The Adventures of Dick Trevanion: A Story of Eighteen Hundred and Four
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Title: The Adventures of Dick Trevanion: A Story of Eighteen Hundred and Four
Creator: Herbert Strang
Illustrator: W. Rainey
Release date: June 1, 2013 [eBook #39800]
Most recently updated: June 15, 2013
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39800
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION: A STORY OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: "THERE LOOMED OUT OF THE MIST A THREE-MASTED VESSEL."
(_See page_ 175.)]
THE ADVENTURES
OF
DICK TREVANION
_A STORY OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR_
BY
HERBERT STRANG
_ILLUSTRATED BY W. RAINEY, R.I._
LONDON
HENRY FROWDE
HODDER & STOUGHTON
1911
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., LD., PRINTERS,
LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER THE FIRST
THE VILLAGE AND THE TOWERS
CHAPTER THE SECOND
JOHN TREVANION RETURNS HOME
CHAPTER THE THIRD
THE BLOW FALLS
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
THE CAVE OF SEALS
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
ST. CUBY'S WELL
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
PENWARDEN DOES HIS DUTY
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
THE BREACH WIDENS
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
A LIGHT ON THE MOOR
CHAPTER THE NINTH
DOUBLEDICK'S MIDNIGHT GUESTS
CHAPTER THE TENTH
THE FIRE BELL AT THE TOWERS
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
SIR BEVIL INTERVENES
CHAPTER THE TWELFTH
PENWARDEN DISAPPEARS
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
CROSS-CURRENTS
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH
DOUBLEDICK ON DUTY
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
ACROSS THE PIT
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH
A PACKET FOR RUSCO
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
PETHERICK MAKES A DISCOVERY
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
A HIGH DIVE
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
A BARGAIN WITH THE REVENUE
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
THE LAST DEAL
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
THE ATTACK ON THE TOWERS
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
JOHN TREVANION IN THE TOILS
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
THE PRICE OF TREACHERY
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
PEACE AND GOODWILL
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"THERE LOOMED OUT OF THE MIST A THREE-MASTED VESSEL" . . . . . .
_Frontispiece, see page_ 175
"'HALT, IN THE KING'S NAME!' CRIED MR. MILDMAY"
"'STAND!' CRIED DICK, DASHING FORWARD. 'LEAVE HIM, OR WE'LL FIRE'"
"AS THE SEAL PLUNGED INTO THE SEA, SAM BROUGHT HIS HAMMER DOWN"
"THERE WAS NO ONE TO HEAR THE SHORT DIALOGUE THAT ENSUED AT THE HEAD OF
THE WELL"
"DICK RUSHED LIKE A WHIRLWIND ON THE MAN"
"PETHERICK'S HEAD APPEARED THROUGH THE HATCH"
"DELAROUSSE RUSHED HEADLONG TOWARDS THE APPROACHING GROUP"
CHAPTER THE FIRST
The Village and the Towers
The village of Polkerran lies snugly in a hollow between cliffs facing
the Atlantic, at the head of a little bay that forms a natural harbour.
The grey stone cottages rise from the sea-level in tiers, as in an
amphitheatre, huddled together, with the narrowest and most tortuous of
lanes between them. Through the midst a stream flows from the high
ground behind, in summer a mere brook, in winter a swollen torrent that
colours the sea far out with the soil it carries down. The bay is
shaped like a horseshoe; at low tide its mouth is closed by a reef
except at the northern end, where there is always a narrow fairway
between the reef and the sharp point of land known as the Beal.
Northward of this is another little inlet called Trevanion Bay, whence
the coast winds north-east, a line of rugged, precipitous, and
overhanging cliffs, unbroken until you come to St. Cuby's Cove, where
they reach a height of three hundred feet, and bulge out over the sea
like a penthouse roof.
One August evening, in the year 1804, a wide tubby boat lay in twelve
feet of water, just outside the line of breakers beneath the cliffs,
about a mile and a half from the village. The sun had been down some
two hours, but there was enough of twilight to show to any one out at
sea--the boat being invisible from the land--that it contained two lads,
one a tall, slight, but muscular youth of seventeen or thereabouts, the
other a thicker, sturdier boy, who looked older, but was, in fact, a
year or more younger than his companion.
"Well, Maister Dick," said the younger boy, "I reckon we'd better go
home-along; it do seem as if the water be too clear to-night."
"They're not on the feed, Sam, that's certain," replied Dick Trevanion.
"But I don't like going empty-handed. I'm thinking of supper."
"It do be queer, sure enough. 'Tis a hot night, and they mostly comes
in close when 'tis hot, and the biggest comes the closest. I 'spect
what us do want is a bit of a tumble, to stir up the bottom and muddy
the water."
Dick Trevanion had come out at sunset with his companion Sam Pollex to
fish for salmon bass, which at this time of year were usually plentiful
along the coast. For two hours they had had no luck. Every now and
then a ripple and spirt on the smooth surface showed that fish were
sporting beneath; but though they changed the bait, trying squid,
pilchard, spider-crab in turn; varied the length of line and the weight
of the lead; trailed the bait where they last saw the surface
disturbed--though they tried every device known to them to lure the
fish, they had not as yet been rewarded with a single bite. It was
exasperating. Dick knew that the larder at home was bare, and had set
his heart on carrying back two or three fish for supper and next
morning's breakfast.
"It will be high-water in half-an-hour," he said. "We'll wait till then,
and no longer."
Baiting his hook with cuttle-fish, he got Sam to row slowly up the shore
towards a spot where the sea broke gently over a yard or two of
half-submerged rocks. The air was very still; there was no sound save
the light rustle of the waves washing the foot of the cliff. As the sky
darkened and the last faint radiance vanished from the west, the stars
appeared and the shade beneath the cliff became deeper. Sam rowed up
and down for some minutes, Dick hauling in his line once or twice to see
that the hook was not fouled with sea-weed; but still there was no sign
of fish.
All at once, when he was on the point of giving up, he felt a slight tug
at the line, which began immediately to slip through his fingers.
"At last!" he whispered, jumping to his feet so hastily as to set the
boat rocking.
He held the line loosely until a dozen yards had run out, then tightened
his grasp with a jerk. Meanwhile Sam had thrown the anchor overboard.
"He's a whopper," said Dick, letting his line run again. "See; there he
goes!"
He pointed to a slight phosphorescent glow on the water about twenty
yards away. The line was running out fast. It was only a hundred yards
long, and he must check the rush of the fish, or he would lose line and
all. Grasping the twine with both hands, he exerted a steady strain, at
one moment being almost jerked out of the boat by the violent struggles
of the fish. He set his feet against the gunwale and pulled again.
With a suddenness that threw him backwards the tension relaxed.
"He's gone, Sam! He's torn away the hook," he cried.
"Scrounch un for a rebel!" said Sam indignantly. "Why couldn't he bide
quiet!"
Dick wound up his line rapidly, feeling no resistance until he had
recovered about thirty yards of it. Then once more it began to slip
away.
"He's not gone yet, Sam, after all. I'll have him, sure as I'm alive."
Steadily he worked the fish in. For a few moments he would draw in the
line without resistance; then there was a jerk; it swerved to right, to
left; and he could merely hold his own in the desperate struggle. But
gradually, fight as the fish might, it was drawn nearer and nearer to
the boat. At the broken water it spent its last energies; phosphorescent
flashes showed where it was dashing to and fro in the vain effort to
regain its liberty. Then, its strength exhausted, it suffered itself to
be dragged slowly towards the boat.
Sam was eagerly on the watch, bending over the gunwale to seize the fish
as soon as it came alongside. Suddenly he flung out his hands, only to
draw them back with a cry. He had pricked them against the fish's sharp
dorsal fin. Once more he stooped, and as Dick hauled hard on the line,
Sam got his arms beneath the fish, and with a mighty heave cast it into
the bottom, where it struggled for a moment and then lay still.
"A beauty, sure enough," said Sam.
"Worth waiting for," remarked Dick. "'Tis getting late, and Mother will
have given me up, so we'll go now. He's big enough to give us two meals
at least."
They bent down to disengage the hook and wind up the line. So intent
had they been on the capture of the bass that neither had noticed, until
that moment, a smack about three-quarters of a mile out at sea, sailing
rapidly across the bay towards St. Cuby's Cove. The moon was rising,
faintly illuminating the vessel, but casting a deep shadow on the water
immediately beneath the cliff, so that the boys were invisible from the
smack. Familiar as they were with all the small craft belonging to
Polkerran, they knew at the first glance, in spite of the dim light,
that the smack was a stranger.
"She's not Cornish," said Dick, taking a long look at her.
"Nor even English," added Sam. "Maybe a Frenchman from Rusco, though
'tis early for the running to begin."
"They won't run a cargo at the Cove, surely. The path up the cliff is
too steep, and Joe Penwarden's cottage too near. I think she's a
stranger that doesn't know the coast."
They watched the smack until she rounded the headland between them and
the Cove, and then began to row in the opposite direction. They had
just reached the end of the promontory bounding Trevanion Bay on the
north, and had swung round landward, when, their faces now being toward
the open sea, they saw something that caused them to pause in
mid-stroke. Perhaps a mile in the offing like a phantom barque in the
quivering radiance of the moonlight, lay a large three-masted vessel
with sails aback. Through the still air came the sound of creaking
tackle, and the boys, resting on their oars, saw a boat lowered, and
then another, which pulled off in the same direction as the smack.
"This be some jiggery, Maister Dick," said Sam. "Do 'ee think, now, it
be Boney come spying for a place to land?"
Those were the days when the imminence of a French invasion kept the
people of the southern counties in a constant state of alarm.
"Boney wouldn't come to this coast," replied Dick. "He wouldn't risk
his flat boats round the Lizard. No; he'll make some lonely quiet spot
on the south coast; Boney won't trouble us."
"Well, daze me if I can make head or tail o't," said Sam.
"Pull in a bit, so that we can see without being seen."
From the shadowed headland they watched in silence. The boats had
scarcely gone a third of a mile across the bay when a shrill whistle
cleft the air. They at once put about, returned to the larger vessel,
and were hoisted in, whereupon the ship made sail, and in the course of
ten or fifteen minutes disappeared into the darkness.
"There be queer things a-doing, I b'lieve," said Sam, while the vessel
was still in sight.
"Maybe," rejoined Dick, "but we don't know. Don't speak a word of it
till I give you leave, Sam. 'Tis a matter for Mr. Mildmay if any one."
"Zackly. I can keep a still tongue with any man; and now seems to I
we'd best go home-along."
He dipped the oars, and pulled, not towards the Beal, beyond which lay
the village, but towards the head of Trevanion Bay. It was now
high-water. Below the cliff only a narrow stretch of white sand was
visible. Within ten yards of this beach Sam shipped oars, and the boat
was carried along until its nose stuck in the sand. Both the boys then
sprang out, and dragged their craft up to the base of the cliff beyond
high-water mark.
"'Tis lucky tide be high," said Sam, wiping his brow with the back of
his hand, "for 'tis a hot night, and old boat be desp'rate heavy."
"True, she's both heavy and old," said Dick, as he secured her to a post
driven deep into the sand. "She's a good deal older than you or I, Sam."
"Ay, true, and Feyther have give her more knocks than he've give me.
You can see his marks on her, but you can't see 'em on me--hee! hee!"
Dick laughed. Many a time had the planks been repaired by old Reuben
Pollex, the signs of whose rough and ready handiwork were easily
discoverable.
Carrying his tackle, Dick ordered Sam to bring the bass, and led the way
along a steep path that zigzagged up the face of the cliff, being soon
hidden from the sea by knobs and corners of rock. It was a toilsome
climb; the cliff was two hundred feet high, but the windings made the
path three times as long. When they reached the top, Sam found it
necessary once more to wipe his brow; then followed his young master
across a stretch of coarse bent towards a large building, mistily lit by
the moonbeams, about a hundred yards distant.
The Towers, at one time a manor house of no little importance, was now
in the stage of decrepitude. It had been for centuries in the possession
of the Trevanions, who, in the time of King Charles I., had been a
family of great wealth and influence, owning estates, it was said, in
three counties. But the squire of that time had sold part of his
property to provide money for the King, whose cause he espoused with
unselfish loyalty, and from that time the family fortunes had gradually
declined, partly through the recklessness of certain of the owners,
partly through sheer ill-luck. For many years wealth had been drawn
from tin and copper mines beneath the surface, parts of whose apparatus,
in the shape of ruined sheds, scaffoldings, pipes, conduits, broken
chains, strewed the ground in desolate abandonment. In the early
manhood of the present squire, Dick's father, the lodes had shown signs
of exhaustion, and Mr. Trevanion, wishing to keep the mines going as
much for the sake of the miners as for his own interest, had spent large
sums on opening up new workings, which proved unprofitable. He had
mortgaged acre after acre in this fierce struggle with misfortune,
having more than his share of the doggedness of his race; but all his
efforts were fruitless; the mines were closed and the men dismissed; and
the Squire himself at last had no property unencumbered except the land
on which the Towers stood, and the barren cliff between the house and
the end of the promontory, almost worthless save for the little grazing
it afforded.
To this he had clung with grim tenacity. He was often hard put to it to
pay the interest on his mortgages as it became due; his little
household, consisting now only of himself, his wife and son, and the two
Pollexes, often had barely enough to eat; many a time he was tempted to
raise money on the little remnant of his property; but for long years,
as often as the temptation came, he had resisted it. Though he would not
admit the fact, even to himself, superstition had a good deal to do with
his determination. He scoffed at the country folks' belief in omens and
witches, and professed to think nothing of an old motto which had
attached to his family for near a hundred and fifty years. In the reign
of Charles II., when the Trevanions owned estates not only in Cornwall,
but the adjoining counties, the spendthrift whose extravagance had been
a partial cause of their ruin had, at some crisis in his affairs,
consulted a wise woman who lived alone in a little cottage on the moor.
He brought nothing from his interview with her but the couplet:
Trevanion, whate'er thy fortune be,
Hold fast the rock by the western sea.
Like his forefathers, Roger Trevanion derided the witch's counsel, but,
like them, too, he had "held fast" until, a year before the opening of
our story, he had been forced to relax his grip. Now every rood of the
land, to the uttermost extremity of the Beal, was in the hands of
mortgagees, and the dread of foreclosure weighed on the Squire like a
nightmare.
The Towers had been allowed to fall into decay. Only one wing was now
inhabited; the remainder was ruinous, and for the most part roofless.
In the south wing lived the Squire, now past fifty years of age, his
wife, a few years younger, and Dick, their only son. Their sole
attendants were Reuben Pollex, a widower, who had grown up from boyhood
with the Squire, and steadily refused to leave him, and his boy Sam.
These two did all the household work, grew vegetables, bred poultry and
pigs, the sale of which, together with the small sums obtained by
letting to neighbouring farmers the grazing rights of the cliff, was all
that kept the family from abject poverty. Dick himself was, to a large
extent, the family provider. With Sam's help he snared rabbits, shot
wild fowl, and fished along the coast. His bronzed skin and hard flesh
bespoke an active life in the open air, and as he went about in his
jersey, rough breeches, and long boots, he would scarcely have been
distinguishable from the fisher lads of the village but for a certain
springiness of gait and a look of refinement and thoughtfulness.
Dick and his companion hastened towards the south wing, where an
unusually bright light in one of the lower rooms proclaimed that the
Squire had company. While Sam took the fish, which turned out to be a
fine fourteen-pounder, into the kitchen, Dick changed his boots, washed
his hands, and entered the living-room. His father sat at the head of
the table, his mother at the foot; between them was a man of about the
Squire's age, dressed in a blue coat with brass buttons, with "seaman"
written on every inch of him. The table was covered with a spotless but
much-darned cloth; the only viands were a loaf of bread and half a
cheese. A large brown jug contained ale brewed in the family brew-house
by old Pollex.
"Why, Dick, how late you are!" said his mother. "We are just going to
begin supper."
"Better put it off for a few minutes, Mother. I've brought home a fine
bass. How d'ye do, Mr. Mildmay?"
"Ah, Dick, glad to see you, my boy! Good fishing to-night, eh?"
"One catch after two hours, sir," replied Dick. "The weather's too fine,
I suppose."
"Shall we wait, Mr. Mildmay?" asked his hostess.
"As you please, ma'am."
Mr. Mildmay, a naval lieutenant, now in command of a revenue cutter,
knew very well by the expression of the lady's face that the
postponement of the meal was welcome to her. He was an old friend of
the Squire's--a messmate indeed, for Mr. Trevanion had served for a few
years in the Navy; and his acquaintance with the penury of the household
had neither diminished his friendship nor damped the cordiality of the
Squire's welcome. In these days there were few visitors to the Towers,
and those who came knew what they had to expect in the way of
entertainment. Such as might have looked merely for the satisfaction of
the inner man had long since ceased to call. Mr. Mildmay could have
supped contentedly on bread and cheese. The meagreness of the fare
would have troubled Mrs. Trevanion the most, and the look upon her face
told Dick how welcome was his addition to it.
Dick went into the kitchen to see how Sam was getting on, and soon
returned with a portion of the fish broiled and garnished with herbs.
"As fine a bit of fish as I've tasted," said Mr. Mildmay, "and well
cooked, upon my word."
"I am glad you like it," said Mrs. Trevanion, giving Dick privately an
approving smile.
"You'll soon be hard at work, I suppose, sir," said Dick to the
lieutenant.
"Yes, no doubt I shall have a merry winter. But I wish the Commissioners
would make better arrangements on land. What can I do, with miles of
coast to keep an eye on? One riding-officer and a few old excisemen
here and there! I can't be everywhere."
"Why don't they, sir?" asked Dick.
"Because every man of muscle is snapped up by the press-gang or the
recruiters. Upon my word, I wish Boney would come, if he is coming.
When he has had his walloping there'll be a little time to attend to our
proper concerns. As it is, with this eternal war going on, the
free-traders play ducks and drakes with law and ordinances."
The Squire said nothing. His attitude to smuggling was one of
neutrality. His training in the Navy made him in general adverse to the
contraband trade; but there was a time, not very long since, when the
owners of the Towers were actively engaged in it, or at least accessory
to it, and the landowners along the coast regarded it with sympathy,
open or secret. Indeed, it is probable that the cask of brandy in Mr.
Trevanion's own cellar had never paid duty to the Crown, and old Reuben
Pollex, who loved his "dish of tay," would certainly not have been able
to enjoy it in that time of high prices unless he had known a little
back room in Polkerran where it was easy to slip in and out secretly,
and without the knowledge of the exciseman.
"The smugglers are getting bolder and bolder, confound 'em," Mr. Mildmay
went on. "With the land force so weak, what's the result? If I'm
called to a spot, ten to one by a trick, I must leave the rest of the
coast unguarded. As you know, the only man permanently in this
neighbourhood is old Penwarden, who is zealous enough, but not so active
as a younger man would be."
"No, poor man," said Mrs. Trevanion. "He has often said to me that he
fears the Government will replace him. He will cling to his duty as
long as he can for the sake of his old sister. You know he supports
her, in Truro, Mr. Mildmay."
"I know it, and I'm not the man to put him out of a job, though one of
these days a Commissioner of Customs will make his appearance, and then
I'll get a wigging."
All this while Dick had been considering whether he ought to tell the
lieutenant about the strange vessels he had seen. He knew that
smuggling was the only matter on which there was a certain constraint
between his father and Mr. Mildmay. It was tacitly understood between
them that the Squire would not round on the smugglers. On the other
hand, the revenue officer knew that anything he told the Squire would be
perfectly safe with him. He therefore discussed the subject quite
openly with his old messmate, though, like a wise general, he never
spoke about any plans that he had in view.
Dick made up his mind to say nothing. The lieutenant's cutter was lying
in the little harbour, and if he mentioned what he had seen, Mr. Mildmay
would certainly hurry away and sail in chase of the stranger. What the
Squire would not do, his son could not. But he had scarcely come to
this decision when matters took an unexpected turn.
"By the way, Squire," said the lieutenant, "I've just heard from
Plymouth that the _Aimable Vertu_--precious fine name for a rascally
privateer--is showing herself very active in the Channel. She made two
captures last week, and was sighted two days ago off Falmouth, where a
barque only just managed to escape her. She's said to be a vessel of
extraordinary speed. The Government would give a good deal to catch her
and hang her captain, that daredevil Frenchman, Delarousse; but it's
with privateers as it is with smugglers: we can't be everywhere at once,
and while we're fighting the French on the high seas, I suppose our home
waters must be left to the enemy."
This led to an exchange of reminiscences of privateer-hunting during the
American war, when both were young in the service. Meanwhile Dick felt
uncomfortable. What if the larger vessel he had lately seen was this
very privateer, the _Aimable Vertu_? In that case it was no question of
smuggling, but of piracy. He felt that he ought at least to mention the
matter, yet hesitated to speak without consulting his father. By-and-by
there came an opportunity of speaking to him privately. While Mr.
Mildmay was conversing with Mrs. Trevanion, Dick slipped to the Squire's
side and told him in a sentence or two what he had seen.
"Mildmay," cried the Squire, "hark to this. Dick tells me that an hour
or more ago he saw a strange three-master in the bay. She lowered a
couple of boats, but recalled 'em, and sailed away westward. D'ye think
she's the privateer?"
"Dash my bones, Dick," cried the lieutenant, starting up, "why on earth
didn't you speak before? Oh! I see--I see; I won't reproach you; but
I'll be as mad as a hatter if 'tis the rascal and she gets away. Good
night to you all; you'll excuse me, Mrs. Trevanion. Oh, you young dog!"
He shook his fist at Dick, and hurried from the room.
CHAPTER THE SECOND
John Trevanion Returns Home
About half-an-hour before Mr. Mildmay left the Squire's supper-table so
hurriedly, a man laboured up the last few feet of the winding path
leading from the beach of St. Cuby's Cove to the cliff-top, which he
gained at a point rather more than half-a-mile from the spot where Dick
and Sam had previously ascended. He was a tall man, his build and
figure indicating a capacity for lithe and rapid movement, so that the
heaviness of his gait was probably due solely to the size and weight of
the leathern trunk he carried. Like Sam Pollex, he paused for a moment
on reaching the top to recover his breath and mop his brow; then,
shouldering his trunk, he struck into a narrow footpath that led over
the cliff. It branched into two after a few yards, the right-hand
branch going direct to the Towers, the left-hand running away from the
sea to join a rough, ill-made road which led past the gate of the Towers
to the village.
On reaching the fork the pedestrian did not hesitate, as a stranger
might have done, but took the left-hand path. After proceeding a few
steps along it, however, he made a sudden half-turn, and stopped,
looking across the open ground towards the Towers, where one room on the
ground floor made a patch of light against the dark background of sky
and sea. The man stood but a moment, then resumed his march along the
path in the same direction as before. A smile wreathed his lips, and he
muttered to himself. He went on at a smart pace over the level ground,
turned to the right when he came to the road, passed the Towers' gates,
which he observed were broken, and walked for another quarter of a mile
before he again halted. Then he set his burden down by the roadside,
sat upon it, and wiped his heated face, where the smile had been
replaced by a frown.
"I daresay I'm a fool," he muttered in a growling undertone. "Why did I
chafe and gall myself with carrying this plaguey trunk? However, maybe
'tis best."
While he was still resting, he heard footsteps upon his right hand, and
looked round quickly. The moon was up, and he saw a young fisherman
rolling along a path that ran into the road a few paces distant.
"Ahoy, there!" cried the traveller in a deep and mellow voice.
The fisherman, who had not as yet perceived him, came to a sudden stop
as the silence of the night was broken thus unexpectedly and so near at
hand; then, catching sight of the figure on the trunk, he slipped off
the path on to the grass and began to run.
"Ahoy, there! What ails you?" cried the man. "D'you want to earn a
groat?"
Reassured, apparently, at the mention of so material a thing as a groat,
the fisherman turned and came slowly towards the speaker.
"Did you think I was a ghost?" the stranger went on with a laugh. "I
want you to carry this trunk to the village, and I'll give you a groat
for your pains."
"I'll do it, maister," replied the fisher, shouldering the trunk. "But
ye give me a fright, that ye did."
"Why, you never saw a ghost with a brown face, and a black hat, and a
blue coat, not to speak of brown breeches and long boots, did you?"
"I won't say I did, but the neighbours do say there be ghosteses
up-along by St. Cuby's Well. Maybe yer a furriner, maister?"
"No, no; I'm good Cornish like yourself," replied the man, who knew that
to Cornishmen all who lived beyond the borders of the duchy were
accounted foreigners.
"Well, I can see plain ye be a high person, and jown me if I know why ye
carry yer own bag and traipse afoot, instead o' coming a-horseback, or
in a po'chay."
The traveller shot a glance at the lad. He saw a rugged profile, a brow
on which thought had carved no furrows, a half-open mouth: the
physiognomy of a simple countryman. Then, after a scarcely perceptible
pause, he said:
"Well, I hate close folks who make a secret of everything, so I'll tell
you. I got a lift in a travelling wagon from Newquay, but the wretch
that drove it was bound for Truro, and point-blank refused to bring me
farther than the cross-roads a couple of miles back. So now you know,
my man, and I daresay you could tell a stranger what I've told you."
"Sure and sartin. You be come from Newquay in a wagon, and when ye got
to cross-roads driver said he'd be jowned if he'd carr' 'ee a step
furder."
"You have it pat; and now step out; 'tis getting latish."
They proceeded along the silent road at a good pace toward the village,
the traveller dropping a remark now and then from which the fisherman
understood that he was not a complete stranger to the district. Just as
they reached a spot where the road dipped somewhat steeply, there were
sounds of rapid footsteps behind them, and in a few moments two men came
up, one Mr. Mildmay, the revenue officer, the other an old
weather-beaten fellow in seaman's clothes. He wore a black shade over
his right eye, and the unnaturally short distance between his nose and
the tip of his chin showed that he had lost his teeth. This was Joe
Penwarden, the veteran exciseman who had been mentioned at Squire
Trevanion's supper-table. On leaving the Towers, Mr. Mildmay had gone
first to the right, and fetched Penwarden from his little cottage on the
cliff, and then retraced his steps through the Squire's grounds. Had he
been a few minutes earlier, he could hardly have failed to see the
pedestrian trudging with his trunk on his shoulder along the path that
ran a score of yards from Penwarden's cottage.
"Halt, in the King's name!" cried Mr. Mildmay, as he overtook the two
men who had preceded him along the road.
[Illustration: "'HALT, IN THE KING'S NAME!' CRIED MR. MILDMAY"]
"I'll halt if 'ee bid me in the King's name," said the fisher,
recognising the revenue officer, whom he, like the population of
Polkerran generally, held in detestation mingled with unwilling respect,
"but I bean't doin' nowt agen the law, I tell 'ee, carr'in' a genel'um's
traps for a groat."
"A gentleman, is it?" said Mr. Mildmay, turning to the traveller. "I
must ask you to tell me your business."
"And you shall have an answer. I come from Newquay, and am going to
seek a night's lodging at the Five Pilchards, if you have no objection,
captain."
Mr. Mildmay looked suspiciously at the speaker, whose accent was that of
an educated man. He was not the type of person to meet afoot with his
trunk on the high road. Old Penwarden's single eye also was fixed on
the stranger's swarthy, bearded face.
"No more objection, my dear sir, than you will have to my taking a look
at the inside of that trunk of yours. In the King's name!"
"With all the pleasure in life. Amos, or whatever your name is, set
down the trunk for the inspection of this exceedingly zealous officer of
His Majesty's."
The trunk was opened, and Penwarden turned over its contents, Mr.
Mildmay looking on. He found articles of apparel, a sword, some bundles
of papers, a bag of money, a large leather-bound book, a brace of
pistols, and sundry insignificant articles, none of which was chargeable
with duty.
"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Mildmay, when the inspection was concluded.
"I am sorry to have detained you, but in these times----"
"Quite so, captain," interrupted the other. "In these times one cannot
be too particular. I bid you good-night, and better luck at your next
examination."
Mr. Mildmay hurried on with Penwarden, and was soon lost to sight.
"Who's that popinjay?" said the traveller, when the lieutenant was out
of hearing.
"That be Maister Mildmay, the preventive officer, and a dratted
furriner," replied the fisher. "He've been in these parts two years
now, and a meddlesome feller he be too. Hee! hee! He got nowt for his
pains this time, maister, and if there's one thing I do like to see,
'tis the preventives fooled. Hee! hee!"
"Old Penwarden looks the same as ever, except for the shade over his
eye."
"Do 'ee know him, maister?"
"I used to, years ago."
"Iss, old Joe be a decent good soul of his trade, and we was vexed,
trewly, when 'a got his eye put out in a fight by Lunnan Cove. But
there, he shouldn' meddle with honest free-traders. Lawk-a-massy! I be
speakin' free."
"Oh, you're quite safe with me. I'm a bit of a free-trader myself, in
my way."
They went on, and in a few minutes came to an inn at the lower end of
the village near the beach. This was the Five Pilchards. The village
boasted another inn, a hundred yards away, called the Three Jolly
Mariners; but it belied its name, being frequented mainly by farm
labourers.
The traveller paid and dismissed the fisher, and rapped at the closed
door. It was opened by the innkeeper himself, a podgy, red-nosed,
blear-eyed fellow, with an underhung lip, and a chin like a dewlap. A
small candle-lamp hung above in the doorway, showing a dim yellow ray
upon the smiling face of the visitor. The innkeeper started back.
"I startled you, eh?" said the visitor. "Yes, it is I myself--John
Trevanion come home again. I am getting on in years, Doubledick, and I
felt I should like to die among my friends."
"Ha, ha! Ho, ho!" laughed the innkeeper. "'Tis Maister John, for sure,
come home with his little jokes. Come along in, maister, come in; daze
me if I bean't as pleased as pigs to see 'ee."
"Take me to a room, Doubledick, and get some clean sheets, will you?
And send me up something passable to eat and drink; I'll sup alone."
"Iss, sure. I'll give 'ee the best I've got in the house. What do 'ee
say, now, to collops and fried taties, or a nice bit o' bass, or a dish
o' pickled pilchurs, and some real old--you know what, Maister John?
Hee, hee!"
"Whatever you like, Doubledick, only be quick about it."
The innkeeper led his visitor along a passage past the open door of the
bar-parlour. John Trevanion glanced in as he went by. A number of
rough fishermen in various garments sat drinking on settles along the
wall. The most noticeable among them was a man of vast breadth, brawny
and muscular, his strong features tanned copper-colour by years of
sea-faring, his thick hair and beard the hue of ebony. The sleeves of
his scarlet jersey were turned up, revealing brown and hairy forearms
that would have befitted a Hercules.
"Tonkin is still flourishing, I see," said Trevanion in an undertone to
the innkeeper as he passed.
"Iss, Zacky Tonkin be as great a man as ever he wer, and a tarrible
plague o' life to the preventives. Mr. Curgenven--ye mind of him,
Maister John?--died two year back, and they sent a furrin feller,
Mildmay by name, to look arter us mortals--hee! hee! He be a good feller
at his job, a sight better than Curgenven, who loved an easy life, as
'ee could remember; but Zacky do know how to deal wi' un, he do so. Oh,
'tis a rare deceivin' game he plays wi' un. He's up-along and
down-along, and this Mildmay feller atraipsin' arter un, by sea and
land, 'tis all one to Zacky. Here's yer room, Maister John. Do 'ee set
yerself down and I'll bring 'ee up a supper fit for a lord in no time."
He looked at his visitor doubtfully for a moment.
"I'd axe 'ee one thing," he said. "Be I to let 'em know down below as
you be in house?"
"To be sure, Doubledick, there's nothing to conceal. You might remember
to say that I've come from London--no, hang me, I am forgetting; from
Newquay directly, from London ultimately. You understand?"
"Iss, I understand. No matter where 'ee come from, if 'twere from old
Nick hisself, they'll be glad to see 'ee, that they will."
John Trevanion kept to his room until the morning. At nine o'clock he
left the inn and made his way through the village by back lanes, to
escape the notice of such fishermen as might remember him, and proceeded
at a quick pace along the road to the Towers. He was dressed this
morning in a black hat turned up at one side with a rosette, a
bottle-green frock coat, white kerseymere breeches, and long boots. "He
looks summat older and nearer graveyard, as must we all," remarked
Doubledick to a crony as he watched him depart, "but he's a fine figure
of a man still."
Arriving at the Towers, John Trevanion lifted the latch of the door
leading to the inhabited portion, and entered with the freedom of one of
the family. The Squire was at breakfast with his wife and son.
"Come in," he shouted, in answer to a tap on the door, and rose from his
chair as the well-dressed visitor entered, thinking, as might have been
gathered from his manner, that it was one of the few friends who had the
freedom of the house. But at a second glance his demeanour altered.
"You have made a mistake, I think," he said stiffly, resting both hands
on the table. His fine face was flushed, and Dick, looking on in
wonderment, noticed that the riband that bound his queue of grey hair
was quivering.
"Surely, Cousin Roger, you'll let bygones be bygones," said John
Trevanion suavely. "'Tis now--I don't know how many years ago."
"When I last saw you, sir, I bade you never enter my door again. I do
not call back my words, and see no reason to do so. You will oblige me
by relieving me of your presence."
The words came sternly from his trembling lips. Dick felt himself go hot
and cold.
"Is there no word repentance in your dictionary, Roger Trevanion?" said
his cousin bitterly. "You're a good Christian, I suppose--go to church
and say the Commandments, 'love your neighbour,' and all that; but
you'll harden your heart against one of your own kin that had the
ill-luck to offend you----"
"Stop!" thundered the Squire. "The offence to me I make nothing of; you
have shamed your name and put yourself beyond the pale of honest men.
'Ill-luck,' you call it! 'Twas no ill-luck--though we Trevanions have
enough of that, God knows!--but the act and nature of a scoundrel. I am
ashamed you bear my name. I disown you. Take yourself out of my sight."
His wife laid a gentle hand on his arm.
"A pretty welcome, on my soul, for a man who has lived down the faults
of his youth," said John Trevanion. "I tell you, Roger Trevanion, I
will not put up with such usage--I will not! I don't want your
forgiveness; a fig for your friendship! But I demand decent treatment
from you, and----"
"By the Lord that made me," cried the Squire, "if you do not instantly
remove yourself from this house I will have you thrown out. Do you hear
me, sir?"
John Trevanion's eyes glittered as he returned his cousin's wrathful
look. He half opened his mouth, closed it with a snap; then an
inscrutable smile stole upon his face. He shrugged, turned on his heel,
and went silently from the room.
The Squire sank into his chair. The flush had vanished from his face,
leaving it ashy pale. His hands trembled with excess of indignation.
"My dear, calm yourself," said his wife soothingly. "He is gone."
He made no reply. Dick sat silent, every nerve tingling with
excitement. In a minute his father rose, leaving his coffee half
finished, and strode heavily from the room.
"Mother, what does it mean?" asked Dick breathlessly. "Was that cousin
John?"
"Yes, my dear. Do not name him to your father. I will go to him; I
fear he will be ill. Finish your breakfast, Dick, and go to the
Parsonage. You had better stay there all day; Mr. Carlyon will give you
some dinner."
She followed her husband, leaving Dick to his breakfast and his
wondering thoughts. He faintly remembered his cousin John Trevanion,
who ten years before had lived in the now empty Dower House, between the
Towers and the village, as his father had done before him. John
Trevanion had then been a gay, careless, happy-go-lucky young man of
thirty, who lived on the Squire's bounty, riding his horse among the
county yeomanry, hunting with his neighbours, roistering it with the
most rakish young blades of the adjacent manors, joining in daredevil
escapades with the smugglers. His antics and riotings became a byword in
the country-side, and Dick remembered how, when a young boy, he had
witnessed several violent scenes between his father and John after some
particularly outrageous exploit. Old Pollex had told him that the
Squire had threatened many times that unless John reformed he would no
longer be allowed to occupy the Dower House, and had forgiven him over
and over again. At last a day came when John disappeared. Dick had
never learnt the true reason; the Squire never mentioned his cousin;
Pollex, when questioned, shook his head and pursed up his lips, and said
that John Trevanion was a villain; and Dick had formed the conclusion
from stray hints that the ne'er-do-well cousin had been driven out of
the country by some criminal act. For ten years he had not been heard
of, and he had wholly slipped from Dick's thoughts.
Having finished his breakfast, Dick took his cap and set off for his
two-mile walk to the Parsonage, where he went daily to receive lessons
in classics and literature from Mr. Carlyon, the vicar. He had never
been to school, his father's resources being incapable of bearing the
expense. A few years before this time the Squire had been seriously
disturbed about his son's education. He was himself a sufficiently
competent tutor in mathematics, but what classics he ever had had wholly
left him, and he was miserable in the thought that the boy was growing
up without the elements of the education of a gentleman. At this point
the vicar stepped in with a proposal. He was a liberal-minded, genial
man, a fellow of his college, a student of his county's antiquities, and
in his 'varsity days had been a notable athlete. Now, though well on in
years, he would often, on a Sunday afternoon after church, lend his
countenance to wrestling bouts and games of baseball among the village
youths. He rode to hounds, and judged at coursing matches, these and
similar avocations probably accounting for the fact that a history of
the parish, which he had commenced twenty years before, was still
unfinished. One day he suggested to the Squire that he should give Dick
lessons in Latin and Greek, to keep himself from rusting, as the worthy
man delicately put it, but really to make good the deficiency due to his
friend's straitened means. Mr. Trevanion gladly accepted the offer, and
Dick had now been for five years under the parson's capable tuition.
When Dick returned home in the evening he was met by Sam Pollex in a
state of considerable excitement.
"I say, Maister Dick," he said, "this be a fine mossel o' news. Yer
cousin John--a rare bad 'un he be--have come home-along."
"I know," replied Dick. "I've seen him."
"Have 'ee, for sure? I hain't seed un, but I heerd tell on un in
village. Ike Pendry were goin' along road last night when up comes my
genel'um and axed un to carr' his bundle for a groat. He wer traipsin'
along from St. Cuby's Cove way, about an hour, it do seem, arter we come
up from fishin'."
"Where had he come from?"
"Newquay, 'a said; but 'tis my belief he come out o' the smack we seed,
and clomb the cliff, same as we."
"That's nonsense. He wouldn't come in a smack, and if he did he
wouldn't land at the Cove. He has made no secret of his return, and
there's no reason why he shouldn't land at the jetty."
"Ah, well, things be as they be; but I reckon he come in the smack, all
the same."
"What is he doing in the village?"
"He bean't there no longer. This arternoon he packed up his traps and
rid off on one of Doubledick's hosses to Trura. Feyther seed un go. 'A
called to un as he rid by. 'Hoy, Reuben!' says he, ''tis a cold
country, this!' That just 'mazed Feyther, 'cos it was a frizzlin' day.
'Spect he've been in furrin parts, wheer what's bilin' to we is nawthin'
but chill-off to they. So 'tis, to be sure."
At this piece of news Dick felt much relieved. He hoped that Polkerran
had seen the last of John Trevanion. But it turned out that the return
of the native was only the first scene in a series of strange happenings
that were to be long remembered in the village, and were vitally to
affect the fortunes of the family at the Towers.
CHAPTER THE THIRD
The Blow Falls
For some days after the event just related, life at Polkerran and the
neighbourhood flowed on its customary sluggish tide. The fishermen were
idle, waiting for pilchards to appear off the coast. The harvest had
been gathered in from the fields. There was little for the village folk
to do except to gossip. Men gathered in knots on the jetty and at the
inn-doors, chatting about the return of John Trevanion, the strange
vessels that had been seen, and the revenue cutter's failure to catch
them, the appearance of a ghost at St. Cuby's Well, the prospects of the
fishing season, the chances of making good "runs," and besting Mr.
Mildmay and the excisemen. At the Towers there was nothing to show that
anything had happened to disturb the placid surface of existence, except
that the Squire was more silent than usual, and went about with a pale
face and a preoccupied and troubled look.
One afternoon, after the lapse of about a week, Dick, leaving the
Parsonage after his daily lessons, was surprised to see his father
approaching across the glebe. The Squire was on foot: his last horse
had been sold long ago.
"Ha, Dick!" he said, as he met his son, "you have finished with Greeks
and Romans for the day, then. I have come for a word with the parson.
Shall be home to supper."
Dick went on, and his father entered the house.
"Ah, Trevanion, I am glad to see you," said Mr. Carlyon, cordially, his
keen eyes not failing to note a certain gravity in his old friend's
expression.
"I want your advice, Carlyon," said Mr. Trevanion abruptly.
"And you shall have the best I can give, as you know well. Come into
the garden and smoke a pipe with me. Good, honest tobacco, even if 'tis
contraband--and I can't swear to that--will do no harm to you or me."
When they were seated side by side in wide wicker chairs beneath the
shade of an elm-tree, the Squire drew from his pocket a folded paper
which had been sealed at the edges.
"Read that," he said, handing it to the vicar.
Mr. Carlyon carefully rubbed his spectacles, set them on his nose with
deliberation, and slowly opened the paper.
"H'm! God bless my soul! Poor old Trevanion!" he murmured, as he read,
unconscious that his words were audible. "This is bad news, Trevanion,"
he said, aloud, looking over the rims of his spectacles with grave
concern.
"It is. It is the very worst," said the Squire, gloomily. "It is the
end of things for me."
"No, no; don't say that. Every cloud has a silver lining."
"A musty proverb, Carlyon. You don't see the silver lining in a
thunderstorm, and it doesn't keep your skin dry. This spells ruin, ruin
irretrievable."
The parson pressed his lips together, and read the document again. It
was a brief intimation from a Truro attorney of his client's intention
to foreclose on the mortgages he held upon certain parcels of land, if
the sums advanced on them were not repaid within a month from that date.
"This is not your own man?" said the parson.
"No. I never heard of him before."
"What is the extent of the obligation?"
"Two thousand pounds. I can't muster as many shillings. I am in arrear
with the interest. Within a month we shall be in the poor-house--a
noble end for Trevanion of the Towers!"
"Tut, tut! You take too black a view of things. 'I have been young, and
now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed
begging bread.'"
"But I have, and so have you, Carlyon. I see things as they are. 'Tis
no surprise to me; these many months I have felt the blow might fall at
any moment; but the condemned man hopes to the last for a reprieve, and
I have gone from day to day, like a weakling and simpleton, refusing to
face the facts. Not that I could have done anything; I am bankrupt;
there's no way out of it."
"Who holds the mortgages?"
"Sir Bevil Portharvan. I have nothing to say against him. He has been
very patient. A man of business would have foreclosed long ago, though
he would have got little by it, for the mines are worked out, the Towers
is a ruin, and the land will grow next to nothing but thistles and
burdock. 'Twas to be."
"But he can't take the Towers from you. Do you not hold fast to that?"
"I did till a year ago, but there's a small bond on that now--a paltry
hundred pounds; I could raise no more on it and the cliff. Sir Bevil
does not hold that, however; 'tis my own lawyer."
The parson sawed the air with his hand, a trick of his when perplexed.
"Well, old friend," he said, "I am sorry for you, from the bottom of my
heart. If I had the money, I would gladly lend it you, but 'passing
rich on forty pound a year,' you know----"
"I know well. 'Tis not for that I come to you. Give me your advice.
What can I do? I must leave the Towers; what can I do for a livelihood?
Like the man in the Book, 'I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.' What a
miserable fool I was to throw up the sea when I came into the property!
And yet I don't know. Look at Mildmay; a year or two younger, 'tis
true, but still a lieutenant, and thought fit for nothing better than to
chase luggers and circumvent the trade. I've no interest with the
Admiralty; they've enough to do to provide for the seamen invalided from
the wars. What can an old fool past fifty do to earn his salt? Years
ago I had my dreams of paying off the burdens and reviving the Trevanion
fortunes; but they have long since vanished into thin air; the task
needed a better head than mine. And what little chance I might have had
was doomed by the misdeeds of that scoundrel cousin of mine----"
"I heard that he reappeared the other day. I hoped it was not true."
"'Twas true. He had the boldness, the effrontery, to come to me with
his 'let bygones be bygones,' and sneering at my Christianity. You know
the facts, Carlyon. You know how, but that I impoverished myself, he
would to this day be in the hulks or slaving in the plantations. I was
too tender, I was indeed. I ought to have let the law take its course,
and put my pride in my pocket. 'Twas a weakness, I own it; and now 'tis
time to take my payment."
"No, my good friend, you did right to keep your name unstained. But I
wonder, indeed I do, that John Trevanion has dared to show his face here
again."
"Oh, 'tis no wonder," said the Squire bitterly. "No one knew of his
crime but three, you and I and John Hammond; only Hammond had proof of
it, and he is dead. My worthless cousin learnt of his death, I warrant
you; the Devil has quick couriers for such as he; and he comes back,
relying on my weakness and your holiness. But I'll speak no more of
him; he is gone, and I hope I shall never see him again. There's my boy
Dick: what is to become of him? He is seventeen; he ought to be making
his way in the world. I can't put him to a profession; I keep him at
home drudging for us; and but for your kindness, Carlyon, he would be as
ignorant and raw as the meanest farm-hind. 'Tis not right; 'tis cruelty
to the lad; and he will live to curse the day he was born a Trevanion."
"Come, come, this is not like you, Squire," said Mr. Carlyon warmly.
"The lad is doing very well. He lives an open, honest life, and a useful
one. What if his hands are horny? He makes good progress with his
books, too, and will be fit in a year or two to win a sizarship at
Oxford, and he will do well there, take orders, or maybe become
secretary to some great person. You need fear nothing for Dick. No;
'tis for yourself and your good wife we must think. And now let us put
our heads together. What say you to visiting Sir Bevil, and seeking
further grace? I will myself undertake the office."
"Never!" cried the Squire firmly. "I will have no man supplicating and
beseeching on my behalf. No; let what must come, come; never will I
whine and grovel for mercy."
"You are an obstinate old fool, Roger Trevanion," said the parson,
laying a friendly hand on the other's arm. "But I own I sympathise with
your feeling. Well, then, my counsel is--and you may scorn it--do
nothing."
"Nothing!"
"Simply wait. The foreclosure must come, I see that; but the other
mortgagee has not moved; you will still have a roof above you; you make
no profit of the mortgaged lands, and so will be not a whit worse off
than you are now, save in the one point of pride. That pride of yours
has been your snare, Trevanion."
"Well I know it!"
"I don't preach, except on Sundays, but I believe in my heart that this
trouble will turn out for your good. Hold fast your rock, old friend;
'twas sound advice, even though it came from a witch. No man can give
you better, and I am superstitious enough to believe that while you
follow it the Trevanions will not come to beggary."
The two friends sat talking for some time longer. When the Squire rose
to go away, he said--
"I thank you, Carlyon. You have done me good. I see nothing but
darkness ahead, but I'll take your advice; I'll stick to the ship, and
keep my colours flying, and who knows?--perhaps I shall weather it out
after all."
They shook hands and parted, and the parson returned to his study to
read over an ode of Horace in readiness for Dick's lesson next day.
After his conversation with Mr. Carlyon the Squire recovered his wonted
serenity. So cheerful was he when he told his wife and son what was
going to happen, that they refrained from giving utterance in his
presence to their own feelings on the matter, for fear of bringing back
his gloom. He rode over one day in the carrier's cart to Truro to pay
the interest on the Towers mortgage with the proceeds of a fine litter
of pigs, and showed his lawyer the letter he had received from his
professional brother.
"An excellent practitioner, sharp as a needle," said the lawyer. "He
came to me a while ago wanting to purchase the little bond I myself
hold; but I refused him point-blank, and went so far as to express my
surprise at Sir Bevil. He grinned at me, Mr. Trevanion--yes, grinned at
me in the most unseemly way. 'Twas not Sir Bevil's doing: that is one
comfort."
"Who bought up the bonds, then?"
"That I cannot tell you: I do not know. No doubt a stranger, who has
more money than judgment. I am sorry for this; I am indeed; and if
there were any chance of getting metal out of the earth I could have
transferred your mortgages with the greatest ease. As it is--but there,
I won't talk of it. As for my own little bond on the Towers, that may
remain till Doomsday so far as I am concerned. It would cut me to the
heart to see the old place in the hands of any one but a Trevanion."
"You're a good fellow, Trevenick," said the Squire, "and I'm grateful to
you."
"Not at all, not at all, my dear sir. I am perfectly satisfied with my
investment."
And the Squire returned home more cheerful than ever, convinced that
lawyers were not all as dry as their parchments.
The allotted month sped away. One afternoon, when Dick was at the
parson's, Sam Pollex ran at headlong speed up the road from the village,
dashed into the house, and forgetting his manners, burst into the
Squire's room without knocking or wiping his boots, as he had been
strictly enjoined always to do.
"If 'ee please, sir," he panted, "there be a wagon full of females
pulled up at the door o' the Dower House yonder."
"Indeed!" said the Squire. "Have you never seen females before, Sam?"
"Iss I have, sometimes, in the village; but these be furriners, sir."
"Well, maybe they'll buy your eggs, and that'll save you three-quarters
of your walk to the village."
Sam went out, looking very much puzzled. What had brought foreign
females to his master's house, he wondered? Within half an hour he was
back again, this time a little less eager, though equally excited. He
rapped on the door, and being bidden to enter, said, less breathlessly
than before:
"If 'ee please, sir, I seed a man on a hoss ride up to Dower House, and
he went inside, sir, and 'twas Maister John."
"Who? John who?" The questions came like pistol-shots.
"His other name be Trevanion, it do seem," said the boy.
The Squire got up in great agitation.
"Are you sure, boy?" he asked.
"No, sir, I bean't sure, 'cos I never seed un afore; but I axed Tom
Penny, who was standing by, who 'twas, and he said, 'Why, ninny-watch,
doan't 'ee know yer own maister's born cousin? 'Tis the same fine
genel'um that give Ike Pendry a groat for carr'n his portmantel.'"
Then something happened that scared Sam out of his wits and sent him
scampering to the kitchen for his father.
"Feyther, Feyther," he cried, "come quick! Squire's took bad. 'A went
all gashly white and wambled about, sighin' and groanin' that terrible!
He's dyin', I b'lieve."
Old Reuben was lame, but he caught up a jug of water and hobbled with it
as fast as he could to the Squire's room, sending Sam to fetch the
mistress. He found the Squire seated in his chair, with a stony look
upon his ashen face.
"What ails thee, maister?" cried the terrified servant.
"Nothing, nothing, Reuben," replied Mr. Trevanion. "Don't be afraid, and
don't alarm your mistress."
Here Mrs. Trevanion came hastily in, Sam hanging behind as if afraid to
approach too near.
"I am sorry they called you, my dear," said the Squire. "There is
nothing wrong. Leave us, Reuben."
The old man hobbled away. Mrs. Trevanion stood by her husband's chair.
"I was overcome for a moment, but it has passed," said the Squire.
"John Trevanion is the master of my lands."
"It cannot be, Roger!"
"It is, it is. Sam saw a party of servants drive to the Dower House,
and John himself ride up a while after."
"But, Roger, I do not understand."
"'Tis very simple. He has bought up the mortgages from Sir Bevil's
attorney--'twas hard to believe that the foreclosure was Sir Bevil's
doing--and has come to mock me and flout me at my own doors; ay, and to
drive me away, if he can!"
"A penniless man, Roger! You told me he left here a beggar."
"Yes, a beggar, and worse--a thousand times worse. But that was ten
years ago, and in ten years beggars may become rich, and scoundrels may
tread down many an honest man. But he shall not tread me down. He may
own my land, and fence me in, and do what he will; but the Towers is
mine, and by heaven I will hold it!"
Discretion was one of Mrs. Trevanion's qualities. Being relieved to find
that Sam's alarming report of the Squire's illness was exaggerated, if
not wholly imaginary, she sought with her wonted tact to divert her
husband's thoughts into a calmer channel, and soon had him interested in
purely domestic matters.
The re-opening of the Dower House was already the all-engrossing topic
of conversation among the old wives and young wives, fishers, farmers,
tradesmen, loafers and small fry of Polkerran and the neighbourhood.
The "wagon-full of females" of Sam's kindling eye turned out to be one
plump woman of forty and one slim maid of half that age, the cook and
housemaid whom John Trevanion had engaged, as afterwards appeared, in a
Devonshire village. On the same day two heavy wagons, each drawn by
four enormous horses, arrived from Truro with furniture, kitchen
utensils, and other things needed in setting up house, and on the next
appeared a couple of riding-horses in charge of a lively young groom.
These important events were retailed and freely commented on in the
tap-room of the Five Pilchards.
"We shall see brave doings up at the old house, neighbours," said
Doubledick, the innkeeper, to the group of fishermen idling there.
"Maister John is a fine feller, that he be. He were allers the chap for
a randy, and 'twill be a rare change for we to have some one as will
have feastings and merry-makings arter the miserable cold time we've had
wi' Squire."
"'A must have a heap o' gold and silver in his purse to pay for all they
fine-lookin' things we seed goin' in," said one of the men. "Wheer 'd
he get it all from, can 'ee tell us that, neighbour Doubledick?"
"I might if I put my mind to it," said Doubledick sententiously. "But
it don't matter a mossel wheer it do come from; there 'tis, and we shall
have the good o't. The lord-lieutenant 'll make un a magistrate, if I
know the ways o' providence, and I do know summat about 'em, neighbours
all; and if any of 'ee are brought up afore un for a innocent bit o'
free-tradin', he'll not be the man to stretch the law against 'ee, not
he."
"'Tis a terrible affliction for Squire, to be sure," said another.
"There be no loving-kindness 'twixt 'em, if all's true as folks tell,
and a dog can't abide seein' another run off with his bone, that bein'
my simple way of speech."
"Squire be goin' down, that's the truth o't," said Doubledick. "Well,
some goes up and some goes down, and all gets level in churchyard."
Sam Pollex lost no time in making acquaintance with the new household.
On the day after their arrival he carried a basket of eggs to the
back-door of the Dower House, and blushed to the roots of his hair when
it was opened by a pretty Devonshire lass, who smiled sweetly on him,
asked him the price, and said she would speak to Cook.
"She will take them," said the girl on her return, "and bids me say you
must come to-morrow and she'll let 'ee know if any is addled. What be
the name of 'ee, boy?"
"Sam Pollex, ma'am," said Sam sheepishly.
"And where do 'ee live?"
"Up at Towers, yonder."
"Well I never! Bean't that where Maister's cousin the Squire lives?"
"Iss, him and me lives there, and the mistress, and Feyther, and Maister
Dick."
"Only think of it, now! Squire selling eggs like a common dairyman!"
"Squire don't sell 'em; 'tis me, and I take Mistress the money.
Sometimes it come to two or three shilling a week, but the hens don't
lay in winter, and then I sell sides o' pork and chitterlings."
"Well, run away now, boy--Sam Pollex, did you say? What a funny name!
And mind you don't lose the money."
Sam went away all aglow with admiration of the sweet looks of the
maid-servant, and told Mrs. Trevanion how kindly she had spoken to him.
He was seized with a terrible depression of spirits when he left his
mistress's presence.
"Never go there again to sell eggs, or anything else, Sam," she said
firmly. "Your master will be very angry with you if he hears of it.
Here is the money. Take it to your father, and mind you never do such a
thing again."
Sam, with a rueful face, told Dick what had happened.
"I should think not, indeed," said Dick indignantly. "If I catch you
going inside the gates of the Dower House grounds again I'll break your
head, young Sam; you remember it."
For several days the Squire scarcely left the house. Then he happened to
meet John Trevanion riding along the road. The supplanter swept off his
hat with a mocking salutation, but the Squire passed him without a sign
of recognition.
A day or two later Sir Bevil Portharvan, owner of an estate some miles
distant, rode over to the Towers.
"Ah, Trevanion," he said to the Squire, "how d'ye do? 'Tis only
yesterday I heard that your cousin was the purchaser of the bonds I
held. It must be a great comfort to you that the property has not gone
out of the family."
"Let me tell you, once for all, Sir Bevil," cried the Squire, his cheeks
red with anger, "that the owner of the Dower House is a stranger to me.
I will not speak to him, nor look at him, and I don't care who knows
it."
"Dear me, I am sorry," said the astonished visitor. "I had no idea of
it, or, believe me, Trevanion, I would never----"
"Enough, Sir Bevil. I have no grudge against you. You have been very
long-suffering; I thank you for it; but I would have given you my
property rather than it should fall into the hands of its present owner.
I say no more."
And Sir Bevil told his friends that old Trevanion was growing very
crusty, and it was a pity to see such paltry envy in a man of his years.
CHAPTER THE FOURTH
The Cave of Seals
Some few days afterwards, Mr. Mildmay, visiting the Towers once more,
chanced to mention that as he passed St. Cuby's Cove in his cutter he
had seen a couple of seals disporting themselves in the shallow water
under the cliff. The conversation passed at once to other matters, but
next morning Dick told Sam what the lieutenant had said, and suggested
that they should go seal-hunting. Sam was nothing loth, and promised to
accompany his young master as soon as he had fed the poultry and cleaned
out the sties.
Seals were not often seen on the coast; indeed, Dick had only once
before heard of their appearance, so that the proposed expedition had
all the charm of novelty. While waiting for Sam, he went to the
kitchen, where Reuben Pollex was washing the dishes, and asked him if he
could tell him how to tackle a seal.
"That's more than I can do, Maister Dick," said the old man. "I never
caught nawthin' but fish and rabbits, and maybe a stoat now and again;
never seed a seal in my life."
"They're valuable, Reuben," said Dick. "The skins are worth a good
deal. They are made into coats and tippets and such things for ladies,
you know."
"The mistress wants a new coat, so 'twould come handy, and I wish 'ee
luck. I've heerd tell that the critters sometimes hide in the cave
yonder, though as no man, 's far 's I know, ever did see 'em there, it
may be only guesswork."
The cave mentioned was at the head of St. Cuby's Cove. Its entrance was
exposed only at low tide, and Dick had more than once visited it at such
times, exploring its recesses by the light of a torch or one of the
house lanterns. He had never made any interesting discovery there, and
had for some years ceased to visit it.
"Didn't you tell me once that there is an entrance to the cave from the
land side, Reuben?" he asked.
"Ay, folks used to say so when I was a boy, but I don't know as there be
any truth in it. Once upon a time, long afore my day, there was a mine
thereabouts, and maybe one of the adits ran down to the cave; but 'tis
sixty year or more since the mine give out--in yer grandfer's time--and
not a soul have been down in the workings ever since, 's far 's I know."
Here Sam appeared and announced that he was ready. The two lads,
provided with a gun, a cutlass, a lantern, and a few candle-ends,
proceeded to the spot on the beach of Trevanion Bay where their boat was
moored, launched her, and rowed round the promontory to St. Cuby's Cove.
The tide was running out, and as the interval during which the cave was
free from water was very short, Dick and his companion worked the boat
through the entrance with their hands as soon as there was room for them
to pass between the roof and the surface of the sea.
The opening was at first a narrow tunnel in the cliff, but after some
yards it began to widen gradually, and at length enlarged itself into a
spacious vault, in which there was a continuous murmur, such as is heard
on putting a shell to one's ear. By the time the boys reached it the
tide had completely left the cave, and the boat stranded on a sandy
beach, littered with rocks of all shapes and sizes, which had apparently
fallen at various times from the roof. They lit their lantern, whose
yellow rays fell on jagged granite walls, glistening shells, and slimy
seaweed covering the rocks on the floor. Here and there were small
pools which the tide never left dry, and where the light of the lantern
revealed innumerable little marine creatures darting this way and that
with extraordinary rapidity.
The boys made the boat fast by looping the painter round a jagged
boulder. They moved warily, for the seal was a beast unknown to either
of them, though Dick, in his total ignorance of these creatures of the
deep, hardly expected to find them in the cave now that the sea had
receded. Presently, however, they heard above the hollow murmur another
sound, like the feeble bleat of a very young lamb. They peered about,
moving the lantern to and fro, and at length discovered, lying on a
rocky ledge at the inmost end of the cave, two small cream-coloured
objects, scarcely more than a foot long, whose soft eyes blinked in the
light, and from whose mouths issued plaintive cries of alarm.
"Bean't they proper little mites!" said Sam, putting out his hand to
touch them.
"Don't do that!" cried Dick hastily; "the old ones may be about, and if
they're like other beasts, they'll attack us if they think we'll hurt
their young."
"Shan't we take 'em, then?" asked Sam.
"Of course not; they're too young."
"And shan't we look for the old uns?"
"No; the young ones would die if we killed the parents. We must come
again later on, when they're old enough to take care of themselves. But
our day shan't be wasted. We'll see if we can find the other entrance
to the cave."
"What other entrance?"
"Your father says 'tis thought that at one time there was a way in from
an adit above."
"I can't believe it. The free-traders would have found it long afore
this if so 'twere."
"I don't know. The adit wouldn't be an easy passage for them with their
bales and kegs. But don't let us waste time; the tide will be running
back soon."
They followed the irregular circuit of the cave, thrusting the lantern
into every recess and hollow, holding it high and low, but discovering
nothing except the same rugged and apparently impenetrable wall.
"There bean't no opening," said Sam at length. "'Twas fiddle-faddle to
say there be."
"Perhaps it is high above us, out of reach," suggested Dick.
"Where's the sense o' that?" replied Sam, disappointed of the
anticipated sport. "What mortal good would it be to any soul alive to
make an opening where 'ee'd break yer neck if you come to it?"
Dick did not answer, craning his neck to scan the heights above him.
The light of the lantern failed to penetrate the overarching gloom. The
roof of the cave was invisible, and the walls appeared to rise
perpendicularly, with projections here and there that looked, in the
spectral glimmer, like the grotesque gargoyles on a church-tower.
"I'd like to climb up there," said Dick at length.
"Lawk-a-massy, you'd break yer neck for sure. 'Tis a 'mazing hard job to
climb the cliff arter gulls' eggs, but this be death and burial."
"We could do it with a ladder."
"Our ladder bean't long enough by half; the only ladders long enough be
they in church-tower, and they be too heavy to lug here, and sexton
wouldn't let us take 'em. Scrounch it all, Maister Dick, I do think 'ee
be muddled in yer head to think o' sech daring doings. See now, tide's
comin' in, and we don't want to be drownded."
"That's the most sensible thing you've said for a while, Sam. We'll go
now, but I won't give it up. We'll get a ladder, or make one, and come
back another day. I'm determined to find out if there really is an
opening."
"Well, Feyther says most heads do have a magget in 'em, like turmits,
and this be yours; 'tis indeed."
They loosed the boat, and paddled out as they had come, Dick resolving,
in spite of his follower's damping attitude, to return before long, and
make a thorough exploration of the place.
Later in the day, as he walked home from the Parsonage, he was struck
with an idea of a contrivance for serving his purpose. He consulted old
Reuben about it when he got home, and Sam, on returning from an errand
in the village, found his father and Dick hard at work in an outhouse,
splicing short lengths of rope, and fixing them at regular intervals
between two thin but strong poles about six feet long.
"What be doin', Feyther?" asked Sam.
"Use yer eyes, sonny, and put a name to 't yerself," replied Reuben.
"Well, if I was to speak my thought, I'd say 'ee was makin' a ladder
that 'ud let a man down as soon as he put a foot on it."
"Then 'tis for you to make it stronger, my son, babe and sucklin' as 'ee
be. T'ud be a sin to let so much cleverness run to seed. Strip off yer
coat and lay into it, and keep yer tongue quiet, for if 'ee set all the
organs of yer body goin' at once, you'll die young."
This implied rebuke had the effect of making Sam enter zealously into
the work, and before supper two light ladders were finished, each six
feet long, which, together with a short ladder of the ordinary kind that
Reuben used in his duties about the premises, provided Dick with a total
length of eighteen or twenty feet. His notion was to carry these
separate pieces down to the cave, and then lash them together to form
one continuous whole.
He fixed on the following afternoon for his second visit to the cave.
The morning turned out very wet, the rain pouring down in quite unusual
volume; but the sky cleared after dinner, and the two boys set off,
timing themselves as before to reach the cave when the ebbing tide left
the entrance free. Again the baby seals were alone, and much as Dick
would have liked a tussle with their parents, his sporting bent was for
the time subordinate to his wish to find the supposed landward entrance
to the cave.
The ladder perfectly answered its purpose, but it was disappointing to
find that it was by no means long enough. Even when Dick, the taller of
the two, stood on the topmost rung, Sam holding the ladder steady at the
bottom, he saw that the walls still stretched for several feet above
him. But the roof was now in sight, an irregular arch, consisting of
knobs, wedges, and inverted pyramids of rock, and Dick felt the
tantalising certainty that the opening, if opening there was, could not
be far away.
They went all round the cave, setting the ladder up at frequent
intervals, Dick exploring every foot of the jagged wall with the aid of
his lantern. There were plenty of recesses and depressions, ranging
from a finger's breadth to the length of his arm; but he did not find
one where he was unable to touch the back of it with his outstretched
hand. It was clear that the opening, if it existed, must be above his
head.
"We shall have to make another length of ladder, and come back again,"
he said to Sam. "I won't give it up."
He was standing high on the ladder as he spoke, dangling the lantern by
a ring at the top. The words were scarcely out of his mouth when there
was a tremendous crash, which shook the place, and so much startled him
that, in an instinctive movement to cling on to something, he let the
lantern fall. It lighted fairly on the top of Sam's head, bounced off,
and dropped with a thud to the sandy floor, where the candle was
instantly extinguished.
"Are you hurt, Sam?" cried Dick, anxiously.
"Rabbit it all!" roared Sam, in high indignation. "Do 'ee think my head
be wood then? Bean't I got feelings like any other common man? My
skull have got a furrow in it a yard long, and I may rub it till I'm
dead, I'll never straighten it out again."
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help it, Sam. Light the candle again, will
you, so that we can see what has happened."
Sam growled and grunted as he struck a light from his tinder-box. The
rekindled candle revealed a strange catastrophe. A huge mass of the
wall and roof of the cavern had collapsed, owing perhaps to the heavy
rains in the morning, and the debris was lying in a heap against the
opening of the tunnel leading to the exterior.
"If this bean't a pretty kettle of fish, never call me Sam again," said
the boy in consternation. "'Tis closed up; we be shet in."
Dick climbed down the ladder, and crossed the floor of the cave to see
the extent of the mischief. It was as Sam had said. Their exit was
barred by a mass of rock and loose soil that must weigh several tons.
"Quick, Sam!" cried Dick, "we must work hard to clear it away. The tide
will be on the turn, and we don't want to be imprisoned here all night."
They began to work with all haste, but soon found that the task would be
a long one. The smaller pieces of rock were easily cast aside; but
there were many large masses which, besides being heavy and cumbersome
themselves, were very difficult to move by reason of the earth in which
they were imbedded. The boys had made but little progress when the sea
began to creep in.
"We'll be drownded alive!" said Sam, now in a state of terror.
"Work, then. Shove your hardest, Sam; we'll do it yet."
They tugged and hauled and pushed with fierce energy, and by employing
their united strength upon the largest masses, they succeeded in
clearing a path wide enough to allow room for the boat. By this time
the water was almost up to their knees, and they heard the boat graze
the rocks as it floated on the incoming tide. Loosing the painter, they
pushed the craft through the tunnel, only to find, when they approached
the seaward opening, that but a small segment of the sky was visible,
the gap being too shallow to afford a passage.
"We are trapped, Sam; there's no denying it," said Dick quietly. "But
don't be alarmed. I don't suppose the water reaches the roof of the
cave even at high tide, so that we can float in the boat quite safely.
It only means a few hours' imprisonment."
"If I've got to be jailed, I'd rather be in village lock-up; 'tis dry at
any rate. Can't we swim out, Maister Dick?"
"Of course we can, but I doubt whether we had better do it. There's a
dozen yards or more under water first, and then a good half-mile outside
before we can land. We should get pretty well knocked about on the
rocks if there's any swell on the sea. We had much better stay here."
Sam gloomily assented to this course. They got into the boat, and sat
there for some time watching it rise gradually as the tide grew higher.
"Hang me for a jackass!" cried Dick suddenly.
"What have 'ee been and done?" asked Sam with concern.
"Why, we haven't got gun, cutlass, or any other weapon."
"'A b'lieve not," said Sam, "but we couldn't keep out the tide with un
if we had forty guns and fifty cutlasses."
"The seals! They'll come back with the tide, and be in a terrible rage
with us, thinking we're after their babies."
"Be-jowned if I thought of it! 'Twas a true word; you do be a great
jackass, sure enough."
"Mind what you say, Sam, or I'll throw you out."
"'Twas your word, not mine. I wouldn't go so far as that. Ninnyhammer
is the worst I'd call 'ee. But I told 'ee how 'twould be, with yer head
itchin' with this magget of openin's and ladders and all that."
"Be ready to use the boat-hook, or the anchor, if the seals attack us.
I'll use one of the oars."
"I don't believe we'll have to fight at all," cried Sam. "Look 'ee!
There be they two young seals swimmin' out to find the old uns. They
bean't so young as you thought if they can swim like that, and we med as
well have took 'em yesterday as not."
"Well, 'tis too late now. They're gone."
"To get their supper, I reckon. I be mortal hungry, Maister Dick, arter
all that work. Have 'ee got a morsel of bread in yer pocket?"
"Not a bit."
"Not a apple or codling?"
"Not one."
"I could eat a turmit or a raw tater. But don't name 'em to me, or I
shall feel very bad for thinkin' of 'em. Best thing is to go to sleep
when yer hungry, 'cos you don't feel it then."
"Well, sleep. I'll wake you if anything happens."
The boy curled himself up in the bottom of the boat, and soon filled the
cavern with his snores.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
St. Cuby's Well
To see another eat when oneself is hungry, or sleep when oneself is
wakeful, is surely very trying to the temper, except to those
happily-constituted individuals who are incapable of envy. Dick
Trevanion was as generous-hearted a boy as you could wish; but as the
time went by, unmarked by anything but the slow rise of the boat and the
quick dwindling of the candle in the lantern, he looked at Sam's open
mouth with impatience, listened to his untuneful solo with dislike, and
felt a deplorable desire to kick him. He had no watch, and bethought
himself that it might be as well, when he got home, to test the duration
of a candle, so that if he were ever in such a predicament again he
might at least have a clock of King Alfred's sort. Every now and then
he snuffed the coarse wick, and when the tallow had sunk almost to the
socket, he substituted another candle-end that he happened to have in
his pocket. Beyond this he had nothing to employ him.
But by-and-by, as the roof of the vault came nearer to him with the
gradual lifting of the boat, an idea struck him. Why not use the boat
as a raised platform for the ladder, and so contrive to examine an
additional ten or twelve feet of the walls? The ladder!--it was
floating on the surface of the water, heaving simultaneously with the
boat as the tide gently rippled in.
"Wake up, Sam!" he called.
Sam snored on.
"Wake up!" cried Dick again, leaning over and pinching the sleeper's
nose.
Sam struck out with his fist, as any honest English boy would have done,
without opening his eyes. But at a third call he roused himself, sat up,
and rubbing those heavy organs vigorously, sighed like a furnace, and
then said sleepily:
"Why, where be I?"
"In dreamland, I should think," replied Dick, laughing. "Wake up! I
want you to hold the ladder against the wall while I climb again."
"In twelve feet o' water! Not me; I bean't growed enough for that.
'Tis work for a giant."
"Not on the ground, of course; in the boat, I mean."
Sam looked dubious.
"Won't it wamble? And if you tumble you'll sink us."
"Well, we can try. Take hold of the end of the ladder floating by you,
and I'll paddle close to the wall."
On lifting the ladder, they found that its top came within a few feet of
the roof. But when Dick began to climb, he descended in a hurry, for
the ladder being of necessity set up at an angle, every upward step
drove the boat from the wall towards the middle of the cave.
"Be-jowned if we can do it!" cried Sam. "That there openin' will be the
death o' me."
Dick was at a loss. There was no way of keeping the boat in a fixed
position. Even if he dropped the anchor and it held in the sandy
bottom, the boat would still have a range of movement that altogether
prohibited the success of his plan. He looked gloomily at Sam; it was
vexatious to be baulked when achievement was so near. Sam, with his
hands on the sides of the ladder, was gazing up its length, his eyes
gradually converging as they travelled higher, until they seemed almost
to be looking at each other. All at once they reverted to their natural
position, and he cried:
"I've got a noble thought, I do b'lieve."
"What's that?"
"Why, 'tis as easy as anything. See that place, Maister Dick, up aloft
there, where the wall goes in summat?"
"Well, what then?"
"I'll show 'ee. You'd never ha' thought of it, 'cos you was lookin'
down instead o' lookin' up."
He drew down the ladder until its whole length lay along one side of the
boat.
"Look 'ee here," he said. "We'll take the anchor, and fix it upright in
middle of the ladder, lash it to the top rung, do 'ee see?" He suited
the action to the word. "There! Now 'tis a hook, or a clutch, or
whatever name you like to gie un. We'll lift un again till it hooks on
that ledge; then it will hang free, and you can climb as easy as
climbing trees."
"A capital notion, Sam," cried Dick.
"I said it was, purticler for a poor mazy stunpoll of a feller like me."
"You're a genius if it works out. The thing is to try it."
Raising the ladder to its former position, they moved it along the face
of the wall until one fluke of the anchor held firmly to the ledge of
rock, as they proved by exerting a considerable downward strain.
"This is splendid," said Dick. "Now to go up."
"Ah, don't 'ee take the lantern with 'ee this time. I don't want no more
cracks on the nob, and if it fell again, 't 'ud get soused in the water,
and then we'd be in darkness."
"You're right. I'll take the candle out and stick it in my hat as the
miners do. I must have a light, of course."
"I reckon you must, if you be goin' to find that openin'," said Sam,
sceptical to the last.
Dick stuck the lighted candle into the band of his hat, stepped out of
the boat, and began to climb, Sam watching his progress and offering
bits of cautionary counsel. In a few seconds, when Dick's head
projected above the anchor, he saw that the ledge of rock, extending for
some distance on both sides, was the floor of a roughly rectangular
fissure, which penetrated the earth much as the tunnel below penetrated
the cliff. It ran upwards. The smoky light from the candle did not
reach far, but Dick, peering over the ledge, was unable to see any solid
background to the fissure.
"I've found the opening!" he said.
"What do 'ee say?" called Sam. "Yer voice sounds all a mumble and a
rumble."
Clinging firmly to the ledge with both hands, Dick lowered his head and
repeated the words.
"Now yer satisfied, then," said Sam. "Better come down afore the candle
goes out."
"No. I'm going on."
"But chok' it all, you won't leave me all alone! I'm not afeard, not I;
but if there be three or four seals a-comin' home by-and-by, I can't
fight 'em all."
"You must come up too when I've looked a little farther."
"But you can't climb on to the ledge without summat to hold to. Maister
Dick, think of yer feyther and mother, and what I'm to say if 'ee falls
and breaks yer neck, and I take 'ee home a gashly corp."
"Don't talk rubbish. I shan't fall if you don't worry me. I'm not
going to sit for hours longer in the boat till the tide goes down, so
hold your tongue till I am safe aloft."
Leaning well forward, he carefully lifted his foot to the next rung,
then to the next, watching the anchor to see that it was not displaced
by his movements. Then he got one knee on the rocky shelf, stretched
his arms in front of him, and with a sudden movement heaved his body on
to the ledge and fell flat, his feet projecting into space. He crawled
along on hands and knees until his boots disappeared from Sam's view,
and stood up within the dark entrance of the fissure.
"I'm up, Sam," he called, his voice reverberating hollowly in the vault.
"Then I be comin' too," cried the boy.
"Not yet. You must wait a little until I see where the opening leads
to. I'll come back for you presently."
He turned his face to the opening and went in. Dim as the light was, he
recognised almost at once that he was at the end of a mine adit. Within
a few paces the fissure narrowed to a dwarf tunnel, through which a tiny
stream trickled, disappearing, not over the ledge into the cave, but
into a fissure in the wall of rock. There was space for only two
persons to pass abreast, and as Dick proceeded, he had to bend his head
to avoid striking the roof. He was about to explore further, when he
remembered that the candle in his hat could not last more than a few
minutes, and to advance in the dark would be foolhardy. He had no more
candles, and supposed that Sam had none, so that it seemed as if he must
postpone further exploration. But returning to the ledge, he saw a
light in the cave.
"You've got some more candle-ends, then?" he cried.
"One, that I've just fished up out of my pocket along with a bit of
string, some bait, a bit o' pudden that I'd forgot--can't eat it now,
hungry as I be, 'cos 'tis all tallowed--and a green penny."
"I want the candle, Sam; mine's going out. Can you pitch it up?"
"I can, but it 'ud only fall back into the water and go to the bottom."
"Wait. I've a bit of string in my pocket. I'll let it down; tie the
candle on."
"I must do it, I suppose. Iss, you shall have it, and I'll be left in
the dark, but I'm not afeard--not very."
In a minute Dick had the fresh candle in his hat-band, and once more
entered the tunnel.
It was very damp, and Dick guessed from the trickling stream at his feet
that the adit had been designed, when the mine was in operation, to
drain the upper workings. How long ago this was he had no idea. It
must have been long before old Reuben's time, or the man would have had
more definite knowledge than he actually possessed, and the existence of
the opening would have been known as a fact instead of being a mere
fragment of village tradition.
Dick went on. In some parts the tunnel was almost impassable with earth
and rocks that had fallen in. Step as cautiously as he might, every now
and then the rattle of loose earth displaced by his movements caused a
cold shiver to run down his back. What if there should be a fall behind
him which would cut off his retreat to the cave? The tunnel ought to
lead to an opening to the air above, but the way might be blocked, and
the possibility of being entombed was daunting. But having come so far
Dick was unwilling to give in. The peril might be purely imaginary.
Plucking up his courage, he hastened his steps, and after a few minutes
came to an enlargement of the tunnel. To his left a second gallery ran
downward at a sharp angle with that in which he was; no doubt this also
led to some point of the shore. Still advancing, he saw, with some
surprise, that the passage was strutted in places, and much freer from
obstructions than the portion he had already traversed. About a hundred
yards beyond the transverse gallery, however, his progress was suddenly
checked: the whole width of the tunnel was filled with a mass of rocks,
stones, and loose earth. A few seconds' examination sufficed to show
the impossibility of proceeding farther in this direction; accordingly
he retraced his steps and, a few yards away, came to another passage, to
find, however, after twenty or thirty paces, that he was again brought
to a stop.
This time the obstruction was of a different nature. It was a rough door
made of stout wooden beams, closed with a heavy bar resting in sockets.
He lifted the bar and pulled the creaking door, which came towards him
for an inch or two, and then stuck. To open it fully he had to remove
from the floor a number of planks and beams, which appeared to be the
parts of a broken windlass. Having got the door open and passed
through, he found himself in a square chamber that smelt very damp and
close, though, on looking upwards, he could see no roof. He concluded
that he was at the bottom of a deep shaft. But it had not the look of a
mine shaft, which, so far as Dick's experience went, was always
timbered. The walls here were cased with stone, moss-grown and damp.
Near the doorway he caught sight of a staple of rusty iron let into the
wall; a little above this, a second of the same kind; and at the same
interval above the second, a third. Looking up the wall, he perceived
that similar staples projected from the stonework as far up as the
flickering light of his candle revealed. Their shape, and the intervals
between them, indicated that they were steps by which the wall could be
climbed. And then it flashed upon him suddenly that he was in an
ancient well, known as St. Cuby's Well, though who St. Cuby was nobody
knew except, perhaps, Mr. Carlyon, deeply learned in the antiquities of
his county. The upper end of the well-shaft opened on the cliff, about
a quarter-mile from the cottage of old Joe Penwarden, the exciseman. It
was covered by the ivy-grown ruins of a small oratory, whither in times
long past the faithful had come to have their children baptised in the
water of the holy well, to drink of it for the cure of their diseases,
and to offer up vows and repeat prayers before the sacred cross.
Strange as it may seem, Dick's first impulse, when the identity of his
whereabouts flashed upon him, was to dash through the doorway and
scamper with all imaginable speed back to the cave. He was not more
superstitious than other boys of his age; but in those days, before old
beliefs and fancies had undergone the cold douche of science, people
were credulous of omens and spells, blessings and curses, beneficent
influences and the evil eye. From St. Cuby's Well the aroma of sanctity
had long since departed; according to village tradition, a murder of
peculiar horror had once been committed there; and now it was shunned as
a plague spot. No pilgrims came to kneel beneath the sacred roof; no
children ever played hide and seek among its picturesque ruins;
everybody, from the Squire downwards, avoided it, and at night not a man
would have ventured within a hundred yards of its unhallowed precincts.
Stories were rife of apparitions seen there; it was these ghosts of
which Ike Pendry had spoken to John Trevanion on the night when he had
overtaken the trudging pedestrian on the high road.
Dick, of course, had no belief in ghosts, and regarded the stories with
as much intellectual contempt as his father gave to the witch's couplet.
But his imagination was subject to impressions which his reason scorned;
and in the gloom of the well-shaft, which the yellow rays of his candle
rendered more awful than complete darkness could have been, these vague
conceptions of murder, sacrilege, and midnight hauntings possessed his
mind so completely as at first to overwhelm his common-sense. But he
resolutely crushed down these figments of his imagination, told himself
that such evil traditions might probably be traced to no more real
origin than the failure of the spring of water, and decided to go back
for his companion and put an end to their captivity by climbing up the
iron steps to the surface of the cliff.
"Oh, I am glad to see 'ee," cried Sam, as his young master's head
appeared at the brink of the ledge. "I bean't afeard, not I, but 'twas
'nation dark, and I felt a queer wamblin' in the inside o' me, 'cos I'm
tarrible hungry, I reckon."
"Well, come along. I've found the way out. The opening leads to St.
Cuby's Well, and we can climb to the top in no time."
"St. Cuby's Well! Dash my bones if I go within a mile o't. Dead men's
bones, and sperits o' darkness--no, never will I do it."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Dick, as stoutly as if he had never felt the
least tremor on his own account. "I've seen no bones, and the spirits
haven't laid a hand on me. Those silly tales only frighten children."
"And females. Ah, 'tis a pity the mistress won't let me take eggs and
things to the Dower House. What I could tell to that nice young female
wi' the hole in her rosy cheeks! How they'd go yaller and white when
she heerd my tale of blood, and ghosteses in night-gowns, and all the
other things o' darkness! Ah, 'twas to be, I s'pose: she'll hear it
from some one else, and I shan't get the credit of it."
"No; she'll hear that you were too much of a baby to face 'em, and
she'll despise you, instead of thinking well of you as she does now."
"Don't say it, Maister Dick," cried the boy. "Scrounch me if I lose my
fame in that miserable way. I'll come, if you'll stand by me, and hold
my hand if we hears a noise, and use your finest language to the sperits
if they meddle wi' us. I've heerd tell that the Lord's prayer said
back'ards will tarrify 'em out of their wits, but I reckon yer head's
full of ancient heathen words that go straightfor'ard, and won't put 'ee
to such a tarrible tax as turnin' religion topsy-turvy."
This was said as Sam climbed with deliberate care up the ladder. He
gained the ledge more easily than Dick had done, having the help of
Dick's hand.
"Can we get there afore candle's out?" he said anxiously, when they
stood side by side.
"If we make haste," replied Dick, taking off his hat and looking at the
inch-and-a-half of candle left, and the mass of tallow that lay on the
brim like a small lake of lava. "We can fetch the boat at low-tide
to-morrow."
They hurried on, and, Dick knowing the way, reached the shaft in much
quicker time than when he had come alone. Sam got behind him at the
doorway, peering under his armpits with wide eyes, and taking much
comfort when he saw nothing but mossy walls.
"I'm downright shamed o' folks that believe in such gammut," he said,
valiantly following Dick into the chamber.
"Well, now we'll climb up. It must be after sunset, or we should see a
glimmer of light at the top. I'll go first."
"No, I'd better go first," said Sam hastily, looking round with
something of his former air of timorous expectation. "You see, if you
go first, the brim of yer hat will shet out all the light, and I'll miss
my footing and be nawthin' but scattered members. But if I go first, do
'ee see, and you come close behind me--but not close enough to set my
stockings afire--the light will be ekal betwixt us two. Do 'ee see my
manin', Maister Dick?"
"Quite plain. I don't mind. We'll try one or two of the staples first,
to make sure they are firm in the stonework, and then you can mount, and
as your hind foot leaves one step, my fore hand will clutch it."
The staples stood the test of pulling, first by Dick, then by Sam, who
also tried them, on the plea that he had more muscle. Then Sam began to
climb, followed closely by Dick. After an ascent of perhaps a hundred
feet, the former declared that he felt a whiff of fresh air, and
immediately afterwards the candle flame was blown out. Looking up past
Sam's fore-shortened body, Dick saw one star in the clear dark vault of
the sky, and in a few seconds they were both standing on the ground
beside the well-head, cooled by the breeze that blew through the ruined
walls of the chapel from the sea. The roof had gone long ago; grass
grew on the floor, and ivy twined itself in and out of the mullioned
windows.
"There!" said Dick. "We are safe, you see. All that talk of ghosts is
pure balderdash."
The darkness and the weird associations of the spot combined to make him
set his tone of voice to a murmur. At that moment there fell upon the
ears of the boys, as they stood side by side to recover breath after
their climb, a low sound from somewhere beyond the walls, but not far
away. It was like that of a person speaking in hollow, mournful
accents. Sam caught Dick by the arm; Dick heard his teeth chatter.
"'Tis he!" whispered the trembling boy. "'Tis the ghost! Oh! let me
hide myself afore he see I."
Dick did not reply. He was, it must be confessed, sufficiently
startled. The sound ceased; but in a moment or two it recommenced, now
being somewhat louder. Dick was in two minds, now thinking that he
would run, now wondering whether he had not better stay. The slow
droning still approached, and at last he caught articulate words:
"A-deary me! A-deary me! The world's a-cold, a bitter place for----"
The next words were indistinguishable.
"Hark to him!" whispered Sam. "He be in mortal pain, and I do feel that
leery all down the small o' my back."
Dick sniffed, and sniffed again. Then he said:
"Ghosts don't smoke, Sam--at any rate, not tobacco. I'm going to see."
"How do 'ee know?" whispered Sam, still holding him by the arm. "I
won't be so much afeard of him if he do be smoking bacca, but it may be
summat else. It do smell rayther strong for a livin' man."
He followed Dick as he groped his way over fragments of masonry and
through close-woven masses of ivy and weeds, until they came into the
open. The night was very dark. The first thing they saw, at a distance
of about twelve yards, was a small red glow, which brightened and faded
at intervals. Drawing nearer to it cautiously, they perceived at the
moments of greatest brightness that it lit up for an instant a grizzled
chin, a sunken mouth, a quite ordinary nose, a ruddy face with a black
patch over one eye, and a black hat over all.
"'Tis old Joe Penwarden," said Dick, in a tone that expressed surprise,
relief, and a shame-faced consciousness.
"So 'tis, I do believe," cried Sam. "Be-jowned if 'a didn't ought to be
locked up for playing such gashly tricks on poor souls."
"Avast there! Stand, in the King's name!" cried the old man, hearing
their voices.
"So we will, so we will," said Sam. "Don't 'ee be afeard, maister; we
bean't ghosteses, but just common mortals like yerself."
"Oh! 'tis you, Maister Dick," said Penwarden, as the boys came up to
him. "'Pon my life, I was skeered for about a second and a half, never
expectin' to see mortal men in this old haunt. What be 'ee doin' at
this time o' night, in such a place, too?"
"What time is it, Joe?" asked Dick.
"Time all young things like lambs and birds and boys were abed and
asleep. 'Tis past ten."
"Lawk-a-massy, if I didn't think it by the terrible emptiness in my
inside," cried Sam, feelingly. "Come home-along, Maister Dick; I be
mortal afeard as Feyther will send me to bed wi'out any supper."
"Wait a bit," replied Dick. "Where do you think we've been, Joe?"
"Not night-fishing, for ye've got no tackle. Nor rabbitin', for ye've
got no snares. Ah, well! Ye med as well tell me first as last, for I
be no good at guessin'."
"We've come up St. Cuby's Well."
"Come up, you say; but you must go down afore ye come up. I wouldn't
like to say I don't believe 'ee."
"That would be very unfriendly. The truth is, Joe, we were down in the
cave and got shut in by the tide, and to pass the time away we climbed
up over a ledge and found ourselves in an old adit, and went along it
till we came to the well-shaft. There are iron steps in the wall, and
up we came."
"Well, if that bean't the queerest thing I've heerd for many a day. Who
would ever ha' thowt it!"
"Didn't you know there were steps down the well side?
"Never heerd tell o' sech a thing."
"But haven't you seen it for yourself? I was thinking that, perhaps,
you being here now, you knew all about it, and the idea did cross me
that you might be the ghost people talk about, though to be sure you
don't look like one."
"Bless 'ee, I've never set foot inside they walls. Sometimes of a night
I come ramblin' round to smoke a peaceful pipe and meditate on the days
o' my youth afore I turn in, but as for goin' inside--no, I've never
thowt o't."
"Was 'ee afeard you med see the ghost, maister?" asked Sam, rejoicing to
think that he had a fellow in timorousness.
"Well, no. A ghost is a sperit, they say, and I reckon I've got enough
muscle in my aged arm to fend off a thing as has got no body."
"Still, you was talkin' to yerself as if ye was in great pain and
sorrer. 'A-deary me,' 'ee said; I heard 'ee twice; and then 'the
world's a-cold,'--and I s'pose 'ee felt the need o' takin' a comfortin'
pull at yer pipe, for I heerd no more."
"It do show how young small chickerels like 'ee may be mistaken.
Whenever I talk like that I be feelin' warmish and contented; remember
that, young Sam, and don't traipse about spreadin' false reports about
me. Moreover, don't 'ee tell nothing of yer climbing up the well, for
'a don't want the village rampin' round, spoilin' my peacefulness. St.
Cuby's ghost hev his uses, and long may he walk."
"Very well, Joe," said Dick, "we'll say nothing about it. There have
been no runs yet, I suppose?"
"No; 'tis early days for that. 'Tis true as Mr. Mildmay was called off
Morvah way to-day. Maybe they'll try a run there to-night. But it won't
be long afore we have trouble here, I reckon, for the pilchurs are late
this year, and when they're late, smugglin' is early, 'cos the men get
tired o' doin' nothing."
"Well, we had better be going. I usually tell Mother when I expect to
be late, fishing or what not, and she'll wonder what has become of me.
Are you coming our way, Joe?"
"Not yet, sir. I've a bit more meditation to get through first."
"What do you meditate about?" asked Dick.
"About my days o' youth, when I was a nimble young feller and served the
King afloat. Ah! they were days, they were. Lord Admiral Nelson be a
fine little chap, but nothing to the admiral I served with."
"Who was that?"
"Lord Admiral Rodney. Never shall I forget the time he spoke to me:
yes, lord as he was, he did so. It do warm me of a cold night to think
of it. Not every simple mariner could say he'd been spoke to ashore by
sech a high person as a admiral."
"What did the lord high admiral say to 'ee?" asked Sam, much impressed.
"Well, 'twas on Plymouth Hoe, and the admiral was walking with two
handsome females, showing 'em Drake's Island; Drake was another mariner,
you must know, as lived about a thousand year ago, seemingly. Well, I
turned round to look at the great man, and that moment he changed his
course, put up his helm, ye may say, and ran across my bows. 'Get out o'
the way, you cross-eyed son of a sea-cook!' says he to me. Ah! never
shall I forget it, nor the tinkly laugh o' they fine females. 'Twas a
great honour to be spoke to special by Lord Admiral Rodney, a fine
feller of a man."
"I don't wonder it keeps you warm," said Dick, laughing. "Good-night,
Joe."
"Good-night to you, sir. And young Sam, mind 'ee o' what I said."
"Make yourself easy, maister," returned Sam. "Oh, dear, what a thing it
'ud be to tell the maidy at the Dower House if on'y Squire warn't so
cruel!"
"What are you mumblin' about?"
"Nawthin', Maister Penwarden. I were on'y thinkin' to myself what a lot
o' folk 'ud be mazed if they knowed what sorrerful things ye do say when
yer happy."
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
Penwarden does his Duty
Late as it was, neither Dick nor Sam was fated to get any sleep for
hours. They walked rapidly without speaking across the cliff towards
the Towers, being in fact so tired and hungry that the thoughts of both
were fixed on supper and bed. There was no path on this part of the
cliff, except a faint track which daylight would have revealed, where
the grass had been slightly worn by Joe Penwarden in his marchings to
and fro. Ordinary pedestrians always avoided the windings of the shore,
taking the high road farther inland.
The boys had come within a hundred yards of Penwarden's cottage, when
Sam all at once took Dick by the sleeve, saying:
"Look, Maister Dick, there be some one at old Joe's door."
It was too dark to see clearly, but Dick could just distinguish, now
that it was pointed out to him, a dark form close against the
whitewashed cottage on the side facing the sea.
"It's very odd at this time of night," he said. "We had better go and
tell the man, whoever he is, where he can find Joe."
They hurried on, but had not gone more than half-way to the cottage when
the figure moved from the door, and walked quickly in the direction of
the Towers. There was a footpath at the back of the garden, over which
the villagers had an immemorial right of way, though it was really the
Squire's private property.
Dick was on the point of calling out when Sam checked him.
"That be Jake Tonkin," he said, quietly: "I know un by his bow legs.
What med he want wi' old Joe, now?"
Jake was the son of Isaac Tonkin, the expertest fisher, the boldest
seaman, and the most cunning and resourceful smuggler in the village.
Isaac was a rough, quick-tempered fellow, violent when roused, but
honest according to his lights; and Dick had a certain admiration for
him, as every boy must have for a strong man who excels in bold and
daring deeds. Once or twice he had gone fishing in Tonkin's smack, and
had learnt a good deal from the man's blunt speech and craftsmanlike
actions.
It was perfectly well known in the neighbourhood that Tonkin was the
ringleader of the smugglers, but owing to his wariness and craft, and to
the supineness of the revenue officer who had preceded Mr. Mildmay,
nothing had ever been openly proved against him, and he had never been
caught in the act. In the previous winter he had narrowly escaped a
conflict with Mr. Mildmay, then in his first year of duty at this part
of the coast; and it was common talk in the village that he resented the
intrusion, as he regarded it, of so zealous an officer, and had promised
to give the revenue men a very hot time if they interfered with him. It
was he whose presence John Trevanion had remarked as he passed the open
door of the tap-room in Doubledick's inn.
Dick was as much surprised as Sam to find that Penwarden's visitor was
Tonkin's son. There was naturally no love lost between the exciseman
and the free-traders, who had, however, looked upon him with a sort of
contemptuous tolerance until Mr. Mildmay came. The old man had been
harmless enough in the days of Mr. Curgenven; not that he was remiss in
his duty, but that his efforts had been rendered nugatory by his
superior's apathy. The advent of Mr. Mildmay acted as a stimulus;
Penwarden was in truth fearful of being thought too old for his work,
and seemed to set himself deliberately to prove the contrary to the
officer. More than once in the previous winter he had prevented a run
by his timely warnings; and though the checks were only temporary, the
smugglers were annoyed with him for the difficulties he threw in their
way. It was therefore strange that young Tonkin should have gone to
visit, so late at night, a man from whom the smugglers in general held
severely aloof. Suddenly Dick remembered what Penwarden had said about
Mr. Mildmay having been summoned to Morvah, twenty-five miles or more
down the coast. It was a favourite device of the smugglers, by aid of
confederates, to decoy the officers to distant parts when they were
intending to make a run, and Dick could not help wondering whether they
were putting it in practice on the present occasion. But it did not
explain Jake Tonkin's visit, and Dick was now sufficiently interested to
think no more of his fatigue and hunger in his desire to ascertain what
was afoot. He knew that it was no business of his; the Squire had
carefully abstained from taking sides in the perennial quarrel between
the smugglers and the revenue men, and had indeed resigned his
magistracy, partly because of his reduced circumstances, but quite as
much in order to avoid any official action as a county justice. Dick
did not intend to break this neutrality; he was simply curious and
athirst for excitement.
But he reflected that he could hardly satisfy his curiosity without
spying on Jake Tonkin, and this was out of the question. He would have
ruefully done nothing more had he not seen that the lad, instead of
keeping to the path that ran directly to the village, struck off to the
left along a track that led nowhere but to the Dower House. This raised
his curiosity to a still higher pitch. What had Tonkin to do with John
Trevanion? Knowing that his father and John were on bad terms, and
having seen many little indications that the latter was bent on annoying
his cousin, it was natural that he should wonder whether the interests
of the Squire were in any way affected by the apparent connection
between John and the smugglers. After a little hesitation, he sent Sam
into the Towers, to reassure his parents and then go to bed, and went on
himself after the waddling figure of Jake Tonkin, now almost out of
sight.
Walking quickly, he was in time to see Jake enter an outhouse at the
rear of the mansion. The door closed behind him, and Dick, taking a
look round, and seeing no one, ran swiftly to the building and peeped
through the window. The room was lighted by a single candle, whose rays
fell on the forms of a dozen men seated on chairs, stools, pails, and
the table. All had their faces blackened, and he failed to discover
among them the large and massive form, almost impossible to disguise, of
Jake's father.
"He be fast asleep," he heard Jake say, evidently in answer to a
question. "I knocked once, a little un; then twice, rayther louder;
then I tried the door: 'twas locked. I didn't hear un snore, but maybe
he sleeps quiet."
"Hee! hee! 'a will sleep quieter in the grave," said a voice, which Dick
had no difficulty in recognising as that of Doubledick, the innkeeper,
whose conversation was always partial to death and the churchyard and
similar cheerful subjects.
"Mildmay would fly in a passion if he knew old Joe were asleep," said a
man whose voice Dick could not identify.
"Ay, and so would riding-officer," added a third. He referred to the
official so denominated, whose duty it was to work on shore hand in hand
with Mr. Mildmay on the sea, and who was in effect in charge of the
coast for ten or fifteen miles, acting under the Custom House officer at
St. Ives.
"Oh, 't'ud only be a little small passion," said Doubledick, "'cos the
summer bean't over, and not a man of 'em will look for us to begin afore
pilchur fishin' be past."
"Body o' me, hain't we 'ticed Mildmay away to stop a run?"
"Nay, sonny, 'twas tidings of a French privateer that baited him. 'Tis
a proper dark night, and if the wind holds, Zacky will be here a little
arter midnight. And the manin' o' that is twenty pound in our pockets,
a noble fust lesson to say 'magnify' arter."
Dick sighed inwardly; what a boon twenty pounds would be to his father's
impoverished treasury! Like all the gentlemen of the county, the Squire
was willing to purchase smuggled goods; it seemed to Dick that there was
not a great distinction between the purchaser and the smuggler; and yet
he knew that his father would be horrified at the idea of enriching
himself in that way. From what he had overheard it was clear that a
run, the first of the season, was to be attempted that night, and since
this did not concern the Squire, he was about to return home, when he
heard the click of a lock, followed by footsteps from the house, and
slipped round the angle of the building just in time to escape the eyes
of John Trevanion.
The owner of the Dower House joined the smugglers, and Dick heard his
loud and hearty greeting.
"Well, my friends, is all clear? No scent for the hounds, eh?"
"Not so much as would cover a penny-piece," cried Doubledick. "Hee!
hee! Old Joe's abed."
"I'm glad of it. Mind you, you must not bring the tubs here if there's
any interruption. It would never do for the county to know that I'm a
freighter."
"Trust we for that, yer honour; we know you must keep up yer high place,
and 'tis generous of 'ee to lend us yer cellars."
"Well, Doubledick, here's the key. I shall be abed, of course; I know
nothing about your doings, and I can trust you to work quietly and not
wake the servants."
"Iss, fay, yer honour," said a man: "ye can trust Billy Doubledick, to
be sure. He be a very clever feller: I say it to his face."
"Good night, then. I wish you well."
Dick heard his cousin return to the house and lock the door. So John
Trevanion was a freighter: one who bought contraband goods in a foreign
port, paid the expenses of shipment and carrying, and received the
profits. This was food for reflection. A word to Mr. Mildmay or Mr.
Polwhele, the riding-officer, would lead to John Trevanion's arrest.
The fate of smugglers caught in the act was five years' service in a
man-of-war, or a long term of imprisonment; aiders and abettors also
were subject to heavy penalties; and Dick would have liked to rid the
neighbourhood of the man who had caused his father such distress. But
he could not play the shabby part of informer, and for the first time in
his life he wished heartily that the smugglers might be caught, and
their connection with Trevanion discovered; hitherto his sympathies had
been entirely on their side.
Since there was nothing to be gained by remaining longer at the
outhouse, he went quietly away and walked back towards the Towers. But
he was so much interested in his strange discovery that he felt it would
be impossible to sleep until he knew whether the run proved successful.
On reaching home, therefore, he went first to his mother's room to bid
her good-night, then to the dining-room to get some supper, and shortly
after eleven o'clock stole out again. He had never seen a smuggling
run, and the likelihood that this one would be entirely undisturbed
promised a peaceful view, without any risk of running into danger, of
which he knew that his parents would disapprove.
He had not learnt where the run was to be, but guessed, if the tubs were
to be carried to the cellars of the Dower House, that the head of
Trevanion Bay would be the chosen spot. It was the most convenient
place near to the Dower House, except the little harbour itself, which
was not likely to be selected. He made his way, therefore, along the
narrow headland known as the Beal, which formed the southern boundary of
the bay. Near the end of the headland, overlooking the narrow passage
between it and the reef, by which vessels could enter the harbour at low
tide, was the favourite playground of his early boyhood. It was a
hollow in the cliff, screened from observation seaward by a huge boulder
somewhat insecurely poised. Only a few years had passed since Sam and
he used to play there at fighting the French. There they had their toy
citadel, from which they bombarded Boney's squadrons attempting an
invasion. From it, too, they could see on to the decks of vessels
passing in and out of the harbour at low tide, and hugging the cliff to
avoid the reef. They played also at smuggling, and it is noteworthy
that they were always the successful smugglers, and never the baulked
and discomfited preventive men. It was a lonely spot, and they had it
quite to themselves except for the gulls.
When, as they grew older, they no longer took the same childish delight
in playing French and English, they turned the place into a storehouse
for fishing gear. In a remote corner of the nook, they scooped out the
earth to form a deep recess, lined this with wood, and kept there a
reserve supply of hooks, tackle, rope, a spare anchor and sculls, two
fowling-pieces, and other articles, by this means often saving
themselves a journey back to the Towers. Lonely as the spot was, they
often quaked with apprehension lest their secret should be discovered,
especially during the pilchard season. At that time the huer, whose duty
it was to keep watch, and indicate by flourishing a bush, for the
benefit of the fishers below, the direction in which the shoals of fish
were swimming, was accustomed to take his stand on the headland. But he
naturally chose the highest point, and had no reason to seek the lower
level of the cave, where he could neither see nor be seen so well. The
boys were always careful to avoid the neighbourhood of their storehouse
when the huer was about, and there being nothing to draw any one else to
the spot, the secret had remained undiscovered.
It was towards this place that Dick proceeded on leaving the Towers.
But when he arrived there, he found at once that if the smugglers' cargo
was to be run in the bay it would be impossible to see anything of it.
The night was particularly dark; only such moonless nights were chosen
by the smugglers for their operations; and even the grey cliffs were
almost invisible from where he stood. He determined, therefore, to
return along the headland, and make his way down the face of the cliff
by the path whereby he had ascended with Sam on the night of their bass
fishing. There were recesses at the foot, in one of which he could
easily conceal himself and watch all that went on. And as there was no
time to lose, if he was to be in hiding before the smugglers arrived, he
walked rapidly, and climbed down the steep path at a pace that would
have been dangerous to any one who was not well acquainted with it.
He was unaware that a figure was following him. There was no sound of
footsteps to attract his attention: he did not look back, and if he had
done so he could hardly have seen the form that steadily kept pace with
him at the distance of sixty or seventy yards. The second figure
descended the path with the same surefooted ease, paused at the foot
till Dick was out of sight, and then stole after him and ensconced
himself in a hollow of the cliff only about three yards from that in
which Dick had stationed himself. These hiding-places were some twenty
yards from the bottom of the path.
Neither of the two silent watchers suspected that, on the cliff above
them, a third figure was approaching the path by which they had
descended, but from the opposite direction. Old Penwarden, so far from
being snugly asleep, as Jake Tonkin rashly concluded, had never been
more wide-awake in his life. The summoning of Mr. Mildmay to a
distance, the lateness of the pilchard season, and the darkness of the
night, combined to make him suspicious, and he had resolved to patrol
the cliff from St. Cuby's Well to the Beal, to satisfy himself that the
smugglers were not already at their tricks. Having smoked through his
pipe at the Well, he returned to his cottage, took the telescope, the
brace of pistols, the ammunition, the cutlass, and the blue light for
giving an alarm which were his regular equipment, and began to march
slowly and quietly up and down.
About ten minutes after the lads had taken up their positions, they
heard a stone come rattling down the path twenty yards to the left. A
few seconds after, they were just able to discern a dark figure emerge
on to the beach. This was followed by another, and a third, and soon
the whole beach was alive with dusky shapes. The tide was ebbing, but a
stiff breeze sent long rollers dashing over the sand, their roar and
rustle smothering the low voices of the men as they talked fitfully
together.
The watchers saw one of the men drive an iron post firmly into the sand
and attach to it the end of a rope. The other end was fastened to a
similar post in the earth at the top of the cliff. By this means a rail
was formed, to give assistance to the carriers as they climbed up with
their burdens.
A little later there came from seaward a faint creak, scarcely
distinguishable among the other sounds. The watchers pricked up their
ears. Even at low tide there was enough water beneath the cliffs to
enable a vessel to run in very close, and the hidden spectators guessed
that a lugger was drawing in: at present they could not see it. The
shore men were all low down on the beach. In a few minutes the men
could be heard splashing in the water as they waded out to the vessel.
Then the lugger itself appeared, a dark shape on the surface.
Soon the men could be seen returning in a long line, each one apparently
twice as big as before. Each bore two tubs, one in front, one behind,
slung over his shoulders by ropes which had been fitted before they left
the lugger.
Several of the men had deposited their burdens on the beach, and were
going back for more, when there was a noise of scrambling on the path.
Work ceased instantly. A figure ran a few yards towards the sea, and
spoke to a large man who appeared to be directing the operations. His
words were just audible to the watchers.
"Old Joe be comin' along cliff-top, Feyther."
"But they told me you said 'a was asleep."
"So 'a was, but 'a must ha' waked up. He be comin', sure enough."
"You must be a cussed stunpoll, then, to come slitherin' down cliff like
that, makin' a rattle to wake the dead. Well, no matter. We can deal
wi' old Joe, if so be as he's alone."
"Iss, he be alone. I pulled up the post and brought the rope
down-along."
"You've some sense in yer skull, then. Now you, Pendred, and you, Simon
Mail, go up cliff and keep a watch. Stand yerselves in that narrow part
three-quarters of the way up, and if the old meddler comes, seize un,
and choke un, but don't do un a hurt unless he shows fight. We don't
want no crowner's quest."
The two men selected to waylay the exciseman set off to climb the cliff,
and the work of running the cargo was resumed.
Dick was in a quandary. He had no interest in doing preventive work,
and there were many reasons why he should refrain from interfering. But
old Penwarden was a friend of his, and a mettlesome old fellow, who
would certainly not allow himself to be seized without a struggle.
Moreover, being armed, as he doubtless was, he would have a temporary
advantage over the smugglers, who, expecting no opposition, would
probably have no weapons with them but their knives. But it might well
be that in the struggle the smugglers, driven to desperation, would make
short work of rushing upon him and flinging him over the cliff; or if
the struggle were prolonged, they could summon help from below,
overpower him, and truss him up. In either case the old man would be in
considerable danger, for the smugglers, when their passions were
aroused, would not be over-scrupulous.
These considerations flashed through Dick's mind in a second. He could
not let Penwarden run into danger unwarned; yet how was the warning to
be given? There was but one way. A few yards to the right of the spot
where he stood it was possible to scale the cliff. The ascent was much
longer and more arduous than the regular path, and there was the risk
that he would not be in time. Unless he gained the cliff-top before
Penwarden had passed, he would be too late. There was not a moment to
spare.
Dropping down on hands and knees behind a boulder that intercepted the
view seaward, he crawled as fast as he could towards a slight
indentation of the cliff beyond which he would be invisible to the
smugglers, and where the ascent began. He was followed within a few
moments by the second watcher. Just as he was beginning to climb he
heard a low whisper behind him.
"I be comin' too, Maister Dick."
"You here, Sam? What do you mean by this?"
"Don't 'ee talk, now. I'll tell 'ee when we get to top."
They scrambled up the face of the cliff as actively as goats, clutching
at stunted bushes and tufts of coarse grass, dodging awkward corners,
fearful lest the stones and loose earth they disturbed should strike
upon the boulders below and reveal their presence to the smugglers.
Both were active lads with good wind, and their progress was no doubt
more rapid, foot for foot, than that of the smugglers on the path a
hundred yards to the right, encumbered as they were with their heavy
sea-boots. But this advantage in speed was counterbalanced by the
greater length of their course, though this in its turn was compensated
by the fact that, unless Penwarden had already passed, they would be a
hundred yards nearer to him when they reached the top.
In six minutes from the start, panting with their exertions, they heaved
themselves over the brink of the cliff and stood erect. Twenty yards to
their right, Penwarden was in the act of raising his telescope to spy
over the waters of the bay. With trembling limbs they ran towards him,
Dick giving him warning of their presence by a low clear whisper. The
old exciseman shut up his telescope with a snap, and turned.
"'Tis you, Maister Dick!" he said.
"Yes. Some one saw you. Two men are waiting for you on the path. I
can't tell you their names. You'll be knocked over if you try to go
down."
"That's the way o't, is it? We'll see about that. Thank'ee for the
warning. You didn't tell me they be running a cargo, but I know it.
I'll dash their tricks."
"But, Joe--"
"Don't stop me," said Penwarden, shaking off Dick's detaining arm.
"'Tis my duty to stop this run, Mr. Mildmay being haled off on a
wild-goose chase, and do it I will. But get 'ee home-along, sir, you
are best out o' this, though if 'ee were a bit older, dash my bones if I
wouldn't call on 'ee to help in the King's name."
Without more ado, he took from his pocket the blue light, struck a spark
from his tinder-box, and in a moment the cliff-top for many yards around
was illuminated by the brilliant sputtering flame. It was intended to
warn the lieutenant of the revenue cutter, if he were within sight, and
to draw from their cottages in the village the tidesmen, as they were
called, whose duty it was, on the alarm being given, to hasten to the
exciseman's assistance. These men were cobblers, tinkers, and other
small tradesmen, for the most part Methodists, who were ready to brave
the hostility of the smugglers for the sake of good pay and a bounty for
every hogshead seized.
Dick was aghast. Things were turning out even worse than he expected.
The light would enrage the smugglers, and they would be in no mood to
handle the old man gently. Penwarden was already hurrying towards the
path. It seemed to Dick sheer madness for one man, and a man no longer
young, to attempt to deal with a score of rough and determined
smugglers. He was rushing headlong upon destruction. All care for what
might be the consequences to himself vanished from Dick's mind; he could
not leave the exciseman to his fate. But what could he do to help him,
without weapon of any kind? He suddenly bethought him of the
fowling-pieces laid up in the little nook on the Beal.
"Come, Sam," he said, and started to run at full speed to fetch them.
They passed Penwarden like a flash; there might just be time to return
before he encountered the ambushed men. The blue light was now
extinguished, and sea and land were covered with the former darkness.
Much fleeter of foot than Sam, Dick outstripped him in a few seconds,
and ran on alone to the little cave. He seized the fowling-pieces, and
discovered that there was no ammunition; nevertheless, he raced back
with them; they might serve to over-awe the smugglers, or in the last
resort be used as clubs.
He had only just rejoined Sam when they heard a rough voice call out a
command to halt, and Penwarden's answer.
"Stand aside, in the King's name."
Clearly the dauntless old man had arrived at the spot where the
smugglers were in wait for him. The boys dashed forward, came to the
head of the path, and ran recklessly down, Dick hoping that they might
still be in time to prevent mischief. But before they reached the scene
of the scuffle, they heard the noise of some heavy body crashing down
the cliff, and then the roar of a pistol. Immediately afterwards they
caught sight of two figures hurrying down the path.
"They've killed un dead!" muttered Sam.
With his heart in his mouth, Dick ran down the path, slipping,
recovering himself, and running again. Sam was close behind. About
half-way down a body lay huddled on a projecting ledge, which had broken
its fall and prevented it from crashing to the base of the cliff. Dick
stooped over it, expecting to see Penwarden shot to the heart. To his
intense relief he heard a groan, and turning the man over, he was just
able to perceive that his face was blackened. Joe, then, had escaped,
and was one of the two who had gone down the path and were now out of
sight.
The two boys hurried on. There was a great hubbub below them; having
been discovered, the smugglers no longer troubled to preserve silence;
and Dick, hearing their angry shouts and curses, feared that Penwarden's
quixotic action in attempting to tackle them single-handed would prove
his destruction. He took the rest of the path in reckless leaps, and,
when he reached the beach, saw that the old exciseman had posted himself
beside a row of tubs which he had seized in the King's name.
In the confusion Dick's arrival was unobserved. The smugglers were
thronging up the beach with threatening cries. Penwarden's pistol
flashed, but next moment a heavy missile, hurled by one of the men,
struck him on the head, and he fell.
"Throw un into the sea," shouted a rough voice.
Half-a-dozen men rushed towards the prostrate man and began to drag him
towards the water.
"Stand!" cried Dick, dashing forward. "Loose him, or we'll fire."
[Illustration: "'STAND!' CRIED DICK, DASHING FORWARD. 'LEAVE HIM, OR
WE'LL FIRE.'"]
A sudden silence fell upon the scene. The men who held Penwarden's arms
stood aside; the others edged away, taken aback by this unexpected
intervention; there had not been time for the tidesmen to arrive from
the village. Dick and Sam stood over the exciseman, pointing their
useless muskets at the crowd. For a moment there was absolute
stillness; then one of the men murmured:
"'Tis young Maister Trevanion."
"Yes," cried Dick, "and I warn you that if any of you lays a hand on the
old man again I will report you all to Sir Bevil. I know you, for all
your black faces. There's Doubledick, and Tonkin, and----"
"Iss, 'tis I, and I don't care who knows it," interrupted Tonkin,
pushing forward. "What 'nation call ha' you got to meddle, cuss you!"
"I don't meddle with your trade; it's nothing to me; but I won't see an
old fellow killed by a pack of ruffians."
Tonkin cursed again, but some one drew him back and spoke to him in low
tones. The fact that the interruption had come from the Squire's son
was more daunting than the lads' muskets, which had no terror for armed
men accustomed to contend with equal numbers. But the name of
Trevanion, in spite of the fallen fortunes of the house, was still a
moral power in the country-side, and, further, if any harm befell the
Squire's heir, they could not escape a heavy retribution.
After a few moments' colloquy, a man came forward.
"Hark 'ee, sir," he said, and Dick recognised his voice as Doubledick's,
in spite of an attempt to disguise it. "We take it hard as you've
meddled wi' honest free-traders as never did 'ee no harm. As for old
Joe, 'twas only a bit of fun--hee! hee!--he bean't for drownin'. What I
says I says for all, and that is, we'll let 'ee take un away if you do
give us yer sacred word not to gie our names to Sir Bevil or Mr.
Mildmay,--them as you knows."
"I don't want to play informer," replied Dick. "I agree to that."
"Not a word to a soul?"
"No. I've said so."
"That's fair spoke," said the man, turning to the rest.
A murmur of approval broke from them. Dick at once lifted Penwarden,
with Sam's help, from the pool of water in which he was lying. It was
difficult to keep him on his feet, for he was as yet only partially
conscious. Without either assistance or interference from the smugglers
they led him slowly to the foot of the path, and, one on each side of
him, began to carry, rather than walk, him up the cliff. One of the
smugglers dogged them throughout the toilsome ascent. When they came to
the place where the man had fallen, after a shrewd thrust from
Penwarden's cutlass, they found that he had disappeared, having no doubt
made his way homeward.
"Thank 'ee for this, Maister Dick," murmured Penwarden when they paused
to rest at the cliff-top. "I'll have the law of those tidesmen for not
comin' when they was called."
"No doubt they didn't see your light. And look here, Joe, I promised
not to split on the men, so I want you to promise too."
"Daze me if I could split if I tried. I didn't see one of 'em plain,
nor hear their voices, and I got this crack on the head afore I could
tell one from t'other."
"Do it hurt much, maister?" asked Sam.
"More'n you'd care about, young Sam. But 'tis nawthin' at all to the
cracks and wounds we got when we served wi' Lord Admiral Rodney. Have I
telled 'ee what 'a said to me purticler one day on Plymouth Hoe?"
"Yes, yes," said Dick, quickly. "The sooner you are in bed the better."
They took him slowly to his cottage, where Dick put him to bed, gave him
some brandy, and bathed his wounded head.
"You'll stop with him to-night, Sam," he said. "Don't leave him until
Gammer Oliver comes in the morning."
"What'll 'ee say to Feyther, Maister Dick? I'm afeard he'll be in a
terrible rage wi' poor me."
"I'll make that right. Now, lock the door when I've gone, and give Mr.
Penwarden anything he wants during the night. I'll come over in the
morning."
It was nearly two o'clock before Dick got to bed, and day was breaking
before he slept. Meanwhile the smugglers finished their work
unmolested, and before morning eighty tubs of good French spirits lay in
the capacious cellars beneath the Dower House.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
The Breach Widens
Next morning John Trevanion, fresh and ruddy, dressed in white breeches
and a blue coat with shining buttons, rode gaily down to the Five
Pilchards and summoned Doubledick to the door.
"Well, you did the business, I see," he said jovially. "A small
beginning: I wish my cellars held more."
"Iss, fay, a little small haul, to be sure; little and good. Hee! hee!
But, Maister Trevanion, I've summat plaguey awk'ard to tell 'ee."
"What's that?" said Trevanion, with an uneasy look.
"Why, drown me if old Joe didn' come upon us, and, worse than that, when
we'd cracked him on the head, who should come bouncing down-along but
Squire's boy and young Sam Pollex, vowin' and swearin' they'd shoot us
through the gizzard if we laid a finger on the old man."
"The deuce they did! and you knocked them on the head, of course?"
The look of uneasiness passed from Trevanion's face.
"Well, no, not 'zackly. 'Twas Squire's son, you see."
"What of that? You should have cracked their numskulls together and
sent 'em home howling. Afraid of two boys! What did you do, may I ask?"
"Crackin' skulls is all very fine, but we didn' want a crowner's 'quest
on young Squire. No, no, we don't want hangman's necklace chokin' the
breath out of us. We let 'em take old Joe home-along, arter they'd give
their Bible word to be mum as gravestones."
"Then you were a pack of fools. Don't you see the monkeys were spying
on you? 'Twas they brought Joe, without a doubt, though I'd like to
know how they got wind of the business."
"Well, if I didn' think it! ... Here's Zacky Tonkin. Maister Trevanion
was sayin' as they two brats spied on us, Zacky."
"Not they, 'a b'lieve," said Tonkin, who had come up. "Young Squire
said he'd no mind to meddle wi' the business, but was only a bit tender
over old Joe."
"And you believe that!" said Trevanion, angrily flicking his
riding-whip. "Make no mistake, the Squire has turned on you. I happen
to know that Mildmay has been twice to the Towers of late; the Squire's
as poor as a church mouse, and informer's pay will be riches to him."
"Squire turn informer!" cried Tonkin. "I can't believe it."
"I can, though," said Doubledick. "When a man's as low down in the
world as Squire, he'll do a deal o' dirtiness to fill his purse, 'a
b'lieve."
"Of course he will," said Trevanion. "You don't know the world, Tonkin.
Depend upon it, a good many golden guineas will find their way to the
Towers before a week's out."
Tonkin was an honest fellow, save in so far as the King's revenue was
concerned, and had that simplicity of soul which is incredulous of
trickery in others. He was not proof against the cunning suggestions of
Trevanion. Naturally short-tempered and violent, he smote the flank of
Trevanion's horse a blow that set it prancing, and cried with a savage
oath:--
"Then I'll make 'em pay for 't, as sure as my name be Zack Tonkin. I
will so."
"Hee! hee! That 'a will," said Doubledick, rubbing his hands. "They
golden guineas 'll be a bad egg, to be sure."
Trevanion smiled. He had laid the train; he could trust his minions to
fire it.
"Well, we'll speak no more of that," he said. "I'm riding to Truro: can
you tell what for?"
"Not for more furnichy?" said Tonkin.
"Goin' a-courtin', hee! hee!" smirked Doubledick.
"No, no; I shan't trouble the parson yet awhile. I'm going to open the
mines again, my men."
"Then I'm sorry for 'ee," said Tonkin bluntly. "Mines were worked out
long ago."
"Maybe, maybe not. I'm going to try. I shall begin in quite a small
way. I shan't fling my money into the earth as my cousin did. But I
mean to try my luck, and within a week or two I shall have a few men at
work."
"'Twill be good for the parish," said Doubledick. "The miners are
drouthy souls, and have a proper taste for good sperits. Ay, sure,
'twill do us all good."
"You won't give up the trade, sir?" enquired Tonkin.
"Not I. The Polkerran men will do more than ever before. A fig for
your Mildmays and Polwheles--Polwhele is still riding-officer, isn't he?
My wits against them any day. We'll double our trade with Roscoff this
winter."
"If Delarousse bean't nabbed," said Tonkin. "His game of privateerin'
will souse him in hot water one o' these days."
"Oh! we can do without Delarousse. There's a man in Roscoff, no friend
of his, who will deal with us better than he."
"It do maze me, Maister Trevanion," said Doubledick, "that arter bein'
away all these years ye know so much about the trade."
"I keep my eyes open, that's all," replied Trevanion, with a laugh.
"Well, I must be off. You can tell the neighbours about the mines. I'm
glad to do something for the old village."
He rode away, giving smiling greetings to the people, men and women,
whom he passed on the road.
"A fine feller!" said Doubledick, enthusiastically. "'Twill be heyday in
village, Zacky; stirring life, and not so much of a tomb as 'tis since
Squire became a pauper."
"But I'm sorry he do want us to break with Delarousse. He be a good
trader, for a Frenchman. Howsomever, if there be a better, all the
better for we, to be sure."
The men parted, to retail to their friends and neighbours the pleasing
news of the great things John Trevanion was about to do for the village.
Roscoff, the place mentioned in the course of their conversation, was a
little port in Brittany which had become the chief seat of the
contraband trade with the south-west of England since a restrictive Act
of Parliament had put a stop to it in the Channel Islands. The French
Government had made it a free port to smugglers, and in a few years it
had grown from a tiny fishing village to a thriving town. There were
three classes of people engaged in the contraband trade. The freighters
consigned or received the goods, and paid the expenses of their
shipment. The boatmen conveyed them from port to port, always on
moonless nights, and usually when a strong wind was blowing. The
tub-carriers bore them to their destination. The boatmen received a
fixed sum for each trip, the tub-carriers for each cargo run, and
frequently in addition a portion of the goods, or a small share in the
proceeds.
Until John Trevanion reappeared in Polkerran, Isaac Tonkin had been the
principal freighter of the village, and was the owner and master of the
lugger which plied between it and Roscoff. His dealings were chiefly
with a certain Jean Delarousse, a ship-owner of Roscoff, who was
notorious also as a daring seaman, and in his privateer vessel preyed on
English shipping in the Channel between Poole and the Lizard.
Delarousse had never come to Polkerran, but he was well known to Tonkin
and the crew of his lugger, the Isaac and Jacob. Tonkin having little
capital, the cargoes run at Polkerran were usually small, and were
disposed of solely among the innkeepers, farmers, and gentry of the
neighbourhood. Now that Trevanion had come home, the Polkerran folk
expected great developments in the trade, and looked forward to an
exciting and profitable winter. Apart from the monetary gain, the risks
of smuggling exercised a fascination upon those engaged in it, providing
the only excitement in their otherwise dull and monotonous lives. The
fraud on the revenue weighed very lightly on their consciences. In
their view they were entitled to the full value of the goods for which
they had honestly paid, and the Government officials were thieves and
tyrants. To best the Customs and Excise was both a business and a
sport.
It was not long before the consequences of Dick's intervention on behalf
of Joe Penwarden made themselves felt. Hitherto the smugglers had
recognised the Trevanions of the Towers as rather for them than against
them, but now, actuated by John Trevanion's malicious suggestion, they
looked on them in a different light. For the first time a Trevanion had
ranged himself on the side of the representatives of the law, and
Tonkin, resenting what he regarded as defection, soon began to show that
in threatening vengeance he meant to be as good as his word.
One morning Dick, going down with Sam to inspect the night lines he had
set in the waters of Trevanion Bay, discovered with surprise and
annoyance that they had been cut. A day or two afterwards they found
their boat, which they had drawn up as usual above high-water mark,
bumping among the rocks half a mile up the coast. They did not report
these occurrences, hoping that they were nothing but a mark of temporary
ill-feeling and would soon cease. But when for the third time their
lines were tampered with, Dick became seriously concerned. The fish they
caught were a very important part of the provisions for the household.
What was not required at once was salted and dried for consumption when
fishing was over for the season. Without these constant supplies they
would have to draw more largely on their pigs and poultry, which they
were accustomed to sell. Dick was unwilling to impart his troubles to
any one, and for several nights he and Sam kept watch, hoping that if
the culprits were caught in the act, the fear of exposure would put a
stop to their mischief. On three nights nothing happened: and yet, on
the first night when they left the lines unguarded, the same fate befell
them.
"This is more than I can bear," cried Dick, in the morning. "I shall
tell Petherick."
Petherick was the village constable, who filled also the offices of
sexton, bell-ringer, and beadle in the parish church.
"Bless 'ee, you'll waste yer breath," said Sam. "Old Petherick be a
crony o' Tonkin, and wouldn' lift a finger against him, without it were
murder or arson: and then he'd have to get the sojers to help him. Why,
'tis said he've let 'em keep the tubs in church-tower sometimes when the
preventives have been smellin' too close."
"Well, we must put a stop to it somehow. I'll tell Joe, and see what he
has to say."
Later in the day he went into the village to buy some new fishing tackle
at a general-shop, where the folk could buy tea, sugar, cheese, needles,
thread, letter-paper, bootlaces--in short, every small article they
needed. On his return, he heard a hubbub proceeding from the village
green, where wrestling-bouts, games of quoits, dog-fights, and other
sports took place. In the midst was a duck-pond. Bending his steps
thither to see what was going on, he beheld Sam with his back against a
tree, sturdily defending himself with fists and feet against a crowd of
the village lads, among whom the hulking form of Jake Tonkin was
conspicuous.
"Heave un in duck-pond," he heard Jake cry.
"You'd better!" he shouted, rushing forward to assist his companion.
The crowd fell back as he forced his way through it, bowling one fellow
over like a ninepin, and driving another out of his path with a shove
that nearly sent him into the pond. It is probable that his energy, and
the prestige attached to him as the Squire's son, would have put an end
to the affair; but it chanced that John Trevanion rode by at this
moment, and reining up his horse, contrived in some subtle manner to
indicate that his sympathy was with the larger party. Only this could
explain the sudden change in their attitude. They closed round Dick and
Sam with derisive yells.
"Gie un both a duckin'," shouted one, and they made a sudden concerted
rush, trying to seize the two boys.
Dick, never having been to school, had never had occasion or opportunity
to learn the noble art; but his muscles were in good condition, and the
obvious necessity was to make full use of them. Standing beside Sam
against the tree, he hit out against any head, trunk, or shoulder that
came within reach, Sam making good play as before with feet as well as
arms. One young fisher retired with a crimson nose, another with a bump
over one eye, a third shouting that his leg was broken. All the time
John Trevanion sat his horse, smiling, and flinging out now and then an
encouraging word, which might have been intended for either side, but
was appropriated by Tonkin's crew.
Courage and the best will in the world cannot prevail over a triple
excess of numbers. The fisher-lads were still six when their wounded
comrades had retired to the rear. Led by Jake Tonkin they hurled
themselves upon the two defenders. For a few minutes there was a brisk
scrimmage; many good blows were given and exchanged; then Dick and Sam
fell, to be immediately pounced on by the victors, who caught them by
legs and arms and began to drag them down to the pond.
They were within a yard of the brink when a loud voice thundered a
command to halt, and a riding-whip cracked and curled its thong round
the legs and backs of the aggressors. With howls of pain they released
their victims and fled across the green. Rising, bruised and muddy,
from the ground, the two boys saw Mr. Polwhele, the riding-officer,
close by on horseback, his face flushed and stern-set with anger.
"You look on and do nothing!" he said indignantly to John Trevanion.
"My dear sir, why should I interfere? Boys must fight, let them fight
it out."
"Three to one--is that your idea of fair play?"
Trevanion shrugged.
"Hadn't you better reserve your whip for stimulating your tidesmen, Mr.
Polwhele? They need a little spiriting, if what I hear is true."
And with that as a parting shot Trevanion rode away.
"What was the origin of this?" asked Mr. Polwhele. "I'm sorry to see it,
Master Trevanion."
"'Twas like this, sir," said Sam, rubbing his head and legs alternately.
"I comed upon they chaps, and Jake Tonkin says to me, 'Catched any fish
lately, young Sam?' Says I, ''Tis easier to cut lines, to be sure,'
says I, and then they set on me, and they'd ha' melled and mashed me if
Maister Dick hadn't come up."
"Have they been cutting your lines, then?"
Dick saw no help for it but to acquaint the riding-officer with the
petty persecution he had lately suffered, and the cause of it, which
hitherto Mr. Polwhele had not known.
"'Tis rascally, 'pon my soul it is," said the officer, "and I'm sorry
Penwarden has brought it on ye. Not but 'twas your own doing, Master
Dick; you'd better have kept out of it, though I own 'twas a good deed
to old Joe. I'm on my way to see Sir Bevil, and I'll tell him as a
magistrate, and he'll engage to commit any ruffian that molests ye."
"Not on my account, if you please, Mr. Polwhele," said Dick earnestly.
"There's bad blood between the Towers and the village as it is, and
'twill be ten times worse if Sir Bevil comes into it."
"Maybe you're in the right. Well, I'll see you safe home, and if I may
advise ye, keep out of the way o' the village folk. You're not friends
with Mr. Trevanion seemingly. Is he backing the smugglers, d'ye know?"
"I can't say anything about that. My father has nothing to do with
him."
"Well, well, these family quarrels are common enough. Come along beside
me."
Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the intervention of the
riding-officer. Purely accidental as it was, the villagers regarded it
as another proof of the new alliance between the Towers and the enemy.
John Trevanion did not fail to describe to the elder Tonkin, the next
time he met him, how savagely Mr. Polwhele had laid his whip upon Jake,
and the irate smuggler swore that if he encountered the riding-officer
he would make him pay for it.
That evening Dick consulted Joe Penwarden on the situation, as he had
intended. Joe was much distressed to think that he was the cause of the
bitterness with which the village folk now regarded the family at the
Towers.
"I don't know what you can do," said he. "But let things bide; maybe
they'll see by long and late they've misread 'ee."
"But we can't have our fishing spoilt time after time, Joe."
"'Tis a pretty stoor, be dazed to it!" said Joe, angrily. "And all for
a wambling old carcase like me! Ah! I warn't allus like as I be now.
When Lord Admiral Rodney spoke to me on Plymouth Hoe I was as limber a
young feller as you'd see in Devon or Cornwall. He was goin' along with
two handsome females----but there, I think I've telled 'ee. What I say
is, why did Maister John come home, cuss him? There was none o' this
afore."
"I don't think that's fair, Joe. They'd have run a cargo all the same,
if he were at the ends of the earth; and I couldn't have done
differently."
"Ye may say so, but I hold to it, whatever ye say. He's ill-wished 'ee,
that's the truth, and a pity it is he ever showed his face here."
Two evenings later, when Dick was struggling with a piece of Latin prose
for Mr. Carlyon, there was a knock at the outer door, and Reuben
admitted Penwarden, with Jake Tonkin firmly in his clutch.
"Axe Squire if I can have speech with him, Reuby," he said.
Mr. Trevanion came out into the hall.
"Well, what's this, Joe?" he asked.
"I catched this young reptile a-meddlin' wi' Maister Dick's lines,
Squire," said Penwarden, "so I brought him up to be dealt with according
to law."
"Meddling with his lines, indeed!" cried the Squire in surprise. "Why
should he do that? What have you to say for yourself, rascal?"
Jake had nothing to say for himself, but stood with a sullen glower upon
his face.
"'Tis not the first time either, Squire, and I be mazed as you didn'
know it," Penwarden continued.
"I knew nothing about it. Dick," he called into the room, "come here."
Dick obeyed reluctantly.
"Penwarden tells me," said his father, "that your lines have been
tampered with. Is that true?"
"Yes, sir."
"How often?"
"Three or four times within a week or so."
"Why did you not tell me?"
"I didn't want to bother you, sir."
"But this is new; it shows a hostile spirit----. Well, I'll say no more
now. As for you, you young scoundrel, I'm not a justice, or I'd commit
you. You shall take your choice; a sound flogging, or haled before Sir
Bevil: that will mean three months in Truro jail. Which is it to be?"
"I don't want to see Sir Bevil," said Jake, sullenly.
"Strip off your coat, then. Reuben, bring my whip."
Dick went away: he could not remain to see the lad thrashed.
"Now, Reuben, half a dozen lashes," said the Squire when his man
returned. "No; I'll do it myself. Stoop!"
Dick pressed his fingers into his ears when at the third or fourth
stroke Jake began to howl. The Squire gave him full measure; then bade
him begone, and take care not to offend again, declaring that he should
not get off so easily next time.
"Now, Dick," he said, returning to the room, "what is the meaning of all
this?"
Thereupon Dick made a clean breast of it, telling all that had happened
since the rescue of Penwarden. The Squire's face clouded as he listened
to the story.
"John Trevanion is at the bottom of this," he cried, thumping the table.
"They would never believe I was against them unless their minds had been
poisoned. I will see Tonkin to-morrow and get at the truth." Then,
with one of the swift changes of mood characteristic of him, he added:
"No, I won't do it. I won't gratify that cur; he shall never think I
care a snap for him. Tell me if anything of the kind happens again, and
I will myself go over to see Sir Bevil. On my life, the toad shall
smart if he is proved to be stirring folk against me."
Every succeeding incident in this series did but confirm the village
folk in their conviction that the Squire was now their declared enemy,
and in staunch alliance with the revenue officers.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
A Light on the Moor
Next day everybody in Polkerran knew of Jake Tonkin's thrashing. It was
discussed by the men in tap-rooms, on the jetty, in barns and piggeries,
in mills and cobblers' work-rooms. Fishwives chattered about it on
their doorsteps and at their windows. Boys meeting their playmates asked
if they had heard that Jake Tonkin had been walloped by Squire, and
Jake, as the victim of two assaults of this nature in succession, was
looked upon as something of a hero. Public opinion was dead against the
Squire, and was perhaps only the stronger because it was in the wrong.
It was clear that John Trevanion intended to make himself as unpleasant
as possible to his relative. In the afternoon a number of men were seen
mounting the steep road from the village to the cliff, drawing trolleys
laden with short narrow planks of wood. On reaching the green level
they proceeded to erect fences on the ground that had formerly been the
Squire's, and was now John Trevanion's. By the end of the next day a
large portion of the land was enclosed, the effect of these operations
being that the inmates of the Towers were cramped in their movements out
of doors, being restricted to the high road and the various rights of
way, which even the landlord could not close against them.
Sam Pollex hoped that the Squire would retaliate. The Beal, from which
the huer was accustomed to show his signals to the pilchard fishers, was
still Mr. Trevanion's property, and he could, if he chose, fence it
round in the same way. But there was nothing petty in the Squire's
nature. He was not the man to take a mean revenge on his neighbours, so
that when a fisher reported one evening that he had seen sharks and
grampuses some distance out at sea, a sure sign that the pilchards were
coming, the villagers went to bed without any fear that access would be
forbidden to the usual haunt.
Just before dawn next morning, Nathan Pendry, father of John Trevanion's
portmanteau carrier, the most experienced fisher in the village, took
his stand at the extremity of the Beal, carrying his bush. Seaward, the
sky was gloomy; in the east a pale orange and pink glow on the horizon
announced the rising sun. The air was very still, only the slow ripples
washing the sand at the foot of the cliff breaking the silence. In the
fairway lay three boats, the largest of them a smack of eight tons
burden, manned by six oarsmen, together with Tonkin and a fisher nearly
as large as he. These men and the occupants of the other boats sat
without speaking, their eyes fixed on the huer above. He stood
motionless, gazing intently on the surface of the sea. Beyond the
promontory the village was as yet asleep; one man stood solitary at the
end of the jetty.
Suddenly the huer bent forward, in an attitude of intense expectancy. A
few minutes passed; then lifting himself he waved his bush aloft. His
experienced eyes had detected a shadow in the water, moving across the
bay in a direction parallel with the shore. Instantly the men in the
first boat fell to their oars, and Tonkin, standing up in the stern, and
making a trumpet of his hands, shouted, "Havar! havar!" towards the
single figure on the jetty. This man repeated the cry; it was taken up
in the village; and soon from every street and lane a crowd of men,
women, and children poured up towards the cliffs, dressing themselves as
they ran, and shouting, "Havar! havar! Yo-hoy, hoy, hoy!"
Meanwhile the rowers were tugging at their oars with all their might,
Ike Pendry, who was rowing bow, having his eyes fixed on his father, and
directing the steersman in accordance with the movements of the bush.
The ground behind the huer was now thronged with spectators, no longer
shouting, but watching Pendry and the boatmen in tense silence. All at
once the huer dropped his bush; the rowers shipped oars; and Tonkin and
his mate grasped a long net, which had lain folded ready to their hands,
and with a few deft movements shot it overboard.
"Yo-hoy, yo-hoy!" broke from every throat. Then the crowd relapsed into
silence, watching the further proceedings in the bay.
The "seine net," as it was called, was a quarter of a mile long and
sixteen fathoms broad at the middle. It was fastened on each side to two
stout double ropes, and at each corner to four strong warps about fifty
fathoms long. Corks were fixed to the upper edge, and leaden weights to
the lower. When it was "shot," the corks buoyed up one end to the
surface of the water, the leads sank the other perpendicularly to the
bottom. The boat meanwhile was rowed round the shoal, following the
directions of the huer, until, the two extremities being made fast, the
fish were imprisoned in an oblong barrier of network. As Tonkin
straightened his back after completing his part of the work, another
shout rent the air, and the huer, his task also accomplished, broke
through the dignified calm which had hitherto distinguished him, and
waved his cap triumphantly.
Now came the turn of the "tuck-boat," one of those that had remained as
yet in the fairway. It was rowed within the area enclosed by the seine,
and laid close to the seine-boat, to the bows of which one end of a
smaller net, called the "tuck," was fastened by a rope. The boat then
slowly made the inner circuit of the seine, the tuck being paid out and
deftly hooked at intervals to the larger net. Meanwhile the men in the
third boat beat the water with their oars, so as to scare the fish into
the middle of the enclosure.
Now came the most exciting moment of the day. The cliff-top all round
the bay was dark with spectators. Small boys, eager to get in front,
dodged and shoved among the legs and skirts of their elders. The
village blacksmith was there; cobblers with bent backs and leather
aprons; tinkers, tailors, wheelwrights, carpenters, ploughmen,
dairymaids, old men with sticks and crutches, old women who could
scarcely totter, mothers with babies in their arms: all were agog with
excitement to see the final act. Sam Pollex was there, and when he
caught sight of the parlourmaid of the Dower House he sidled up to her
elbow, listened with delight to her exclamations of "My gracious!" "Look
'ee see, now!" "Lawk-a-massy me!" and by-and-by ventured to instruct her
ignorance of the movements passing below.
With the shouts of the boys were now mingled the deeper tones of the
seiners as, ranged in a row in their boat, they began to haul on the
tuck, calling "Yo, heave ho!" in time with their rhythmic movements.
"Pull away, boys!" shouts the huer; "Yo-hoy!" scream the boys. "Up she
comes! Look at 'em! Look at 'em!" The water eddies like a mill-race;
in the midst is seen a heaving mass of gleaming scales; and from round
the point come boats of all sizes, which range themselves in a circle
about the shoal. Men lean over the sides, dip their baskets, lift them
full of shining fish, empty them into the boats, and dip them again for
more. Soon they stand ankle deep in pilchards, and when the boats sink
to the gunwales, they are rowed away to the jetty, where men are waiting
with shovels and barrows, ready to carry the fish to the salting-house.
Dick Trevanion was among the spectators. He never missed the first haul
of the season. But to-day he was acutely conscious of a change. Last
year the villagers had greeted him with smiles and cheery words; to-day
they lowered their eyes, passed him in silence, and edged away from him
as he moved from place to place. He could not but feel bitterly his
isolation. Why did they so misjudge him? He had not changed: he knew
well that, in any ordinary contest between the smugglers and the revenue
officers, his sympathy would have been with the former; friendly as he
was with Mr. Mildmay, he would enjoy nothing better than that
gentleman's discomfiture, if it were due to fair means and the
villagers' wits. Yet, because he had intervened to prevent harm to an
old man, he was now regarded by the villagers as their enemy, one who
would descend to play the mean part of spy and informer.
With gloomy face he turned away and walked back along the promontory.
At the end he met Mr. Carlyon, who had just ridden up on his cob. The
parson's ruddy face was suffused with cheerfulness; he knew by the
jubilant shouts of the crowd that the catch was a good one, and rejoiced
that his parishioners were winning from the deep their means of
subsistence for the winter. He marked Dick's clouded face, and,
guessing the occasion of it, he tried to cheer him.
"Come, Dick," he said genially, "cheer up, my lad; this haul will put
the folk in a good temper, and they will forget their grudge against
you."
"I hope they will, sir," replied Dick, "but there's one man who'll try
to keep them in mind of it."
"You mean your cousin?"
"Yes."
"But surely he'll not be such a cur. He's a scoundrel--there now, what
am I saying? I'll tackle him, my boy. Why, bless my soul, he was in
church on Sunday, and my text was 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'
I'll ride there now, and get him to give me some breakfast--though I
detest the fellow," he added in one of his unconscious asides.
"He is away from home, I believe," said Dick.
"Well, then, I'll put it off till another day, but tackle him I will.
I've a bit of news, Dick. The carrier brought me some books last night;
that's not the news, though. No. You have heard, maybe, of a Frenchman
named Delarousse?"
He looked slyly at Dick; everyone in Polkerran knew the name of the
Frenchman with whom the smugglers had such close dealings.
"As a natural enemy of our country I don't pity him," pursued the
parson, "but as a--h'm--an honest free-trader I own I feel for him. His
privateer was badly knocked about in the Channel by a revenue cruiser a
week or two ago, and while she was being repaired, it appears that he
tried to run a cargo at Polperro. As ill-luck would have it--dear me!
I wonder if I ought to have said that," he added under his breath--"he
ran into the arms of the revenue people; they seized his lugger and
carried him to Plymouth, where he'll cool his heels for a time until
they put him among the other French prisoners on Dartmoor."
"Do they know it in the village yet, sir?"
"Probably not; the carrier was going straight on to Newquay; he had
nothing for us except my books. But you may be sure the folk will soon
know all about it. The carrier had a glass of brandy with Petherick,
and Petherick, as you know, is the biggest gossip in the parish. His
brandy is better than mine, the dog! I must ask him where he gets it."
Dick could not help smiling at the parson's unconscious self-revelation.
"That's right; you're feeling better, I see," said Mr. Carlyon cheerily.
"Now I'll go on and bespeak my basket. Pilchards of the first catch are
the daintiest dish I know. 'Tis a holiday to-day, but I shall see you
to-morrow. Good-bye."
He rode on. Dick turned to watch him, and saw Sam Pollex walking beside
the maid-servant of the Dower House. When Sam observed his young master
he left the girl and came sheepishly towards him.
"I've been tellin' to she the hows and whys of it, Maister Dick," said
he.
"Indeed."
"Iss, I have. Bein' a furriner, she be 'mazin simple for such a
well-growed female. She axed me why I never brought no more eggs."
"And what did you say?"
"Well, not likin' to hurt her feelings, I telled her our hens be
uncommon idle lately, and she said she knows they do have fits that way
sometimes. Maister John's gone to Lunnon, to buy things for his mine."
"I wish he'd stay there."
"Her name be Susan."
"Quite a common name."
"She's as nice a female as ever I've seed."
The pilchard fishing was for several days so engrossing an occupation
that the villagers had no time for fostering their grievance against the
Towers. Dick and Sam, who had formerly been in the thick of it,
sometimes as spectators merely, occasionally as participators, kept
away, and spent the greater part of their time in fishing quietly some
few miles up the coast. One day Dick reverted to the project of hunting
seals, which he had temporarily abandoned, partly through the diversion
afforded by the discovery of the well, partly because he did not care to
kill the parent seals while their offspring were so young. Now, however,
the prospect of sport, and the practical wish to obtain a sealskin for
his mother, made him resolve to try his luck in the cave, and he laid
his plans in consultation with the ever-ready Sam.
He guessed that the seals left the cave at low tide to find food in the
deep, and returned when the sea flowed in. Since the cave was at such
times inaccessible from the sea, he decided that it must be approached
from the well, of which neither he nor Sam had now any remaining dread.
One evening they sallied towards it, carrying a well-made rope-ladder, a
musket apiece, a large hammer, and several torches, which would give
more light than the ancient candle-lantern they had formerly carried.
To one end of the rope-ladder they had attached a series of stout
meat-hooks borrowed from old Reuben: they could more confidently trust
their safety to a number of teeth gripping the rock than to the single
fluke of their small boat anchor. They had timed their start so that
they would reach the cave just as the tide turned.
It was a dull, murky evening, with a touch of autumn rawness in the air.
Twilight had not quite merged into darkness when they arrived at the
ruined chapel at the well-head. They looked warily around to make sure
that their presence was not observed, then prepared to descend.
"'Tis rayther fearsome," murmured Sam, as he looked into the black
shaft. Now that he was on the spot, the tradition of ghostliness in
which he had been brought up revived something of his former fears.
"Nonsense," said Dick, "we have laid the ghost for ever, Sam. I will go
down first. Don't follow until I come to the door. I will whistle for
you. When you hear me, fling down the ladder and the hammer. At a
second whistle, come yourself."
Sticking a lighted candle-end into his hatband, and slinging the musket
over his shoulder, he stepped backward into the well, and began the
descent. He found the successive staples entirely by the sense of
touch, the candle throwing a deep shadow below him. At first he felt a
little nervous, but gathered confidence after a few steps, and made the
latter part of the descent very quickly.
Sam, waiting above, heard a whistle, curiously prolonged by its
reverberations from the walls. He threw down the hammer, and gave an
involuntary start when he heard it thud upon the bottom. The ladder
followed, and the unkindled torches; then, without lighting a candle for
his own hat, he stepped over the brink, muttering to himself:
"S'pose I fall! But I won't. S'pose I do though. But Maister Dick
didn't. S'pose _I_ do. Well, if 'tis to be, 'tis, so I med as well go
cheerful."
In reality he descended more quickly than Dick had done. They gathered
up their burdens, and made their way by the light of Dick's candle along
the passage until they came to the ledge overlooking the cave.
Here they stopped and peered over. The tide was rather lower than they
had expected. Their eyes ranged the cave for a time without discovering
any sign of the seals. Then Dick lit a torch, and holding it over the
dark space beneath, he suddenly saw two orbs of light, like the eyes of
a monstrous cat, in a far corner to the right of him. Moving along the
ledge in that direction, he descried two seals, greyish in colour, and
much larger than he had supposed them to be, lying on a rock, with the
two young ones between them.
"We will only kill one, Sam," he whispered, "and I hope 'twill be the
father."
The seals were apparently fascinated by the glare of the torch, for they
made no movement, their eight eyes glowing like balls of fire. In order
to obtain more light upon his task, Dick kindled two more torches, and
stuck all three into crevices of rock in such a way that they
illuminated the whole corner of the cave where the seals lay. But now
the animals had caught sight of him, and as if instinctively realising
that the intruder was an enemy, they scrambled with clumsy movements off
the rocks into the water.
"They be goin' out to sea, scrounch 'em!" whispered Sam, whose attitude
to all prospective victims was an indignant surprise that they did not
wait meekly for their doom.
But the seals, after swimming a yard or two, took up their position
behind a larger boulder, above which the tops of their sleek, massive
heads could just be seen.
"We shall have to go down to them, Sam," said Dick.
"They be great big creatures," said Sam dubiously. "Wi' those terrible
big flappers they could smite us flat as flounders."
"You had better take the hammer in case I miss and they attack us. We
must at any rate prevent one of them from getting away."
They retreated to the further end of the ledge, to which the light of
their torches scarcely reached, and carefully hooked the ladder to the
jagged rock. Then in perfect silence they descended. The water only
came to their knees. Wading through it with scarcely more noise than an
otter might have made, they drew gradually nearer to the rock behind
which the seals had sheltered. Here they found themselves baulked. The
rock was close to the wall, and it was impossible to get a shot at the
animals without circumventing it, which appeared to Dick a dangerous
movement. The surprising quickness with which the seals had shuffled
off their former perch showed that, if a shot failed, they might fling
their heavy bodies upon the assailants before they could escape. He was
considering what to do, when a movement among the seals forced him to
act on the instant. The largest of the creatures heaved itself to the
top of the rock, and lay there as if on the watch for the enemy,
presenting the side of its head to Dick. He raised his musket, a
firelock of ancient type, and fired. The reverberations in the hollow
vault were broken in upon by a hoarse roar, and through the cloud of
smoke the seal slid over the rock into the water, and came swimming
towards the two boys. Dick seized Sam's musket, preparing to fire
again; his first shot had only enraged the animal. But before he could
raise the weapon, the seal threw itself out of the water, and he had
just time to spring aside and evade its onset. As it passed, its
flipper struck the musket from his grasp, and it fell with a splash into
the water.
Sam, for all his fear of ghosts, was brave enough before a real enemy.
He was standing a yard or two in Dick's rear. As the seal plunged
heavily into the sea, Sam brought the hammer down with all his force
upon the creature's head. There was one tremendous convulsion of the
water, then the seal's movements ceased and it sank to the bottom.
[Illustration: "AS THE SEAL PLUNGED INTO THE SEA, SAM BROUGHT HIS HAMMER
DOWN."]
Meanwhile, the other animals, scared by the noise, had flung themselves
into the water, and were swimming towards the mouth of the tunnel.
"Well done, young Sam!" said Dick. "You did that famously."
"So I did, to be sure," replied Sam, "but I couldn' help it. You shot
un, Maister Dick; see his blood."
There was a red tinge upon the water.
"How are we to get him up?" said Dick. "He's a monstrous big fellow."
"We'll wait till tide is down and skin him here. Be his body good to
eat?"
"That I don't know; we can try. But the skin is the valuable part of
him, and having that we may leave the rest."
In two hours the receding tide had left the dead seal on the sand. The
boys took out their knives, and, expert in such work, in another
half-hour had removed the skin. Their torches were by this time burning
low, so they clambered up to the ledge, and carried their implements and
booty as quickly as possible through the adit to the foot of the well,
and then up to the surface.
Vastly pleased with the success of their expedition they set off towards
home. The night was very dark, and a thin rain was falling, which
increased as they proceeded, until it became a steady downpour. They
were tired; their burdens, light enough when they started from home, now
seemed to be pounds heavier; the rain beat full in their faces, finding
out every crevice between their clothes and their skin; and the ground
was rough, covered here with tussocks of grass that squelched under
their tread, there with fragments of mining gear which threatened to
trip them up. They trudged on in silence, feeling the loneliness and
the inclemency of the weather the more keenly because it ensued upon the
high excitement of their adventure.
As they struck into the path leading by Penwarden's cottage, Sam
suddenly declared that he saw a flicker of light to their left, some
distance across the moor.
"I can't see it," said Dick, scarcely looking in the direction
indicated, "and it doesn't matter to us. I'm tired; this skin is heavy;
I want to get home."
"'Tis moving," said Sam a moment later. "Maybe 'tis Maister John comin'
back from Lunnon."
"He wouldn't come that way. I see it now; 'tis some belated traveller,
no doubt."
"But the light bean't on the road; 'tis too far away."
"Never mind about the light," Dick replied, testily. "Come along."
They soon came to one of John Trevanion's new fences, which compelled
them to leave the path and seek the high road. In his moody frame of
mind Dick resented this bitterly. They now perceived that the light,
spread starwise by the rain, was much nearer to them, and presently
heard the creaking of wheels and the dull thud of horses' hoofs on the
turf. A minute after they had struck the road a closed travelling
carriage, drawn by two horses, turned into it from a byway, scarcely
more than a bridle path. On the right of the driver there was a single
lamp. Catching sight of the two figures on the road, bending forward
under their loads, the driver hailed them and pulled up his horses
beside them.
"Hi! can 'ee tell me if this be the right road for Polkerran?" he asked.
"Iss, fay, right for'ard," answered Sam.
"And where be the Five Pilchards?"
"Down-along through village. Better mind the hill, if you be a
furriner, 'cos 'tis 'nation steep and twisty."
"So be they all, od rake it."
Here another voice interposed, and a head showed itself dimly at the
carriage window.
"Vill you--ah! how say it!--vill you embark on ze--ze coach, and, if you
please, show ze road?"
"Drat it all, why will 'ee talk?" cried the driver. "Put yer head
inside, for gospel sake. Come up beside me, friends, if you'll do a
kindness, and say the word when I do come to the hill. I don't want to
break hosses' knees nor my own neck."
The boys, glad enough to get a lift, mounted beside the driver, with a
tingling curiosity about the passenger inside who spoke in so strange an
accent. It was not far to the Towers, and when they came to it Dick
asked the driver to stop, and bade Sam get down and carry the sealskin
and his share of the other burdens to the house.
"You bean't a fisher?" said the driver to Dick as Sam was descending.
There was a note of anxiety in his voice.
"I fish, but I'm not what you would call a fisher."
"I knowed it by your speech. Well, then, I won't trouble 'ee, sir, this
mizzly night," said the man, with some eagerness.
"No trouble at all. 'Tis not very far."
"Well, 'twas to be," muttered the coachman. Dick thought it was an odd
thing to say. Still more surprised was he when the driver leant over
and extinguished the candle-flame with his fingers. "You see," he
explained, "the gentleman inside is terrible bad, met with an accident,
as 'a med say."
"Bring him to our house, then," said Dick instantly; "my mother will be
pleased to do something for him."
"Not for gold and di'monds," replied the man quickly. "No, we go to
Five Pilchards; 'tis a good enough inn, I've heerd tell."
Dick said no more. He wondered who the stranger was, and what brought
him to Polkerran, where visitors were rare. The carriage rumbled on
slowly; every now and then the driver made the horses walk, though the
road here was level. It seemed to Dick that his attitude and manner
were those of a man intently listening.
They came to the spot where a short drive led from the road to the Dower
House, which could just be discerned, a black mass in the rain. "That
villain has not returned, then," thought Dick, seeing no light in the
house.
At this moment there came upon their ears the clattering sound of
several horses from the foot of the hill which they had nearly reached.
The driver jerked his horses to a standstill, looked from side to side,
and seeing the carriage-drive, to which there was no gate, wheeled the
horses round and drove in, not on the hard road, but on the bordering
grass.
"This is a private road," said Dick, wondering.
"'Twas my thought. These be ticklish times for travellers, and 'tis
best not to meet strange riders in the dark. I'll bide till they be
past, and then go on again."
He drew up under the trees about forty yards along the drive, within a
few yards of the house. Dick heard him breathing heavily. The
clattering of hoofs drew nearer: the driver seemed to hold his breath;
then, when the horsemen had passed the end of the drive at a fast trot,
he heaved a sigh of relief. He waited until the sounds had died away in
the distance, and wheeled the horses round. There was not room on the
grass for the carriage to turn completely, and the wheels made a
crunching sound on the pebbly road. The side of the carriage was still
turned to the house when the door opened, and John Trevanion appeared on
the threshold, holding a candle above his head, and peering into the
dark.
CHAPTER THE NINTH
Doubledick's Midnight Guests
"Who's that?" cried Trevanion.
Dick, being on the offside, was concealed by the driver's burly form,
but he shrank back against the front of the carriage. He did not wish
to meet his cousin's eyes at that moment, and began to wonder why he was
on the box in the rain when he might have ridden inside.
"Axin' yer pardon, sir," replied the coachman, "I be afeard I've took
the wrong road. 'Tis 'nation dark, and my lamp has gone out."
"What was that clattering of horses I heard?"
"Ah, I can't tell 'ee that. I didn't see no one. Maybe 'twas
riding-officer. I axe yer pardon for disturbin' ye, sir, this terrible
bad night and all, and I'll drive on to village."
"You're a stranger, aren't you? Have you got anybody in your carriage?"
"Never a soul, sir. The truth is, I've lost my way, and shan't be sorry
to get out o' this pesty rain."
"'Tis heavier now. Well, good-night. You'll find a warm room in the
inn at the foot of the hill, if the innkeeper hasn't raked out the fire
and gone to bed. Good-night."
He retreated with his guttering candle into the house and shut the door,
the coachman driving back to the high road. Dick was mystified. Why
had the man denied having a passenger? Why had he extinguished his
light and turned out of the road on hearing horsemen? The driver said
nothing, except to grumble under his breath at the weather, and Dick
refrained from questioning him, thinking that some light might be thrown
on the mystery when they reached the inn.
The carriage had just wheeled into the road when Dick felt a touch on
his right arm. He looked round: the passenger was leaning forward out
of the window.
"How is ze name of zat man--him zat hold ze light?" asked the stranger
eagerly.
Dick hesitated; then, seeing no reason for not answering, said: "That is
Mr. John Trevanion."
"Tre--vat say you, if you please?"
"Trevanion."
"Trevanion!" repeated the questioner, giving a strange intonation to the
name. "Ah! Shank you."
He withdrew his head into the carriage. Dick heard the driver mutter:
"Why can't he clap a stopper on his tongue, the stunpoll!"
He drove slowly down the steep winding hill.
"There's the inn," said Dick presently. "Doubledick isn't abed, late as
it is."
A light shone through the red blind of the inn parlour. The door was
open, and Doubledick stood in the doorway, illuminated by the light
behind. In spite of the heavy rain several men, among whom Dick
distinguished the elder Tonkin, were grouped about the door. They had
heard the wheels of the oncoming carriage, and there were signs of
excitement among them. As the vehicle drew up, Tonkin stepped forward,
thrust his head in, uttered a smothered exclamation, then opened the
door hastily. The eyes of all the men were fixed on the figure that
emerged, so that Dick on the box was not noticed. A short, broad man,
clad in a long overcoat, his cocked hat pulled low over his brow,
descended from the carriage and went quickly into the inn, the men
following him. The door was shut. Feeling that he was in a somewhat
false position, Dick seized the opportunity to slip down from his seat
and withdraw round the angle of the wall, where a flight of steps
ascended between it and the wall of the opposite house. He heard Tonkin
speaking to the driver; the carriage rumbled over the cobbles, not
returning up the hill, but going through the village in the opposite
direction. Immediately afterwards the inn door was reopened, the heavy
boots of the fishers clumped along the street, and in a few moments
nothing was to be heard except the pattering of the rain.
Dick felt a little sore at having to trudge back afoot, without a word
of thanks. He was drenched to the skin. Glancing behind as he began to
climb the hill, he saw that the light had now disappeared from the
inn-room. The whole village was in darkness. More than ever dispirited
and mystified, he plodded along. Apparently the carriage had been
expected. He could not help connecting it with the horsemen whom the
driver had been so anxious to avoid, and, remembering the strange accent
of the passenger, it suddenly flashed upon him that the man might be one
of Boney's spies, whom he had unwittingly helped to escape pursuers.
But on reflection this idea seemed untenable, because a spy was hardly
likely to appear at this remote part of the coast, and he could not
believe that the smugglers of Polkerran, like those of the south-eastern
counties, had any treasonable communications with the French ogre.
He was still pondering on the baffling occurrence when the sound of
horses trotting again fell on his ear. In a few moments he had to stand
aside to avoid being knocked down by the first of half-a-dozen horsemen,
whom, dark as it was, he recognised by their headdress to be soldiers.
Their uniforms were covered by their riding cloaks. He was seen as he
shrank back: a rough voice called "Halt!" and the horsemen reined up.
"Stand forth, in the King's name, and answer for your life," said the
same voice.
Dick went towards the foremost horseman.
"Who are you?" he was asked.
"My name is Trevanion," he replied.
"Ah! Same as the gentleman up the hill," cried the soldier. "Now, tell
us quick; have you seen a coach, wagon, or other four-wheeled piece of
machinery hereabouts?"
"Yes; a two-horsed carriage drove down to the inn yonder about twenty
minutes ago."
"What road did she come?"
"This very road that you're on."
"Confusion on it! Then how did we miss the thing? But there, no
matter; we'll after it and catch the villain."
Without more delay the sergeant and his men clattered off down the hill,
relieving Dick of the necessity of giving explanations, which he felt
might be somewhat awkward. Being now thoroughly excited, he forgot his
fatigue and wetness, and ran after the dragoons to see what happened
when they reached the inn. He was but a minute or two behind them. The
village was still in complete darkness; the rain had ceased, and the
moon showed her rim through a rift in the scudding clouds.
The troopers were at the door of the inn, five still on horseback; the
sixth had dismounted and was rapping on the door with the hilt of his
sword.
"Hang me, will he never open?" cried the man, when repeated blows drew
no response.
"Must be a rare sleeper, to be sure," said another.
"I'll bust the lock with a shot from my carbine if he don't open soon,"
cried the angry sergeant. "This is some jiggery-pokery, sure as I'm
alive."
He thundered again on the door, calling upon the innkeeper with many
imprecations to open in the King's name. At last there was the sound of
a casement opening above. Looking up, the troopers saw first a
blunderbuss, then an arm, and finally a head in a white nightcap.
"Who be that a-bangin' and smitin' at an honest man's door, when he be
abed and asleep?" demanded Doubledick's voice angrily.
"'Tis for you to answer questions, not to axe 'em," said the sergeant.
"Now, speak like a true man, and hide nothing, or the King will have
your miserable head. Did a carriage come down the hill a while ago?"
"Oh, if ye be King's men I bean't afeard o' ye. A carriage? Why, to be
sure 'a did, a half-hour ago, or maybe more."
"And where is it now?"
"There's a question to axe a poor simple soul wi' only two eyes. How be
I to know that, captain, on a dark night like this?"
"Be hanged to you! You know whether it stayed or went on, and you'd
best speak up without any shilly-shally."
"True. I do know that. The carriage went on, to be sure."
"Which way? Speak up."
"Well, I can't 'zackly say, but 'twarn't up the hill, so I reckon 'twas
through village towards Redruth. Iss, I reckon 'twas that."
"And the man inside?"
"Daze me if ever I knowed of any man inside. Driver had lost his way,
seemingly; 'a was like a squashed turmit in the rain: and when he'd took
summat to comfort his innards, off-along he drove. Warn't here five
minutes, no, nor yet four."
"'Tis treason-felony and hangman's job if you're not speaking the
truth," said the sergeant. "Confusion take him, we'll have to ride on.
Look here, Tom; you stay here with Matthew and keep your eye on the
door. The rest of us will ride on after the carriage, and come back to
you if we catch our man."
"What rascal of a deserter be you a-chasin' by night, captain?" cried
Doubledick.
"No deserter, but a prisoner that escaped from Plymouth. We've been
after him all day and all night, and smite me if it don't seem he has
given us the slip. Come on, men."
The sergeant rode off with three of his men, the other two dismounting
and taking up their stand at the door.
"I reckon I can go back to my warm bed now, eh, sojers?" said
Doubledick. "But ye're sappy wet, poor fellers, and tired too, to be
sure, hikin' arter a runaway prisoner all day and all night. Bide a
minute till I've pulled a few garments on my cold limbs, and I'll come
down and give 'ee summat to warm yerselves."
The nightcap disappeared, a candle was lighted, and in a few minutes
Doubledick came to the door with two steaming beakers of hot brandy and
water, which the troopers accepted gratefully.
Dick, from the shadow of an alley, had seen and heard all that went on.
The soldiers chatted with the innkeeper for a while; then he retired
into the inn, shut the door, and put out the light.
A minute or two afterwards Dick saw a figure stealing down the steps at
the side of the inn, peep round the corner, and then retreat hastily.
He supposed it was one of the men whom he had seen at the door
previously, but was unable to distinguish his features, owing to the
deep shadows thrown on the alley-steps by the moon. To avoid discovery
himself, he shrank back against the blind wall. It must now, he
thought, be nearly midnight; but, wet though he was, he determined not
to leave the spot until he had seen how the matter ended. Having been
behind the wall when the carriage drove away, he was not sure whether
the passenger had re-entered it or not. The hurried manner in which the
man had gone into the inn was not that of one who intended coming forth
again. Doubledick had lied when he said that he knew nothing of the
occupant of the carriage; yet why should he harbour an escaped prisoner,
who was almost certainly a Frenchman? The mystery was deeper than ever.
It was perhaps an hour later, and Dick was on the point of going home,
when the silence of the night was again broken by the sharp ringing
clatter of hoofs. The sergeant and his three men returned, a white mist
rising from their horses' backs.
"We caught the carriage," said the sergeant, as he rode up, "but 'twas
empty as a sucked egg. The driver said he'd lost his way on the moor
coming from Truro, and was going on home to Redruth. Have you seen
anything?"
"Not a thing," replied one of the troopers at the door.
"Well, we must search the inn. What a miserable fool I was not to ask
that young feller if there was any one in the carriage when he saw it!"
Dick hesitated for a moment. Should he tell what he knew? A French
prisoner was an enemy of his country; might it not be his duty to help
the dragoons to capture him? But reflecting that the man might be
nothing worse than a smuggler, in which case to inform against him would
only embitter the inimical feeling of the villagers against him, besides
being an ungracious act in itself, he decided to say nothing.
After a long-continued knocking and the expenditure of much abusive
language, Doubledick once more opened the door.
"Ye'll gie me the rheumatiz and send me to my grave," he said with a
whine. "What be ye rampin' men o' war wantin' now?"
"We're going to search your inn for that there mounseer, my fine feller,
and you'd best take it quiet, or you'll find yourself strapped to one of
our hosses and carried with all your bones a-rattling afore the
Colonel."
"Search, if ye must. Name it all, why should I hinder 'ee! Turn the
inn topsy-versy, ye'll find nothing but maybe a rat or a cockroach."
The sergeant and two of the troopers entered. They searched the
tap-room, the inn-parlour, kitchen, cellars, bedrooms, lofts; rummaged
cupboards, empty barrels, a clock-case, the copper in the scullery, an
overturned water butt in the backyard; all to no purpose.
"He's not here, that's certain," said the sergeant at last, dashing the
perspiration from his brow. "We must have overshot the villain somehow.
Plague on it! We shall have to ride back to Truro and try to get on his
tracks, or the Colonel will be in a rare passion."
"I won't ask 'ee to stay, brave men," said Doubledick, "knowing what
terrible rages noble officers do fly into. But a nibleykin o' real old
stingo won't do 'ee no harm, and ye can drink confusion to Boney. Hee!
hee!"
All the soldiers accepted the liquor with alacrity, and the two who had
already tasted its quality winked at each other, not acquainting their
comrades with their previous pleasurable experience. Smacking their
lips and declaring that the innkeeper was a real good-hearted fellow,
they remounted and rode up the hill. Doubledick watched them until they
were out of sight, a leer of triumph on his face. Dick heard him
chuckle as he shut the door and shuffled up the stairs. The light was
extinguished, and Dick, vexed with himself for remaining so long and so
unprofitably, set off homeward in the track of the dragoons.
A few minutes after he had left, a heavily-cloaked figure--the same that
Dick had seen a while before--stole down the steps at the side of the
inn, and, looking round cautiously, approached the door and rapped six
times upon it, pausing a brief while after every second tap.
Immediately after the sixth, the casement above opened, and Doubledick,
looking out, said in a hoarse whisper:
"Be that you, Zacky?"
"No, 'tis I, John Trevanion. Come down and let me in, Doubledick."
"Good sakes, I didn' know 'ee was to home, Maister John. Thought 'ee
was still in Lunnon town. A pretty stoor there's been to-night. Bide a
minute, sir."
He lit his candle, descended, let Trevanion in, and barred the door
behind him.
"I never thought you were such a fool," said Trevanion, angrily eyeing
the nightcapped and nightgowned innkeeper. "What on earth possessed you
to harbour Delarousse?"
"Chok' it all, why shouldn't I?" replied Doubledick truculently.
"Bean't he a good friend of ourn? Who better?"
"Confound you, he's a Frenchman, and a runaway prisoner. The soldiers
will get on his track again, and your ridiculous folly will be the ruin
of us all. You have no business to run such risks."
In his anger Trevanion raised his voice.
"Risks, do 'ee say? Jown me if you hain't run risks yerself, Maister
John, and a deal bigger; hee! hee!"
"Silence!" shouted Trevanion. "Don't provoke me, or upon my soul and
body I'll----"
The threat died on his lips, for at this moment a door opened at the
further end of the passage in which they stood, and there appeared the
short, rotund form of the passenger who had descended from the carriage
some hours before. The overcoat and the cocked hat were gone; the
Frenchman wore the rough fustian, marked with a broad arrow, in which
the authorities arrayed prisoners. His eyes gleamed with the fire of
hatred as he looked full at Trevanion, who on his part returned glare
for glare, but whose countenance wore a strange expression, which
Doubledick, watching him, could not fathom.
"It is you," said the Frenchman, in his own tongue. "You, Robinson--or
Trevanion, is it not so?"
"You be known to each other, then?" said Doubledick. "Hee! hee! Why
don't 'ee shake hands, like friends?"
"Silence!" cried the Frenchman sternly. "You go," he added, addressing
Doubledick in English. "I haf somezink to say to zis
monsieur--Trevanion."
He took the candle from the astonished inn-keeper's hand, and motioned
to Trevanion to enter the parlour. Following him, he shut and bolted
the door, leaving Doubledick in the dark passage. The innkeeper
promptly knelt down and put his ear to the keyhole, but since he knew
almost nothing of French, he understood little of the ensuing dialogue,
which was conducted in that tongue.
"You see I have found you, monsieur--Trevanion," said Delarousse. "You
thought, no doubt, that you had escaped me when you landed that dark
night. But you should not have come to Polkerran; that was a foolish
step for one so clever to take. You would have been caught, but for a
sudden alarm from the shore; yet it mattered little that I had to sail
away then, for, as you see, I have found you--cheat, thief, scoundrel!"
Trevanion did not flinch as the Frenchman hissed these words at him. He
thrust his hand into the breast pocket of his cloak.
"Aha!" laughed Delarousse. "You have a pistol? I have not. You would
like to shoot me, but you dare not. I should like to shoot you, but I
have no weapon, and, equally, if I had, I dare not. I will not hang for
you: so you deal in this country with men that kill others, is it not
so? But I tell you, Trevanion--that is a name I do not forget--I tell
you that you shall not escape. It is not the time now, but there will
come a day when you shall repent of having deceived and robbed the man
who trusted you. Once more I tell you what you are: cheat, thief,
scoundrel!"
"Pretty words, monsieur," said Trevanion with a sneer. "You had better
take warning. This country is not safe for Frenchmen. You have escaped
from prison, by some piece of imbecile folly----"
"Not so," interposed Delarou
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