LIST
HANNO
SILVIS
THE PENNSYLVANIA
STATE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES
1055



YOXMANIA DAN





NEWS FROM THE DUCHY





All rights reserved
News from the
Duchy
By Sir ARTHUR
QUILLER-COUCH

BRISTOL
J. W. ARROWSMITH LTD., QUAY STREET
LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, Kent & COMPANY LIMITED
1913





To
MY FRIEND
AUSTIN M. PURVES
OF
PHILADELPHIA
AND
TROY TOWN





CONTENTS
PART I
Page
TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
II
.
IOI
PIPES IN ARCADY.
OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN
.
117
PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS
125
THE MONT-BAZILLAC
143
THE THREE NECKLACES
157
THE WREN
173
181
.
.
.
199
NOT HERE, O APOLLO!
FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM
THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIÈRE
THE CASK ASHORE
211
231
251
PART II
PRIAM'S CELLARS
287
ON A MARBLE STAIR
309
THE ELECTION COUNT .
325
THE MERRY-GO-ROUND AT TROY
.
347
A YACHTING ADVENTURE
.
.
355
THE DIVE OF THE GANNET
63
IF?
369
vii





PART 1





Tom
Tiddler's Ground
PROLOGUE
THE LADY OF THE ISLES
“Here lies a most beautiful lady,
Light of heart and step was she ;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Countrie.
But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,
However rare, rare it be,
And when I crumble who shall remember
That lady of the West Countrie ?
WALTER DE LA MARE.
SHOULD you ask who brought prosperity to the
Islands-or brought it back after long years of
estrangement-nine Islanders out of ten would have
answered The Mistress;
The Mistress ; ' meaning the sad and
beautiful lady who dwelt at Iniscaw, and now sang
to herself, after having sung in capital cities to great
audiences, with kings and queens eager to listen.
In addition to her beauty and her voice (which in
itself was a miracle) God had given her courage, so
that she kept her light step; but she had lost her
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
lightness of heart ever since she had found love too
late, and discovered about the same time that her
voice was passing with her beauty.
She was Lady Proprietress of the Islands, holding
them on a lease from Queen Victoria. • All those
Her Majesty's territories and rocks,' so the legal
wording ran, ‘together with all sounds, harbours
and sands within the circuit of the said Isles, and all
lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, grounds,
feedings, fishings, mines of tin, lead and coals, and all
profits of the same '-But there were no such mines,
by the way, and by consequence no such profits-
' and all marshes, void grounds, woods, underwoods,
rents, reversions, services and all other profits,
rights, commodities, advantages and emoluments
within the said Isles; and a moiety of all shipwreck,
the other moiety to be received by the Lords
Commissioners of Admiralty.'
Her predecessor, being a man, had also been sole
justiciary, with full power to hear, examine and finally
determine all plaints, suits, matters, actions and
demands whatever, moved and depending between
partyand party inhabiting the same Isles—all heresies
and treasons excepted-with all controversies or
causes touching life or member of man, title of land,
or ships or other things belonging to the High
Court of Admiralty. She, as a woman, assigned the
Commission of the Queen's Peace into the hands of
three Magistrates, with a solitary policeman to help
them; but, for the rest, within the small realm she
12


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
was sovereign more absolute than Queen Victoria,
who ruled somewhere on “ the Main ”-a vaguely
realised land, thirty miles away, discernible on clear
mornings as a cloud upon the sea.
For the Islands, ridged with reefs and dotted with
sentinel lighthouses, lie off the west coast of
England, well out in the Atlantic, in the mouth of
the warm Gulf Stream. Six are inhabited, and
contain between them less than three thousand acres
suitable for grazing or tillage ; the rest, eighteen or
twenty in number, are mere islets, rocky and barren,
on which the seabirds breed.
The rock is granitic, the soil light and friable,
without width or depth for serious husbandry;
and a hundred years ago the inhabitants sub-
sisted almost wholly by fishing and by burning
down the seaweed for ‘kelp,' which went to
Bristol to the making of glass and soap.
Times
had bettered when the increase of our sea-borne
trade brought work to the pilots on St. Ann's,
the southernmost island, and every long spell of
easterly wind might be counted on to crowd the
roadstead with vessels' waiting for orders.' About
that time, too, the farmers on St. Lide's (the largest
island), Iniscaw, Brefar and Saaron had taken to
growing early potatoes for the English market,
planting them in shallow rows with a bare covering
of soil—the Islands know no frost--and harvesting
them a month ahead of growers on the Main.
During her girlhood—for the Lady was native to
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
her realm—these operations had been in full swing,
and she could remember the boats arriving in April
with gangs of diggers hired over from England to
save the crops, which in prosperous years would
touch a thousand tons. But to get the freight
across to the Main and by rail to London cost forty-
five shillings a ton; and when Malta, Algiers, and
the Canaries started to compete at sea-borne rates
of thirty shillings or thereabouts, the Islanders'
profit diminished, until a crop scarcely paid for saving.
This happened just as steam started in earnest to
sweep the old sailing vessels off the face of the waters,
and the island pilots, scarcely realising their doom,
would lie off for days and nights together before they
fell in with a tall ship to signal them.
In brief,
the Islands had fallen back into hard poverty when
the Lady returned to them to take up her possessions.
Now though she lived remote from the daily life
of her people, and in those early days was known to
them for the most part as a voice singing wonderful
songs to herself in her charmed garden amid the
tide races, the Lady was in fact a shrewd woman of
business. She had noted, on her visits to London,
that Londoners, as they grew prosperous, were
growing ever fonder of flowers; that not only did
the great houses, the hotels, the restaurants require
flowers for their dinner tables, but even the poor
clerk pinched his pocket for a bunch to carry home.
One June morning, at the fag-end of a masked ball
at Covent Garden, she had spent a couple of hours
14


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
in the flower-market, wandering in the early daylight
from stall to stall as the carts rumbled in and the
auction assembled; and the buyers and sellers had
wondered at the businesslike questions this exquisite
visitant in Watteau gown and satin shoes put to
them concerning prices, freights, discounts, demand
and supply.
She learned from them that the market was hun-
griest in early spring, between the New Year and
Lent, when open-air flowers were few or none. She
recalled the sweet narcissi that, home in the Islands,
bloomed in late February and early March; not
only the common Lent-lily, but tazettas - Island
Whites' or 'Holy-vales'-beneath the apple trees at
Holy Vale Farm on St. Lide's; 'Grand Monarque's’
within the tumble-down walls of the Fort on
Garrison Hill; ‘Island Whites' again, intermixed
with 'Solidors' (Soleils d'or), in the meadow below
her own Abbey House on Iniscaw, fringing the shores
of the freshwater lake that had served the old monks
for fish-pond. On her return to the Islands she had
dropped a hint to Farmer Banford of Holy Vale
that here, maybe, was a trade worth starting.
“ What!” said he. In they old things ?
“Ah," she replied, “ because flowers are beautiful
you think it womanish even to consider them!”
Beauty doesn't pay." Farmer Banford shook
his head.
“You are wrong, my friend," she assured him, with
one of her puzzling smiles. “ And, what is more,
15


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
when Mr. Shillabear in Covent Garden lifted the lid
of that fateful box. As the farmer's luck spread
with his story, and the whole archipelago turned to
bulb-growing, all praised the Mistress, her woman's
wit and her foresight.
Doubtless she deserved their praises. Yet the
gods sometimes hide the secret of a gift, and hide it
under the obvious. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere
causas.
It was at least curious that the coming of prosperity
should coincide with the coming of the child, John
Smith, to the Islands.
17


CHAPTER I
JAN
“Then round went the good ship
And thrice she went round;
When up there stood a guardsman,
A naked man and brown,-
Says, ' You are the Queen of Carthage
And gey young to drown;
But hold you my girdle
That goeth me around,
And we 'll swim to yon Island
As I will be bound
' Man, your girdle it is breaking !'
Nay, 'tis strong yet and sound ;
'Twas my heart you felt a-breaking,
But here is dry ground.'
“ With the white sand she cover'd him,
Her wet hair she wound;
Deo-gracey,' said Zenobia,
"That I am not drown'd!'"
Ballad of Queen Zenobia.
THE mail-boat that brought back a letter for Farmer
Banford, and in the letter a postal order, arrived in
St. Lide's Pool three hours behind her time, having
fought the last twelve miles of her passage against
a westerly gale. The gale increased at nightfall,
and between midnight and two in the morning blew
a hurricane.
18


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
Soon after daybreak, in the midst of her dressing,
word reached the Lady that a vessel was ashore on
the west side of St. Ann's, and fast breaking up.
The message came from the coastguard on St. Lide's
across the private cable laid for her between that
Island and Iniscaw.
On these occasions she was always prompt, yet
not recklessly, being in fact knowledgeable of wind
and water as any of her boatmen. She gazed south-
ward from her window, and decided that by the time
her launch could be put under steam and worked
down to the open sound, the wind-which had
northered-would have allayed the seas running
there, and the traject would be made with little
risk.
Nevertheless the small craft had shipped some
bucketfuls, and her fires had more than once been
in danger, before she weathered the Smith Rocks,
that lie off the north-west angle of St. Ann's, and
sheered down like a flying fish into smoother waters.
The Lady steered, her sea-cloak and blown hair
drenched with spray.
“ Where was the wreck ? She hailed a pilot-
cutter that was moving dead slow off the islets with
mainsail reefed and foresheet to windward. The
pilot called back through a megaphone that she
had gone down somewhere under their keel and they
were creeping about for wreckage. The crew of the
coastguard gig, searching closer inshore to the
southward, reported the missing vessel to be a
19


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
barque--an Italian, as they believed—name un-
known.
"Anyone saved ? "
They shook their heads.
“ Lost-all hands !" came the answer.
There would be flotsam, no doubt, close under
the cliffs - a lifebelt, maybe, or some fragment of
a boat bearing the vessel's name; but in the sea yet
running the rocks could not be approached. The
Lady gave orders to slow down and join in the search.
By this the northerly wind had dispersed the storm-
wrack, and as they worked southward and opened
Prillis Cove the sun shone through. A small crowd
of Islanders—men and women-had gathered on
the beach at the head of the cove, and the Lady
steered in, if haply they might have news.
They had none. But, while she parleyed with
them, over the high ground a woman came running
against the wind, waving her arms and pointing
southward. The launch was backed, turned, set
going again on her way.
Beyond the next point lay another beach of clean
white sand, on the upper part of which the cliffs cast
their morning shadow; and there, a little outside the
edge of the shadow, between it and the running
dazzle of the waves, stood a group of three figures
stooping over a fourth. The Lady at first sight of
them gave a start, made sign to one of her men near
by in the sternsheets, and yielding over the helm to
him as he reached out a hand, drew her field-glass
20


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
from the case slung at her hip, sighted it, and focussed
it on the group.
"Set me ashore,” she said quietly, fifteen seconds
later, lowering the glass. Her face was white 'to
the lips; but the crew did not observe this, so
steadily she controlled her voice.
They ran the launch in under the lee of the
northerly cliff (where was least run in the waves),
and grounded her on the steep-to beach. Two of
them leapt out over the bows, and would have made
a cradle of their hands to carry their mistress dry-
shod over the knee-deep water, but she sprang after
them and waded ashore, declining help.
An elderly man-a gentleman by his bearing-
came down to the beach to meet her. He wore
a brown garment, in length and shape somewhat
like the soutane of a Roman Catholic priest. He
saluted her gravely, respectfully, then lowered his
eyes.
“ Is he dead?" she asked, her gaze travelling past
him to the body beside which his companions-
elderly men likewise, the pair of them dressed in
ragged blue regimentals—were kneeling as they
attempted to restore animation. They had turned it
on its right side and were rubbing the naked body
briskly, the one at work at the back beneath the
shoulder-blade, the other on the legs from calf to
ankle ; for it lay with no clothing but trousers of
dark sea-cloth, rolled tight and tied above the
knees.
21


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Dr. Hervey, the man in the soutane, answered
with a gesture that might equally well have meant
' Yes” or “No."
“How did it happen?"
He cast a hesitating glance at her. Perhaps he
was wondering—as she herself wondered-at the
strange composure of her voice.
“The Commandant and I were smoking a late
pipe together when the rocket went up. He called
out the two sergeants here, and in twenty minutes
we four were pulling out in the garrison boat, close
in the wake of the coastguard. But their gig is
a new one and speedy, whereas ours, as you know-
and moreover we were none of us young men. We
soon lost sight of them in the darkness, and then,
coming to open water and finding that she could not
live in it, the Commandant gave orders to shape
down for the back of the Island. We fetched the
lee of it just before the gale worsened, beached the
boat in Menadhu Cove, and started to tramp across
land. The wind by this time was incredible. On
the high ground we had to make short rushes against
it, drop on hands and knees, catch breath and make
another rush. It took us till close upon daylight
to cross to St. Ann's Down. Then the wind flew
almost without warning, and the rest was easy.
We came to Chapel Point as the day broke. There
was no sign of a ship; but about half a mile from
shore the Commandant spied a man swimming, and
pointed him out to us. The man was a negro, and
22


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
he swam superbly. We watched him, taking turns
with the Commandant's glass. He was black as
coal, and strapped high on his shoulders—almost
on the nape of the neck-he carried a small
white bundle. He swam with his head, too, not
straight for shore, but letting the tide carry
him-only, of course, he could not know of the
eddy race that had begun to set, closer inshore. He
met it, and after a minute we could see that he was
tiring. He made no headway at all, and this within
five hundred yards of shore. The Commandant
could not stand the sight of it, but stripped, for all
we could do to prevent him, and swam out to help.
The black man, when he reached him, would take
no help, but passed over the bundle and swam in
the Commandant's wake, maybe for half a minute.
The heart had gone out of his strokes though, and
presently he went out of sight without so much as
a cry. At all events the Commandant could have
heard none, for he swam on some way before looking
back. I was watching all the while through the glass.
When he looked and the man had disappeared, he
seemed to tread water for a while and to search
about, but gave it up and headed for shore again,
swimming sideways with one arm and holding the
bundle against his right shoulder. He brought it
ashore just in that way, not once shifting his hold.”
But I do not understand. He is drowned, you
say-
“ I do not say it. We ran down to the shoal water
23


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
to meet him, and as he found footing he dropped
forward into my arms; or rather, he thrust the
bundle on me and fell, right there on the water's
edge.”
"The bundle ?"
Dr. Hervey turned and pointed. Some twenty
yards up the beach lay a white object which she
had taken for the dead man's shirt, tossed there as
they had stripped it from him. Why did she walk
towards it now and not first towards the body ?
Why, instead of going straight to the body, had
she stood inert, letting the tale fall on her ears half
apprehended ? She had been swift and resolute
enough until the moment when her feet felt the
shore. Already three of her crew were gathered
beside the two old sergeants, gazing soberly down
upon the dead, offering suggestions which — too
well she knew-were vain. Her presence, likewise,
would be vain, yet surely she should have been
there.
For-after one girlish passion outlasted and almost
forgotten-this man, some years ago, had become
the chief man in the world for her; the truest, the
most honourable, as she knew in her heart that she
had been the sovereign and only woman for him.
Disparity of years, his poverty, his pride, had set
the barrier, and she had never found courage to cast
away shame and break it down. For years they
had been able to meet and talk with an undisturbed
courtesy.
24


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
the white-washed empty barracks on the summit
of the hill. The other Sergeant-Treacher--was
a married man. He and his wife inhabited the Star
Castle, and with them lived the boy whom everyone
knew as Jan.
Pending discovery of his true name, the Lady
had christened him John Smith-Smith from the
name of the rocks on which the vessel had split,
and John because nothing could be more ordinary.
For the rest she seemed to have taken a scunner (as
the Scots say) at the helpless babe-an aversion not
unmixed with a nameless fear. But something had
to be done for him. There is no workhouse on the
Islands; the rule that makes the aged, the infirm,
the helpless a sacred charge upon their own kindred
works well enough in a community so small that
everybody is more or less nearly related to every-
body else, and tradition has ordered that all ship-
wrecked persons must be treated with a like beautiful
hospitality. So, as Treacher had been present at
the finding of the child, and Mrs. Treacher was
a comfortable woman who had reared children, to
the Treachers little Jan was assigned by the Lady,
whose word none disputed.
To be sure, his was a singular case. The ordinary
outcast from the sea abides but a short time on the
Islands, and in due course is returned to home and
friends. But to any home, any friends—any origin,
in short-of " John Smith " no clue could be
discovered. The vessel proved to be an Italian
27


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
barque, the Fior dell' Onda, Glasgow built, and
formerly—under the name of Lochroyan-owned
by a company of Glasgow merchants in whose
service she had made half a dozen passages round the
Horn. A Genoese firm had purchased and re-named
her, and her last port of sailing had been Genoa,
whence she was bound in ballast for Fowey, there
to load a cargo of china clay. So much the Lady
discovered through her agents and through Lloyd's,
but the Genoese owners could tell her nothing con-
cerning the child. To their knowledge there had
been no woman on board the Fior dell' Onda either
on this or her previous voyage (Genoa to Famagusta,
port of Cyprus, and back).
So Jan lived with the Treachers until his eighth
year, sleeping in an attic of the Star Castle, learning
his letters in the elementary school down in Garland
Town, and picking up a little Latin from Dr. Hervey,
who had taken a fancy to the child and a whim to
teach him.
His best opportunity for this came with the
spring holidays, when the schools on the Islands were
closed for a month, that the children might earn
money during the daffodil harvest, the boys by
picking flowers, the girls by tying them. Threepence
a hundred bunches is the rate, and it is estimated
that during these busy weeks no less than a million
and a half of flowers are picked on the Islands every
day.
But no one hired Jan. He was a solitary, shy boy,
28


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
and perhaps people forgot him; or perhaps the
Treachers, with their pension and their military post
and their dignity as care-keepers of the Star Castle
in Her Majesty's name, looked upon the new industry
with contempt. Consequently Jan found these
weeks the loneliest in the year, and on this spring
morning was half minded to rebel, having a craze
for flowers.
But Dr. Hervey had come to remind him of his
Latin lesson. The weather being so fine, they
decided to take it out of doors, on a rock a little
below the flagstaff-Jan's favourite perch; and
there on the slope at their feet they found Sergeant
Archelaus busy with his turf-cutting tool.
“Hullo," nodded Sergeant Archelaus. Come to
talk your Latin ? Well, here's a piece of Latin
for ye?” He spelled out the word letter by letter,
“ U-b-i-q-u-e. Now what does that mean?'
Everywhere," said the boy promptly. He was
still in his declensions, but it seemed to him that he
had known the word all his life; and yet he could
not remember that he had ever inquired or been told
its meaning.
“ Did I tell you that ? " asked Dr. Hervey.
“No-0."
Jan felt confused. He could not explain—for it
seemed silly—that things were always happening to
him in this way.
Everywhere it is,” said Sergeant Archelaus.
“ 'Tis the word o' the R’yal Artillery, and their
29


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
place is the right o' the line. What's Waterloo to
your Everywhere ?
I remember the Com-
mandant carving out these very letters. When he'd
finished he looks up and says, wi' that smile o' his,
Everywhere, Archelaus—and we two be here, of
all places!”
Dr. Hervey muttered some words in a foreign
tongue.
“ What you say, sir, is always worth listenin' to,
but this time I didn't catch," said Sergeant Archelaus,
leaning on his turf-cutter.
“I can accept the compliment for once, Archelaus,
since it happens that I was quoting an old Greek,
who said that of illustrious men the whole earth
is a sepulchre.'
* The Commandant was never illustrious, sir, as
you put it.”
“Remarkable, then."
No, nor remarkable. An' didn't want to be. He
was just an officer and a gentleman, straight as a die
and modest as a maid, and we didn't wish for a better."
Dr. Hervey filled his pipe gravely. Dr. Hervey's
degree, by the way, had nothing to do with medicine.
There are men who seek out-of-the-way spots, such
as the Islands, to hide their broken lives, and Dr.
Hervey was one. He had been a Professor of
Theology at a great Catholic University, noted there
for his learning and his caustic tongue. His out-
spokenness had made him enemies, and these (not
without excuse) had arraigned a book of his, accusing
30


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
it of Modernism.” It had ended since he was
obstinate and would neither explain nor retract-
in his being expelled from his chair and laid under
excommunication. The expulsion would have done
him no irremediable harm, since he possessed a com-
petence, and moreover had made a name to command
attention for whatever he chose to write. But the
excommunication crushed him; for, like many a
brusque man, he was sensitive, and like many a
fatally driven inquirer, he had a deeper love of the
Church and sense of her majesty than have ninety-
nine in a hundred who pay her the service of lip and
knee. He and his God alone knew what a comfort
during the first bitterness of exile it had been to
associate with the Commandant, so simple a gentle-
man, if withal somewhat slow-witted, a holy and
humble man of heart, so true at the root, so patient
of his own disappointed life, so helpful of other men.
“ You didn't wish for a better while you had the
best,” said Dr. Hervey, lighting his pipe very
deliberately.
Jan watched the puffs of tobacco smoke. He owed
his life to the man they were discussing, and he could
only suppose that they must owe him a grudge for
it in return. Sergeant Archelaus, indeed—whose
temper did not improve with age—had more than
once hinted that, though doubtless Providence had
ordained this exchange of two lives, he for his part
could not approve it.
“I don't want to speak irreverent, sir, but seemin'
31


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
to me th' Almighty must get a twinge, lookin' down
'pon this plat o turf. Everywhere-Look ye, here
the good gentleman carves it out, accusin' nobody,
writin' down no more 'n his deserts; and him to
spend his life in this God-forsaken hole which is
next to Nowhere, and end by losin' it for a child
from Nowhere at all.”
“ That is no way to talk,” said Dr. Hervey sternly,
after a glance at the boy, who, gazing out over the
sea, seemed not to hear.
“A man must speak his thoughts, Doctor."
“It depends how and when he speaks 'em.” If
Dr. Hervey, in his own career, had always re-
membered this!" But what does Everywhere mean
to the best of us finite men ? Your John Wesley said,
All the world is my parish,' and a man as wise might
answer, ' Then my parish is all the world.'
“Good mornin', all !” interrupted a voice.
The new-comer was P.C. Epaminondas Ward
(locally 'Paminondas), sole policeman of the Islands,
sexton, too, of St. Lide's, town-crier, bill-poster and
public official in general of Garland Town. “Good
mornin', sir !” He touched his helmet to Dr. Hervey.
“ You 'll excuse my breakin' in on your talk ?”
Certainly."
It 's a thing I hate to do. There's nothing like
a good talk, and a man gets so few opportunities in
the Force." Constable 'Paminondas was notoriously
the first gossip in Garland Town. “But what might
you ha' been discussin', making so bold ? "
)
32


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
r In
Nothing against Her Majesty's peace, Constable,
I assure you,” answered Dr. Hervey gravely.
point of fact, we were exercised over the difference
between Everywhere and Nowhere, and I was trying
to persuade Sergeant Archelaus that here' is
everywhere' to a sensible man.'
That's true enough if you take ME," agreed
'Paminondas, adding modestly, “ But perhaps you 'll
say that I'm an exception ?
Dr. Hervey muttered something polite.
"I'm a thoughtful man, as by nature, sir," went
on the Constable, “and you 'd be astonished what
thoughts occur to me by night, when I goes poking
around and all the rest o' the world laid asleep.
Für instance, I climb to the top o' the hill here, and
'tis midnight as you might say, in a manner of
speakin'. Midnight it is, and all around the Islands
the great sea-lights shinin'-fixed white low down
on the Monk, white revolvin' on St. Ann's, North
Island winkin' like a great red eye, white flashes
from the Stones, red-white-red-white from the
Wolf, not to mention the Longships an' the south-
east sky runnin' in flickers from the Lizard, like men
shaking a double whip. “There you go, all of ye,'
I tells myself, 'warning mankind that here be the
Islands. And what be the Islands,' says I, ' at the
moment to all intents an' purposes but ME,' Pami-
nondas Ward, with a bull's-eye at my navvle more
?'"
There, Archelaus !” Dr. Hervey turned in
or less-
8
33


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
looked up.
triumph: but Sergeant Archelaus, after first spitting
wide, had resumed his turf-trimming.
“Now, maybe you 're wondering what brings me
here ? " suggested the Constable. Meeting with no
response, he continued, Well, I don't mind telling
you. It concerns the boy John Smith, in the form of
a letter from her Ladyship. Her Ladyship sends word
that Young Matthey Hender, on Brefar, wants an extry
hand this fine season for the daffodil pickin', and John
Smith is to go. I've just informed the Treachers.”
" Ho ?” Sergeant Archelaus paused again and
What did Treacher say ? ”
“He made a communication to me began
'Paminondas in his best Petty Sessions manner.
“D-d your eyes, I shouldn'wonder ? "
It should be mentioned here that the attitude of
the garrison towards the civil government was
traditionally hostile.
“In a general way,” said Constable 'Paminondas
magnanimously, “a man may dn my eyes or
he may not, as the case may be, and I takes it from
whence it comes. The Force, in a manner of speakin',
is accustomed to such misrepresentation, and imper-
vious, if I make myself clear. But as touching her
Ladyship's order Treacher saw 'twas no use kickin'
against the pricks, an' behaved himself conformably,
as you might put it in toto. Which the upshot is,
as between you and me, that John Smith is to be
sailed over to Brefar to-morrow afternoon at
4 p.m., and start pickin' daffodils."
34


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
"Well, lad, that puts an end to Latin for a time,'
said Dr. Hervey, stopping down the tobacco in his
pipe with a useful forefinger.
The boy did not answer; could not for the moment
return his look. It would have been ungrateful to
confess the truth, that he longed to escape and take
his place among the children as one of them. Here,
on St. Lide's, he mingled with the children in school,
but always as one set mysteriously apart. He
adored the sight of them, but could make no friends;
and the mere fact that he adored and saw them as so
many bright angels playing leap-frog or marbles in
the streets was proof that he could never be one of
them. As counted by years their ages and his might
be the same; in fact he saw them through older,
different eyes, yet yearned all the while to join them.
In Brefar, picking daffodils, there might be children
to understand him better. Brefar, at all events, lay
clear out towards the circumference of the circle
hemming him in.
The Star Castle, where he lodged with the
Treachers, was a queer little octagonal building, set
close within a circumvallation shaped like an eight-
pointed star. A platform, seven feet high, ran round
the interior of this circumvallation at about half its
height of sixteen feet, and since the dwelling-house,
twenty-one feet in height, was separated all round
from the platform by a miserable fosse no more than
four feet wide, it follows that the lower rooms lay
in perpetual gloom, and only the attic chambers
35


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
peeped over the battlements across the sea. Still,
and although its eaves were low, from his bedroom
window the boy could watch the great sea lights
flashing or occulting-protecting, enclosing him in a
magic circle he longed to pierce. He had come from
Nowhere, and Nowhere lay somewhere beyond.
He had a few very vague notions about God. The
teacher down at the school said something about
God every morning before marking the register,
and the children regularly sang a hymn.
On the whole he felt pretty safe about God.
But “ O God, who am I?” was the child's last
thought before he dropped off in a healthy sleep.
Towards dawn he stirred in a dream uncomfortably,
raised himself on an elbow, turned his pillow, damp
with tears, and snuggled down to sleep again.
36


CHAPTER III
3
CHY - A N-CHY
FARM
It was a voyage of delight; better-yes, far better
than all his expectations.
Sergeant Treacher, though of late years he seldom
went on the sea, could handle a boat-as the Islanders
allowed—“ tidy well for a soldier-man,” having been
the Commandant's mate on many a fishing ex-
pedition. He knew all the rocks and shoals, which
everywhere among the Islands crop up in the
most unexpected places.
The boat sped along, close hauled to a brisk nor'-
westerly breeze, across the roadstead, past the length
of Saaron Island, and through the entrance of
Cromwell's Sound, between Iniscaw and Brefar.
Jan, perched up to windward on an old military
chest which contained his few shirts and change of
clothes (it bore the inscription “ R.A. 1959B, Depot
19. Return to Store,” in white letters upon lead
colour), drank in pure joy with the rush of air on
his face.
At the mouth of the Sound the wind fell light and
headed them for a minute or two. The sail shook this
side and that, and he had to duck his dead to avoid
the boom.
37


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Slip over to leeward here ” said the Sergeant as
the boat lost way. “Peek your head over-side, an'
maybe I 'll show ye something."
Jan obeyed, and peeping over, was surprised to
see a rocky ledge close below him. The weed on it
floated within a foot or so of the surface.
“Now, watch !" commanded the Sergeant.
Picking up a boat-hook, he jabbed the point of it
smartly down amidst the weed. At once a long
dark form shot out, darted away with quick gliding
motion and was lost, Jan could not tell whither.
See anything?"
“I-I saw a snake."
Sergeant Treacher chuckled.
"Snake,' says the child. “What do you know
about snakes ? "
Nothing," Jan had to confess. He had never
to his knowledge seen one before, or even the picture
of one, for there were no picture books in the Star
Castle. Yet he felt sure that this had been a snake.
Snake !' That 's a good 'un, too ! ” chuckled
Sergeant Treacher again, and fell silent, being a
taciturn man by habit.
Jan liſted his head to ask, “What was the animal
if not a snake ? Couldn't snakes live in the sea ?”
when his eye ; fell on a vision which hitherto the
boat's sail had concealed from him; the beautiful
shore of Iniscaw, with the Abbey towers rising over
mass of rhododendrons, and backed by tall spires
of evergreen trees; and below the Abbey an inland
66
38


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
lake where a whole herd of fawn-coloured cattle
stood knee-deep, some gazing at the boat, others
dipping their black muzzles to drink.
He had passed into Wonderland, and the spell was
still on him as they sailed up by Brefar shore, close
under whole fields of daffodils, golden in the Island's
shadow-small fields fenced around with dwarf
hedges of escallonia and veronica. But the flowers
had leapt these fences, it would seem; for colonies of
them straggled along the edge of the cliffs and poured
down to the very beaches—these being bulbs dis-
carded by the farmers at sorting time and 'heaved
to cliff' to take their own chances.
They brought the boat ashore upon a beach
where Farmer Hender—' Young Matthey'-stood
awaiting them. He had a grave, not unkindly face,
and was clad in earth-stained blue ; but what im-
pressed the child most was his hat-a top hat of
rusty black silk, extraordinarily high in the crown.
Later Jan learned that this hat passed from father
to son, and was worn as a crown of authority by the
reigning head of Chy-an-Chy Farm.
The farmer took charge of Jan, and shouldering
his box-for, as he explained, to-morrow was
steamer day,' and no hands could be spared from
the flower-picking-led the way up a shelving coombe
to the farmstead, a grey building or cluster of buildings
fenced with tamarisks, and set about with numerous
glass-houses. The windows of these houses were
banked high with flowers, but over this screen Jan, as
39


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
he passed, caught sight of a number of girls at work,
bunching and tying the blooms. The door of the
house-porch stood wide, and he followed the farmer
straight into the kitchen, where Mrs. Hender and a
short middle-aged servant were engaged in setting
out tea for the workers.
The kitchen was large, and had an immense
open fireplace, with kettles hanging upon long
hooks, and crocks mounted on brandises. A table,
twenty feet or so in length, stood close against
the long window-seat. From a bacon-rack fixed
under the beams of the ceiling hung hams and
sides of bacon wrapped in dry bracken and paper,
with strings and bags of parched herbs—horehound,
elder, mugwort,-specifics against various family
ailments. The chimney-piece was flanked on the
right by a dresser, on the left by a dark settle ; and
on the settle sat two very old men and an old woman,
who regarded the boy-all three-with scarce so
much movement as the blink of an eyelid, save that
the old woman's head nodded quickly, regularly, as
though by clockwork. These old people gave him
a scare, and for a while he found it hard to believe
them alive.
The middle-aged servant—who had a large, good-
natured face, and in shape resembled a full sack
tied tightly about the middle-came bustling forward
and offered to lend the 'maister' a hand to carry
the box upstairs.
" Aye, do," said the mistress.“ If it takes ye
40


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
away from breakin' cream-jugs, it 'll be time well
spent. ... Mary Martha broke another cream-jug
only five minutes ago, if you 'll believe me.”
That's true," sighed Mary Martha, still broadly
beaming. “I do seem to be very unfortunate in
cream-jugs."
“Not to mention the four cups an’ saucers you
scat to atoms on their way to the Wesleyan
tea.”
“I am very unfortunate in cups an' saucers,"
wailed Mary Martha.
"Nor the cream-pan, last Wednesday week.”
“Oh, don't mention it, missis! I can't bear
no more!”
And now," persisted Mrs. Hender, addressing
Jan, “it 's candlesticks. Last Sunday a china one
-one of a pair that I bought at Penzance, and the
dealer said they were exact copies of the pillars in
Solomon's Temple; an' I mended that. But what
was the use ? Yesterday she lets fall the fellow to
'en-
“I do seem to be very unfortunate in candle-
sticks.” Mary Martha's tone of despair and her
jolly smile together fairly upset the boy.
"And in 'most everything else,” snapped Mrs.
Hender.
“You wouldn'think,” she said next minute, as
Jan's box went bumping up the stairs, Mary Martha
knocking her end of it against the balusters, the wall,
the edges of the treads,—"you'd never think that
41


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
woman had put up a twenty-pound tombstone over
her late husband-now would you ? "
It did seem astonishing; and so Jan agreed, still
with a nervous glance at the old folks on the settle,
whose faces continued impassive, as though they
neither heard nor saw.
Five minutes later the work-people from the glass-
houses came trooping into tea. They crowded
round the long table and upon forms by the hearth,
where the men sat with mugs balanced on one
knee and on the other a thick slice of bread and
butter or a hunk of saffron cake. Jan tried to
count. The company numbered thirty-six or thirty-
seven ; he could not be sure, for he had been told to
squeeze himself among the young people on the
window - seat, and their chatter made counting
difficult.
On his right sat a child of about his own age, who
told him that her name was Annet, and that she
had two sisters and a brother. She pointed them
out. The sisters were called Linnet and Bennet ;
the brother she explained “just had to be Mark.”
Jan asked why; for a study of the boy's face,
which was dark of complexion and somewhat heavy,
gave him no clue. Annet indicated the old people,
who had been led forward from the settle and placed
at the head of the board, where they sat chewing
slowly like ruminant animals. That's great-gran’-
father Matthey ; he's Old Matthey, and ninety-four
last birthday. And that's Un' Matthey, Old
42


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
Matthey's son—and my gran'father, of course
with Aun' Deb next to him. She's his wife, an'
father's mother. Father is Young Matthey. That
big man down at the bottom of the table is father's
eldest; we call him Little Matthey. He was married
two years back, and Sister Liza-we call Little
Matthey's wife Sister Liza-is upstairs putting the
baby to bed, and we call him Matthey's Matthey.
Jan agreed with her that for one family this was
plenty of Mattheys, and that a Mark among them
was a change at all events.
“It must feel funny,” said Annet, “to be like you,
and have no father nor mother nor any belongings.'
Jan looked at her quickly, uneasily. But she was
serious, it seemed, and did not mean to tease him.
At once—how do children learn these ways ?-he
began to put on airs and to look darkly romantic.
“Don't !” he protested, sinking his voice to a
confidential whisper. The success of it surprised
him. As a matter of fact, he had never felt any
deep yearning over his unknown parents, though
his yearning for an answer to the questions,
“Who am I?" From where in the world do I
come?” was persistent, often poignant, sometimes
keeping him awake in a horror of emptiness, of
belonging to nowhere
But this, the first
romantic adventure of his life, made his head swim,
and he played up to it by being false.
Annet-she was a dark pretty girl with really beau-
tiful eyelashes-found him 'interesting,' and carried
.
43


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
66
graciously. “Here is a pair of scissors. To-morrow,
though, father 'll set you to work on the pickin'-
that 's the boys' work. And while you are trying
you might tell me a story."
“A story ? ” Jan echoed blankly. “But I don't
know any."
Everyone must know some kind of story,” said
Annet with firmness. Once upon a time there
was a King and a Queen, and they were very sorry
because they had no children. That's how you begin.”
" But I don't see how it goes on, if they had no
children-unless they go on being sorry."
" Silly! Of course they get a child in the end,
and that's what the story 's about. Now you go
on from there."
Oh!” said Jan, and began desperately—“Once
upon a time there was a King and a Queen, and they
were very sorry because they had no children ; but
of course they got a child in the end. He-came to
them in a boat-
Annet nodded.
“ That's better.
“ He came to them in a boat," repeated Jan.
“On the way he looked over the boat, and far down
in the sea he saw a snake swimming.”
"Now you 're inventing," said Annet.
never mind! One mustn't believe all one hears.”
“ But I saw one to-day," Jan protested.
Go along with you-a snake, swimming in the
sea! Well, let's hear what the snake said."
“ Well,
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“He didn't say anything. Sergeant Treacher
pushed a boathook down among the seaweed
Who's Sergeant Treacher ?
“ He-he's called Treacher, and he's a sergeant.
He lives upon Garrison Hill on St. Lide's, along with
Mrs. Treacher, and looks after the Castle.”
“ How does he come into the story ? ”
“I don't know that he comes into the story at
all; at least, not exactly,” Jan confessed.
"I'm tired of hearing about Sergeant Treacher,”
said Annet; "and I don't call it telling a story
when you leave me to do all the talking. But I must
say,” she added kindly,“ you 've made up that bunch
very nicely, if it's your first try.
Who taught you
to make that pretty knot ?"
“Sergeant Treacher,” the boy began; but at this
point luckily someone called out from the far end
of the glass-house that the boxes were all finished.
Fresh boxes would be ready after supper, when the
elder women would start packing again, while the
children went off to bed. So they trooped back to
the kitchen.
At supper Annet could not help being mischievous.
She told the children near that Jan on his way to
Brefar had seen a snake in the sea; whereat he blushed
furiously, which set the girls giggling, while an ugly
tow-headed boy across the table burst into a guffaw,
showing the
gaps
in his teeth.
Mrs. Hender, hearing the mirth, glanced down the
board.
46


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
" What's amiss
amiss down
down there? she asked.
“Annet, Annet, you 're not teasing the child, I
hope ?"
" He says he's seen a snake, missus," called out
the tow-headed boy.
Lor' mercy !
Where?
"In the sea here, off Brefar," with another
guffaw. " Brought up 'pon St. Lide's, an' not to
know a conger!'
“Aw, a conger, was it?” said Mrs. Hender.
“ Yes, now, I dersay 'twas a conger he saw. They 're
very like, now you come to mention it,” she added,
seeing poor Jan's confusion.
He could not understand the laughter, but it
overwhelmed him with shame and vexation so that
he wished he could slip beneath the table, and lower,
till the earth covered him.
“There's snakes on the Main, now; real adders
and vipers; an' that's one reason why I never
could bring myself to live in those parts. The
thought came over me only last time I was over to
Penzance. Half-way up Market Jew Street it came
over me with a rush, and there and then a funny
feelin' all round the bottom of my skirt, till I heard
a rude man askin' what was the price of calves
'pon the Islands.”
“There was a Snake over here once upon a time-
over here 'pon the Islands,” broke in a high,
quavering voice.
It proceeded from the old man, Un' Matthey, and
47


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
6
of it movin'. 'Hullo !' says he, ‘some careless
fellow has left a bag o ferrets behind him. This 'll
come in very handy.' He whips out his knife, cuts
open the neck o' the bag, an' forth jumps a mons'rous
big Snake, an’ winds itself about his neck ready
to strangle him. “Hullo!' says the Saaron man,
'thee wou's'n't kill me, I hope ? ' Why not?'
said the Snake. Why, seemin' to me, you owe
me your liberty, not to say your life.' 'That 's
true enough,' says the Snake. 'A wise man shut me up
in that there bag, where for these hundreds o' years
I've been perishin' of hunger.' Then how in the
world could you be so ongrateful as for to kill me ? '
says the Man from Saaron. • Well, that 's a pretty
tale, I must say,' answers the Snake. “Hungry I
am, and ongrateful I own myself; but for ongrateful-
ness where 's the like of man?' 'Let some judge
decide atween us,' says the Man from Saaron.
“ The Snake consented, an' they set off together
to hunt up a judge. The first they met was a
Tree, an' they stated their quarrel. “Now, O Tree,
judge atween us,' says the Man. Says the Tree,
• No trouble about that. In the summers I let man
cool himself an' his flocks under my branches, but
soon as winter comes he cuts the same down for fuel.
Nothing in the world so ongrateful as man. Take
an' throttle en,' says the Tree.
“ The Man from Saaron cried out for another judge.
Very well,' the Snake agreed, an' they came to
Sheep. You Sheep, decide atween us.' 'No
50


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
C
trouble at all,' says the Sheep. 'I gave that man my
fleece to cover his back. In return he robbed my
lambs from me, and to-morrow he 'll turn me over
to the slaughterer. Throttle en,' says the Sheep.
“But the Man from Saaron cried out for a fairer
judge. They came to a Spring. She fairly choked
when they put her the question. I've a hundred
daughters,' she said, that in pure good natur'
turned this fellow's mills, washed his flocks, an' laid
bare their ore for him along the bank. In return
he defiled them. Throttle en, I say, an' quick !!
“Still the Man cried for another judge. They
came to a Rabbit, an' stated the cause. The Rabbit
said to hisself, “Here's a ticklish business, judgin'
atween a Man and a Snake,' and rubbed his nose
for a bit to gain time. 'You've come to a mean
critter, an' poor of understandin',' says he after a
while. Would you mind settin' out the quarrel
from the start?' 'Well, to begin with,' says the
Snake, 'the Man found me in this here bag.' 'Oh,
but you 'll excuse me,' says the Rabbit, looking
sideways for fear to meet the Snake's eye, 'in that
tiny bag, did you say?' 'I'm not accustomed to
have my word doubted by rabbits,' says the Snake,
'but I'll forbear a bit yet, and give ye the proof.'
He coiled himself back into the bag. The Rabbit
wasn' sayin' anythin', but his eyelids went flickety-
flink, an' the Man from Saaron didn' miss the hint!
He sprang fore 'pon the bag an' closed the neck o'it
with a twist!"
6
51


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Here the old man struck his hands together and
looked round on his audience with a knowing smile
of triumph. His face for the moment had grown
animated.
The company, too, clapped their hands as they
laughed.
“ Bravo, Un’ Matthey!” they cried.
As Annet applauded, Jan plucked her by the sleeve.
“But that's not the end of the story," he
objected.
“Eh?"
“ There's more to come-more about the Rabbit
“A lot you know about stories! Why, not an
hour ago
“What 's the child saying ?” asked her mother,
who had taken the opportunity to step down to
where the children sat, and was making forward for
an empty centre-dish to replenish it with thick bread
and butter.
“He says Un' Matthey hasn't finished yet.”
“Well, and that 's true enough,” said Mrs. Hender,
who had heard the story many times. “But how
came you so wise, little man ?"
Jan could not tell. He had a queer sense—it had
been haunting him ever since he landed and the
farmer shouldered his box—that everything happen-
ing had happened to him before, somewhere, at some
time. This was impossible, of course; but with
Annet especially he had once or twice forestalled the
52


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
very words she would say next, and then, as she said
them, the trick of her voice, some movement of the
hands, some turn in the poise of her head, came back
as parts of a half-remembered lesson. In just the
same way scraps of Un' Matthey's story had come
back as it might be out of some dream the boy had
dreamed and forgotten.
But meanwhile Un' Matthey had resumed :-
“ The Man from Saaron went home-along, an'
the Rabbit sat by his hole an' smiled to hisself,
thinkin' how clever he'd been. He was still smilin'
there next day, when he looks up an' sees the Man
comin' back, an' with a bag in his hand-either the
same bag or another.
“'Hullo !' thinks the Rabbit, ' he's bringin' me
a gift for my wise judgment. Well, I deserve one.
But,' says he, 'gratitude has a knack o'shrinkin';'
for he saw that whatever the bag held 'twas of no
great size.
The Man gripped it half-way down.
The Man came close.
“Good mornin',' says he. 'Yesterday I was in
too much of a hurry to stay an' thank you. A
second Solomon you be, an' no mistake.'
“'In justice, as in other things, a body can but
do his best,' answers the Rabbit, modest-like.
“'You deserve a reward, anyway,' says the Man.
Justice is blind, my lord,' says the Rabbit,
edgin' up towards the bag.
“ The Man opened it; out jumped a ferret, and
clk!”–here Un' Matthey made a sudden uncanny
53


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
noise in his throat-"in two twos Master Rabbit lay
stretched out dead as a doornail. The Man from
Saaron kicked the ferret away off the body.
“ 'He's very properly punished !' said the Man
from Saaron. 'Justice ought to be without fear or
favour, an' his wasn' neither. But he 'll make very
good eatin.'”
Un' Matthey had scarcely finished and been
applauded when Young Matthey called for prayers.
The farmer had pulled out his watch once or twice
during the story, for in the daffodil season business
is business. He himself read a chapter from the Bible
-to-night it was the story of the Shunamite's son-
and afterwards put up an extempore prayer when the
family had dropped on their knees—all but the three
old people, who sat in a row and sat with hands
spread palm down on to the board, thumb touching
thumb, much as children play the game of Up
Jenkins !'
The young folks on the window-seat slipped down
and knelt with their faces to it. This, of course,
brought Jan's small legs calves upward well hidden
under the table, and of a sudden, midway in the
prayer, a sharp pinch almost made him cry aloud
with pain. This was a trick played on him by the
tow-headed boy, who had dodged beneath the form
on the opposite side, and as he pinched uttered a
derisive hiss, meant to resemble a snake's; but the
trick was by no means a success, for the hiss itself
ended in a squeak as a hand reached out after the
54


TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
joker, caught him by the ankle, and twisted it with
a sharp wrench.
The farmer's prayer, after invoking God's blessing
on the household in general, went on to ask a number
of things in particular. It entreated: “That Thy
loving care may go with the steamer to-morrow and
prosper her," whereupon all answered " Amen." It
glanced at Mary Martha : That it may please Thee
to lighten the burden of one in our midst lately
afflicted with breakages.' Jan himself was not let
off : “And that Thy mercy may be tender upon a
newcomer, a child to-day brought to the circle of
these Thy servants.” It took the farmer's fields in
their order, particularising their crops (whether
Emperors, M.J. Berkeleys or Ornatuses), and separ-
ately asking favours for each. In short, it was just
such a prayer as that of the Athenians, commanded
by Marcus Aurelius : “ Rain, rain, dear Zeus, down
on the ploughed fields of the Athenians and on the
plains.” ' In truth (says the Emperor) we ought
not to pray at all, or to pray in this direct and noble
fashion.”
On its conclusion the farmer, rising from his knees
with the rest, looked down along the board sternly
with a masterful eye, and demanded to know “ Who
it was just now makin' light of our supplications
under the table ?" There was a constrained
silence-Young Farmer Matthey, not a doubt of it,
was master in his own household-until the tow-
headed boy stood up, yellow with fright, looking as
55


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
though he desired the earth to open at his feet and
cover him. At the same moment a dark, good-
looking lad seated beside him—a boy probably two
years his senior-glanced across at Jan with a smile.
“ Billing's boy, is it ? ” said Young Matthey
sternly. Then you, Billing's boy, will step over
yonder and stand with your face to the corner while
the others pass out."
The others passed out there and then—the elders
to the glass-houses to finish the packing, the
youngsters to bed.
To Jan was assigned a small attic chamber, barely
furnished, clean as a pin, smelling potently of
onions that had been kept to dry the winter through
on its naked floor. From its windows, between the
eaves, he looked straight out upon the red sea-light
on North Island, and just within the edge of the
frame, as he lay down in his bed, the far Stones
Lightship repeated its quick three flashes of white.
They were the same lights he had watched from his
garret window on St. Lide's; but they were nearer,
and it seemed to him that he was nearer the edge of
the spell. He dropped asleep. At intervals in his
dreams he saw the face of the dark, good-looking
boy smiling at him across the table, while still
through his dreams, until midnight and after, sounded
the tap-tap of a hammer from the outhouse, nailing
boxes for the daffodils.
56


CHAPTER
V
TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
Here we are on Tom Tiddler's ground
Picking up gold and silver ;
Daisies and lilies
And daffadownlilies—
O, who wouldn't be a delver!”
Next morning the farmer took him out to the fields,
having first provided him with a pair of small
leggings, for some rain had fallen during the night,
and wading among the flowers would be wet work.
They came to a strip of ground, in size about an
acre, set about with a low hedge of veronica and
ablaze with yellow trumpet daffodils--yes, ablaze,
though most of the buds were but half open. Half
a dozen boys were already at work here, headed (to
Jan's delight) by the brown, smiling boy; for most
of the men of the farm had started before daybreak
to row Young Matthey's barge, laden with flower-
boxes, down to the landing on the south point of
Iniscaw, where the Lady's launch would take them
in tow across the Sound to St. Lide's Pier, under the
lee of which the steamer lay.
The farmer, having briefly instructed Jan what
flowers to choose, how to pluck them low down by
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
up steam.
the base with a sharp snap, and how to basket them
when plucked, assigned him his row and left him in
charge of Dave, as he called the brown boy.
The field lay on the slope above the cliffs in a
sheltered hollow, facing southward; so that, over the
sheets of daffodils and over the dwarf hedge, you saw
the blue water of the archipelago, right away south
to St. Lide's and to Garrison Hill with the Star
Castle crowning it, and at its base (so clear was the
morning) the smoke of the steamer as she lay getting
The sunshine, falling warm on the wet
flowers, drew from them the rarest fragrance. (They
were trumpet daffodils, as has been said, and nine out
of ten of us would have called them odourless; but
little Jan, it was to be discovered, had a sense of
smell keen almost as a wild animal's.) The frag-
rance mingled with the wafted brine of the sea, and
between them—what with the breeze and the myriad
heads of gold it set nodding and the spirit of youth
dancing inside of him—they flooded the child's soul
with happiness—a happiness so poignant that once,
straightening himself up in a pause of the picking,
he felt his eyes brim with tears, through which the
daffodils danced in a mist. Brushing the back of his
hand across his eyes, he glanced shyly across at Dave,
fearful lest Dave had detected his weakness.
And Dave had, but set it down to the wrong
cause.
Takes ye in the back, first-along, hey ? ” said
Dave kindly. “Never mind, little 'un; within a.
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
or
week you 'll get over the cramps, an' it's not bad
ye're doin', for a beginner.”
Jan blessed him for misunderstanding. What a
splendid fellow Dave was--so brown and strong !
But Dave, though he could smile most of his time,
had very little mouth-speech, as they say on the
Islands. He contented himself with showing Jan
how to arrange his flowers in the “maund
basket--they had one maund between them, and
were working down two parallel rows—and he did it
mostly by dumb show. Once, however, he called
out, standing up and pointing-
“ There she goes!”
—and all the boys paused for a minute and gazed
southward at the steamer heading out from St. Lide's
Quay for the Main. As he watched her, the old
longing came upon Jan with a rush; the old question,
as a sudden cloud upon his glee.
They fell to work again. But a few minutes later
word arrived that Dave must attend the farmer
in an upper field, where he had an ingenious device
of forcing some rarer bulbs as they stood by
covering them with small portable glass-houses
mounted on wheels. This matured the plants better
than the old way of transferring them to boxes and
forcing them in a large greenhouse ; but the glass-
frames needed handling, and the most of his grown
men had not yet returned with the barge. So Dave
was requisitioned.
He had no sooner left than the industry of the
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
boys in the field sensibly slackened. Jan, bending
over the row, did not perceive it, and was rudely
awakened by a light cuff on the ear. Above him
stood the tow-headed boy, grinning and showing the
gaps in his teeth.
“Sneak !” said the tow-headed boy, “ that 's for
telling tales on me last night.”
A sudden fury leapt up in Jan. He wanted to kill
the tow-headed boy–who was so ugly and told lies.
Without waiting to consider, Jan leapt on him, and
the attack was so sudden that both rolled over among
the dripping daffodils, crushing the flowers as they
rolled. For a few seconds Jan was on the top, and
his hands felt for the tow-headed boy's throat, to grip
it; but by-and-by age and weight prevailed.
“ Little devil, I'll teach you !”
The tow-headed boy first clutched the nape of
his neck and rubbed his face into the soil, then
caught at one of the writhing arms and began
to twist it.
“Now sing small, little devil !'
"I won't,” gasped Jan, almost faint with pain.
“ You tell lies, and are ugly-ugly!”
“Hullo !"
It was Dave's voice, and Dave descended on the
scrimmage like a young god. He cuffed the two
apart; but Jan, white with passion, flew again at his
adversary, and had to be caught by the jacket-neck
and flung among the wet flowers.
“ Little spitfire !” laughed Dave, after doing this
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
gently but firmly. Seemin' to me, Ben Lager, this
field is'n safe for you, and you'd better come along
an' help with the glass boxes. Farmer sent me down
to fetch up another hand."
So the tow-headed boy was marched off, and Jan,
picking himself up, fell to work again. He was
trembling from head to foot. He had never in his
short life known such a fit of rage, and it affected
him like an ague. For a full hour the trembling
lasted, at intervals broken by a sob that convulsed
all his limbs.
The harvest had begun late this year, in contrast
with last season's, when picking started before New
Year's Day and went on steadily until May month.
Up to the opening days of February Young Matthey
had carried a gloomy face about his fields, consoling
himself with market reports of unusually high prices
(due to severe weather in the South of France, where
the gardens of his trade rivals, the Mediterranean
growers, had lain under snow for three weeks on end).
Young Matthey ever spoke with asperity of these
distant Frenchmen, his mind confusing them in a
queer fashion with what he had read in newspapers
concerning Monte Carlo. He imagined them at the
end of a season, when he banked his few hard-earned
pounds, as flocking to the tables with large sums of
money (that ought by rights to be in his pocket), and
gambling it away upon roulette, a game happily
unknown in the Islands. Indeed, the Islanders
knew no games at all. Strange to say, even the
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
children played none—until Jan taught them, as
you shall hear.
In February the flowers awoke and came on with
a rush. The previous summer had been a hot one,
baking and ripening the bulbs in the ground; but
with November had come a spell of cold, and
an obstinate one, lasting through December and
January and holding (as the farmer argued) the
head of the procession in check while the later
regiments of flowers pressed up and trod on
their leaders' heels, all waiting the signal of fine
weather; so that when the sunshine came all burst
into bloom together, and bloomed riotously. The
Islands had never known such a March. In the first
week the workers had to give over saving the flowers
in bud and bunching them in water jars under
shelter, for they opened faster than the whole popula-
tion could pick. The sky was clear; the weather-
glass stood at 'Set Fair.' The maidens left their
glasshouses and worked afield with the lads. In the
last week of the holidays the farmers met and sent a
deputation to the Lady, protesting that if the schools
re-opened as usual the flower industry would perish
amid plenty.
“What was Government, with its Education Grant,
compared with this hundreds of pounds' worth that
must rot in the fields ! ” The Lady snapped her
fingers at the Board of Education in London, and
extended the holidays a fortnight. There was even
talk of hiring another steamer to ply from the Main.
!
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
The present one would carry but fifty tons at a time,
for flower boxes take up much room for their weight.
Fifty tons thrice a week—say seventy thousand
flowers to the ton-between nine and ten millions of
flowers!—which means a million and half picked every
day, since the Islanders do not work on Sundays.
So instead of a month Jan dwelt six weeks upon
Brefar, until all the trumpet daffodils and the Leedsii
were either picked or overblown, and even the Poet's
Narcissus, latest of all-in those days little grown
on the outer Islands, but chiefly under apple trees
in the few orchards on St. Lide's and in the Lady's
gardens at Iniscaw—were past their prime. They
were happy days for the boy, but they were also days
of almost constant labour, so that often after supper
and prayers he would climb to his attic almost too
weary to drag off his clothes-far too weary to loiter
at his window picking out and naming the sea-lights-
before tumbling into bed and into a dreamless sleep.
On the last "steamer day” Young Matthey gave
him leave to travel across with him to St. Lide's in
the barge and prepare the Treachers for his return.
As he stepped ashore on the quay he had a queer
feeling of having been absent for years instead of
for weeks. The steamer lay alongside, as he had
seen her lie some scores of times; the carts were
rattling down from the island; the laden boats
hurrying across the Sound, from St. Ann's in the
south, from St. Michael's in the north (where, local
report said, the men grew tails and spoke an outlandish
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ And you
language). The boxes were being shipped at high
pressure, some sliding down shoots into the hold,
others overpiling an already monstrous deck cargo;
and, as usual, the skipper was holding two altercations
at once with shippers who had attempted to encroach
beyond their allotted space. But it seemed to Jan
that either he had grown or Garland Town had shrunk.
He came back to it as one who had seen the world.
At the head of the street, where the rough path
climbed to the Garrison gate, he ran against Dr.
Hervey.
“Hullo, youngster! Well, it's fine and brown
you are !” cried the Doctor genially. “And 've
shot
up,
I
protest. Is it Brefar air, or has the
world grown for ye?”
Jan, with a new air of independence, yet modestly
enough, returned the Doctor's smile.
“It's different, sir."
Aye, aye! Cælum, non animum, mutant-worse
rubbish was never uttered. But, boy, ye've missed
your Latin-precious days of it. We must make
up
leeway; and from Latin, in a year's time or so,
I'll lead ye to Greek, which is a baptism, look ye,-a
baptism into a cult, and the only true key to freedom.
There be other ways more alluring, that look easier,
but if you 'd be a free man-free of these Island:s,
free of the Main, free of the Mediterranean, which
is the sea of seas, and of Rome, to which all the
roads lead-ye 'll avoid short cuts, and sit down with
me again to mensa, mensam, mense.”
64


CHAPTER VI
MARY MARTHA'S TOMBSTONE
YOUNG Farmer Matthey having much business to
transact in Garland Town, the return journey was
not made until late in the afternoon. Half-way
across, the farmer called Jan aft to speak with him.
“I'd a sudden thought to-day,” he said, “and
meeting Sergeant Treacher on the quay just now
I broached it to him. You seem to be a quiet,
steady boy, an' I hear good reports of 'ee, besides
what I've seen with my own eyes. What d'ye say
to livin' 'long with us at Chy-an-Chy, an' goin' to
Brefar school along with my own childern ? You
needn't be in a hurry with 'yes' or 'no,'” he added,
as Jan stood with face flushed and stammered for
words. Because, anyway, we'd have to get the
Mistress's leave first. But I was thinkin' that I've
a shortage of boys-maids in plenty, but no boys to
mention, or none to be depended on. There's Little
Matthey, my eldest. He's a grown man, an' the
farm 'll come to him in God's time, but he've no
understandin' for flowers, an' never had. As for
Mark, his mother spoils ’en. Goin' outside my own,
Dave is a good lad; but Dave, when he grows up,
'll go into service with Trinity House. His parents
5
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
have settled 'pon that, and a very good lightkeeper
he 'll make. Lager's boy is no good at all, nor Aby
Hicks, nor his small brother Sam, nor Seth Piper.
What I want is a lad pretty bright at learnin'.
What's that in your hand ?” he asked, breaking
off.
Jan opened the parcel—a scrap of old newspaper.
It enwrapped a flat-cupped narcissus, with a belt
of earth about the bulb.
“Hullo! That's what they call carryin' coals to
Newcastle, eh ? Ha'nt we Ornatuses enough on
Brefar, these days ?”
“It grows up at the Castle, sir, in the ditch
between the house and the outside wall, but near by
the door where the sun gets to it. And the red in
the cup is quite different to any on Brefar. I was
carrying it home to-to show to
“So it is, now you mention it,” said the farmer,
examining the flower and not noting Jan's confusion.
He handed it back. “Some freak, I shouldn't
wonder
But that only proves what I was
sayin'. You've a quickness for flowers, a naptitood;
and I was reckonin', maybe, if I brought ye up an’
gave ye board an' keep, one o' these days you 'd
reward me by turnin' out a pretty useful apprentice,
an' then who knows but ye won't finish up as a
hind ?-at sixteen shillin' a week an' your meals!”
But this part of the alluring prospect did not touch
Jan, who had never possessed any money and knew
nothing of its value.
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
Please, sir, what did Sergeant Treacher say?"
he ventured.
“Oh, the Treachers are ready enough! It's for
your good, and,” added the farmer not very lucidly,
'tisn' as if you was their own flesh an' blood.”
The barge was brought ashore at the little beach
where Jan had made his first landing on Brefar.
The children, their harvest work over, were all
gathered there to welcome it, and Mary Martha, as
the custom was at end of harvest, had brought them
down a picnic tea from the farm, and had already
smashed two cups. The kettle sang on a fire under
the cliff's shadow. All around the head of the cove
grew clumps of narcissus poeticus-castaway flowers,
unmarketable, the most of them by this time over-
blown, but beautiful yet—beautiful as white ghosts
when the shadows crept down the beach and
covered them; for some blossomed even among the
stones at the water's edge, and would bloom again
next year unless meanwhile an abnormally high
tide came and washed the bulbs away. Jan joined
the tea-drinkers, his heart swelling with his news.
Thanks to Mary Martha's affliction (as she had
come to call it) there was no cup for him, and he
was told to go shares in Annet's, taking sip and sip
with her—the bliss !
But the bliss did not endure.
What's that you ’ve brought me?' asked
Annet, nodding towards the parcel, which he had
laid beside him.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“How did you know I brought it for you ?” he
asked, his heart beating.
She pouted.
“Is it for Linnet, then, or for Bennet ? "
“But it is for you!”
He unwrapped it, and held it out. Her pretty face
darkened.
“ Is it mocking me? A silly old Ornatus ! ”
“But it's different,” he began stupidly, afraid
of the wrath in her voice.
“As if you didn’ know that I am sick of flowers-
yes, sick of them!”
She tossed the bulb away pettishly, and sat staring
before her, with tears in her eyes. The heel of her
boot ground a pebble or two in the sand. Poor
Jan looked at her ruefully. He had meant to give her
pleasure, and a moment ago his own happiness had
been brimming. The news he had to tell, news
so good for him—Would that, too, make her
angry?
But at this point Mary Martha let fall a plate,
and upon the crash of it uplifted her voice in a wail.
“An' now it's plates! Oh, my misguided hands!
Plates an' cups an' candlesticks will ever be my
cross; and no hopes for it, maister, till we meet in
the land o'marrow an' fatness, where there's no
candle an' the crockery tumbles light."
“Never mind a plate, Mary Martha, up or down,"
said the farmer genially:
He had done satisfactory business that morning
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
with the bank at Garland Town, and could afford
the loss of a plate or two at harvest-ending.
To cheat her remorse he suggested that since she
was talking of crosses she might tell them about the
one she had put up to her deceased husband.
" 'Tis a story that never fails to cheer,” he assured
the company tactfully.
“ It cost the all of twenty pounds," began Mary
Martha, cheering up at once. “ I got Hugh and Co.'s
receipt for the money here in my purse, an' ne'er
will I part with it."
She opened the purse and showed the paper,
greasy with much folding and unfolding.
“But don't 'ee go callin' it a Cross, maister,
when 'tis a Collum.”
“Dear me, so ʼtis.” The farmer took her correc-
tion. Iss, iss, a collum, an' I beg your pardon,
woman.'
“A broken collum, an' polished granite, with the
ivy growin' round it nat'ral as life. Not real ivy,
you 'll understand, but granite too, same as the
collum.
When my poor dear man went off
in a decline an' died-an' a kinder man the Lord
never put heart into—I went to Hugh and Co. an'
told him I wanted a tombstone. Hugh and Co. is
the tombstone-maker over to Garland Town; his
real name is William Hugh, an' I never saw any Co.
about him. I told Hugh and Co. I wanted to be
measured for a stone, if he'd understand, because
all my savin's had gone in the funeral, an' I wouldn'
.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
have the stone until I'd paid for it, every penny-
let alone that the dear man never could abide debt
in his lifetime, an' 'd ne'er have rested easy wi’ that
weight o' credit 'pon his remains. Hugh and Co.
was very nice about it, an' accommodatin'; offered
to put up one for me on a sort of hire system, an'
made a lot o' useful suggestions. But I stuck out
that I'd have no stone till he had his money; only
I wanted to choose the thing aforehand so 's to
have a notion o' what I'd be savin' for. Seein'
how firm I was about the payment, he took me into
his yard-such a place, my dears ! Tombstones by
the scores, with 'Sacred to the Mem’ry' ready
carved 'pon 'em, and then a blank, waitin' till the
person died, so that you got the creeps wonderin'
if it mightn' be your turn next. But I didn't get
no creeps, not carin' just then how soon I was taken.
Hugh and Co. showed me all kinds o' patterns.
Bein' used to his trade, he was as easy about it as a
butcher with a calf, an' yet very kind all the time.
He wanted to know if I'd have it in Delabole Slate
or in a kind o' what he called Compo, that he praised
up for standin' all weathers.
• We've a cheap
line in boards, too,' says he, 'all seasoned wood,
with two coats o' best paint besides primin', an' the
whole concern to be repainted, often as you like, at
contrack prices.' But I was looking at something
quite different that had caught my eye, standin' in
the middle o' the yard. 'That there pillar would be
my fancy,' says I, ‘if only 'tweren't broken. How
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
like to mention. Could ye saw off the broken end
clean for me ? 'I says, ' for I see what it means, now
you've told me, but other people won't, maybe.
They ’ll think I got so far wi' the payments an' no
further, or maybe they ʼll think I picked up with a
damaged article, or again maybe they 'll think I let
it fall, like everything else in the world. I couldn'
be in the churchyard all the time explainin', besides
which I'm goin' over to Brefar to Young Matthey
Hender, who've been a father to the fatherless, at
five pounds a year and my keep.'
“Get along with your story, woman,” said the
farmer hastily.
“Which he agreed,” continued Mary Martha,
and I came over here an' saved an' saved till I had
five pound put by! An' then I turned-to again,
an' saved and saved till I had another five pound-if
someone will be good enough to count. An' after
that I saved an' saved another five. An' last of all
I saved an' saved another five, an' that made
TWENTY!”
Mary Martha ran up to the climax with a shout of
triumph, and, ceasing abruptly, looked round the
circle of her audience for the applause which was
duly given.
'It's gospel truth, too, the woman be tellin',”
said the farmer, rising from his meal and preparing
to walk away.
Long years of ceaseless daily labour-and in the
beginning, before the daffodils brought prosperity,
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
they had been years of daily planning and
contriving against want—had left him unapt for
relaxation. He had been restless for some time
before the close of Mary Martha's enthralling story.
“She hid it from us, too; though the Lord knows
we'd ha' been ready to make a push an' help her
t'wards the money."
But 'twouldn't ha' been the same thing, maister,”
chuckled Mary Martha gleefully.
No, woman, you 're right there,” he answered,
and went his way to look over his harvested fields;
also, if truth must be told, to rest a minute at the
gate of each, bless God's mercy, and entreat it for
his children, of whom the younger were all too
young to remember less prosperous times.
73


CHAPTER VII
HOW THE CHILDREN LEARNED TO PLAY
“It must be a fine thing to live on the Main,” said
Annet thoughtfully.
The children turned their eyes together over the
sea, across which the sunset, behind the cliff that
shaded them, spread a soft radiance, warming a few
high clouds with its afterglow. The Main was not
visible from the low beach where they sat, but they
knew where it lay afar, beyond the point of Iniscaw.
“Aye,” said Dave," and be rich enough to order
a tombstone like that; and, when it's made, to tell
the mason you ’ve changed your mind."
“For my part,” said Linnet, who was a practical
little body, “I don't want to make acquaintance
with any such whimsical people. You may be sure
they 'd look down on you, bein' so rich as they
are; and I'd hate to live where I was looked
down upon."
“I wasn't meaning,” said Annet, “ that I'd like
to go over from here an' be treated as they chose.
I meant it would be fine to be one o' them, an' so
rich that you could look down on everybody else.”
But why should you ? ” put in Jan, puzzled.
“Oh, you don't understand!”
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
Here Bennet, who was practical as Linnet,
but in a different way, opined that on the Main the
Queen rode in a glass coach, which even the Mistress
never did in the Islands.
“She couldn', not very well," retorted Linnet,
ever a loyal Islander. “But there 's glass windows
to the cabin of her launch."
Here Mary Martha, whom the children allowed to
listen to their talk, feeling no shyness with one so
simple-hearted, laid her hands in her lap with
a sigh.
“I've longed sometimes to be Queen of England,”
she confessed; “ though it don't happen to me so
often as it did when I was savin' up for the tomb-
stone. But that cures me.
Fancy me ridin' in a
glass coach, with my unfortunate habits
“Let 's pretend that one of us is goin' across to
the Main to-morrow,” suggested Bennet; "and we'll
each choose what we'd like for a present. Dave's
the eldest. Dave, you ’re to start by the steamer
to-morrow, and"
But the steamer went to-day,” Dave objected.
"Well, then, the day after to-morrow. It don't
make any difference to our pretendin'."
“I didn't want to disappoint you, that's all.
Very well, I'm to go the day after to-morrow,"
Dave announced. “Now fire ahead, and choose
what you want me to bring back.”
“ It 's like the beginning of Beauty and the Beast,''
said Annet. “Once upon a time there lived a
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
•
.
merchant who had three daughters. A message
came to him that he had to travel and do business
in a country a long way off. So he called his
daughters together, and asked what they would like
him to bring home for fairings. The first daughter
asked for a necklace of ruby stones and satin
slippers and a canary bird in a golden cage.
The
second wanted a new kitten and some strings for a
harp and a dress all over diamonds. But when it
came to the third-'"
“Well, what did she want ? ” asked Dave, as
Annet came to a halt.
Her face had flushed of a sudden.
"I don't know.
I didn' set out to tell
you all the story.”
“ But I know !” cried Jan, sitting up suddenly
and clutching two small pebbles he had been tossing
idly in his hand. “The third one wanted a flower."
“She didn't !” Annet contradicted angrily. “Not
first along, at any rate. And you don't know any
stories; you told me so yourself, the day you
came.”
Jan passed the back of his hand over his eyes.
“No, first-along she didn't want anything; but
after that, because she didn't like to disappoint her
father, she chose a flower. When her father was away
on the main, and just about to start back for home, he
found himself walking in a beautiful garden, and it
came into his mind that he'd remembered to buy
the other fairings, but forgotten about the flower
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
for his youngest daughter. So he picked the prettiest
he could see, when out from the bushes jumped a
great roaring lion.
"'Who gave you leave to pick my flowers ?'
roared the lion. The merchant dropped on his knees,
and cried out that he had only picked one. It was
for his daughter who lived on the other side of the
sea, and had made him promise to bring her home
a flower. 'By right I ought to kill you,' said the
lion,' and I will only spare you if you promise to go
home and fetch your daughter to me. Bring her to
my palace and leave her here. You won't see
anybody. But if you don't obey me, be sure I will
kill you. The merchant had to promise, and when
he reached home, and told the news, they were all
But the youngest was brave and said
she must go, so her father took her back with him
to the lion's palace and left her. They saw nobody,
and when her father had gone she wandered about
alone until she was tired, and at last, coming to a
bedroom, she lay down and slept. But by and by
she woke up. It was dark, and there was somebody
talking to her in the dark, and although she couldn't
see his face she knew he was a beautiful Prince.
He went away before daylight, but before going he
told her that he would always love her, but he must
always come in the dark, and she must never try to
see his face.”
“ You ’re telling it all wrong!” broke in Annet.
That's not the story at all."
very sad.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“It's a very good yarn, anyway,” said Dave,
as the child came to a stop, all confused; "and I don't
see why you want to interrupt. Go on, Janny boy.”
“She—she was never to see his face,” pursued Jan;
but the words came halting, and he seemed to be
casting about for the broken thread of the story.
“She wanted too, more and more, and-oh, yes ! -
it goes on that one night while he was sleeping she
lit a lamp-it was a lamp like the chill * up in the
kitchen and bent over to look at him. He was
handsome, ten times handsomer than she had ever
supposed. He was so handsome that her hand
shook, and a drop of the hot oil fell on his shoulder.
He opened his eyes, and then—"
Jan came to a halt again.
“Tell us what happened !”
Annet was as eager now as the others.
“He—he flew away, out of her sight. She had
broken her promise, you see. I don't rightly know
the end," Jan confessed, rubbing
perplexedly. Where had he learnt the story? It
all came to him so clearly, up to a point. “I think
she searched after him-yes, and at last they were
married, and lived happy ever after," he wound up,
like one repeating a lesson.
“I don't think much of a story that breaks off
* Chill, a stone lamp shaped like a candlestick and having a
shallow saucer on top. A little train (fish) oil was poured into
the saucer and a floating rush served for wick. Such amp
was used up to recent years on the Islands; and the glimmer it
gave was called by the housewife an “idle light," meaning that
she and her maidens could not see to sew by it.
his eyes
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
1)
in the middle,” said Annet cruelly. “ Linnet, 'tis
your turn. Tell us about Peter Piper that went down
to the bottom of the sea and married a mermaid."
Linnet told the story of Peter Piper, and when
Linnet had done another child told about the
Piskies-how they stole a baby out of its cradle,
and how the mother made them bring it back by
boiling a crockful of eggshells.
Jan listened, tossing his two pebbles idly and
catching them. It was queer. These stories also
he had heard at sometime, somewhere, or else he had
dreamed them-not exactly as the children were
telling them, but so nearly that to all intents they were
the same.
Dave's turn came next; but Dave for some minutes
had been watching Jan and the way he tossed the
pebbles, turning his hand and catching them neatly
on the back of his knuckles.
“That 's a funny game you are playin', little Jan.
Who taught 'ee the trick of it ? ”
Nobody," answered Jan, after considering a
moment. It came into my head one day, and
I've been playing at it ever since, off and on.
There are lots of different ways.”
He added a third small pebble, tossed up all three
and caught them on the back of his hand, where they
lay disposed as though they had been carefully
placed there. With a quick upward jerk he sent
them in air again, to fall just as neatly upon the
back of his other hand.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
The children watched him curiously. One or
two chose out pebbles, and tried to imitate these
tricks. Within five minutes every child in the
circle was engaged in the game, and laughing at one
another's awkwardness. In this way Jan taught
them the beginnings of a game old as the hills,
played by shepherds and fisher boys on far-away
Grecian Isles before ever Homer sang; and thus it
came about that the Brefar children play at knuckle-
bones to-day with oddly-shaped pebbles. Also,
unknowingly, he taught them to laugh. They were
laughing yet when the bell tinkled, up at the farm,
summoning them home to supper and bed; and as
they climbed the hill echoes of their laughter floated
back to the deserted beach.
The echoes died away, faded into the perpetual
low hum of the tide races sweeping around the
northern isles. In the twilight a belated bee
continued at work — 2-2-200m busy among the
glimmering flowers of the Poet's Narcissus. The
bee pitched on a flower which lay broken among
them where Annet had tossed it, and entered its
cup inquisitively.
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CHAPTER VIII
THE
APPRENTICESHIP
You that build the shade-roof, and you that court the rays,
You that leap besprinkling the rock stream-rent :
He has been our fellow, the morning of our days;
Us he chose for house-mates, and this way went.
Phoebus with Admetus
So Jan continued with Young Farmer Matthey and
grew up as one of the household. Our story has no
concern with these years, beyond telling that he
went with the other children to Brefar school, and
was passably sharp with his books; and that he
grew into a handsome lad, fair-skinned, beautifully-
limbed, cheerful and docile of temper. He never
quarrelled, but would walk away whenever the
children started bickering among themselves. On
the other hand, he never quite broke through his
shyness. He craved for their love, but (save
unconsciously) could go no way to meet it, even
when he taught them to laugh and play games.
Only with Dave he had no reserve. If Dave was
David, Jan as surely was · Jonathan. As a rule,
between growing lads two years' difference of age
is a gulf : but Jan (as the farmer put it) was old
for his age, and in one particular he established a
mastery which helped to bring them level.
They learned to swim together; and at swimming
6
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
from the start the younger boy out-paced and
out-distanced the elder. Dave had no jealousy in
his nature. He toiled admiringly in Jan's wake,
and it was he, not Jan, who boasted of Jan's beautiful
diving. When they grew up and fitted out an old
boat of the farmer's, it was Dave's turn to resume
the mastery. Dave had a turn for carpentering.
In steering and handling a boat, too, Dave was the
teacher, Jan the learner. Moreover, Dave had a
sense of navigation which Jan lacked; he seemed,
being born to the Islands, to have an instinct for
their rocks, shoals, and dangers, the set and run of
the tides, what the wind would do next, and how far
to trust it.
One other gift of Jan's must be mentioned, since
by virtue of it he repaid the farmer's kindness. He
developed a wonderful sense of flowers, so that none
of the other children, between harvest and harvest,
could compare with him. For to harvest the daffodils
is simple enough : the grower's real skill shows itself
in the between-times, in divining when to lift and
transplant, in sorting out the strong from the weakly
bulbs, in strengthening the soil, in choosing new
situations and aspects. At the age of fourteen Jin
appeared, merely by turning a bulb over in his
hand, to know what it wanted. It was he, too, w 10
discovered for the farmer that daffodil leaves, dư ly
dried, made good fodder. The green leaves ére
poisonous for cattle ; and hitherto the rakings of
the fields—when the flowers' sap had run back ir to
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
the bulbs—had been gathered in heaps and burnt.
The farmer saved some, however, and used it for
litter, never supposing that the cows would eat the
dried stuff. Jan pointed out that they ate their
bedding with relish, and moreover that they took no
harm. Next year the farmer surprised his neighbours
by building a rick of daffodil leaves alongside his
hay-ricks.
Little by little, as the boy grew, the old longings,
the old questionings, faded out of his mind. Work
at Chy-an-Chy Farm was hard, if cheerful : the day
over, he climbed the stairs to bed, too wholesomely
tired to lie awake and fret, as he had been used to
fret, asking “Who am I?” “How came I here?”
Maybe, too, the companionship of the patient
cattle, the lesson of the flowers-50 obedient, so
unexacting, so eager and happy to do their best
when the appointed time came, in spite of wind and
storm-helped to discipline him.
The lily is most fair,
But says not, ‘I will only blow
Upon a southern land’; the cedar makes no coil
What rocks shall owe
The springs that wash his feet;
The crocus cannot arbitrate the foil
That for its purple radiance is most meet.-
Lord, even so
I ask one prayer ;
The which it it be granted,
It skills not where
Thou plantest me, only I would be planted.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
But the trouble awoke again.
One evening in early summer,-he was now in his
fifteenth year,-he and Dave took a long swim
together out to a naked island that stands about
midway in Cromwell's Sound. The pair had spent
the day in trimming hedges, working under a hot
sun with their shirts open at the throat. The pollen,
of flowers, the blown seeds of early grasses, clung
stickily to the sweat of their young bodies, and they
sought the water as a salmon seeks the freshet to
rid himself of sea-lice.
As usual, Jan quickly out-distanced Dave, and
by and by, close under the rocks of the island,
ceased swimming and turned over on his back,
floating, waiting for Dave to come up. As he lay
so, a sound came borne to him across the waters—a
sound of a woman's voice singing.
He had never heard singing, save by the children
in school, or by their elders in chapel, or at evening
prayer, droning out Wesley's hymns at distressful
length. He had never imagined that any sound
could ravish the ear as did this. He turned about
and trod water gently, lifting his head to listen. On
the Iniscaw shore a light shone among the dark
deodars,- for twilight was falling, -and thence the
voice sang to him.
With a few easy strokes he reached the island.
He groped for a landing in the shadow of the rocks,
found handhold and scrambled ashore. Still the
divine voice floated over the waters.
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
He stood, naked, rigid as a statue, every nerve
strung taut by it. Below his feet, somewhere in
the shadow, Dave called up to him that the swim
had been long-it was time to return.
“But listen!”
“It's the Lady, singing to herself. She has her
window open, and sometimes, they say, you can hear
every note as far as Brefar. Come back, Jan !”
Dave headed back as Jan dived. But Jan neither
overtook him nor heeded his shouts. Dave, judging
that he himself had barely strength enough left to
swim back, swam doggedly on. Within a hundred
yards of the beach his limbs began to feel as heavy
as lead. But he struggled on and reached shore,
his teeth chattering, his body shaking woefully as
with an ague.
Meanwhile Jan was swimming for Iniscaw and the
voice. Of the long return he recked nothing. No
thought crossed his mind that Dave might perhaps
be in danger. He would at any time have given his
life for Dave's; but just now he was oblivious of
all save the voice, and he swam toward the lighted
window as a moth is drawn to a lamp.
Within her room, high above the terrace, the Lady
sang to herself; and her song was “ Caro Nome.”
Whoso will, let him despise ; but when a great singer
understands Verdi, it is a great and wonderful song.
While the Lady sang, the moon-almost at its full-
swam up above the deodars, and toward it Jan swam,
toward the lamp beneath it, toward the scent wafted
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
across the summer night from garden flowers and
dark pines.
Loyal Dave, although his teeth chattered, had no
sooner reached the shore than he dragged down the
boat and—all naked-pushed across in search of his
friend. The rowing by degrees brought back
warmth to his blood. When he reached the farther
side the Lady had ceased singing and pulled down
the blind. He found Jan stretched naked on the
sand, shivering, sobbing with exhaustion, and care-
fully ferried him home.
That was Dave all over-Dave, the good friend,
solid, always ready at need.
But the time came when Dave must put on the
uniform of the Trinity House and go off to the
lightship on the Stones.
The children saw him off tearfully, though he was
cheerful enough. From the upper windows of
Chy-an-Chy farmhouse they could see the white
flash travelling across the waters from the lightship
-three white flashes in twenty-four seconds, followed
by darkness for thirty-six seconds-and knew, when
the flashes came round again, that Dave was alive
and well, and keeping watch.
The joy of Jan's life, however, was to welcome
Dave home when the relief-boat brought him off
for life on a lightship is deadly trying to the nerve:
of most men, and the rule is-or then was-to relieve
one-third of the crew every month, each mai
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
spending two months on board and taking a month's
furlough on shore. Dave had no nerves; he said
that with so much cleaning and polishing to do, out
yonder, there was no time to be melancholy; and
besides, there was a great deal more to talk about
than anyone would think-tramp steamers heading
round land (in time you got to know one and another
like old friends, and to time their comings and goings);
full sail to the southward making for the Channel ; at
the worst a school of porpoises, or a sun-fish, or a
line of little murrs flying, or a gannet to watch by
the hour, counting his dives. And sometimes the
fishing-fleet would come out toward sunset, down
sail, and hang out their riding-lights, which gave a
friendly feeling, though to be sure they came from
the Main. By night, of course, there were the other
sea-lights to watch, particularly the red light on
North Island, which (said Dave) put him in mind of
Chy-an-Chy window at supper-time.
Nevertheless, Dave allowed that it was good to be
home; especially on the first Sunday, when he put on
his best shore-going clothes (Trinity House uniform)
and the girls—Annet, Linnet and Bennet-wore
their white frocks to church in the morning and to
meeting-house in the evening, this division of worship
being the comfortable rule in the Islands (and, I dare
say, no one a penny the worse for it). He said in his
matter-of-fact way that even the smell of rotten fish
at the corner of St. Lide's quay was good enough to
come back to, but the best smell was that of the
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
lilac-bush by the lych-gate of Brefar Church, be-
cause it had been in full bloom, with the early bees
about it, at his first home-coming.
The next year he returned in the very height of the
daffodil harvest, and Jankept busy from morning
to night-saw little of him. Somewhere deep down
in his heart was a feeling that Dave, having nothing
to do on his furlough, might have spared more time
to stand by his side in the fields and chat. He under-
stood when Dave, the night before departure, drew
him aside and told him shyly—after much pretence
of asking advice—that he and Annet had 'made it
up. “Of course,” added Dave, that don't make
any difference to you and me."
“Of course,” agreed Jan, believing him.
His own heart had not been seriously engaged,
though from the first (now he came to think of it)
Annet was by far the prettiest girl on Brefar, and
therefore marked out to be Dave's sweetheart.
“I'd take it kindly,” said Dave quite solemnly,
if you 'd just bear that in mind. It was you, as a
fact, that brought us together.”
“ Was it ? ” said Jan doubtfully, wondering when
and how this could have happened.
“She thinks a lot of you, too,” said Dave.
She've told me so." He said it in a tone which
conveyed that Jan ought to be proud, and proud
Jan accordingly was. “Now I'm thinking that
she 'll be feelin' my goin' out to the Stones, this time,
more 'n ordinary.”
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
.“Of course she will," Jan agreed.
An' that,” said his friend, “is where you can
help. We can't be married till the summer after
next; but meantime you can do a lot for us.”
Can I ?” asked Jan doubtfully. “Well, I 'll
do my best. If only you mean what you say-
that itthat this—'ll make no difference be-
tween us.”
Why should it ? ” (How splendid Dave looked
as he asked the question !)
Jan never said a word to Annet concerning her
troth with Dave, nor she a word to him. But on
the day after Dave's departure he took her for a sail
to cheer up her spirits, and they talked much of the
hero by the way.
Somehow it came to be understood
that Jan, as Dave's friend, in a sense belonged to
Annet, to be at her beck and call, and during that
summer the pair sailed on many an excursion together
among the off-islands, being absent at times for a
whole afternoon-always after getting leave from
the farmer.
There could be no harm in it. The farmer, though
inclined to spoil Annet, knew her to be a shrewd girl
and level-headed. (He was delighted, by the way,
that she had chosen Dave; for Dave, in addition to
his other good qualities, was an only son, and his
parents had a little money laid up in the savings
bank. A better son-in-law could not be wished for.)
As for Jan, his loyalty to his friend was a household
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
word, almost a household jest at Chy-an-Chy Farm.
In these trips he now and again came near to weary-
ing Annet with his hero-worship.
But when the relief-boat brought Dave home, Jan
would efface himself, asking no better reward than
the old quiet understanding.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
fairly bellowed, while Annet blushed, and the crew-
bronzed, friendly fellows-grinned down overside.
“Oh, hush-please ! ” Annet entreated him in a
vexed voice. “Makin' such a noise, an' before folks.
If I'd known you 'd behave like this
But honest Dave was not to be denied. He
reached down his arms to lift her on board, and no
sooner had her on deck than he kissed her unblush-
ingly, whereat the crew laughed aloud. They caught
the painter thrown by Jan, and as he jumped aboard
after Annet, let the boat fall astern, to be made fast
there.
The next hour was spent in admiring the ship, the
machinery of the lantern, the hundred-and-one
cunning little contrivances for economising space in
galley, pantry, sleeping-bunks. It was all very
wonderful and amazingly cosy, yet Jan kept marvel-
ling how Dave, having once broken away from the
Islands, could endure (as Annet put it) to live out
his life tethered thus.
Annet had recovered her composure, and at tea-
the crew insisted on making tea for them before they
started for home-she reigned as a queen in the small
cabin. The ship smelled potently of oil and brick-
dust from end to end, and the smell was disagreeable
to Jan.
“Well, an' what news o' the flowers?” demanded
Dave.
They told him.
“As if I didn't know !” he shouted delightedly.
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
We can taste the flowers, even out here. There's
the birds arrivin', too, to tell us that spring is comin'
along.”
On the whole, the surprise visit proved a great
success. Yet Jan felt that something was lacking.
He noted with some wonder that Dave, the lover,
seemed to detect nothing amiss, and to be entirely,
even to foolishness, content with Annet's behaviour
and bearing
The time came to say good-bye, and he and Annet
sailed back towards the sunset, followed for a long
way by the cheers of the lightship's crew. Jan
steered. Annet sat on the mid-ship thwart gazing
out to leeward under the sail.
For a mile and more they exchanged not a word.
At length Annet said slowly-
“That kind of life don't improve Dave, seemin'
to me.”
“ Dave don't want improvin’,” Jan answered her
shortly.
There was a long pause, during which Annet
watched the froth rushing by under the boat's lee.
She broke it, saying-
“You must ha' noticed that I didn't like it."
Aye,” Jan replied, “I took note o' that."
Another long pause followed.
“An' that 's to go on for ever an' ever, I suppose.
An' with any pluck he might have gone to the Main
and made his fortune."
“But he's content as he is, lookin' forward to you."
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ An' what about me?" she cried for the second
time that day. “D'ye think that 's all I 'm worth?
Oh,” she broke off, some folk have no eyes in their
head!”
But Jan had—and so had Annet. Wicked, enticing
eyes hers were, albeit demurely dropped. They
watched him from under their long lashes, and he
read their meaning. They were asking him to betray
his friend.
A shiver ran down his body. She was fair and
desirable, but his grip tightened on the tiller as he
lied bravely,
“I don't know what you mean, Annet."
She said no more until they reached the entrance
of Cromwell's Sound and ran the boat in for
shore at the accustomed cove, but her face was
dark.
“It's late,” said Jan; for indeed twilight had
already gathered. “They 'll be getting anxious
about us, up yonder. You'd best run along and
tell them it 's all right, while I stow sail and haul the
boat up.
Annet lingered. She had a mind to tell him that
she was afraid of the gathering dark, but she knew
very well that he would not believe her. But the
devil was in her now, and she would not lose her
game without a last throw. She went up some way
along the path, and dashed aside among the darkling
furze-bushes. There she would wait for him, and
springing out, seize his arm as he came along. The
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TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND
scent of the furze-blossom was intoxicating as it
floated close about her on the evening air.
The boat's keelson grated on the beach below.
He was hauling her up, then, before lowering sail.
Or had she missed to hear the creak of the sheave?
If he was hauling the boat up, in another moment the
keelson would grate again.
But half a minute passed. He was stumbling
about in the boat. Then she heard the soft plash of
a paddle, and not knowing what to make of it,
stepped out into the pathway for a look. She was
barely in time. While she stood there, doubting
her eyes, the white sail slid past the southerly point
of the cove and out of sight.
" Jan! Jan !!
Annet tore down to the beach, calling, demanding
to know where he was bound,--what he meant by it?
But Jan looked back once only as he paid out sheet.
The northerly wind still held behind him, and he
headed the boat straight down Cromwell's Sound
for the roadstead. A light glimmered above the
trees on Iniscaw shore; but the Lady might sing at
the window now if she listed. No spell could any
longer bind him. He had tasted liberty to-day and
looked on fear; and while the one beckoned him,
the other shouted him away from the Islands to his
fate.
Still with a free sheet he ran across the roadstead,
and hauling close under the lee of St. Lide's, fetched
out past the land.
He was in open water now, with
7
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
the sea-lights and the stars for guides. The sea was
smooth, and he could make no mistake.
At daybreak he saw the tall cliffs of the Main at
no more than a mile's distance, rising sheer from the
sea, their fissures pencilled with violet shadows; and
following the coast-line southward, he came to a bay,
wherein was a harbour thrice the size of St. Lide's
Pool.
He steered in boldly. Half a dozen tall ships lay
alongside the quay there, and on one of them a man
was hauling up a red-white-and-green flag. Having
hauled it chock-a-block, he proceeded to make fast
the halyards at the rail, and grinned down in friendly
fashion as the boat slid close.
“ Hi!”
“Hola!”
“Want a hand, do you ? " asked Jan.
“ Siete Italiano ?”
Jan rounded alongside.
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EPILOGUE.
The good harvest was over. The family had
celebrated its close, as usual, by a “ tea-drinking
on Brefar beach, and were wending homeward up
the hill through the dusk; but on the beach a young
man and a maid loitered, listening to their voices.
“ Poor old Jan !” said Dave thoughtfully. “I
wonder what took him ? Didn't notice anything
queer with him that day, did you? I didn't.”
“ He was always queer,” answered Annet. “ You
never can depend on folks from the Main.”
“ You used to worry me about going to live there,
one time,” Dave reminded her.
Girls can't help havin' their silly notions."
“No, I suppose.
But
poor old Jan! I wonder if
he 'll write to us some day. He ought, you know,
for I never had no other real friend," mused Dave
wistfully.
“ What does it matter?" asked Annet.
Haven't we one another ?
At their feet, unnoted by them, a narcissus
bloomed; a flower with white perianth and a cup
of flame. This year it must bloom in patience and
fade—this year, and another, and another, until
Young Farmer Matthey comes along with a sharper
eye than any of his children's and discovers it, the
glory of the Islands.
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Pipes in
Arcady
I HARDLY can bring myself to part with this story,
it has been such a private joy to me. Moreover,
that I have lain awake in the night to laugh over it is
no guarantee of your being passably amused. Your-
selves, I dare say, have known what it is to awake
in irrepressible mirth from a dream which next
morning proved to be flat and unconvincing. Well,
this my pet story has some of the qualities of a
dream; being absurd, for instance, and almost
incredible, and even a trifle inhuman. After all, I
had better change my mind, and tell you another-
But no; I will risk it, and you shall have it, just
as it befel.
I had taken an afternoon's holiday to make a
pilgrimage : my goal being a small parish church
that lies remote from the railway, five good miles
from the tiniest of country stations ; my purpose
to inspect—or say, rather, to contemplate-a
Norman porch, for which it ought to be widely
famous. (Here let me say that I have an unlearned
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
passion for Norman architecture—to enjoy it merely,
not to write about it.)
To carry me on my first stage I had taken a
crawling local train that dodged its way somehow
between the regular expresses and the "excursions
that invade our Delectable Duchy from June to
October. The season was high midsummer, the
afternoon hot and drowsy with scents of mown hay;
and between the rattle of the fast trains it seemed
that we, native denizens of the Duchy, careless of
observation or applause, were executing a tour de
force in that fine indolence which has been charged
as a fault against us. That we halted at every
station goes without saying. Few sidings—however
inconsiderable or, as it might seem, fortuitous-
escaped the flattery of our prolonged sojourn. We
ambled, we paused, almost we dallied with the
butterflies afloat over the meadow-sweet and cow-
parsley beside the line ; we exchanged gossip with
stationmasters, and received the congratulations of
signalmen on the extraordinary spell of fine weather.
It did not matter. Three market-women, a pedlar,
and a local policeman made up with me the train's
complement of passengers. I gathered that their
business could wait; and as for mine-well, a
Norman porch is by this time accustomed to
waiting
I will not deny that in the end I dozed at intervals
in my empty smoking compartment; but wish to
make it clear that I came on the vision (as I will
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PIPES IN ARCADY
call it) with eyes open, and that it left me staring,
wide-awake as Macbeth.
Let me describe it. To the left of the line as you
travel westward there lies a long grassy meadow on
a gentle acclivity, set with three or four umbrageous
oaks and backed by a steep plantation of oak
saplings. At the foot of the meadow, close along-
side the line, runs a brook, which is met at the
meadow's end by a second brook which crosses
under the permanent way through a culvert. The
united waters continue the course of the first brook,
beside the line, and maybe for half a mile farther ;
but, a few yards below their junction, are dammed
by the masonry of a bridge over which a country
lane crosses the railway; and this obstacle spreads
them into a pool some fifteen or twenty feet wide,
overgrown with the leaves of the arrow-head, and
fringed with water-flags and the flowering rush.
Now I seldom pass this spot without sparing a
glance for it; first because of the pool's still beauty,
and secondly because many rabbits infest the
meadow below the coppice, and among them for
two or three years was a black fellow whom I took
an idle delight in recognising. (He is gone now, and
his place knows him no more; yet I continue to
hope for sight of a black rabbit just there.) But
this afternoon I looked out with special interest
because, happening to pass down the line two days
before, I had noted a gang of navvies at work on
the culvert; and among them, as they stood aside
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PIPES IN ARCADY
never recovered from the shock but thereafter ran
wild in the woods with their memories.
At the next station I alighted. It chanced to be
the station for which I had taken my ticket; but
anyhow I should have alighted there.
The spell
of the vision was upon me. The Norman porch
might wait. It is (as I have said) used to waiting,
and in fact it has waited. I have not yet made
another holiday to visit it. Whether or no the
market-women and the local policeman had beheld,
I know not. I hope not, but now shall never know.
The engine-driver, leaning in converse
with the stationmaster, and jerking a thumb back-
ward, had certainly beheld. But I passed him with
averted eyes, gave up my ticket, and struck straight
across country for the spot.
I came to it, as my watch told me, at twenty
minutes after five. The afternoon sunlight still lay
broad on the meadow. The place was unchanged
save for a lengthening of its oak-tree shadows. But
the persons of my vision-naked gods and navvies-
had vanished. Only the cattle stood, knee-deep in
the pool, lazily swishing their tails in protest against
the flies; and the cattle could tell me nothing.
Just a fortnight later, as I spent at St. Blazey
junction the forty odd minutes of repentance ever
thoughtfully provided by our railway company for
those who, living in Troy, are foolish enough to
travel, I spied at some distance below the station a
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
me an
gang of men engaged in unloading rubble to construct
a new siding for the clay-traffic, and at their head my
friend Mr. Joby Tucker. The railway company was
consuming so much of my time that I felt no qualms
in returning some part of the compliment, and
strolled down the line to wish Mr. Tucker good-day.
“ And, by the bye,” I added, “ you owe
explanation. What on earth were you doing in Treba
meadow two Wednesdays ago--you and your naked
friends ?”
Joby leaned on his measuring rod and grinned
from ear to ear.
“ You see'd us ? ” he asked, and, letting his eyes
travel along the line, he chuckled to himself softly
and at length. “Well, now, I'm glad o' that. 'Fact
is, I've been savin' up to tell 'ee about it, but (thinks
I) when I tells Mr. Q. he won't never believe.”
"I certainly saw you," I answered; "but as for
believing
“Iss, iss," he interrupted, with fresh chucklings;
“a fair knock-out, wasn' it?
You see, they
was blind-poor fellas !"
“ Drunk?”
“No, sir—blind- pity the pore blind '; three-
parts blind, anyways, an' undergoin' treatment for
it.”
“ Nice sort of treatment!'
“Eh? You don't understand. See'd us from
the train, did 'ee? Which train ?'"
“ The 1.35 ex Millbay."
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PIPES IN ARCADY
Wish I'd a-knowed you was watchin' us.
I'd
ha' waved my hat as you went by, or maybe blawed
’ee a kiss—that bein' properer to the occasion, come
to think.”
Joby paused, drew the back of a hand across his
laughter-moistened eyes, and pulled himself together,
steadying his voice for the story.
*
“I'll tell 'ee what happened, from the beginnin'.
A gang of us had been sent down, two days before,
to Treba meadow, to repair the culvert there. Soon
as we started to work we found the whole masonry
fairly rotten, and spent the first afternoon (that was
Monday) underpinnin', while I traced out the extent
o the damage. The farther I went, the worse I
found it; the main mischief bein' a leak about
midway in the culvert, on the down side ; whereby
the water, perc'latin through, was unpackin' the soil,
not only behind the masonry of the culvert, but
right away down for twenty yards and more behind
the stone-facing where the line runs alongside the
pool. All this we were forced to take down, shorein'
as we went, till we cut back pretty close to the rails.
The job, you see, had turned out more serious than
reported; and havin' no one to consult, I kept the
men at it.
“ By Wednesday noon we had cut back so far as
we needed, shorein' very careful as we went, and the
men workin' away cheerful, with the footboards of
the expresses whizzin' by close over their heads, so's
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
it felt like havin' your hair brushed by machinery.
By the time we knocked off for dinner I felt pretty
easy in mind, knowin' we'd broke the back o' the job.
“Well, we touched pipe and started again. Bein'
so close to the line I'd posted a fella with a flag-
Bill Martin it was—to keep a look-out for the down-
trains ; an' about three o'clock or a little after he
whistled one comin'. I happened to be in the culvert
at the time, but stepped out an' back across the
brook, just to fling an eye along the embankment
to see that all was clear. Clear it was, an' therefore
it surprised me a bit, as the train hove in sight around
the curve, to see that she had her brakes on, hard,
and was slowin' down to stop. My first thought
was that Bill Martin must have taken some scare an'
showed her the red flag. But that was a mistake;
besides she must have started the brakes before
openin' sight on Bill.”
“ Then why on earth was she pulling up ?” I
asked. “It couldn't be signals.'
There ain't no signal within a mile of Treba
meadow, up or down. She was stoppin' because-
but just you let me tell it in my own way. Along
she came, draggin' hard on her brakes an' whistlin'.
I knew her for an excursion, and as she passed I
sized it up for a big school-treat. There was five
coaches, mostly packed with children, an' on one o'
the coaches was a board-Exeter to Penzance.' The
four front coaches had corridors, the tail one just
ord’nary compartments.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
leg, to make sure I was alive an'awake, but the power
o' speech was taken from us. We just stuck an'
stared.
“What beat everything was the behaviour of the
train, so to say. There it stood, like as if it 'd pulled
up alongside the pool for the very purpose to unload
these unfortniť men; an' yet takin' no notice
whatever. Not a sign o' the guard—not a head
poked out anywheres in the line o' windows-only
the sun shinin', an' the steam escapin', an' out o’
the rear compartment this procession droppin' out
an' high-divin' one after another.
“ Eight of 'em! Eight, as I am a truth-speakin'
man-but there! you saw 'em with your own eyes.
Eight, and the last of the eight scarce in the water
afore the engine toots her whistle an' the train starts
on again, round the curve an' out o' sight.
She didn' leave us no time to doubt, neither,
for there the poor fellas were, splashin' an' blowin',
some of 'em bleatin' for help, an' gurglin', an' for
aught we know drownin' in three-to-four feet o'
water. So we pulled ourselves together an' ran to
give 'em first aid.
“ It didn'take us long to haul the whole lot out
and ashore ; and, as Providence would have it, not
a bone broken in the party. One or two were sufferin'
from sprains, and all of 'em from shock (but so were
we, for that matter), and between 'em they must ha'
swallowed a bra' few pints o' water, an' muddy water
at that. I can't tell ezackly when or how we
ΙΙο


PIPES IN ARCADY
discovered they was all blind, or near-upon blind. It
may ha' been from the unhandiness of their move-
ments an' the way they clutched at us an' at one
another as we pulled 'em ashore. Hows’ever, blind
they were ; an' I don't remember that it struck us as
anyways singular, after what we'd been through
a'ready. We fished out a concertina, too, an' a
silver-mounted flute that was bobbin' among the
weeds.
“ The man the concertina belonged to-a tall fresh
complexioned young fella he was, an' very mild of
manner-turned out to be a sort o' leader o' the
arty; an' he was the first to talk any sense.
‘Th-thank you,' he said. “They told us Penzance
was the next stop.'
“ ' Hey ?' says I.
They told us,' he says again, plaintive-like,
feelin' for his spectacles an' not finding 'em, ‘that
Penzance was the next stop.'
“'Bound for Penzance, was you?' I asks.
“For the Land's End, 'says he, his teeth chatterin'.
I set it down the man had a stammer, but 'twas only
the shock an' the chill of his duckin'.
Well,' says I,' this ain't the Land's End, though
I dessay it feels like it. Then you wasn'thrown
out ?’I says.
Th-thrown out ? 'says he. ‘N-no. They told
us Penzance was the next stop.'
“'Then,' says I, ‘if you got out accidental you've
had a most providential escape, an' me an' my mates
III


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
don't deserve less than to hear about it. There's
bound to be inquiries after you when the guard finds
your compartment empty an' the door open. May
be the train 'll put back; more likely they'll send a
search party; but anyways you 're all wet through,
an' the best thing for health is to off wi' your clothes
an' dry 'em this warm afternoon.'
“I dessay,' says he, 'you 'll have noticed that
our eyesight is affected.'
''All the better if
you ’re anyways modest,' says
I. You couldn' find a retirededer place than this-
not if you searched : an' we don't mind.'
“Well, sir, the end was we stripped 'em naked
as Adam, an' spread their clothes to dry 'pon the
grass. While we tended on 'em the mild young
man told us how it had happened. It seems they'd
come by excursion from Exeter. There's a blind
home at Exeter, an' likewise a cathedral choir,
an' Sunday school, an'a boys' brigade, with
other sundries; an' this year the good people
financin' half-a-dozen o' these shows had discovered
that by clubbin' two sixpences together a shillin'
could be made to go as far as eighteenpence; and
how, doin' it on the co-op' instead of an afternoon
treat for each, they could manage a two days' outin'
for all Exeter to Penzance an' the Land's End,
sleepin' one night at Penzance, an' back to Exeter at
some ungodly hour the next. It's no use your askin'
me why a man three-parts blind should want to visit
the Land's End. There's an attraction about that
II2


PIPES IN ARCADY
place, an' that's all you can say. Everybody knows
as tisn' worth seein', an' yet everybody wants to see
it-so why not a blind man ?
'Well, this Happy Holiday Committee (as they
called themselves) got the Company to fix them up
with a special excursion; an' our blind friends-
bein' sensitive, or maybe a touch above mixin' wi'
the school children an' infants—had packed them-
selves into this rear compartment separate from the
others. One of 'em had brought his concertina, an'
another his flute, and what with these an' other ways
of passin' the time they got along pretty comfortable
till they came to Gwinear Road : an' there for some
reason they were held up an' had to show their tickets.
Anyways, the staff at Gwinear Road went along the
train collectin' the halves o' their return tickets.
* What's the name o' this station ?” asks my blind
friend, very mild an' polite. Gwinear Road,' answers
the porter ; ' Penzance next stop.' Somehow this gave
him the notion that they were nearly arrived, an' so,
you see, when the train slowed down a few minutes
later an' came to a stop, he took the porter at his
word, an' stepped out. Simple, wasn't it? But in
my experience the curiousest things in life are the
simplest of all, once you come to inquire into 'em."
“What I don't understand," said I, “is how the
train came to stop just there.”
Mr. Tucker gazed at me rather in sorrow than in
anger. "I thought,” said he,
"'twas agreed I
should tell the story in my own way. Well, as I
8
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
was sayin', we got those poor fellas there, all as naked
as Adam, an’ we was helpin' them all we could-
some of us wringin' out their under linen an' spreading
it to dry, others collectin' their hats, an' tryin' which
fitted which, an' others even dredgin' the pool for
their handbags an' spectacles an' other small articles,
an' in the middle of it someone started to laugh.
You 'll scarce believe it, but up to that moment there
hadn't been so much as a smile to hand round; an'
to this day I don't know the man's name that started
it-for all I can tell you, I did it myself. But this
I do know that it set the whole gang like a motor-
engine. There was a sort of 'click,' an' the next
moment
“Laugh? I never heard men laugh like it in
my born days. Sort of recoil, I s'pose it must ha'
been, after the shock. Laugh? There was men
staggerin' drunk with it and there was men rollin'
on the turf with it; an' there was men cryin'
with it, holdin' on to a stitch in their sides an'
beseechin' everyone also to hold hard. The blind
men took a bit longer to get going; but by gosh,
sir ! once started they laughed to do your heart
good. O Lord, O Lord! I wish you could ha'
seen that mild-mannered spokesman. Somebody
had fished out his spectacles for en, and that was
all the clothing he stood in—that, an' a grin. He
fairly beamed; an' the more he beamed the
more we rocked, callin' on en to take pity an'
stop it.
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PIPES IN ARCADY
“Soon as I could catch a bit o' breath, 'Land's
End next stop !' gasped I. 'O, but this is the
Land's End! This is what the Land's End oughter
been all the time, an' never was yet. 0, for the
Lord's sake,' says I, ‘stop beamin', and pick up
your concertina an' pitch us a tune!'
Well, he did too. He played us ' Home, sweet
home' first of all—’mid pleasure an' palaces—an'
the rest o' the young men sat around en an' started
clappin' their hands to the tune; an' then some
fool slipped an arm round my waist. I'm only
thankful he didn't kiss me. Didn't think of it,
perhaps ; couldn't ha' been that he wasn't capable.
It must ha' been just then your train came along.
An' about twenty minutes later, when we was
gettin' our friends back into their outfits, we heard
the search-engine about half a mile below, whistlin'
an' feelin' its way up very cautious towards us.
They was sun-dried an' jolly as sandhoppers-
all their eight of 'em-as we helped 'em on jboard
an' wished 'em ta-ta ! The search party couldn'
understand at all what had happened-in so short
a time, too—to make us so cordial; an' somehow
we didn' explain-neither we nor the blind men.
reckon the whole business had been so loonatic we
felt it kind of holy. But the pore fellas kept wavin'
back to us as they went out o'sight around the
curve, an' maybe for a mile beyond. I never heard,”
Mr. Tucker wound up meditatively, “if they ever
reached the Land's End. I wonder ?"
I
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ But, excuse me once more," said I. How
came the train to stop as it did ? "
“To be sure. I said just now that the curiousest
things in life were, gen'rally speakin', the simplest.
One o' the schoolchildren in the fore part of the
train-a small nipper of nine—had put his head out
o' the carriage window and got his cap blown away.
That's all. Bein' a nipper of some resource, he
wasted no time, but touched off the communicatin'
button an' fetched the whole train to a standstill.
George Simmons, the guard, told me all about it
last week, when I happened across him an' asked
the same question you 've been askin'. George was
huntin' through the corridors to find out what had
gone wrong; that 's how the blind men stepped out
without his noticin'. He pretended to be pretty
angry wi' the young tacker. “Do 'ee know,' says
George, 'it's a five pound fine if you stop a train
without good reason ?''But I had a good reason,'
says the child. ‘My mother gave 'levenpence for
that cap, an' it's a bran' new one.'
116


Our Lady of Gwithian
"Mary, mother, well thou be!
Mary, mother, think on me;
Sweetè Lady, maiden clean,
Shield me from ill, shame, and teen ;
Shield me, Lady, from villainy
And from all wicked company!”
SPECULUM CHRISTIANI.
HERE is a little story I found one day among the
legends of the Cornish Saints, like a chip in porridge.
If you love simplicity, I think it may amuse you.
Lovey Bussow was wife of Daniel Bussow, a tin-
streamer of Gwithian Parish. He had brought her
from Camborne, and her neighbours agreed that there
was little amiss with the woman if you overlooked
her being a bit weak in the head. They set her down
as “not exactly.” At the end of a year she brought
her husband a fine boy. It happened that the child
was born just about the time of year the tin-
merchants visited St. Michael's Mount; and the
father—who streamed in a small way, and had no
beast of burden but his donkey, or
to load up panniers and drive his tin down to the
naggur "-had
117


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
shore-market with the rest, which for him meant an
absence of three weeks, or a fortnight at the least.
So Daniel kissed his wife and took his leave; and
the neighbours, who came to visit her as soon as he
was out of the way, all told her the same story—that
until the child was safely baptised it behoved her to
be very careful and keep her door shut for fear of the
Piskies. The Piskies, or fairy-folk (they said), were
themselves the spirits of children that had died un-
christened, and liked nothing better than the chance
to steal away an unchristened child to join their
nation of mischief.
Lovey listened to them, and it preyed on her
mind. She reckoned that her best course was to
fetch a holy man as quickly as possible to baptise
the child and make the cross over him. So one
afternoon, the mite being then a bare fortnight old,
she left him asleep in his cradle and, wrapping a
shawl over her head, hurried off to seek Meriden the
Priest.
Meriden the Priest dwelt in a hut among the
sandhills, a bowshot beyond St. Gwithian's Chapel
on the seaward side, as you go out to Godrevy. He
had spent the day in barking his nets, and was spread-
ing them out to dry on the short turf of the towans ;
but on hearing Lovey's errand, he good-naturedly
dropped his occupation and, staying only to fill a
bottle with holy water, walked back with her to her
home.
As they drew near, Lovey was somewhat perturbed
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Lovey opened her eyes wide on them.
" Lord's sake!” she said, "you don't reckon I'm
goin' to sit down under this ? What ?-and him the
beautifullest, straightest cheeld that ever was in
Gwithian Parish! Go'st thy ways home, every wan.
Piskies steal my cheeld an' Dan'l's, would they ?
I'll pisky 'em!'
She showed them forth—"put them to doors ” as
we say in the Duchy-every one, the Priest included.
She would have none of their consolation.
“ You mean it kindly, naybors, I don't say ; but
tiddn' what I happen to want. I wants my cheeld
back; an' I'll have 'n back, what's more!”
They went their ways, agreeing that the woman
was doited. Lovey closed the door upon them,
bolted it, and sat for hours staring at the empty
cradle. Through the unglazed window she could see
the stars; and when these told her that midnight
was near, she put on her shawl again, drew the bolt,
and fared forth over the towans. At first the stars
guided her, and the slant of the night-wind on her
face; but by and by, in a dip between the hills, she
spied her mark and steered for it. This was the spark
within St. Gwithian's Chapel, where day and night a
tiny oil lamp, with a floating wick, burned before the
image of Our Lady.
Meriden the Priest kept the lamp filled, the wick
trimmed, year in and year out. But he, good man,
after remembering Lovey in his prayers, was laid
asleep and snoring within his hut, a bowshot away.
I 20


OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN
The chapel-door opened softly to Lovey's hand,
and she crept up to Mary's image, and abased
herself before it.
“Dear Aun' Mary,” she whispered," the Piskies
have taken my cheeld ! You d’knaw what that
means to a poor female—you there, cuddlin' your
liddle Jesus in the crook o' your arm. An'
An' you d'
knaw likewise what these Piskies be like ; spiteful
li'l toads, same as you or I might be if happen we'd
died unchristened an' hadn' no share in heaven nor
hell nor middle-earth. But that's no excuse. Aun'
Mary, my dear, I want my cheeld back!” said she.
That was all Lovey prayed. Without more ado she
bobbed a curtsy, crept from the chapel, closed the
door, and way-to-go back to her cottage.
When she reached it and struck a light in the
kitchen she more than half expected to hear the
child cry to her from his cradle. But, for all that
Meriden the Priest had told her concerning the Virgin
and her power, there the cradle stood empty.
"Well-a-well !” breathed Lovey. “The gentry
are not to be hurried, I reckon. I'll fit and lie down
for forty winks," she said ; though I do think,
with her experience, Mary might have remembered
the poor mite would be famished afore this, not to
mention that the milk in me is beginnin' to hurt
cruel.”
She did off some of her clothes and lay down, and
even slept a little in spite of the pain in her breasts ;
but awoke a good two hours before dawn, to find no
I21


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
baby restored to her arms, nor even (when she looked)
was it back in its cradle.
“This 'll never do,” said Lovey. On went her
shawl again, and once again she faced the night and
hurried across the towans to St. Gwithian's Chapel.
There in her niche stood Our Lady, quite as though
nothing had happened, with the infant Christ in her
arms and the tiny lamp burning at her feet.
“ Aun' Mary, Aun' Mary,” said Lovey, speaking
up sharp,
this iddn'no sense 't all! A person
would think time was no objic, the way you stick
there starin', an' my poor cheeld leary with hunger
afore now-as you, bein' a mother, oft to knaw. Fit
an’ fetch en home to me quick. Aw, do'ee co',
that's a dear soul !"
But Our Lady stood there and made no sign.
“I don't understand 'ee 't all," Lovey groaned.
“ 'Tiddn’ the way I'd behave in your place, and
you d'knaw it.”
Still Our Lady made no sign.
Lovey grew desperate.
“Aw, very well, then!” she cried. Try what it
feels like without your liddle Jesus!”
And reaching up a hand, she snatched at the Holy
Child that fitted into a stone socket on Our Lady's
It came away in her grasp, and she fled,
tucking it under her shawl.
All the way home Lovey looked for the earth to
gape and swallow her, or a hand to reach down from
heaven and grip her by the hair; and all the way she
arm.
I 22


OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN
seemed to hear Our Lady's feet padding after her in
the darkness. But she never stopped nor stayed
until she reached home; and there, flinging in
through the door and slamming-to the bolt behind
her, she made one spring for the bed, and slid down
in it, cowering over the small stone image.
Rat-a-tat ! tat !—someone knocked on the door so
that the cottage shook.
“Knock away!” said Lovey.
“Whoever thee
be, thee 'rt not my cheeld.”
Rat-a-tat ! tat !
“My cheeld wouldn' be knockin': he's got neither
strength nor sproil for it. An' you may fetch Michael
and all his Angels, to tear me in pieces,” said Lovey ;
“but till I hear my own cheeld creen to me, I'll
keep what I have !"
Thereupon Lovey sat up, listening. For outside
she heard a feeble wail.
She slipped out of bed. Holding the image tight
in her right arm, she drew the bolt cautiously. On
the threshold, at her feet, lay her own babe, nestling
in a bed of bracken.
She would have stooped at once and snatched him
to her. But the stone Christling hampered her, lying
so heavily in her arm. For a moment, fearing
trickery, she had a mind to hurl it far out of doors
into the night.
It would fall without much
hurt into the soft sand of the towans. But on a
second thought she held it forth gently in her two
hands.
.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
"I never meant to hurt 'en, Aun' Mary,” she said.
“But a firstborn 's a firstborn, be we gentle or
simple.”
In the darkness a pair of invisible hands reached
forward and took her hostage.
*
When it was known that the Piskies had repented
and restored Lovey Bussow's child to her, the neigh-
bours agreed that fools have most of the luck in this
world; but came nevertheless to offer their congratu-
lations. Meriden the Priest came also. He wanted
to know how it had happened ; for the Piskies do not
easily surrender a child they have stolen.
Lovey-standing very demure, and smoothing her
apron down along her thighs-confessed that she had
laid her trouble before Our Lady.
"A miracle, then !” exclaimed his Reverence.
“What height! What depth!”
“That's of it,” agreed Lovey. “Aw, b’lieve
me, your Reverence, we mothers understand wan
another.”
124


Pilot Matthey's Christmas
Pilot MATTHEY came down to the little fishing-quay
at five p.m. or thereabouts. He is an elderly man,
tall and sizeable, with a grizzled beard and eyes
innocent-tender as a child's, but set in deep crow's-
feet at the corners, as all seamen's eyes are. It
comes of facing the wind.
Pilot Matthey spent the fore-half of his life at the
fishing. Thence he won his way to be a Trinity pilot,
and wears such portions of an old uniform as he
remembers to don. He has six sons and four
daughters, all brought up in the fear of the Lord,
and is very much of a prophet in our Israel. One
of the sons works with him as apprentice, the other
five follow the fishing.
He came down to the quay soon after tea-time,
about half-an-hour before the luggers were due to
put out. Some twenty-five or thirty men were
already gathered, dandering to and fro with hands
in pockets, or seated on the bench under the sea wall,
waiting for the tide to serve. About an equal
number were below in the boats, getting things ready.
There was nothing unusual about Matthey, save
125


PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS
me. The fire had died out of him. He eyed me
almost shamefacedly at first, by-and-by more
boldly.
“I would give, sir,” said Pilot Matthey, “I
would give half my worldly goods to lead you to
the Lord.”
“I believe you,” said I. “ To my knowledge you
have risked more than that—your life--to save
men from drowning. But tell me—you that for
twenty minutes have been telling these fellows
how Christ feels towards them-how can you
know? It is hard enough, surely, to get inside
any man's feelings. How can you pretend to know
what Christ feels, or felt-for an instance, in the
Judgment Hall, when Peter denied ?
“Once I did, sir,” said Pilot Matthey, smoothing
the worn knees of his trousers. “It was just that.
I'll tell you :
It happened eighteen or twenty years ago, on
the old Early and Late-yes, twenty years come
Christmas, for I mind that my eldest daughter was
expectin' her first man-child, just then. You saw
him get aboard just now, praise the Lord! But at
the time we was all nervous about it-my son-in-law,
Daniel, bein' away with me on the East Coast after
the herrings. I'd as good as promised him to be
back in time for it-this bein' my first grandchild,
an' due (so well as we could calculate) any time
between Christmas an' New Year. Well, there was
i27


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
no sacrifice, as it happened, in startin' for home-
the weather up there keepin' monstrous, an' the
catches not worth the labour. So we turned down
Channel, the wind strong an' dead foul—south at
first, then west-sou’-west-headin' us all the way,
and always blowin' from just where 'twasn't wanted.
This lasted us down to the Wight, and we'd most
given up hope to see home before Christmas, when
almost without warnin' it catched in off the land-
pretty fresh still, but steady—and bowled us down
past the Bill and half-way across to the Start,
merry as heart's delight. Then it fell away again,
almost to a flat calm, and Daniel lost his temper.
I never allowed cursin' on board the Early and Late-
nor, for that matter, on any other boat of mine;
but if Daniel didn't swear a bit out of hearin' well
then--poor dear fellow, he's dead and gone these
twelve years (yes, sir-drowned) ----well then I'm
doin' him an injustice. One couldn't help pitying
him, neither. Didn't I know well enough what it
felt like? And the awe of it, to think it's
happenin' everywhere, and ever since world began-
men fretting for the wife and firstborn, and gettin'
over it, and goin' down to the grave leavin' the
firstborn to fret over his firstborn! It puts me in
mind o' the old hemn, sir : 'tis in the Wesley books,
and I can't think why church folk leave out the
verse-
''The busy tribes o' flesh and blood,
With all their cares and fears'-
128


PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS
Ay, 'cares and fears ;' that's of it-
“Are carried downward by the flood,
And lost in followin' years.'
“Poor Daniel-poor boy!”
Pilot Matthey sat silent for a while, staring out
over the water in the wake of the boats that
already had begun to melt into the shadow of
darkness.
“ 'Twas beautiful sunshiny weather, too, as I
mind,” he resumed. “One o' those calm spells
that happen, as often as not, just about Christmas.
I remember drawin' your attention to it, sir, one
Christmas when I passed you the compliments of
the season; and you put it down to kingfishers,
which I thought strange at the time.”
Kingfishers ? " echoed I, mystified for the
moment. “Oh, yes ”-as light broke on me-
Halcyon days, of course!”
That 's right,” Pilot Matthey nodded.
“ That's
what you called 'em.
It took us a whole
day to work past the tides of the Start. Then,
about sunset, a light draught off the land helped us to
Bolt Tail, and after that we mostly drifted all
night, with here and there a cat's paw, down across
Bigbury Bay. By five in the morning we were
inside the Eddystone, with Plymouth Sound open,
and by twelve noon we was just in the very same
place. It was Christmas Eve, sir.
“I looked at Daniel's face, and then a notion
.
9
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
struck me. It was foolish I hadn't thought of it
before.
" See here, boys,' I says.
(There was three.
My second son, Sam, Daniel, and Daniel's brother,
Dick, a youngster of sixteen or so.) Get out the
boat, I says, and we 'll tow her into Plymouth. If
you 're smart we may pluck her into Cattewater in
time for Daniel to catch a train home.
Sam can go
home, too, if he has a mind, and the youngster can
stay and help me look after things. I've seen a
many Christmasses,' said I, ‘and I'd as lief spend
this one at Plymouth as anywhere else.
You can
give 'em all my love, and turn up again the day
after Boxin' Day—and mind you ask for excursion
tickets,' I said.
They tumbled the boat out fast enough, you
may be sure. Leastways the two men were smart
enough. But the boy seemed ready to cry, so
that my heart smote me. "There !' said I, and
Dicky can go too, if he 'll pull for it. I shan't mind
bein' left to myself. A redeemed man 's never
lonely-least of all at Christmas time.'
Well, sir, they nipped into the boat, leavin' me
aboard to steer; and they pulled-pulled-like as
if they'd pull their hearts out. But it happened
a strongish tide was settin' out o' the Sound, and
long before we fetched past the breakwater I saw
there was no chance to make Cattewater before
nightfall, let alone their gettin' to the railway
station. I blamed myself that I hadn't thought of
130


PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS
ease
on
it earlier, and so, steppin' forward, I called out to
them to
up—we wouldn't struggle
for Cattewater, but drop hook in Jennycliff
Bay, somewhere inside of the Merchant Shipping
anchorage. As things were, this would save a
good hour—more likely two hours. 'And,' said I,
you can take the boat, all three, and leave her at
Barbican steps. Tell the harbour-master where she
belongs, and where I 'm laying. He 'll see she don't
take no harm, and you needn't fear but I'll get
put ashore to her somehow. There's always
somebody passin' hereabouts.'
“' But look 'ee here, father,' said the boys-
good boys they were, too— What's to happen if it
comes on to blow from south or sou’-west, same as
it blew at the beginning of the week?'
'Tisn't goin' to do any such thing,' said I, for
I'd been studyin' the weather. And, even if it
should happen, I've signals aboard. 'Tisn't the
first time, sonnies, I 've sat out a week-end on board
a boat, alone wi' the Redeemer.'
“That settled it, sir. It relieved 'em a bit, too,
when they spied another lugger already lyin' inside
the anchorage, and made her out for a Porthleven
boat, the Maid in Two Minds, that had been
after the herrings with the rest of us up to a fortni't
ago, or maybe three weeks : since when we hadn't
seen her. As I told you, the weather had been
cruel, and the catches next to nothing; and belike
she'd given it up earlier than we and pushed for
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
home. At any rate, here she was. We knowed
her owners, as fishermen do; but we'd never
passed word with her, nor with any of her crew.
I'd heard somewhere—but where I couldn't
recollect--that the skipper was a blasphemous
man, given to the drink, and passed by the name
of Dog Mitchell ; but 'twas hearsay only. All
I noted, or had a mind to note, as we dropped
anchor less than a cable length from her, was
that she had no boat astern or on deck (by which
I concluded the crew were ashore), and that
Dog Mitchell himself was on deck. I reckernised
him through the glass. He made no hail at all,
but stood leanin' by the mizzen and smokin',
watchin' what we did. By then the dark was
comin' down.
“Well, sir, I looked at my watch, and there
was no time to be choice about position; no time
even for the lads to get aboard and pack their
bags. I ran forward, heaved anchor, cast off
tow-line, an' just ran below, and came up with
an armful o duds which I tossed into the boat
as she dropped back alongside.
I fished the purse
out of my pocket, and two sovereigns out o' the
purse.
That 'll take 'ee home and back,' said I,
passin' the money to Daniel. “So long, children !
You haven't no time to spare.'
Away they pulled, callin' back, ‘God bless
'ee, father!' and the like; words I shan't forget
Poor Daniel !
And there, all of
CC
•
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“He went below after that, and for a couple of
hours no sound came from the Maid in Two Minds.
Likely enough, thought I, he's turned in, to
sleep it off ; and that's the best could happen to
him ;' and by-and-by I put the poor fellow clean
out o' my head. I made myself a dish o' tea, got
out supper, and ate it with a thankful heart, though
I missed the boys; but, then again, I no sooner
missed them than I praised God they had caught
the train. They would be nearin' home by this
time; and I sat for a while picturin' it: the kitchen,
and the women-folk there, that must have made up
their minds to spend Christmas without us ;
particularly Lisbeth Mary—that 's my daughter,
Daniel's wife-with her mother to comfort her, an'
the firelight goin' dinky-dink round the cups and
saucers on the dresser. I pictured the joy of it, too,
when Sam or Daniel struck rat-tat and clicked open
the latch, or maybe one o' the gals pricked up an
ear at the sound of their boots on the cobbles. I
'most hoped the lads hadn't been thoughtful enough
to send on a telegram. My mind ran on all this,
sir; and then for a moment it ran back to myself,
sittin' there cosy and snug after many perils, many
joys ; past middle-age, yet hale and strong, wi' the
hand o’ the Lord protectin' me.
• The Lord is my
shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing. He shall
feed me in a green pasture, and lead me forth beside
the waters of comfort. He shall convert my soul
134


PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS
.
.
“I don't know how it happened, sir, but of a
sudden a well o' warmth ran through me and all
over me, just like a spring burstin'. • Waters o'
Comfort ?' Ay, maybe
maybe. Funny
things happen on Christmas Eve, they say. My old
mother believed to her last day that every
every Christmas
Eve at midnight the cattle in their stalls went down
on their knees, throughout the land
But the feelin', if you understand me, wasn't
Christmas-like at all. It had started with green
pastures : and green pastures ran in my head, with
brooks, and birds singin' away up aloft and bees
hummin' all 'round, and the sunshine o' the Lord
warmin' everything and warmin' my heart
I felt the walls of the cuddy chokin' me of a sudden,
an’ went on deck.
“A fine night it was, up there. Very clear with
a hint o' frost-no moon. As I remember, she was
in her first quarter and had gone down some while.
The tide had turned and was makin' in steady. I
could hear it clap-clappin' past the Maid in Two
Minds—she lay a little outside of us, to seaward, and
we had swung so that her ridin' light come over our
starboard bow. Out beyond her the lighthouse on
the breakwater kept flashin'-it's red over the
anchorage—an' away beyond that the 'Stone.
Astern was all the half-circle o' Plymouth lights-
like the front of a crown o' glory. And the stars
overhead, sir !--not so much as a wisp o'cloud to
hide 'em.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Where is He that is born King of the Jews ?
for we have seen His star in the east . I'd
always been curious about that star, sir,—whether
'twas an ordinary one or one sent by miracle : and,
years before, I'd argued it out that the Lord wouldn't
send one like a flash in the pan, but-bein' thoughtful
in all things—would leave it to come back constant
every year and bring assurance, if we looked for it.
After that, I began to look regularly, studying the
sky from the first week of December on to Christmas :
and 'twasn't long before I felt certain. 'Tis a star-
they call it Regulus in the books, for I've looked it
out—that gets up in the south-east in December
month : pretty low, and yet full high enough to stand
over a cottage ; one o' the brightest too, and easily
known, for it carries five other stars set like a reap-
hook just above it.
“Well, I looked to the south-east, and there my
star stood blazin', just over the dark o' the land,
with its reap-hook over its forehead. * The people
that walked in darkness have seen a great light
While I stood staring at it, thinkin' my thoughts,
there came a noise all of a sudden from the other
lugger, as if someone had kicked over a table down
below, and upset half-a-dozen pots and pans. Then,
almost before I had time to wonder, I heard Dog
Mitchell scramble forth on deck, find his feet in a
scufflin' way, and start travisin' forth and back,
forth and back, talkin' to himself all the while and
136


PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS
I tell you
cursin'. He was fairly chewin' curses. I guessed
what was the matter. He had been down below
toppin' things up with a last soak of neat whisky,
and now he had the shakes on him, or the
beginnings of 'em.
“You know the sayin', ‘A fisherman's walk
-two steps, an' overboard ?
I was in misery for the man. Any moment he might
lurch overboard, or also throw himself over-one
as likely as another with a poor chap in that state.
Yet how could I help ?-cut off, without boat or any
means to get to him ?
“Forth and back he kept goin', in his heavy sea-
boots. I could hear every step he took, and when
he kicked against the hatchway-coamin' (he did this
scores o'times) and when he stood still and spat
overboard. Once he tripped over the ship's mop
-got the handle a-foul of his legs, and talked to it
like a pers'nal enemy. Terrible language-terrible !
“ It struck me after a bit”-here Pilot Matthey
turned to me with one of those shy smiles which, as
they reveal his childish, simple heart, compel you to
love the man. “ It struck me after a bit that a hemn-
tune mightn't come amiss to a man in that distress
of mind. So I pitched to sing that grand old tune,
Partners of a glorious hope,' a bit low at first, but
louder as I picked up confidence. Soon as he heard
it he stopped short, and called out to me to shut my
head. So, findin' that hemns only excited him, I
sat quiet, while he picked up his tramp again.
137


PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS
.
I knew that trick, though, luckily
I got him
round on his back, with my hands under his armpits,
and kicked out for the Maid in Two Minds.
“ 'Tisn't easy to climb straight out o' the water
and board a lugger-not at the best of times, when
you ’ve only yourself to look after; and the Maid in
Two Minds had no accommodation-ladder hung out
But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail
anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul
of the mizzen danglin' slack and close to the water.
I reached for this, shortened up on it till I had it taut,
and gave it into his hand to cling by—which he had
the sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits.
After that I scrambled on to the mizzen-boom
somehow and hauled him aboard mainly by his shirt
collar and guernsey. It was a job, too; and the
first thing he did on deck was to reach his head
overside and be vi’lently sick.
“ He couldn't have done better. When he'd
finished I took charge, hurried him below-my! the
mess down there !-and got him into somebody's
dry clothes. All the time he was whimperin' and
shiverin'; and he whimpered and shivered still
when I coaxed him into his bunk and tucked him up
in every rug I could find. There was a bottle of
whisky, pretty near empty, 'pon the table. Seein'
how wistful the poor chap looked at it, and mindin'
how much whisky and salt water he'd got rid of,
I mixed the dregs of it with a little hot water off the
stove, and poured it into him. Then I filled up the
139


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
bottle with hot water, corked it hard, and slipped it
down under the blankets, to warm his feet.
“That's all right, matey,' said he, his teeth
chatterin' as I snugged him down. “But cut along
and leave me afore the others come.'
“Well, that was sense in its way, though he didn't
seem to take account that there was only one way
back for me—the way I'd come.”
“ ' You 'll do, all right?' said I.
“I'll do right enough now,' said he. "You cut
along.'
“So I left him. I was that chilled in my drippin'
clothes, the second swim did me more good than
harm. When I got to the Early and Late, though,
I was pretty dead beat, and it cost me half-a-dozen
tries before I could heave myself on to the accom-
modation ladder. Hows'ever, once on board I had
a strip and a good rub-down, and tumbled to bed
glowin' like a babby.
“I slept like a top, too, this time. What woke
me was a voice close abeam, hailin' the Early and
Late; and there was a brisk, brass-bound young chap
alongside in a steam-launch, explainin' as he'd
brought out the boat, and why the harbour-master
hadn't sent her out last night. “As requested by
your crew, Cap’n.' That 's very polite o' them and
o' you, and o' the habour-master,' said I ; 'and I
wish you the compliments o' the season. For I
liked the looks of him there, smiling up in an obliging
way, and Plymouth bells behind him all sounding
6
140


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
on me, anyway, and says he-'Does he ? Then
he's a bloody liar !'
“I didn't make no answer, sir. I saw what he
had in mind—that I'd come off on the first
opportunity, cadgin' for some reward. I turned
the boat's head about, and started to pull back for
the Early and Late. The men laughed after me,
jeering-like. And Dog Mitchell, he laughed too
in the wake o' them, with a kind of challenge as he
saw my lack o'pluck. And away back in Plymouth
the bells kept on ringing.
“ That's the story.
You asked how I could tell
what the blessed Lord felt like when Peter denied.
I don't know. But I seemed to feel like it, just
that once."
142


The Mont-Bazillac
I HAVE a sincere respect and liking for the Vicar oſ
Gantick—"th' old Parson Kendall," as we call
him but have somewhat avoided his hospitality
since Mrs. Kendall took up with the teetotal craze.
I say nothing against the lady's renouncing, an she
choose, the light dinner claret, the cider, the port
(pale with long maturing in the wood) which her
table afforded of yore: nor do I believe that the
Vicar, excellent man, repines deeply—though I once
caught the faint sound of a sigh as we stood together
and conned his apple-trees, ungarnered, shedding
their fruit at random in the long grasses. For
his glebe contains a lordly orchard, and it used to be
a treat to watch him, his greenish third-best coat
stuck all over with apple-pips and shreds of pomace,
as he helped to work the press at the great annual
cider-making. But I agree with their son, Master
Dick, that "it's rough on the guests."
Master Dick is now in his second year at Oxford ;
and it was probably for his sake, to remove tempta-
tion from the growing lad, that Mrs. Kendall first
discovered the wickedness of all alcoholic drink.
143


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Were he not an ordinary, good-natured boy–had he,
as they say, an ounce of vice in him-I doubt the
good lady's method might go some way towards
defeating her purpose. As things are, it will probably
take no worse revenge upon her than by weaning
him insensibly away from home, to use his vacation-
times in learning to be a man.
Last Long Vacation, in company with a friend he
calls Jinks, Master Dick took a Canadian canoe out to
Bordeaux by steamer, and spent six adventurous
weeks in descending the Dordogne and exploring the
Garonne with its tributaries. On his return he walked
over to find me smoking in my garden after dinner,
and gave me a gleeful account of his itinerary.
and the next place we came to was
Bergerac," said he, after ten minutes of it.
“Ah!" I murmured. Bergerac !'
“You know it?"
“Passably well,” said I. “ It lies toward the edge
of the claret country; but it grows astonishing claret.
When I was your age it grew a wine yet more
astonishing.”
“Hullo !” Master Dick paused in the act of
lighting his pipe and dropped the match hurriedly
as the flame scorched his fingers.
It was grown on a hill just outside the town,
the Mont-Bazillac. I once drank a bottle of it."
“ Lord! You too ?
Do tell me what
happened !”
Never,” I responded firmly.
“ The Mont-
>>
144


THE MONT-BAZILLAC
" I began.
Bazillac is extinct, swept out of existence by the
phylloxera when you were a babe in arms. Infandum
jubes renovare—no one any longer can tell you what
that wine was. They made it of the ripe grape.
It had the raisin flavour with something—no more
than a hint-of Madeira in it: the leathery tang
-how to describe it?"
“ You need not try, when I have two bottles of it
at home, at this moment!"
“When I tell you
Oh, but wait till you 've heard the story!” he
interrupted “ As I was saying, we came to Bergerac
and put up for the night at the Couronne d'Or-
first-class cooking. Besides ourselves there were
three French bagmen at the table d'hôte. The usual
sort. Jinks, who talks worse French than I do (if
that 's possible), and doesn't mind, got on terms
with them at once. .. For my part I can always
hit it off with a commercial—it's the sort of mind
that appeals to me-and these French bagmen do
know something about eating and drinking. That 's
how it happened. One of them started chaffing us
about the ordinaire we were drinking-quite a
respectable tap, by the way. He had heard that
Englishmen drank only the strongest wine, and
drank it in any quantities. Then another said:
Ah, messieurs, if you would drink for the honour
of England, justement you should match yourselves
here in this town against the famous Mont-Bazillac.'
What is this Mont-Bazillac ?' we asked : and they
6
6
10
145


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
may
told us—well, pretty much what you told me just
now_adding, however, that the landlord kept a few
precious bottles of it. They were quite fair in their
warnings.”
“Which, of course, you disregarded."
“For the honour of England. We rang for the
landlord-a decent fellow, Sébillot by name—and at
first, I tell
you,
he wasn't at all keen on pro-
ducing the stuff ; kept protesting that he had but
a small half-dozen left, that his daughter was to be
married in the autumn, and he had meant to keep it
for the wedding banquet. However, the bagmen
helping, we persuaded him to bring up two bottles.
A frantic price it was, too-frantic for us. Seven
francs a bottle."
“It was four francs fifty even in my time."
The two bottles were opened. Jinks took his,
and I took mine. We had each arroséd the dinner
with about a pint of Bordeaux ; nothing to count.
We looked at each other straight. I said, ' Be a man,
Jinks ! À votre santé messieurs !' and we started.
As you said just now, it's a most innocent-
tasting wine.”
“ As a matter of fact, I didn't say so. Still, you
are right.”
“ The fourth and fifth glasses, too, seemed to have
no more kick in them than the first. Nothing
much seemed to be happening, except that Sébillot
had brought in an extra lamp—at any rate, the room
was brighter, and I could see the bagmen's faces
.
146


THE MONT-BAZILLAC
more distinctly as they smiled and congratulated
us. I drank off the last glass' to the honour of
England,' and suggested to Jinks—who had kept
pace with me, glass for glass—that we should take
a stroll and view the town. There was a fair (as I had
heard) across the bridge.
We stood up
together. I had been feeling nervous about Jinks,
and it came as a relief to find that he was every bit
as steady on his legs as I was. We said good evening
to the bagmen and walked out into the street. Up
the hill or down ? 'asked Jinks, and I explained to
him very clearly that, since rivers followed the
bottoms of their valleys, we should be safe in going
downhill if we wanted to find the bridge. And I'd
scarcely said the words before it flashed across me
that I was drunk as Chloe.
“Here's another thing.-I'd never been drunk
before, and I haven't been drunk since : but all the
same I knew that this wasn't the least like ordinary
drunkenness : it was too—what shall I say ?-too
brilliant. The whole town of Bergerac belonged to
me : and, what was better, it was lit so that I could
steer my way perfectly, although the street seemed
to be quite amazingly full of people, jostling and
chattering. I turned to call Jinks's attention to this,
and was saying something about a French crowd-
how much cheerfuller it was than your average
English one—when all of a sudden Jinks wasn't
there! No, nor the crowd! I was alone on Bergerac
bridge, and I leaned with both elbows on the parapet
147


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
and gazed at the Dordogne flowing beneath the
moon.
“It was not an ordinary river, for it ran straight
up into the sky: and the moon, unlike ordinary
moons, kept whizzing on an axis like a Catherine
wheel, and swelled every now and then and burst
into showers of the most dazzling fireworks. I
leaned there and stared at the performance, feeling
just like a king-proud, you understand, but with
a sort of noble melancholy. I knew all the time that
I was drunk; but that didn't seem to matter. The
bagmen had told me
I nodded again.
That's one of the extraordinary things about
the Mont-Bazillac,” I corroborated. “It's all over
in about an hour, and there's not (as the saying
goes) a headache in a hogshead.”
“I wouldn't quite say that,” said Dick reflectively.
But you ’re partly right. All of a sudden the moon
stopped whizzing, the river lay down in its bed, and
my head became clear as a bell. “The trouble will
be,' I told myself, ' to find the hotel again.' But I
had no trouble at all. My brain picked up bearing
after bearing. I worked back up the street like a
prize Baden-Powell scout, found the portico, re-
membered the stairway to the left, leading to the
lounge, went up it, and recognising the familiar
furniture, dropped into an armchair with a happy
sigh. My only worry, as I picked up a copy of
the Gil Blas and began to study it, was about
148


THE MONT-BAZILLAC
Jinks. But, you see, there wasn't much call to go
searching after him when my own experience told
me it would be all right.
“There were, maybe, half a dozen men in the
lounge, scattered about in the armchairs and smoking.
By and by, glancing up from my newspaper, I noticed
that two or three had their eyes fixed on me pretty
curiously. One of them--an old boy with a grizzled
moustache-set down his paper, and came slowly
across the room. “Pardon, monsieur,' he said in the
politest way, ' but have we the honour of numbering
you amongst our members ?''Good Lord !' cried
I, sitting up,' isn't this the Couronne d'Or?' 'Pray
let monsieur not discommode himself,' said he, with
a quick no-offence sort of smile, ' but he has made a
little mistake. This is the Cercle Militaire.'
“I must say those French officers were jolly
decent about it: especially when I explained about
the Mont-Bazillac. They saw me back to the hotel
in a body; and as we turned in at the porchway,
who should come down the street but Jinks, striding
elbows to side, like a man in a London-to-Brighton
walking competition !
He told me, as we
found our bedrooms, that' of course, he had gone up
the hill, and that the view had been magnificent.'
I did not argue about it, luckily : for-here comes
in another queer fact—there was no moon at all that
night. Next morning I wheedled two more bottles
of the stuff out of old Sébillot—which leaves him
two for the wedding. I thought that you and I
.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
might have some fun with them. . . . Now tell
me your experience."
That,” said I, “must wait until
“must wait until you unlock my
tongue; if indeed you have brought home the
genuine Mont-Bazillac.”
As it happened, Master Dick was called up to
Oxford unexpectedly, a week before the beginning of
term, to start practice in his college " four." Our
experiment had to be postponed; with what result
you shall hear.
About a fortnight later I read in our local paper
that the Bishop had been holding a Confirmation
service in Gantick Parish Church. The paragraph
went on to say that " a large and reverent congrega-
tion witnessed the ceremony, but general regret was
expressed at the absence of our respected Vicar
through a temporary indisposition. We are glad
to assure our readers that the reverend gentleman is
well on the way to recovery, and indeed has already
resumed his ministration in the parish, where his
genial presence and quick sympathies, etc."
This laid an obligation upon me to walk over
to Gantick and inquire about my old friend's
health : which I did that same afternoon. Mrs.
Kendall received me with the information that her
husband was quite well again, and out-and-about
that in fact he had started, immediately after
luncheon, to pay a round of visits on the outskirts
150


THE MONT-BAZILLAC
of the parish. On the nature of his late indisposition
she showed herself reticent, not to say "short”
in her answers ;
nor, though the hour was four
o'clock, did she invite me to stay and drink tea
with her.
On my way back, and just within the entrance-
gate of the vicarage drive, I happened on old Trewoon,
who works at odd jobs under the gardener, and was
just now busy with a besom, sweeping up the first
fall of autumn leaves. Old Trewoon, I should tell
you, is a Wesleyan, and a radical of the sardonic sort;
and, as a jobbing man, holds himself free to criticise
his employers.
“Good afternoon!” said I. “ This is excellent
news that I hear about the Vicar. I was afraid,
when I first heard of his illness, that it might be some-
thing serious—at his age
Serious ? Old Trewoon rested his hands on
the besom-handle and eyed me, with a twist of
his features. Missus didn' tell you the natur' of
the complaint, I reckon ?"
As a matter of fact she did not.”
“I bet she didn'. Mind you, I don't know,
nuther.” He up-ended his besom and plucked a
leaf or two from between the twigs before adding,
“And what, makin' so bold, did she tell about
the Churchwardens ?
“The Churchwardens ?" I echoed.
"Aye, the Churchwardens: Matthey Hancock an'
th' old Farmer Truslove. They was took ill right
>
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Aw, my
about the same time.
dear".
"-Mr. Trewoon
addresses all mankind impartially as “my dear "-
"th' hull parish knaws about they. Though there
war'nt no concealment, for that matter."
" What about the Churchwardens?" I asked
innocently, and of a sudden became aware that he
was rocking to and fro in short spasms of inward
laughter.
-It started wi' the Bishop's motor breakin'
down; whereby he and his man spent the better
part of two hours in a God-forsaken lane somewhere
t'other side of Hen's Beacon, tryin' to make her go.
He'd timed hisself to reach here punctual for the
lunchin' the Missus always has ready on Confirmation
Day: nobody to meet his Lordship but theirselves
and the two Churchwardens; an' you may guess that
Hancock and Truslove had turned up early in their
best broadcloth, lookin' to have the time o' their
lives.
They were pretty keen-set, too, by one o'clock,
bein' used to eat their dinners at noon sharp. One
o'clock comes-no Bishop: two o'clock and still no
Bishop. 'There's been a naccydent,' says the Missus :
'but thank the Lord the vittles is cold !''Maybe
he've forgot the day,' says the Vicar; 'but, any way,
we'll give en another ha'f-hour's grace an' then set-
to,' says he, takin' pity on the noises old Truslove
was makin' wi' his weskit. • So said, so done.
At two-thirty-service bein' fixed for ha'f-after-three
—they all fell to work.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
.
table, nor whether she was on her head or her
heels.
All I can tell you, sir, is that me and
Battershall”—Battershall is the vicarage gardener,
stableman, and factotum-" was waitin' in the
stables, wonderin' when in the deuce the Bishop
would turn up, when we heard the whistle blown
from the kitchen : which was the signal. Out we
ran; an' there to be sure was the Bishop comin'
down the drive in a hired trap. But between him
and the house-slap-bang, as you might say, in the
middle of the lawn—was our two Churchwardens,
stripped mother-naked to the waist, and sparring :
and from the window just over the porch th' old
Missus screaming out to us to separate 'em. No, nor
that wasn't the worst : for, as his Lordship's trap
drove up, the two tom-fools stopped their boxin' to
stand 'pon their toes and blow kisses at him !
“I must say that Battershall showed great presence
o' mind. He shouted to me to tackle Truslove,
while he ran up to Matthey Hancock an' butted him
in the stomach; an' together we'd heaved the two
tom-fools into the shrubbery almost afore his Lord-
ship could believe his eyes. I won't say what had
happened to the Vicar, for I don't rightways know.
All I can get out o’ Sally—she's a modest wench-
is that-that-he wanted to be a Statoo ! .
Quite so," I interrupted, edging towards the gate
and signifying with a gesture of the hand that I had
heard enough.
Old Trewoon's voice followed me.
15+


THE MONT-BAZILLAC
"I reckon, sir, we best agree, for the sake o' the
dear old fella, that such a sight as them two Church-
wardens was enough to make any gentleman take to
his bed. But ”—as the gate rang on its hasp and
rang again—“I've been thinkin' powerful what
might ha' happened if his Lordship had turned up in
due time to partake.”
Master Dick is a good boy: and when we met in
the Christmas vacation no allusion was made to the
Mont-Bazillac. On my part, I am absolved from
my promised confession, and my lips shall remain
locked. That great, that exhilarating, that redoubt-
able wine, has—with the nuptials of M. Sébillot's
daughter-perished finally from earth. I wonder
what happened in Bergerac on that occasion, and if
it had a comparable apotheosis !
155


The Three
Necklaces
“ A GREAT nation!” said the little Curé. “But yes,
indeed, the English are a very great nation. And
now I have seen them at home! But it passes
expression, monsieur, what a traveller I find
myself !”
We stood together on the deck of the steamer,
watching—after an eight hours' passage from
Plymouth-the Breton coast as it loomed out of
the afternoon haze. Our crossing had been smooth,
yet sea-sickness had prostrated all his compatriots
on board-five or six priests, as many religieuses,
and maybe a dozen peasants, whom I supposed to be
attached in some way to the service of the religious
orders the priests represented. (Of late years, since
the French Government expelled them, quite a
number of these orders have found a home in our
West-country.)
On my way to the docks that
morning I had overtaken and passed them straggling
by twos and threes to the steamer, the men in broad-
brimmed hats with velvet ribbons, the women
coifed and bodiced after the fashion of their country,
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
each group shepherded by a priest; and I had
noted how strange and almost forlorn a figure they
cut in the grey English streets. If some of the
strangeness had worn off, they certainly appeared
no less forlorn as they sat huddled in physical
anguish, dumb, immobile, staring at the sea.
The little Curé, however, was vivacious enough
for ten. It was impossible to avoid making friends
with him. He had nothing to do, he told me, with
his companions, but was just a plain parish priest
returning from an errand of business.
He announced this with a fine roll of the voice.
“Of business," he repeated. The English are a
great nation for business. But how warm of heart,
notwithstanding !”
“That is not always reckoned to us,” said I.
“ But I reckon it
Tenez, that will be
Île Vierge—there, with the lighthouse standing
white-as it were, against the cliffs ; but the cliffs
belong in fact to the mainland.
And now
in a few minutes we come abreast of my parish—the
Île Lezan.
See, see!” He caught my
arm as the tide raced us down through the Passage
du Four. “My church-how her spire stands up!”
He turned to me, his voice shaking with emotion.
“ You English are accustomed to travel. Probably
you do not guess, monsieur, with what feelings I see
again Île Lezan-I, who have never crossed the
Channel before nor indeed have visited any foreign
land. But I am glad : it spreads the mind.” Here
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THE THREE NECKLACES
he put his hands together and drew them apart as
though extending a concertina. “I have seen you
English at home. If monsieur, who is on tour,
could only spare
the time to visit me on Île Lezan!”
Well, the end of it was that before we parted on
the quay at Brest I found myself under half a promise,
and a week later, having (as I put it to myself)
nothing better to do, I took the train to a little
wind-swept terminus, whence a ramshackle cart
jolted me to Port Lezan, on the coast, whence again
by sail and oar a ferry-boat conveyed me over to the
Island.
My friend the Curé greeted me with something
not far short of ecstasy.
“ But this is like you English-you keep your
word.
You will hardly believe," he
confided, as I shared his admirable déjeuner-soup,
langouste, an incomparable omelet, stuffed veal,
and I forget what beside—" you will hardly believe
with what difficulty I bring myself back to this
horizon." He waved a hand to the blue sea-line
beyond his window. When one has tasted
progress-
He broke off. But, thanks be to
God, we too, on Île Lezan, are going to progress.
You will visit my church and see how much we have
need.”
He took me to it : a bleak, decayed building, half
ruinated, the slated pavement uneven as the waves
of the sea, the plastered walls dripping with saline
From the roof depended three or four rudely-
ooze.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
carved ships, hung there ex voto by parishioners
preserved from various perils of the deep. He
narrated their histories at length.
“The roof leaks," he said, “but we are to remedy
that. At length the blessed Mary of Lezan will be
housed, if not as befits her, at least not shamefully."
He indicated a niched statue of the Virgin, with
daubed red cheeks and a robe of crude blue over-
spread with blotches of sea-salt.
Thanks to your
England,” he added.
Why 'thanks to England'?”
He chuckled - or perhaps I had better say
chirruped.
“ Did I not say I had been visiting your country
on business ? Eh? You shall hear the story,
only I tell no names.”
He took snuff.
“We will call them,” he said, “only by their
Christian names, which are Lucien and Jeanne.
I am to marry them next month, when
Lucien gets his relief from the lighthouse on Île
Ouessant.
They are an excellent couple. As between
them, the wits are with Lucien, who will doubtless
rise in his profession. He has been through
temptation, as you shall hear. For Jeanne, she is
un caur simple, as again you will discover; not
clever at all-oh, by no means !-yet one of the best
of my children. It is really to Jeanne that we owe
it all.
I have said so to Lucien, and just
.
160


THE THREE NECKLACES
at the moment Lucien was trying to say it
to me.
They were betrothed, you understand. Lucien
was nineteen, and Jeanne maybe a year younger.
From the beginning, it had been an understood
thing: to this extent understood, that Lucien,
instead of sailing to the fishery (whither go most of
the young men
of Île Lezan and the coast
hereabouts) was destined from the first to enter the
lighthouse service under Government. The letters
I have written to Government on his behalf !
I am not one of those who quarrel with the Republic.
Still—a priest, and in this out-of-the-way spot-
what is he?
“However, Lucien got his appointment. The
pay ? Enough to marry on, for a free couple. But
the families were poor on both sides—long families,
too. Folk live long on Île Lezan-women-folk
especially ; accidents at the fishery keep down the
Still, and allowing for that, the average is
high. Lucien had even a great-grandmother alive-
a most worthy soul-and on Jeanne's side the
grandparents survived on both sides. Where there
are grandparents they must be maintained.
“No one builds on Île Lezan. Lucien and Jeanne
-on either side their families crowded to the very
windows. If only the smallest hovel might fall
vacant !
For a week or two it seemed that
a cottage might drop in their way; but it happened
to be what you call picturesque, and a rich man
11
161


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
snapped it up. He was a stranger from Paris, and
called himself an artist; but in truth he painted
little, and that poorly—as even I could see.
He was
fonder of planning what he would have, and what not,
to indulge his mood when it should be in the key for
painting. Happening here just when the cottage
fell empty, he offered a price for it far beyond
anything Lucien could afford, and bought it. For
a month or two he played with this new toy, adding a
studio and a veranda, and getting over many large
crates of furniture from the mainland. Then
by and by a restlessness overtook him—that restless-
ness which is the disease of the rich—and he left us,
yet professing that it delighted him always to keep
his little pied-à-terre in fle Lezan. He has never
been at pains to visit us since.
“But meanwhile Lucien and Jeanne had no room
to marry and set up house. It was a heavy time for
them. They had some talk together of crossing over
and finding a house on the mainland ; but it came
to nothing. The parents on both sides would not
hear of it, and in truth Jeanne would have found it
lonely on the mainland, away from her friends and
kin; for Lucien, you see, must in any case spend
half his time on the lighthouse on Île Ouessant.
So many weeks on duty, so many weeks ashore-thus
it works, and even so the loneliness wears them;
though our Bretons, being silent men by nature,
endure it better than the rest.
“ Lucien and Jeanne must wait-wait for
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THE THREE NECKLACES
somebody to die. In plain words it came to that.
Ah, monsieur ! I have heard well-to-do folk talk of
our poor as unfeeling. That is an untruth. But
suppose it were true. Where would the blame lie
in such a story as this ? Like will to like, and young
blood is hot.
Lucien and Jeanne, however,
were always well conducted.
Yes, yes, my
story? Six months passed, and then came word that
our rich artist desired to sell his little pied-à-terre ;
but he demanded the price he had given for it,
and moreover what he called compensation for the
buildings he had added. Also he would only sell
or let it with the furniture; he wished, in short, to
disencumber himself of his purchase, and without loss.
This meant that Lucien less than ever could afford
to buy; and there are no money-lenders on Île Lezan.
The letter came as he was on the point of departing
for another six weeks on Île Ouessant : and that
evening the lovers' feet took them to the nest they
had so often dreamed of furnishing. There is no
prettier cottage on the island-I will show it to you
on our way back. Very disconsolately they looked
at it, but there was no cure. Lucien left early next
morning.
“That was last autumn, little before the wreck
of your great English steamship the Rougemont
Castle. Days after, the tides carried some of the
bodies even here, to Île Lezan; but not many-four
or five at the most—and we, cut off from shore
around this corner of the coast, were long in hearing
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
the terrible news. Even the lighthouse keepers on
Île Ouessant knew nothing of it until morning, for
she struck in the night, you remember, attempting
to run through the Inner Passage and save her time.
“I believe-but on this point will not be certain-
that the alarm first came to Lucien, and in the way
I shall tell you. At any rate he was walking alone
in the early morning, and somewhere along the
shore to the south of the lighthouse, when he came
on a body lying on the seaweed in a gully of the rocks.
“It was the body of a woman, clad only in a
nightdress. As he stooped over her, Lucien saw that
she was exceeding beautiful; yet not a girl, but a
well-developed woman of thirty or thereabouts, with
heavy coils of dark hair, well-rounded shoulders,
and (as he described it to me later on) a magnificent
throat.
"He had reason enough to remark her throat,
for as he turned the body over-it lay on its right
side—to place a hand over the heart, if perchance
some life lingered, the nightdress, open at the
throat, disclosed one, two, three superb necklaces
of diamonds. There were rings of diamonds on her
fingers, too, and afterwards many fine gems were
found sewn within a short vest or camisole of silk
she wore under her nightdress. But Lucien's eyes
were fastened on the three necklaces.
"Doubtless the poor lady, aroused in her berth
as the ship struck, had clasped these hurriedly about
her throat before rushing on deck. So, might her
164


THE THREE NECKLACES
life be spared, she would save with it many
thousands of pounds. They tell me since that in
moments of panic women always think first of their
jewels.
“But here she lay drowned, and the jewels-as I
said, Lucien could not unglue his eyes from them.
At first he stared at them stupidly. Not for some
minutes did his mind grasp that they represented
great wealth; and even when the temptation grew,
it whispered no more than that here was money-
maybe even a hundred pounds—but enough, at all
events, added to his savings, to purchase the cottage
at home, and make him and Jeanne happy for the
rest of their lives.
“ His fingers felt around to the clasps. One by
one he detached the necklaces and slipped them into
his trousers' pocket.
“He also managed to pull off one of the rings;
but found this a more difficult matter, because the
fingers were swollen somewhat with the salt water.
So he contented himself with one, and ran back to
the lighthouse to give the alarm to his conrades.
“When his comrades saw the body there was great
outcry upon the jewels on its fingers; but none
attempted to disturb them, and Lucien kept his own
counsel. They carried the poor thing to a store-
chamber at the base of the lighthouse, and there
before nightfall they had collected close upon thirty
bodies. There was much talk in the newspapers
afterwards concerning the honesty of our poor
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Bretons, who pillaged none of the dead, but gave up
whatever they found. The relatives and the great
shipping company subscribed a fund, of which a
certain small portion came even to Île Lezan, to be
administered by me.
“The poor lady with the necklaces ? If you read
the accounts in the newspapers, as no doubt you
did,
you will already have guessed her name. Yes, in
truth, she was your great soprano, whom they called
Madame Chiara, or La Chiara : so modest are you
English, at least in all that concerns the arts, that
when an incomparable singer is born to you she must
go to Italy to borrow a name. She was returning
from South Africa, where the finest of the three
necklaces had been presented to her by subscription
amongst her admirers.
They say her voice so
ravished the audiences at Johannesburg and Pretoria
that she might almost, had she willed, have carried
home the great diamond they are sending to your
King. But that, no doubt, was an invention of the
newspapers.
“For certain, at any rate, the necklace was a
superb one; nor do I speak without knowledge, as
you shall hear. Twenty-seven large stones-between
each a lesser stone—and all of the purest water !
The other two were scarcely less magnificent. It
was a brother who came over and certified the body;
for her husband she had divorced in America, and
her father was an English clergyman, old and
infirm, seldom travelling beyond the parish where
166


THE THREE NECKLACES
he lives in a château and reigns as a king. It seems
that these things happen in England. At first he was
only a younger son, and dwelt in the rectory as a
plain parish priest, and there he married and brought
up his family; but his elder brother dying, he became
squire of the parish too, and moved into the great
house, yet with little money to support it until his
only daughter came back from studying at Milan
and conquered London. The old gentleman speaks
very modestly about it. Oh, yes, I have seen and
talked with him. And what a garden !
The
azaleas! the rhododendrons ! But he is old, and
his senses somewhat blunted. He lives in the
past-not his own, but his family's rather. He
spoke to me of his daughter without emotion, and
said that her voice was undoubtedly derived from
three generations back, when
when an ancestora
baronet—had married with an opera-singer.
“But we were talking of the necklaces and of the
ring which Lucien had taken.
He told his
secret to nobody, but kept them ever in his trousers'
pocket. Only, when he could escape away from
his comrades to some corner of the shore, he would
draw the gems forth and feast his eyes on them.
I believe it weighed on him very little that he had
committed a crime or a sin. Longshore folk have
great ease of conscience respecting all property
cast up to them by the sea. They regard all such
as their rightful harvest : the feeling is in their blood,
and I have many times argued in vain against it.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Once while I argued, here in Île Lezan, an old man
asked me, 'But, father, if it were not for such chances,
why should any man choose to dwell by the sea ?'
If, monsieur, you lived among them and knew their
hardships, you would see some rude sense in that
question.
“ To Lucien, feasting his eyes by stealth on the
diamonds and counting the days to his relief, the
stones meant that Jeanne and happiness were now
close within his grasp. There would be difficulty,
to be sure, in disposing of them ; but with Jeanne's
advice—she had a practical mind-and perhaps
with Jeanne's help, the way would not be hard to
find. He was inclined to plume himself on the ease
with which, so far, it had been managed. His
leaving the rings, and the gems sewn within the
camisole—though to be sure these were not discovered
for many hours-had been a masterstroke. He and
his comrades had been complimented together upon
their honesty.
“The relief came duly; and in this frame of mind-
a little sly, but more than three parts triumphant-
he returned to Île Lezan, and was made welcome as
something of a hero. (To do him credit, he had
worked hard in recovering the bodies from the wreck.)
At all times it is good to arrive home after a spell on
the lighthouse. The smell of nets drying and of
flowers in the gardens, the faces on the quay, and
the handshakes, and the first church-going--they all
count. But to Lucien these things were for once as
168


THE THREE NECKLACES
little compared with the secret he carried. His
marriage now was assured, and that first evening-
the Eve of Noël-he walked with Jeanne up the road
to the cottage, and, facing it, told her his secret.
They could be married now. He promised it, and
indicated the house with a wave of the hand almost
proprietary.
“ But Jeanne looked at him as one scared, and
said : ‘Shall I marry a thief ? '
Then, very quietly, she asked for a look at the
jewels, and he handed them to her. She had never
set eyes on diamonds before, but all women have an
instinct for jewels, and these made her gasp. Yes,"
she owned, I could not have believed that the world
contained such beautiful things. I am sorry thou
hast done this wickedness, but I understand how
they tempted thee.'
'What is this you are chanting ?' demanded
Lucien. 'The stones were nothing to me. I thought
only that by selling them we two could set up house
as man and wife.'
'My dear one,' said Jeanne, 'what happiness.
could we have known with this between us ?' What
with the diamonds in her hand and the little cottage
there facing her, so long desired, she was forced to
shut her eyes for a moment; but when she opened
them again her voice was quite firm. 'We must
restore them where they belong. It may be that
Père Thomas can help us; but I must think of a way.
Give them to me, and let me keep them while I think
of a way.'
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
"" You do not love me as I love you,' said Lucien
in his anger and disappointment; but he knew, all
the same, that he spoke an untruth.
“Jeanne took the diamonds home with her, to
her bedroom, and sat for some time on the edge of
her bed, thinking out a way. In the midst of her
thinking she stood up, walked over to the glass,
and clasped the finest of the necklaces about her
throat.
I suppose no woman of this country
ever wore the like of it-no, not in the days when
there were kings and queens of Léon.
Jeanne was not beautiful, but she gazed at herself
with eyes like those of a patient in a fever.
Then of a sudden she felt the stones burning her as
though they had been red-hot coals. She plucked
them off, and cast herself on her knees beside the bed.
“ You will remember that this was the Eve of
Noël, when the children of the parish help me to
deck the crèche for the infant Christ. We take
down the images—see, there is St. Joseph, and there
yonder Our Lady, in the side chapel; the two oxen
and a sheep are put away in the vestry, in a
cupboard full of camphor. We have the Three Kings
too.
In short, we put our hearts into the
dressing-up. By nightfall all is completed, and I
turn the children out, reserving some few last touches
which I invent to surprise them when they come again
on Christmas morning. Afterwards I celebrate the
Mass for the Vigil, and then always I follow what has
170


THE THREE NECKLACES
been a custom in this parish, I believe, ever since
the church was built. I blow out all the candles
but two, and remain here, seated, until the day
breaks, and the folk assemble to celebrate the first
Mass of Noël. Eh? It is discipline, but I bring
rugs, and I will not say that all the time my eyes are
wide open.
Certainly I closed them on this night of which
I am telling. For I woke up with a start, and
almost, you might say, in trepidation, for it seemed
to me that someone was moving in the church.
My first thought was that some mischievous child
had crept in, and was playing pranks with my
crèche, and to that first I made my way. Beyond
the window above it rode the flying moon, and in
the rays of it what did I see?
“ The figures stood as I had left them. But above
the manger, over the shoulders of the Virgin, blazed
a rope of light-of diamonds such as I have never
seen nor shall see again—all flashing green and blue
and fieriest scarlet and piercing white. Of the
Three Kings, also, each bore a gift, two of them a
necklace a piece, and the third a ring. I stood
before the miracle, and my tongue clave to the roof
of my mouth, and then a figure crept out of the
shadows and knelt in the pool of moonlight at my
feet. It was Jeanne. She caught at the skirt of
my soutane, and broke into sobbing.
My father, let the Blessed One wear them ever,
or else help me to give them back! :
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ You will now guess, monsieur, on what business
I have been visiting England. It is a great country.
The old clergyman sat among his azaleas and rhodo-
dendrons and listened to all my story. Then he
took the box that held his daughter's jewels, and,
emptying it upon the table, chose out one necklace
and set it aside. "This one,' said he, 'shall be
sold, my friend, and with the money you shall,
after giving this girl a marriage portion, re-adorn
your church on Île Lezan to the greater glory of
God!'
On our way back to his lodging the little Curé
halted me before the cottage. Gay curtains hung
in the windows, and the verandah had been freshly
painted.
“At the end of the month Lucien gets his relief,
and then they are to be married," said the little
Curré.
172


The Wren
A LEGEND
EARLY on St. Stephen's Day—which is the day after
Christmas-young John Cara, son of old John Cara,
the smith of Porthennis, took down his gun and went
forth to kill small birds. He was not a sportsman;
it hurt him to kill any living creature. But all the
young men in the parish went slaughtering birds on
St. Stephen's Day; and the Parson allowed there
was warrant for it, because, when St. Stephen had
almost escaped from prison, a small bird (by tradition
a wren) had chirped, and awakened his gaolers.
Strange to say, John Cara's dislike of gunning
went with a singular aptitude for it. He had a quick
sense with birds; could guess their next movements
just as though he read their minds; and rarely
missed his aim if he took it without giving himself
time to think.
Now the rest of youths, that day, chose the valley
bottoms as a matter of course, and trooped about in
parties, with much whacking of bushes. But John
went up to Balmain-which is a high stony moor
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overlooking the sea—because he preferred to be
alone, and also because, having studied their ways,
he knew this to be the favourite winter haunt
of the small birds, especially of the wrens and the
titlarks.
His mother had set her heart on making a large
wranny-pie (that is, wren-pie, but actually it includes
all manner of birdlings). It was to be the largest in
the parish. She was vain of young John's prowess,
and would quote it when old John grumbled that the
lad was slow as a smith. “And yet,” said old John
“ backward isn't the word so much as foolish. Up
to a point he understands iron 'most so well as
I understand it myself. Then some notion takes
him, and my back 's no sooner turned than he spoils
his job. Always trying to make iron do what iron
won't do--that's how you may put it.” The wife,
who was a silly woman, and (like many another such)
looked down on her husband's trade, maintained
that her boy ought to have been born a squire, with
game of his own.
Young John went up to Balmain; and there,
sure enough, he found wrens and titlarks flitting
about everywhere, cheeping amid the furze bushes
on the low stone hedges and the granite boulders,
where the winter rains had hollowed out little basins
for themselves, little by little, working patiently for
hundreds of years. The weather was cold, but still
and sunny. As he climbed, the sea at first made
a blue strip beyond the cliff's edge on his right, then
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THE WREN
spread into a wide blue floor, three hundred feet
below him, and all the width of it twinkling. Ahead
and on his left all the moorland twinkled too, with
the comings and goings of the birds.
The wrens
mostly went about their business—whatever that
might be—in a sharp, practical way, keeping silence;
but the frail note of the titlarks sounded here, there,
everywhere.
Young John might have shot scores of them.
But, as he headed for the old mine-house of Balmain
and the cromlech, or Main-Stone, which stands
close beside it-and these are the only landmarks
-he did not even trouble to charge his gun. For
the miracle was happening already.
It began-as perhaps most miracles do—very
slowly and gently, without his perceiving it, quite
trivially and even absurdly. It started within him,
upon a thought that wren-pie was a foolish dish after
all! His mother, who prided herself upon making
it, did but pretend to enjoy it after it was cooked.
His father did not even pretend : the mass of little
bones in it cheated his appetite and spoiled his.
temper. From this young John went on to consider,
"Was it worth while to go on killing wrens and
shamming an appetite for them, only because a wren
had once informed against St. Stephen ? How were
these wrens guilty ? And, anyway, how were the
titlarks guilty ?” Young John reasoned it out in
this simple fashion. He came to the Main Stone, and
seating himself on the turf, leaned his back against
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one.
one of the blocks which support the huge monolith.
He sat there for a long while, puckering his brows,
his gun idle beside him. At last he said to himself,
but firmly and aloud :
“ Parson and the rest say 'tis true. But I can't
believe it, and something inside says 'tis wrong.
There! I won't shoot another bird-and
that settles it!”
" Halleluia !” said a tiny voice somewhere above
him.
The voice, though tiny, was shrill and positive.
Young John recognised, and yet did not recognise it.
He stared up at the wall of the old mine-house from
which it had seemed to speak, but he could see no
Next he thought that the word must have
come from his own heart, answering a sudden gush
of warmth and happiness that set his whole body
glowing. It was as if winter had changed to summer,
within him and without, and all in a moment. He
blinked in the stronger sunshine, and felt it warm
upon his eyelids.
Halleluia !” said the voice again. It certainly
came from the wall. He looked again, and, scanning
it in this strange, new light, was aware of a wren in
one of the crevices.
“Will he ? will he ? ” piped another voice, pretty
close behind his ear. Young John, now he had learnt
that wrens can talk, had no difficulty in recognising
this other voice : it was the half-hearted note of the
titlark. He turned over on his side and peered into
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THE WREN
the shadow of the Main-Stone; but in vain, for the
titlark is a hesitating, unhappy little soul that never
quite dares to make up its mind. It used to be the
friend of a race that inhabited Cornwall ages ago.
It builds in their cromlechs, and its song remembers
them. It is the bird, too, in whose nest the cuckoo
lays ; so it knows all about losing one's children and
being dispossessed.
“We will give him a gift," chirrupped the wren,
" and send him about his business. He is the first
man that has the sense to leave us to ours.”
“But will he ?—will he ? " the titlark piped back
ghostlily. One can never be sure. I have known
men long, long before ever you came here. I knew
King Arthur. This rock was his table, and he dined
here with seven other kings on the night after they
had beaten the Danes at Vellandruchar. I hid under
the stone and listened to them passing the cups, and
between their talk you could hear the stream running
down the valley—it turned the two mill-wheels,
Vellandruchar and Vellandreath, with blood that
night. Even at day-break it ran high over the legs
of the choughs walking on the beach below—that is
why the choughs go red-legged to this day.
They are few now, but then they were many : and
next spring they came and built in the rigging of the
Danes' ships, left ashore--for not a Dane had escaped.
But King Arthur had gone his way. Ah, he was
a man !
“Nevertheless,” struck in the wren,“ this is a good
.
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fellow, too; and a smith, whose trade is as old as
your King Arthur's. We will prosper him in it.”
“What will you give him ? ” asked the titlark.
“He is lying at this moment on the trefoil that
commands all metals. Let him look to his gun when
he awakes.”
"Ah !” said the titlark, “I told you that secret.
I was with Teague the Smith when he discovered it.
But he discovered it too late ; and, besides,
he was a dreamer, and used it only to make crosses
and charms and womanish ornaments."
" It 's no use to us, anyhow,” said the practical
“So let us give it away. I hate waste.”
“I doubt," said the titlark, “it will be much
profit to him, wonderful though it is.”
“Well,” said the wren, “a present 's a present.
Folks with a living to get must give what they can
afford.”
wren.
*
It is not wise, as a rule, to sleep on the bare ground
in December. But Young John awoke warm and
jolly as a sandboy. He picked up his gun. It was
bent and curiously twisted in the barrel. “Hullo !”
said he, and peered closely into the short turf where
it had lain.
When he reached home his mother cried out
joyfully, seeing his game-bag and how it bulged. She
cried out to a different tune when he showed her what
it contained—clods and clumps of turf, matted over
with a tiny close-growing plant that might have been
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THE WREN
any common moss for aught she knew (or recked) of
the difference.
“But where are all the birds you promised me ?”
He held out his gun-he had promised no birds,
but that mattered nothing. His father took it to the
lamp and glanced at it; put on his horn spectacles
slowly, and peered at it. He was silent for a long
while. Young John had turned inattentively from
his mother's reproaches, and stood watching him.
The old man swung about at length. When did
ye contrive this ? ” he asked, rubbing the twist of the
gunbarrel with his thumb.
“And the forge not
heated all this day!”
“ We 'll heat it to-night after supper,” said Young
John.
*
In the Church of Porthennis, up to twenty-five
years ago, there stood a screen of ironwork—a marvel
of arabesques and intricate traceries, with baskets of
flowers, sea-monsters, Cherubim, tying the filigree
work and looping it together in knots and centres.
One panel had for subject a spider midmost in a web,
to visit which smiths came hundreds of miles, from
all over the country, and wondered. For it was
impossible to guess how iron had ever been beaten
to such thinness or drawn so ductile. But unhappily
—and priceless as was the secret Young John Cara
had chosen to let die with him—the art of it was
frail, frail as the titlark's song. His masterpiece,
indeed, had in it the corruption of Celtic art. It
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could not endure its native weather, and rusted
away almost to nothingness. When the late Sir
Gilbert Aubyn, the famous neo-Gothic architect,
was called in (1885) to restore Porthennis Church,
or, as we say in Cornwall, to "restroy" it—he swept
the remnants away. But the legend survives, ferro
perennius.
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Not Here, O Apollo !
A Christmas Story heard at Midsummer
We sat and talked in the Vicarage garden over-
looking Mount's Bay. The long summer day
lingered out its departure, although the full moon
was up and already touching with a faint radiance
the towers on St. Michael's Mount- the guarded
Mount '—that rested as though at anchor in the
silver-grey offing. The land-breeze had died down
with sunset; the Atlantic lay smooth as a lake below
us, and melted, league upon league, without horizon
into the grey of night. Between the Vicar's fuchsia
bushes we looked down on it, we three—the Vicar,
the Senior Tutor and I.
I think the twilit hour exactly accorded with our
mood, and it did not need the scent of the Vicar's
ten-week stocks, wafted across the garden, to touch
a nerve of memory. For it was twenty years since
we had last sat in this place and talked, and the
summer night seemed to be laden with tranquil
thoughts, with friendship and old regard.
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Twenty years ago I had been an undergraduate, and
had made one of a reading-party under the Senior
Tutor, who annually in the Long Vacation brought
down two or three fourth-year men to bathe and
boat and read Plato with him, for no pay but their
friendship: and, generation after generation, we
young men had been made welcome in this garden
by the Vicar, who happened to be an old member
of our College and (as in time I came to see)
delighted to renew his youth in ours. There had
been daughters, too, in the old days.
But
they had married, and the Vicarage nest was empty
long since.
The Senior Tutor, too, had given up his Fellowship,
and retired. But every summer found him back at
his old haunts; and still every summer brought a
reading-party to the Cove, in conduct now of a
brisk Junior Fellow, who had read with me in our
time and achieved a 'first.' In short, things at
the Cove were pretty much the same after twenty
years, barring that a small colony of painters had
descended upon it and made it their home. With
them the undergraduates had naturally and quickly
made friends, and the result was a cricket match-
a grand Two-days' Cricket Match. They were all
extremely serious about it, and the Oxford party-
at their wits' end, no doubt, to make up a team
against the Artists — had bethought themselves
of me, who dwelt at the other end of the Duchy.
They had written—they had even sent a two-page
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NOT HERE, O APOLLO !
telegram-to me, who had not handled a bat for
more years than I cared to count. It is delicious to
be flattered by youth, especially for gifts you
never possessed or possess no longer. I yielded
and came.
The season was Midsummer, or a little
after ; the weather golden and glorious.
We had drawn stumps after the first day's play,
and the evening was to be wound up with a sing-
song in the great tent erected—a marvel to the
Covers,' or native fishermen-on the cricket-field.
But I no longer take kindly to such entertainments;
and so, after a bathe and a quiet dinner at the inn,
it came into my mind to take a stroll up the hill
and along the cliffs, and pay an evening call on the
old Vicar, wondering if he would remember me.
I found him in his garden. The Senior Tutor was
there too— the grave man, nicknamed Adam'—
and the Vicar's wife, seated in a bee-hive straw chair,
knitting. So we four talked happily for a while,
until she left us on pretence that the dew was falling ;
and with that, as I have said, a wonderful silence
possessed the garden, fragrant with memories and
the night-scent of flowers
Then I let fall the word that led to the Vicar's
story. In old rambles, after long mornings spent
with Plato, my eyes (by mirage, no doubt) had
always found something Greek in the curves and
colour of this coast; or rather, had felt the want of
it. What that something was I could hardly have
defined: but the feeling was always with me. It
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was as if at each bend of the shore I expected to
find a temple with pillars, or a column crowning the
next promontory; or, where the coast-track wound
down to the little haven, to happen on a votive
tablet erected to Poseidon or to 'Helen's brothers,
lucent stars'; nay, to meet with Odysseus' fisher-
man carrying an oar on his shoulder, or even, in an
amphitheatre of the cliffs, to surprise Apollo himself
and the Nine seated on a green plat whence a water-
fall gushed down the coombe to the sandy beach
This evening on my way along the cliffs-
perhaps because I had spent a day bathing in sun-
shine in the company of white-flannelled youths-
the old sensation had returned to haunt me. I
spoke of it.
“Not here, O Apollo murmured the Senior
Tutor.
"You quote against your own scepticism,” said I.
The coast is right enough; it is
'Where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.'
It was made to invite the authentic gods-only the
gods never found it out."
“ Did they not ? ” asked the Vicar quietly. The
question took us a little aback, and after a pause
his next words administered another small shock.
"One never knows," he said, " when, or how near,
the gods have passed. One may be listening to us
in this garden, to-night.
As for the Greeks
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NOT HERE, O APOLLO !
“Yes, yes, we were talking of the Greeks,” the
Senior Tutor (a convinced agnostic) put in hastily.
“If we leave out Pytheas, no Greeks ever visited
Cornwall. They are as mythical hereabouts as ”-
he hesitated, seeking a comparison-" as the Cornish
wreckers; and they never existed outside of pious
story-books."
Said the Vicar, rising from his garden-chair, “I
accept the omen. Wait a moment, you two." He
left us and went across the dim lawn to the house,
whence by-and-by he returned bearing a book under
his arm, and in his hand a candle, which he set
down unlit upon the wicker table among the coffee-
cups.
“I am going,” he said, “ to tell you something
which, a few years ago, I should have scrupled to
tell. With all deference to your opinions, my dear
Dick, I doubt if they quite allow you to understand
the clergy's horror of chancing a heresy ; indeed, I
doubt if either of you quite guess what a bridle a
man comes to wear who preaches a hundred sermons
or so every year to a rural parish, knowing that
nine-tenths of his discourse will assuredly be lost,
while at any point in the whole of it he may be
fatally misunderstood
Yet as a man nears
his end he feels an increasing desire to be honest,
neither professing more than he knows, nor hiding
any small article of knowledge as inexpedient to
the Faith. The Faith, he begins to see, can take
care of itself: for him, it is important to await
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his marching-orders with a clean breast. Eh,
Dick ?"
The Senior Tutor took his pipe from his mouth
and nodded slowly.
“But what is your book ? ” he asked.
My Parish Register.
Its entries cover the years
1660 and 1827. Luckily I had borrowed it from
the vestry box, and it was safe on my shelf in the
Vicarage on the Christmas Eve of 1870, the night
when the church took fire. That was in my second
year as incumbent, and before ever you knew these
parts."
By six months," said the Senior Tutor. “I
first visited the Cove in July, 1871, and you were
then beginning to clear the ruins. All the village
talk still ran on the fire, with speculations on the
cause of it.”
* The cause," said the Vicar, “ will never be
known. I may say that pretty confidently, having
spent more time in guessing than will ever be spent
by another man
But since you never saw
the old church as it stood, you never saw the Heathen
Lovers in the south aisle."
Who were they?
They were a group of statuary, and a very strange
one ; executed, as I first believed, in some kind of
wax-but, pushing my researches (for the thing
interested me) I found the material to be a white
soapstone that crops out here and there in the
crevices of our serpentine. Indeed, I know to a
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NOT HERE, O APOLLO !
foot the spot from which the sculptor took it, close
on two hundred years ago."
" It was of no great age, then ? '
“No: and yet it bore all the marks of an immense
age. For, to begin with, it had stood five-and-
twenty years in this very garden, exposed to all
weathers, and the steatite (as they call it) is of all
substances the most friable—is, in fact, the stuff
used by tailors under the name of French chalk.
Again, when, in 1719, my predecessor, old Vicar
Hichens, removed it to the church and set it in the
south aisle—or, at any rate, when he died and ceased
to protect it—the young men of the parish took to
using it for a hatstand, and also to carving their
own and their sweethearts' names upon it during
sermon-time. The figures of the sculpture were
two; a youth and a maid, recumbent, and naked
but for a web or drapery flung across
their
middles; and they lay on a roughly carved rock,
over which the girl's locks as well as the drapery were
made to hang limp, as though dripping with water .
One thing more I must tell you, risking derision;
that to my ignorance the sculpture proclaimed
its age less by these signs of weather and rough
usage than by the simplicity of its design, its propor-
tions, the chastity (there's no other word) of the two
figures. They were classical, my dear Dick—what
was left of them ; Greek, and of the best period.”
The Senior Tutor lit a fresh pipe, and by the flare
of the match I saw his eyes twinkling.
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Praxiteles," he jerked out, between the puffs,
and in the age of Kneller ! But proceed, my
friend."
" And do you wait, my scoffer !” The Vicar
borrowed the box of matches, lit the candle—which
held a steady flame in the still evening air-opened
the book, and laid it on his knee while he adjusted
his spectacles. “The story is here, entered on a
separate leaf of the Register and signed by Vicar
Hichen's own hand. With your leave—for it is
brief-I am going to read it through to you. The
entry is headed :
Concerning a group of Statuary now in the S. aisle
of Lezardew Pish Church : set there by me in
witness of God's Providence in operation, as of
the corruption of man's heart, and for a warning
to sinners to amend their ways.
'In the year 1694, being the first of my vicariate,
there lived in this Parish as hind to the farmer of
Vellancoose a young man exceeding comely and
tall of stature, of whom (when I came to ask) the
people could tell me only that his name was Luke,
and that as a child he had been cast ashore from
a foreign ship; they said, a Portugal ship. [But the
Portugals have swart complexions and are less
than ordinary tall, whereas this youth was light-
coloured and only brown by
sunburn.] Nor
could he tell me anything when I questioned him
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NOT HERE, O APOLLO !
concerning his haveage ;* which I did upon report
that he was courting my housemaiden Grace
Pascoe, an honest good girl, whom I was loth to
see waste herself upon an unworthy husband.
Upon inquiry I could not discover this Luke to
be any way unworthy, saving that he was a name-
less man and a foreigner and a backward church-
goer. He told me with much simplicity that he
could not remember to have had any parents ;
that Farmer Lowry had brought him up from the
time he was shipwrecked and ever treated him
kindly; and that, as for church-going, he had
thought little about it, but would amend in this
matter if it would give me pleasure. Which I
thought a strange answer. When I went on to
hint at his inclination for Grace Pascoe, he
confused me by asking, with a look very straight
and good-natured, if the girl had ever spoken to
me on the matter; to which I was forced to
answer that she had not. So he smiled, and I
could not further press him.
'Yet in my mind they would have made a good
match; for the girl too was passing well-featured,
and this Luke had notable gifts. He could read
and write. The farmer spoke well of him, saying,
He has rewarded me many times over. Since
his coming, thanks to the Lord, my farm prospers :
and in particular he has a wonderful way with the
beasts. Cattle or sheep, fowls, dogs, the wild
* Lineage, descent.
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things even, come to him almost without a call."
He had also (the farmer told me) a wonderful
knack of taking clay or mud and moulding it
with his hands to the likeness of living creatures,
of all sorts and sizes. In the kitchen by the great
fire he would work at these images by hours
together, to the marvel of everyone : but when
the image was made, after a little while he always
destroyed it; nor was it ever begged by anyone
for a gift, there being a belief that, being fashioned
by more than a man's skill, such things could only
bring ill-luck to the possessors of them.
For months then I heard no more of Grace
Pascoe's lover: nor (though he now came every
Sunday to church) did I ever see looks pass
between the Vicarage pew (where she sat) and the
Vellancoose pew (where he). But at the end of
the year she came to me and told me she had
given her word to a young farmer of Goldsithney,
John Magor by name. In a worldly way this was
a far better match for her than to take a nameless
and landless man. Nor knew I anything against
John Magor beyond some stray wildness natural
to youth. He came of clean blood.
handsome, almost, as the other; tall, broad of
chest, a prize-winner at wrestling-matches; and
of an age when a good wife is usually a man's
salvation.
I called their banns, and in due time married
them. On the wedding-day, after the ceremony,
6
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NOT HERE, O APOLLO !
| I returned from church to find the young man
Luke awaiting me by my house-door; who very
civilly desired me to walk over to Vellancoose with
him, which I did. There, taking me aside to an
unused linhay, he showed me the sculpture, telling
me (who could not conceal my admiration) that he
had meant it for John and Grace Magor (as she
now was) for a wedding-gift, but that the young
woman had cried out against it as immodest and,
besides, unlucky. On the first count I could
understand her rejecting such a gift; for the
folk of these parts know nothing of statuary
and count all nakedness immodest. Indeed I
wondered that the bridegroom had not taken
Luke's freedom in ill part, and I said so : to which
he answered, smiling, that no man ever quarrelled
with him or could quarrel. " And now, sir,” he
went on, “my apprenticeship is up, and I am
going on a long journey. Since you find my group
pleasing I would beg you to accept it, or—if you
had liefer—to keep it for me until I come again,
as some day I shall.” “I do not wonder,” said I,
“at your wish to leave Lezardew Parish for the
world where, as I augur, great fortune awaits you.
He smiled again at this and said that, touching his
future, he had neither any hope nor any fear : and
again he pressed me to accept the statuary. For
a time I demurred, and in the end made it a
condition that he altered the faces somewhat,
concealing the likeness to John and Grace Magor :
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and to this he consented. 'Yet,” said he, “it
will be the truer likeness when the time comes."
He was gone on the morrow by daybreak, and
late that afternoon the farmer brought me the
statuary in his hay-wagon. I had it set in the
garden by the great filberd-tree, and there it has
stood for near five-and-twenty years. (I ought
to say that he had kept his promise of altering the
faces, and thereby to my thinking had defaced
their beauty : but beneath this defacement I still
traced their first likeness.)
'Now to speak of the originals. My way lying
seldom by Goldsithney, I saw little of John and
Grace Magor during the next few years, and nothing
at all of them after they had left Goldsithney (their
fortunes not prospering) and rented a smaller farm
on the coast southward, below Rosudgeon : but
what news came to me was ever of the same tenour.
Their marriage had brought neither children nor
other blessings. There were frequent quarrels, and
the man had yielded to drinking; the woman, too,
it was reported. She, that had been so trim a
serving-maid, was become a slut, with a foul tongue.
They were cruelly poor with it all; for money does
not always stick to unclean hands. I write all
this to my reproach as well as to theirs, for albeit
they dwelt in another parish it had been my
Christian duty to seek them out. I did not, and
I was greatly to blame.
To pass over many years and come to the 2nd
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NOT HERE, O APOLLO !
of December last (1718). That night, about
II o'clock, I sat in my library reading. It was
blowing hard without, the wind W.N.W.; but
I had forgotten the gale in my book, when a sound,
as it were a distant outcry of many voices, fetched
me to unbar the shutters and open the window to
listen. The sound, whatever it was, had died
away: I heard but the wind roaring and the surf
on the beaches along the Bay: and I was closing
the window again when, close at hand, a man's
voice called to me to open the front door. I
went out to the hall, where a lamp stood, and
opened to him. The light showed me the young
man Luke, on whom I had not set eyes for these
four-and-twenty years : nor, amazed and perturbed
as I
was, did it occur to me as marvellous that he
had not aged a day.
“There is a wreck," said he,
“ in the Porth below here; and you, sir, are
concerned in it. Will you fetch a lantern and
come with me ? ” He put this as a question, but
in his tone was a command; and when I brought
the lantern he took it from me and led the way.
We struck across the Home Parc southward, thence
across Gew Down and the Leazes, and I knew that
he was making for the track which leads down to
the sea by Prah Sands. At the entry of the track
he took off his coat and wrapped the lantern in it,
though just there its light would have been most
useful, or so I thought. But he led the way easily,
and I followed with scarce a stumble. “ We shall
13
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
not need it,” he said ; “ for see, there they are !”
pointing to a small light that moved on the
sands below us. “But who are they?” I asked.
He strode down ahead of me, making swiftly for
the light, and coming upon them in the noise of
the gale we surprised a man and a woman, who
at first cowered before us and then would have
cast down their light and run. But my com-
panion, unwrapping the lantern, held it high and
so that the light shone on their faces. They were
John Magor and his wife Grace.
· Then I,
remembering what cry of shipwrecked
souls had reached to my library in the Vicarage,
and well guessing what work these wretches had
been at, lifted my voice to accuse them. But the
young man Luke stepped between us, and said he
to them gently, “Come, and I will show what you
seek.” He went before us for maybe two hundred
yards to the northern end of the beach, they
behind him quaking, and I shepherding them in
my righteous wrath. “ Behold you,” said he, and
again lifted the lantern over a rock dark with sea-
weed (and yet the weed shone in the light) -
“Behold you, what you have wrecked.”
'On their backs along the flat of the rock lay
two naked bodies, of a youth and a maid, half-
clasped one to another. He handed me the
lantern for a better look, and in the rays of it
the two wretches peered forward as if drawn against
their will. I cannot well say if they or I first
194


NOT HERE, O APOLLO!
perceived the miracle ; that these corpses, as
they lay in the posture, so bore the very likeness
of the two lovers on my sculptured slab. But I
remember that, as John and Grace Magor screamed
back and clung to me, and as by the commotion of
them clutching at my knees the lantern fell and
was extinguished, I heard the young man Luke
say, Yourselves, yourselves!”
'I called to him to pick up the lantern; but he
did not answer, and the two clinging wretches
encumbered me. After a long while the clouds
broke and the moon shone through them; and
where he had stood there was no one. Also the
slab of rock was dark, and the two drowned corpses
had vanished with him. I pointed to it; but
there was no tinder-box at hand to light the lantern
again, and in the bitter weather until the dawn the
two clung about me, confessing and rehearsing
their sins.
'I have great hopes that they are brought to a
better way of life ; and because (repent they never
so much) no one is any longer likely to recognise
in these penitents the originals upon whom it was
moulded these many years ago, I am determined
to move the statuary to a place in the S. aisle of
our parish church, as a memorial, the moral
whereof I have leave of John and Grace Magor
to declare to all the parish. I choose to defer
making it public, in tenderness, while they live :
for all things point as yet to the permanent saving
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
of their souls. But, as in the course of nature I
shall predecease them, I set the record here in the
Parish Register, as its best place.
(Signed) MALACHI HICHENS, B.D.
'21st Jan., 1719.'
.
.
“And is that all?" I asked.
“ Yes and no," said the Vicar, closing the book.
“ It is all that Mr. Hichens has left to help us : and
you may or may not connect with it what I am going
to relate of my own experience
The old
church, as you know, was destroyed by fire in the
morning hours of Christmas Day, 1870. Throughout
Christmas Eve and for a great part of the night it
had been snowing, but the day broke brilliantly, on
a sky without wind or cloud; and never have my
eyes seen anything so terribly beautiful-ay, so
sublime-as the sight which met them at the lych-
gate. The old spire—which served as a sea-mark
for the fishermen, and was kept regularly white-
washed that it might be the more conspicuous-
glittered in the morning sunshine from base to
summit, as though matching its whiteness against
that of the snow-laden elms : and in this frame of
pure silverwork, burning without noise and with
scarcely any smoke—this by reason of the excessive
dryness of the woodwork—the church stood one
glowing vault of fire. There was indeed so little
smoke that at the first alarm, looking from my
196


NOT HERE, O APOLLO !
bedroom window, I had been incredulous; and still
I wondered rather than believed, staring into this
furnace wherein every pillar, nook, seat or text on
the wall was distinctly visible, the south windows
being burnt out and the great door thrown open and
on fire.
“There was no entrance possible here, or indeed
anywhere : but, being half-distraught, I ran around
to the small door of the north aisle. This too was
on fire-or, rather, was already consumed ; and you
will say that I must have been wholly distraught
when I tell you what I saw, looking in through the
aperture through which it would have been death
to pass. I saw him."
You saw the young man Luke ? ” I asked, as
he paused, inviting a word.
He was standing by the stone figures within the
porch . .
... And they crumbled-crumbled before
my eyes in the awful heat. But he stood scatheless.
He was young and comely; the hair of his head was
not singed. He was as one of the three that walked
in the midst of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace
When the stone slab was crumbled to a handful
of dust, he moved up the aisle and was gone
That is all : but, as you accept your friend for a
truthful man, explain, O sceptic!
-And again there fell a silence in the garden.
.
197





Fiat
Justitia
Ruat Solum
In the days of my childhood, and up to the year
1886, the Justices of the Peace for the Gantick
Division of the Hundred of Powder, in the county
of Cornwall, held their Petty Sessions at Scawns,
a bleak, four-square building set on the knap
of a windy hill, close beside the high road that
leads up from the sea to the market town of
Tregarrick. The house, when the county in Quarter
Sessions purchased it to convert it into a police
station and petty sessional court, had been derelict
for twenty years—that is to say, ever since the
winter of 1827, when Squire Nicholas, the last owner
to reside in it himself an ornament in his time of
the Gantick Bench), broke his neck in the hunting
field. With his death, the property passed to some
distant cousin in the North, who seldom visited
Cornwall. This cousin leased the Scawns acres to a
farmer alongside of whose fields they marched, and
the farmer, having no use for the mansion, gladly
sub-let it. The county authorities, having acquired
the lease, did indeed make certain structural
adaptations, providing tolerable quarters for the
199


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
local constabulary, with a lock-up in the cellarage
(which was commodious), but for the rest did little
to arrest the general decay of the building. In
particular, the disrepair of the old dining-room,
where the magistrates now held Session, had become
a public scandal. The old wall-paper drooped in
tatters, the ceiling showed patches where the plaster
had broken from the battens, rats had eaten holes
in the green baize table-cloth, and the whole place
smelt of dry-rot.
From the wall behind the
magistrates' table, in the place where nations
more superstitious than ours suspend a crucifix, an
atrocious portrait of the late Squire Nicholas surveyed
the desolated scene of his former carousals. An
inscription at the base of the frame commemorated
him as one who had consistently “Done Right to all
manner of People after the Laws and Usages of the
Realm, without Fear or Favour, Affection
[ll-will."
Beneath this portrait, on the second Wednesday in
July, 1886, were gathered no fewer than six Justices
of the Peace, a number the more astonishing because
Petty Sessions chanced to clash with the annual
meeting of the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Society,
held that year at the neighbouring market town of
Tregarrick. Now, the reason of this full bench was
at once simple and absurd, and had caused merriment
not unmixed with testiness in the magistrates'
private room. Each Justice, counting on his
neighbour's delinquency, had separately resolved to
or
200


FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM
was
one
pay a sacrifice to public duty, and to drop in to dispose
of the business of Sessions before proceeding to the
Show. The charge-sheet, be it noted,
abnormally light: it comprised single
indictment.
Good Lord !” growled Admiral Trist, Chairman
of the Bench, Master of the famous Gantick Harriers.
“Six of us to hear a case of sleeping out!”
“Who's the defendant?" asked Sir Felix Felix-
Williams. “'Thomas Edwards '-Don't know the
name in these parts."
“I doubt if he knows it himself, Sir Felix,”
answered Mr. Batty, the Justices' Clerk. “The
Inspector tells me it 's a tramping fellow the police
picked up two nights ago. He has been in lock-up
ever since.”
" Then why the devil couldn't they have sent round
and fished up one of us—or a couple—to deal with
the case out of hand ?"
“ Damned shame, the way the police nurse this
business !” murmured Lord Rattley, our somewhat
disreputable local peer. They 're wanted at
Tregarrick to-day, and, what 's more, they want the
fun of the Show. So they take excellent care to
keep the charge-list light. But since Petty Sessions
must be held, whether or no, they pounce on some
poor devil of a tramp to put a face on the
business.”
“H'm, h’m.” The Admiral, friend of law and
order, dreaded Lord Rattley's tongue, which was
201


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
irresponsible and incisive. “Well, if this is our
only business, gentlemen-
There is another case, sir," put in Mr. Batty.
Wife—Trudgian by name—wants separation order.
Application reached me too late to be included in
the list."
“Trudgian ?” queried Parson Voisey. “Not
Selina Magor, I hope, that married young Trudgian
a year or so back ? Husband a clay-labourer,
living somewhere outside Tregarrick.”
“ That's the woman. Young married couple-
first quarrel. The wife, on her own admission, had
used her tongue pretty sharply, and, I don't doubt,
drove the man off to the public house, where he sat
until sulky-drunk. A talking-to by the Chairman,
if I might suggest—"
“ Yes, yes,” agreed Parson Voisey. And I 'll
have a word with Selina afterwards. She used to
attend my Young Women's Class-one of my most
satisfactory girls."
" We 'll see—we 'll see,” said the Admiral.
we ready, gentlemen ? "
He led the way into Court, where all rose in sign
of respect-Mr. Batty's confidential clerk, the
Inspector, a solitary constable, a tattered old man
in the constable's charge, and the two Trudgians.
These last occupied extreme ends of the same form ;
the husband sullen, with set jaw and eyes obstinately
fixed on his boots, the young wife flushed of face and
tearful, stealing from time to time a defiant glance
• Are
at her spouse.
202


FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM
60
In face of this scanty audience the six Justices
solemnly took their seats.
" Thomas Edwards !" called the Clerk.
The tattered old man cringed up to the table,
with an embarrassed smile, which yet had a touch
of impudence about the corners of the mouth.
“ Thomas Edwards, you stand charged for that on
a certain date, to wit, July 6th, you, not having any
visible means of subsistence, and not giving a good
account of yourself, were found lodging in a certain
outhouse known as Lobb's Barn, in the Parish of
Gantick, contrary, etc. Do you plead Guilty or
Not Guilty ?
Guilty, y'r Worships."
The constable, on a nod from the Inspector, cleared
his throat, and stated the charge : "On the 6th
instant, y'r Worships, at 10.45 in the evening, being
on duty in the neighbourhood of Lobb’s Barn,” etc.
Defendant, on being arrested, had used the filthiest
language, and had for some time stoutly resisted
being marched off to the lock-up.
“That will do,” the Chairman interrupted. “You,
Edwards—if that 's your real name-
“It 'll do for this job,” put in the prisoner.
“ Very well. Have you anything to say ?”
The prisoner ran his eye along the array of Justices.
Seems a lot o' dogs for one small bone !”
The Admiral stiffened with wrath, and the crimson
of his face deepened as Lord Rattley threw himself
back in his chair, laughing.
203


FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM
forbearance. For a comfirmed bachelor, he did it
remarkably well ; but it must be remembered that
this was by no means his first essay in lecturing
discordant spouses from the Bench. Lord Rattley,
whose own matrimonial ventures had been (like
Mr. Weller's researches in London) extensive and
peculiar, leaned back and followed the discourse with
appreciation, his elbows resting on the arms of his
chair, his finger-tips delicately pressed together, his
gaze pensively tracking the motions of a bumble-bee
that had strayed in at an open window and was
battering its head against the dusty pane of a closed
one.
Just then, the Admiral, warming to his theme,
pushed back his chair a few inches.
For some days previously a stream of traction-
engines had passed along the high road, dragging
timber-wagons, tent-wagons, machinery, exhibits of
all kinds, towards the Tregarrick Show. This heavy
traffic (it was afterwards surmised) had helped what
Wordsworth calls“ the unimaginable touch of Time,"
shaking the dry-rotted joists of Scawns House, and
preparing the catastrophe.
The Admiral was a heavy-weight. He rode, in
those days, at close upon seventeen stone. As he
thrust back his chair, there came from the floor
beneath—from the wall immediately behind him-
an ominous, rending sound. The hind legs of his
chair sank slowly, the seat of justice tilted farther and
farther; as he clutched wildly at the table, the table
205


FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM
It was
stir your-
word.
in which an unexpected figure now confronted
them.
the prisoner, Thomas Edwards. A
collapsing beam had torn away some bricks from the
wall of his cell, and he came wriggling through the
aperture, using the most dreadful oaths.
“ Stir yourselves Oh,
selves! Standin' there like a lot of stuck pigs !
Get out the Admiral! The Admiral, I tell you !
Hark to the poor old devil, dammin' away
down ther, wi' two hundredweight o'table pressin'
against his belly !”
Mr. Edwards, in fact, used an even more vulgar
But he was not stopping to weigh words.
Magistrates, Inspector, Clerk — he took charge of
them all on the spot - a master of men. The
Admiral, in the unfathomed dark of the cellar, was
indeed uttering language to make your hair
creep.
“Oh, cuss away, y' old varmint !” sang down Mr.
Edwards cheerfully. The louder you cuss, the
better hearin'; means ye have air to breathe an"
nothin' broke internal.
Eh? Oh, I knows
th' old warrior! Opened a gate for en once when he
was out hare-huntin', up St. Germans way—I likes
a bit o’sport, I do, when I happens on it. Lord love
ye, the way he damned my eyes for bein' slow about
it! . . . Aye, aye, Admiral! Cuss away, cuss away
-proper quarter-deck you ’re givin' us! But we 're
gettin' to you fast as we can. England can't
207


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
spare the likes o' you-an' she won't, not if we can
help it !”
The man worked like a demon. What is more, he
was making the others work, flailing them all--peer
and baronet and parson-with slave-driver's oaths,
while they tugged to loosen the timbers under which
the magistrates' table lay wedged.
“Lift, I tell ye ! Lift!
What the 's
wrong with that end o' the beam ? Stuck, is it?
Jammed ? Jammed your grandmothers ! Nobbut
a few pounds o' loose lime an' plaster beddin' it.
Get down on your knees an' clear it. . That's
better! And now pull! PULL, I say ! Oh, not
that way, you rabbits !-here, let me show you !”
By efforts Herculean, first digging the rubbish
clear with clawed hands, then straining and heaving
till their loins had almost cracked, they levered up
the table at length, and released not only the Admiral,
but the two remaining magistrates, whom they found
pinned under its weight, one unharmed, but in a
swoon, the other moaning feebly with the pain of
two broken ribs.
“Whew! What the devil of a smell of brandy!
observed Lord Rattley, mopping his brow in the
intervals of helping to hoist the rescued ones up the
moraine. At the top of it, the Inspector, lifting his
head above the broken flooring to shout for help,
broke into furious profanity; for there, in the empty
court-room stood young Trudgian and his wife,
covered, indeed, with white dust, but blissfully
208


FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM
wrapt in their own marvellous escape; and young
Trudgian for the moment was wholly preoccupied in
probing with two fingers for a piece of plaster which
had somehow found its way down his Selina's back,
between the nape of the neck and the bodice.
Drop it, you fool, and lend a hand !” objurgated
the Inspector; whereupon Mrs. Trudgian turned
about, bridling.
You leave my Tom alone, please! A man's
first call is on his wedded wife, I reckon."
The rescued magistrates were lifted out, carried
forth into fresh air, and laid on the turf by the wayside
to recover somewhat, while the rescuers again wiped
perspiring brows.
“A thimbleful o'brandy might do the Admiral
good,” suggested the prisoner.
“ Brandy ? ” cried Lord Rattley. The air reeks
of brandy! Where the — ?"
“The basement's swimmin' with it, m' lord."
The fellow touched his hat. “Two casks stove by
the edge o' the table. I felt around the staves, an'
counted six others, hale an' tight. Thinks I, 'tis
what their Worships will have been keepin' for
private use, between whiles. Or elst
Or else?
Or else maybe we've tapped a private cellar.”
Lord Rattley slapped his thigh.
"A cache, by Jove! Old Squire Nicholas-I
remember, as a boy, hearing it whispered he was
hand-in-glove with the smugglers.”
>>
14
209


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
The prisoner touched his hat humbly.
“This bein' a magistrates' matter, m' lord, an'
me not wishin' to interfere
Quite so." Lord Rattley felt in his pockets.
“ You have done us a considerable service, my man,
and-er-that bein' so
"Forty shillin' it was. He's cheap at it ”-with
a nod towards the Admiral. A real true-blue old
English gentleman ! You can always tell by their
conversations."
“ The fine shall be paid.”
“I counted six casks, m' lord, so well as I could
by the feel
“Yes, yes! And here's a couple of sovereigns
for yourself—all I happen to have in my pocket
Lord Rattley bustled off to the house for brandy.
“England's old England, hows’ever you strike
it !” chirrupped the prisoner gleefully, and touched
his forehead again. "See you at the Show, m' lord,
maybe? Will drink your lordship's health there,
anyway."
He skipped away up the road towards Tregarrick.
In the opposite direction young Mr. and Mrs. Trudgian
could be seen just passing out of sight, he supporting
her with his arm, pausing every now and then,
bending over her uxoriously.
210


The Honour of the Ship
I
" 'ERBERT 'ENERY BATES!
“ Wot cheer!"
It was the morning of Speech-day on board the
Industrial Training Ship Egeria-July the 31st, to
be precise. At 3 p.m. Sir Felix Felix-Williams,
Baronet, would arrive to distribute the prizes.
He would be attended by a crowd of ladies and
gentlemen; and the speeches, delivered beneath an
awning on the upper deck, would be fully reported
next day in the local newspapers. The weather
promised to be propitious.
Just now (11 a.m.) some half a dozen of the elder
boys, attired in dirty white dungaree and bare-
footed, were engaged in swabbing out what, in her
sea-going days, had been the Egeria's ward-room,
making ready to set out tables for an afternoon tea
to follow the ceremony. They were nominally under
supervision of the ship's Schoolmaster, who, however,
had gone off to unpack a hamper of flowers—the gift
of an enthusiastic subscriber.
Step this way, 'Erbert 'Enery Bates."
“ You go to hell, Link Andrew !” But the boy
stopped his work and faced about, nevertheless.
21I


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“See this flag?” Link Andrew dived his long
arms into a pile of bunting that lay ready for
decorating the tea-room. “Wot is it?
Union Jack, o' course, you silly rotter !”
Oh, you good, good boy! . Yes, dear
lads,” went on Link Andrew, in a mimicking voice,
“it is indeed the meet-your-flag of our ’oly Mother-
land, and 'Erbert 'Enery Bates, our Good Conduck
Medallist, will now oblige by going down on his
knees and kissing it. Else I 'll put an eye on him!”
Master Bates—“ Good Conduct Bates ”_stepped
forward, with his fists up. He was something of a
sneak and a sucker-up, yet by no means a coward.
He advanced bravely enough, although he knew that
Link Andrew—the best boxer in the ship-was
provoking him of set purpose.
The rest of the boys liked Link and disliked Bates;
yet their sense of fair play told them that Link was
putting himself in the wrong; and yet again,
despite their natural eagerness to see a fight, they
wanted to save Link from what could but end in
folly. He was playing for a fall.
Here comes Schoolmaster !” shouted one, at a
venture.
At that moment, indeed, the Schoolmaster appeared
in the doorway.
“What's this noise about ?” he demanded.
“ You, Link Andrew! I thought your interest was
to avoid trouble for twenty-four hours."
212


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
II
By the Industrial Schools Act of 1866, 29 & 30
Vict. c. 118, it is ordained that any youngster
apparently under the age of fourteen found begging,
or wandering destitute, or consorting with thieves,
or obstinately playing truant from school, or guilty
of being neglected by his parents, or of defying his
parents, or of having a parent who has incurred a
sentence of penal servitude—may by any two
justices be committed to a certified Industrial School,
there to be detained until he reaches the age of
sixteen, or for a shorter term if the justices shall
So direct. Such an Industrial School was the
ex-battleship Egeria.
She had carried seventy-four guns in her time;
and though gunless now and jury-masted, was
redolent still of the Nelson period from her white-and-
gold figure-head to the beautiful stern galleries which
Commander Headworthy had adorned with window-
boxes of Henry Jacoby geraniums. The Committee
in the first flush of funds had spared no pains to re-
produce the right atmosphere, and in that atmosphere
Commander Headworthy laudably endeavoured to
train up his crew of graceless urchins, and to pass
them out at sixteen, preferably into the Navy or the
Merchant Service, but at any rate as decent members
of society. Nor were the boys' nautical experiences
entirely stationary, since a wealthy sympathiser
213


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
(lately deceased) had bequeathed his fine brigantine
yacht to serve the ship as a tender and take a few
score of the elder or more privileged lads on an annual
summer cruise, that they might learn something
of practical seamanship.
The yacht-by name the Swallowman old but
shapely craft of some 200 tons, lay just now a
short cable's length from the parent ship, with sails
bent and all ready for sea ; for by custom the annual
cruise started on the day next after the prize-giving.
The question was :
Would Link Andrew be
allowed to go ?
He would have sold his soul to go.
He even
meditated ways of suicide if the Commander, for
a punishment, should veto his going. During the
last three weeks he had run up an appalling tally
of black marks, and yet it was generally agreed that
the Commander would relent if Link would only
keep his temper and behave with common prudence
for another twenty-four hours.
But this was just what Link seemed wholly unable
to do. He hated the ship, the officers, everything in
life;
and the hot July weather worked upon this
hatred until it became a possessing fury.
214


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
III
At dinner-time he very nearly wrecked his chance
for good and all.
Shortly before a noon a mild-looking gentleman,
noticeable for his childlike manner and a pair of
large round spectacles, came alongside the Egeria
in a shore-boat. It appeared that he bore a visitor's
ticket for the afternoon function and had arrived
thus early by invitation of one of the Committee
to take a good look over the ship before the pro-
ceedings began. Apparently, too, the Committee-
man had sent Commander Headworthy no warning
-to judge from that officer's wrathful face and the
curt tone in which he invited his visitor to luncheon.
The mild-looking gentleman-who gave his name
as Harris-declined courteously, averring that he
had brought a sandwich with him. The Commander
thereupon turned him over to the Second Officer
under whose somewhat impatient escort Mr. Harris
made a thorough tour of the ship, peering into
everything and asking a number of questions. The
boys—whom he amused by opening a large white
umbrella, green-lined, to shield him from the noonday
sun on the upper deck-promptly christened him
Moonface."
This Mr. Harris, still in charge of the Second Officer,
happened along the gun-deck as they finished singing
“Be present at our table, Lord," and were sitting
215


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
down to dinner. From their places they marched up
one by one, each with his dinner-basin, to have it
filled at the head of the table.
“Hullo, you, Andrew !” called out the Second
Officer. “Fetch that basin along here. I want the
gentleman to have a look at the ship's food.”
Link came forward, stretched out a long arm,
and
thrust the basin under the visitor's nose.
Perhaps,” said he,“ the toff would like a sniff
at the same time? There's Sweet Williams for
a summer's day!”
“ There, that 'll do, Link! Go to your place,
my lad, and don't be insolent," said the Second
Officer hastily, with a nervous glance at Mr. Harris.
But Mr. Harris merely blinked behind his glasses.
“Yes, yes, to be sure,” he agreed. “ Pork is
tricky diet in such weather as we 're having !”
216


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
IV
upper deck.
HALF an hour later, having detached himself gently
from his escort, Mr. Harris wandered back to the
It appeared to be deserted; and
Mr. Harris, unfolding his umbrella against the sun's
rays, wandered at will.
In the waist of the vessel, on the port side, he
came upon a dais and a baize-covered table with
an awning rigged over them; and upon the ship's
Schoolmaster, who was busily engaged in arranging
the prize-books.
“Good afternoon, sir!" The Schoolmaster,
affecting to be busy and polite at the same time,
picked out a book and held it up to view. “Smiles
on Self Help,” he announced.
“ You don't say so ! ” answered Mr. Harris,
halting “ But-I mean—they can't very well,
can they?”
Eric, or Little by Little, by the late Archdeacon
Farrar. My choice, sir ; some light, you see, and
others solid, but all pure literature.
They
value it, too, in after life. Ah, sir, they've a lot of
good in 'em! There's many worse characters than
my boys walking the world."
Mild Mr. Harris removed his glasses.
"Are you talking like that from force of habit ? "
he asked. “If so, I shall not be so much annoyed.”
.
.
217


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
help liking the boy. He hates us back, you bet,
and has hated us from the moment he set foot on
deck, five years ago.
Whitechapel-reared, I
believe.
Yet fond of the sea in his way.
Once shipped on the yacht he 'll behave like an angel.
But here on board he 's like a young beast in
a trap."
219


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
V
MR. HARRIS mooned away to the poop-deck, from
the rail of which he watched the guests arriving.
As Sir Felix's gig was descried putting off from the
shore, the boys swarmed up the ratlines and out on
the yards, where they dressed ship very prettily.
A brass band in the waist hailed his approach with
the strains of " Rule, Britannia !” At the head of
the accommodation-ladder a guard of honour
welcomed him with a hastily rehearsed “Present
Arms!” and the boys aloft accompanied it with three
shrill British cheers. The dear old gentleman gazed
up and around him, and positively beamed.
By this time a crowd of boats had put off, and
soon the guests came pouring up the ladder in a
steady stream. There were ladies in picture hats.
A reporter stood by the gangway taking notes of
their costumes. They fell to uttering the prettiest
exclamations upon the shipshapeness of everything
on board. Mr. Harris saw the First Officer inviting
numbers of them to lean over the bulwarks and
observe a scar the old ship had receivedor so he
alleged-at Trafalgar. “How interesting !" they
cried.
Well, to be sure, it was interesting. Nelson himself
-there was good authority for this at any rate—had
once stood on the Egeria's poop;
the Egeria's poop; had leaned,
perhaps, against the very rail on which Mr. Harris's
220


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
VI
SOME five or six years later, Mr. Harris—who resides
in a small West-country town, the name of which
does not concern us—was seated in his library
reading, when his parlourmaid brought him a card
" Mr. Wilkins, I.T.S. Egeria.”
“I scarcely hoped that you would remember me,
sir,” began the Schoolmaster, on being introduced.
" But, happening to pass through-on a holiday
trip, a walking tour-I ventured to call and ask news
of Link Andrew. You may remember our having
a conversation about him once on board the Egeria ? '
“I remember it perfectly,” said Mr. Harris ;
and you 'll be glad to hear that Andrew is doing
remarkably well; is saving money, in fact, and
contemplates getting married.”
“Indeed, sir, that is good hearing. I was afraid
that he might have left your employment.”
“So, to be sure, he has; taking with him, moreover,
an excellent character. He is now a second gardener
at a steady wage."
' You can't think, sir, how you
mind.
To tell the truth, I met him, less than an hour ago ;
and by his manner .. But I had better tell you
how it happened: I knew, of course, that you had
interested yourself in Link and found a job for him.
But after he 'd left the ship he never let us hear word
of his doings.
Well, passing through your
town just now, I ran up against him.
He was
coming along the street, and I recognised him on
relieve my
222


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
the instant; but all of a sudden he turned and began
to stare in at a shop-window-an ironmonger's—
giving me his back. I made sure, of course, that he
hadn't spied me; so I stepped up and said I, ‘Hullo,
Link, my lad !' clapping a hand on his shoulder.
He turned about, treated me to a long stare, and
says he, Aren't you makin' some mistake, mister ?
'Why,' says I, 'surely I haven't changed so much
as all that since the days I taught you vulgar fractions
on board the old Egeria ? I 'm Mr. Wilkins,' says I.
Oh, are you?' says he. Then, Mr, Wilkins, you can
go back to hell and take 'em my compliments there.'
That's all he said, and he walked away down the street.
“That's queer,” said Mr. Harris, polishing his
spectacles. “ Yes, he came to me as gardener's boy
-I thought it would be a pleasant change after the
ship; and he served his apprenticeship well. I re-
member that in answer to my application the Secre-
tary wrote: Of course we prefer to train our lads to
the sea; but when one has no aptitude for it —-'"
Mr. Harris paused, for the Schoolmaster was
smiling broadly.
“ Good Lord, sir!-if you 'll excuse me.
Link
Andrew no aptitude for the sea! Why, that lad's
seamanship saved my life once : and, what 's more,
it saved the whole yacht's company! Hasn't he
ever told you about it?'
“ Not a word. I think,” said Mr. Harris,
friend Link chooses to keep his past in watertight
compartments. Sit down and tell me about it."
our
223


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
VII
This was the Schoolmaster's story :-
“It happened on that very cruise, sir.
The
Swallow had been knocking around at various West-
country regattas—Weymouth, Torquay, Dartmouth,
finishing up with Plymouth. From Plymouth we
were to sail for home.
“We had dropped hook in the Merchant Shipping
Anchorage, as they call it; which is the eastern
side of the Sound, by Jennycliff Bay. That last day
of the regattas--a Saturday—the wind had been
almost true north, and freshish, but nothing to
mention : beautiful sailing weather for the small
boats. The big cracks had finished their engage-
ments and were making back for Southampton.
“Well, as I say, this north wind was a treat;
especially coming, as it did, after a week of light
airs and calms that had spoilt most of the yacht-
racing. Some time in the afternoon I heard talk
that our skipper-well, I won't mention names-
and, as it turned out in the end, everyone was
implicated. Anyhow, at six o'clock or there-
abouts the gig was ordered out, and every blessed
officer on board went ashore in her; which was
clean contrary to regulations, of course, but there
happened to be a Cinematograph Show they all
wanted to see at the big music hall—some prize-
fight or other. I don't set much store by prize-fights
224


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
for my part, and living pictures give me the headache:
so, to salve everybody's conscience, I was left in sole
charge of the ship.
“Everything went smooth as a buttered cake
until about nine o'clock, when the wind, that had
been dying down all the time, suddenly flew west and
began to gather strength hand over fist. . I
never, not being a seaman, could have believed till
I saw and felt it—the change that came over
Plymouth Sound in the space of one half-hour. The
gig had been ordered again for nine-thirty, to pull
to the Barbican Steps and be ready at ten to bring
the officers on board. But before nine-thirty I began
to have my serious doubts about sending her. It
was just as well I had.
For by nine-forty-five it was blowing a real gale,
and by ten o'clock something like a hurricane. Just
then, to top my terror, Master Link Andrew came
aft to me—the wind seemed to blow him along-
and I beg your pardon, Mr. Wilkins,' said he,
' but in my opinion she 's dragging.'
“Just think of it, sir! There was I, sole in charge
of a hundred boys or so, and knowing no more what
to do than the ship's cat. She was dragging,
too; sagging foot by foot in towards the dark of
Jennycliff Bay.
“ ' If you 'll take a word from me, sir,' said Link,
'we'd best up sail and get out of this.'
What about the other anchor ? ' I
suggested.
.
15
225


NEWS FROM
THE DUCHY
No go,'
.
.
“'Try it if you like,' said he. “In my belief it
won't hold any more than a tin mustard pot.'
“Nor did it, when we let go. He came back after
a few minutes from the darkness forward.
said he. 'Nothing to do but slip and clear.'
“There was no question, either, that he spoke
sense.
"But where?' I shouted at him. 'Drake's
Island ?
And who's to do it, even so ?'
* The anchorage is crowded under Drake's
Island,' he shouted back. 'It's the devil-among-
the-tailors we'd play there, if we ever fetched.
Breakwater 's no shelter either.'
“He seemed to whistle to himself for a moment;
and the next I heard him yell out sharply to the
boys forward to tumble on the mainsail, strip her
covers off, double-reef and hoist her. He took
command from that moment. While a score of
them flew to tackle this job, he beat his way forward
and called on another lot to get out the staysail.
Back he ran again, cursing and calling on all and
sundry to look smart. Next he was at my side
ordering me to unlash the wheel and stand by.
* It's touch-and-go, sir.'
Hadn't we better send up a flare ? 'I suggested
feebly.
Flare your bloomin' grandmother!' From
this moment I regret to say that Link Andrew
treated me with contempt. He next ordered a dozen
small boys aloft, to reef and set her upper square-sail.
When I urged that it was as good as asking them to
226


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
commit suicide, he cursed me openly. 'Drown the
poor pups, will I? I thought-damn you all !—you
laid yourselves out to breed seamen ! You say you
do, at prize-givings !' He ran forward again to get
the hawsers buoyed before slipping them.
"I never remember a sound more sickening to the
stomach than those chains made as they ran out
through the hawse holes. The one mistake Link
committed was in ordering the upper square-sail
to be reefed. By the mercy of God not a child was
blown off the yards in that operation; yet it was
no sooner concluded than, having by this time
found a megaphone, he shouted up to them to undo
their work and shake out the reef.
That's madness !' I yelled from the wheel,
where I clung dripping, blindly pressing down the
spokes and easing them as he checked me. 'Look
to leeward, you blighter !'he yelled back.
“ The ship had payed off slowly, and while she
gathered way, was drifting straight down upon an
Italian barque that two hours ago had lain more
than a cable's length from us.
I thought
our lower yard-we heeled so—would have smacked
against her bowsprit-end; and from the outcries
on board the Italian I rather fancy her crew expected
it. But we shaved her by a yard or so, as Link
pushed me away from the wheel and took charge.
A moment later she had dropped behind us into the
night, and we were surging in full-tilt for Plymouth,
heaving over at the Lord knows what angle.
227


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ But we were off; we were clear; and, strange
to say, the worst of it was over. The wind was
worsening, if anything, and we continued to drive
at a frightful angle. Now and again we slanted to
a squall that fairly dipped us till the sea poured
half-way across her decks. As I staggered forward
-clutching at anything handy—to assure myself
that none of the boys had been flung off the fore-yard
and overboard, I heard a sea burst the starboard
bulwarks, and in another moment, while I yet
wondered if the sound came from something parting
aloft, with a 'Wa-ay-oh!' Link had put over her
helm, and the suddenly altered slant flung me into
the scuppers, where I dropped after taking a knock
against the standing rigging, the mark of which
I shall carry on my forehead till I die.
“By this time, sir, I was pretty well dazed.
I forget if it was in a couple of short tacks, or in
three, that we fetched Picklecombe Point on the
western side. Then we put about on a long tack
that carried us well outside the breakwater and
came in for Cawsand Bay and safety. On this last
fetch Link kicked me up and gave me the wheel
again, while he went forward to hunt up the spare
anchor.
“We brought up, well in shelter, at something
before two in the morning, not a hand lost! Before
anyone was allowed to turn in, Link had every sail
stowed and covered for the honour of the blasted
ship,' as he put it.
228


THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP
“The skipper and his precious lot came aboard
next day not long before noon, and after a wholesome
scare. It seems they were late, and all pretty so-so
by the time they reached the Barbican Steps; and,
let be that there was no boat for them, the water-
men one and all declined to take them off in any
such weather. Nothing for it but to doss the night
ashore, which they did. But I wouldn't give much
for their feelings next morning when they put off
and, lo! there was no Swallow in the Merchant
Shipping Anchorage. In Cawsand Bay, you under-
stand, we were well hidden by the land, and it cost
them at least a couple of hours to guess our
whereabouts.
“Long as the time was, it wasn't enough to wear
out the effects of the—well, the Cinematograph. A
yellower set, or a bluer in the gills, you never set eyes
on. They came aboard, and the skipper, having
made some inquiries of me, called up Link, cleared
his throat quite in the old approved style, and
began to make a speech.
" Link cut it short.
All right, my precious swine! Now step below
and wash off the traces. If you behave pretty,
maybe I'll not report you.'"
229


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
VIII
“THAT finished the lot,” wound up the School-
master. There was no answer to it, if you come
to think.”
“ And Link never told ?'
“Never a word, sir. Nor did I. But the story
leaked out somehow, and it gave the Commander
the whip-hand of his Committee, to ship a new set
of officers. Ship and tender, sir, the Egeria nowadays
is something to be proud of. But for my part I don't
go on any more of these summer cruises. The open
sea never suited my stomach, and I prefer a walk for
my holiday.”
230


Lieutenant Lapenotière
THE night porter at the Admiralty had been sleeping
in his chair. He was red-eyed and wore his livery
coat buttoned at random. He grumbled to himself
as he opened the great door.
He carried a glass-screened candle, and held it
somewhat above the level of his forehead—which
was protuberant and heavily pock-marked. Under
the light he peered out at the visitor, who stood
tall and stiff, with uniform overcoat buttoned to the
chin, between the Ionic pillars of the portico.
“Who's there?"
“Lieutenant Lapenotière, of the Pickle schooner
-with despatches.”
“Despatches ? " echoed the night porter. Out
beyond the screen of masonry that shut off the Board
of Admiralty's fore-court from Whitehall, one of the
tired post-horses started blowing through its nostrils
on this foggy night.
“From Admiral Collingwood-Mediterranean Fleet
off Cadiz—sixteen days," answered the visitor curtly.
“Is everyone abed?"
Admiral Collingwood ? Why Admiral Colling-
231


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
wood ? ” The night porter fell back a pace, opening
the door a trifle wider. “Good God, sir! You don't
say as how
“ You can fetch down a Secretary or someone,
I hope ? ” said Lieutenant Lapenotière, quickly
stepping past him into the long dim hall. “My
despatches are of the first importance. I have
posted up from Falmouth without halt but for
relays."
As the man closed the door, he heard his post-boy
of the last relay slap one of the horses encouragingly
before heading home to stable. The chaise wheels
began to move on the cobbles.
“ His Lordship himself will see you, sir. Of that
I make no doubt,” twittered the night porter,
fumbling with the bolt. There was a terrible
disturbance, back in July, when Captain Bettesworth
arrived—not so late as this, to be sure, but towards
midnight-and they waited till morning, to carry up
the despatches with his Lordship's chocolate.
Thankful was I next day not to have been on duty
at the time If you will follow me, sir-"
Lieutenant Lapenotière had turned instinctively
towards a door on the right. It admitted to the
Waiting Room, and there were few officers in the
service who did not know—and only too well-that
Chamber of Hope Deferred.
“No, sir . . . this way, if you please," the night
porter corrected him, and opened a door on the left.
The Captains' Room,” he announced, passing in and
232


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
steering for the chimney-shelf, on which stood a pair
of silver sconces each carrying three wax candles.
These he took down, lit and replaced. “Ah, sir !
Many 's the time I've showed Lord Nelson himself
into this room, in the days before Sir Horatio, and
even after. And you were sayin'-
“I said nothing.”
The man moved to the door ; but halted there and
came back, as though in his own despite.
“I can't help it, sir ... Half a guinea he used
to give me, regular. But the last time—and hard to
believe 'twas little more than a month ago—he halts
on his way out, and says he, searchin'awkward-like in
his breeches' pocket with his left hand. 'Ned,' says
he, ‘my old friend'-aye, sir, his old friend he called
me—' Ned,' says he, pullin' out a fistful o' gold,' my
old friend,' says he, 'I'll compound with
you
for two
guineas, this bein' the last time you may hold the
door open for me, in or out. But you must pick 'em
out,' says he, spreadin' his blessed fingers with the
gold in 'em : 'for a man can't count money who's lost
his right flapper.' Those were his words, sir. 'Old
friend,' he called me, in that way of his.
Lieutenant Lapenotière pointed to his left arm.
Around the sleeve a black scarf was knotted.
“Dead, sir,"
the night porter hushed his
voice.
Dead,” echoed Lieutenant Lapenotière, staring
at the Turkey carpet, of which the six candles,
gaining strength, barely illumined the pattern.
233


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ Dead, at the top of victory; a great victory. Go:
fetch somebody down.”
The night porter shuffled off. Lieutenant Lapeno-
tière, erect and sombre, cast a look around the
apartment, into which he had never before been
admitted. The candles lit up a large painting-a
queer bird's-eye view of Venice. Other pictures,
dark and bituminous, decorated the panelled walls
-portraits of dead admirals, a sea-piece or two, some
charts
This was all he discerned out in the
dim light; and in fact he scanned the walls, the
furniture of the room, inattentively. His stomach
was fasting, his head light with rapid travel ; above
all, he had a sense of wonder that all this should
be happening to him. For, albeit a distinguished
officer, he was a modest man, and by habit con-
sidered himself of no great importance; albeit a
brave man, too, he shrank at the thought of the
message he carried—a message to explode and shake
millions of men in a confusion of wild joy or grief.
For about the tenth time in those sixteen days it
seemed to burst and escape in an actual detonation,
splitting his head—there, as he waited in the strange
room where never a curtain stirred
a trick his brain played him, repeating, echoing the
awful explosion of the French seventy-four Achille,
which had blown up towards the close of the battle.
When the ship was ablaze and sinking, his own crew
had put off in boats to rescue the Frenchmen, at
close risk of their own lives, for her loaded guns, as
It was
.
234


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
.
.
But no
they grew red-hot, went off at random among
rescuers and rescued
As had happened before when he felt this queer
shock, his mind travelled back and he seemed to hear
the series of discharges running up at short intervals
to the great catastrophe
To divert his
thoughts, he turned to study the view of Venice above
the chimney-piece
and on a sudden faced
about again.
He had a sensation that someone was in the room
-someone standing close behind him.
For the briefest instant his eyes
rested on an indistinct shadow-his own perhaps,
cast by the candle-light? Yet why should it lie
lengthwise there, shaped like a coffin, on the dark
polished table that occupied the middle of the room?
The answer was that it did not. Before he could
rub his eyes it had gone. Moreover, he had turned to
recognise a living being
and no living person
was in the room, unless by chance (absurd supposi-
tion) one were hidden behind the dark red window
curtains.
Recognise ” may seem a strange word to use ;
but here had lain the strangeness of the sensation,
that the someone standing there was a friend,
waiting to be greeted. It was with eagerness and a
curious warmth of the heart that Lieutenant
Lapenotière had faced about—upon nothing.
He continued to stare in a puzzled way at the
window curtains, when a voice by the door said
.
235


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
60
.
“Good evening !-or perhaps, to be correct, good
morning! You are Mr. ---"
Lapenotière," answered the Lieutenant, who had
turned sharply. The voice-a gentleman's and
pleasantly modulated—was not one he knew; nor
did he recognise the speaker-a youngish, shrewd-
looking man, dressed in civilian black, with knee-
breeches. “ Lapenotière—of the Pickle schooner.”
“Yes, yes—the porter bungled your name badly,
but I guessed. Lord Barham will see you personally.
He is, in fact, dressing with all haste at this moment
I am his private secretary,” explained the
shrewd-looking gentleman in his quiet, business-like
voice. “Will you come with me upstairs ? ”
Lieutenant Lapenotière followed him. At the foot
of the great staircase the secretary turned.
"I may take it, sir, that we are not lightly dis-
turbing his Lordship,—who is an old man.”
“The news is of great moment, sir. Greater could
scarcely be.”
The secretary bent his head. As they went up the
staircase Lieutenant Lapenotière looked back and
caught sight of the night porter in the middle of the
hall, planted there and gazing up, following their
ascent.
On the first floor landing they were met by a truly
ridiculous spectacle. There emerged from a doorway
on the left of the wide corridor an old gentleman clad
in nightcap, nightshirt and bedroom slippers,
buttoning bis breeches and cursing vigorously;
236


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
'Tis past
while close upon him followed a valet with dressing-
gown on one arm, waistcoat and wig on the other,
vainly striving to keep pace with his master's
impatience.
The braces, my lord—your Lordship has them
fore-part behind, if I may suggest—"
“Damn the braces ! ” swore the old gentleman.
“Where is he? Hi, Tylney!” as he caught sight
of the secretary. “Where are we to go ? My room,
I suppose ?”
“ The fire is out there, my lord
three in the morning. But after sending word to
awake you, I hunted round and by good luck found
a plenty of promising embers in the Board Room
grate. On top of these I 've piled what remained of
my own fire, and Dobson has set a lamp there
' You 've been devilish quick, Tylney. Dressed:
like a buck you are, too ! ”
“ Your Lordship’s wig,” suggested the valet.
“Damn the wig !” Lord Barham snatched it and
attempted to stick it on top of his nightcap, damned
the nightcap, and, plucking it off, flung it to the
man.
“I happened to be sitting up late, my lord, over
the Æolus papers,” said Mr. Secretary Tylney.
“Ha?” Then, to the valet, “ The dressing-gown
there! Don't fumble !
So this is Captain
“Lieutenant, sir, Lapenotière, commanding the
Pickle schooner."
237


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
The Lieutenant saluted.
“ From the Fleet, my lord-off Cadiz; or rather,
off Cape Trafalgaro.”
He drew the sealed despatch from an inner breast-
pocket and handed it to the First Lord.
“Here, step into the Board Room
Where
the devil are my spectacles ?” he demanded of the
valet, who had sprung forward to hold open the door.
Evidently the Board Room had been but a few
hours ago the scene of a large dinner-party. Glasses,
dessert-plates, dishes of fruit, decanters empty and
half empty, cumbered the great mahogany table as
dead and wounded, guns and tumbrils, might a battle-
field. Chairs stood askew; crumpled napkins lay
as they had been dropped or tossed, some on the
floor, others across the table between the dishes.
“ Looks cosy, eh ? commented the First Lord.
Maggs, set a screen around the fire, and look
about for a decanter and some clean glasses.'
He drew a chair close to the reviving fire, and
glanced at the cover of the despatch before breaking
its seal.
“Nelson's handwriting ?” he asked. It was plain
that his old eyes, unaided by spectacles, saw the
superscription only as a blur.
“No, my lord : Admiral Collingwood's,” said
Lieutenant Lapenotière, inclining his head.
Old Lord Barham looked up sharply. His wig sat
awry, he made a ridiculous figure in his hastily-
donned garments. Yet he did not lack dignity.
238


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
Why Collingwood ? ” he asked, his fingers
breaking the seal. God!
you
don't tell me
“Lord Nelson is dead, sir."
* Dead-dead ?
Here, Tylney-you read
what it says. Dead?
No, damme, let the
captain tell his tale. Briefly, sir.”
Briefly, sir-Lord Nelson had word of Admiral
Villeneuve coming out of the Straits, and engaged the
combined fleets off Cape Trafalgaro. They were in
single line, roughly; and he bore down in two
columns, and cut off their van under Dumanoir.
This was at dawn or thereabouts, and by five o'clock
the enemy was destroyed.”
“How many prizes ? "
I cannot say precisely, my lord. The word went,
when I was signalled aboard the Vice-Admiral's
flag-ship, that either fifteen or sixteen had struck.
My own men then engaged, at the time, in rescuing
the crew of a French seventy-four that had blown up;
and I was too busy to count, had counting been
possible. One or two of my officers maintain to me
that our gains were higher. But the despatch will
tell, doubtless.”
Aye, to be sure Read, Tylney. Don't sit
there clearing your throat, but read, man alive!”
And yet it appeared that while the Secretary was
willing enough to read, the First Lord had no
capacity, as yet, to listen. Into the very first sentence
he broke with
“No, wait a minute. 'Dead,'d' ye say ?
239


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Lieutenant, pour yourself a glass of wine and tell us
first how it happened.”
Lieutenant Lapenotière could not tell very clearly.
He had twice been summoned to board the Royal
Sovereign—the first time to receive the command to
hold himself ready. It was then that, coming along-
side the great ship, he had read in all the officers'
faces an anxiety hard to reconcile with the evident
tokens of victory around them. At once it had
occurred to him that the Admiral had fallen, and he
put the question to one of the lieutenants—to be
told that Lord Nelson had indeed been mortally
wounded and could not live long; but that he must
be alive yet, and conscious, since the Victory was still
signalling orders to the Fleet.
"I think, my lord,” said he, “ that Admiral
Collingwood must have been doubtful, just then,
what responsibility had fallen upon him, or how soon
it might fall. He had sent for me to 'stand by’so
to speak. He was good enough to tell me the news
as it had reached him-2"
Here Lieutenant Lapenotière, obeying the order to
fill his glass, let spill some of the wine on the table.
The sight of the dark trickle on the mahogany
touched some nerve of the brain : he saw it widen into
a pool of blood, from which, as they picked up a
shattered seaman and bore him below, a lazy
stream crept across the deck of the flag-ship
towards the scuppers.
He moved his feet, as he
had moved them then, to be out of the way of
240


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
At any
it: but recovered himself in another moment and
went on-
“He told me, my lord, that the Victory after
passing under the Bucentaure's stern, and so raking
her that she was put out of action, or almost, fell
alongside the Redoutable. There was a long swell
running, with next to no wind, and the two ships
could hardly have cleared had they tried.
rate, they hooked, and it was then a question which
could hammer the harder. The Frenchman had
filled his tops with sharp-shooters, and from one of
these — the mizen-top, I believe -a musket-ball
struck down the Admiral. He was walking at the
time to and fro on a sort of gangway he had caused
to be planked over his cabin sky-light, between the
wheel and the ladder-way
Admiral Colling-
wood believed it had happened about half-past
.
one
“Sit down, man, and drink your wine,” com-
manded the First Lord as the despatch-bearer swayed
with a sudden faintness.
“It is nothing, my lord"
But it must have been a real swoon, or something
very like it : for he recovered to find himself lying
in an arm-chair. He heard the Secretary's voice
reading steadily on and on. Also they must
have given him wine, for he awoke to feel the
warmth of it in his veins and coursing about his
heart. But he was weak yet, and for the moment
well content to lie still and listen.
0
.
16
241


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Resting there and listening, he was aware of two
sensations that alternated within him, chasing each
other in and out of his consciousness. He felt all the
while that he, John Richards Lapenotière, a junior
officer in His Majesty's service, was assisting in one
of the most momentous events in his country's
history; and alone in the room with these two men,
he felt it as he had never begun to feel it amid the
smoke and roar of the actual battle. He had seen
the dead hero but half a dozen times in his life: he
had never been honoured by a word from him : but
like every other naval officer, he had come to look up
to Nelson as to the splendid particular star among
commanders. There was greatness : there was that
which lifted men to such deeds as write man's name
across the firmament. And, strange to say, Lieutenant
Lapenotière recognised something of it in this queer
old man, in dressing-gown and ill-fitting wig, who
took snuff and interrupted now with a curse and
anon with a bravo !” as the secretary read. He
was absurd : but he was no common man, this Lord
Barham. He had something of the ineffable aura of
greatness.
But in the lieutenant's brain, across this serious,
even awful sense of the moment and of its meaning,
there played a curious secondary sense that the
moment was not—that what was happening before his
eyes had either happened before or was happening
in some vacuum in which past, present, future and
the ordinary divisions of time had lost their bearings.
242


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
.
The great twenty-four-hour clock at the end of the
Board Room, ticking on and on while the Secretary
read, wore an unfamiliar face
Yes, time had
gone wrong, somehow: and the events of the
passage home to Falmouth, of the journey up to the
doors of the Admiralty, though they ran on a chain,
had no intervals to be measured by a clock, but
followed one another like pictures on a wall. He
saw the long, indigo-coloured swell thrusting the
broken ships shoreward. He felt the wind freshening
as it southered and he left the fleet behind : he
watched their many lanterns as they sank out of
sight, then the glow of flares by the light of which
dead-tired men were repairing damages, cutting away
wreckage. His ship was wallowing heavily now,
with the gale after her,—and now dawn was breaking
clean and glorious at the entrance of Mount's Bay.
A fishing lugger had spied them, and lying in wait,
had sheered up close alongside, her crew bawling for
news. He had not forbidden his men to call it back,
and he could see the fellows' faces now, as it reached
them from the speaking-trumpet : “Great victory,
twenty taken or sunk-Admiral Nelson killed !”
They had guessed something, noting the Pickle's
ensign at half-mast : yet as they took in the purport
of the last three words, these honest fishermen had
turned and stared at one another; and without
one answering word, the lugger had been headed
straight back to the mainland.
So it had been at Falmouth. A ship entering port
243


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
.
has a thousand eyes upon her, and the Pickle's errand
could not be hidden. The news seemed in some
mysterious way to have spread even before he
stepped ashore there on the Market Strand. A small
crowd had collected, and, as he passed through it,
many doffed their hats. There was no cheering at
all-no, not for this, the most glorious victory of
the war-outshining even the Nile or Howe's First
of June.
He had set his face as he walked to the inn. But
the news had flown before him, and fresh crowds
gathered to watch him off. The post-boys knew
and they told the post-boys at the next stage,
and the next-Bodmin and Plymouth-not to
mention the boatmen at Torpoint Ferry. But the
country-side did not know; not the labourers
gathering in cider apples heaped under Devon apple
trees, nor, next day, the sportsmen banging off guns
at the partridges around Salisbury. The slow, jolly
life of England on either side of the high-road turned
leisurely as a wagon-wheel on its axle, while between
the hedgerows, past school-houses, church-towers and
through the cobbled streets of market towns, he had
sped and rattled with Collingwood's despatch in his
pocket. The news had reached London with him.
His last postboys had carried it to their stables, and
from stable to tavern. To-morrow-to-day, rather
-in an hour or two-all the bells of London would
be ringing, or tolling!
“He's as tired as a dog,” said the voice of the
244


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
The night porter escorted him to the hall, and
opened the great door for him. In the portico he
bade the honest man good-night, and stood for
a moment, mapping out in his mind his way to The
Swan with Two Necks. He shivered slightly,
after his nap, in the chill of the approaching dawn.
As the door closed behind him he was aware of
a light shining, out beyond the screen of the fore-
court, and again a horse blew through its nostrils
on the raw air.
“Lord ! ” thought the lieutenant. " That fool
of a post-boy cannot have mistaken me and waited
all this time !"
He hurried out into Whitehall. Sure enough a
chaise was drawn up there, and a post-boy stood by
the near lamp, conning a scrap of paper by the light
of it. No, it was a different chaise, and a different
post-boy. He wore the buff and black, whereas the
other had worn the blue and white. Yet he stepped
forward confidently, and with something of a smile.
Lieutenant Lapenotière ?” he asked, reaching
back and holding up his paper to the lamp to make
sure of the syllables.
“That is my name," said the amazed lieutenant.
“I was ordered here—five forty-five-to drive you
down to Merton."
“To Merton ? " echoed Lieutenant Lapenotière,
his hand going to his pocket. The post-boy's smil
or so much as could be seen of it by the edge of the
lamp, grew more knowing.
66
246


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
“I ask no questions, sir.”
“But—but who ordered you?”
The post-boy did not observe, or disregarded, his
bewilderment.
“A Briton 's a Briton, sir, I hope ?
I ask no
questions, knowing my place
But if so be as
you were to tell me there's been a great victory
He paused on this.
Well, my man, you 're right so far, and no harm
in telling you."
Aye,” chirruped the post-boy. “When the maid
called me up with the order, and said as how he and
no other had called with it-
“ He ?
The fellow nodded.
“She knew him at once, from his portraits. Who
wouldn't ? With his right sleeve pinned across, so
And, said I, Then there's been a real
victory. Never would you see him back, unless.
And I was right, sir!” he concluded triumphantly.
Let me see that piece of paper.”
" You 'll let me have it back, sir ? — for a
memento," the post-boy pleaded. Lieutenant
Lapenotière took it from him-a plain half-sheet of
note-paper roughly folded. On it was scribbled
in pencil, back hand-wise, “ Lt. Lapenotière.
Admiralty, Whitehall. At 6.30 a.m., not later. For
Merton, Surrey."
He folded the paper very slowly, and handed
it back to the post-boy.
.
60
247


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ Very well, then. For Merton.”
*
The house lay but a very little distance beyond
Wimbledon. Its blinds were drawn as Lieutenant
Lapenotière alighted from the chaise and went up
to the modest porch.
His hand was on the bell-pull. But some pressure
checked him as he was on the point of ringing. He
determined to wait for a while and turned away
towards the garden.
The dawn had just broken; two or three birds
were singing. It did not surprise—at any rate, it
did not frighten-Lieutenant Lapenotière at all,
when, turning into a short pleached alley, he looked
along it and saw him advancing.
-Yes, him, with the pinned sleeve, the noble,
seamed, eager face. They met as friends . . In
later years the lieutenant could never remember
a word that passed, if any passed at all. He was
inclined to think that they met and walked together
in complete silence, for many minutes. Yet he ever
maintained that they walked as two friends whose
thoughts hold converse without need of words. He
was not terrified at all. He ever insisted, on the
contrary, that there in the cold of the breaking day
his heart was light and warm as though flooded with
first love—not troubled by it, as youth in first love
is wont to be—but bathed in it; he, the ardent
young officer, bathed in
a glow of affection,
248


LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE
ennobling, exalting him, making him free of a
brotherhood he had never guessed.
He used also, in telling the story, to scandalise the
clergyman of his parish by quoting the evangelists,
and especially St. John's narrative of Mary Magdalen
at the sepulchre.
For the door of the house opened at length; and
a beautiful woman, scarred by knowledge of the
world, came down the alley, slowly, unaware of him.
Then (said he), as she approached, his hand went up
to his pocket for the private letter he carried, and
the shade at his side left him to face her in the
daylight.
249





THE CASK ASHORE
Embalmer.” Mr. Jope chewed thoughtfully
for a moment or two upon a quid of tobacco,
Sort of party you 'd go to supposin' as you had a
corpse by you and wanted to keep it for a permanency:
You take a lot of gums and spices, and first of all
you lays out the deceased, and next-"
“ Yes, yes,” the Parson interrupted hurriedly;
“I know the process, of course.”
What ? to practise it ?” Hope illumined Mr.
Jope's countenance.
“No, most certainly not
But, my good
man,-an embalmer! and at Botusfleming, of all
places!”
The sailor's face fell. He sighed patiently.
“That's what they said at Saltash, more or less.
I got a sister living there--Sarah Treleaven her
name is—a widow-woman, and sells fish. When I
called on her this morning, ‘Embalmer ? ' she said ;
“Go and embalm your grandmother !' Those
were her words, and the rest of Saltash wasn't
scarcely more helpful. But, as luck would have it,
while I was searchin', Bill Adams went for a shave,
and inside of the barber's shop what should he see
but a fair-sized otter in a glass case ? Bill began to
admire it, and it turned out the barber had stuffed
the thing. Maybe your Reverence knows the man ?
- A. Grigg and Son,' he calls hisself.”
"Grigg? Yes, to be sure: he stuffed a trout
for me last summer.”
“What weight, makin' so bold ? ”
>>
253


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“ Seven pounds."
Mr. Jope's face fell again.
“Well-a-well! I dare say the size don't matter,
once you've got the knack. We've brought him
along, anyway; and, what's more, we've made him
bring all his tools. By his talk, he reckons it to be
a shavin' job, and we agreed to wait before we
undeceived him."
“But-you'll excuse me-I don't quite follow"
Mr. Jope pressed a forefinger mysteriously to his
lip, then jerked a thumb in the direction of the river.
“ If your Reverence wouldn' mind steppin' down
to the creek with me ? ” he suggested respectfully.
Parson Spettigew fetched his hat, and together
the pair descended the vale beneath the dropping
petals of the cherry. At the foot of it they came to
a creek, which the tide at this hour had flooded and
almost overbrimmed. Hard by the water's edge,
backed by tall elms, stood a dilapidated fish-store,
and below it lay a boat with nose aground on a beach
of flat stones. Two men were in the boat. The barber
a slip of a fellow in rusty top hat and suit of rusty
black-sat in the stern-sheets face to face with a
large cask; a cask so ample that, to find room for
his knees, he was forced to crook them at a high,
uncomfortable angle. In the bows, boathook in
hand, stood a tall sailor, arrayed in shore-going
clothes similar to Mr. Jope's. His face was long,
sallow, and expressive of taciturnity, and he wore
a beard—not, however, where beards are usually
254


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
co
thwart with heels in air. But before he picked himself
up, the two seamen, encouraging one another with
strange cries, had leapt out and were trundling the
cask up the beach, using the flats of their hands.
With another w'y-ho! and a tremendous lift, they
ran it up to the turfy plat, whence Bill Adams
steered it with ease through the ruinated doorway
of the store. Mr. Jope returned, smiling and
mopping his brow.
" It's this-a-way,” he said, addressing the
Parson. “Eli Tonkin his name is, or was; and,
as he said, of this parish.”
Tonkin ? ” queried the Parson.
There are
no Tonkins surviving in Botusfleming parish. The
last of them was a poor old widow I laid to rest
the week after Christmas."
Belay there!
Dead, is she?"
Mr. Jope's face exhibited the liveliest disappoint-
ment. “ And after the surprise we'd planned for
her!” he murmured ruefully. “Hi! Bill !” he
called to his shipmate, who, having stored the cask,
was returning to the boat.
“Wot is it ? ” asked Bill Adams inattentively.
“Look here, where did we stow the hammer an'
chisel?”
Take your head out o' the boat an' listen. The
old woman's dead!”
The tall man absorbed the news slowly.
“That's a facer,” he said at length. “But
maybe we can fix her up, too? I'll stand my
share.”
.
256


THE CASK ASHORE
She was buried the week after Christmas."
“Oh ?” Bill scratched his head.
Then we
can't-not very well."
* Times an' again I've heard Eli talk of his
poor old mother,” said Mr. Jope, turning to the
Parson. “ Which you 'll hardly believe it, but
though I knowed him for a Westcountry man, 'twas
not till the last I larned what parish he hailed from.
It happened very curiously. Bill, rout up
A. Grigg
and Son, an' fetch him forra'd here to listen. You 'll
find the tools underneath him in the stern-sheets.”
Bill obeyed, and possessing himself of hammer
and chisel lounged off to the shore. The little
barber drew near, and stood at Mr. Jope's elbow.
His face wore an unhealthy pallor, and he smelt
potently of strong drink.
“ Brandy it is,” apologised Mr. Jope, observing
a slight contraction of the Parson's nostril. “I
reckoned 'twould tauten him a bit for what 's
ahead.
Well, as I was sayin', it happened
very curiously. This day fortnight we were beatin'
up an' across the Bay o' Biscay, after a four
months' to-an’-fro game in front of Toolon Harbour.
Blowin' fresh it was, an' we makin' pretty poor
weather of it—the Vesoovius bein' a powerful wet
tub, an' a slug at the best o'times. 'Tisn' her
fault, you
understand : aboard a bombship
everything 's got to be heavy-timbers, scantling,
everything about her—to stand the concussion.
What with this an' her mortars, she sits pretty low;
17
257


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
but to make up for it, what with all this dead weight,
and bein' short-sparred, she can carry all sail in a
breeze that would surprise you. Well, sir, for two
days she'd been carryin' canvas that fairly
smothered us, an' Cap'n Crang not a man to care
ow we fared forra'd, so long the water didn'
reach aft to his own quarters. But at last the First
Lootenant, Mr. Wapshott, took pity on us, and-
the Cap'n bein' below, takin' his nap after dinner-
sends the crew o' the maintop aloft to take a reef in
the tops'le. Poor Eli was one. Whereby the men
had scarcely reached the top afore Cap'n Crang
comes up from his cabin an' along the deck, not
troublin' to cast an eye aloft. Whereby he missed
what was happenin'. Whereby he had just come
abreast of the mainmast, when-sock at his very
feet-there drops a man. 'Twas Eli, that had
missed his hold, an' dropped somewhere on the
back of his skull. Hullo ! 'says the Cap'n, 'an'
where the devil might you come from?' Eli heard
it, poor fellow - an' says he, as I lifted him,
'If you please, sir, from Botusfleming, three miles
t'other side of Saltash.' 'Then you've had a damn
quick passage,' answers Cap'n Crang, an' turns on
his heel.
“Well, sir, we all agreed the Cap'n might ha'
showed more feelin', specially as poor Eli 'd broke
the base of his skull, an' by eight bells handed in the
number of his mess. Five or six of us talked it over,
agreein' as how 'twasn'hardly human, an' Eli
6
258


THE CASK ASHORE
such a good fellow, too, let alone bein' a decent
seaman. Whereby the notion came to me that,
as he'd come from Botusfleming-those bein' his
last words—back to Botusfleming he should go,
an' on that we cooked up a plan. Bill Adams
being on duty in the sick bay, there wasn'no
difficulty in sewin' up a dummy in Eli's place ;
an' the dummy, sir, nex' day we dooly committed
to the deep, Cap'n Crang hisself readin' the service.
The real question was, what to do with Eli?
Whereby, the purser and me bein' friends, I goes
to him an' says, “Look here,' I says, 'we'll be
paid off in ten days or so, an' there's a trifle o'
prize money, too. What price 'll you sell us a
cask o' the ship's rum—say a quarter-puncheon
for choice?' What for ?' says he. 'For shore-
going purposes,' says I. 'Bill Adams an' me got a
use for it.' 'Well,' says the purser-a decent chap,
an' by name Wilkins-'I'm an honest man,' says
he, 'an'to oblige a friend you shall have it at
store-valuation rate. An' what's more,' said he,
'I got the wind o' your little game, an 'll do what
I can to help it along; for I al’ays liked the
deceased, an' in my opinion Captain Crang behaved
most unfeelin'. You tell Bill to bring the body to
me, an' there 'll be no more trouble about it till
I hand you over the cask at Plymouth. Well, sir,
the man was as good as his word. We smuggled the
cask ashore last evenin', an' hid it in the woods
this side o' Mount Edgcumbe. This mornin' we
6
259


THE CASK ASHORE
it 'll make your hand shaky. .. Serious ? You
may lay to it that Bill's serious. He's that set on
the idea, it don't make no difference to him, as
you may have noticed, Eli's mother not bein' alive to
take pleasure in it. Why, he wanted to embalm
her, too! He's doin' this now for his own
gratification, is Bill, an' you may take it from me
when Bill sets his heart on a thing he sees it
through. Don't you cross him, that's my advice.”
But-but-
No, you don't." As the little man made a
wild spring to flee up the beach, Mr. Jope shot out
a hand and gripped him by the coat collar. Now
look here,” he said very quietly, as the poor wretch
would have grovelled at the Parson's feet, “you
was boastin' to Bill, not an hour agone, as you
could stuff anything."
“Don't hurt him,” Parson Spettigew interposed,
touching Mr. Jope's arm.
“I'm not hurtin' him, your Reverence, only-
Eh? What's that ?
All turned their faces towards the store.
“ Your friend is calling to you,” said the Parson.
“ Bad language, too
that's not like
Bill, as a rule. Ahoy there, Bill!”
Ahoy!” answered the voice of Mr. Adams.
What 's up?” Without waiting for an answer
Mr. Jope ran the barber before him up the beach
to the doorway, the Parson following. What's
up ?” he demanded again, as he drew breath.
.
261


THE CASK ASHORE
“Eh? I got a note from Wilkins, as it happens.
Bill Adams took off his tarpaulin hat, and extracted
a paper from the lining of the crown. “He passed
it down to me this mornin' as I pushed off from
the ship. Said I was to keep it, an' maybe I'd
find it useful. I wondered what he meant at the
time, me takin' no particular truck with pursers
ashore.
It crossed my mind as I'd heard he
meant to get married, and maybe he wanted me to
stand best man at the weddin'. W'ich I didn' open
the note at the time; not likin' to refuse him, after
he'd behaved so well to me."
Pass it over," commanded Mr. Jope. He took
the paper and unfolded it, but either the light was
dim within the store, or the handwriting hard to
decipher. Would your Reverence read it out for
us?"
Parson Spettigew carried the paper to the doorway.
He read its contents aloud, and slowly :-
“To Mr. Bill Adams,
“Capt. of the Fore-top, H.M.S. Vesuvius.
SIR,—It was a dummy Capt. Crang buried.
We cast the late E. Tonkin' overboard the second
night in lat. 46/30, long. 7/15, or thereabouts.
By which time the feeling aboard had cooled down
and it seemed a waste of good spirit. The rum
you paid for is good rum. Hoping that you and
Mr. Jope will find a use for it,
Your obedient servant,
S. WILKINS."
263


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
There was a long pause, through which Mr. Adams
could be heard breathing hard.
“But what are we to do with it ? ” asked Mr. Jope,
scratching his head in perplexity.
“ Drink it. Wot else ?”
“ But where ? '
“Oh," said Mr. Adams, " anywhere !”
That 's all very well,” replied his friend.
" You
never had no property, an' don't know its burdens.
We 'll have to hire a house for this, an' live there
till it's finished.”
264


THE CASK ASHORE
II
The Multiplying Cellar
St. DILP by Tamar has altered little in a hundred
years. As it stands to-day, embowered in cherry-
trees, so (or nearly so) it stood on that warm after-
noon in the early summer of 1807, when two
weather-tanned seamen of His Majesty's Fleet came
along its fore street with a hand-barrow and a huge
cask very cunningly lashed thereto.
On their way
they eyed the cottages and gardens to right and
left with a lively curiosity ; but “ Lord, Bill,”
said the shorter seaman, mis-quoting Wordsworth
unawares, " the very houses look asleep!”
At the Punch-Bowl Inn, kept by J. Coyne, they
halted by silent consent. Mr. William Adams, who
had been trundling the barrow, set it down, and Mr.
Benjamin Jope—whose good-natured face would
have recommended him anywhere—walked into the
drinking-parlour and rapped on the table. This
brought to him the innkeeper's daughter, Miss
Elizabeth, twenty years old and comely.
can I do for you, sir ? " she asked.
“Two pots o' beer, first-along,” said Mr. Jope.
“ Two?"
"I got a shipmate outside."
Miss Elizabeth fetched the two pots.
" Here, Bill!” he called, carrying one to the door.
" What
265


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
66
Returning, he blew at the froth on his own pot
meditatively. "And the next thing is, I want a
house."
“ A house ?
'Stonishing echo you keep here.
Yes,
miss, a house. My name's Jope-Ben Jope—o' the
Vesuvius bomb, bo's'un ; but paid off at eight this
morning. My friend outside goes by the name of
Bill Adams; an' you 'll find him livelier than he
looks. Everyone does. But I forgot; you ha'n't
seen him yet, and he can't come in, havin' to look
after the cask.”
The ca—” Miss Elizabeth had almost repeated
the word, but managed to check herself.
'You ought to consult someone about it, at your
age,” said Mr. Jope solicitously. “ Yes, the cask.
Rum it is, an' a quarter-puncheon. Bill and me
clubbed an' bought it off the purser las' night, the
chaplain havin' advised us not to waste good prize-
money ashore but invest it in something we really
wanted. But I don't know if you 've ever noticed
how often one thing leads to another. You can't
go drinkin' out a quarter-puncheon o' rum in the
high road, not very well. So the next thing is, we
want a house."
But,” said the girl, “ who ever heard of a house
to let hereabouts !”
Mr. Jope's face fell.
Ain't there none ? An' it seemed so retired,
too, an' handy near Plymouth.”.
266


THE CASK ASHORE
There's not a house to let in St. Dilp parish,
unless it be the Rectory."
Mr. Jope's face brightened.
“ Then we 'll take the Rectory,” he said. “Where
is it?"
“Down by the river. .. But 'tis nonsense
you ’re tellin'. The Rectory indeed! Why, it's a
seat!”
Mr. Jope's face clouded.
“Oh," he said, " is that all?”
It's a fine one, too."
“It'd have to be, to accomydate Bill an' me an’
the cask. I wanted a house, as I thought I told ye.”
Oh, but I meant a country-seat,” explained Miss
Elizabeth. “ The Rectory is a house."
Again Mr. Jope's face brightened.
“ An' so big,” she went on,
" that the Rector
can't afford to live in it. That's why 'tis to let. The
rent 's forty pound.”
“ Can I see him ?”
“No, you can't ; for he lives up to Lunnon an'
hires Parson Spettigew of Botusfleming to do the
work. But it's my father has the lettin' o' the
Rectory if a tenant comes along. He keeps the
keys."
“ Then I'd like to talk with your father."
“No you wouldn't,” said the girl frankly; "be-
cause he's asleep. Father drinks a quart o' cider at
three o'clock every day of his life, an' no one don't
dare disturb him before six.”
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“Well, I like reggilar habits," said Mr. Jope,
diving a hand into his breeches' pocket and drawing
forth a fistful of golden guineas. “But couldn't
you risk it?"
Miss Elizabeth's eyes wavered.
“No, I couldn',” she sighed, shaking her head
Father's
very
violent in his temper. But I tell
you what,” she added: "I might fetch the keys, and
you might go an' see the place for yourself.”
Capital,” said Mr. Jope. While she was fetching
these he finished his beer. Then, having insisted
on paying down a guinea for earnest-money, he took
the keys and her directions for finding the house.
She repeated them in the porch for the benefit of the
taller seaman; who, as soon as she had concluded,
gripped the handles of his barrow afresh and set off
without a word. She gazed after the pair as they
passed down the street.
At the foot of it a by-lane branched off towards
the creek-side. It led them past a churchyard and
a tiny church almost smothered in cherry-trees-
for the churchyard was half an orchard : past a
tumbling stream, a mill and some wood stacks; and
so, still winding downwards, brought them to a pair
of iron gates, rusty and weather-greened. The gates
stood unlocked; and our two seamen found them-
selves next in a carriage drive along which it was plain
no carriage had passed for a very long while. It was
overgrown with weeds, and straggling laurels en-
croached upon it on either hand; and as it rounded
268


THE CASK ASHORE
one of these laurels Mr. Jope caught his breath
sharply.
“Lor' lumme!” he exclaimed. “It is a seat, as
the gel said !”
Mr. Adams, following close with the wheelbarrow,
set it down, stared, and said,
“ Then she's a liar. It's a house."
“ It's twice the size of a three-decker, anyway,”
said his friend, and together they stood and con-
templated the building.
It was a handsome pile of old brickwork, set in a
foundation of rock almost overhanging the river-
on which, however, it turned its back ; in design, an
oblong of two storys, with a square tower at each of
the four corners, and the towers connected by a
parapet of freestone. The windows along the front
were regular, and those on the ground-floor less
handsome than those of the upper floor, where it
appeared) were the state-rooms.
For— strangest
feature of all—the main entrance was in this
upper
story, with a dozen broad steps leading down to the
unkempt carriage way and a lawn, across which a
magnificent turkey oak threw dark masses of
shadow.
But the house was a picture of decay. Un-
painted shutters blocked the windows ; tall
grasses sprouted in the crevices of entrance steps
and parapet; dislodged slates littered the drive;
smears of dust ran down the main roof and from a
lantern of which the louvers were all in ruin, some
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
hanging by a nail, others blown on edge by long-past
gales. The very nails had rusted out of the walls,
and the creepers they should have supported hung
down in ropy curtains.
Mr. Adams scratched his head.
" What I'd like to know," said he after a while,
“ is how to get the cask up them steps."
“There 'll be a cellar-door for sartin,” Mr. Jope
assured him cheerfully. “ You don't suppose the
gentry takes their beer in at the front, hey ? '
“ This,” said Mr. Adams, “is rum; which is a
totally different thing." But he set down his barrow,
albeit reluctantly, and followed his shipmate up the
entrance steps. The front door was massive, and
sheeted over with lead embossed in foliate and
heraldic patterns. Mr. Jope inserted the key, turned
it with some difficulty, and pushed the door wide.
It opened immediately upon the great hall, and after
a glance within he removed his hat.
The hall, some fifty feet long, ran right across the
waist of the house, and was lit by tall windows at
either end. Its floor was of black and white marble
in lozenge pattern. Three immense chandeliers
depended from its roof. Along each of the two
unpierced walls, against panels of peeling stucco,
stood a line of statuary_heathen goddesses, fauns,
athletes and gladiators, with here and there a vase
or urn copied from-the antique. The furniture
consisted of half a dozen chairs, a settee, and an
octagon table, all carved out of wood in pseudo-
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THE CASK ASHORE
classical patterns, and painted with a grey wash
to resemble stone.
" It's a fine room," said Mr. Jope, walking up to a
statue of Diana : "but a man couldn' hardly invite
a mixed company to dinner here."
Symonds's f'r instance," suggested Mr. Adams.
Symonds's being a somewhat notorious boarding-
house in a street of Plymouth which shall be
nameless.
“ You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, Bill,”
said Mr. Jope sternly.
They're anticks, that 's what they are.”
Mr. Adams drew a long breath.
“I shouldn' wonder," he said.
Turnin' 'em wi' their faces to the wall 'd look too
marked,” mused Mr. Jope. “ But a few tex o'
Scripture along the walls might ease things down a
bit.”
“Wot about the hold?” Mr. Adams suggested.
“The cellar, you mean.
Let's have a look."
They passed through the hall; thence down a
stone stairway into an ample vaulted kitchen, and
thence along a slate-flagged corridor flanked by
sculleries, larders and other kitchen offices. The two
seamen searched the floors of all in hope of finding a
cellar trap or hatchway, and Mr. Adams was still
searching when Mr. Jope called to him from the end
of the corridor-
Here we are !"
He had found a flight of steps worthy of a cathedral
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THE CASK ASHORE
Hey ? ” said Mr. Jope.
“Yes, the cask—to be
sure.”
“Wot else?" said Mr. Adams. “An' I reckon
we'd best get to work, if we're to get it housed afore
dark."
They did so: but by the time they had the cask
bestowed and trigged up, and had spiled it and
inserted a tap, darkness had fallen. If they wished
to explore the house further, it would be necessary
to carry candles; and somehow neither Mr. Jope
nor Mr. Adams felt eager for this adventure. They
were hungry, moreover. So they decided to make
their way back to the great hall, and sup.
They supped by the light of a couple of candles.
The repast consisted of bread and cold bacon washed
down by cold rum-and-water. At Symonds's—they
gave no utterance to this reflection, but each knew
it to be in the other's mind-at Symonds's just now
there would be a boiled leg of mutton with turnips,
and the rum would be hot, with a slice of lemon.
“We shall get accustomed,” said Mr. Jope with
a forced air of cheerfulness.
Mr. Adams glanced over his shoulder at the
statuary, and answered “yes” in a loud unfaltering
voice. After a short silence he arose, opened one
of the windows, removed a quid from his cheek, laid
it carefully on the outer sill, closed the window, and
resumed his seat. Mr. Jope had pulled out a cake
of tobacco, and was slicing it into small pieces with
his clasp knife.
18
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
us ?
Goin' to smoke ? ? asked Mr. Adams, with
another glance at the Diana.
" It don't hurt this 'ere marble pavement-not
like the other thing.”
“No”—Mr. Adams contemplated the pavement
while he, too, drew forth and filled a pipe—"a man
might play a game of checkers on it; that is o'
course, when no one was lookin’.”
“I been thinking,” announced Mr. Jope, “over
what his Reverence said about bankin' our money."
How much d'ye reckon we've got ?
Between
Hundred an' twelve pound,
fourteen and six. That's after paying for rum,
barrer and oddments. We could live," said Mr.
Jope, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing
the stem at his friend in expository fashion—“we
could live in this here house for more ’n three years.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Adams, but without enthusiasm.
Could we now ?”
“That is, if we left out the vittles.”
“But we're not goin' to.”
“O'course not. Vittles for two 'll run away with
a heap of it. And then there 'll be callers."
“Callers ? ” Mr. Adams's face brightened.
Not the sort you mean. Country folk. It's the
usual thing when strangers come an' settle in a place
o this size.
But, all the same, a hundred an'
twelve pound, fourteen and six is a heap : an' as I
say, we got to think over bankin' it. A man feels
solid settin' here with money under his belt; an'
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THE CASK ASHORE
yet between you an' me I wouldn't mind if it was
less so, in a manner o' speakin'."
“Me, either."
I was wonderin' what it would feel like to wake
in the night an' tell yourself that someone was rollin'
up money for you like a snowball."
“There might be a certain amount of friskiness in
that. But contrariwise, if you waked an' told
yourself the fella was runnin' off with it, there
wuldn'."
“Shore living folks takes that risk an' grows
accustomed to it. W'y look at the fellow in charge
o' this house."
“Where ? ” asked Mr. Adams nervously.
The landlord-fellow, I mean, up in the village.
His daughter said he went to sleep every arternoon,
an’ wouldn' be waked. How could a man afford to
do that if his money wasn' rollin' up somewhere for
him? An' the place fairly lined with barrels o'
good liquor.”
Mightn't liquor accumylate in the same way ? '
asked Mr.
Mr. Adams, with sudden, and lively
interest.
“No, you nincom',” began Mr. Jope—when a
loud knocking on the outer door interrupted him.
“Hullo !” he sank his voice. “Callers already!
He went to the door, unlocked and opened it.
A heavy-shouldered, bull-necked man stood outside
in the dusk.
“Good evenin'."
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
co
.
“Evenin',” said the stranger. “My name is
Coyne, an' you must get out o' this.”
“I don't see as it follows," answered Mr. Jope
meditatively. “But hadn't you better step inside ?"
“I don't want to bandy words” began the
publican, entering as though he shouldered his way.
“That's right! Bill, fetch an' fill a glass for the
gentleman."
“ No thank you.
Well, since you have it
handy. But look here : I got nothin' particular to
say against you two men, only you can't stop here
to-night. That's straight enough, I hope, and no
bones broken.”
Straight it is,” Mr. Jope agreed : “and we 'll
talk o' the bones by an' by. Wot name, sir ? -
makin' so bold.”
“My name 's Coyne.”
“ An' mine's Cash.” Mr. Jope fumbled with the
fastening of a pouch underneath his broad waist-
belt. “So we're well met. How much?”
“Eh?"
“How much ? Accordin' to your darter 'twas
forty pound a year, an' money down : but whether
monthly or quarterly she didn' say.”
“It's no question of money. It's a question of
you two clearin' out, and at once. I'm breakin'
what I have to say as gently as I can. If you don't
choose to understand plain language, I must go
an' fetch the constable."
“I seen him, up at the village this afternoon, an'
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
>>
wouldn't be one to stay in this house alone arter
nightfall-no, or I wouldn't be one to leave a dog
alone here, let be a friend. My daughter didn' tell,
I reckon, as this place was ha’nted ? "
“ Ha'nted ?"
“Ay. By females too."
0-oh!” Mr. Adams, who had caught his
breath, let it escape in a long sigh of relief. “Like
Symonds's,” he murmured.
“Not a bit like Symonds's,” his friend corrected
snappishly. “He's talkin' o' dead uns—ghosts-
that is, if I take your meanin', sir ?”
Mr. Coyne nodded.
“That's it. Ghosts."
Get out with you!” said Mr. Adams, incredulous.
“ You must be a pair of very simple men,” said
landlord Coyne, half-closing his eyes again, "if you
reckoned that forty pound would rent a place like
this without some drawbacks. Well, the drawbacks
is ghosts. Four of 'em, and all females."
“ Tell us about 'em, sir," requested Mr. Jope,
dropping into his seat. An' if Bill don't care to
listen, he can fill up his time by takin' the jug an’
steppin' down to the cellar.”
“Damned if I do," said Mr. Adams, stealing a
glance over his shoulder at the statues.
“It's a distressin' story," began Mr. Coyne with
a very slight flutter of the eyelids. “Maybe my
daughter told you-an' if she didn't, you may have
found out for yourselves as how this here house is
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THE CASK ASHORE
.
properly speakin' four houses-nothing in common
but the roof, an' the cellar, an' this room we're sittin'
in.
Well, then, back along there lived an old
Rector here, with a man-servant called Oliver. One
day he rode up to Exeter, spent a week there, an'
brought home a wife. Footman Oliver was ready at
the door to receive 'em, an' the pair went upstairs
to a fine set o' rooms he'd made ready in the sou’-
west tower, an' there for a whole month they lived
together, as you might say, in wedded happiness.
“At th' end o' the month th' old Rector discovered
he had business takin' him to Bristol. He said his
farewells very lovin'ly, promised to come back as
soon as he could, but warned the poor lady against
setting foot outside the doors. The gardens an'
fields (he said) swarmed with field mice, an' he knew
she had a terror of mice of all sorts. So off he rode,
an' by an' by came back by night with a second
young lady: and Oliver showed 'em up to the
nor'-east tower for the honeymoon.
“A week later my gentleman had a call to post
down to Penzance. He warned his second wife that
it was a terrible year for adders an' the ground
swarmin' with 'em, for he knew she had a horror o'
snakes. Inside of a fortnight he brought home a
third-2"
“ Bill,” said Mr. Jope, sitting up sharply, " what
noise was that?"
“ I didn't hear it," answered Mr. Adams. who was
turning up his trousers uneasily. “Adders, may be."
2
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THE CASK ASHORE
mention it as a matter of business, and in case we
don't meet again.”
Mr. Jope counted out the money.
When Mr. Coyne had taken his departure the pair
sat a long while in silence, their solitary candle
flickering on the table between them.
“You spoke out very bold,” said Mr. Adams at
length.
“Did I ? ” said Mr. Jope. “I didn't feel it.”
“What cuts me to the quick is the thought o'
them adders outside.”
"Ye dolt! There ain't no real adders outside.
They ’re what the chap invented to frighten the
women.”
“Sure? Then," mused Mr. Adams, after a pause,
maybe there ain't no real ghosts neither, but he
invented the whole thing."
Maybe. What d'ye say to steppin' down an*
fetchin' up another mugful o' liquor ? ”
“I say," answered Mr. Adams slowly, “ as how I
won't.”
Toss for it,” suggested Mr. Jope.
You refuse ?
Very well then I must go. On'y I thought better of
ye, Bill—I did indeed.”
I can't help what ye thought,” Mr. Adams began
sulkily; and then, as his friend rose with the face
of a man who goes to meet the worst he sprang up
quaking. “Lord's sake, Ben Jope! You ain't
a-goin' to take the candle an' leave me !"
“ Bill Adams,” said Mr. Jope with fine solemnity,
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“if I was to put a name on your besettin' sin, it
would be cowardice-an' you can just sit here in the
dark an' think it over.”
“When I was on the p'int of offering to go
with ye !"
“Ho! Was you. Very well, then, I accept the
offer, an' you can walk first."
But I don't see--"
Another word,” announced Mr. Jope firmly,
“an' you won't ! For I'll blow out the candle."
Mr. Adams surrendered, and tottered to the door.
They passed out, and through the vaulted kitchen,
and along the slate-flagged corridor-very slowly
here, for a draught fluttered the candle flame, and
Mr. Jope had to shield it with a shaking palm. Once
with a hoarse “ What's that?" Mr. Adams halted
and cast himself into a posture of defence—against
his own shadow, black and amorphous, wavering on
the wall.
They came to the iron-studded door.
Open, you,” commanded Mr. Jope under his
breath. And not too fast, mind-there was a
breeze o' wind blowin' this arternoon. Steady does
it-look out for the step, an' then straight forw_-"
A howl drowned the last word, as Mr. Adams
struck his shin against some obstacle and pitched
headlong into darkness—a howl of pain blent with a
dull jarring rumble. Silence followed, and out of the
silence broke a faint groan.
“ Bill ! Bill Adams! Oh, Bill, for the Lord's
>)
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
A grin,
sperrits-loadin' us up, mark you. My blessed
word, the fun we 'll have wi' that Coyne to-morrow !”
Mr. Adams in a mental fog groped his way to the
door opening on the river steps, bolted it, groped his
way back and stood scratching his head.
grotesque in the wavering light, contorted the long
lower half of the face for a moment and was gone.
He seldom smiled.
On the whole," said Mr. Adams, indicating the
kegs, “I fancy these better 'n the naked objects
upstairs. Suppose we spend the rest o' the night
here? It's easier,” he added, “than runnin' to and
fro for the drink. But what about liquor not
accumylatin'?”
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PART II





NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Bigot or Mortimer, Montfichet or Lacy or Courcy.
Still, he was noble and powerful enough.
Le viel William de Mohun
Ont avecq li maint compagnon
-and he became Sheriff of Somerset, and one of
the wealthiest landowners in the West of England.
The Empress Matilda made his son Earl of Somerset,
a title which subsequent Mohuns could not get
confirmed until a great-great-grandson, "a man
of singular gentleness and piety,” recovered it in
a highly romantic manner.
When Sir Reginald saw that done ” [that being
the dedication of a Cistercian Abbey he had built
at Newenham, on the borders of Devon and Somerset]
"he passed to the Court of Rome, which was then
at Lyons, to confirm and ratify his new Abbey to
his great honour for ever; and he was at the Court in
Lent, when they sing the office of the Mass Laetare
Jerusalem, on which day the custom of the Court
is that the Apostle (the Pope, to wit) gives to the
most valiant and the most honourable man who
can be found at the said Court a rose or flower of fine
gold. They therefore searched the whole Court,
and found this Reginald to be the most noble ; and
to him Pope Innocent gave this rose or flower of gold,
and the Pope asked him what manner of man he was
in his own country. He answered, “A plain knight
bachelor.' 'Fair son,' said the Pope, “this rose or
flower has never been given save to Kings or to
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
the price paid for the succession : and since the
Lady Joan lived for thirty years after the bargain,
in one sense she had the better of it. But the
Luttrells have made up for that trifling delay by
holding Dunster Castle ever since.
Meanwhile our Reginald and Elizabeth had
married and settled in the old Fitz William house of
Hall, here in the parish of Lanteglos-by-Troy; and
they and their children and children's children
cultivated their garden,” which is the very garden
I am inviting you to view. In Elizabeth's time these
Mohuns of Hall became important, and built them-
selves a fine house, shaped like an E in compliment
to the Virgin Queen. In 1602 Sir Reginald Mohun,
Kt., attained to the dignity of baronet, and thirty
years later (in the fourth of Charles I) his son, Sir
John, was created Lord Mohun of Okehampton.
A brass upon the tomb of one of his ancestors, in
Lanteglos Church, reads us the moral, Provideant
cuncti, sic transit gloria mundi—“ Take warning all
that so passes this world's glory.” But the new
peer ignored this in choosing his motto, Generis
revocamus honores.
This Lord Mohun was one of Charles' commanders
in the West during the Civil War, albeit Clarendon
(who plainly disliked him) hints that it was touch-
and-go which cause he should embrace. Clarendon
further tells us, in that urbane way of his, that the
appointment caused some indignation, for that the
Lord Mohun “had not the good fortune to be very
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
the man, on one of his infrequent visits to the family
estate, lolling in the great Mohun pew—as Carlyle
would put it, “ a blustering dissipated human figure,
with a kind of blackguard quality air," the cynosure
of a congregation of rustics, his bored gaze conning
a spot of red in the eastern window of the south aisle,
where on a shield gules a sleeved hand kept its hold
on Pope Innocent's rose.
He died without heir, and his estates-or so much
of them as had escaped the gaming table—were
dispersed ; the great new house where his grandfather
had entertained King Charles going to Governor Pitt,
who bought it with the proceeds of the famous Pitt
diamond. (That is another story, as Mr. Kipling
used to say: but you begin to feel the sense of
history that pervades my small wilderness.) The
old house of Hall, being sold with the rest, gradually
declined to a farmhouse, and its private chapel to
a cow-byre, where to-day you may see the cattle
munching turnips under a corbelled roof. As for
the terraced garden, I have not been able to follow
its vicissitudes of fortune, but imagine that the
inhabitants of Hall- now “Hall Farm "-either
themselves tilled it neglectfully or let it out in
patches to their labourers. By the date of my own
recollections it had passed into the tenancy of one
man, and was known as “ Little Tonkin's Garden.”
The tragedy of Little Tonkin's Garden has haunted
its way through more than one story of mine. I can
just remember the man as hale and hearty, a demon
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PRIAM'S CELLARS
to work, bald-faced, diminutive of stature, a friend
of all, and respected by all. He " never spoke out
of his turn,” as they say ; but would return your
greeting heartily, even extra-heartily, in a high-
pitched voice that shook with good feeling. Of
what that voice was capable the whole town learned
from time to time, usually of a Sunday evening,
when from his side of the harbour, where he dwelt
with an invalid wife and her sister, Miss C-, in
a cottage by the quay, he spied the crew of a foreign
vessel raiding his strawberries or green peas or apples.
The voice he would uplift then, and continue at
topmost pitch, while pressing across the water in
a boat, had to be heard to be believed. For, apart
from the care lavished on his bed-ridden wife-his
“ bed-rider,” as he called her—the garden claimed
all his waking thoughts. And the strawberries he
grew there ! and the apples! not to mention the
grapes and peaches.
Namque sub Oebaliae memini me turribus altis
Qua niger umectat flaventia culta Galaesus
Corycium vidisse senem-
For once beneath Oebalia's skyey tow'rs,
Where black through yellowing wheat Galaesus pours,
I mind an old Corycian swain I found,
Lord of some starveling acres-hopeless ground
For grazing, harvestless of grain, for grape
Ill aspected. Yet 'mid the briers he'd scrape
For kale and herbs, scant poppies, lilies white,
Blithe as a king! and, shouldering home at night,
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
the world would become of her ? He could not
tell if she ever thought of that; had not dared so
much as, to hint at it. He had spoken to her sister,
Miss C about it, once. He confessed this,
nobly reproaching himself : for Miss C-, too,
would be derelict if he died, and Miss C— had on
her own part (he felt sure) a horror of the workhouse.
Miss C-- had heartened him up; the invalid
upstairs had never so much as hinted at this dreadful
possibility. “Folks with ailments,” said Miss C-
stoically, “han't got time for supposin' this an'
supposin' that, you may be sure. Put it that you'd
been laid a-bed this score o' years with a running
leg ! Come now, I ask you.'
But I am morally sure that the invalid upstairs
lay thinking about it all the time. Quite quietly she
arranged matters in the end by dying just a month
before her husband; and Miss C-, mercifully
broken in health by the strain of nursing the pair,
retired to the Infirmary, whence up to the last she
sent cheerful messages to her friends ; for you can
use the Infirmary as a place of address without loss
of self-respect.
Little Tonkin's Garden went derelict again, and
for a year or so remained derelict.
One day my late friend, A. D-, merchant of
this town, desired to see me
to consult upon a
small matter of business; which," the letter went on
can better be discussed in my house than
in yours.” In any event, I should have gone to
to say,
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PRIAM'S CELLARS
him, knowing that for some time he had been in
indifferent health. I called accordingly, and found
him in his dining-room.
Now A. D—'s dining-room window, overlooking
his waterside yard, faced directly across the narrow
harbour upon Little Tonkin's Garden. “I have been
thinking a great deal about that garden yonder,"
said A. D "All these weeks, sitting here ill,
I've found it a real delight to the eyes. A thousand
pities it will be if anybody comes along and breaks
it up for potatoes or strawberries." There's no
danger of that, I hope ? ” said I. “Well, I 've heard
rumours,” said he ; and that is why I sent for you,
nowing how keen you are about everything that 's
beautiful in this place. Couldn't we rent it together
-the rent must be a trifle—and just keep it as it is ?
Of course,” he sighed, “ I shall never be able to visit
it; my heart is weak, and would never stand the
climb. But you might use it as you pleased-make
a playground of it for your children. I know you
would keep whatever was worth keeping, and I
should have the pleasure of looking across on it.
Now, I dare say,” he added wistfully, “you think
it doting of me, to set this store on a spot just because
it pleases the eye ?"
But I did not: and so it was agreed that we should
rent Little Tonkin's Garden together, if upon inquiry
—which he promised to make—the price should
prove to be moderate. A week or two later, however,
he sent me another message.
The rent was not
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
worth our dividing, and he proposed (with my leave)
to become sole tenant, on the understanding that
“if anything happened to him ” the reversion would
be mine. Meanwhile I was to use the place as I
chose, and at any time. I thanked him, and straight-
way let the small compact slip out of mind.
I forgot it even at my friend's funeral, some months
later; and again when a key was brought me (as
it happened in the midst of some public business)
I put it thoughtlessly aside in a drawer. In short
I had been tenant of the Garden for close upon
six months, when one day, as we rowed beneath
its overhanging trees, Cynthia let fall a word of
regret for its unkempt condition, and for Little
Tonkin and the strawberries he had grown-mais
où sont les fraises d'antan. or words to that effect.
Heavens !” I cried, “and it belongs to me!
What !” shouted the family, with one voice ; and
when I had made my halting confession, nothing
would do but we must all land and explore at once.
A
crazy ladder, slippery with weed, its lower rungs
rotted by the tides, led up alongside Priam's Cellars
to good foothold on the garden; and there the
brambles met us. Brambles and blackthorns-it
took us that whole summer to clear paths through
the undergrowth and explore our domain, which
for the children was even such an enchanted tangle
as held the Sleeping Beauty; and every fresh clearing
brought its joyous surprise. Here the vine, after
bursting the glass-house and littering the ground
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
pan where Little Tonkin had collected water painfully
by sinking a bucket. It lay also in a line between the
pan and an outcrop of rock; towards which, after
enlarging the pan to a well, and digging it out to the
depth of five feet, we led our trench. As we dug, the
water rose about our feet-whence it oozed we could
not say, for the subsoil was a grey lias, very difficult
to work and apparently almost watertight. We
indued sea-boots and fishermen's jumpers for the
work; and I recall an afternoon when in this costume
I was haled from the pit and carried off to make up
the quorum of an Old Age Pensions Committee.
Before crossing on this beneficent errand, I had to
stand knee-deep in the harbour tide and lave me.
I believe it was two days later that we tapped
the living rock, and the water came with a gush (the
thrill of it !) under stroke of my pick. Having
cleaned out a grotto for the spring, we arched it
with stones, and planted the archway cunningly,
so that now, after two years, roses bedrape it-
Hiawatha and Lady Gay—and small ferns thrive in
the crevices, the asplenium marinum among others
-while taller ferns crowd the dingle around, beneath
the shade of two pear trees. Of the soil tossed out
by our spades we built a hard plateau around a
spreading hawthorn; piped the overflow of the well
downhill through a line of sunken tubs in which we
planted a few of the rarer water-lilies (the tiny yellow
odorata, with lilacea and the crimson Froebelii), and
finally, with our own hands, dug out and cemented
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PRIAM'S CELLARS
a cistern some thirty feet long on a lower terrace,
where the larger white and yellow lilies already
thrive. Also, we built a waterfall which in winter
makes a passable show; but throughout the summer
the monkey-plant chokes it and hides the rocks in
a cascade of orange-scarlet. For the sake of some
childish memories I thrust a few roots of this into
the moist crevices, and lo! in one season it had
ramped over the slope, choking the arums, the berga-
mot, the myosotis, and some rare Japanese irises on
which
my
heart was set. We tear it up by handfuls
from time to time; but it has taken charge and will
not be denied.
Now the rules of the garden are three, and we
made them at the start :-
Rule 1.–We do everything with our own hands
-be it forestry, masonry, carpentry or tillage. As
ours is the well and the cistern, so ours is the table
beneath the hawthorn and ours are the garden
seats, whence, at luncheon or at tea in the pauses
of labour, we look down on the water-lilies and the
sagged roof of Priam's Cellars and the open decks
of the ships that lie close below moored in tier to
a great buoy-so close that one could almost jerk
a biscuit over their bulwarks. They are barques
for the most part; Glasgow built, to ply around the
Horn; in these later days, by one of the freaks of
the shipping industry, sold away to Italian firms
and manned by Italian crews.
These crews are
terrible thieves, by the way: but-
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Here, then, amid all this unbought wealth, I sit-
preferably by the pool whence the water trickles-
and, musing on the many who have walked in this
garth, under these orchard boughs, glad to
hold a green earth leased
Briefly between two shades-
.
break off to watch a blue-finch taking his bath, or
a wren feeding her young in a cranny of the stones
(having overcome her fear of me, so quiet I sit) ;
while the runnel keeps its murmur, and still from
distant parts of the garden the children's voices
come borne to me. Their voices have deepened
in tone, as their hands have grown stronger and more
skilful with bill-hook, spade, digger, since first they
ran shouting upon this undiscovered country.
I remember paying a visit once to a friend-an old
clergyman-in the north of Cornwall. In the
twilight before dinner he took me forth to show me
his garden. The flowers grew valiantly in it-as
valiantly as ever; but every turn of the path, every
clearing, brought me face to face with something
fallen to ruin-a summer-house, a swing, an arbour
collapsed among the honeysuckle. My host had
his explanation for each. “ Dick and Grace built
this swing.” “I put this up soon after we came
here, when my two eldest were children." "Ruth
had a fancy to sling a hammock here."
made this seat as a birthday present for his mother."
But Harry, Dick, Ruth, Grace, and the rest
“Harry
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PRIAM'S CELLARS
had grown up years ago, and married and settled
afar. Three of the boys had emigrated; three-
two girls and a boy-were dead.
He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest, may know
At first sight if the bird be flown ;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
" In last year's nests,” said Don Quixote, dying,
you look not for this year's birds.” So no doubt
it will happen again, as it has happened often before,
in Little Tonkin's Garden. But meantime the after-
noon sun is warm. I shall have had my day.
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On a Marble Stair
I can't afford a mile of sward,
Parterres and peacocks gay ;
For velvet lawns and marble fauns
Mere authors cannot pay.
But I possess a Marble Stair.
A stair, I say ; not a staircase. The late Mr. Dan
Leno, of pleasant memory, had a song upon the
amenities of his place of residence, and, as was
customary with him, interspersed the melody with
passages of joyous prose. “There's a river, and
trees, at the bottom of my garden,” he would tell
us expansively; and then, checking himself, with a
Jook of anxious candour,“ Well yes, in a way the
river 's at the bottom of the garden ; but most of
the time the garden 's at the bottom of the river."
(A pause, a quick inward struggle, and more candour.)
“When I say
'river' it's not-altogether—what
you might call a river; it's—it's-er-it's the
overflow from the gasworks.
And the trees ?
Well, they are trees; but split, if you take me ;
palings; er-in fact, they're a bill-hoarding."
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Even so might I proceed and confess that my Marble
Stair is only the half of a garden step, and a back
garden step at that. But it is of marble; and
moreover from this sequestered platform, without
aspiring like Archimedes to move the world, I can
at any time project myself like a bold diver into the
great mundane movement.
But to understand this, and other magical
properties of my Marble Stair, you must first hear
how I came by it.
Not long ago I discoursed of a wilderness garden
called Priam's Cellars, and mentioned, as no small
part of its charm, the tier of shipping that lies
moored in deep water, yet close under the cliff. Of
these vessels by far the most beautiful are the
barques-Scottish-built and Italian-owned—which
come to us in ballast, and depart with cargoes of
china clay for the Mediterranean. They are not only
beautiful in themselves : in our eyes they wear a
double beauty because we are so soon to lose them.
It is but a few years since they began to visit us.
In a very few years they will have vanished utterly
-perished from off the seas.
To tell at length why they visit us and why,
under our eyes, they are perishing, would be to
write a curious chapter in the history of the world's
mercantile marine. Briefly, it has all come about
through the Panama Canal. These most shapely
craft, varying in size from six hundred to two
thousand tons, were all launched from the Clyde to
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ON A MARBLE STAIR
sail around Cape Horn and make money for British
owners. In them the winged spirit of the sailing
ship lingers out, surviving only because steamships
cannot profitably stow the coal necessary for so far
a voyage. But the Panama Canal will soon be cut ;
and then farewell to tall masts, sails, rigging, all the
lovely vision !
But what do the survivors here, under the Italian
flag ?
Why, as the day of Panama approaches, British
owners are selling them as fast as they can. And
the Italians (or, to speak more particularly, the
Genoese) are buying; for sundry reasons, of which
two may be mentioned. (1) These blue-water ships
have a considerable draught, and would be useless
for traffic in shallow seas such as the Baltic; whereas
the Mediterranean ports are deep and can accommo-
date them. But (2) actually the Italian purchaser
does not propose to employ them for more than a
voyage or two. The cunning fellow has discovered
that while his Government levies a crippling duty on
imported iron, iron imported in the shape of a ship is
allowed to escape the tax; and so the noble hull,
riding here so swan-like—" a thing of life " --has her
sentence already written. A short respite there
may be : but she goes to Genoa to be slaughtered,
smashed up into old iron, which, having passed under
the rollers, will be re-issued almost as good as new
-and considerably cheaper.
A fair number of these barques keep their original
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Scottish names; possibly because the Italian firms
have caught hold of our northern superstition that
it is unlucky to re-christen a ship. On my list of
them I find the Banffshire (800 tons), the Loch Etive
(1230), the tall Cressington (2053), the Bass Rock
(999), the King Malcolm (whose tonnage I forget),
the Emma Parker (1157)—all of Genoa. (The
Emma Parker has a skipper named Angelico, and
carries a dolphin's tail for a talisman on her bowsprit
end.) But the most of them have been re-baptized :
the Pellegrina 0. (1507), the Maria Teresa (1772),
the Giacomo (1295), the Penthesilea (1661), the
Giuseppe d'Abunda (993), the Nostra Signora del
Rosario (899), the Santa Chiara and Precursore M.
[both of 674); the Bettinin Accame (967), Checco
(798), Avante Savona (1283)—all Clyde-built ; all
manned now by Italians, who on Sunday afternoons
dance upon deck to the strains of fiddle and accordion,
to delight us as we sit looking down from the terraced
garden like gods on Olympus.
They are pleasant fellows, these Italian seamen,
but terrible apple-stealers; and I confess this
Olympian or (shall I say ?) Phæacian atmosphere was
shaken the other day by a severe thunderstorm on
my discovery that a small but promising orchard had
been stripped to its last fruit. Ulysses came alone
to Phæacia, you will remember, having lost all his
mariners by shipwreck; else I wonder what would
have happened in that famous garden of King
Alcinöus, where grew tall trees blossoming, pear
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
Cynthia and Euergetes (I call our boatman
Euergetes because it is not his real name nor anything
like it) clamoured for an instant call on the police and
revenge by legal process. I cleared my throat and
thus addressed them: “Cynthia,” said I," and you,
Euergetes, be good enough to remember that when
we took over the tenancy of this plot one of our
first resolutions was to keep an equable mind, no
matter what we might be called upon to suffer in the
way of trespass.” But this (urged Cynthia) was
stealing, and moreover forbidden in the Bible, not
to mention the Ante-Communion Service; while
Euergetes at once fetched up that masking smile of
his which conveys quite respectfully, yet as plainly
as words could put it, that I am about to make a
fool of myself. I accepted the challenge as usual.
Euergetes,” said I, you are a brave man in some
respects : but in the matter of snakes I think you
are the biggest coward known to me. Last week
you spied a solitary adder in this garden ”_here
Euergetes looked around him “and had to
go home incontinently and change your trousers,
so certain were you that they harboured the rest
of the brood." Euergetes admitted that snakes
went against nature to a man bred on the sea.
“ The Ancient Mariner,” said I, “ blessed them once,
in a passage of remarkable beauty ; but I take you
at your word.
You shall paint a notice-board
warning these seamen that this garden fairly teems
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ON A MARBLE STAIR
And I sketched out the following
" with snakes."
advertisement :
TO MARINERS
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THESE
GROUNDS SHELTER A NURSERY OF SERPENTS, TO
BE HAD FOR THE TROUBLE OF TAKING AWAY, AS
OWNER HAS GIVEN UP COLLECTING.
AMONG
THE
SPECIES
REPRESENTED
ARE:
SCORPION AND ASP (NAMED VARIET
ETIES).
AMPHISBÆNA DIRE:
ELOPS
CERASTES (HORNED), HYDRUS ;
DREAR (EARLY, PROLIFIC);
AND DIPSAS (RECOMMENDED).
Paradise Lost, Book X.
INSPECTION INVITED.
“But," objected Cynthia, “ I have heard you say
the most dreadful things about landlords and others
who decorate the country with notice-boards.”
“True,” said I,“ and this one might help to discredit
a bad custom. It is one of the uses of ridicule.
“The bad custom we want to correct just now,"
she retorted, " is the custom of stealing our apples.”
She gazed down with disapproval on the deck of the
Italian, where a half-dozen swarthy villains were
turning a winch very half-heartedly, drawing up
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
basketfuls of ballast from the hold. Two men stood
by the bulwarks to handle the basket and tip its
contents down a wooden chute overside, whence it
fell with a rush into the Harbour Commissioners'
ballast lighter. I watched this operation for some
moments, and two things struck me; of which the
first was that the two Cornish lightermen, whose
business it was to receive this ballast and pack it
away smoothly with their long-handled shovels, kept
easily ahead of the eight men on deck, not to speak
of the unseen workers in the hold. I pointed this
out to Euergetes, who answered that it was a poor
job at which two of our fellows couldn't keep pace
with a dozen foreigners. Now Euergetes, whatever
his faults, is no vocal patriot, inclining rather to be
most caustic upon that portion of mankind with
which he is best acquainted—so much so, indeed,
that if ever he lays down his life for us it will be
entirely for the sake of our shortcomings. It
surprised me, therefore, to hear his testimonial to two
working men with whom I knew him to be on
neighbourly terms; but “It's the food," he
explained. What they give these foreign crews to
eat on board wouldn't put heart into a
Here
he came to a sudden halt. He had been about to
say rabbit”; but there were nets to be hauled
that evening, and (as every Cornishman knows) if
he had once uttered that ill-omened word, good-bye
to all chance of fish! He substituted cat.”
“But," objected Cynthia, “ that doesn't account for
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ON A MARBLE STAIR
it at all; because these men have been eating our
apples, and the
very
best.” “Then," I hazarded,
perhaps they are suffering from incipient gastritis.
We must account for it somehow.” “At any rate,'
she replied with calm, they seem to be working
harder than any of us, at this moment”; whereat in
some haste Euergetes took up his mattock and went
off to dig potatoes.
After a pause Cynthia suggested that, if I didn't
mean to take the boat and row off for the police,
there were some roses that badly needed an autumn
pruning; an infelicitous reminder as it turned out,
and as you shall learn. For just at that moment
I had made my second observation—that the
Italian's ballast seemed to consist largely of cinders
and small ashes. Now, when you come to think of it,
ships do not usually employ ashes for ballast.
Just as I started to wonder at it Cynthia's interruption
shook these ashes out of my mind as through a sieve.
But I had no intention at all of rowing off for the
police. “The Nostra Signora del Rosario ?” said
I, reading the barque's name. Now I have a
mind to put off and treat her crew to a sermon on that
name; since, as it happens, Our Lady of the Rosary
has a particular interest in thieves and the gallows.
If you ever designed to read my published works
you would know that there is a story to that effect
in the second chapter of Sir John Constantine.
I found it in a commonplace book of Southey's,
who got it from Vieyra ; and mine was a short,
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
plot. We took a second and smaller basketful to
propitiate the lightermen.
The Italians dropped their work as we came
alongside and hailed them. They made no difficulty
at all about dropping their work. But when we asked
in English and again in our best Italian (which is the
worst) if they would do us the favour to accept some
apples, they stared down and at one another and
laughed, and answered (shaking their heads) that
they were not buying any. “No, my friends, and
good reason for why,” I murmured, but persisted
aloud, “ E dono.-Corban—it is a gift !” It was fun
(as Cynthia afterwards allowed) to note the glances
that passed between them and the shamefaced
laughter that mingled with their polite expressions
of thanks as they lowered the empty ballast basket
to receive the apples I poured into it from the
maund; and the fun was doubled as, glancing up
and over my shoulder as the filling went on, I caught
sight of Euergetes on a high terrace, resting on his
mattock and contemplating us.
Now you may urge (as Cynthia urged once or twice
that evening) that the whole business, since it did
not even force a confession, was as lunatic as it
appeared to Euergetes. But wait!
A week or so later, sitting by my window here, I
heard a confused noise of cheering, and looked up to
catch sight of the Nostra Signora del Rosario, laden,
passing down to sea in the wake of our harbour tug.
Her crew were waving hats and shouting vivas; and as
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ON A MARBLE STAIR
the calls of my family fetched me forth, and it broke
on me that this flattering demonstration must be
meant for us, I saw the Italian tricolor dipping and
rising on the halliards of the barque's crossjack-yard.
There was a fresh outbreak of cheering as I ran to
my own flagstaff and dipped the British ensign in
response; and so the Nostra Signora del Rosario
passed out to sea and faded away, a thing of beauty.
“ She never came back, she never came back,"
any more than the various animals in Lear's haunting
lyric. At Genoa they broke up her beauty for old
iron, and you may jump to the suspicion that her
crew were merely bidding a boisterous farewell to
a fool. But wait again
I have a notion that
these men, separated and drafted into various other
Italian vessels, must have returned to us many
times, or at any rate must have spread some
mysterious masonic word through the Italian
mercantile marine. I begin to think so because not
only have our apples been immune ever since, but
the crews of all these barques have ever since treated
us with the jolliest politeness. We are positively
afraid, now, to let our dinghy get left for a few
moments by the tide, lest on Cynthia's re-appearance
at the landing quay a boat's crew of these merry
ruffians push off to the help of la donna-help of
which she has (despite all I can say) the liveliest
horror.
Do you complain that in the narrative I have
21
321


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
.
>>
lot of ashes. Smell ?
My word, how those
ashes smelt!”
“Yes, I remember," said I, and went off to seek the
Harbour Master, who is another friend of mine. "Tell
me—where was the Nostra Signora likely to have
picked up that ballast she brought in the other day?
The Harbour Master took down his great ledger,
opened it, found the page, and ran his finger down the
column headed Port of Sailing.” The finger came
to a halt and I read-
MESSINA.”
I shall not moralise this story, or write pages on
the thesis, It is a bad earthquake--and Messina's
was a hideous one-that brings nobody good.
Rich men may decorate their houses with Egyptian
porphyries, Spanish broccatello, green Carystian,
orange of Verona, rosso antico and the rest. But
mine is one marble stair, one white stone of the true
romance. It is very small (it measures no more
than fifteen inches by twelve); but I can stand on
it; and the stairway so closely overhangs the sea
that, had I the skill, I could take a naked dive from
it of fifty feet sheer. From what palace it was
dislocated I shall never know, any more than I shall
know how many of its companions, shot amid the
ashes of a Sicilian city, have been carried out and
dropped for ever beneath these Cornish waters.
But this one survives: it is mine.
· Which things
-although the story is true-
“ Which things are an allegory, Philip !”
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
-So-and-so, over there, with cheek distended and
face inflamed against me-might he not remember
that only six weeks ago - ? “What?" Never
mind what. It 's baser, perhaps, in me to remember
it than in him to forget.
The“ gentry” in the roadway are slightly puzzled,
as I dally and talk with one and another quite as
if nothing is happening to make us less friends
to-day than we were yesterday and shall be to-morrow
or the day after : puzzled and slightly constrained.
This is fun : for not only do I mean it and
like nine-tenths of them, but I have them at a
beautifully polite disadvantage, since they cannot
well order me off a public roadway. This is also
battle ; and my spirits rise.
A damsel of the party-she is a good sort,” and
we were friends long before she put up her hair and
lengthened the skirts in which she used to go bird's-
nesting-tells me that she is a Suffragette and only
joins in this demonstration on the other side because
our party will not give women the vote.
“We are beating you to-day,” she assures me.
“Well,” say I, “one can't win always. At the
worst, then, we shall have you on our side next
time.'
She pauses to consider this, and a distant rolling
cheer down the road announces that the Admiral
and his Lady are coming.
They arrive and
alight from the motor. The child steps forward with
the bouquet.
It is all quite pretty, though
9)
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THE ELECTION COUNT
Lady Caroline's thanks and the Admiral's short
speech are alike inaudible amid the cheering. At
the conclusion the Admiral catches sight of me,
and we lift our hats. He (excellent fellow) would
like to introduce me
and so Lady Caroline
and I converse for a few seconds, and I wish her every
joy in life, saving the one on which her heart is, for
the moment, set.
A gleam of sunshine--the first and last for the
day-spreads a dazzle down the wet road as they
climb into the car and are driven off. Certainly
they are having all the luck.
I turn amid
the cheering, and walk back to the Committee-room.
On the way I grow conscious that my feet are keeping
time to an idiotic air which has been haunting me
since I rose and dressed. In my bath I started
humming it: I am whistling it dumbly now. Con-
found the thing! It is the Funeral March of a
Marionette !
So the day drags on: and at its close we have
polled all but three of our men. As the church
clock strikes eight, we in the Committee-room look
at one another and draw a long breath. “Now all
is done that men can do ”—and a swift checking
of the red and blue lines on the register assures us
that, even if we allow a wide margin for human
perfidy, the fight has not been lost in this corner of
the division. The workers come clustering in, and
find room to range themselves around, in the parlour's
tiny ambit. Their oilskins and mackintoshes shine
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
.
wet in the lamplight as I speak the few words of
thanks that are expected (as, indeed, they have been
earned), and so home, as Pepys says, and to
dinner; still with that infernal Funeral March
dogging my feet.
Thank Heaven, in the act of changing my garments
I put it all aside. The tune is lost, the depression
lifts, all care drops from me. How good it is to sit at
home and to dine !—for I am hungry as a hunter.
And again after dinner I sit and smoke in a deep
peace.
Cynthia is eager to hear of the day's
doings, and I describe them disconnectedly, laughing
now and again over their oddities. She harks back
to speculating on the issue.
The issue ?
Mercury has carried it aloft and laid it on the knees
of the gods. It rests somewhere on Olympus, a
thousand miles away. In this mood I go to bed,
and drop asleep as soon as my head touches the
pillow, and sleep without a dream, while abroad the
ballot-boxes are being driven through the night,
all converging upon Lescarrow, central market-town
of our division. Maybe the Funeral March of a
Marionette has passed out from me and jig-jigs
somewhere along those miry roads, under the stars,
to the trot of a horse.
All this happened yesterday. To-morrow (says
the song) is another day.
It is also a very
different
one. I awake to sunshine and the chatter of a
starling, and for the moment to a blithe sense of
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THE ELECTION COUNT
liberty. Some weight has been rolled away: at
length I am free for an after-breakfast chat with the
gardener and a morning devoted to my own quiet
business :
Libertas, quae sera tamen respexit inertem-
Respexit tamen et longo post tempore venit.
But as consciousness widens there grows a small
cloud of foreboding.
Yes, now I remember.
The Polling is over, but there is yet the Count.
The Count begins at ten o'clock in the Municipal
Council Chamber at Lescarrow; and I must catch
an early train to attend it, having received a paper
appointing me to watch on behalf of our candidate,
and having taken oath to observe certain secrecies
(none of which, by the way, this paper of mine is
going to violate)
I arise, protesting against
fate. Why did I ever permit myself to be entrapped
into politics?
Olimèd soul that struggling to be free
Art more engaged !
In the intervals of dressing I pause and contem-
plate, through an open window, the harbour spread
at my feet; riant wavelets twinkling and darkening
when the faint breeze runs counter with the tide ;
white gulls flashing, sliding in delicate curves against
the blue ; vessels and fishing-boats swinging gently
to their moorings. The Election--all of it that truly
matters—is over, I beg to state. The fight is dead
and done with. What sensible man should be
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THE ELECTION COUNT
giving, year in and year out, an unpaid devotion
to the business of his county. I hope and believe
that he likes me a little : if only it be half my liking
for him, it is much more than a little. We exchange
salutations; but some ladies are with him, travelling
up to hear the poll declared. They all wear the
red-white-and-blue. So I get a smoking compart-
ment to myself, and he travels next door, where
I hope they allow him his cigar. They seem very
confident.
If they only knew how faintly,
at this moment, I desire their discomfiture !
I hate to hear the Duchy miscalled “the Riviera
of England.” It has a climate of its own, and
yesterday the out-voters had a taste of it which
I hope they enjoyed. But certainly our winter gives
us some exquisite days: and this is one. The
railway still follows up the vale of my best-beloved
river ; but climbs now, and is carried high on the
hillside--on viaducts sometimes, across giddy depths
where the lateral coombes descend. Below us the
woods lift their tree-tops, and far below runs the
river and glances up through their delicate winter
traceries :
O ancient streams, O far-descended woods !
Was ever a day so cool, so calm, so bright,” so
lustrally pure ? Last night my indifference came of
sheer physical weariness : now I let drop the window-
sash and bathe me, body and spirit, in the rush of
air.
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THE ELECTION COUNT
On my word, I never saw such a litter. It rises to my
ankles. In the midst of it stand three pale red-eyed
men, “ clearing-up,” as they profess. They show me
calculations, over which I run a wary, experienced
eye. They say that the Chief Agent has figures
I may depend on, and has left word that he wishes
to see me. He is at this moment breakfasting at
the hotel.
To the hotel (there is but one) I go, and find the
Chief Agent seated at breakfast before an un-
appetising dish of eggs-and-bacon. There is some-
thing Napoleonic about the Chief Agent~a hard,
practical man with a face scarred as if by actual
battle. He shows me his paper of figures, and
rapidly explains to me (but I know it already) his
method, with the percentage he knocks off the
canvassers' and local committees' too sanguine
calculations. It is a very large percentage, yet the
figures stand the test surprisingly well. The Chief
Agent, though, is no fool. He admits that there has
been a slump during the last three days, chiefly among
the dockyardsmen and the lower decks of the Fleet :
if the slump became a slide ” yesterday it may have
upset all these figures.
At this point Our
Man's valet appears. His master has just finished
dressing, and would like a chat with me while he
breakfasts. My watch tells me that I have still
twenty minutes to spare. So up I go, and on the
stairs the valet (who believes with me that Our Man
has all along been over-confident) turns and confides
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
that “He's in capital fettle this morning, sir; but
the night before last I never saw him so down."
I find the room dressed with childish devices in
blue-and-gold, and Our Man's two little daughters
still busy with decorations. They have even fixed
up a large placard of cardboard with “ Vote for
Daddy ”in blue and yellow letters. Their mother,
Lady Mabel, moves about helping one or the other.
She is not a politician, like Lady Caroline ; but she
is an admirable wife and mother, and I feel something
in my throat as she turns and laughs and I note her
brave smile. As for Our Man, he has ridden in the
Grand National before now, and can face music.
He greets me cheerfully, and chats as he makes an
excellent breakfast. Only an unnatural brightness
in the white of the eyes and now and again a tired
droop of the lids tell of these three weeks and their
strain. There is no hurry for him to attend the
Count, which begins with a tedious checking of the
ballot-boxes. He will run down by and by and see
how we are getting on. So I leave him and walk
down to the Municipal Buildings.
In the Council Chamber, to which a policeman
admits me after scanning my paper, I find most of
the company gathered and the Under-Sheriff already
getting to work. The ballot-boxes—each with the
name of its polling-station lettered in white upon
its black-japan varnish, each strapped with red tape
and sealed-stand in a row along one side of the
room, with two constables in charge. The counting
336


THE ELECTION COUNT
and checking clerks have pulled in their chairs around
the long baize-covered table. Aloft, on a balustraded
platform, in the mayoralty throne, with a desk
before him, the High-Sheriff is taking his seat. He
is frock-coated, portly, not to say massive. He has
a double chin, and one of those large aristocratic
faces which combine fleshiness with distinction ;
from start to finish it keeps an impenetrable
impassivity and suggests a vast boiled ham.
He wears lemon-coloured kid-gloves. He takes off
his beautiful silk hat and looks about for a place to
deposit it. Finding none, he dons it again, draws
off his gloves, again removes his hat, bestows the
gloves in it, and has another look about him. (All
council chambers known to me are dusty and ill-
kept.) My attention at this point is distracted, and
to the last I have no notion what the High-Sheriff
has done with his hat.
We invigilators meanwhile are strolling about,
chatting in small groups.
We number twenty-six--
a baker's dozen for either candidate and I remark
that my fellow-Liberals have a shocking taste in
ties. We have pocketed our party colours, and the
two sides treat one another with careful politeness.
The most of us gravitate around a sullen stove ;
for this waiting does not make for warmth, and,
though the sunshine outside may flatter, the Council
Chamber is chilly. A few gather towards the table
as at length the Under-Sheriff calls for silence, and
a constable fetches up the first ballot-box; but this
22
337


THE ELECTION COUNT
Under-Sheriff while he breaks the seals and empties
the contents, I might catch up the box under the
burberry and briskly step out of the door, saluting
as I go the Admiral, who is at this moment entering
and demanding in his breezy way to know how we are
getting on. With a bold front the chances against
escape might be reduced to short odds.
I amuse myself with the fancy that maybe the
High-Sheriff has smuggled one of the boxes away
under his enormous hat. Such a trick would
exactly accord with his face-in a story by Dumas
Père.
“Four-six-seven !” snaps out the Under-Sheriff,
announcing the numbers of the last box.
The High-Sheriff consults his list of returns.
Polling station, Gantick. Four - six - seven.
Right.”
The papers are swept back into the box. Now
the real business is about to begin, and we are
marshalled up for it-two invigilators to stand behind
each counting-clerk and watch that he does his
work correctly, letting no spoilt or doubtful paper
pass. At first I range myself alongside an opponent
who has been politely discussing with me for ten
minutes (now I come to remember it) a small anti-
quarian matter in which we are both interested.
But it seems that we are too many on this side of the
table, and I walk around to find myself posted
shoulder to shoulder with Squire ---,
-, who accepts
me with a friendly nod. I glance across the table
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
and catch, all involuntarily, the eye of a counting-
clerk opposite. I know him, but am unaware of his
politics. He is, of course, aware of mine, and I seem
to detect a faint shake of the head and lift of the
eyelid, which together hint that I may prepare
myself for the worst. So I clutch at stoicism and
prepare myself; but until this moment I had not
known how strong my hopes really were.
The contents of the boxes are now shot out upon
the table in one great heap, and while the constables
do this the counting-clerks reach forward with both
hands and mix the papers in one huge mad salad.
This mixing lasts for a couple of minutes, maybe.
Then the count begins in earnest. We have wasted
an hour and a half, and already the crowd in the
street grows impatient. We can hear them hurling
challenges, starting party war-songs, hooting each
other down.
My counting-clerk scoops a pile of papers in front
of him and begins to sort rapidly. On each paper
are two names with a pencilled cross against one,
and he sorts them to right and left-Our Man to the
left, the Admiral to the right. Blank, Dash-
Blank-Dash, Dash, Dash. (Blank stands for Our
Man, who heads each paper by alphabetical prece-
dence; Dash for the Admiral.) The Admiral is
running three for Our Man's one.
This is
going to be Waterloo ! After ten minutes of it
I abandon hope and fall to composing the telegram
I shall send home.
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THE ELECTION COUNT
is an
I glance down the table. The faces of my fellow-
Liberals are grave, yet somehow they give me a ray
of hope that we at our corner, in spite of the mixing,
have struck a peculiarly unfavourable sample of the
total pile, and that (to change metaphors) the tide
will turn for us presently. But my eyes ought not
to be wandering. I am warned of this by a gentle
“ Excuse me from Squire
at my side. He
touches the clerk on the shoulder and with a finger
indicates that he has laid one of our votes on the
Admiral's heap. It was my business to discover
the mistake, but (as I have said) Squire
English gentleman. Hereafter for ten minutes I keep
my eyes glued upon the papers flitting under the
clerk's hand, until the quick succession of crosses
lulls me to a kind of stupor. The tide is turning,
but very slowly.
When the clerk thinks
he has papers enough on one or another of the heaps
he counts back one hundred of them, pats the hundred
into a neat packet, and passes it up to one of the four
checking-clerks,” who count it over again, verify
it, and pass it to the Under-Sheriff, who in turn
passes it up to the High-Sheriff, who after a glance
through his glasses, lays it to the left or right of his
desk according as it belongs to Our Man or to the
Admiral.
My rising hopes are dashed as
I perceive that the Admiral already leads by six of
the "centuries” (as I will call them). He (good
fellow) stands a pace or two behind me, watching
the business. His Agent steps back to him, and
341


THE ELECTION COUNT
another has just been told for him. The clerks,
who have counted all the papers they can reach,
and are left with remnants of “ centuries,” pass these
remnants across to be added to other packets.
All the great heap has been sorted now, and
the piled packets, right and left of the High-Sheriff,
stand exactly level!
The clerks have done. Three packets have yet
to be handed up. One close by contains a hundred
--I know, for I saw it counted—and belongs to Our
Man. The other, a little beyond, is, I can see, for
the Admiral: and this seems of equal bulk. At
the far end of the table a methodical little clerk is
slowly counting up the third-a thin one. Whose ?
“Twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three--"
The clerk who has counted the Admiral's parcel
holds it up and says, “Seventy-seven in this."
Twenty-four-twenty-five-twenty-six,” counts
the methodical little man at the end.
“Whose ?"
Twenty-seven,” says the little man, patting his
parcel. “For Mr. Blank.”
Our Man is in, by just fifty votes.
66
I turn-turn to find myself almost face to face with
the Admiral, who is receiving his friends' condolences.
Good fellow, he takes it splendidly. Only a flush on
the face betrays him. Moral victory,” I hear one
assure him. “Moral victory, be d-d,” he answers
back. You win or you 're beaten. We've given
343


The Merry-go-Round at
Troy
I
The merry-go-round, the merry-go-round, the merry-go-
round at Troy!
They whirl around, they gallop around-man, woman,
and girl, and boy !
So sang Roden Noel, a genuine poet; and the theme
was worthy of his muse. For annually, you must
know, in the first or second week of August, the
Regatta frenzy descends upon us; and for three
days we dress town and waterside in bunting and
bang starting guns and finishing guns, and put on
fancy dresses, and dance and walk in procession
and stare at fireworks. But the centre and axis of
our revelry is always the merry-go-round (locally
'the Whirlies ') on the town quay. There yachts-
men, visitors, farmers, and country wives, sober
citizens, and mothers of families gather centripetally
and are caught together in a whirl under the naphtha
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
lights around the crystal, revolving pillar. But let
the poet take up the tale :
They circle on wooden horses—white, black, and
brown, and bay-
To a loud, monotonous tune that hath a trumpet
bray.
All is dark where the circus stands on the narrow
quay,
Save for its own yellow lamps that illumine it
brilliantly.
-the Parish Council being far too wise to waste any
public gas on Regatta nights. They spare the rates
and leave public illumination to the private enter-
prise of sweet-stalls (or 'standings '), confetti stalls,
stalls at which you shoot at eggs, or bob celluloid
balls at narrow-necked bowls of gold-fish, or hurl
wooden ones at bottles, to be rewarded for your
success with a penny cigar or walking cane. Above
all, our Public Lights Committee trusts to the
merry-go-round, as it
Pours a broad, strong glow
Over an old-world house with a pillar'd porch
below;
For the floor of the building rests on bandy
columns small,
And the bulging pile may, tottering, suddenly
bury all.
Well, and I dare say this might easily have happened
in the days before modern enterprise pulled down
the plaster front of the King of Prussia Inn and
348


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
II
Some few years ago, and not long after the ' bulging
pile of the old 'King of Prussia' had been shored
up, faced with stucco, and converted (as I said) into
a nice up-to-date tied house, there arrived as
temporary landlord ' a pink-complexioned young
man who walked mincingly and thought it would be
good business to convert the old 'public' into a
hotel for August visitors, cold-shouldering out the
rude sailors on whose custom it had depended for
a hundred and fifty years. At once, as you may
guess, he found it intolerable that for a whole week
or ten days of the month on which he most counted
for this elegant patronage a disgusting steam organ
should be allowed to blare out popular tunes under
his very windows. Now I will admit, as a whilom
lodger at the old inn, who once lived out a week
with the steam organ and its
loud monotonous tune that hath a trumpet bray,
that such an experience is not for all tastes. But
I happened to be in love at the time, and nothing
else mattered. I converted all its sounds of woe
into “ hey, nonny, nonny !” And now, on hearing
that the new landlord was agog for an injunction
to restrain the nuisance, I had a mind to advise him
cheerfully to seek his clientèle among lovers only
350


THE MERRY-GO-ROUND AT TROY
has continued to rotate annually ; and to-night-
this very night-I have tasted reward for my share
in that past demonstration. For Mr. Binks has
bought a new steam organ; and to-night, as I
mounted a wooden horse, the organ stopped for a few
seconds and burst forth triumphantly into a fresh
tune. Into what tune, think
you
Why—the Hallelujah Chorus !
?
23
353





A Yachting
Adventure
I
At the very conclusion of our Regatta-when the
Territorial Band had played “God Save the King,”
the Royal Troy Yacht Club had banged off its
sunset-gun, the yachts in harbour had undressed
ship, and we were all preparing to sup in haste, to
be ready for the first rocket of the fireworks—there
came sailing in through the twilight, late for every-
thing as usual, the 50-ton yawl notorious along the
south coast as the Maiden Aunt. She carries, for
owner, the dearest little old gentleman in the world
(everywhere known as “Uncle," because we all
profess to have expectations from him); and for
crew the laziest bean-fed set of pirates that ever, by
being late for everything, missed Execution Dock.
Their skipper, a fine-gentleman sort of rascal who has
improved on a Brightlingsea dialect by putting in
his h's all wrong, is popularly supposed to have
kidnapped his patron many years ago, and to have
been hurrying him ever since from port to port,
that he may get into no communication with his
friends. But this is legend. As a matter of fact,
355


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
the little old gentleman believes his crew to consist
of honest salts who at need would lay down their
lives for him.
Well, the Maiden Aunt came beating up through
the crowded harbour with a very light breeze and
a strong tide running under her. As usual, she
fouled, or just missed to foul, everything within
reach, and either of natural offensiveness or because
it had not agreed with his temper to be addressed
as “Crippen ” by the various crews that had hung
out fenders against collision or climbed out on
bobstays to thrust his too-attentive bowsprit clear,
her skipper chose to pick up his anchorage in the
very midst of a crowd of small craft that for three
days had been living on excellent terms together-
living and letting live, as all good yachtsmen should.
Having dropped hook, he lowered his dinghy to carry
out the kedge rope.
“I say,” hailed a voice from the bows of his
next-door neighbour, a 20-ton ketch, "be careful
how you lay that kedge ! Our chain lies that way,
and we ’re sailing early. Pretty silly game, isn't it,
to drop right on top of us? We're starting before
daybreak, I warn you ! ”
Ree-ly? I wouldn't meet trouble 'alf-way,
young gentlemen, at your age, if I was you,"
responded the skipper, and his crew started to
whistle, yet more offensively, the chorus of a music-
hall song, of which the refrain runs, “I cannot go
home in the dark !"
356


A YACHTING ADVENTURE
.
jar.
What, again, Crippen ?” piped a
voice.
' But what are they all laughing at ? ” asked the
little owner, turning around to the real Bill, who
by this time had gained the deck, and stood crapulous
at his elbow. “Eh ?
As I understood
someone has been playing a practical joke. I don't
quite understand, though. I will ask the captain
to explain it to me at breakfast." And he went
below.
It was the Maiden Aunt, after all, that weighed
earliest, and was well at sea before breakfast-time.
The other yachts somehow did not like the look of
the weather and preferred to stay in port, where they
discussed the story. So, for once in her career, she
earned the reputation of having put out when the
rest did not dare.
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
scarcely remembered one. Meanwhile his book had
been written. Its preface lies open here before me,
in which, after a word or two on the staff which
Henley gathered around him, and their good fellow-
ship, the apologist pleads that ‘he had a limitless
affection for the society of the band, and enjoyed
the inexpensive dissipations that came in the way
of its members with a gusto never exceeded. (That
pet Henleyan word 'gusto '! How one can see,
and forgive, the lad's working it in for his ' Master's'
approval !) “Yet he was one whose presence could
never be counted upon unless a promise had been
given; and it was the habit of his friends, at any
meeting after a week during which they had not come
across him, to inquire how he had been faring in
Cornwall.' And, again : 'The interminable journey
he must take who would reach the West Country
daunted him not at all. He was a veritable lover,
and would travel twenty dreary hours for the sake
of scarce as many in the land of his desire.'
Well, the book was written, and the chapters I
might have contributed as a queer sort of comple-
mental record will now never see the light. But here
are the notes of one.
It is less than twenty hours since I cashed
the cheque that pays for my holiday. The tall clerk
at the City Bank on Ludgate Hill seemed to guess all
about it, for he looked at me in a knowing way as he
counted out the notes. He has the make of a
364


THE DIVE OF THE GANNET
cricketer, and somehow, on these too rare occasions,
we have built up a friendly understanding. I suspect
him of reading my books; I know that regularly
towards the end of Lent I am tempted to propose
that we have half a crown on the Boat Race, but
forbear upon reflection that the bank would probably
frown upon the innocent wager, and I remember also
that when I drew out a frightening sum for the
purpose of getting married his smile followed me to
the door.
On my way up Fleet Street, in the
thronged luncheon hour, I came on the strangest
sight. As usually happens in early August, a part
of the roadway was 'up' and roped off ; and there
in the roped space, amid a pile of wood blocks,
sprawled four navvies in the profoundest slumber.
The wheels of the omnibuses, moving on between
checks of traffic, almost grazed their heads; the
passing crowd on the pavement skirted their hob-
nailed boot-soles by a bare six inches. But there
they slept, all four, with faces upturned to the noon-
day sun-supine, gigantic, confident as babes—while
Fleet Street roared by them.
9.30 p.m., Paddington, and the night
express pulling out from the platform.
With three great snorts of strength,
Stretching my mighty length.
Like some long dragon stirring in his sleep,
Out from the glare of gas
Into the night I pass
And plunge alone into the silence deep.
365


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
a million eggs to shed. And so we go on, each
arguing heatedly.
But I am too weary after the night journey from
London to pursue the argument-even here, where
I can sit alone with a cigarette and have it all my
own way. I am wondering how the gannet, even
with his thick plumage, can drop plump from such
a height and yet not break his neck. Sometimes,
while not able to detect it, I have told myself that at
the last moment he must take the water at a glancing
angle. But that is nonsense. Apart from my
inability to detect any such trick, the impact on the
water is visibly terrific.
Well, well! Here at the start of my holiday I am
far too tired for speculation. Up in Fleet Street
yesterday four workmen lay stretched asleep in the
sun's eye as doubtless workmen dozed at noonday
on the steps of Cheops' pyramid abuilding; and
down here—by twenty hours removed—I see, as I
throw the end of my cigarette away,
The gannets dive as Noah saw them dive
O'er sunken Ararat.
368


If ?
I
If I Were a Millionaire
IF I were a millionaire-
“ Was it a publisher who invited you to imagine
that?” asked Cynthia. “If so, the man must
want to add insult to injury.”
When Cynthia interrupts me in the throes of
composition I sometimes miss the point and answer
inattentively.
“ I don't see where the insult comes in,” said I.
A story-teller has at times to imagine himself all
sorts of unpleasant characters-a pirate, for instance,
or an anarchist. Why not a millionaire as well
as any other enemy of society? If I were a
millionaire
“Ah!” Cynthia drew a long breath, laid down
her knitting, and leaned forward with her hands
spread to the fire and a soft rapture in her eyes.
“ You should put away pen and paper and never
trouble to write another book in your life !” she
murmured.
24
369


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
“I-I had hoped that one or two masterpieces
yet remained to be written,” was my faint protest.
She ignored it.
“And you could have that six months in Rome,
and the long tour in Greece, with the cruise to the
Ionian Islands, and that other cruise up the Nile-
all the journeys, in fact, that you have always been
planning but could never afford.”
“ Alas! no.”
“And that winter in Italy, with all those pictures
to see.
You have told me often enough, when in a
bad temper, lamenting your fate, that Italy was
necessary to every Englishman who tried to be an
artist, and that, except for the shortest of visits,
you had missed it.”
“Alas ! yes. But if I am to write no more books
it would scarcely seem to matter."
“And Japan and Quebec--not to mention Seville
and Salamanca, and the pilgrimage to Madrid to see
Velazquez' 'Surrender of Breda.' We could contrive
them all.”
“ Contrive!” I echoed. “ You don't seem to
realise your luck. With a million of money we can
buy a steam-yacht, and order it to take us whither-
soever we list. It would be worth while to contrast
it with our old voyages in the little Vida, when I
cooked breakfast in the cockpit whilst you tidied the
cabin-do you remember?”
She smiled at this. As if either of us could ever
forget!
)
370


IF?
“I detest steam," she answered. “ We would
start with a comfortable schooner-a safe, roomy
one, with high bulwarks."
Already,” said I,
you begin to evince the
creeping cautiousness of affluence. There were no
bulwarks on the little Vida ; and when we were young,
and it really mattered if we drowned, a sea on board
used to be rather good fun. Anyhow, we might start
in your comfortable schooner; assuredly in the time
left to us we should never arrive at all the ports we
desire to visit.”
“I don't see why you need make us out older
than we are," objected Cynthia, and the rebuke will
ever be convincing while she can pout so becomingly.
You forget," I replied, “I have just come into
a million of money, and am feeling the strain.”
Anyhow,” she said, “we could enlarge the
library—as you planned, two years ago."
“That is true,” I agreed, looking around the
narrow workshop in which we sit after dinner,
preferring it to the drawing-room. The books
stand two-deep on its shelves, and Heaven alone
knows how much loss of time and temper this has
cost me at one time and another. At this moment
I am wondering where to dig for my volume of
Clough, to turn up the poem that begins :
How pleasant it is to have money--heigho!
How pleasant it is to have money!
and resumes the strain (as I seem to recollect)
371


NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
ambition to write books. But as yet we have faced
only the inconvenience of living up to our income.
We have still to consider the far more difficult
problem of getting rid of the capital before we die.”
“I don't understand you at all,” said Cynthia.
“A racing stable would bore me to death. When
we visited Monte Carlo some years ago, we agreed
in disliking the smell around the tables. To
distribute the money among the deserving poor
would take all the time we have already set aside
for foreign travel. Yet something must be done,
for the necessity is urgent. You remember the
American millionaire we met at Basle ? To be
precise, it was I who encountered him after his
womenfolk had driven me to escape from the
compartment in which for forty minutes their talk
had been torture. I abandoned you to them; yes,
I confess my cowardice. I plunged into the nearest
refuge, a second-class smoker, and there I stumbled
over the Steel King. He sat picking at a paper bag
stained with the juices of decayed cherries. They
had handed out this refuse to him at the station before
last, when he looked in to see how they were getting
on.' Having finished his meal of offal, he lit an
unsavoury cheap cigar, and asked (for he recognised
me) what I thought of his Show—that was the
word; and actually I conceived then and there
a respect for this man (ostensibly the meanest of
human products), and could understand his pride
in escorting such a wife and such daughters on the
374


IF?
mission of making Europe sit up. I found something
great in this showman who could so cheerfully accept
the charity of his exhibits and take its orts, with
his dignity, off to a second-class smoking carriage.
But I felt no desire to emulate his greatness. My
dear,” I exclaimed upon a sudden happy thought,
“I have it ! We can make over the bulk of this silly
wealth to the Bodleian, retaining enough only to
pay our passages handsomely around the world and
keep us on our return in comfort all the rest of our
days."
“The Bodleian !” said Cynthia. “ Doesn't that
already get a copy of every one of your books for
nothing? I never could see why?
“Nor I. But since you condemn me to write no
more, I suggest that we owe it some compensation.”
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NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
I will have no part in this terrible crime. My hands
shall be unstained with the blood that is being shed.
The necessity of maintaining themselves in office may
influence an Administration ; delusions may mislead
a people; Vettel may afford you a law and a defence.
But no respect for men who form a Government, no
regard I have for going with the stream, and no fear of
being deemed wanting in patriotism, shall influence
me in favour of a policy which in my conscience
I believe to be as criminal before God as it is destruc-
tive of the true interest of my country.”
There are cranks in this world, some of whom seem
to shape their actions with an eye on posterity. There
are even stranger cranks—and I think Phocion was
one-who would seem to posture for the approval of
antiquity. (“D—-n the age. I will write for
antiquity!” vowed Lamb when an editor rejected
a sonnet of his as likely to shock the contemporary
public.) But the above letter of Bright's has no sly
glance forward, or backward, or upward at Her
Majesty's Ministers of that date, the nation's watch-
men seated above in the high tower; but inward,
upon the counsel of his own heart, and to be fired
by the pride of his own manliness. ' A little touch
of something like pride,” says an old seventeenth-
century writer, “is seated in the true sense of a
man's own greatness, without which his humility
and modesty would be contemptible virtues !”
Indeed a man has in the end less to fear from this
wrath of the public than from the smiles of a world
380





PR51 94. N4 1913
QUILLER-COUCH, ARTHUR THOMAS,
SIR, 1863-1944.
NEWS FROM THE DUCHY.
13298401
A000013298401