Major Vigoureux

A >> A. T. Quiller Couch >> Major Vigoureux

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

"Cornwall," said Jan, tranquilly, his mouth full of raw turnip.

"Then you ought to want to go back to it."

"I mean to, one of these fine days."

"I shouldn't put it off too long, if I were you," advised Linnet,
candidly. "You're getting up in years, and the next thing you'll be
dead."

"But didn't your father ever want to go back?" asked Matthew Henry,
sticking to his point.

"No fear."

"Why?"

"Because, if he'd showed his face back in Cornwall, they'd have hanged
him; that's all."

"Oh!" exclaimed the three, almost simultaneously, and sat for a moment
or two gazing on Jan in awed silence.

"But why should they want to hang your father?" asked Annet.

Jan sliced his bread with an air of noble indifference. "Eh? Why,
indeed? He used to say 'twas for being too frolicsome. He never done no
wrong--not what you might call wrong: or so he maintained, an' 'twasn't
for me to disbelieve 'en. Was it, now?"

"You'll tell us about it, Jan dear?" coaxed Annet.

"There's no particular story in it." (The children put this aside; it
was Jan's formula for starting a tale.) "My father, in his young days,
lived at a place in Cornwall called Luxulyan, and arned his wages as a
tinner at a stream-work----"

"What is a stream-work?" asked Matthew Henry.

"A stream-work is a moor beside a river, where the mud is full of ore,
washed down from the country above--sometimes from the old mines. The
streamers dig this mud up and wash it through sieves, and so they get
the tin. There was enough of it, my father said, in Luxulyan Couse to
keep a captain and twelve men in good wages and pay for a feast once a
year at the Rising Sun Public House. The supper took place some time in
the week before Christmas, and they called it Pie-crust Night, though I
can't tell you why. Well, one Pie-crust Night, after this yearly
supper--the most enjoyable he had ever known--my father left the Rising
Sun towards midnight, and started to walk to his home in Luxulyan
Churchtown. He had a fair dollop of beer inside of him, but nothing (as
he ever maintained), to excuse what followed, and he got so far as
Tregarden Down without accident. Now, this Tregarden Down, as he always
described it to me, is a lonesome place given over to brackenfern and
strewn about with great granite boulders, and on one of these boulders
my father sat down, because the night was clear and a fancy had come
into his head to count the stars. He sat there staring up and counting
till he reached twenty score, and with that he felt he was getting a
crick in the back of his neck, and brought his eyes down to earth
again. It seemed to him that, even in the dark, a change had come over
the down since he'd been sittin' there, and the whole lie of the ground
had a furrin look. Hows'ever, he hadn't much time to puzzle about this,
for lo and behold! as he stared about him, what should he see under the
lew of the next rock but a party of little people, none of 'em more
than a thumb high, dancing in a ring upon the turf! They broke off and
laughed as soon as my father caught sight of 'em; and, says one little
whipper-snapper, stepping forward and pulling off his cap with a bow,
'Good evening, my man!' 'Sir to you!' says my father. 'There's a good
liquor at the Rising Sun,' says the little man. 'None better,' says my
father. 'I know by a deal better,' says the little man. 'Would you like
to taste it?' 'Would I not?' says my father. 'Well, then,' says the
little man, 'there's a shipfull of wine gone ashore early this night on
Par Sands, and maybe the Par folk haven't had time yet to clear the
cargo. What d'ee say to _Ho! and away for Par Beach!_ Eh?' 'With all
the pleasure in life,' says my father, thinkin' it a joke; so '_Ho! and
away for Par Beach!_' he calls out, mimicking the little man. The words
weren't scarcely out of his mouth before a wind seemed to catch him up,
though gently, from his seat on the boulder, and in two twinklings he
was standin' on Par Sands. There was a strong sea running, and out
beyond the edge of the tide my father spied a ship breaking up. But if
she broke up fast, her cargo was meltin' faster, for a whole crowd of
folk had gathered on the sands, and were rolling the casks of wine up
from the water and carting them away for dear life. My father and the
little people couldn't much as ever lay hands on a solitary one, and,
what was worse they hadn't but fairly broached it before a cry went up
that the Preventive men were coming. Sure enough, my father, pricking
up his ears, could hear horses gallopin' down along the road above the
sands. 'Dear, dear!' says the little man, 'this is a most annoyin'
thing to happen! But luckily I know a place where there's better liquor
still, and no risk of bein' interrupted. So _Ho! and away for Squire
Tremayne's cellar!_'

"'_Ho! and away for Squire Tremayne's cellar!_' called out my father;
and the next thing he knew he found himself in the cellar of Squire
Tremayne's great house at Heligan, knocking around with the small
people among casks of wine and barrels of beer galore. To do him
justice, he never pretended he didn't make use of the occasion. In
fact, he fuddled himself so that when the little gentleman called out
'_Ho! and away!_ for the next randivoo' (whatever that might ha' been),
he missed to take up the catchword, bein' asleep belike. So there the
piskies left him asleep, with his head in a waste saucer and his mouth
under the drip of a spigot; and there the butler found him the next
morning, knocking his shins among the butts and barrels in the
darkness, and calling out to know what the dickens had taken Tregarden
Down and the rocks o't, that they grew so pesky close together. The
butler haled him upstairs to the Squire, and the Squire heard his
story, and not only said he didn't believe a word o't, but (bein' a
magistrate) packed him off to Bodmin Jail for burglary. I don't blame
the man altogether," said Jan, reflectively; "for, come to think of it,
my father's account of himself lay a bit off the ordinary run, and
belike he wasn't in any condition to put it clearly.

"At any rate, to jail he went, and from jail he was delivered up to the
Judges at Assize, and the Judges sentenced my poor father to death,
which was the punishment for burglary in those times, and, for all I
know, it may be the same on the mainland to this day.

"The morning came when he was to be put out of the world; and, as I
needn't tell you, it gathered a great crowd together, to have a look at
the last of a man that had so little sense of wickedness as to take
liberties with a gentleman's wine and spirits. There my poor father
stood under the gallows-tree with none to befriend 'en, when all of a
sudden he heard a shouting up the street, and down along it, through
the crowd, came a strange little lady, holding up her hand and a paper
in it. The folk opened way respectful-like, seein' by the better-most
air of her that she belonged to one of the gentry, and along she came
to the scaffold. 'Good mornin', ma'am, and what can I do for you?' says
the Sheriff, steppin' forward, with a lift of his hat. He held out a
hand for the paper; but the little lady turns to my father, and pipes
out in a little voice, very clear and sweet, '_Ho! and away for the
Islands!_' Glad enough was my father to hear the sound of it. '_Ho! and
away for the Islands!_' he answers, pat; and in two twinks he and the
little lady were off in the sky like a puff of smoke, and the crowd
left miles below. The next thing he knew he was sittin' on a rock, over
yonder in Inniscaw, by the mouth of Piper's Hole, and starin' at the
sea. So he picks himself together and walks up to North Inniscaw Farm
(as 'twas called in those days), and there he took service and married
and lived steady ever after. Leastways----"

"Leastways," said a voice at the gate, "he gave over drinking except
when his master ran a cargo of brandy, and he never gave his wife
trouble but once, when he took home a mermaid and made the good soul
jealous."

"Aunt Vazzy!" cried the children. "Why, how long have you been standin'
there?"

"Long enough to hear the end of the story, and how Jan's father came to
the Islands through Piper's Hole."

"But," Linnet objected, "Jan didn't say that his father came through
Piper's Hole; only that he found himself on the rocks in front of it.
They came through the air, he and the little lady, didn't they, Jan?"

Jan shook his head. "They started to come through the air," he answered
cautiously.

"Everybody knows that the fairies always pass to and fro through
Piper's Hole," said Annet, in a positive voice. "The mermaids, too. The
cave there goes right through Inniscaw and under the sea, and comes up
again in the mainland. Nobody living has ever gone that way; but Farmer
Santo had an uncle once that owned a sheep-dog that wandered into
Piper's Hole and was lost, and a month later it turned up on the
mainland with all its hair off."

"It do go in a terrible long way, to be sure," Jan admitted; "for I
made a trial of it myself, one time, at low water. First of all you
come to a pool, and, then, about fifty yards further, to another pool,
and into that I went plump, coming upon it sudden, in the darkness. I
swallowed a bellyful of it, too, and the water--if you'll believe
me--was quite fresh. I didn't try no further, because, in the first
place, the tide was rising, and because, when I pulled myself out, I
heard a sound on t'other side of the pool like as if some creature was
breathin' hard there in the darkness. It properly raised my hair, and I
turned tail."

"Fie, Jan! Ran away from a mermaid!" said Vashti, laughing. "You should
have brought her home and married her."

"I don't want to marry no woman with a tail like a fish, nor no woman
that makes thikky noise with her breathin'," maintained Jan. "That's to
say, if merrymaid it were, which I doubts. But you're wrong about my
father, Miss Vazzy. He see'd a merrymaid sure 'nough; but he never took
her home. No, he was too much of a gentleman, besides bein' afeard o'
my mother. If you want the story, he was down in Piper's Hole one day
warping ashore some few kegs of brandy that had been sunk thereabouts
by a Rosco trader. Mr. Pope's father, that was agent to th' old Duke,
used to employ my father regular on this business, knowing him for a
silent man, and one to be trusted; and my father had made a very pretty
catchet some way back-along in the cave, big enough to hold two score
of kegs, and well above reach of the sea-water. But, o' course, while
he was at this kind of work, Mr. Pope had to wink an eye now and then
if one o' the kegs leaked a bit. Well, my father had finished his job
that day in a sweatin' hurry, the tide bein' nearabouts on the top of
the flood, and at the end, all the kegs bein' stowed, he spiled one
'for the good of the house,' as he put it, and drew off a tot in a tin
panikin he kept handy. With this and his pipe he settled himself down
'pon a dry ledge and waited for the tide to run back.

"Out beyond the mouth of the hole he could see a patch of blue sky, and
the little waves under it glancin' in the sunshine; and belike the
dazzle of it, or else the tot of brandy, made him feel drowsy-like.
Anyhow, he woke up to see that the tide had run out a bravish lot,
leavin' the sands high and dry. But, as you know, there's a pool o'
water close inside the entrance, and what should my father see in the
pool but a woman's head and shoulders!

"She had raised herself out of the water with her hands restin' on a
slab of rock, and over the rock she stared at my father, like as if she
wanted help, and again like as if she felt too timid to ask. And when I
called her a woman I said wrong; for she was more like a child, and a
frightened one, with terrible pretty eyes, and her long hair shed down
over her shoulders, drippin' wet, and in colour between gold and
sea-green. 'Hullo!' said my father, 'and who might you be, makin' so
bold?' At the sound of his speech she gave a little scritch at first,
and bobbed down face-under, so that her hair lay afloat and spread
itself all over the water like sea-weed. My father walked up closer.
'Nonsense, my dear,' says he, in his coaxin' voice, 'there's nothin' to
be afeard of. I'm a respectable married man, and old enough to be your
father. So put up your face--come now!--and tell me all about it.'
After a bit she lifted her face, very pitiful, and says she in a small
voice, 'I was afeard you had been drinkin', sir.' 'A little--a very
little,' answers my father; 'we'll say no more about it.' 'And I was
afeard,' says she, 'you would want to carry me home and marry me
against my will!' 'Lord,' says my father, 'trust a woman for putting
notions into a man's head. No, no, my dear; I can get all the
temperance talk I want without committin' bigamy for it.' 'An' you
couldn' marry me,' says the merrymaid, with a kind o' sob, 'because I'm
married already, an' the mother of two as pretty children as ever you
wished to see. I can hear 'em callin' for me,' she said, 'down there,
beyond the bar,' and she went on to tell him (but the tale was all
mixed up with sobbin') how she and the children had been swimmin' along
shore that afternoon, and liftin' their heads above water to glimpse
the sea-pinks and catch a smell of the thyme on the cliffs; and how she
had left 'em to play while she swam into the cave to sit for a while
and comb out her pretty hair. But the tide had run back while she was
busy, and she couldn't crawl back to the sea over the bar, because on
dry sand all her strength left her. 'And if I wait for the flood,' she
said, 'my husband'll half murder me; for he's jealous as fire.'

"My father listened, and, sure enough, he seemed to hear the children's
voices callin' to her out beyond the water's edge. With that, bein'
always a tender-hearted man, he knelt down and lifted her out o' the
pool. Now, if he'd had more sense at the time he'd have struck a
bargain with her; for the merrymaids, they say, can tell where gold is
hidden, and charm a man against sickness, and make all his wishes come
true. But in the tenderness of his heart he thought 'pon none o' these
things. He just let her put her arms round his neck, and lifted her
over the sands, and waded out with her, till he stood three feet deep
in water in his sea-boots; and then she gave him a kiss and slid away
with a flip of her tail. 'Twas only when he stood staring that it
crossed his mind what a fool he had been and what a chance he had
missed. Then he remembered that she had dropped her comb by the edge of
the pool--he had heard it fall when he lifted her, and back he went to
search for it: for the sayin' is that with a merrymaid's comb you can
comb out your hair in handfuls of guineas. But all he found was a
broken bit of shark's jaw, and though he combed for half-an-hour and
wished for all kind o' good luck, not a farthin' could he fetch out."

"Is that all?" asked Matthew Henry, as Jan arose from the cart-shaft,
dusting the crumbs of bread from his breeches.

"It's enough, I should think," said Linnet, the sceptical, "seeing that
it's nothing but a story from beginning to end."

Vashti looked from one child to the other with a twinkle of fun. "We
will pay Piper's Hole a visit one of these days," she promised, "and
perhaps Linnet will see a real mermaid and be convinced."

"I don't care for mermaids," announced Matthew Henry. "It's the cave I
want to explore, to see if it really does lead through to the mainland.
And I won't be afraid, like Jan here, and run away from a little
noise."

"You wait till you get there before you boast," advised Linnet.

But Vashti's eyes, resting on the boy, grew tender of a sudden. "The
way through to the mainland?" she said, musingly. "Matthew Henry is
right. It all depends on the heart that tries it; but there is nothing
can do him harm if he keeps up his courage; and the end of the road is
worth all the journey, for a man."

"Why, Aunt Vazzy, you talk as if you had been there!" cried Annet.

"And so I have, my dear; there and back again."

The three children stared at her. "Aunt Vazzy is joking," said Linnet,
severely. Annet was not too sure, and her brow puckered with a frown as
she searched for the meaning beneath her aunt's words. But Matthew
Henry believed them literally.

"Then," he exclaimed joyfully, "it's all nonsense about Farmer Santo's
uncle's sheep-dog. For Aunt Vazzy has beautiful hair!"

CHAPTER XXIII

THE LORD PROPRIETOR HEARS A SIREN SING

_Sir,--In answer to your letter of the 19th ultimo, I am
directed by the Secretary of State for War to say that a
Commission, the composition of which is not finally determined,
will shortly be visiting the Islands, with a view to reporting
on the adaptability of their existing military works for Coast
Defence. Notice of the probable date of this visit shall be sent
to you, and the Commissioners will doubtless be glad to avail
themselves of any information you may be good enough to put at
their disposal. At the same time, there will be given an
opportunity of inquiring into the allegations contained in your
letter. The Commission will be presided over by Maj.-General Sir
Ommaney Ward, K.C.B., R.E., H.M. Director of Fortifications.--I
am, sir,_

_Your obedient servant,_

J. FLEETWOOD CUNNINGHAM.

Thrice a week--on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays--the steamer
arrived at St. Lide's Quay, bringing the mainland mail, and the Lord
Proprietor's post-bag usually reached him soon after luncheon. It
carried, as a rule, a bulky correspondence, and since the steamer
weighed anchor early next morning, the Lord Proprietor set aside the
early part of these three afternoons to letter-writing.

The passage had been smooth to-day, and the bag had been delivered to
him and opened as he took his solitary meal. Also the mail for the
great house was a light one, and out of it the Lord Proprietor,
catching sight of the official stamp on the envelope, had at once
selected the letter quoted above. He perused it, and re-perused it, to
the neglect of the rest of his correspondence, tilting it against a
bowl of Michaelmas daisies in front of his plate.

It was satisfactory, he decided--that is to say, on the whole, and so
far as it went. He foresaw that short shrift would be given to those
idlers on Garrison Hill. On the other hand, he frowned at the
prospect--call it the chance, rather--of seeing that establishment
replaced by one more efficient. To be sure, if the necessities of Coast
Defence demanded it.... Still, for his part, he would have preferred to
be let alone. The Islands, with their many outlying reefs and poor
anchorage could never afford room to such battleships as were built in
these days; and to erect new fortifications to cover a roadstead that
would seldom if ever be used appeared the plainest waste of public
money.... He really thought that the War Office might have consulted
him before coolly proposing to plant a new garrison above St. Lide's.
He was not even sure they had a right, without his consent.... He would
confer with Mr. Pope on this point. At the very least, it would have
been courteous to start by asking his opinion; for, after all, he owned
the Islands. He was responsible, too, for the general good conduct of
the population; good conduct which the advent of a body of soldiery
would certainly affect--nay, might entirely upset.

Nevertheless, he reflected that--however the Commissioners might decide
(and he would take care to press his opinion energetically)--his letter
to the Secretary of State for War had at least done no harm. The
Commissioner's visit had obviously been projected before the receipt of
it, and at the worst it would enable him to call quits with Vigoureux.

He reflected further that these roving Commissions to report were often
no index of Government policy, but were simply appointed to shelve,
while professing to consider a question which the Government found
awkward.

So, luncheon over, he sat down and wrote a letter thanking the
Secretary for his communication, and very politely offering to do all
in his power to make the Commissioners' visit "to these
out-of-the-world Islands" a pleasant one.

Having copied the letter and read it over with no little approval, the
Lord Proprietor dealt briefly with the rest of his correspondence;
consulted his pocket-diary, looked at his watch, and, finding that he
had an hour to spare before granting an interview to Eli Tregarthen,
stepped out upon the terrace, where Abe Jenkins was cutting back the
geraniums that had well-nigh ceased to flower.

"But is it necessary?" asked the Lord Proprietor. "Here, in the very
mouth of the Gulf Stream ... and last winter we escaped with nothing
worse than two degrees of frost."

"Last winter and this winter be two different things, sir," protested
Abe, gently but firmly. "Last winter, sir--as you may have taken
notice--we had next to no berries 'pon the holly; and no seals, nor yet
no mermaids."

"Seals? Mermaids?" Sir Caesar echoed.

"Which I've always heard it said, sir," Old Abe went on, with the air
of one carefully, even elaborately, deferring to superior ignorance,
"as how than seals you can have no surer sign of hard weather. Of
mermaids I says nothing, except that with such-like creatures about you
may count 'pon something out of the common."

"Since," said the Lord Proprietor, "there are no such things as
mermaids, we will confine ourselves to seals.... I had no idea that
seals--er--frequented our shores."

"No more they don't, unless summat extr'ord'ny has taken the weather.
But I've heard tell of a season when, for weeks together, you could
count up two or three score together baskin' on the beaches to the
north of the Island here. Sam Leggo can tell you all about it"--Abe
jerked a thumb in the direction of North Inniscaw Farm. "He and his
father used to hunt them, one time, along with Phil Cara of St. Hugh's.
You know where the old adit goes into the cliff under Carn Coppa? Well,
they tell me that if you follow the adit for fifty yards you come to a
kind of pit that breaks straight down and through the roof of a
cave--Ogo Vean, they call it--to the west of Piper's Hole, and this
cave fairly swarmed with seals. The three men would lower themselves by
rope-ladders--I reckon old Leggo had learnt the trick of it in by-gone
days when the Free-traders used the adit--and get down upon a strip of
firm shingle at the inner end of the cave; and there Sam Leggo would
hold the lantern while his father and Phil Cara blazed away. They never
shot more than a brace at a time, because of the difficulty of getting
the bodies up the ladder, for they had to be gone before high-water,
and likewise there was always a danger that the seals might charge 'em
in a herd, bein' angered by the loss of their mates. In this way they
pretty well cleared out the cave--all but one great beauty that old
Leggo had sworn to take alive. For, instead of bein' yellow or
motley-brown like the rest, this fellow was white as milk all over,
besides bein' powerful as any other two. He seemed to know from the
first that the three men didn't mean to shoot him. The lanterns and the
firing never hurried him a bit, and he never threw himself into a rage
over the loss of his relations. He just kept out of reach, looking like
as if he despised the whole business, and refused to quit. He was
cautious, too; wouldn't trust the cave in weather when a boat could
follow him and block up the entrance. On fine nights he had a favourite
rock just outside Ogo Vean--you can see it from the top of the
cliff--and there he'd lie asleep and dare 'em; out of reach, but plain
enough to see, even in the dark, because of his white skin.

"Now, as you may have taken notice, sir, the tide runs out dry to this
rock on the inshore side; but seaward it goes down, even at low
springs, into more'n three fathoms of water, and my gentleman always
took his forty winks on the seaward slope. Half-a-dozen times did Phil
Cara, thinkin' to catch him----"

"I beg your pardon," interrupted Sir Caesar, "'Cara,' did you say?"

"Yes, sir; Philip Cara, father to Eli Tregarthen's wife over to Saaron;
and likewise, o' course, to Eli Tregarthen's wife's sister, that is
lodging at Saaron Farm, having come home from service a while back."

"Eh? From service?" the Lord Proprietor echoed, with quickened
interest. "What sort of service?"

"Why, as to that, sir, I can't say that I can tell you for certain; but
it's somewheres on the mainland, and the young woman seems a very
respectable young woman. But whether she means to bide wi' the family
or has come to lodge while lookin' out for another place, I can't
certainly say--the Tregarthens bein' a close-tongued lot, as you know."

"A lady's-maid?" hazarded the Lord Proprietor.

"May be. Well, as I was tellin' you, half-a-dozen times did Phil Cara,
bidin' his time till the tide was low and the sand hard----"

"But it's impossible," said the Lord Proprietor, pursuing his own train
of thought.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20