRE ON FREETHY'S QUAY.\n\n_From \"Q_.\"\n\n\nTroy Town.\n\nNew Year's Eve, 1892.\n\nMY DEAR PRINCE,--The New Year is upon us, a season which the devout\nBriton sets aside for taking stock of his short-comings. I know not if\nPrester John introduced this custom among the Abyssinians: but we find\nit very convenient here.\n\nIn particular I have been vexing myself to-day over the gradual\ndesuetude of our correspondence. Doubtless the fault is mine: and\ndoubtless I compare very poorly with Dexter, whose letters are bound\nto be bright and frequent. But Dexter clings to London; and from\nLondon, as from your own Africa, _semper aliquid novi_. But of Troy\nduring these twelve months there has been little or nothing to delate.\nThe small port has been enjoying a period of quiet which even the\nGeneral Election, last summer, did not seriously disturb. As you know,\nthe election turned on the size of mesh proper to be used in the\ndrift-net fishery. We wore favours of red, white and blue, symbolising\nour hatred of the mesh favoured by Mr. Gladstone; and carried our man.\nHad other constituencies as sternly declined to fritter away their\nvoting strength upon side issues, Lord Salisbury would now be in power\nwith a solid majority at his back.\n\nMy purpose, however, is not to talk of politics, but to give you\na short description of an event which has greatly excited us, and\nredeemed from monotony (though at the eleventh hour) the year Eighteen\nninety-two. I refer to the great fire on Freethy's Quay, where Mr. Wm.\nFreethy has of late been improving his timber-store with a number of\nthe newest mechanical inventions; among others, with a steam engine\nwhich operates on a circular saw, and impels it to cut up oak poles\n(our winter fuel) with incredible rapidity. It was here that the\noutbreak occurred, on Christmas Eve--of all days in the year--between\nfive and six o'clock in the afternoon.\n\nBut I should first tell you that our town has enjoyed a long immunity\nfrom fires; and although we possess a Volunteer Fire Brigade, at once\nefficient and obliging, and commanded by Mr. Patrick Sullivan (an\nIrishman), the men have had little or no opportunity of combating\ntheir sworn foe. The Brigade was founded in the early autumn of 1873,\nand presented by public subscription with a handsome manual engine and\na wooden house to contain it. This house, painted a bright vermilion,\nis a conspicuous object at the top of the hill above the town, as\nyou turn off towards the Rope-walk. The firemen, of course, wear an\nappropriate uniform, with brazen helmets and shoulder-straps and a\nneat axe apiece, suspended in a leathern case from the waistband. But\nthe spirit of make-believe has of necessity animated all their public\nexercise, if I except the 13th of April, 1879, when a fire broke out\nin the back premises of Mr. Tippett, carpenter. His shop was (and\nis) situated in the middle of the town, and in those days a narrow\ngatehouse gave, or rather prevented, access to the town on either\nside. These houses stood, one at the extremity of North Street, beside\nthe Ferry Slip, the other at the south end of the Fore Street, where\nit turns the corner by the Ship Inn and mounts Lostwithiel Hill. With\ntheir low-browed arches, each surmounted by a little chamber for the\ntoll-keeper, they recalled in an interesting manner the days when\nlocal traffic was carried on solely by means of pack-horses; but by an\nunfortunate oversight their straitness had been left out of account by\nthe donors of the fire-engine, which stuck firmly in the passage below\nLostwithiel Hill and could be drawn neither forwards nor back, thus\nrobbing the Brigade of the result of six years' practice. For the\nengine filled up so much of the thoroughfare that the men could\nneither climb over nor round it, but were forced to enter the town by\na circuitous route and find, to their chagrin, Mr. Tippett's premises\ncompletely gutted. For three days all our traffic entered and left\nthe town perforce by the north side; but two years after, on the\ncompletion of the railway line to Troy, these obstructive gatehouses\nwere removed, to give passage to the new Omnibus.\n\nLet me proceed to the story of our more recent alarm. At twenty\nminutes to five, precisely, on Christmas Eve, Mr. Wm. Freethy left his\nengine-room by the door which opens on the Quay; turned the key, which\nhe immediately pocketed; and proceeded towards his mother's house, at\nthe western end of the town, where he invariably takes tea. The wind\nwas blowing strongly from the east, where it had been fixed for three\ndays, and the thermometer stood at six degrees below freezing.\nIndeed, I had remarked, early in the morning, that an icicle of quite\nrespectable length (for a small provincial town), depended from the\npublic water-tap under the Methodist Chapel. About twenty minutes\nafter Mr. Freethy's departure, some children, who were playing about\nthe Quay, observed dense volumes of smoke (as they thought) issuing\nfrom under the engine-room door. They gave the alarm. I happened to\nbe in the street at the time, purchasing muscatels for the Christmas\nsnap-dragon, and, after rushing up to the Quay to satisfy myself,\nproceeded with all haste to Mr. Sullivan, Captain of the Brigade.\n\nI found him at tea, but behaving in a somewhat extraordinary manner.\nIt is well known that Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan suffer occasionally from\ndomestic disagreement, due, in great measure, to the lady's temper.\nMr. Sullivan was sitting at the table with a saucer inverted upon his\nhead, a quantity of tea-leaves matted in his iron-grey hair, and their\njuice trickling down his face. On hearing my alarming intelligence, he\nsaid:\n\n\"I had meant to sit there for some time; indeed, until my little boy\nreturns with the Vicar, whom I have sent for to witness the effects of\nmy wife's temper. I was sitting down to tea when I heard a voice\nin the street calling 'Whiting!'--a fish of which I am extremely\nfond--and ran out to procure threepenny worth. On my return, my wife\nhere--I suppose, because she objects to clean the fish--assaulted me\nin the manner you behold.\"\n\nWith praiseworthy public spirit, however, Mr. Sullivan forewent his\nrevenge, and, having cleansed his hair, ran with all speed to get out\nthe fire-engine.\n\nReturning to the Quay, at about 5 p.m., I found a large crowd\nassembled before the engine-room door, from which the vapour was\npouring in dense clouds. The Brigade came rattling up with their\nmanual in less than ten minutes. As luck would have it, this was just\nthe hour when the mummers, guise dancers and darkey-parties were\ndressing up for their Christmas rounds; and the appearance\npresented by the crowd in the deepening dusk would, in less serious\ncircumstances, have been extremely diverting. Two of the firemen wore\nlarge moustaches of burnt cork beneath their helmets, and another (who\nwas cast to play the Turkish Knight) had found no time to remove the\nbright blue dye he had been applying to his face. The pumpmaker had\ncome as Father Christmas, and the blacksmith (who was forcing the\ndoor) looked oddly in an immense white hat, a flapping collar and a\nsuit of pink chintz with white bone buttons. He had not accomplished\nhis purpose when I heard a shout, and, looking up the street, saw Mr.\nWm. Freethy approaching at a brisk run. He is forty-three years old,\nand his figure inclines to rotundity. The wind, still in the east,\ncombined with the velocity of his approach to hold his coat-tails in a\nline steadily horizontal. In his right hand he carried a large slice\nof his mother's home-made bread, spread with yellow plum jam; a\nsemicircular excision of the crumb made it plain that he had been\ndisturbed in his first mouthful. The crowd parted and he advanced to\nthe door; laid his slice of bread and jam upon the threshold; searched\nin his fob pocket for the key; produced it; turned it in the lock;\npicked up his bread and jam again; opened the door; took a bite; and\nplunged into the choking clouds that immediately enveloped his person.\n\nWhile the concourse waited, in absolute silence, the atmosphere of the\nengine-house cleared as if by magic, and Mr. Wm. Freethy was visible\nagain in the converging rays of six bull's-eye lanterns held forward\nby six members of the Fire Brigade. One hand still held the bread and\njam; the other grasped a stop-cock which he had that instant turned,\nshutting off the outpour of steam we had taken for smoke. Some one\ntittered; but the general laugh was prevented by a resounding splash.\nThe recoiling crowd had backed against the fire-engine outside, and\ninadvertently thrust it over the Quay's edge into two fathoms of\nwater!\n\nWe left it there till the tide should turn, and forming into\nprocession, marched back through the streets. I never witnessed\ngreater enthusiasm. I do not believe Troy held a man, woman, or child\nthat did not turn out of doors to cheer and laugh. Presently a verse\nsprang up:--\n\n  \"_The smoke came out at Freethy's door,\n  An' down came Sullivan with his corps.\n  'My dears,' says Freethy,' don't 'ee pour!\n  For the smoke be steam an' nothin' more--\n    But what hav' 'ee done wi' the En-gine_?'\"\n\nAnd the firemen, by shouting it as heartily as the rest, robbed the\nepigram of all its sting.\n\nBut the best of it, my dear Prince, was still to come. For at\nhalf-past eight (that being the time of low water) a salvage corps\nassembled and managed to drag the engine ashore by means of stout\ntackle hitched round the granite pedestal that stands on Freethy's\nQuay to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who\nlanded there on the 8th of September, 1846. The guise-dancers paraded\nit through the streets until midnight, when they gave it over to the\ncarollers, who fed it with buckets; and as the poor machine was but\nlittle damaged, brisk jets of water were made to salute the citizens'\nwindows simultaneously with the season's holy songs. I, who have a\nhabit of sleeping with my window open, received an icy shower-bath\nwith the opening verse of \"Christians, awake! Salute the Happy\nMorn....\"\n\nOn Saturday next the Brigade assembles for a Grand Salvage Banquet in\nthe Town Hall. There will be speeches. Accept, my dear Prince, all\npossible good wishes for the New Year....\n\n\"Q.\"","title":"The Delectable Duchy","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":54912}