THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 ¥"<
 
 ..WALTER C. GAYHART * ' 
 
 5 02 
 
 LOS ANGELES :: CALIF.
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY
 
 Ail rights reserved 
 
 News from the 
 Ducky 
 
 By Sir ARTHUR 
 QUILLER-COUCH 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 1914
 
 Bristol, Eng. : J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd., Quay Street
 
 £• A/¥7 
 
 \ 
 
 
 Go 
 
 MY FRIEND 
 
 AUSTIN M. PURVES 
 
 OF 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 AND 
 
 TROY TOWN 
 
 625465
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I, 
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 PIPES IN ARCADY . 
 OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN . 
 PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS 
 THE MONT-BAZILLAC . 
 THE THREE NECKLACES 
 THE WREN .... 
 NOT HERE, O APOLLO! 
 FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM 
 THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP 
 LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE 
 THE CASK ASHORE 
 
 Page 
 ii 
 
 IOI 
 
 117 
 125 
 
 143 
 157 
 173 
 181 
 199 
 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 . . . .363 
 
 IF? . .369 
 
 Vll
 
 " 
 
 PART I
 
 LO£ 
 
 Tom Tiddlers 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 ; ' 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 
 
 ii
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCIIY 
 
 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 
 justiciar}^, 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 
 
 : 3
 
 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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 many things that don't pay are well worth paying 
 for. I will leave this address with you, at any rate, 
 and you can think it over." 
 
 Next spring, early one fine February morning, 
 as the small mail-packet Lady of the Isles was getting 
 up steam for her return passage to the Main, Farmer 
 Banford came along the quayside at Garland Town 
 (harbour of St. Lide's) with a huge bandbox of 
 cardboard under his arm. 
 
 " Hullo, Farmer ! " hailed Captain Frank, the 
 skipper. " Bound across for England, hey ? ' 
 
 The farmer grinned. 
 
 " Looks like the kind o' trunk I 'd be takin', 
 don't it ? " 
 
 " What 's inside ? " 
 
 " Women's notions. If you must know, my old 
 missus have a-taken a bee in her cap, and I 'm 
 sendin' it to Lunnon for the best advice." 
 
 So Mrs. Banford's cap-box travelled up to London, 
 packed with three dozen bunches of ' Holy-vales,' 
 and addressed — 
 
 To Mr. Shellabear 
 
 Fruit and Flower Merchant 
 
 Covent Garderr- 
 
 London 
 
 England 
 With Speed 
 
 We shall describe, as well as we may, what 
 prosperity dawned for the Islands from the moment 
 
 16
 
 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 '11 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 
 Tsland 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 cratt had shipped some 
 bucketfuls, and her fires had more than once been 
 in danger, before she weathered the Smith Eocks, 
 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. W T e 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 
 
 " Yet what no chance could then reveal 
 And neither would be first to own 
 Let fate and courage now conceal, 
 
 When truth could bring remorse alone." 
 
 Courage ? It had been cowardice, rather, on her 
 part, — or so she told herself. And the cowardice 
 must go on, even now. She stepped to the bundle. 
 It was of linen, soaked with salt water ; and within 
 it, stark naked, twisting his small legs while he cried, 
 lay an infant — a man-child. In the bass of the waves 
 on the sand she had caught no sound of the treble 
 wailing. She stooped and lifted him in her arms. 
 With the edge of her cloak she wiped away some 
 of the brine from the creases of his small body ; and 
 the child, ceasing his wail, looked up into her eyes 
 and crowed with glee. 
 
 " Venus the sea-born mothering Cupid ! " muttered 
 Dr. Hervey. 
 
 But at this moment the Lady, looking over her 
 shoulder, thrust the child on him with a gesture of 
 repugnance. Her eyes had fallen on the two old 
 sergeants, who had laid their dead master over on 
 his back and were vainly endeavouring to coax back 
 the living breath, raising his arms and anon pressing 
 the elbows back against the sides — all with the dull, 
 dogged motions of a military drill. 
 
 " Ah, tell them to stop ! " she entreated. " He 
 has had enough of it. Cannot they see that his heart 
 is broken ? " 
 
 25
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 star castle 
 Ubique. 
 
 The dead Commandant had carved the word one 
 day, in letters five feet long, out of the short turf on 
 Garrison Hill where it slopes steeply from the Star 
 Castle (as they call its antiquated small citadel) to 
 the cliff overlooking the roadstead and the Western 
 Islands. He had carved it in pure idleness, as an 
 afternoon game to cheat the leisure enforced upon 
 hun since Government had dismantled his batteries, 
 drafted his gunners off to the Main, and left him with 
 two old sergeants — Sergeant Archelaus and Sergeant 
 Treacher — to mark time, until the end of his days, by 
 firing a gun at eight in the morning, another at sunset, 
 and in the intervals by ringing the bell over the gate 
 of the Fort every three hours to tell the time to the 
 town below. 
 
 Ubique : it was the motto of his old corps, which 
 he still served — as they also serve who only stand 
 and wait. When the word was carved he had a mind 
 to efface it, but had again been too indolent. Now 
 he was gone, and Sergeant Archelaus kept the letters 
 religiously trimmed with a turf-cutter. Sergeant 
 Archelaus, a bachelor, lived alone and looked after 
 
 26
 
 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 Garl&nd 
 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— o." 
 
 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 5 * 
 
 3i
 
 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 '11 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 
 
 " Nothing against Her Majesty's peace, Constable, 
 I assure you," answered Dr. Hervey gravely. " In 
 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 
 Taminondas, adding modestly, " But perhaps you '11 
 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. 
 F'r 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 
 or less ? ' " 
 
 ' There, Archelaus ! " Dr. Hervey turned in 
 
 33 
 8
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 looked up. " 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 d n 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 
 humming 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. 
 
 3«
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CHY-AN-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 '11 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 lifted 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 
 a mass of rhododendrons, and backed by tall spires 
 of evergreen trees ; and below the Abbey an inland 
 
 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
 
 TOxM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 away from breakin' cream-jugs, it '11 be time well 
 spent. . . . Mary Martha broke another cream-jug: 
 only five minutes ago, if you '11 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 
 
 4i
 
 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 thai 's Un' Matthey, Old 
 
 42
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 Matthey's son — and my gran'father, of course — 
 with Ami' 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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 him off after tea to the glass-houses, now lit with oil 
 lamps, where she taught him the simple mysteries 
 of ' bunching ' — setting up blooms in pyramidical 
 bunches, a dozen to the bunch, with room for each 
 perianth to expand ; for the flowers are picked in 
 bud while it is possible, kept in water under glass until 
 partly open, and so packed ; the wise grower timing 
 them to reach the market just at the moment of their 
 perfection. Moreover, he thus avoids the worst 
 risk of the February storms that sweep in from the 
 Atlantic, charged with brine, spotting the open 
 blooms and rendering them unsaleable. 
 
 Annet told the boy all this, and much else concern- 
 ing the daffodils, while her small hands worked away 
 with eleven other pairs of hands, bunching and tying. 
 At the far end of the glass-house three grown girls 
 were packing away the bunches in shallow boxes 
 of various sizes — three, five, or six dozen to the box 
 — and at the head of the table where they worked 
 stood a young man receiving the full boxes, nailing 
 down their covers, and affixing the labels. Twice, 
 as Jan sat and watched, Mary Martha came bustling 
 in with a kettle, for the water in which the flowers 
 stood before being packed must be kept tepid — this 
 was one of the secrets of young Farmer Matthey's 
 success as a marketer. And whenever the door of the 
 glass-house opened, the boy heard the tap-tap of 
 a hammer across the yard from an outbuilding where 
 new boxes were being fashioned and nailed together. 
 
 " You may try your hand, if you will," said Annet 
 
 44
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 graciously. " Here is a pair of scissors. To-morrow, 
 though, father '11 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. " Well, 
 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." 
 
 45
 
 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 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 
 
 he spoke up as if a spring had been started somewhere 
 within him. 
 
 Mrs. Hender rapped the tab]e with the back of 
 a fork. 
 
 " Hush 'ee, all, now, if you please ! Un' Matthey 
 -wants to tell a story." 
 
 Conticuerc omnes intentique ora tenebant. 
 
 48
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ux' matthey's story 
 
 ' There was a Snake over 'pon St. Lide's, one time," 
 said the old man, still in his high quaver, staring 
 straight across the table ; and Aim' Deb, his old wife, 
 kept nodding her head beside him as if confirming 
 the tale from the start. 
 
 " — The Snake lived in the middle of the Island, in 
 Holy Vale, and there he lorded it free an' easy till 
 St. Lide came along and shut him up in a bag, out o' 
 harm's way. After a time St. Lide took an' went the 
 way of all flesh, forgetting all about the Snake an' 
 the bag, that he 'd left hangin' from the branch of an 
 apple-tree. 
 
 " In those days St. Lide's was a proper wilderness. 
 All the folks that counted — kings and queens an' 
 such-like — lived over this side, 'pon Brefar here and 
 Saaron." 
 
 ' Hear him ! " put in Mrs. Hender. " An' Saaron 
 nowadays but a land o' desolation ! Well did the 
 Psalmist say, ' What ups an' downs in the world 
 there be ! '" 
 
 ' One day, hundreds o' years after, a Saaron 
 went over to St. Lide's to shoot rabbits. He came 
 on the bag hangin' from the tree, an' saw the inside 
 
 49
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 of it movin'. ' Hullo ! ' says he, ' some careless 
 fellow has left a bag o' ferrets behind him. This '11 
 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 
 
 5o
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 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 '11 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 '11 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 '11 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 ! " 
 
 5i
 
 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 
 ^nnet especially he had once or twice forestalled the 
 
 52
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GRO'JND 
 
 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 
 elk!" — 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 '11 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. Berkeley s or Omatuses), 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 
 
 57
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 up steam. 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 
 
 53
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 week you '11 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 ' : or 
 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 
 
 59
 
 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 '11 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 
 
 60
 
 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 
 
 61
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 children played none — until Jan taught them, as 
 vou shall hear. 
 
 In February the flowers awoke and came on with 
 a rush. The previous summer had been a hot one, 
 6aking 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. 
 
 62
 
 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 o£ 
 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 
 
 63
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 you 've 
 sh >t 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 ! Caelum, 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 '11 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 Islands, 
 free of the Main, free of the Mediterranean, which 
 is the sea of seas, and of Rome, to which all the 
 roads lead — ye '11 avoid short cuts, and sit down with 
 me again to mensa, mcnsam, menses." 
 
 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 '11 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, 
 '11 go into service with Trinity House. His parents 
 
 65
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 have settled 'pon that, and a very good lightkeeper 
 he '11 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. 
 
 66
 
 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. 
 
 67
 
 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 
 
 68
 
 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 'tis." 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' 
 
 69
 
 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 / 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 
 
 70
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 did you meet with such a naccydent ? ' ' Broken ? ' 
 says he. ' That 's done a-purpose, to show the 
 life underneath was a-snapped off afore its time.' 
 When I come to look closer I saw he was tellin' the 
 truth. ' Just like my poor dear ! ' says I, an' asks 
 en the price. He seemed a bit absent-minded of a 
 sudden. ' Oh, that there collum 's a masterpiece,' 
 he says, ' done by one of our best workmen on the 
 Main ! 'Twas meant for a deceased party whose 
 name I won't mention, bein' actionable, perhaps ; 
 but the relatives quarrelled over the will, an' here the 
 blessed thing is, back 'pon my hands. I can't tell 
 you the whole story, missus,' says Hugh and Co., 
 ' but here it be, through an act o' carelessness in 
 the foreman who took the order, <m' I 've stuck it 
 up here to show what we can do when we try.' 
 ' How much might it be, sir ? ' I asks, my heart 
 in my mouth. ' Well,' says he, ' if you should 
 know anyone who happens to be in want of such a 
 thing, you can tell 'em that, misfit tho' 'tis, I can't 
 let it go under twenty pound.' I stood there of a 
 sudden all of a tremble. ' I '11 take it,' says I, hardly 
 believing the sound o' my own voice. ' What ! ' 
 says he. ' That is, if you 're sure they relatives won't 
 put in no claim, an' if you '11 let me bring the money 
 from time to time, just to show how I 'm gettin' 
 on, an' that I mean honest.' ' Well ! ' says Hugh and 
 Co., surprised out of hisself, ' you '11 excuse me, 
 missus, but this beats cock-fightin' ! ' 'It may or it 
 mayn't,' says I ; ' but there 's one other thing I 'd 
 
 7 1
 
 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 '11 think I got so far wi' the payments an' no 
 further, or maybe they '11 think I picked up with a 
 damaged article, or again maybe they '11 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, 
 
 72
 
 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 ! " 
 
 74
 
 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 '11 
 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 
 
 75
 
 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 / 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 
 
 76
 
 
 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 Hon. 
 
 " ' 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 
 very sad. 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 stcTry at all." 
 
 77
 
 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 his eyes 
 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 a lamp 
 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. 
 
 78
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 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. 
 
 79
 
 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 — z-z-zoom — 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. 
 
 80
 
 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 >vay to meet it, even 
 when he taught them to laugh and play games. 
 Onlv 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 
 
 81
 
 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 Jan 
 appeared, merely by turning a bulb over in his 
 hand, to know what it wanted. It was he, too, who 
 discovered for the farmer that daffodil leaves, duly 
 dried, made good fodder. The green leaves are 
 poisonous for cattle ; and hitherto the rakings of 
 the fields — when the flowers' sap had run back into 
 
 82
 
 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 — so 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 ii it be granted, 
 
 It skills not where 
 
 Thou plantest me, only I would be planted. 
 
 83
 
 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. 
 
 84
 
 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 
 
 85
 
 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 nerves 
 of most men, and the rule is — or then was — to relieve 
 one - third of the crew every month, each man 
 
 86
 
 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 
 
 *7
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 lilac-bush by the lych-gate of Brcfar 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'Jieight of the 
 daffodil harvest, and Jan— kept 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 '11 be feelin' my goin' out to the Stones, this time, 
 more 'n ordinary." 
 
 88
 
 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 '11 
 do my best. If only you mean what you say — 
 that it — that this — '11 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 
 
 89
 
 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. 
 
 90
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SAILING 
 
 And the spring comes slowly up this way. 
 
 One day early in the next spring Annet suggested 
 that instead of tacking among the off-islands they 
 should sail boldly out for the Stones and pay a 
 surprise visit to the light-vessel. 
 
 The enterprise was not so very audacious, after 
 all. A steady, northerly breeze had been blowing all 
 day and would certainly hold until sunset ; it was a 
 " soldier's breeze," too, and would serve them going 
 and coming. Moreover, this would be their last 
 opportunity ; for the daffodil harvest was close at 
 hand, and while it lasted there could be no more 
 holidays. 
 
 Jan blamed himself because the suggestion had 
 not come first from him— that Annet should have 
 been left to make it. 
 
 On the way out they talked gaily for a while, 
 anticipating Dave's astonishment. Then they fell 
 to discussing the prospects of harvest. All pointed 
 to a good crop and good prices. The farmer would 
 fti joy another prosperous season, and in the summer 
 there would be a merry wedding. 
 
 9i
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " It 's good to think," said Annet graciously, 
 " that you and Dave will always be friends." 
 
 ' We shall always be friends," said Jan, and added 
 quickly, " Whatever becomes of me, I could never 
 do other than love Dave." 
 
 His hand was on the tiller and trembled slightly ; 
 his eyes were fixed on the water ahead. The boat 
 had broken the charmed circle of the island tides and 
 danced over open sea. 
 
 ''Whatever becomes of you'?" echoed Annet. 
 ' Why, you never mean to leave Brefar, surely ! " 
 
 " This summer, perhaps ; after the wedding. 
 Dave knows. I haven't told your father yet, and it 
 won't be easy. But I belong to the Main, you 
 know — somewhere." His gaze travelled ahead, 
 eagerly. " I can't explain ; but when you belong to 
 the Main, you know " 
 
 " Dave ought to have told me," said Annet 
 pettishly. She was silent for a full minute. Then 
 she asked, " And when you get to the Main, what 
 will you do ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? I shall fall on my feet, never you 
 fear." 
 
 " I heard father telling mother the other day that 
 he was lucky to keep you. You could get good 
 gardener's wages anywhere, and his wonder was the 
 Mistress hadn't heard of you and snapped you up." 
 
 " I don't suppose the Mistress wants a gardener 
 more than she has," said Jan. " But anyway she 'd 
 never bear the sight of me — the teacher told me that. 
 
 92
 
 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 
 
 The Commandant was a friend of hers, you know ; 
 and he lost his life saving me." 
 
 Annet nodded, but she was not heeding. 
 
 " I don't see," she said, " that one needs belong 
 to the Main to want to live there. I 've longed for 
 that, all my life. Dave, now — he 's happy anywhere. 
 I 've asked him again and again how he can stand it, 
 bobbing up an' down, up an' down, out yonder at the 
 end of a chain. Then he laughs and says something 
 foolish — that there 's the holidays to look forward 
 to, or some nonsense of that sort." 
 
 " And so he feels it." 
 
 " But 'tis no life for a man," insisted Annet, 
 tapping her foot on the bottom-boards. " Up an' 
 down on the end of a chain, and looking forward to 
 nothing but that all your life long." 
 
 " If he 's happy " began Jan. 
 
 " What about me ? " asked Annet, almost fiercely. 
 
 She recovered her graciousness as they neared the 
 light-vessel, and answered Dave's ecstatic signals 
 with a sufficiently affectionate wave of her hand- 
 kerchiei. 
 
 Dave was in transports. He had recognised the 
 boat at two miles' distance, and as she rounded up 
 alongside you would have thought the good fellow 
 clean out of his mind. 
 
 " What a notion, too ! ' he kept shouting. " What 
 a notion ! Now, which of 'ee thought of it ? " 
 
 " Why, Annet, of course," answered Jan. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! Did she now ? Did she really ? " he 
 
 93
 
 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. 
 
 Tf I 'd known you 'd behave like this " 
 
 But honest Dave was not to be denied. H> 
 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- 
 
 94
 
 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." 
 
 95
 
 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 '11 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 
 
 96
 
 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 
 
 97
 
 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. 
 
 98
 
 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 thoughtfuUy. " I 
 wonder what took him ? Didn't notice anything 
 queer with him that day, did you ? / 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 '11 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. 
 
 99 ,
 
 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 
 
 IOI
 
 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 
 
 102
 
 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 
 
 103
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 to let the train pass, I had recognised my friend 
 Joby Tucker, their t ganger, and an excellent fellow 
 to boot. 
 
 Therefore my eyes were alert as we approached 
 the curve that opens the meadow into view, and — 
 as I am a Christian man, living in the twentieth 
 century — I saw this vision : I beheld beneath the 
 shade of the midmost oak eight men sitting stark 
 naked, whereof one blew on a flute, one played a 
 concertina, and the rest beat their palms together, 
 marking the time ; while before them, in couples 
 on the sward, my gang of navvies rotated in 
 a clumsy waltz watched by a ring of solemn 
 ruminant kine ! 
 
 I saw it. The whole scene, barring the concertina 
 and the navvies' clothes, might have been trans- 
 formed straight from a Greek vase of the best period. 
 Here, in this green corner of rural England, on a 
 workaday afternoon (a Wednesday, to be precise), 
 in full sunlight, I saw this company of the early gods 
 sitting, naked and unabashed, and piping, while 
 twelve British navvies danced to their music. . . . 
 I saw it ; and a derisive whistle from the engine told 
 me that driver and stoker saw it too. I was not 
 dreaming then. But what on earth could it mean ? 
 For fifteen seconds or so I stared at the vision . . . 
 and so the train joggled past it and rapt it from 
 my eyes. 
 
 I can understand now the ancient stories of men 
 who, having by hap surprised the goddesses bathing, 
 
 104
 
 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 w T hich 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 
 
 105
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 me an 
 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 
 iravel 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." 
 
 106
 
 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 '11 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 
 
 107
 
 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. Bern' 
 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 Bjll 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. 
 
 108
 
 PIPES IN ARCADY 
 
 " Well, she dragged past us to dead-slow, an' came 
 to a standstill with her tail coach about thirty yards 
 beyond where I stood, and, as you might say, with 
 its footboard right over-hangin' the pool. You 
 mayn't remember it, but the line just there curves 
 pretty sharp to the right, and when she pulled up, 
 the tail coach pretty well hid the rest o' the train 
 from us. Five or six men, hearin' the brakes, had 
 followed me out of the culvert and stood by me, 
 wonderin' why the stoppage was. The rest were 
 dotted about along the slope of th' embankment. 
 And then the curiousest thing happened — about the 
 curiousest thing I seen in all my years on the 
 line. A door of the tail coach opened and a man 
 stepped out. He didn' jump out, you understand, 
 nor fling hisself out ; he just stepped out into 
 air, and with that his arms and legs cast themselves 
 anyways an' he went down sprawlin' into the pool. 
 It 's easy to say we ought t' have run then an' there 
 an' rescued 'im ; but for the moment it stuck us up 
 starin' an' — Wait a bit. You han't heard the end. 
 
 " I hadn't fairly caught my breath, before another 
 man stepped out ! He put his foot down upon 
 nothing, same as the first, overbalanced just the same, 
 and shot after him base-over-top into the water. 
 
 " Close 'pon the second man's heels appeared a 
 third. . . . Yes, sir, I know now what a woman feels 
 like when she 's goin' to have the scritches.* I 'd have 
 asked someone to pinch me in the fleshy part o' the 
 
 * Hysterics. 
 109
 
 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 unfortnit' 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 
 
 no
 
 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 
 party ; an' he was the first to talk any sense. 
 Th-thank you,' he said. ' They told us Penzance 
 was the next stop.' 
 
 " ' Hey ? ' says I. 
 
 " ' They told us,' he says again, plaintive-like, 
 feelin' for 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 
 
 in
 
 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 '11 put back ; more likely they '11 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 '11 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 
 
 112
 
 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 
 
 113
 
 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 '11 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. 
 
 114
 
 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. O, 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 board 
 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. I 
 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 ? " 
 
 "5
 
 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 ; 
 Sweete Lady, maiden clean, 
 Shield me from ill, shame, and teen ; 
 Shield me, Lady, from villainy 
 And from all wicked company ! " 
 
 Speculum Christiani. 
 
 Here is a little story I found one day among the 
 legends of 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 " naggur " — had 
 to load up panniers and drive his tin down to the 
 
 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 
 
 118
 
 OUR LADY OF GWITHIAN 
 
 to see that the door, which she had carefully 
 closed, was standing wide open. She guessed, how- 
 ever, that a neighbour had called in her absence, and 
 would be inside keeping watch over the child. As she 
 reached the threshold, the dreadful truth broke upon 
 her : the kitchen was empty, and so was the cradle ! 
 
 It made her frantic for a while. Meriden the Priest 
 offered what consolation he could, and suggested that 
 one of her neighbours had called indeed, and, finding 
 the baby alone in the cottage, had taken it off to her 
 own home to guard it. But this he felt to be a 
 forlorn hope, and it proved a vain one. Neither 
 search nor inquiry could trace the infant. Beyond 
 a doubt the Piskies had carried him off. 
 
 When this was established so that even the hope- 
 fullest of the good-wives shook her head over it, 
 Lovey grew calm of a sudden and (as it seemed) with 
 the calm of despair. She grew obstinate too. 
 
 " My blessed cheeld ! " she kept repeating. " The 
 tender worm of en ! But I '11 have en back, if I 've to 
 go to the naughty place to fetch en. Why, what 
 sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comes 
 home and his firstborn gone ? 
 
 They shook their heads again over this. It would 
 be a brave blow for the man, but (said one to another) 
 he that marries a fool must look for thorns in his bed. 
 
 " What 's done can't be undone," they told her. 
 " You 'd best let a two-three of us stay the night and 
 coax 'ee from frettm'. It 's bad for the system, and 
 you so soon over child-birth." 
 
 119
 
 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 '11 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 '11 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. 
 
 120
 
 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' 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 '11 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 
 
 121
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 baby restored to her arms, nor even (when she looked) 
 was it back in its cradle. 
 
 " This '11 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. 
 
 " Aim' 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. 
 41 '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 
 arm. 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 
 
 122
 
 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 I 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 '11 
 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. 
 
 123
 
 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 Mattheys 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, 
 w r aiting 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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 that, although it was a warm evening in August, 
 he wore a thick pea-jacket, and had turned the 
 collar up about his ears. Nor (if you know Cornish 
 fishermen) was there anything very unusual in 
 what he did, albeit a stranger might well have 
 thought it frantic. 
 
 For some time he walked to and fro, threading 
 his way in and out of the groups of men, walking 
 much faster than they — at the best they were 
 strolling — muttering the while with his head sunk 
 low in his jacket collar, turning sharply when he 
 reached the edge of the quay, or pausing a moment 
 or two, and staring gloomily at the water. The 
 men watched him, yet not very curiously. They 
 knew what was coming. 
 
 Of a sudden he halted and began to preach. He 
 preached of Redemption from Sin, of the Blood of the 
 Lamb, of the ineffable bliss of Salvation. His voice 
 rose in an agony on the gentle twilight : it could be 
 heard — entreating, invoking, persuading, wrestling — 
 far across the harbour. The men listened quite 
 attentively until the time came for getting aboard. 
 Then they stole away by twos and threes down 
 the quay steps. Meanwhile, and all the while, 
 preparations on the boats had been going forward. 
 
 He was left alone at length. Even the children 
 had lost interest in him, and had run off to watch 
 the boats as they crept out on the tide. He ceased 
 abruptly, came across to the beach where I sat 
 smoking my pipe, and dropped exhausted beside 
 
 126
 
 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 '11 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 
 
 127
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 no sacrifice, as it happened, in startin' for home — 
 
 the weather up there kecpin' 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 
 
 ihen— 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 get tin' 
 
 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 folio win' 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 
 
 129
 
 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 '11 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 '11 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 
 
 it earlier, and so, steppin' forward, I called out to 
 them to ease up — we wouldn't struggle on 
 for Catte water, but drop hook in Jenny cliff 
 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 '11 see she don't 
 take no harm, and you needn't fear but I '11 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 
 
 131
 
 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. 
 T '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 
 
 132
 
 PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS 
 
 a sudden, was I, left to spend Christmas alone : 
 which didn't trouble me at all. 
 
 " 'Stead o' which, as you might say, havin' 
 downed sail and made things pretty well ship-shape 
 on deck, I went below and trimmed and lit the riding 
 light. When I came on deck with it the Maid 
 in two Minds was still in darkness. ' That 's 
 queer,' thought I ; but may be the Early and Late's' 
 light reminded Dog Mitchell of his, for a few 
 minutes later he fetched it up and made it fast, 
 takin' an uncommon long time over the job and 
 mutterin' to himself all the while. (For I should tell 
 you {hat, the weather bein' so still and the distance 
 not a hundred yards, I could hear every word). 
 
 " ' Twas then, I think, it first came into my mind 
 that the man was drunk, and five minutes later 
 I was sure of it : for on his way aft he caught his 
 foot and tripped over something — one o' the deck- 
 leads maybe — and the words he ripped out 'twould 
 turn me cold to repeat. His voice was thick, too, 
 and after cursin' away for half a minute it dropped 
 to a sort of growl, same as you '11 hear a man use 
 when he 's full o' drink and reckons he has a grudge 
 against somebody or something — he doesn't quite 
 know which, or what. Thought I, ' 'Tis a risky 
 game o' those others to leave a poor chap alone in 
 that state. He might catch the boat afire, for one 
 thing : and, for another, he might fall overboard.' 
 It crossed my mind, too, that if he fell overboard I 
 hadn't a boat to pull for him. 
 
 133
 
 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 
 
 J 34
 
 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 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. 
 
 i35
 
 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 
 
 y 
 
 " 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 CHRISTxVEAS 
 
 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 savin', ' A fisherman's walk 
 — two steps, an' overboard ? . . . I tell you 
 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 t 
 
 " 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. 
 
 l 37
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " I had allowed to n^self that 'twould be all right 
 soon after eleven, when the publics closed, and his 
 mates would be turnin' up, to take care of him. 
 But eleven o'clock struck, back in the town ; and 
 the quarters, and then twelve ; and still no boat 
 came off from shore. Then, soon after twelve, 
 he grew quiet of a sudden. The trampin' 
 stopped. I reckoned he 'd gone below, though I 
 couldn't be certain. But bein' by this time pretty 
 cold with watchin', and dog-tired, I tumbled below 
 and into my bunk. I must have been uneasy though, 
 for I didn't take off more 'n my boots. 
 
 " What 's more I couldn't have slept more than 
 a dog's sleep. For I woke up sudden to the noise of 
 a splash — it seemed I 'd been waitin' for it — and was 
 up on deck in two shakes. 
 
 " Yes, the chap was overboard, fast enough — I 
 heard a sort of gurgle as he came to the surface, and 
 some sort of attempt at a cry. Before he went under 
 again, the tide drifted his head like a little black buoy 
 across the ray of our ridin' light. So overboard I 
 jumped, and struck out for him." 
 
 At this point — the exciting point — Pilot Matthey's 
 narrative halted, hesitated, grew meagre and ragged. 
 
 " I got a grip on him as he rose. He couldn't 
 swim better 'n a few strokes at the best. (So many 
 of our boys won't larn to swim — they say it only 
 lengthens things out when your time comes) . . . 
 The man was drownin', but he had sproil enough to 
 catch at me and try to pull me under along with him. 
 
 138
 
 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 
 
 i39
 
 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 '11 do, all right ? ' said I. 
 
 " ' I '11 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 
 
 140
 
 PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS 
 
 to Church together for Christmas. ' Same to you, 
 Cap'n ! ' he called out, and sheered off with a wave 
 o' the hand, having made the boat fast astern. 
 
 " I stared after him for a bit, and then I turned 
 my attention to the Maid in Two Minds. Her boat, 
 too, lay astern of her ; and one of her crew was 
 already on deck, swabbin' down. After a bit, 
 another showed up. But Dog Mitchell made no 
 appearance. 
 
 " Nat' rally enough my thoughts ran on him durin' 
 breakfast ; and, when 'twas done, I dressed myself 
 and pulled over to inquire. By this time all three 
 of his mates were on deck, and as I pulled close they 
 drew together — much as to ask what I wanted. 
 
 " ' I came across,' says I, ' to ask after the boss. 
 Is he all right this morning ? ' 
 
 Why not ? ' asked one o' the men, suspicious- 
 like, with a glance at the others. They were all 
 pretty yellow in the gills after their night 
 ashore. 
 
 What 's up ? ' says Dog Mitchell's own voice 
 on top o' this : and the man heaved himself on deck 
 and looked down on me. 
 
 " ' It 's the skipper of the Early and Late,' said 
 one of the fellows grinning ; ' as seems to say he has 
 the pleasure o' your acquaintance.' 
 
 " ' Does he ? ' said Dog Mitchell slowly, chewing. 
 The man's eyes were bleared yet, but the drink had 
 gone out of him with his shock : or the few hours' 
 sleep had picked him round. He hardened his eyes 
 
 141
 
 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 of 
 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. 
 
 J 43
 
 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 
 
 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 " I began. 
 
 " 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'hote. 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 
 
 145 
 10
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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, Sebillot by name — and at 
 first, I may 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 arrosed the dinner 
 with about a pint of Bordeaux ; nothing to count. 
 We looked at each other straight. I said, ' Be a man, 
 Jinks ! A voire sante 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 Sebillot 
 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 Bias 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 aimchairs 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 porch way, 
 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 Sebillot — which leaves him 
 two for the wedding. I thought that you and I 
 
 149
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 might have some fun with them. . . . Now tell 
 me your experience.'" 
 
 " That," said I, " 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 ? " 
 
 "Asa matter of fact she did not." 
 
 " I bet she didn'. Mind you, / 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 
 
 151
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 about the same time. Aw, my 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 '11 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. 
 
 152
 
 THE MONT-BAZILLAC 
 
 " You d'know, I dare say, what a craze the Missus 
 have a-took o' late against the drinkin' habit. Sally, 
 the parlourmaid, told me as how, first along, th' 
 old lady set out by hintin' that the Bishop, bein' a 
 respecter o' conscience, wouldn' look for anything 
 stronger on the table than home-brewed lemonade. 
 But there the Vicar struck ; and findin' no way to 
 shake him, she made terms by outin' with two 
 bottles o' wine that, to her scandal, she 'd rummaged 
 out from a cupboard o' young Master Dick's since he 
 went back to Oxford College. She decanted 'em 
 [chuckle], an' th' old Vicar allowed, havin' tasted 
 the stuff, that — though he had lost the run o' wine 
 lately, an' didn' reckernise whether 'twas port or 
 what-not — seemin' to him 'twas a sound wine and fit 
 for any gentleman's table. ' Well, at any rate/ 
 says the Missus, ' my boy shall be spared the tempta- 
 tion : an' I hope 'tis no sign he 's betaken hisself to 
 secret drinkin' ! ' 
 
 " Well, then, it was decanted : an' Hancock and 
 Truslove, nothin' doubtful, begun to lap it up like so 
 much milk — the Vicar helpin', and the Missus rather 
 encouragin' than not, to the extent o' the first 
 decanter ; thinkin' that 'twas good riddance to the 
 stuff and that if the Bishop turned up, he wouldn't 
 look, as a holy man, for more than ha'f a bottle. 
 I 'm tellin' it you as Sally told it to me. She says 
 that everything went on as easy as eggs in a nest 
 until she started to hand round the sweets, and all 
 of a sudden she didn' know what was happenin' at 
 
 i53
 
 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 I . . ." 
 
 " 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. 
 
 J 54
 
 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. Sebillot's 
 daughter — perished finally from earth. I wonder 
 what happened in Bergerac on that occasion, and if 
 it had a comparable apotheosis ! 
 
 *55
 
 The Three Necklaces 
 
 " A great nation ! " said the little Cure. " 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, 
 
 i57
 
 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 Cure, 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 
 lie 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 
 lie 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 lie 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 
 
 158
 
 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 lie Lezan ! " 
 
 Well, the end of it was that before we parted on 
 the quay at Brest 1 found myself under half a promise, 
 and a week later, having (as I put it to rr^self) 
 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 Cure 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 dejeuner — 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 lie 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 
 ooze. From the roof depended three or four rudely- 
 
 i5'
 
 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 lie 
 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 cceur 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 owo 
 it all. ... I have said so to Lucien, and just 
 
 1 60
 
 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 lie 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 lie Lezan — women-folk 
 especially ; accidents at the fishery keep down the 
 men. 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 lie 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 
 
 161 
 11
 
 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-a-terre in tie 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 lie 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 
 
 162
 
 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-a-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 lie Lezan. 
 The letter came as he was on the point of departing 
 for another six weeks on lie 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 lie 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 
 
 163
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 the terrible news. Even the lighthouse keepers on 
 lie 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 
 j ewels. 
 
 " 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 
 
 165
 
 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 lie 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 
 
 1 66
 
 THE THREE NECKLACES 
 
 he lives in a chateau 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 an ancestor — a 
 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 comer 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. 
 
 167
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 Once while I argued, here in lie 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 Jived 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 lie 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 
 
 16S
 
 THE THREE NECKLACES 
 
 little compared with the secret he carried. His- 
 marriage now was assured, and that first evening — 
 the Eve of Noel — 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 
 
 Pere 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.' 
 
 169
 
 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 Leon. . . 
 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 
 Noel, when the children of the parish help me to 
 deck the creche 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 
 
 1 70
 
 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 Noel. 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 
 creche, 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 apiece, 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 I ' 
 
 171
 
 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 lie Lezan to the greater glory of 
 God ! ' " 
 
 On our way back to his lodging the little Cure 
 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 
 Cure. 
 
 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 
 
 i73
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 
 174
 
 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 
 
 *75
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 •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 
 one. 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 
 
 176
 
 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 
 
 177 
 12
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 wren. " 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." 
 
 *F t* *J* *F 
 
 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 
 
 178
 
 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 '11 heat it to-night after supper," said Young 
 John. 
 
 ■JC 3|C 9|C 3|G 
 
 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 fihgree 
 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 
 
 179
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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. 
 
 180
 
 Not Here, 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. . . . 
 
 1S1
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 
 182
 
 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 
 
 183
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 
 184
 
 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 
 
 185
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 
 186
 
 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. 
 
 187
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " 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 
 
 18S
 
 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. 
 189
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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. He was 
 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, 
 
 190
 
 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 : 
 
 191
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 
 
 192
 
 NOT HERE, O APOLLO ! 
 
 of December last (1718). That night, about 
 11 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 Pare 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 
 
 i93 
 13
 
 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 
 
 i95
 
 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. 
 
 I( J7
 
 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 or 
 Ill-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 
 
 200
 
 FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM 
 
 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, was 
 abnormally light : it comprised one 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 '11 
 have a word with Selina afterwards. She used to 
 attend my Young Women's Class — one of my most 
 satisfactory girls." 
 
 " We '11 see— we '11 see," said the Admiral. " Are 
 we ready, gentlemen ? " 
 
 He led the way into Court, where all rose in sign 
 of respect — Mr. Batty's confidential clerk, the 
 Inspector, a solitary constable, 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 
 at her spouse. 
 
 202
 
 FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM 
 
 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 '11 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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " Forty shillings, or a month ! " 
 
 "Oh, come — I say ! " Lord Rattley murmured. 
 
 The Admiral, glancing to right and left, saw too 
 that three or four of his colleagues were lifting their 
 eyebrows in polite protest. 
 
 ' I — I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for not 
 consulting you ! Correct me, if you will. I would 
 point out, however, that in addition to the offence 
 with which he is charged, this fellow was guilty of 
 violent and disgusting language, and, further, of 
 resisting the police." 
 
 But his colleagues made no further protest, and 
 Thomas Edwards, having but two coppers to his 
 name, was conducted below to the cellarage, there to 
 await transference to the County Jail. 
 
 " Selina Trudgian ! " 
 
 The Admiral, viewing the young couple as they 
 stood sheepishly before him, commanded Selina to 
 state her complaint as briefly as possible, avoiding 
 tears. 
 
 But this was beyond her. 
 
 " He came home drunk, your Worship," she 
 sobbed, twisting her handkerchief. 
 
 " I didn'," corrected her husband. 
 
 " He came home d-drunk, your Worship . . . 
 he c-came home d-drunk " 
 
 " Now hearken to me, you two ! " 
 
 The Admiral, fixing a severe eye on them, started 
 to read them a lesson on married life, with its 
 daily discipline, its constant obligation of mutual 
 
 204
 
 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 ringer-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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 began to slide upon him, and with an uproar of 
 cracking timber, table, chairs, magistrates, clerks, 
 together, in one burial blent, were shot downwards 
 into the cellarage. 
 
 The Inspector — a tall man — staggering to his feet 
 as the table slid from him into the chasm, leapt and 
 clutched a crazy chandelier that depended above him. 
 His weight tore it bodily from the ceiling, with a 
 torrential downrush of dust and plaster, sweeping 
 him over the edge of the gulf and overwhelming the 
 Trudgians, husband and wife, on the brink of it. 
 
 At this moment the constable, fresh from locking 
 up Thomas Edwards below, returned, put his head 
 in at the door, gasped at sight of a devastation which 
 had swallowed up every human being, and with 
 great presence of mind, ran as hard as he could pelt 
 for the hamlet of High Lanes, half a mile away, to 
 summon help. 
 
 Now the Inspector, as it happened, was unhurt. 
 Picking himself up, digging his heels into the moraine 
 of plaster, and brushing the grit from his eyes, he 
 had the pleasure of recognising Lord Rattley, the 
 Parson, Mr. Humphry Felix-Williams (son of Sir 
 Felix), and Mr. Batty, as they scrambled forth 
 successively, black with dust but unhurt, save that 
 the Parson had received a slight scalp-wound. 
 Then Mr. Humphry caught sight of a leg clothed in 
 paternal shepherd's-plaid, and tugged at it until 
 Sir Felix was restored, choking, to the light of day — 
 or rather, to the Cimmerian gloom of the cellarage, 
 
 206
 
 FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM 
 
 in which an unexpected figure now confronted 
 them. 
 
 It was 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, , , stir your- 
 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 
 word. 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, / 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 
 ihe 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." 
 
 209 
 14
 
 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
 
 Tke Honour of the Skip 
 
 " '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 '"■illy reported 
 next day in the local newspapers. The weather 
 promised to be propitious. 
 
 Just now (n 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. 
 
 21 1
 
 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 '11 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 Swallow — an 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 '11 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 
 
 Half an hour later, having detached himself gently 
 from his escort, Mr. Harris wandered back to the 
 upper deck. 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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 The Schoolmaster was fairly taken aback. He 
 stared for a moment and shifted his helm, so to 
 speak, with a grin of intelligence and a short 
 laugh. 
 
 " Not quite so bad as that, sir," he remonstrated. 
 " It 's — it 's — well, you may call it the atmosphere. 
 On Speech-day the ship fairly reeks of it." 
 
 " And, like the pork, eh ! it 's just a little bit 
 * off ' ? " suggested the visitor, returning his smile. 
 " By the way, I want to ask you a question or two 
 about a boy. His name is Link — Something-or- 
 other." 
 
 " Link Andrew ? " The Schoolmaster gave him 
 a quick look. " You don't tell me he 's in trouble 
 again ? Not been annoying you, sir, I hope ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I 've take a fancy to the lad ; 
 and, by the way again, Link can't be his real name ? " 
 
 " Short for Abraham Lincoln, as baptised," 
 explained the Schoolmaster. " At least, that \s one 
 theory. According to another it 's short for ' Missing 
 Link.' Not that the boy 's bad-looking ; but did you 
 happen to notice the length of his arms — like a 
 gorilla's ? " 
 
 " I could not avoid it." 
 
 Mr. Harris related the incident. 
 
 " It was exceedingly kind of you, sir, to pass over 
 his conduct so lightly. The fact is, if Link Andrew 
 had been reported again he 'd have lost his hammock 
 in the yacht. We all want him to go : some to get 
 rid of him for a spell, and others because we can't 
 
 218
 
 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 '11 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 received — or 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 ; had leaned, 
 perhaps, against the very rail on which Mr. Harris's 
 
 •220
 
 THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP 
 
 hand rested. . . . And the function went off very 
 well The boys clambered down upon deck again, 
 the band played — 
 
 " 'Tis a Fine Old English Gentleman," 
 
 and all gathered about the awning. Sh Felix, 
 nobly expansive in a buff waistcoat, cleared his 
 throat and spoke of the Empire in a way calculated 
 to bring tears to the eyes. The prize-giving followed. 
 As it proceeded Mr. Harris stole down the poop- 
 ladder and edged his way around the back of the 
 crowd to the waist of the ship, where the boys were 
 drawn up with a few officers interspersed to keep 
 discipline. He arrived there just as Link Andrew 
 returned from the dais with two books — the boxing 
 and gymnasium prize. The boy was foaming at the 
 mouth. 
 
 " See, here — Fights for the Flag ! And, on top of 
 it, Deeds What Won the Silly Empire ! And the old 
 blighter 'oped that I 'd be a good boy, and grow up, 
 and win some more. For the likes of him, he meant 
 — Yuss, I don't think ! ... Oh, hold my little 
 hand and check the tearful flow, for I 'm to be a 
 ship's boy at 'arf-a-crown a month, and go Empire 
 buildin' ! " 
 
 " There ! " said Mr. Harris, indicating a coil of 
 rope. " Sit down and have it out." 
 
 221
 
 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 '11 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 relieve my 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 
 
 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, " our 
 friend Link chooses to keep his past in watertight 
 compartments. Sit down and tell me about it." 
 
 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 Jenny cliff 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 '11 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. 
 
 225 
 15
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " ' 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. ' No go,' 
 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 '11 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 Lapenotiere 
 
 The night porter at the Admiralty had been sleeping 
 in his chair. He was red-eyed and wore his livery 
 coat buttoned at random. He grumbled to himself 
 as he opened the great door. 
 
 He carried a glass-screened candle, and held it 
 somewhat above 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 Lapenotiere, 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 Lapenotiere, 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 Lapenotiere 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 savin' " 
 
 " 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 '11 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 Lapenotiere pointed to his left arm. 
 Around the sleeve a black scarf was knotted. 
 
 " Dead, sir," the night porter hushed his 
 voice. 
 
 " Dead," echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, staring 
 at the Turkey carpet, of which the six candles, 
 gaining strength, barely illumined 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- 
 tiere, 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 ... It was 
 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 
 
 234
 
 LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE 
 
 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. 
 
 But no . . . 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 
 Lapenotiere 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 
 
 " Good evening ! — or perhaps, to be correct, good 
 morning ! You are Mr. " 
 
 " Lapenotiere," answered the Lieutenant, who had 
 turned sharply. The voice — a gentleman's and 
 pleasantly modulated — was not one he knew ; nor 
 did he recognise the speaker — a youngish, shrewd- 
 looking man, dressed in civilian black, with knee- 
 breeches. " Lapenotiere — 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 Lapenotiere 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 Lapenotiere 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 his breeches and cursing vigorously ; 
 
 236
 
 LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE 
 
 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 . . . Tis past 
 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 Molns papers," said Mr. Secretary Tylney. 
 
 " Ha ? " Then, to the valet, " The dressing-gown 
 there ! Don't fumble ! ... So this is Captain 
 
 " Lieutenant, sir, Lapenotiere, commanding the 
 Pickle schooner." 
 
 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 Lapenotiere, 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 Lapenotiere 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 " 
 
 Here Lieutenant Lapenotiere, 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 LAPENOT1ERE 
 
 it : but recovered himself in another moment and 
 went on — 
 
 " He told me, my lord, that the Victory after 
 passing under the Buccntaure'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. At any 
 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. 
 
 241 
 16
 
 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 Lapenotiere, 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 
 Lapenotiere 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 ! " asjthe 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 
 
 2 43
 
 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
 
 LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE 
 
 Secretary. " Seems almost a shame to waken 
 him." 
 
 The lieutenant opened his eyes and jumped to his 
 feet with an apology. Lord Barham had gone, and 
 the Secretary hard by was speaking to the night 
 porter, who bent over the fire, raking it with a poker. 
 The hands of the Queen Anne clock indicated a 
 quarter to six. 
 
 " The First Lord would like a talk with you . . . 
 later in the day," said Mr. Tylney gravely, smiling 
 a little these last words. He himself was white and 
 haggard. " He suggested the early afternoon, say 
 half-past two. That will give you time for a round 
 sleep . . . You might leave me the name of your 
 hotel, in case he should wish to send for you before 
 that hour." 
 
 " The Swan with Two Necks, Lad Lane, Cheap- 
 side," said Lieutenant Lapenotiere. 
 
 He knew little of London, and gave the name of 
 the hostelry at which, many years ago, he had 
 alighted from a West-country coach with his box 
 and midshipman's kit ... A moment later he 
 found himself wondering if it still existed as a house 
 of entertainment. Well, he must go and seek it. 
 
 The Secretary shook hands with him, smiling 
 wanly. 
 
 " Few men, sir, have been privileged to carry such 
 news as you have brought us to-night." 
 
 " And I went to sleep after delivering it," said 
 Lieutenant Lapenotiere, smiling back. 
 
 245
 
 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 Lapenotiere ? ' 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 Lapenotiere, 
 his hand going to his pocket. The post-boy's smile, 
 or so much as could be seen of it by the edge of the 
 lamp, grew more knowing. 
 
 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, T 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 '11 let me have it back, sir ? — for a 
 memento," the post-boy pleaded. Lieutenant 
 Lapenotiere took it from him — a plain half-sheet of 
 note-paper roughly folded. On it was scribbled 
 in pencil, back hand-wise, " Lt. Lapenotiere. 
 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. 
 
 247
 
 MEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " Very well, then. For Merton." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The house lay but a very little distance beyond 
 "Wimbledon. Its blinds were drawn as Lieutenant 
 Lapenotiere 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 Lapenotiere 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. 
 
 24,
 
 The Cask Ashore 
 
 (1807) 
 
 Rum for Bond 
 
 At the head of a diminutive creek of the Tamar 
 River, a little above Saltash on the Cornish shore, 
 stands the village of Botusfleming ; and in early 
 summer, when its cherry-orchards come into bloom, 
 you will search far before finding a prettier. 
 
 The years have dealt gently with Botusfleming. 
 As it is to-day, so — or nearly so— it was on a certain 
 sunny afternoon in the year 1807, when the Reverend 
 Edward Spettigew, Curate -in -Charge, sat in the 
 garden before his cottage and smoked his pipe while 
 he meditated a sermon. That is to say, he intended 
 to meditate a sermon. But the afternoon was 
 warm : the bees hummed drowsily among the wall- 
 flowers and tulips. From the bench his eyes 
 followed the vale's descent between overlapping 
 billows of cherry blossom to a gap wherein shone 
 the silver Tamar— not, be it understood, the part 
 called Hamoaze, where lay the warships and the 
 
 251
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 hulks containing the French prisoners, but an upper 
 reach seldom troubled by shipping. 
 
 Parson Spettigew laid the book face-downwards 
 on his knee while his lips murmured a part of the 
 text he had chosen : ' A place of broad rivers and 
 streams . . . wherein shall go no galley with 
 oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. . . .' 
 His pipe~went out. The book slipped from his knee 
 to the ground. He slumbered. 
 
 The garden gate rattled, and he awoke with a 
 start. Tn the pathway below him stood a sailor ; 
 a middle-sized, middle-aged man, rigged out in best 
 shore-going clothes — shiny tarpaulin hat, blue coat 
 and waistcoat, shirt open at the throat, and white 
 duck trowsers with broad-buckled waistbelt. 
 
 " Beggin ' your Reverence's pardon," began the 
 visitor, touching the brim of his hat, and then upon 
 second thoughts uncovering, "but my name's J ope 
 — Ben J ope." 
 
 " Eh ? . . . What can I do for you ? " asked 
 Parson Spettigew, a trifle flustered at being caught 
 napping. 
 
 " — of the Vesoovius bomb, bo's'n," pursued 
 Mr. Jope, with a smile that disarmed annoyance, 
 so ingenuous it was, so friendly, and withal so 
 respectful : " but paid off at eight this morning. 
 Maybe your Reverence can tell me whereabouts to 
 find an embalmer in these parts ? " 
 
 " A— a what ? " 
 
 252
 
 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
 
 THE CASK ASHORE 
 
 worn, but as a fringe beneath his clean-shaven 
 chin. 
 
 " Well, here we are ! " announced Mr. Jope 
 cheerfully. " Your Reverence knows A. Grigg and 
 Son, and the others you can trust in all weathers ; 
 bein' William Adams, otherwise Bill, and Eli Tonkin 
 — friends o' mine an' shipmates both." 
 
 The tall seaman touched his hat by way of 
 acknowledging the introduction. 
 
 " But — but I only see one ! " protested Parson 
 Spettigew. 
 
 " This here 's Bill Adams," said Mr. Jope, and 
 again the tall seaman touched his hat. "Is it Eli 
 you're missin' ? He's in the cask." 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " We '11 hoick him up to the store, Bill, if you 're- 
 ready ? It looks a nice cool place. And while 
 you 're prizin' him open, I 'd best explain to his 
 Reverence and the barber. Here, unship the shore- 
 plank ; and you, A. Grigg and Son, lend a hand to 
 heave . . . Ay, you 're right : it weighs more 'n 
 a trifle — bein' a quarter-puncheon, an' the 
 best proof -spirits. Tilt her this way . 
 Ready ? . . . then w'y-ho ! and away she 
 goes ! 
 
 With a heave and a lurch that canted the boat 
 until the water poured over her gunwale, the huge 
 tub was rolled overside into shallow water. The 
 recoil, as the boat righted herself, cast the small 
 barber off his balance, and he fell back over a 
 
 2 55
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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. J ope 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 '11 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. J ope, turning to the 
 Parson. " Which you '11 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 '11 
 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 ; 
 
 257 
 17
 
 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 
 how 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. 
 
 " W 7 ell, 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 
 
 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 Botusneming — 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 '11 be 
 paid off in ten days or so, an' there 's a trifle o' 
 prize money, too. What price '11 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 '11 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 '11 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 
 
 259
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 re-shipped it as you see. First along we intended no 
 more than just to break the news to Eli's mother, 
 an' hand him over to her ; but Bill reckoned that to 
 hand him over, cask an' all, would look careless ; 
 for (as he said) 'twasn' as if you could bury 'im in 
 a cask. We allowed your Reverence would draw 
 the line at that, though we hadn' the pleasure o' 
 knowin' you at the time." 
 
 " Yes," agreed the Parson, as Mr. Jope paused, 
 " I fear it could not be done without scandal." 
 
 " That 's just how Bill put it. * Well then,' says 
 I, thinkin' it over, ' why not do the handsome 
 while we 're about it ? You an' me ain't the sort 
 of men,' I says, ' to spoil the ship for a ha'porth o' tar.' 
 * Certainly we ain't,' says Bill. ' An' we 've done a 
 lot for Eli,' says I. ' We have,' says Bill. ' Well 
 then,' says I, ' let 's put a coat o' paint on the 
 whole business, an' have him embalmed.' Bill was 
 enchanted." 
 
 " I — I beg your pardon," put in the barber, 
 edging away a pace. 
 
 " Bill was enchanted. Hark to him in the store, 
 there, knockin' away at the chisel." 
 
 " But there 's some misunderstanding," the little 
 man protested earnestly. " I understood it was to 
 be a shave." 
 
 " You can shave him, too, if you like." 
 
 "HI th — thought you were s — serious " 
 
 " Have some more brandy." Mr. Jope pulled out 
 and proffered a flask. " Only don't overdo it, or 
 
 260
 
 THE CASK ASHORE 
 
 it '11 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. J ope 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. J ope 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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " Take an' see for yourself," answered Mr. Adams 
 darkly, pointing with his chisel. 
 
 A fine fragrance of rum permeated the store. 
 
 Mr. J ope advanced, and peered into the staved 
 cask. 
 
 " Gone ? " he exclaimed, and gazed around 
 blankly. 
 
 Bill Adams nodded. 
 
 " But where ? . . . You don't say he 's 
 dissolved ? " 
 
 " It ain't the usual way o' rum. An' it is rum ? " 
 
 Bill appealed to the Parson. 
 
 " By the smell, undoubtedly." 
 
 " I tell you what 's happened. That fool of a 
 Wilkins has made a mistake in the cask. . . ." 
 
 " An' Eli ?— oh, Lord ! " gasped Mr. Jope. 
 
 " They '11 have returned Eli to the Victuallin' 
 Yard before this," said Bill gloomily. " I overheard 
 Wilkins sayin' as he was to pass over all stores an' 
 accounts at nine-thirty this mornin'." 
 
 " An', once there, who knows where he 's got 
 mixed ? . . . He '11 go the round o' the Fleet, 
 may be. Oh, my word, an' the ship that broaches 
 him ! " 
 
 Bill Adams opened and shut his mouth quickly, 
 like a fish ashore. 
 
 " They '11 reckon they 've got a lucky-bag," he 
 said weakly. 
 
 "An' Wilkins paid off with the rest, an' no 
 address, even if he could help — which I doubt." 
 
 262
 
 THE CASK ASHORE 
 
 i ( 
 
 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. J ope, 
 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 '11 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- 
 tr es, 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 J ope — 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. " What 
 can I do for you, sir ? " she asked. 
 
 " Two pots 0' 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. 
 
 265
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 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 '11 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 '11 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." 
 
 267
 
 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. J ope 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 coiners, 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 
 
 269
 
 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 '11 be a cellar-door for sartin," Mr. J ope 
 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. J ope 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- 
 
 270
 
 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 
 
 271
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 crypt, leading down to a stone archway. The arch- 
 way was closed by an iron-studded door. 
 
 " It's like goin' to church," commented Mr. Jope, 
 bating his voice. " Where's the candles, Bill ? " 
 
 " In the barrer long wi' the bread an' bacon." 
 
 " Then step back and fetch 'em." 
 
 But from the foot of the stairs Mr. Jope presently 
 called up that this was unnecessary, for the door had 
 opened to his hand — smoothly, too, and without 
 noise ; but he failed to note this as strange, being 
 taken aback for the moment by a strong draught of 
 air that met him, blowing full in his face. 
 
 "There's daylight here, too, of a sort," he re- 
 ported : and so there was. It pierced the darkness 
 in a long shaft, slanting across from a doorway 
 of which the upper panel stood open to the sky. 
 
 " Funny way o' leavin' a house," he muttered, as 
 he stepped across the bare cellar floor and peered 
 forth. " Why, hullo, here 's water ! " 
 
 The cellar, in fact, stood close by the river's edge, 
 with a broad postern-sill actually overhanging the 
 tide, and a flight of steps, scarcely less broad, curving 
 up and around the south-west angle of the house. 
 
 While Mr. Jope studied these and the tranquil 
 river flowing, all grey and twilit, at his feet, Mr. 
 Adams had joined him and had also taken bearings. 
 
 " With a check-rope," said Mr. Adams, " — and I 
 got one in the barrer — we can lower it down here 
 easy." 
 
 He pointed to the steps. 
 
 272
 
 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 candle : 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. 
 
 273 
 18
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " 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 rilled 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 us ? Hundred an' twelve pound, 
 fourteen and six. That 's after paying for rum, 
 barrer and oddments. We could live," said Mr. 
 Jope, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing 
 the 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 '11 run away with 
 a heap of it. And then there '11 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' 
 
 274
 
 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 f riskiness 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. 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'." ' - j 
 
 275
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " 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 '11 
 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' 
 
 276
 
 THE CASK ASHORE 
 
 you 'd better not. Bill, why can't ye fill the gentle- 
 man's glass ? " 
 
 " Because the jug 's empty," answered Mr. Adams. 
 
 " Then slip down to the cellar again." 
 
 " No ! " Mr. Coyne almost screamed it, rising 
 from his chair. Dropping back weakly, he murmured, 
 panting, " Not for me : not on any account ! " His 
 face was pale, and for the moment all the aggressive- 
 ness had gone out of him. He lifted a hand weakly 
 to his heart. 
 
 " A sudden faintness," he groaned, closing his 
 eyes. " If you two men had any feelin's, you 'd offer 
 to see me home." 
 
 " The pair of us ? " asked Mr. J ope suavely. 
 
 " I scale over fourteen stone," murmured Mr. 
 Coyne, still with his eyes closed ; " an' a weight like 
 that is no joke." 
 
 Mr. J ope nodded. 
 
 " You 're right there ; so you 'd best give it over. 
 Sorry to seem heartless, sir, but 'tis for your good : 
 an' to walk home in your state would be a sin, when 
 we can fix you up a bed in the house." 
 
 Mr. Coyne opened his eyes, and they were twinkling 
 vindictively. 
 
 " Sleep in this house ? " he exclaimed. " I 
 wouldn't do it, not for a thousand pound ! " 
 
 " W'y not ? " 
 
 " You '11 find out ' why not,' safe enough, afore 
 the mornin' ! Why 'twas in kindness — pure kind- 
 ness — I asked the pair of ye to see me home. I 
 
 277
 
 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." 
 
 " O — 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. J ope, 
 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 
 
 278
 
 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 " 
 
 " Bill," said Mr. J ope, 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." 
 
 279
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 " Seemed to me it sounded from somewheres in 
 the cellar. Maybe you wouldn't mind steppin' down, 
 seein' as you don't take no interest in what Mr. 
 Coyne's tellin'." 
 
 " I 'm beginning to." 
 
 " The cellar 's the worst place of all," said Mr. 
 Coyne, blinking. " It 's there that the bodies were 
 found." 
 
 " Bodies ? " 
 
 " Bodies. Four of 'em. I was goin' to tell you 
 how he brought home another, havin' kept the third 
 poor lady to her rooms with some tale about a mad 
 dog starvin' to death in his shrubberies — he didn't 
 know where " 
 
 " If you don't mind," Mr. Jope interposed, " I 've 
 a notion to hear the rest o' the story some other 
 evenin'. It 's — it 's agreeable enough to bear spinnin' 
 out, an' I understand you 're a fixture in this neigh- 
 bourhood." 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Coyne, rising. " But wot 
 about you ? " 
 
 " I '11 tell you to-morrow." 
 
 Mr. Jope gripped the arms of his chair, having 
 uttered the bravest speech of his life. He sat for 
 a while, the sound of his own voice echoing strangely 
 in his ears, even when Mr. Coyne rose to take his 
 leave. 
 
 " Well, I can't help admirin' you," said Mr. Coyne 
 handsomely. " By the way the rent 's by the 
 quarter, an' in advance — fours into forty is ten ; I 
 
 280
 
 THE CASK ASHORE 
 
 mention it as a matter of business, and in case we 
 don't meet again." 
 
 Mr. J ope 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, 
 
 281
 
 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. J ope 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. J ope 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. J ope 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 
 
 2S2
 
 THE CASK ASHORE 
 
 sake ! " Still mechanically shielding his candle, 
 
 Mr. Jope staggered back a pace, and leaned against 
 the stone door-jamb for support. 
 
 " Here ! " sounded the voice of Bill, very faint in 
 the darkness. " Here ! fetch along the light, 
 quick ! " 
 
 " Wot 's it ? " 
 
 " Casks." 
 
 " Casks ? " 
 
 " Kegs, then. I ought to know," responded Bill 
 plaintively, " seing as I pretty near broke my leg on 
 one ! " 
 
 Mr. Jope peered forward, holding the light high. 
 In the middle of the cellar stood the quarter puncheon 
 and around it a whole regiment of small barrels. 
 Half doubting his eyesight, he stooped to examine 
 them. Around each keg was bound a sling of rope. 
 
 " Rope ? " muttered Mr. Jope, stooping. " Foreign 
 
 rope — left-handed rope " And with that of a 
 
 sudden he sat down on the nearest keg and began to 
 laugh. " The old varmint ! the darned old sinful 
 methodeerin' varmint ! " 
 
 " Oh, stow it, Ben ! Tisn' manly." But still 
 the unnatural laughter continued. " What in 
 thunder " 
 
 Bill Adams came groping between the kegs. 
 
 " Step an' bar the outer door, ye nincom ! Can't 
 you see ? There 's been a run o' goods ; an' while 
 that Coyne sat stuffin' us up with his ghosts, his boys 
 were down below here loadin' us up with neat furrin' 
 
 283
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 sperrits — loadin' us up, mark you. My blessed 
 word, the fun we '11 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. A grin, 
 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' ? " 
 
 284
 
 PART II
 
 Priam s Cellars 
 
 Priam's Cellars lie by the harbour-side over against 
 Troy Town, as is meet and proper : nor was their name 
 invented by me — you may find it on the Admiralty 
 charts. But as there are, or have been, Troys and 
 Troys, so the Priam here commemorated is not he 
 whom Neoptolemus slew. Indeed, there are found 
 folk who spell my Priam's name " Prime," or " Old 
 Prime," and insist that he derived it from the 
 quality of the beer he brewed here and purveyed. 
 He is dead and gone, anyhow, these many years ; 
 and the ale-house he kept open for seamen is now 
 a store for dunnage-wood, a ruin almost, upon a 
 dilapidated quay. 
 
 It must have been, as Mr. W. Bones described 
 The Admiral Benbow 'a pleasant sittyated grog- 
 shop ; ' but ticklish of access ; and (one may 
 surmise) even more ticklish for the retreating 
 guest. A steep cliff backs it ; cliff, with a foreshore 
 of rock and slippery weed, closes it in upon either 
 hand ; no road leads to it, nor even a footpath. 
 In short, it can only be reached by boat ; and of this 
 no doubt Mr. Priam, or Prime, took account when he 
 brewed. 
 
 287
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 From the cliff overhanging the rear of the cellars 
 a wilderness climbs the hillside, terrace by terrace ; 
 based with a line of sizeable trees that droop their 
 boughs to the high tides, and mounting through 
 orchards of apple, pear, plum, cherry, and thickets 
 of hawthorn, blackthorn, spindlewood, elder, to a 
 high amphitheatre which is all gorse and bracken, 
 with here and there a holly or an ilex standing up 
 from the undergrowth. The fruit trees are decrepit, 
 twisted with age or by the climbing ivy. The 
 cherries have reverted to savagery, and serve only 
 to make a pretty show of blossom in April. No one 
 knows when they were planted for human delight : 
 but planted they once were, and for that purpose, 
 for my wilderness six hundred years ago for certain — 
 and possibly seven or eight hundred 3'ears ago — was 
 a terraced garden, pleasance of the great house that 
 stood where now stands the farmstead of Hall, a 
 little beyond the brow of the hill. 
 
 Listen ; for this, if you please, is history. Some 
 time in the reign of King Edward II there sailed 
 into the harbour below a young knight, Sir Reginald 
 de Mohun by name, with a company of soldiers 
 drafted for Ireland — our port being in those days 
 a frequent rendezvous for the Irish wars. Now either 
 the expedition was held windbound, or some units 
 were late in arriving ; at all events, young 
 Sir Reginald, being detained here, landed one day 
 to kill time, and let fly his hawk at some game. 
 Hawk and quarry fell together into this garden, 
 
 288
 
 PRIAM'S CELLARS 
 
 then owned by Sir John FitzWilliam, of Hall, who 
 held £20 per annum of land of King Edward with 
 " summons to attend the King in parts beyond the 
 sea," as his ancestors had held it since the Conquest. 
 But he had no sons. His sole heir was his daughter 
 Elizabeth. As she wandered in her garden, young 
 Mohun, bursting in hotfoot to reclaim his hawk, 
 came face to face with her, " and," concludes the 
 chronicle, " being a very handsome personable 
 young gentleman, qualities which his descendants 
 retained to the last, the young lady fell in love with 
 him : and, having a great fortune, the match was 
 soon made up between them by the consent of their 
 friends on both sides." 
 
 This Reginald de Mohun was the fourth or fifth 
 son of John de Mohun, Lord of Dunster, in Somerset ; 
 and the Mohuns of Dunster had been great folk 
 since the Conquest and before. "Be it known," 
 says Leland, " that in the year of the grace of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ one thousand and sixty-six, on 
 Saturday the feast of St. Calixtus, came William the 
 Bastard, Duke of Normandy, cousin of the noble 
 King St. Edward, the son of Emma of England, and 
 killed King Harold, and took away the land from 
 him by the aid of the Normans and other men of 
 divers lands : among whom came with him Sir 
 William de Moion the old, the most noble of all the 
 host." But Leland must have copied some flattering 
 document. Moion or Mohun was no more noble 
 and no more powerful than Mowbray or Marmion, 
 
 289 
 19
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 Bigot or Mortimer, Montfichet or Lacy or Courcy. 
 Still, he was noble and powerful enough. 
 
 Le viel William dc 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 
 
 290
 
 PRIAM'S CELLARS 
 
 Dukes or to Earls ; therefore we will that you shall 
 be Earl of Este ' ; that is, of Somerset. Reginald 
 answered and said, ' O Holy Father, I have not 
 wherewithal to maintain the title.' The Apostle 
 therefore gave him two hundred marks a year, to 
 be received at the Choir of St. Paul's, in London, 
 out of the pence* of England, to maintain his 
 position." So Sir Reginald returned home with the 
 Papal bulls confirming his title, his pension, and his 
 new Abbey, and henceforward the sleeved hand 
 which he bore on his coat-of-arms (gules, a manche 
 argent) is depicted with Pope Innocent's flower in 
 its grasp. 
 
 You perceive, then, that this other Sir Reginald, 
 whom we have left an unconscionable while face to 
 face with Elizabeth FitzWilliam in the garden, was 
 scion of a very noble stock indeed. For a generation 
 or two the Dunster house continued to increase in 
 dignities. One of its daughters married a prince of 
 the blood royal. The last of its sons won special 
 favour in Court and camp, Edward III including 
 him among the twenty-five original Knights of the 
 Garter, and the Black Prince presenting him with 
 a war horse, Grizel Gris by name. But he died 
 without male issue, and his widow, Joan de Burg- 
 hersh, promptly sold the barony of Dunster, lock, 
 stock and barrel, to pass after her death to the 
 Lady Elizabeth Luttrell. Five hundred marks 
 (£3>333 6s. 8d., an enormous sum in those days) was 
 
 * Peter's pence. 
 291
 
 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 honor es. 
 
 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 
 
 292
 
 PRIAM'S CELLARS 
 
 gracious in his own country." At all events, he 
 quitted himself well in the victory of Stamford Hill 
 by Stratton : and in the later campaign of the West, 
 which ended in Essex surrendering an army, enter- 
 tained His Majesty at his new house of Boconnoc, 
 some few miles to the northward of the old family 
 seat. " From thence," I quote from a rough diary 
 kept by one Richard Symonds, a Royalist lieutenant, 
 " Satterday, 17 Aug. 1644, his Majestie went to 
 Lanteglos, to the manor house belonging to the Lord 
 Mohun just over against Troye, where his royall 
 person ventred to goe into a walke there which is 
 within halfe musket-shott from Troye, where a poore 
 fisherman was killed in looking over at the same time 
 that his Majestie was in the walke, and in the place 
 where the King a little afore passed by." This walk 
 runs just above our garden, and last year in digging 
 we happened upon a round shot of the period. 
 
 I fancy that Clarendon was not alone in misliking 
 Lord Mohun, and that the race had already developed 
 some of those unamiable qualities which culminated 
 in Charles, the fourth and last baron — " bloody 
 Mohun," the villain of Thackeray's Esmond. For his 
 career and the fatal duel with the Duke of Hamilton 
 you are referred to the pages of that immortal 
 novel. He was a bad man, and his wife no better 
 a woman ; who, when his body came home, swore at 
 the bearers for making a nasty mess of her clean 
 linen sheets. So he perished and went to his place : 
 but I have sometimes amused myself with picturing 
 
 293
 
 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 
 
 294
 
 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 
 
 111 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, 
 
 295
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 Shoot down an unbought banquet on the board. 
 Him first would Spring her rose, him first afford 
 Autumn her apples. Winter next unkind 
 Might split the rock with ice, the streamlet bind, 
 But forth he 'd chirp to crop the hyacinth's head, 
 Twitting the tardy heats, the west wind slug-a-bed. 
 
 Even such a man was Little Tonkin — the epitheton 
 ornans always went with the surname. In the prime 
 of life he had taken tenancy of this wilderness, and 
 for years he grappled with it — hacking down under- 
 growth, rebuilding old terraces ; digging, weeding, 
 planting, watering ; reclaiming plot after plot, 
 winning all the while. The garden, strange to say, 
 was waterless ; or, to be accurate, it included a 
 square yard or two of plashy soil where some ooze 
 might be collected in a sunken bucket. He soon 
 acquired a permanent stoop from the constant 
 haulage of water barrels and portage of manure in 
 " maunds " or great wicker baskets up and down the 
 toilsome slopes. 
 
 I dare say the man himself never knew accurately 
 when the tide turned against him and the tragedy 
 began. One year he built himself a vinery ; the 
 next a peach-house. After this, as was meet, he 
 took things easily for a while ; yet went on enlarging 
 his bounds. Then followed half a dozen years during 
 which his conquests languished, paused, stood still. 
 And then — I have often wondered at what point, 
 in what form, the assaulted wilderness found its 
 Joan of Arc. At all events the briers and brambles 
 
 296
 
 PRIAM'S CELLARS 
 
 rallied somehow, stood up to him, pressed in upon 
 him, and began slowly to drive him back. Poor 
 Little Tonkin ! 
 
 Time, not Corydon, hath conquer'd thee ! 
 
 Even in the days when we children praised his 
 strawberries — no such strawberries as Little Tonkin's ! 
 — he was a beaten man. Year by year, on one excuse 
 or another, an outpost, a foot or two, a rod of ground, 
 would be surrendered and left to be reclaimed by 
 the weeds. They were the assailants now, and they 
 had him on the run ; until there came a summer and 
 found my friend at bay in a small patch by the 
 vinery, with a line of last retreat barely open along 
 a nettle-grown orchard to the peach-house, once his 
 pride. 
 
 I may call him my friend, for in those sad latter 
 days he came often to consult with me ; not seeking 
 help — which indeed could not have been offered 
 without offence to his pride. I gathered that, albeit 
 well-disposed towards everyone, and living his life 
 through among neighbours well disposed towards 
 him, he had never found one upon whom he had 
 cared to unburden his heart ; and I think that his 
 wife's long illness had closed that best part of 
 married life, the sweet sharing of troubles. He 
 could not at any rate confide in her — might not even 
 let her suspect — the one awful shadow of his life. 
 
 She must die before him. As God was merciful 
 that must assuredly happen ! Otherwise, what in 
 
 297
 
 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 
 to say, " can better be discussed in my house than 
 in yours." In any event, I should have gone to 
 
 298
 
 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, 
 knowing 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 
 
 299
 
 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 — mats 
 oil sont les /raises d'antan ? or words to that effect. 
 " Heavens ! " I cried, " and it belongs to me I " 
 " 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 Uttering the ground 
 
 300
 
 PRIAM'S CELLARS 
 
 with broken panes, had lifted its framework bodily 
 and carried it to the branches of an ash some twenty 
 paces distant, where it dangled to wind and rain. 
 There, stripping the ivies, we disclosed a terrace wall, 
 with steps leading up to a bastion where a belvedere 
 had once stood. Here — its tenement decayed and 
 dropped like an old skirt about its feet — a peach 
 tree climbed the face of the rock ; while there, again, 
 over another terrace, sprawled a bush of the Seven 
 Sisters rose, of a girth not to be compassed by us 
 though we tried all to join hands around it. 
 
 But best of all was our finding of water. 
 
 The credit of it, which is disputed by two of us, 
 does not at any rate belong to Euergetes (I call our 
 boatman Euergetes, because the name so differs 
 from his real one that neither he nor his family will 
 recognise it) ; and this, although it was his foot that, 
 happening to sink in a plashet among the ferns, put 
 us on the track. When, after acclaiming the dis- 
 covery, we seized spade and pick and began to dig, 
 Euergetes took a sardonic view of the whole business. 
 To our enthusiasm he opposed an indifference in 
 manner respectful enough, but deadly critical in 
 effect ; would return to the subject of water as if 
 by an effort of memory, lost no occasion to leave us 
 and resume his work of stripping away ivy to give 
 the trees air and sunlight, and plainly nursed the 
 pleasure of conveying to us at the last that we were 
 all fools, and he, if consulted, could have warned us. 
 
 The plashet lay but a few yards from the shallow 
 
 301
 
 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 
 
 302
 
 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 I. — 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 — 
 
 303
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 Rule II. — We resolved to treat our wilderness as 
 a wilderness, and not to fash ourselves over anv rights 
 of property. Decent precautions against theft we 
 might take, and against trespass ; but neither theft 
 nor trespass should be allowed to upset our tempers. 
 To this resolution we have kept pretty constant ; 
 and, if they cannot quite understand us, the crews 
 of these vessels are coming to know us. For an 
 instance — the season before last was a great one 
 for apples, and it occurred to us to fill a couple of 
 maunds and carry them off to the crew of the Nostra 
 Signora del Rosario, anchored below ; a light- 
 hearted crowd that, to the strains of a mandolin, 
 had delighted us through one Sunday afternoon by 
 their dancing. At first, as we rowed alongside, they 
 did not understand ; they waved us off ; they were 
 not buying. When in broken English, mixed up 
 with the recollections of Dante, I managed to convey 
 to them that the apples were a gift for their kindly 
 acceptance, all caps flew off. But the best happened 
 some ten days later when, reading a book in my own 
 garden lower down the harbour, I looked up to see 
 an Italian barque passing seaward in charge of a tug, 
 and dipping her flag ; whereupon, dropping Calderon, 
 I hurried to my own flagstaff and dipped the British 
 ensign, and the vivas of the Nostra Signora del 
 Rosario floated back to me as she met the Channel 
 tide. 
 
 Our Third Rule (I maintain, a wise one) is to weep 
 over no loss that we have planted, but simply to 
 
 304
 
 PRIAM'S CELLARS 
 
 plant for thriving, and thereafter let each root do 
 the best it can. For roses we use the free-growing, 
 not to say rampant, kinds : Penzance sweet-briers, 
 Wichurianas and the like, with such old favourites 
 as Dundee Rambler, Carmine Pillar, the Garland. In 
 the rock garden, one of our newer toys, the plants 
 are hardy, as the rock is as Nature placed it, creviced 
 it, ribbed it. Cistus you will find there, with 
 helianthemums, heaths, foxgloves, tall daisies ; 
 creeping sedums, veronicas ; pockets of purple 
 aubretia, yellow alyssum, white arabis ; but none 
 of the expensive alpines dear to amateurs. To be 
 sure we free our fruit-trees from the strangling 
 creepers, and trench and clean the ground for sweet 
 peas, as for the strawberries, which I dare say our 
 children find as delectable in flavour as ever we found 
 Little Tonkin's. But our interference with Nature 
 does not amount to much ; and all the flowers we 
 train add but a grace to the feast of wild-flowers she 
 spreads for us, the sheets of primroses, wild hyacinth, 
 red robin, lady-smocks, blue scabious, succeeding 
 the snowdrops and daffodils left by Little Tonkin 
 for us to inherit. He lives in the garden still — 
 
 Aestatem increpitans seram zephyrosque morantes — 
 
 We are constantly happening on reminders — a golden 
 or crimson garden primrose among the pale wild 
 ones, a Sweet-William standing tall and alone in the 
 grasses, a columbine, a Jacob's-ladder — that he, 
 gentle soul, has passed this way. 
 
 305 
 20
 
 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." " Harry 
 made this seat as a birthday present for his mother." 
 . . . But Harry, Dick, Ruth, Grace, and the rest 
 
 306
 
 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. 
 
 307
 
 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 
 look 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.' * 
 
 3°9
 
 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 
 
 310
 
 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, (i) 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 hei 
 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 
 
 311
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 Scottisli 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 Pcnthesilea (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 ?) Phseacian 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 Phasacia, you will remember, having lost all his 
 mariners by shipwreck ; else I wonder what would 
 have happened in that famous garden of King 
 Alcinous, where grew tall trees blossoming, pear 
 
 312
 
 ON A MARBLE STAIR 
 
 trees and pomegranates, and apples with bright fruit > 
 and sweet figs and olives in their bloom. 
 
 The fruit of these trees never perisheth neither 
 faileth, winter nor summer, enduring through all the 
 year. Evermore the west wind blowing brings some 
 fruits to birth and ripens others. Pear upon pear 
 waxes old, and apple on apple, yea and cluster ripens 
 upon cluster of the grape, and fig upon fig. 
 
 And there, as you remember too, King Alcinous 
 reclined in his chair and drank wine like an 
 immortal : 
 
 Tip o <ye oivoirora^ei e^ij/nevot a6avn.70<i ws. 
 
 (a truly royal picture), while beside him his queen, 
 having taken her work out to the garden, " sat 
 weaving yarn of sea-purple stain, a wonder to 
 behold " . . . I am very sure that my Italian 
 visitors would never have spared those trees : and 
 the Greeks, they sa5 r , are worse apple-stealers than 
 the Italians — the worst in the world, in fact, with 
 
 the single exception of my friend Mr. A. G 
 
 and his crew of yachtsmen, who as pillagers 'of 
 orchards are admittedly hors concours. 
 
 The King sits in Phceacia toun 
 
 Drinking the blude-red wine ; 
 ' what I will give this skeely skipper ? 
 
 A seven days, or a fine ? 
 
 It sail be ten-and-six, and-six, 
 
 But and the costs forbye. . . .' 
 
 3*3
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 Cynthia and Euergetes (I call onr 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 
 
 3H
 
 ON A MARBLE STAIR 
 
 " with snakes." And I sketched out the following 
 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 VARIETIES). 
 AMPHISB^NA DIRE : 
 CERASTES (HORNED), HYDRUS \ 
 ELOPS 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 
 
 3*5
 
 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 
 
 316
 
 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, 
 
 3*7
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 rough rendering. But I have since discovered that 
 it forms the theme of a beautiful story by the 
 Portuguese writer Eca de Oueiroz (he called it 
 Defunto, and it has been translated into English, 
 under the title of Our Lady of the Pillar, by Mr. 
 Edgar Prestage, of the Lisbon Royal Academy). 
 Briefly, the story tells that a young hidalgo, riding 
 by night to keep an assignation with a lady whose 
 lover he had hopes to be " 
 
 " Do you propose telling this story to the 
 Italians ? " interrupted Cynthia. 
 
 " It is," I assured her, " as full of morals as an 
 egg of meat. To resume — this young hidalgo on 
 his road happened to pass a gallows from which four 
 corpses hung, and was pricking past when a voice said 
 to him, ' Stay, knight ; come hither ! ' And it goes on 
 to tell how, being assured that the voice had proceeded 
 thence, he rode up under the gallows and demanded 
 to know ' Which of you hanged men calls for Don 
 Ruy de Cardenas ? ' Whereupon (says the narra- 
 tive) one of them, that swung with his back to the 
 full moon, replied — speaking down from the noose 
 very quietly and naturally, like a man talking from 
 his window to the street, ' It was I, sir. Do me the 
 favour to cut this cord by which I am suspended, 
 and afterwards light the small heap of twigs by your 
 feet that I may warm myself back to life and run 
 beside you to your mistress : for my limbs are stiff.' 
 The young knight, then, having cut down the corpse 
 — for a corpse it was " 
 
 318
 
 ON A MARBLE STAIR 
 
 " And this," broke in Cynthia, " is positively the 
 nastiest story I have ever listened to. . . . And 
 if you won't fetch the police, I am off to my roses." 
 
 " Wait a moment," said I. " These countrymen 
 of Dante, these mariners from the port of Columbus, 
 must have their better instincts, and to them let us 
 appeal. They have pretty certainly stolen our 
 apples, and in large quantities : but they have left 
 us plenty and to spare. Come, let us carry them 
 a maundful as a free gift ! — and I will lay you odds 
 that they show themselves honest fellows." 
 
 Cynthia shook her head. 
 
 " Honest fellows don't climb other folks' apple 
 trees." 
 
 " Not often. Dante, indeed, has been before 
 you in noting it. 
 
 Rade volte risurgi per li rami 
 L'umana probitate. 
 
 And yet," I added, with a sigh for lost youth, " we 
 may happen up such trees on our way to honesty — or 
 God help most English boys ! " 
 
 The end was that we filled a ' maund ' (deep 
 apple basket) and put off with it to the Nostra 
 Signora del Rosario. There was no hope to 
 dodge Euergetes, no matter in what corner of the 
 garden we might invent occupation for him : for 
 nothing escapes his cunning subdolent eye. But 
 we could dumbfounder him by an act of open 
 lunacy, and for the fun of this Cynthia joined the 
 
 3i9
 
 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 
 
 320
 
 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 j oiliest 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 
 
 321 
 21
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 rambled far from the Marble Stair from which I 
 started ? Wait yet once again, for I am returning 
 to it, and the thrill in my narrative has yet to come. 
 
 It happened that, some weeks before, I had called 
 in my friend H. H., mason, to repair — or rather, to 
 rebuild — a back stairway in the garden. The job 
 was to be a rough one — that is to say, I wished the 
 stone to be so laid that one could plant sedums, 
 stone-crops, and the like in the crevices ; and after 
 a brief talk I left it to him to find the material. 
 
 He fell to work in due course, and sent in word to 
 me at breakfast one morning that he had fairly started 
 and would like my opinion on the stones he was using. 
 I lit a pipe and went out to examine them. 
 
 " First-class stones," said I. " But where did you 
 pick them up ? "—for the step he was laying was 
 composed of wrought slabs of a drab colour, and in 
 texture somewhat like the Caen stone the old builders 
 imported for our churches. A quarry of it anywhere, 
 in our neighbourhood, would be beyond price : but 
 obviously these slabs came from no quarry direct. 
 
 " Why, sir," he answered and with some pride, 
 " off the Italian that went out two days ago." 
 
 " Ballast ? " said I. 
 
 " Ballast," said he ; and for the moment I took 
 it for no more than a pleasant windfall. All these 
 Italians, and various other vessels, come to us with 
 ballast ; and I laugh still as I remember my late 
 good friend A. B. (a Cambridge man, learned in 
 most subjects and not without skill in geology) going 
 
 322
 
 ON A MARBLE STAIR 
 
 almost on hands and knees before a heap of road 
 metal and demanding to know where the devil these 
 particular fossils found themselves in Cornwall ? 
 They had been carted up, a week before, from the 
 hold of a French schooner. 
 
 My visitors get these surprises from time to time. 
 Here I again intercept my climax with the story of 
 another Cambridge man, whom I had led for a walk 
 through woods where bamboos were among the 
 commonest of exotic growths. " A stranger," said 
 he with the accent of conviction, as we left the woods 
 and regained the highway, " might easily suppose 
 himself in the tropics " — and, as he said those veiy 
 words, we rounded a corner of the road and came on 
 an elephant ! It was a real elephant, placidly sucking 
 up water from a wayside pool ; and of a sudden 
 I understood what hysteria means, yet kept sufficient 
 grip on it to steer him wide of a travelling circus 
 which had encamped in a neighbouring field. 
 
 To resume — " It 's a pretty stone, sir," said my 
 friend H. H., " and, I should say, came out of a 
 fine building. But here 's something better still." 
 He brushed the dust and grit carefully, with the palm 
 of his hand, from a block he was preparing to lay. 
 
 " Hullo ! " I exclaimed. " Marble ? " 
 
 " White marble, sir." 
 
 " From the same ship ? . . . What ship ? " 
 
 H. H. could not tell me her heathen name : but 
 of course it was the Nostra Signora del Rosario. 
 " And the stones were all mixed up with a terrible 
 
 3 2 3
 
 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 ! " 
 
 3 2 4
 
 The Election Count 
 
 Polling-day was wet and depressing to the last 
 degree : wet and doubly depressing as hour after 
 hour weighted my sense that we were steadily losing 
 ground. In the shop-parlour, which served us for 
 Liberal Committee-room, someone had blocked up 
 half the small window with a poster. It exhibited 
 to the street the picture of an old couple, Darby and 
 Joan, seated beside their cottage-porch, embowered 
 in roses and basking (thanks to Old Age Pensions) 
 in the golden rays of a setting sun. It was a pleasing 
 composition, even when studied in reverse as a 
 transparency ; but it darkened the parlour. In this 
 atmosphere of " inspissated gloom " our two volunteer 
 clerks worked with set faces at the register, ruling out 
 the voters — red pencil for Liberals, blue for Unionists, 
 black for Doubtfuls — as messengers ran in with the 
 returns. On the whole these returns were satis- 
 factory. In our own small polling-district we felt 
 reasonably sure of getting our " reliables " (abomin- 
 able word) to the poll in strength. But ours is no 
 very populous one, and lies at the extreme west 
 
 3 2 5
 
 NI'WS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 of the constituency ; from the other end came 
 disquieting rumours, some even talking of a 
 " land-slide." 
 
 " Hullo ! " says one of the clerks, looking out over 
 the Darby and Joan poster. " There goes Polly 
 \V up the hill with a bouquet." 
 
 " That 's for the Women's Committee to present 
 to Lady Caroline." (Lady Caroline is the wife of 
 our opponents' candidate, the Admiral.) " They 're 
 due there soon after midday." 
 
 Our candidate has already come and gone — quite 
 early in the morning, in a pitiless shower of rain- 
 Few were aware of his visit, of which he had sent 
 us no warning ; and of these but a handful left their 
 breakfasts to cheer him. 
 
 It is suggested that my presence at the polling- 
 station will put a little heart into the faithful band 
 gathered there and talking with their enemies in the 
 gate. I doubt it ; but, at any rate, I can make sure 
 that our fellows yield the Admiral and Lady Caroline 
 a polite reception. I go, therefore. This makes 
 the fourth time I have climbed the hill to-day. 
 
 If the Committee-room was depressing, the streets 
 are disheartening. Our opponents have all the 
 motors, with at least one carriage-and-pair, and 
 a general air of insolent prosperity. Motors do not 
 seem to mind the rain. They rush by at a speed 
 which dissembles the poverty of their harvest ; and 
 as they pass they scatter mud over me. A solitary 
 
 326
 
 THE ELECTION COUNT 
 
 one-horse vehicle crawls up the hill with our colours 
 (blue and gold) pendant about it and dripping like 
 Opheha's muddy weeds. It contains three voters, 
 and one of them sings out to me, " ARE we down- 
 hearted ? " To which the other two, snatching off 
 their hats and waving them till each sheds a spray 
 — a moitlinet — of raindrops, respond vociferously 
 " NO-0 ! " 
 
 At the summit, in the road outside the Council 
 School-house, which serves for polling-booth, the 
 foe has it all his own way. The red-white-and-blue 
 is everywhere, the causeway populous with ladies, 
 and in the midst of the throng a pretty child ready 
 with the bouquet. The rain has ceased for a while, 
 and the scene moves to a stir of pleasurable excite- 
 ment. I pass cheerfully through it and am booed 
 as I pass. I enter the school gates, cross the quag 
 of a playground, and exchange a word or two with 
 the tally-keepers by the door — two of each party, 
 polite as seconds in a duel — who, albeit the sky has 
 been brightening for some minutes, still huddle like 
 disconsolate poultry — 
 
 Counting the frequent drip from reeded eaves. 
 
 I stroll back to the roadway, and am booed again. 
 . . . It is excellent discipline to be booed and to 
 keep an indifferent face. Only, when the. booers 
 are friends and neighbours to whom you have always 
 wished well, a mean thought will arise now and again 
 — just a thought of which you are instantly ashamed 
 
 3 2 7
 
 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 
 
 328
 
 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 Comrnittee-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 
 
 3 2 9
 
 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 
 clogging my feet. 
 
 Thank Heaven, in the act of changing my garments 
 1 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 
 
 33°
 
 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 taraen 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 Couni; 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 ? 
 
 O limed 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 
 
 33i
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 hurried from such amenities to fret a day upon what 
 is already settled beyond revoke ? I seem to hear 
 the voices of our two candidates fading away into 
 the blue distance, contending as they fade. Their 
 altercations tinkle on the ear like thin echoes from 
 a gramophone. Return, O Muse, and bring me back 
 the authentic rivals, Thyrsis and Corydon ! 
 
 Despite these pauses, I catch the early train. Our 
 branch railway follows the right bank of an estuary 
 as fair as you will find in England, its embankment 
 running a very few feet above high-water mark ; 
 nor can I ever decide whether the estuary be lovelier 
 when beneath the sunset and between overhanging 
 woodlands it is brimmed with 
 
 Such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 Too full for sound and foam ; 
 
 or when, as now, across the drained flats morning 
 sparkles on the breasts of gulls, divers, curlews, 
 congregated in hundreds, and here and there a heron 
 flaps his wing upon a lilac shadow or stands planted, 
 and fishes, master of his channel. Solitary bird ! 
 be it mine henceforth to watch, with you, my true, 
 if narrow, channel, and leave these others to chatter 
 about the flats, the shallows ! 
 
 I change trains at the junction, and on the platform 
 
 run against Squire . We are bound on the 
 
 same errand ; he to watch the count for the Admiral. 
 He is a Whig of the old breed — one of those lost to 
 us in '85 ; an English gentleman of the best sort ; 
 
 33 2 

 
 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. . . . 
 
 333
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 The train comes to a stop in Lescarrow station, and 
 with a jerk. A small crowd pours out, and a jolly 
 farmer, as I open the door of my compartment, 
 rushes up to me. 
 
 " Well, is Troy all right ? We did splendidly — 
 splendidly ! . . . Gloomy tales, though, about 
 t'other side of the division. Hope it 's all right. 
 What 's your candid opinion now ? " 
 
 It begins to occur to me that I am interested in 
 the question. I begin some banal answer, when he 
 interrupts, " Why, you 're not wearin' the colours ! " 
 
 I search my pockets, and discover an old rosette, 
 crumpled with service in three campaigns. He 
 watches whilst I pin it on my coat-lappet. " That 's 
 better. Must show one 's colours ! " His own 
 breast is largely occupied by a blue-and-gold rosette 
 at least five inches in diameter. I answer that it 
 is not customary for those attending the Count to 
 show any party colours ; but that, to please him, 
 I will wear mine along the street. So we leave the 
 station together, and walk up to the town. . . . 
 Eh, what is this ? I have not taken a dozen steps 
 before the Funeral March of a Marionette is back, 
 out of nowhere, jigging at my heels — tum-ti-tiddety , 
 tihn-ti-tum, etc. 
 
 I look in at our Central Committee-room, the 
 Temperance Hall. ' A paper-man in a cyclone," 
 runs a nautical simile. The aspect of the Temperance 
 Hall suggests that a hundred bacchanals have been 
 dancing there in as many cyclones of waste-paper. 
 
 334
 
 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 
 
 335
 
 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 
 
 337 
 22
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 brings a warning that until all the ballot-boxes have 
 been opened and the number of papers in each 
 checked separately by the returning-officer's figures, 
 we are not to approach — a precaution against our 
 learning how the poll has run in separate districts 
 — and a futile one, since the counting-clerks are men 
 of like political passions with ourselves, and secrets 
 always leak out. As it is, I regret to observe that 
 two or three of us from time to time wander absent- 
 mindedly within the forbidden zone and cast long 
 glances at the table. . . . For my part I stick 
 close to the stove, with my back to it, and watch the 
 idle ceremonial from afar ; passing, as it drags its 
 slow length, through chilliness to a sort of numb 
 misery. My next-hand neighbour mutters complaint 
 of the draught, while all the while perspiring, frothing 
 like a colt. ... I observe cynically with what 
 ease a man might spirit away one of these ballot- 
 boxes we are treating with such absurd solemnity. 
 Half a dozen of us at least — the High-Sheriff, the 
 Under-Sheriff , the Chief Constable (who has sauntered 
 in), the two Agents, two or three of the clerks — have 
 brought great-coats and hand-bags and set them 
 down carelessly. One bag lies on top of a ballot-box 
 midway down the line. I might, strolling about 
 with the more restless invigilators, cast my burberry 
 across one, known to me to be adverse, which stands 
 pretty near the door ; then presently, when the 
 constables are carrying up anothei box, and (as 
 I observe) every eye in the room is glued upon the 
 
 338
 
 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 
 Pere. 
 
 " 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 
 
 339
 
 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 T 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 L o the right. Blank, Dash — 
 Blank — Dash, Dash, Daih. (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 com^, "ing the telegram 
 I shall send home. 
 
 34o
 
 THE ELECTION COUNT 
 
 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 is an 
 
 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 
 
 3+i
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 I catch the words, " Very well indeed, so far." 
 I wonder that his tone is not more confident . . . 
 when, again glancing along the table, I perceive that 
 six " centuries " are lying there ready for the checking- 
 clerks ; and on three of them I can see that cross is 
 for Our Man. He, by the way, has turned up, and 
 is warming his back at the stove. He passed behind 
 me a minute ago and clapped a hand on my shoulder ; 
 and I turned and gave him as steady a smile as 
 I could. 
 
 Sure enough, four out of the next five " centuries " 
 go to his pile : three now in arrear. Then another 
 comes up for the Admiral : four. But the votes 
 beneath my eye are running almost dead level now, 
 with a slight — the slightest possible — advantage for 
 Our Man. Three " centuries " go up for Blank, 
 one for Dash, another for Dash, two for Blank 
 . . . the great pile at length diminishes percepti- 
 bly. . . . So, as a child, have I watched the reaping 
 machine make narrower circles in a harvest field, 
 rounding up the rabbits in the central patch of 
 standing wheat. . . . The two are running almost 
 neck and neck. I see, or seem to see, that every 
 one's face is white. The clerks work in a dead 
 
 silence. ... Of a sudden, Squire at my 
 
 elbow, says quietly — 
 
 " Your Man is going to do it." 
 
 I command my voice to answer, as quietly, that 
 I doubt it. . . ' . Two " centuries " go up for the 
 Admiral, one for Our Man ; but under our eyes 
 
 342
 
 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. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 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
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 'em a run for their money." I pass down the length 
 of the room to Our Man, and we shake hands ; but 
 I want more to shake hands with the Admiral, as 
 by and by I find a chance to do. " Devilish good of 
 you ! A fair fight," blurts he, and I am speechless. 
 
 There is plenty of time for this, for our imperturb- 
 able High-Sheriff, while the crowd below rages with 
 impatience, is solemnly adjudicating upon six 
 doubtful papers. The Agents argue points as 
 though each paper were important as a separate 
 suit in Chancery. ... At length it is over, and 
 we all move out to an anteroom, where one of the 
 Agents throws up the sash of a window. A roar 
 ascends, and is followed by a hush, as the High- 
 Sheriff mounts on a stool in full view of the street ; 
 this, again, by a lesser roar as the knowing ones on 
 our side perceive how the two candidates arrange 
 themselves beside him — Our Man on his right, the 
 Admiral on his left. 
 
 The High-Sheriff is terse. " I declare," he calls 
 out, as soon as the noise gives him opportunity, 
 " the result of the poll to be : 
 
 Blank 43*6 
 
 Dash 4266" 
 
 and is about to declare that in consequence Mr. 
 Blank is duly elected, when a wild clamour drowns 
 the utterance. He makes two attempts at speech, 
 and withdraws from the window. 
 
 344
 
 THE ELECTION COUNT 
 
 We stream down the stairs. I see Our Man seized 
 at the doorway and mounted shoulder-high. A 
 tumult pours after him. I wait until the press has 
 gone by, and slip into a by-lane. Fetching a circuit 
 of empty streets, I find myself in face of the hotel, 
 on the porch-roof of which stand victor and 
 vanquished, side by side, bawling thanks to their 
 supporters. They shake hands after the fight, 
 British fashion. 
 
 I edge my way through the throng, into the 
 hotel, and upstairs. A couple of journalists 
 intercept me, demanding my comments on the 
 victory. " Victory ! " On my word, that is the 
 last thought in my head. I answer them somehow, 
 and on the landing blunder against Lady Caroline, 
 of all people ! 
 
 Contrition sweeps over me like a wave. " I am 
 sorry," I stammer. " Your husband took it just 
 splendidly." 
 
 " Ah," she answers quickly, proudly, " if only yon 
 knew him ! He is always splendid." 
 
 The new Member's room is spread for luncheon. 
 At least a score of folk have taken charge. He drags 
 me into his dressing-room, where the valet brings 
 us two plates of tepid roast mutton, with a whisky 
 and soda apiece. This is our victory ! The Member 
 and I push our plates among the shaving-gear and 
 brushes on his dressing-table and lunch hilariously. 
 * * * * 
 
 I am in the train again. Dusk is already descend- 
 
 345
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 ing on the woodlands, and I have lost one of our few 
 perfect days of winter. But my spirit has resumed 
 its morning peace, and the Election is a thousand 
 years away. At each station hands reach in at the 
 window and grasp mine. I answer with unmeaning 
 words. I am still elated, but inclined to wonder 
 what it is all about. 
 
 I reach home, and find the streets deserted. In 
 Troy, as I have hinted, our opponents command all 
 the alarums and excursions. They have heard the 
 news by telephone and telegraph, and are digesting 
 it indoors, behind drawn blinds. It might comfort 
 them if they knew with how little of triumph, with 
 how deep a sense of all human vanity, I pass their 
 windows. ... I come to my own hall, and it is 
 hospitably bright. My footfall on the threshold 
 brings a household about me. For a minute or two 
 I wrestle with their joy, answering it as best I may. 
 Then, breaking away to my small lit library, I reach 
 for a pipe and look around on the shelves. 
 
 " O my books, my friends ! You have taught me 
 that for ten years a man should desert you for the 
 crowd. That time is almost up, and life passes. A 
 little while now, and we will spend the rest of it in 
 wisdom together — in wisdom and blessed quiet ! " 
 
 346
 
 Tke Merry-go-Round at 
 
 Troy 
 
 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 
 
 347
 
 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
 
 THE MERRY-GO-ROUND AT TROY 
 
 converted the ' bulging pile ' into a nice, respectable 
 tied house. But Lord bless you ! — we never thought 
 of it as we rode the merry-go-round. 
 
 And there upon wooden benches, hunch'd in the 
 
 summer night, 
 Sit wrinkled sires of the village — 
 
 ' Village ' quotha ! Troy Town a village ! It is a 
 mystery to me how so many of our London visitors 
 suffer this strange hallucination : and I discussed it 
 one day with Long Phillips, one of the said ' sires.' 
 He told me that it had been just the same in his 
 young days : there was something in London which 
 caused folks to lose all their sense of proportion, and 
 they came down in August to get cured. . . . 
 
 The poet proceeds to liken our merry-go-round 
 to this world vainly revolving under the cold scrutiny 
 of the stars, and to reflect that in an hour the fair 
 will be over, the lamps extinguished ; 
 
 For the young may be glad and eager, but some 
 ride listlessly, 
 
 And the old look on with a weary, dull, and life- 
 less eye. . . . 
 
 Eh ? The dickens they do ! Wait a bit, if you 
 please. . . . 
 
 349
 
 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 clientele among lovers only 
 
 35o
 
 THE MERRY-GO-ROUND AT TROY 
 
 (large numbers of whom visit us every season), 
 and to advertise his ' Dark Room ' for rejected ones, 
 letting the Amateur Photographer seek elsewhere. 
 But he was an obstinate man, as these pink- 
 complexioned fellows so often are, and he petitioned 
 the Parish Council. 
 
 Nobody took it seriously at first, as, indeed, at 
 that time only a few far-sighted men had begun to 
 take the Parish Council seriously. But the mischief 
 was that one of our periodical merry crazes had 
 caught hold of Troy just then, and this particular 
 craze happened to be for Reform, of all things in 
 the world ! When I spoke of the rumour airily 
 to Long Phillips he dismayed me by taking it in all 
 seriousness. 
 
 " They '11 do it," prophesied Long Phillips, 
 gloomily watching the showmen as they erected the 
 frame of the merry-go-round (for it was the eve of 
 regatta week). "They've called a 'mergency 
 meeting of the Parish Council ; and to-morrow you '11 
 find the quay swept bald as my head." 
 
 " We must stop it," said I firmly. 
 
 " Who must stop it ? " 
 
 "Well"— I caught sight of Mr. Binks, show 
 proprietor, and beckoned him to join us. " Here 's 
 three of us, for a start, and kindly remember that 
 desperate diseases require desperate remedies." 
 
 The Parish Council holds its meetings in the 
 Working Men's Institute, which occupies the northern 
 side of the town quay, running out at right angles 
 
 35 1
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 from the ' King of Prussia ' ; and the Parish Council 
 upstairs that night conducted its business to the full 
 blare of the merry-go-round, the steam whistle of 
 which broke out at intervals with ribald ear-piercing 
 blasts. So deafening were these that the chairman 
 shortened debate by exclaiming (in effect) : " How 
 need we any further evidence ? " The motion to 
 suppress the nuisance was put and unanimously 
 carried, and the councillors descended to the steps 
 of the institute, within five feet of which the edge of 
 the merry-go-round rotated. . . . Sing now, 
 •0 Muse, what a sight met their eyes, as a roar of 
 Homeric laughter rose from the crowd and drowned 
 for a full minute even the reboant steam organ ! 
 
 There — before them — mounted on wooden horses, 
 white, black, brown, and grey — circled all the aged 
 and infirm of the parish ! with not a few citizens 
 of credit and renown and their respectable wives. 
 Indeed the clamour for seats (or, shall we say, 
 saddles ?) had been so overwhelming that the 
 stewards of the demonstration had much ado to 
 adjudge in haste on the social claims of those who 
 fought for the honour of saving the State. 
 
 For an instant the Parish Councillors seemed in 
 two minds about running back upstairs and re- 
 scinding their resolution. To their credit, however, 
 they put on brave faces and dispersed not without 
 dignity, albeit amid galling laughter. 
 
 But I need not tell you that their precious resolu- 
 tion was never enforced. The Troy merry-go-round 
 
 352
 
 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! 
 
 353 
 
 23
 
 A Yachting Adventure 
 
 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 throughfthe 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 fme-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 
 
 II 
 
 Now the crew of the ketch — the Fay aw ay — 
 consisted of four hands, who happened to be under- 
 graduates of the University of Oxford. They had 
 learnt their seamanship (such as it was) elsewhere ; 
 but in their residence at that Seat of Learning they 
 had amassed a fund of animal spirits more than 
 sufficient for most immediate purposes. The Regatta 
 being over, they meant to lose no time in taking the 
 seas again, but to catch the tide as it drained out 
 in the small hours of the morning. 
 
 At about 3 a.m., while the yachts around slumbered 
 and the crew of the Maiden Aunt were (so to say) 
 snoring it off, these four young men started to 
 shorten chain. They soon found that — quite as 
 they had expected — they were fishing up the Maiden 
 Aunt's kedge, and, having possessed themselves of 
 it, they held a council of war. It is still disputed 
 among them — as I understand — upon whom the 
 inspiration first descended ; but within ten minutes 
 Number One had hold of a disreputable pair of grey 
 flannels and was stuffing them with bottle-straws 
 and cotton-waste ; Number Two was doing the 
 same to the sleeves of an old jersey ; Number Three 
 was attaching a pair of worn-out shoes to the limp 
 ankles ; while Number Four was covering the ship's 
 mop with linen (to represent the bleached face of a 
 drowned seaman), and nailing a yachting cap 
 
 357
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 securely on the occiput. An enormous empty 
 ginger-beer jar formed the torso, the shortened 
 mop-handle was thrust into the neck, and when the 
 jersey had been drawn on and the grey flannels 
 belted securely around its waist, the corpse was 
 pronounced — in the words of one of the conspirators 
 — to be truly life-like. Nothing remained but to 
 attach it by a short line to the kedge, carry them 
 out together, and drop them softly in their watery 
 grave. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral 
 note . . , and the crew of the Maiden Aunt still 
 slumbered . 
 
 353
 
 A YACHTING ADVENTURE 
 
 III 
 
 Strange to say, before the end of these operations 
 the four conspirators had changed their mind about 
 putting to sea. A sweet little cross wind helped 
 them, after weighing, to drop a couple of hundred 
 yards on the tide and take with accuracy a nice 
 unencumbered berth, where they waited for what 
 the dawn would bring forth. It hardly needs saying 
 that while these attentions were paying to her 
 kedge, the Maiden Aunt, under the influence of this 
 same sweet cross wind, had been sagging away 
 considerably out of her position, ill-chosen at the 
 best. The wretched skipper, casting a look around 
 him in the now widening dawn, and being doubtless 
 misled by the Fayaway's altered bearings, began to 
 shout orders, first to tighten up on to the kedge, 
 then to tumble into the dinghy again and shift it. 
 In the response of the crew, a certain " Bill " 
 appeared to be missing. " Bill !— get forward, 
 Bill ! Where the dickens is Bill ? " 
 
 " If I don't mistake " murmured one of the 
 
 Fayaway's crew, rapturously. " If I don't mistake, 
 it was Bill went ashore by himself in the punt last 
 night. Any sign of the punt ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then he 's ashore yet. . . . Oh, here are going 
 to be developments ! " 
 
 " Bill !— where's Bill ? " The call on board the 
 
 359
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 Maiden Aunt had been taken up derisively, and as 
 three of her crew tumbled out and cast off the dinghy 
 to shift the hedge they were exhorted from two or 
 three decks to break the news gently to Bill's widow. 
 
 There fell an ironical hush as they reached the 
 end of the rope and began to heave the kedge up. 
 A derisive cheer followed as they got it on board ; 
 then another hush, with some chuckles, as it became 
 evident they were yet foul. They were hauling at 
 something heavily reluctant, which yet yielded and 
 came up to them slowly out of the ooze. 
 
 " Shouldn't wonder if 'twas Bill ! " suggested a 
 voice amid more laughter. 
 
 " Hush ! — oh, hush," trembled back a voice from 
 the dinghy. " It— it is Bill ! " 
 
 In the Fayaway one of the conspirators growled, 
 " Do you think I 'm not watching ? What 's the 
 sense to keep pinching me ? " 
 
 "Oh, but look ! " fairly sobbed the other, nodding 
 his head towards the Maiden Aunt. There, leaning 
 over her bulwarks, stood the little owner vainly 
 trying to comprehend the scene, and there, hidden 
 from him under her counter, unobserved, painfully 
 anxious to elude observation, was Bill — the authentic 
 Bill — creeping on board by the stern ladder from the 
 punt after his night ashore. 
 
 " 'Tis suicide ! " said a voice, very solemn and 
 distinct, from the stern of the dinghy. Then, as the 
 man collared the corpse to drag it aboard, his clutch 
 pulled the jersey up and disclosed — a ginger-beer 
 
 360
 
 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. 
 
 361
 
 The Dive of the Gannet 
 
 In the days when I was breaking away from the 
 chains of Fleet Street — never mind how long ago — 
 there happened a pause of six months during which, 
 though my native county had become again my 
 actual home, I travelled up every Wednesday by 
 the night express, reaching London at 3.30 a.m. or 
 thereabouts (of all cheerful hours !), and on Fridays, 
 again through the night, returned to my cottage at 
 Troy. As it happened, just at that time a Cornish 
 youth on the staff of another weekly newspaper was 
 doing, though at less regular intervals, precisely 
 the converse ; and because he was in a hurry — poor 
 fellow, he had to be ! — he got ahead of me, who am 
 constitutionally indolent, in writing a book about 
 these queer journeys. No doubt our expresses 
 rattled past each other many a night, and it used to 
 give me the uncanniest feeling when, week after 
 week, I picked up the National Observer and found my 
 own experiences related, so to say, at topsy-turvy. 
 
 I did not know the man, and we never met to 
 compare notes until some few months before his 
 premature death — which, by the way, was a real 
 loss to letters, though by this time no doubt a 
 
 363
 
 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 1wo 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. 
 
 $ ;£ $ ife $ 
 
 .... 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 glai'e of gas 
 
 Into the night I pass 
 And plunge alone into the silence deep. 
 
 365
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 .... And now 7 a.m. I am standing over the 
 transparent tide that surges close under my garden 
 wall and preparing to take the dread, delicious 
 plunge. . . . Towelling myself after it, I catch 
 sight of two gannets wheeling against the blue, a 
 little be3'ond the harbour's mouth ; and having lit a 
 cigarette and pulled the bath gown about me, I seat 
 myself luxuriously to watch them. 
 
 There is nothing in the world quite comparable 
 with the dive of a gannet. He wheels about in 
 immense circles at a steady speed, with sometimes a 
 long glide as a rest between the interlooping curves. 
 At this time you judge him to be a good two hundred 
 feet above the surface of the water. Of a sudden he 
 sights his prey, shoots a few feet higher yet (but you 
 must have quick eyes to detect this) , and with wings 
 laid close to his side drops like a plummet, striking 
 the water with a splash that is clearly visible to me 
 here at more than a mile's distance. The column of 
 spray he sends up must be ten feet high. There is no 
 more glorious diving in the world ; it goes on around 
 our Cornish coast almost incessantly, and I could 
 watch it for hours together. 
 
 My friend M. D , of the County Council, would 
 
 declare an inexorable war on these birds, and we 
 wage great combat in the Council over them. He 
 comes to me and urges gravely that the Bass Rock 
 
 366
 
 THE DIVE OF THE GANNET 
 
 alone harbours a million of these gannets, or Solan 
 geese — a computation which I promptly challenge, 
 knowing the incurable inaccuracy of statisticians. 
 He demonstrated to me further that each of these 
 ravenous birds consumes — I forget what — say six 
 pounds of fish per diem, and asks me to meditate on 
 the appalling total. I answer his figures by quoting 
 back the million or so of potential fish spawned by a 
 single herring or pilchard ; I urge (and he cannot 
 deny) that a single school of these fish sometimes 
 extends in a pretty closely -packed mass for a hundred 
 miles and more. (Think of it !) And I go on to 
 urge that, if Nature did not provide these gannets and 
 other depredators, in a few years the Atlantic liners 
 would find their progress clogged by fish, and that in 
 a few years further the whole habitable globe would 
 perish miserably under accumulations of icthyis 
 guano. Upon this he retorts with a really brilliant 
 theory — that until Messrs. Watt and Stephenson 
 invented railways there continued a fair balance. 
 The depredators in the sea up to that time left a 
 sufficient harvest for man ; but of late years the 
 fisherman, who used to get a living from the fish he 
 could pile into jowters' carts, has opened markets in 
 London, Birmingham, Manchester, etc., and that to 
 protect these markets we must declare war on the 
 gannet. Again I insist that all the fish trains run 
 by all the railways in the world can only nibble at 
 the fringe of productivity of an army of fish a hundred 
 miles long, every female of which has something like 
 
 367
 
 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
 
 II? 
 
 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 
 htfr 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. 
 
 369 
 24
 
 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) 
 
 37*
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 da capo. I don't see what else could be done with 
 so absolute a thought." 
 
 "It is the absurdest room for a library," Cynthia 
 announced with the air of one making a discovery. 
 " It ought to be at least twice as large again." 
 
 " But if I am to have done with books it scarcely 
 seems necessary " 
 
 " And then," she pursued, " we could have a floor 
 above, which would just take that other guest- 
 chamber we have been wanting so long, with a 
 dressing-room, extra bathroom, and perhaps a new 
 heating-cupboard " 
 
 At this point I arose and took the hearth firmly, 
 standing above her with my hands deep in my 
 pockets. " I must beg you to listen," said I, " as 
 one millionaire to another." 
 
 " But I thought it was only one million between 
 us." 
 
 " Don't trifle, please— as one joint owner in a 
 million to another, if you prefer it." Cynthia 
 murmured that she didn't, but I went on unheeding. 
 : You don't seem to know what a million of money 
 means. You talk about enlarging this box of a 
 house when a moment's reflection should tell you 
 that people in our position cannot possibly be content 
 with less than a country seat, with the sort of garden 
 you see illustrated in Country Life, and at least 
 a couple of thousand acres of rough shooting, 
 not to mention a home-farm, a deer-park, and such 
 trifles." 
 
 372
 
 IF ? 
 
 " I have always wanted that," agreed Cynthia 
 sweetly ; " with a house (or at least a flat) in London. 
 But I began with this house because we must have 
 this too ; the children think there 's no such home 
 in the world." 
 
 " God bless them for that ! But how many days 
 in the year are we already leaving them to enjoy it ? 
 For I know that, while you can help it, you will 
 never let them out of your care. Well, imprimis, we 
 tour the world in a fine schooner yacht, wherein 
 I listen lor their footsteps on deck, myself seated 
 in my cabin signing cheques — the most abhorrent 
 occupation in the world. You, meanwhile, are not 
 only engaged in wondering what deterioration our 
 absence will work in our own domestics — and I 
 should say that no living woman had ever been 
 luckier in her servants, if I didn't know that with 
 you it 's no luck at all, but just a combination of 
 steady government with steady liking — I repeat you 
 are not only worrying about them, but fretting 
 yourself about servants to be engaged for London : 
 how to engage them, and then how to trust them — 
 untried creatures, exposed (in our frequent absences) 
 to a hundred temptations of which our tried ones 
 know nothing. While our yacht explored — say the 
 South Sea Islands — you would be worrying over 
 servants. On top of that you would want me to 
 stand for Parliament." 
 
 " Women are ambitious," said Cynthia, musing. 
 " So are some men, in their way. I once had an 
 
 373
 
 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 
 piy 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." 
 
 375
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 II 
 
 " If Every Face Were Friendly' 
 
 It actually happens to most of us when we are born, 
 and for some time after ; but this must be simply 
 because we are weak. Few infants are beautiful ; 
 still fewer meritorious ; and indeed the friendliest 
 face of all is hers whom our one exploit has just 
 afflicted with intolerable pain. To some of us again 
 it will happen when we die, and again (I suspect) 
 because we are helpless and nothing matters. We 
 protest against the first insult with a feeble 
 wailing : — 
 
 On parent knees, a naked new-born child, 
 Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled. 
 
 To the last we oppose that mask of scorn, calm, 
 set, impassive, which even a weakling must win in 
 the end — yea, though all his days have been spent 
 in truckling to his fellows. In the interim we have 
 our job to do in the world, and he to whom every 
 face is friendly may be sure that he is shirking it. 
 
 When this question was posited, I passed it on to 
 Cynthia. " You, of all men ! " she commented, 
 having reason only too dire to know my instinct for 
 lost causes and forsaken beliefs — or rather, for causes 
 that have nothing left to lose, and beliefs that still 
 await the compliment of betrayal. In truth on 
 
 376
 
 IF? 
 
 ninety-nine points out of the hundred she finds me 
 a dubious, hesitating Christian ; whereas on the 
 hundredth I am (to her equal if not greater 
 disappointment) firm as a rock. The rock stands 
 on no base of doctrine, though I drag in doctrine to 
 support it when we argue across the table. I have- 
 an incurable trick of liking my adversary. 
 
 She, always practical, demands to know if I agree 
 with mine adversary while in the way with him ; 
 and there undoubtedly she may score a point. But 
 T yet maintain that an enemy serves you more 
 constantly than a friend, for he seldom disappoints. 
 It is good sense if poor rhyme, that 
 
 He who would love his fellow-men 
 Must not expect too much of them. 
 
 We expect too much of friends, too little of enemies, 
 and so the enemies get more than their share of 
 chances. Upon us, on the other hand, rests an 
 obligation to be more constant in amity than in hate, 
 especially in public life. " It is our business," says- 
 Burke, " to cultivate friendships and to incur 
 enmities ; to have both strong, but both selected ; 
 in the one to be placable, in the other immovable." 
 A man is permitted to rest under illusion concerning 
 his friends, as woe betide him if he do not cherish 
 a lifelong illusion concerning his wife ! But if he truly 
 desires to see himself steadily as others see him as 
 a help to the know thyself recommended by sages, let 
 him keep an eye on his enemies rather than any 
 
 377
 
 NEWS FROM THE DUCHY 
 
 looking-glass which reflects him in his favourite 
 postures. There is a story of a man whose hate of 
 another man went deep as hell. In the end he could 
 •endure the other man no moment longer ; s6 he 
 killed him and buried him deep (as nearly as he could 
 to hell). But the corpse was no sooner out of the way 
 than the survivor began to suffer from a loneliness, 
 which turned into an intolerable restlessness and 
 drove him at length to visit the grave and disinter 
 his victim. He dug down and down, in the end 
 tossing aside his spade and digging with clawed 
 hands, ghoulishly. So he dug until, laying bare a 
 face, he gazed and recognised it for his own. 
 
 Of all parables known to me this is about the 
 truest. As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth 
 the countenance of his — enemy, and is sharpened 
 and shaped by it. I am not preaching that in public 
 life a man shall be a Phocion or a Coriolanus. 
 ■Coriolanus held his fellow-creatures in a scorn which 
 (had he possessed logic) stultified all service of them. 
 He was, to be short, a mere monstrous egoist. I 
 think better of Phocion for the legacy which, when 
 his countrymen put him to death, he left to his son 
 — " Bid him never revenge the wrong the Athenians 
 do me." That was noble ; it anticipated practically 
 •on the lips of a man going to his doom a truth which 
 Marcus Aurelius afterwards expressed at leisure : 
 " The best kind of revenge is, not to become like 
 unto them." Yet I am sure Phocion was vain and 
 •wrong when, making a speech which the public 
 
 378
 
 IF? 
 
 interrupted with applause, he turned to a friend 
 at his elbow and asked, " Have I said anything 
 foolish ? If he so despised assent, why need he 
 have made any speech at all ? Unless a man be 
 hopeful of some power to persuade I cannot conceive 
 what business he has, or can think he has, upon 
 a platform. 
 
 We are here, as I suppose, to strive with the 
 multitude ; not to be its slaves and as little to be 
 its scorners ; to persuade it, and as a preliminary, 
 to understand it ; to understand even its wrath, 
 for its wrath at best pays us the compliment of 
 being interested in us. If we believe with Ecclesi- 
 asticus, that no man is more faithful than the counsel 
 of our own heart, that " a man's mind is sometimes 
 wont to tell him more than seven watchmen that 
 sit above in a high tower " — and if we have the pluck 
 to stand by that belief, we may likely enough at 
 some time in our lives find that wrath denounce us 
 as enemies of our country or of religion, and be 
 under the bitter necessity of learning, with Ibsen's 
 Doctor Stockmann, that the strongest man on earth 
 is he who stands alone. How terrible, for example, 
 was that ordeal of a nation's hate through which 
 Bright and Cobden passed in the first year of the 
 Crimean War, and how gloriously they stood it ! 
 Recall Bright's letter, written in the worst of it, to 
 a Mayor of Manchester who had invited him to 
 attend a meeting for the Patriotic Fund : — 
 
 " You must excuse me if I cannot go with you : 
 
 379
 
 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
 
 IF? 
 
 that would allure him to be one with it, and one at 
 the same time with the flesh and the devil. When 
 the powerful change their face and flatter us, that is 
 the time to beware. There lies the crisis, to maintain 
 good manners and yet keep up the combat. " It is 
 easy," says Emerson, " to live after the world's 
 opinion ; it is easy in solitude to live after one's own ; 
 but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd 
 keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of 
 solitude." 
 
 Yet I suppose we all have a longing to end well- 
 beloved. But a few of us can hope for any con- 
 tinuance of fame ; and as the poorest look forward to 
 something of a funeral, so the mass of the better-to-do 
 hanker for a handful at least of genuine mourners : — 
 
 All I can 
 
 My worldly strife shall be ; 
 They one day say of me, 
 "He died a good old man." 
 
 The shortest way to this would seem to be by 
 living bravely, loving where we can, dealing 
 courteously, endeavouring to give our adversaries 
 credit for good intentions. No one — if men were 
 frank — can give us sixpenny worth of information 
 concerning any other world we may hereafter 
 inhabit ; but there 's a pleasure in leaving a name 
 to call up, when men happen to remember it, a 
 certain light in the eyes and the impulsive words, " I 
 wish you had known him ! " 
 
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