b"V'
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OP
CAUFORWA
SAN DIEJQO
SEAWEED: A CORNISH IDYLL
UNIVERSITY PRESS.
SEAWEED
A Cornish Idyll
EDITH ELLIS
LONDON
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, LIMITED
WATFORD, LONDON
1898
TO
F. K.
1877 1892.
SEAWEED :
A CORNISH IDYLL.
CHAPTER I.
" LORDY ! Lordy ! this be a weary world for the
old and feeble. I sometimes wonder what us
s'ould do without a bit o' scented snuff or a drop
o' good tea wi' a shake o' green in it eh, Kit
boy?"
A patient-looking man, who sat near the fire
with his head lowered, raised his eyes, and
grunted out, "Humph ! "
The woman was his mother, who having
arrived safely at her eightieth year, still kept
the desire for youth so vigorous that, when
she had a sick stomach or a touch of " the new
complaint they call the flenzy," she felt
that God was giving her a test for her patience
which really ought not to come except to those
whom the Lord loveth well enough to take to
2 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
Himself. She sat month after month, crooning
over the past or wailing at the future, some-
times doing a bit of knitting, but chiefly patting
her wrinkled hands one over the other, as if she
had a rhythmic cadence in her mind, as she
sighed " Lordy, Lordy," which name would cer-
tainly sound irreverent on the lips of any but
the Elect, since it implied not only endearment,
but familiarity.
" It's a whishe world, my son a whishe world
and it's whishest when I do feel I'm a burden
on you and Janet."
She looked across at her son, and her old eyes
brightened as she made one more attempt to
draw the man out. She waited for a loving re-
monstrance, but Kit only coughed.
" It's well to be some folkses, that it be. It's
lonesome fur you when you be left so long, wi'-
out your woman to do chars fur 'ee. She've been
gone sin' yesterday and even to me it do seem a
month. I miss her bits o' tasties. You and me
betwixt us can scarce fit up a cup o' tea, fur you
be bef oolt in your legs and I be in the same strait
in my back and arms. Lordy, Lordy, it is a
whishe business, and I hope the good Jesus will
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 3
soon rid me of it all that I do," she added with
a whimper," fur I be nothin' but a burden now."
Her son looked up with a faint smile on his
face.
"Yes, yes, it is a bit dull at times, sure
'nough," he said, raising his voice in the musi-
cal interrogatiVe so peculiar to Cornwall, " but
it ain't so whishe for you as me, mother. I do
belong to do somethin' more nor sit over the fire
like a ash cat and wait fur a neighbour to drop
in, so that in talkin* wid 'eu I can furget what
sort I be now. It plagues me like a fever when I
reckon it all up and know I shain't never be no
good for nothin' ag'in. But what's the use o'
jawin' over it. I mun bear it and tak' the best
I can and stop snarlin'."
He stretched out his hand for a thick length of
iron which lay near, and raked some stray pieces
of furze and faggots together on to the smould-
ering fire, causing a blaze of light to spring up in
the open chimney corner and illuminating both
faces with sham laughter, as if the man and wo-
man alike were grim jokes over which the flames
might gibe. The man was partially paralysed.
A mining accident had prostrated him with a
4 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
disease the doctors called by a learned name,
which Kit declared he could never quite roll
round his tongue. Two years after his marriage
this disaster had come upon him.
The disease, while leaving him the use of his
hands and arms, had paralysed both his legs,
causing a total change in his way of life, for the
once muscular miner and hardy man of all trades
was reduced to making and mending nets as his
only means of earning a living.
Before his accident he was a good, capable
workman, much counted upon in times of diffi-
culty or strife as a temperate and dependable sort
of man who carried more wisdom in his little fin-
ger than most people could boast of having in
their whole body. He had acquired the position
of mentor in the small fishing village of Carn-
wyn because of his short way of getting to the
centre of a difficulty without the usual hour and
a quarter of preamble which to the rough sailors
and their wives seemed indispensable before they
could come near the point at issue.
It had been whispered more than once in the
gossip of the village corners that Kit Trenoweth,
or Clibby Kit had not been in foreign parts for
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 5
nothing. In fact there was no saying that he
had not got a tip or two from royalty in the
course of his travels, for some of his ideas were
quite " flash " enough for that to seem possible.
Many a man and woman in the village had come
in after Kit's accident had disabled him, to ask
for advice on some domestic matter, "just to
make Clibby Kit feel hisself a man again." He
always gave advice readily and cracked a joke as
well as any of them, even against himself, so that
he puzzled his old mates sorely ; they could not
tell whether the man was crushed or not, for he
gave them no chance to pity him or to scorn
him. His mother was the real trial to his good
humour. He had promised many years ago that
she should never leave his home, and that he
would always provide for her, but now, kindness
having come home to roost with a magpie ten-
dency to be always droning out "Lordy, Lordy !"
" Deary me ! " he often wished, without realising
any infamy in the thought, that her " Lordy "
would take her to heaven, where, he firmly be-
lieved, she would enjoy the perpetual youth for
which she so continuously and so wailingly
craved. He loved her in a long-suffering way
6 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
with a love born of habit but not of union or
understanding. She was his mother, he was
her only idol, and in that fact lay many of his
worst griefs. She had thwarted him in his lar-
gest longings because she loved him selfishly, and
wanted him exclusively and he, in his rough
way, had realised how she had strained the bond
between them so tightly that nothing but habit
held him to her. He was a rough sea-coast
dreamer, and her snuff-taking and continual
whining interrupted his fancies and his memo-
ries. The firelight rested him and made him
more a lover of his woman and the sea than ever.
His mother, always sitting opposite to him by
the fireside, jerked his fancies continually to the
sordid contemplation of a cripple's life and a
cripple's chances of being neglected and then
forgotten.
" Kit ! " old Mother Trenoweth spoke sharply,
and even shrilly this time.
He raised his head once more and fixed his
eyes on the wrinkled face before him. The thin,
old hand with its dark blue veins attracted her
son's eyes as she fumbled in her pocket for her
snuff-box. It was one she prized, for Kit had
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 7
picked it up some years ago when a wreck had
wakened Carnwyu into hard work and new ex-
periences, for many a home could date its miscar-
riages and its seizures from the day when three
vessels foundered on Scryfa beach, and only six
men of all the crews were saved. Kit Trenoweth
remembered the day well, and as he looked at his
mother he thought of it. That snuff-box had a
tale behind it for Clibby Kit, and he just remem-
bered he had never told his wife how he came by
it.
"Kit do 'ee hear me?"
"Yes, mother. What do 'ee want?"
The old woman took a big pinch of snuff and
spoke slowly and a trine cautiously, as if she
were not sure how the remark would be re-
ceived."
"Do 'ee believe that Janet's seaweed messes
do 'ee much good, Kit ? There be folkses," she
went on rapidly, determined to finish her sentence
before he could stop her, "who do say as your
woman likes a jaunt now and then, and is over
fond of fetching they weeds from up 'long instead
of biding always wi' we and doin' our coddles
and chars as she ought to do."
" Folks be danged ! "
8 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" Husht, boy, husht ! " site said, looking round
as if the devil, for whom she had as yet found no
endearing name might be within hearing ; " I
canna let 'ee use swear words like that, a Chris-
tian don't belong to use such oaths. You never
did it afore " she was going to add " you mar-
ried" but she changed it as she looked at his
face, " afore you was maimed. It is
a great affliction, Kit, my son, but the
Lord do knaw best, and perhaps He've set 'ee on
your chair there so that 'ee could be of more
spiritual use to that flash woman o' yours than
ever 'ee was able to be when 'ee did belong to go
out from mornin' to night and was in full work
and pay."
She nodded her head and patted one hand over
the other in a way which meant to convey to her
son that she could say more if she dared.
" Out wi' it, what do 'ee mean, mother ? Let's
hear. What have 'ee 'gainst my woman?"
" Nothin', lad, why nothin' at all. It is na
me as do talk o' she. No, I allus pleads fur she,
knowing what a power o' life young things do
belong to have. I've heard many an ill word o'
Janet, but I'm slow to mind it all, but you do
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 9
knuw I've never thought she was the wife you
would have took to, no, that I didn't, fur like
it or not, Kit, they be right when they do say
that she's a lass as is bound to make a man's
heart heavy oue way or 'nother."
"Mother, husht!"
" There, there ! it's allus the way. Wives first
ana mothers ain't nowhere. I s'all be shoved out
o' the door one day and told not to put my finger
in your flour sack again, like Molly Oliver was
done to by her son ; things is coming that way,
I b'lieve."
Kit took out his pipe, slowly filled it, lighted
up, and sent a great cloud of smoke between his
face and his mother's, saying sullenly:
u You b'lieve all the lies you can fall on, I
reckon. Do nobody tell 'ee truth by chance ? "
He laughed stupidly, as if he'd like to sleep if
she would let him.
" Iss ! Iss ! and it is the truth that fears me
fur 'ee. You don't b'lieve as a big, bounciii'
woman like Janet is going to bide true to a "
" Mother, husht ! If I had the use o' my legs
again I'd thrash every blooniin' jackass as dares
to take the name o' my woman on his dirty
10 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
mouth. Iss ! I'll use words strong 'nough to
choke the passons and liards as come here 'cause
they 'aven't enough to do wi'out taking up
women's gossip. They fill your head wi' rubbish
enough to deafen a Chinaman. I'm wild wi' it
all naw ! " and he spit angrily into the fire.
" I've listened and said nothin' for months, but
now hear a bit o' my mind on this job just for
once't. My woman's a darned sight handsomer,
straighter, and" he laughed " decenter than
any o' the maids up 'long or down 'long, a darned
sight better by yards, mind that ! and that's
just why she's got the women folkses agin she.
Do 'ee think I don't knaw ? " He sneered and
laughed roughly. " I ain't watched and walked
wi' maids for nuthin', mind 'ee. I've been a
hot un i' my time 'ee do knaw that and Janet
warn't the first woman as I've kissed, but I guess
she's the last."
He bristled up and smoked hard, and his
mother muttered beneath her breath :
" I s'ouldn't like to say as you was the last
man as Janet had made free wi' in any way;
seems to me as females now-a-days 'as too much
tether given to 'em, and by they as s'ould 'ave
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 11
the whip-hand o' 'en too. I'm not one o' they
sort, as believes a female can cap' en hersel' ; it
ain't the law o' God as her s'ould, and a sensible
man soon finds that out for hissel'. A woman
must be captained same as a ship, or her'll run
on to rocks sure 'nough. That's been your blun-
der, my son. You began wrong wi' Janet, and
let a high-spirited, lusty woman get 'ee fast
under her thumb. The coortin' s'ould be sweet
'nough, but a man s'ould feel the whip handle
and flick the cord betimes, just to show the
female as her lord can do summat more nor wor-
ship a woman."
She clasped her hands in a resigned way and
looked steadfastly at Kit, who was smiling to
himself. She was not sure that he had heard
her, for he said slowly, and a little absently :
" I'd weary work gettin' o' Janet. Lancashire
women must be mixed up wi' different stuff, I
reckon. It was as stiff a job as ever I tackled,
and made me sweat often enough, I can tell 'ee.
Howsomever, that time I was clipped tight, for
I've never been able to make free wi' maids sin'."
He snorted and smoked harder still. " I b'lieve
sometimes it's that that do rile 'em that, and
12 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
Janet's face which makes 'em all feel as if they's
had the pock. That's why they be all dead agin
she. It's 'cause they be crazy jealous o' she. If
she was a hedge maid, like lots I know here by,
who go like cats creepin' after dusk for toms,
and ready to tak' men or lads, whichever comes
handiest, why, they'd leave she be. But no,
'cause her'd put her fist right in the eye of any
man as tried to kiss she and 'ud do a kind act for
any maid as wanted it, they come here wi' their
damned whisperin' and sniggerin', and I tell 'ee
for truth, mother, they ain't fit to wash her
clomen."
" Well ! well ! young uns will talk, Kit, and I
canna put wool i' my ears."
" No ! I knaw that, but 'ee needn't wash out
your earholes fur to listen better, and you be
soft 'nough to harken and believe em "
" No, lad, it ain't exactly as I b'lieve 'em, but
she do open the road for talk about she. I don't
bear no grudge agin she but
" Iss you do, the lot of 'ee. I knaw all you
would like to spit out about she. You 'ave got
a grudge agin she. Say what you be a mind to.
Do 'ee think 'cause I holds my tongue 1 don't
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 13
knaw how you all hate she. Bah ! " he spat
angrily on the floor and knocked the ashes from
his pipe and then rubbed the bowl of it quickly
against his sleeve as if he'd brighten other
things than pipe bowls if he could do as he liked.
" Thee art a bit teasy, Kit. Thee dost want
Janet to come and lift 'ee on the sofa for a while.
Thee 'ave sat there too long and art a bit
cramped. Lordy ! Lordy ! I wish her'd come
home and fit us up a snack o' supper, for I fancy
a bit o' tasty, and I reckon that's why we're fret-
tin' a bit one 'gainst the other."
Kit kept up his rubbing and said stolidly and
slowly, as if he had not heard his mother speak,
" It's six year come Christmas Ere sin' I took she
to wife, and you and old Mother Treglown have
butted your two heads together ever sin' to
try and ferret out if she be splay-footed, or has a
devil's imp inside o' she. Iss ! you knaw I be
speaking truth and you may ' Husht ! ' as
long as you like. I'm going to give 'ee fur
once't a bit o' my mind, and you've got to listen,
for I'm danged sick o' all this talk over my
woman. I've borne things till I'm real teasy at
last. You hate she" he put the pipe in his
14 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
pocket and clasped his hands behind his big neck
" cause she's had a bit more learnin' than we
belong to give our maids. I know she do use
her brains freely, instead o' lettin' 'em addle for
want o' big catches to try 'em on. She can't
help that. It's her nature as much as it is for one
dog to smell another. Our f olkses takes an hour
to tell a tale and then tells everythin' but the
tale i' the end, and Janet tells 'ee like the click
o' a door all 'ee wants to knaw to once't. Same
wi' fittin' a man's meat while one o' our maids
'11 be fittin' up a bit o' fuggin meat, Janet '11 have
a spread o' tasties fit for Bolitho himself to sit to,
and it won't cost as much as a bit o' heavy cake
when all's said and done."
" Iss," nodded the old dame, and she dragged
herself across the room to a side cupboard to get
the teapot.
" Iss ! it be true 'nough. Her can fit up meat
better nor anyone I do knaw, sure 'nough, and "
as she put the bread and butter on a little
round table near the crippled man, " she do eat
it hearty too. I marvels sometimes how a female
can eat like a g'eat man as she do belong to do.
It do take money, I tell 'ee, to keep she in plain
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 15
victuals, not to speak o' coddles wliicli we do all
like betimes."
The man laughed happily.
" That's it, mother. Hand me a drop o' tea
and some bread. It gi'es me a hungry feeling
like to think o' she and her eatin'. When I first
fell in wi' she I thought, that's the maid for me.
Her can eat and sleep and work, and I'll lay
my head on it her can love on the same plan.
Here goes, said I, and I went fur courtin' that
woman on the same plan I'd go in for saving a
ship, neck or nothin'. I'll have my man in
that job it was a woman or go under for it. I
knawed she as soon as I clapped eyes- on she wi'
her strong legs and g'eat long hands and her
rosy mouth as could settle a row in a " he
snapped his fingers to indicate the time it would
need for Janet to square things. " I don't won-
der they hate she here. I knaw the sort o' maid
you'd got cut out and dressed for me ; she do
hunt hereabouts still. Iss ! you knaw she do,
like a bitch mad wi' moonshine. Xo ! I didna
want to marry a maid as 'ud sit at my feet and
blink at me all day and purr at me all night like
a chintzy cat. It shows what a darned lot you
16 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
all know 'bout me, if 'ee do think as they sort o'
women takes my fancy. Some more tea,
mother."
Dame Trenoweth poured out the second cup of
tea, and, as she gave it to him, she rubbed her
trembling old hand through his thick hair and
gently kissed him. Her Kit was her idol, and
if she could only get him to talk she did not mind
a bit of abuse.
" Eh, Kit ! But you're over hard on the
maids. It be true I would have liked 'ee to wed
a maiden like Wilmot Tregarth, and it's true as
'ee say as she's allus been over fond o' 'ee, but
if 'ee don't take to such as she well, well, thy
old mother won't make thy bed harder for 'ee to
lie on."
He handed her his cup and took out his pipe
again and sucked it before filling it.
" They sort o' women makes me sick," he mut-
tered, " I could take my foot to 'em. The very
scent of their skirts spells foolishness to me. They
seems as addle-pated as gulls, and they simper
and chatter 'nough to gie 'ee a sick stomach. But
Janet " and as he said the word you could not
tell whether the blaze from his match as he
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 17
lighted his pipe or the vision his brain conjured
up gave the fire and strength to his deep grey
eyes " Janet, why her's never teased me once't
nor tired me neither, sin' we was married. Her's
like a squirrel, now ain't she, mother?"
The old woman nodded.
"Like a bit eel, too eh?" he asked with a
merry twinkle in his eye as he blew a smoke
wreath from his uplifted mouth.
" Iss, iss, so she be."
" And like a skylark on the Towans at day-
break, eh, mother ? "
" I don't belong to see they now, lad," she
answered cautiously, for she had a dim idea he
was taking her into a maze where she would find
herself entrapped in the praises of Janet.
"Well, her's like a rough colt, too and a bit
of a tiger thrown in." He laughed loudly. " That
last 'ee'll grant to she ? "
" Iss ! a bit like that, but not quite so bad as
'ee've painted she."
The old dame grunted, rather bewildered at
having her own weapons used in her son's hands.
" No, not quite so bad."
He chuckled.
18 Seaweed: J. Cornish Idyll.
" And down below all they things, mother,
there's somethin' else she be like and no feller,
unless he's been at a school, could get at it, and
perhaps not then. I can't find no way o' tellin'
o' it for it's like the lighthouse lamp in a gale. I
can steer by en but I'm blest if I can whistle en
into the boat wi' me. There you look mad again
'cause I've got off the tiger tack. Oh Lord !
Mother ; I wish 'ee'd try and love she for 'ee
do make she whisht many and many a time,
though her says no word of it."
" Well, well, Kit. I'll try to please 'ee for, as
I said afore, I've nothin' agin the woman, and
after all she do belong to thee and I s'ud behave
better, but " with a sly glance at the man who
was now beginning to mend an old brown fishing
net with a tatting spool," I do miss the lill baaby,
Kit, and I do want to dandle a brat o' yours on
my knees afore the Lord do take me."
She pulled out of her pocket an old red silk
handkerchief and wiped her eyes. This was her
trump card and she had saved it all the.se
months to play against Janet. She smoothed
out her apron and made a grandmother's knee
while she rocked to and fro as if hushing a
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 19
child to sleep, but only " Lordy ! Lordy ! "
was heard by Kit who never guessed
that it was a lullaby. He threw down the net on
the floor and the tatting spool with it.
"Now we're at it," he said, and belched out
volumes of smoke from his pipe. " She be chield-
less ! That's your grudge agin she, be it? I've
stopped your tongue afore now when you was
going to run on that tack and now by God !
I'll stop 'ee altogether."
He knocked some more loose furze into the
smouldering heap with his hand, tightly clutch-
ing the iron which he held, and as the flames
danced round the wood he went on :
" That woman's biggest wish i' this world is to
have a chiel, mind that ! Her biggest wish, I
tell 'ee. Her's made in bone and belly and breast
for that job better nor all our maids i' Cornwall."
His eyes kindled, and the smoking ceased as he
twisted himself further round in his chair to face
his mother.
"I'd never guessed afore I knew she what a
woman was. They maids I walked wi' teached
me no more o' women o' Janet's mak' nor grey
birds or bantams. I never shot a guess
20 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll -
afore I courted Jaiiet wliat a parcel o'
feelins' could fit into a cream and white
skin that looks as if her own finger nails 'ud
scar it. Its just they things I think on as I sit
here when I can't move about as I belong wo-
men and maids and mothers and childer, and
I'm blest if every one o' they don't all fit into
the face of my woman."
Seeing the bewildered look in his mother's
face, he said, in a more gentle voice :
" But that's not here nor yet there. Mother,
do 'ee try to follow me a bit and you're bound to
come round to my way o' thinking. I'd cut my
hand off iss, I'd scoop out one of my eyes as
the Bible tells we to do rather than I'd think
hard or evil o' Janet. There is no evil in she."
He knocked the ashes out of his pipe against
the arm of his chair as he said it, and blew vigor-
ously down the stem.
" Her's a big brave woman as clings hard to a
man " his voice was lowered, and he looked
hardly at the old woman " who never can have
no chiel ! There, mother ! " with a short, sharp
breath " put that in your snuff to scent it wi',
and strike out the sum agin Janet ; you've
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 21
got to put that fault to me and not to she. When
the neighbours come in next and set up their
cursed cackliii' over maids and widders and
chiels and passons, tell 'em from me that Clibby
Kit can't get no chiel, and that Janet, his wo-
man, do cleave to he in spite of it, 'cause she
loves he, mark that ! and has vowed to love he
till he dies and tell 'em too, if they can spell it
out that ever sin' her knawed her could have
no chiel, her's never mouthed over it neither to
me, nor to any other body. Folks don't mag
except o' pin pricks. I'm not blind and I watch
she, as you do kiiaw well 'iiough, like a big fool,
day in and day out. I watch that woman o' ours
wi' chielder, and its 'nough to send 'ee mazed to
see the look on her face. Virgin Marys indeed !
they faces ain't none o' em ripe enough to look
like my woman." He laughed softly. " The
chielder know she, know she for a full, ripe wo-
man as wants soinethin' that she do belong to
have and can't have noways as I can see. Watch
her wi' beasts. It's just the same. It makes
a feller feel a skunkin' hound to set fish hooks
for starlings or hunt a wild thing happy i' the
sun. Oh, mother ! do 'ee hear me ? I'm sore
22 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
pressed to plead for she like this. I don't belong
to be a whining ninny like I be this day, but
you've set me 011 past my own tongue and I don't
knaw myself at all. No, not at all sure
'nough."
His face, aglow with the energy with which he
had spoken, grew softer. The lover had turned
and transfigured the rough miner and educated
him beyond the colleges and books he craved
to know in order that he might be able to under-
stand Janet. Old Mother Treiioweth cowered
under his strange look, for Kit, her strong, quiet,
and tender son, never talked to her in this
feverish way, and she feared he was getting " not
exactly " through sitting still all day.
" Kit, my son, don't 'ee tak' on 'bout what I
said. I meant no hurt to she. I'm a lone
widdy," with a whimper, " and I did want to
dandle a lill grandchiel on my knees afore I died
but, if it is the Lord's will that 'ee cannot be a
goodman to she as is your lawful wife, well, it is
not for me to say one way nor another, and I
didna mean to tease 'ee, sure 'nough. When
a woman be barren, 'ee knows 'eeself that folks
will talk and say that, if one chap winna do, she
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 23
do often hanker after another, specially if her
master bides always in the house place and she
do go up 'long at times as Janet do. I don't say
but what they weeds do 'ee good, but it be far for
she to go fur they, and she so well set and lively
in her talk, and not of this country neither."
This last sentence was delivered with a little
of the old venom, for here was another sore which
could not heal, that her son had not chosen a
wife from his own village and people. The man
laughed.
" It's no use gettin' teasy wi' 'ee, mother. I
thank the Lord I've taken a maid from another
place ; I've told 'ee over and over again, I'm
none taken wi' these lurgy women hereabouts,
giddy heads, wi' no sense nor no fling in 'em. I'm
goin' to have forty winks now, and so let's leave
Janet to hersel' ! Her'll be back betimes and
her'll find me as mum as a gurnard if I don't
take care. Don't 'ee mind the sharp things I've
said to 'ee. I'm not exactly to-day. There's a
gale o' wind brewing, I b'lieve, and that allus
stirs my bile a bit, since I've had to be indoors.
With this apology he leaned back in his chair
and closed his eyes, a bit of "play-acting" he
24 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
indulged in when he wanted to escape his
mother's chatter. She slowly pulled herself to-
gether and hegan to collect and wash up the tea-
things, pondering in her old-fashioned way on
the perversity of young blood.
CHAPTER II.
KIT TRENOWETH, after his complaint to his
mother that he was in need of sleep, let his head
drop on his breast and gradually sank into a
quiet doze, but in between the waking and sleep-
ing he thought about Janet and wondered in a
dim way what kind of power had got possession
of him to have altered his life so oddly. When
Janet came near him it was as if all gentle and
strong influences had come with her. It always
bewildered him that he never tired of her, never
ceased feeling towards her as if he had but newly
possessed her. One of his mates had once told
him that it was against nature for him and his
sort to live always with the same woman, and he
added that with his wife he had to pretend every
now and then that she was not married to him,
and for this purpose he took off her wedding ring
and acted like a lover to her in order to stimulate
( 25 )
26 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
his old passion for her. Clibby Kit never felt
the need to lash tip his old romance for Janet, it
never ceased spurring him, and he dwelt in the
heaven and hell of an absorption which at times
seemed to threaten his reason. At first he thought
Janet had bewitched him when he found that a
subtler passion followed on the mere physical
spell of the early days, for he had seen so many
of his mates bewitched and befooled by the fort-
night, or by the year, and get over it, as they did
a fever. They always settled down to a good-
humoured married life, neither drunk nor starved
as far as love was concerned, and they laughed
knowingly at the first love frenzy in others which
they reckoned to be the way of young boys, colts,
and soldiers. But Janet had curled round Tre-
noweth's nature, until at times he almost felt a
feeling of suffocation in his joy at possessing her ;
this was often followed by a mood of exaltation,
which in his homely way he compared to "the
feelin' a man has when he've saved a poor devil
from the sea and he finds hisself warm and happy
between white sheets again." Every morning
when he wakened he thanked God she lay by his
side. To feel her breathing near him soothed him
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 27
to a quiet happiness which rarely grew less. She
had educated him as love alone can educate. He
knew little or nothing of books, nor did she, but
the very scent of womanhood, which seemed to
lull his baser passions as she moved near him,
set him thinking about matters which had never
before entered his head. He knew nothing about
modern problems how could he? His first
problem had been how to fill his own stomach.
His second, how to feed his mother, and before
he had solved these two the third problem, whicli
of course he never recognised as one at all, ap-
peared to him when he was working in the mines
near Barrow, in the shape of this woman, Janet
Nelson, with whom he fell in love, and whom he
wooed with a strength and tenacity of purpose
which bewildered her. Being a strong, capable
Lancashire lass, she had several lovers, as
"wenches" always had who had any "grit" in
them, but Kit Trenoweth's southern ways, which
like the modulations at the end of his sentences,
charmed her native artistic sense with a feeling
of grace and refinement, at last won her. She
was swept away by his sincere passion for her,
and the twitting of her companions who called
28 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
her " chap " a " toff " only increased the attrac-
tion towards the sober, tender, and yet passionate
lover who came to her with none of the vulgar
swagger or selfish bombast of the men around her
who worshipped money and money-getting more
than women. Six years ago he had fought for
her and won her. Two years after their marri-
age, he came back to his old Cornish home and
accepted a vacant place in one of the few mines
still offering regular work in Cornwall.
Almost immediately upon his return to his
old associations and work, when in full health
and pay, an accident paralysed him, and he felt
himself at times almost like a dead man. Janet
had to mother him now, sometimes almost to
nurse him like a child and carry him from chair
to sofa in her strong arms. The tender and
protecting influence came now from the woman
to the man, for her old powerful sweetheart
was no longer able to guard her ; he had to en-
dure a cripple's life with its physical drawbacks
and sexual disabilities. The virile lover was
laid aside, and Nature, as if in revenge for her
thwarted plan, had pressed the subtler spiritual
laws of love-life into the foreground, and made
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 29
the mental war against the physical until the
poor human with his pipe, his net-making and
his mother, presented a sorry spectacle to those
who had known him as a strong, capable worker
and organiser.
It was this subtle transformation in the man
and the lover which made him at times unable
to tell if he had more pleasure or pain in this
love of his. It tormented him on the days when
he watched Janet's strong young face brighten
as some welcome outsider poured out news or
told of some village frolic ; he felt then that he
was old, grey, and stupid, and she well, she
seemed to him like a seagull and a mermaid in
one, meant to fly, dash, strike out and fulfil her-
self in ways he could not understand. He
smoked the matter in his pipe, he said to himself
sometimes, but the tobacco gave out before he
could arrive at any definite consolation or con-
clusion. Then, as he pondered over it once
more, she would come and nestle close to him and
caress him in her strong womanly way, lay her
long firm hands on his shoulders, and tell him
what a good fellow he was, and then he felt
happy, very happy, until the devil put it into
30 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
his head to argue with himself that if she had
told him he was a bad lot, but that she loved him
the bad lot better than anything else in the
world, he would hiave been really happy and for
a long time. Once as they sat together after the
old dame had gone to bed she had looked at him
in a strange way and her face seemed tired and
a little pale, too, and he had put his arm out,
and rubbed the back of his hairy hand on her
smooth long fingers, and lingered over the one
where the ring told him he was safe. She
turned round suddenly and threw her strong arm
round his neck and held him so tightly that the
pressure hurt him, and she said thickly : " I
wonder what I'd do without thee, mon " ; and he
could not answer her, for it was as if his very
blood had danced in his flesh. She rarely said
words like that ; her northern training expressed
itself more in gesticulation, and she could rarely
speak when she felt deeply.
Kit hungered often for a rough Lancashire
love speech, but it seldom came. He had grown
very restless these last two years ; he wondered
if books or clever people could help him over one
or two puzzles which bewildered him. He was
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 31
growing afraid of the silence Janet always kept
about having no child ; he felt nervous about it
as he might of a ghost. Her reserve, and her
wild joyless laughter over trivialities, which he
had noticed at times, worried him, and he dared
not question her for fear of putting his own
dread into her mind in case his suspicions were
only the result of his doting passion. The real
truth lay in the knowledge, that grew upon him
in some undefined way, that the woman was
more than his match.
The girls with whom he had flirted, the women
familiarity had led him to understand his
mother, for instance were not like Janet. They
had no inflexions, no modulations worth speak-
ing of ; they were within the octave, as it were,
and an occasional tuning up at Christmas, at
Feast times, or when a revival took place, was all
they needed to keep them both healthy and virtu-
ous. Love had sharpened Trenoweth's wits, and
he was puzzled about Janet's oddities, until he
had once or twice come nearly to the point of
having a talk with the " passon," of whom he
stood in awe as more or less belonging to the
" gentry," to whom a poor man could not easily
32 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
pour out his human difficulties. He felt it would
be a good deal easier to beg for parish relief than
to ask advice on a subject he had pondered over
until it had become a part of Janet in his
thoughts, and would not bear talking over any
more than the big brown mole under her breast
or the clothing she wore in the night time.
He smoked and made his nets and cursed him-
self for a doubting fool when he felt an icy
shiver run over him .as he said to himself : " Her's
above the likes o' we her'll find it out one day,
and then well, what then ? " These reflections
generally ended in his declaring with astound-
ing emphasis that Janet belonged to him and to
him alone, and he was but a poor-hearted fellow
to addle his brains with silly fears.
One day, after an hour spent in thinking over
these things, he had suddenly called out gruffly :
" Come here, wench, and kiss your lawful man,
we're spliced for good, mind, as you women say
up 'long ; you can't get out o' it, Janet my lass."
Janet had pondered over this speech and won-
dered if Kit would ever become like Nathan Tre-
weeke, who ordered his woman about as if she
had neither soul nor body of her own, and at last
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 33
gave her two black eyes in the endeavour to prove
that man is made on purpose to master a woman
and after that to praise God and glorify him for
ever.
Kit Trenoweth had never spoken so strongly
or at such length in his life as he had to his
mother that afternoon, and the mental effort
had exhausted him. He dozed as he thought
over Janet and longed for her return. His brain
and spine seemed alive and as if tiny hot insects
were crawling over him, and picking with teeth
like needle-points the very marrow out of his
bones. His manhood and his self-control seemed
to be fast ebbing away, and he felt that if he did
not see Janet he should soon be " mazed." His
wife had been gone a day and a night, but it
seemed weeks to Kit. She left home so rarely
that he thought when she had gone that he had
some idea of what it would be like if she died, or
he died, for he could never imagine that even in
heaven he could be anything but lost and
" leery " without Janet.
Kit scarcely realised how his whole religioi)
had been unconsciously modified and in some
respects utterly changed through his love for
34 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
this woman Janet. The world, which he once
affected to look upon as a mere temporary dwel-
ling place, had become his heaven simply because
Janet moved in it. The Golden Jerusalem, the
judgment seat, and the harp and crown which
had always formed, as a good Wesleyan, a back-
ground to his image of God and Christ, had
imaged themselves very faintly in these latter
years, and he had once, in a state of half waking
and sleeping, caught himself imagining heaven
with a woman on the Throne, crooning to little
children who were playing at her feet. It was
getting indeed time that Clibby Kit should con-
sult his " leader," for Love and Religion were be-
coming hopelessly entangled in his simple brain.
CHAPTER III.
" WHO be there ? Come in, if you please,"
called Mother Treiioweth, as a knock was heard
at the door. " Oh ! be it you, Loveday ? Well,
my dear, I'm real glad to see 'ee. Sit 'ee down.
It be so mortal dull at times here that I'm right
glad to have a neighbour drop in. Sit 'ee down
tak' a chair i' front o' the fire Then as
she caught sight of her neighbour's face, she
said quickly, " Why, what's wrong wi' 'ee,
woman ? "
"What's wrong? My gosh! What's right,
you might be askin' ! Be Janet in ? "
Loveday Penberthy peered round the room as
she asked the question, and seeing Trenoweth
apparently asleep, she smiled and jerked her
thumb in an interrogative way over her shoulder
towards the door by which she had just entered,
at which gesture Mother Trenoweth shook her
( 35 )
36 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
head, and sighed wearily : " Lordy ! my dear, her
bean't back yet."
" My blessed life ! " ejaculated Loveday, the
gossip and ne'er-do-weel of the village ; " I be
near faintin', that I be ; I can 'ardly stan' up-
right at all" to prove which she leaned her
stout person against the end of the window seat,
folded her large bare arms, rested them on her
capacious stomach, and let all her weight fall on
one leg in her endeavour to ease both mind and
body.
" Whatever be the matter, Loveday ? Is Jan
not so well agin ? "
" Oh ! Jan ! he be right enough, and if he
warn't I don't knaw as I s'ud fret over much
'bout he. Lazy lump ! He don't earn tuppence
a week all told, and I've to go down 'long o'
Mazes to wash and char and do coddles for he to
guzzle hissel' out wi' baccy and meat. I'll have
'ee knaw, Mrs. Trenoweth, that I'm fairly done
fur."
" Mazes," said the old woman, " Mazes ? who
be they then? But sit 'ee down, Loveday, sit
'ee down, woman, and tell me all 'bout it."
" I'm feared I s'll be upsettin' o' Kit there."
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 37
"No, you, wain't; sit 'ee down and don't 'ee
mind me ; mag on a bit it'll do the old 'un good.
What's wrang wi' 'ee, now?" asked Kit quietly
from the corner, for Loveday's loud voice had
brought him back to ordinary matters.
" Why ! I'm fair befoolt wi' they up 'long
folkses, they as have took Maister Lander's house
up by the south cove. I cain't tell what be
comin' to pass they strangers do seem to tor-
mint the life and soul out o' we dacent folkses
wi' their flash notions and lurgy ways and "
with a sneer " as mean, my dear, as mean as
inisards, every one o' they sort."
" They've sent for 'ee then to do their chars
for 'en ? " asked the old woman.
" My Lord ! I s'ud jist think they 'ad."
Loveday threw up her head and sniffed the
air with impatient scorn. She had taken off
her flat black hat and thrown it on the floor,
when she caught sight of the door which was
being slowly opened from outside.
" Here comes Nan Curtis ; her'll tell 'ee 'bout
Mazes, fur her had one o' they lodging wi' she
once't."
Nan Curtis opened the door and peeped in the
38 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
room in the familiar way neighbours have with
one another. She stepped into the house place,
and sat on a bench opposite Kit, with a friendly
though rough greeting to him.
" How be 'ee, old man?"
" 'Bout same, Nan thank 'ee."
Nan wore a white sun bonnet, which partially
shaded her rough, bony face ; the skin was yellow
and coarse, and but for an expression of intense
animation she would have been positively repel-
lant in her ugliness. She continually exposed
large yellow tusks, for she seemed to yap like a
dog as she talked ; the same sound did duty for a
laugh or a grunt of disapproval. She sat square
and taut, braced up for a scold or a kind of rat-
tlesnake gossip at any hour. She was always
clean and even prim in her dress, and her shrew-
ish tendencies and quick retorts made her re-
spected and at the same time feared by her slow
and easy-living neighbours. She and Loveday
were great cronies, for they met on a common
ground: both kept their native vindictiveness
on the surface and both were willing at any hour
to do a real service for a neighbour. Many a
racy story, by which the general world is the
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 39
loser, did these two women tell one another over
two-pennyworth of the best gin. If ridicule and
denunciation could have re-constructed a com-
munity, Loveday and Nan would have managed
the whole task over one noggin of the best Ply-
mouth. Nan sat opposite Kit, and smoothed out
her clean apron over her dark green dress with
her small energetic hands. Her upright, defi-
ant attitude and her straight bust, which did
not seem to offer either tenderness or forgiven-
ness to the fallen or strayed, suggested a grim,
stern humour, and a stolid common sense which
contrasted strongly with Loveday' s lazy slouch,
ill-kempt hair and voluminous bosom, which
scandal declared had more than once bidden wel-
come to vagrant lovers. ISTan turned to Love-
day, and preened herself for a tale of woe and
frolic in one.
"What's that yer was sayin', Loveday? Be
you on the Mazes' tack? Lord I 'ee've been to
char for they ain't 'ee ? "
A toss of the head was all the answer Loveday
gave but she looked fixedly at her friend for a
moment, and then winked, at which the other
yapped.
40 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" They be .parties sure 'nough. How did
they sarve 'ee, then?"
" Sarve me ! Why, woman they sarved me
so spicey that I can't sit down on my rump, I'm
that sore." She rubbed affectionately the af-
flicted portion of her body and coughed as she
saw Kit smiling to himself in the corner. " My
dear life ! I cain't even move my arm to my head,
I'm that stiff ; I cain't think what up 'long folk-
ses think we's made of. Naw ! " settling down
into a heap in order to tell her tale with more
ease. " Just listen ! I goes to they Masses fust
thing i' the mornin', and then it's fust one thing
and then it's another, clack and clatter from day-
break to midnight. My dear" with a loud
laugh and addressing Nan " they do belong tr>
have their knives claned wi' some stuff or 'nother
every day, every blessed mornin' I tell 'ee, and
I've got to shine their bloomin' shoes, not once't
a week, mind 'ee, but every day."
" Lordy, Lordy ! " sang the old dame, " would
'ee believe it, then ? One 'ud almost think they
made a particular habit o' findin' mud to dirty
'em. It ain't exactly seemly, seems to me, to
dirt all over your shoes every day; I s'udn't a
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 41
thought gentry would act so like working
folkses."
" Gentry ! they sort gentry ! my blessed ! They
ain't no gentry ! They do save up every crum-
ble, and 'cause they can hitch up a veil to their
hats o' Sundays they looks down on we folkses
as 'as to work for they. Darned upstairts ! that's
what they be." She beat her foot impatiently
on the brick floor and looked envious.
" You be right there, Loveday. They sort
mak's their money up along and comes down
along to save it on we. Ah ! ah ! ah ! Well, what
else had 'ee to do ? "
" Why, its all fetchin' and carryin' and bow-
in' and scrapin', and they expects a bloomin' lot
o' mag wi' it, too. They's for ever ' beggiii'
pardin' and wants me to do the same most all
day and for nothin' too. I cain't mak' it out.
If they do hutch up too close to one 'nother they
smirks thisards" imitating an inclination of
the head and a slow drawl ' beggin' o' your par-
din ! ' Lawks ! look at the old 'un ; her's doiii' it
too," for the old woman was so keenly following
Loveday's tale that she had unconsciously
smirked and made a movement with her lips.
42 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" It's all 'nough to turn your stomach, and I said
right out once't that I'd beg no pardins to no-
oiie for doing' no wrang to 'em ! I knaws gentry,
Clibby Kit," with a direct look at the cripple,
" I knaw they well 'nough when I see they
and if I do any person a hurt I'm not so over-
proud but what I'll say I'm sorry for it, that is,
if I be sorry, you knaw" with an apologetic
smile at Nan "but they must be fittey like if
I'm to bend my pride to they and not upstairts
as cain't fairly pay for a drop o' milk when they's
drunk it."
A loud laugh came from Nan at this point,
for she knew the farm where the milk was
bought, and she could back Loveday's assertion
with another tale about unpaid debts.
" Iss ! Iss ! but what's the good o' keep beggin'
pardin, Loveday ; what's it fur at all ? " asked
the old woman.
" Summat to do, I s'ud reckon. I told Mrs.
Maze pretty quick that I warn't goin' to beg
pardins to no one, and that her bluid and mine
I guessed was maistly of the same colour both
on us seemingly has red bluid in we and not
black, leastways I ain't noane inside o' me, and
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 43
then I up and told she if anyone was to beg par-
dins, it was she and not me. Iss ! I did," em-
phatically, for there was an incredulous smile
creeping over Nan's face. " I just up and said
they very words to she, and why ? "
Loveday drew her chair closer to the fire and
crossed her legs.
"Would you believe it of the mean woman?
They had a roast sent into the dinin' room for
their sels, and what do 'ee think was put abroad
on the table fur me ? " pointing with a fat finger
to her capacious chest.
" Nay ! I canna guess," said the old woman,
whose eyes gleamed at this rare chance of village
gossip. " What were it then ? "
" Heavy cake, I s'ud say," snarled Nan, whose
experiences in the gluttony of lodgers and " up-
'long" people was sad.
" No, woman ; it weren't even that. It were
a rusty herrin' and a bit o' stale bread."
" Lordy, Lordy ! did anybody ever hear the
likes o' that, but I've allus heard that the stran-
gers and artises be very sparey," said Mother
Trenoweth.
"Divil tak' the bastely misards," grunted
44 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
Nan. "What did 'ee do? Did 'ee eat en at
all?"
" Eat en ? " with a fine scorn. " I just took en
right under her nose when her'd comed out o'
the dinin' room stuffed full o' flesh meat, and I
said to she : ' Here, missis ! yer cat must be a
stranger, too, I reckon ! her don't tak' to rusty
herrins neither do she? Hers waitin' seemly
fur the roast, I'm thinkin'.' "
Loveday clasped her hands round her crossed
knee and chuckled.
" Drat 'ee ! Did 'ee say that fur sure ? " cried
Nan.
" Iss ! sure 'nough that I did, to try fur to
shame she. And that's not all, my girl," and
Loveday clapped her hands and changed the po-
sition of her legs. She screwed up her eyes as
if in pain as she did this ; winked and nodded
to the two women and looked across at Kit. " I
can scarce move easy yet : it's the butter makin'
and the scrubbin' all to once't. Think of a shil-
lin' a day for to char and rub and scrub and
mak' butter as well. You knaw I can wash well
'nough ; I've done it anyways for the last fifteen
year and more eh, Nan?"
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 45
" That 'ee can, my dear," answered Nan, " and
git the dirt out o' the clathes wi'out any muck
put i' the watter to rend 'em abroad as soon as
they're on a body's back agin. Didna your
washin' sut en neither?"
Loveday put her hands to her sides and
laughed loudly.
" Oh ! my Lord ! I'll leave 'ee knaw a thing or
two. If Kit there don't like what I'm goin' to
say, I cain't help en, but somehow now I allus
look on 'ee more like a woman than a man, wi'
allus bein' in like and listenin' to our mag
eh?" She looked kindly at Kit.
" Iss ! I suppose you do. I'm not harkin'
much, Loveday, and if you don't talk too loud I
cain't hear 'ee, if it's summat as belongs to wo-
men folkses."
He glanced at Loveday with a look which
combined repulsion and familiarity.
" Well ! my dear," addressing Nan, " after I'd
got through all they chars and the butter and
washed and dried and mangled all they clothes
(it took me three days' slavin' like a nigger till
I'm a mass o' sores, I tell 'ee) what do 'ee think
that pert Miss Maze had to say to it all? My
46 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
blessed life ! Her coomed into me like this if you
please."
Loveday got up and mimicked fine ladydom
so well that all three shouted with laughter, and
Kit chuckled as he called for more tobacco.
" ' Pen ! ' (the cheek o' she cuttin' my name i'
two like that) ' Pen ! ' says she," and the rough
loud voice sank to a mincing treble, " ' You have
not starched the legs o' my drawseses, and Ma
and me allus likes our laces starched.' Naw !
what do 'ee think o' that fur lustful pride?"
"My dear life!" from Nan. "'Ee cain't
mean that, sure 'nough ! " She rocked back-
wards and forwards and showed her large yellow
tusks with delight and amazement.
" Did 'ee ever ! Oh ! my patience on us !
starch i' their drawseses ! well ! well ! they be
up-long notions ! "
"And that ain't all," amicably continued
Loveday, " but it's the same wi' the lace on their
night shifts too, and all sorts o' different clathes
as they do wear ; it ain't only i' the legs o' their
drawseses, I can tell 'ee," with a mysterious
wink at Nan.
" Lordy, Lordy ! I wonder they can sleep i'
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 47
comfort," said the old woman, moving her neck
from side to side as if she could feel the stiff laces
like a halter round her throat.
" What did 'ee say to she when her'd asked
'ee to do such an unbeknown thing as that,
Loveday?" queried Nan. Loveday had seated
herself again and was gazing with the air of a
conquering heroine into the fire.
" I said to she, l Starch i' drawseses, Miss
Maze ? ' Eduth, her maiden name be, and after
that I'd a real mind to call she that to her face.
' Iss ! ' says I to she. ' Iss ! I'll put starch i' your
drawseses, and on your backside too, if you've a
mind to ! ' "
" Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! Darn 'ee " from Nan. " That's
one o' the best you've ever given they sort, Love-
day. They cain't get to the windward o' you.
What did the fule say to 'ee then? "
" Well," answered Loveday, modestly, " I'm
not altogether sure her heard that last, else her
didn't quite pick out what the meanin' o' it
were, but her went to the cupboard and gave me
the starch, and," with a broad grin, " her's got
starch 'nough in her drawseses now as' 11 let she
48 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
knaw what my body <do feel like after doin'
chars 'nough fur a month fur one day's pay."
" Up-long folkses ain't all so near as Mazes be,
Loveday, yer must mind that. Do 'ee recollect
that poor devil Macnab as lodged wi' me last
winter? I tended he like my own chiel. He'd
no sich ways 'long o' he I can tell 'ee. He was
as free to help 'ee as to laugh at 'ee, but sickly
sure enough."
Nan took the corner of her white apron and
blew her nose vigorously.
"I did take to that feller, and I'm whisht
many a time when I do think o' en, poor fule."
" What's become o' he sin' he went to foreign
pairts?" asked Loveday.
" My gosh ! ain't I never told 'ee ? Well !-
well ! I b'lieve I took it pretty hard and said
nothin' of it for long 'iiough. My blessed life !
he be turned into a pepper-dredge, so I've 'eard !"
she beat the ground quickly and fiercely with
her foot as she continued in an injured tone ;
" That's a poor 'nough end for a fellow to come
to after all the slavin' I did for en. I've rubbed
that man's back, which was nothin' to begin
wi' but a loose sack full o' nails, I 'ave rubbed
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 49
en till it were blistered many a time and made
eii coddles enough to frighten 'ee to tempt his
appetite. Old Nancy Nanquitho's stuff did
nothin' at all for he. I don't want to say nothin'
fur to dishearten Kit there, but it seems to me
that that seaweed oil is nothin' but a snare to
trap a fule's money."
" P'raps the oil bean't much worth for a de-
cline, Nan," answered Kit. " It be good, I
b'lieve, for seizures and rheumatics, leastways
that's what her's told Janet that it's maistly
fur."
Loveday winked at Nan and said surlily.
" Some folkses is o'er fond o' jawing to your
woman, Kit, and they do feed her mind wi' un-
truths I'm fearin'. I don't b'lieve mysel' in
folkses livin' i' huts when there's housen near by
to be had for almost nothin'. If I was thee,
Kit, I'd stop Janet from going too much wi' the
likes o' Nancy Nanquitho. There be folkses
near by, as 'ud place her character i' the bottom
of a beer mug and then declare you couldn't find
en, drunk nor sober."
The old woman clasped her hands and turned
her thumbs one over the other as she watched
50 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
her son's face, but she said no word for or against
the old witch doctor.
Kit laughed.
" Perhaps the woman 'ave melted her charac-
ter into the seaweed stuff and it'll come out by
and by in we. My legs is better for it, that I'll
swear. There be a damned sight more witches
livin' i' housen than i' huts, let me tell 'ee."
Nan and Loveday laughed at this sharp hit at
the village women, but the old dame feared that
they were getting on dangerous ground.
" 'Ee was joking, Nan, surely wan't 'ee, when
'ee said us Maister Macnab was made into a pep-
per-dredge ? "
" No ! I warn't jokin' at all ! not a bit of it.
Some feller wrote to one o' they artises as is stay-
ing wi' Jane Hocking, and by all accounts he'd
seen it done and wrote to tell she all about it."
" My blessed ! " grunted Loveday, " it do sound
like some devil's trick or 'nother ; I s'ud 'ave
thought the police 'ud have stopped sich goin's
on."
" Don't 'ee see, Loveday, my dear, they burnt
en first ; took en, poor feller, and put en inside o'
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 51
a big oven, so they do say, and fairly roasted the
poor devil until well my dear life ! its awful
to think on it, until he was nothin' but dust and
ashes like that there ! " pointing to the white
ash from the burnt-out wood which lay in a heap
on the red tiles of the hearth place.
" Lordy, Lordy ! it do fair make a body's flesh
go crawly; it's worse than murder, seems to
me," wailed Mother Trenoweth.
" Iss ! so it be. I lies awake at nights some-
times and thinks o' he afore he went away, and
I'm forced to get up and tak' a drop o' hot ginger
to soothe my stomach. The thought o' that deal-
man bein' rent limb from limb wi' no soul by to
save en makes all the wind i' niy stomach fly to
my head. They say as after he was burnt to
nothin', as you might say, they took what was
left o' en and poured en into a pepper dredge, I
could hardly credit it, but they as told me says
as this sort o' buryin' is coming over to we from
foreign pairts, but I don't 'ardly b'lieve it."
"Well! I hope to the Lord it won't
be made into law afore I'm safely under
the ground. I s'ud feel as shamed as a
maid to 'ave strange men a-fingerin' my
52 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
corpse, I can tell 'ee. I hope I may be
orderly and becomin'ly buried when my time
is over," and Loveday's big eyes looked grave
and nervous at the prospect of anything but a
churchyard grave.
" I do fervently hope that I may have a proper
hearse and bearers," said the old woman so-
lemnly. " Lordy ! Lordy ! it do give 'ee grave
thoughts upon the resurrection, neighbour, when
'ee do think of a poor body bein' ground down
like snuff as that poor man was done by. It do
fairly make my skin crawl to think o' sich a
thing ! Lordy ! Lordy ! have mercy upon we ! "
and her old head went from side to side as she
thought of her stocking stored away between the
mattress and the tie in the upstairs room. This
stocking was nearly full of silver coins saved
from " oddments "as she called the gifts given to
her by the district visitors and also the pence she
occasionally earned for sitting to stray artists.
Next to the ambition to have a grandchild came
her wish to have a decent burial. She bright-
ened many a weary day with the thought
of how, thanks to her foresight about
money matters, she would be carried in state
to her last resting-place, amid the hushed won-
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 53
der of her neighbours, in a hearse with big,
black, nodding plumes.
Kit Trenoweth became half unconscious of the
gossip of the women ; his eyes rested on the well-
known line of coast which he could plainly see
through the window from, his seat in the
chimney corner. Since his illness the colour and
life of the fishing village had been his chief
amusement ; he could see the herring and mack-
erel boats come in, and as he heard the clang of
the bell of the seller he knew exactly what chaff-
ing and bartering was going on, and guessed by
the gestures of the men the state of the market
on the various days when big catches were
brought in. Just now he vaguely heard Nan
describing how she had put green oil on her
lodger's throat, how three doctors' " prints " had
been administered to him at once and all had
failed to save him, and the voices seemed far
away like echoes from a distant hill. He was
gazing intently at a young sailor on the beach
who was throwing iip a big ball, while grouped
round him were the lasses and lads of the fishing
village alternately jeering and cheering him. His
lithe body and quick movements rivetted the
54 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
crippled man, whose muscles tightened with
each successful catch of the ball. The sun was
setting behind a large black rock; the water
rippled and shimmered in a blue listlessness as
sky and sea mingled into one colour. The rough
slouching figures of the idling fishermen, who
leaned against the posts and sea-wall smoking
and chaffing, became transfigured in the golden
tints of the sunset, while they woke into a ro-
mantic beauty and freshness the loose-throated
bronzed and stalwart youngsters who had come
out to do a bit of courting and idling before the
night set in. Kit watched the colours redden
and deepen and was soothed at the scene before
him. The wavelets crept almost noiselessly on
the beach and seemed to lilt a love-song to him.
The village gossip near him grew faint, and
he felt that the world after all was a fresh flower-
filled valley where a man could rest himself and
love his fill. The swish-swash of the sea, and
the laughing voices of the men and maids gradu-
ally drove away his irritable mood, and he smiled
happily as his eyes rested on the setting sun, and
noted how the light sparkled on the oars of a
few fisher boats idling in the bay. The brown
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 55
sails of one or two mackerel skiffs gave a sombre
touch to the blue fairyland before him. Suddenly
his fingers clutched the stem of his pipe ; round
by the harbour he had tracked the slow, swing-
ing walk of a woman, and he leaned back in his
chair and hummed softly.
CHAPTER IV.
" HERE ! My blessed life ! Kit ! waken up,
man ! I've just spied thy woman along the
quay," said Loveday, sharply. Then, in an aside
to Mother Trenoweth, " and time 'nough, too, I
s'ould say ; seems to me as we don't knaw all as
goes on over they weeds. I b'lieve its maistly
a passil o' cunning, and that physic ain't noane
in it at all, naw ! " with a twist of the lips and
a rough laugh. " I've heered a sight o' things I
s'udn't care to speak on o' Janet's ways wi'
strangers, I can tell 'ee."
" Darn 'ee ! " interrupted Nan. " L'ave the
woman be ; divil tak' 'ee, Loveday ! if her's
wrang, well, her's wrang and her fault '11 track
she sure 'nough. It fair turns my blood to cab-
bage water to always hear the unfavourablest side
to a woman's name. L'ave she be, I say, and
don't make strife i' another body's house," with a
( 56 )
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 57
side look at Kit who was quite unconscious of
what they were saying. Mother Trenoweth
shook her head wearily.
" Lordy ! Lordy ! I allus feel mysel' as if a
power o' trouble was a comin' on this house. I
do say many and many a time that it be poor
luck for a man to tak' a wife from up-'long
strangers who don't belong to worship nor yet
to live as we do hereabouts." Then in a lower
tone she said to Loveday, after glancing at the
unconscious face of her son :
"Hark 'ee, woman ! I do wonder what 'ee
have heerd 'bout Janet ; do 'ee come in one day
fur a cup o' tea, and while I be fittin' o' it up 'ee
can tell me all about it, fur I do hate Kit's wife
to be spoken evil o' and no one by to defend she."
Her cunning old eyes glanced sideways at Love-
day, who laughed outright.
" I do b'lieve mysel' as her is nothin' short o'
a whore, and there's more nor one as 'ull bear
that out, sure 'nough. Well, my blessed ! how
long have 'ee been standing there, Mrs. Trenow-
eth ? " as her eyes rested on the open door where
Janet stood. All three women started guiltily
and smiled in a constrained way as they looked
58 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
round quickly at Kit who was wide awake now.
" I've just come," said Janet.
She advanced into the middle of the kitchen,
and as she stood between the door and the win-
dow the last rays of the setting sun lit up her
strong face and tall figure and seemed to throw
the other women into shadow. Her loose simple
gown of blue linen, such as is worn by fisher
folk, was caught at the waist by a twisted band
of dark red sateen which threw into relief her
well-developed breasts and sloping hips. The
muscles of her arms could be clearly traced
through the bodice sleeves which were somewhat
shrunken with constant washings. She turned
her large dark blue eyes upon the little group
before her and smiled easily and pleasantly at
the three women.
She was evidently quite unconscious that their
talk had been about her and asked kindly in her
deep voice :
"And how are you, mother? And Kit?" and
her eyes met her husband's gaze and then fell
as he smiled at her.
The two women got up immediately and said
goodbye amid the head- shaking of the old
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 59
woman. When the door was shut behind Nan
and Loveday, whose chatter could be heard above
the clatter of their shoes down the village street,
Mother Trenoweth hobbled off to her bedroom
muttering :
" Lordy ! Lordy ! " adding in an awe-struck
whisper, " The devil' s in it, I b'lieve. Janet a
oh ! oh ! Loveday cain't mean that, sure 'nough,
but I'll find out, yes, I'll find out, and if the
beauty should turn out to be only a strumpet,
a'ter all, it's no more nor can be expected from
up-'long folkses."
She banged the door of her room and sat down
in her chair by her bed, put oil her glasses and,
sighing deeply, drew her old Bible towards her,
and read her usual evening chapter. After this
was finished, a feeling of inward peace and satis-
faction stole over her, irradiating her old
sallow face, for she realised now that the Al-
mighty had indeed laid a mission upon her
shoulders, the mission of sifting to the dregs the
unknown nature and ways of her daughter-in-
law, Janet. She rocked herself to and fro and
felt the exaltation of a religious fervour stealing
over her; it gradually aroused hunger in her,
60 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
and she hoped that the husband and wife would
soon call her to eat some of Janet's " coddles."
Husband and wife, however, were evidently
in no hurry to summons her, and she had plenty
of time to digest, not only the scriptures, but the
village gossip of the afternoon.
When Janet was left alone with Kit she had
gone quickly over to him and taken him up in
her arms as if he had been a child and laid him
on his couch. She leaned over him and put her
soft warm hands on each side of his head as she
kissed his eyes.
" Poor old man ! " she murmured. " How tired
you must be ! Here ! let me shake your pillows,
so!"
He grasped her hands tightly in his and then
passionately kissed them, laying them one over
the other. She moved away a little nervously
as she glanced at his feverish eyes as if she
dreaded his next movement. Then, almost im-
pulsively, she turned back to him again a mo-
ment afterwards and said :
" I've brought your oil, Kit."
He looked at her, glad of the chance to do so.
"How long will it last this time?"
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 61
" A week, and then," stammering, " I'm to go
for a larger bottle which will last a month or
so."
She turned her back to him and raked the
fire.
"Had a good time?"
" Yes : and you ? "
" I've had those damned women at my elbows,
I b'lieve, all the day long," with an impatient
shrug. " For heaven's sake, keep they lot out
now. It's time I was dead and buried, I'm
thinkin', to be left alone wi' a passil o' petticoats
who mag their tongues out and my ears off;
don't 'ee think so?"
He looked eagerly at her and saw her large
brown hands clenched as she looked at him.
" Dunnot say that," she muttered, in her low
voice, and a quick red glow seemed to shiver for
a moment over her face. He noticed it.
" You're warm wi' liftin' me, lass. We'd bet-
ter get Sandy Dick to come in at night-fall to
save 'ee; don't 'ee think?"
" No ; you munna do that. I like to lift you
you know that, mon."
He smiled.
62 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" I'd give near all the rest of the life left to
me if I could lift thee now lass ; yes, now, this
minute, clean and straight i' my arms. I'd run
wi' thee round the room, catch thee close and
fast and hard to my heart and smother thee
close and warm wi' all the love in me for thee.
I wouldn't let 'ee stir no more nor a starling in
a trap. I'd mak' thy cheeks burn wi' another
sort o' colour. By God ! Janet ! I'm near choked
wi' it all ! It's worse nor hunger or thirst, wo-
man, that it be, this love I have for 'ee."
She stood before him, trembling, her long,
brown hands hanging by her sides. Her eyes
were lowered, and once or twice she seemed to be
going to speak but the words never came. At
last she moved her hands, clasping them in front
of her, and Kit's eyes followed the action. He
had often wondered why her hands had such
power over him ; they tortured him with desire
more than her face or her tall lithe body. He
looked at them now, and a great love-storm
seemed to shake him.
" Come."
He held out his arms.
She stood still and said brokenly:
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 63
" I want to talk quietly to you Kit, inon !
Summat strange has happened me an it's to thee
I want to tell it."
He seemed not to hear ; his eyes were fixed on
her strong, keen, face ; he looked like a thirsty
man who has found a well of water after hours of
wandering ; he laughed at last, a low, happy
cooing laugh.
" Thou't a beauty, Janet ; it gives me a sum-
mer's day feelin' to look at 'ee, sure 'nough.
God Almighty chucked away the mould, lass,
after he'd made thee. I reckon he'd grudge
thro win' thy sort out by the gross.
He folded his arms across his breast and eyed
her hungrily.
" From head to heel there ain't a flaw in 'ee,
not one."
She blushed hotly and he laughed again.
" That's it. That's like the old days when I
were so hot, and you were so scared ; do 'ee mind
they days ? Damn it all ! You're the only maid
as 'ave mazed me ; do 'ee mind how I used to
get so crazed over your white flesh that 'ee
thought I was not exactly more nor once't !
Come ! "
64 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
She came and sat on a low stool near him.
" Do 'ee mind how one night I was so crazed
wi' joy and love that I knelt down and prayed
like a passon ? Do 'ee mind how the words came
pourin' out thinkiii' of Him as had made women
and made 'em so different to we, do 'ee mind?
and how at last 'ee pulled me by the sleeve and
tried to cool me down, for 'ee said I were
blasphemin' ! " He laughed loudly now !
" Well ! by God ! I've felt different over women
folkses ever sin' then; there's a darned lot o'
miracle work, strikes me, goin' on i' women as
perhaps God hissel' scarcely reckoned on when
he started 'em."
He was mechanically twisting and untwisting
the button of her dress bodice. She took his
hand once as if to hold it in hers, but he kissed
them, clasped as they were, and went on playing
with her gown.
" I must seem a poor whishe creature to 'ee
now, Janet," he went on, " it do fret me near to
maziness, in these June days when the sun's so
warm and the birds sing. I'm no good to 'ee.
Damn it all ! Nothin' but a bit o' man wreck.
Best do wi' me what government made we do wi'
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 65
the big stranded vessels on th' shore ; blow 'em
up wi' dynamite to mak' room for other things."
" Thou has been too long alone, lad," she mut-
tered, and her eyes wandered to his shrunken,
crippled legs. " I'll soon set thee right again.
Thou knows," with a quick jerk of her head,
" that I shall never do aught but love thee."
She blushed and moved quickly towards the
hearth and put a saucepan of water on the fire
for making him a "coddle" before he went to
bed. As she knelt on the hearthstone with one
knee bent under her, Kit's eyes rested on her
bare neck and bent head. A soft dark down was
traceable below the mark where her hair stopped
growing and added to the curves of her
throat and neck. Just now the droop of her
head seemed to madden Kit. Her absence and
his nervous irritability after the scene with his
mother had told upon him. He rose up on his
couch, his eyes sparkling and his hands twitch-
ing.
" Come here, wench."
She turned quickly and walked over to him
with an enquiring look on her face.
" Come here ! " he repeated, and he glanced
66 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
towards the door through which his mother had
gone.
"Lock that ! let's have five minutes free from
spies."
She slowly did his bidding and came back
with a puzzled look on her face and then knelt
down by him and stroked his hand, which was
twitching nervously.
" Come, Janet ! "
His voice grew hoarse with passion and excite-
ment.
" Janet ! " he almost yelled as he pulled her
face down to him, fiercely gathered her head on
his breast and buried his hand beneath the hair
above her neck. He stroked the cheek and ear
and then pressed his hand once more on the warm
neck as if he would never let her go. He
breathed heavily :
" I'm a blasted fool, my girl, but I'm mazed
wi' love of 'ee. Quick ! put thy arms tight round
me, tight, and tell me," and he flung back her
head and looked into her eyes " tell me,
woman, that i' spite of old women's mag and
my smashed limbs you do love me," with his
teeth set, " love me as a woman loves a man."
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 67
Janet simply looked into his hungry face,
gathered him to her, as a woman would a child,
and said in a low, quiet voice :
" Thou knows that I love thee, Kit as as "
she hesitated " as a limb o' my own body."
He lay back calmed for a few moments and
then he said wearily :
" It's a chiel. That's it. Devil tak' it all. Give
me my pipe or I s'all do and say more i' a minute
nor I can mak' amends for in a year."
She went over to his chair by the fireside, got
his pipe and took it from its shelf very slowly
and deliberately. She turned once more towards
her husband. Her face had grown grey and hard,
and her firm lips quivered slightly. The finely
cut nostrils were dilated and the dark blue eyes
had grown larger and brighter. As she met the
full gaze of Kit's eyes she advanced rapidly to-
wards him and threw the pipe on the couch by
his side.
"Kit!"
His name was uttered with such bitterness
that he started and looked full at her once more.
" Kit ! dunnot let me hear thee speak o' that
again. Do you mind what I say ? Never !
68 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
There's some things I'd dare the angels to talk
over to me, that's one."
"Why?" he muttered.
She stared at him and a look of repulsion min-
gled with the pain in her face.
" Because," she answered quickly, " because it
do never do to think o' some things, that's why.
It's best to throw them in the back o' your head
and forget they're there, and there let 'em wait
till the day when reckonings are made up."
She turned aside and shrugged her broad
shoulders. Kit watched her closely as she went
over to the fire and stirred her " coddle." He had
lighted his pipe and was smoking hard. He
watched her put the things on the table for their
evening meal and he did not attempt to speak to
her. At last he saw her lean her hands on the
table and, looking at him again with the same
worn hard look, she said :
" I hate a coward, always did, either among
wenches or lads, and when I do think o' that,"
with a gesture, "I'm a poor, weak woman
who'sd not fit to work nor do for others."
The man sighed.
Janet turned her back on him and took from
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 69
the fire the boiling pot, washed her hands quickly
at the sink, and as she wiped them she again
came over to Trenoweth and said to him, in
a weary patient voice :
" Dunnot think I feel hard against thee, lad,"
she said gently. " Men's made all different to
women, I believe ; a woman 'ud guess my mean-
ing at once. Men's more like dogs, I reckon.
Very knowing and all that, but women's souls
more nor their bodies wants to breed."
He looked puzzled, and she laughed as she
kissed him once more on his eyes.
" Never mind, old man ; I've been dumpy to-
day, but I'm tired with the journey and seein' "
she hesitated " new things. It's better to bide
to whoani with thee and then I doan't get moi-
thered," she said, falling into her native Lanca-
shire tongue. " Here ! let me rub your legs and
then you can have your bit o' supper and be
comfie again. I be only making things worse
for you now, and there's lots I want to tell you
after you're rested."
She forced herself to be gay, and he gradu-
ally fell into her mood and calmed down into
playful tenderness, forgetting his doubts and
70 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
misgivings in the enjoyment of being ministered
to by this wife of his who had given him new life
and strength already. His doubts, however,
were only lulled for the moment, for his last
intelligible thought as he fell asleep that night
was that women folkses being such " tetchy and
unbeknown creatures," it would be just as well,
if the chance came, to see what the " passon " had
to say about a thing or two which addled his
poor brains so continuously that he could get no
peace or sleep for the thoughts which came to
him.
CHAPTER V.
As if fate willed it, Parson Trownson called
during the following week at Kit Trenoweth's
house. Janet occasionally attended his church,
and as he had a village children's treat coming
on, he dropped in, on his way to a sick parishion-
er, to ask Mrs. Trenoweth to help him with one
of the tea tables. Kit not being a churchman,
he had seen little of him at any time, and when
he entered the kitchen, as no answer came to
his knock, he was surprised to find Kit alone and
in such a helpless condition, as he had never
realised from Janet's brief accounts of her hus-
band's health that he was a cripple. He ad-
vanced towards the fireplace and said in a cheery
voice as he removed his hat, in the sprightly
tone the healthy so often use to the sick :
" Well, my good fellow, and how are you ? "
He extended his hand with a smile which com-
( 71 )
72 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
bined the patronage of the gentry with the pro-
fessional sympathy of the cleric. Kit shook it
heartily and said curtly :
" I'm glad to see 'ee, Mr. Trownson. I've
long been wantin' fur to see 'ee, for I souldn't be
frightened but what 'ee could help me out of a
bit of a puzzle I'm bothering my head wi' most
all my time."
" Yes, yes ; just so ! " said the friendly parson,
separating the tails of his long coat as he glanced
hastily at the wooden chair near him and seated
himself on it. " Certainly, certainly. Are you
in any spiritual difficulty, my good fellow ? "
He coughed, bit his under lip with a slight
smile on his face and folded his arms in a re-
signed manner. He was so accustomed to the
commonplace travailings of these simple souls,
who wanted points of doctrine settled for them,
in the same decisive way as their doctor's nos-
trums were handed over and bolted. He felt he
could have closed his eyes and mumbled out the
very words this simple miner would say. He
was kind-hearted and felt for fisher-folk as he felt
for his dogs or his horses when he was obliged to
deprive them of liberty or to punish them. He
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 73
tilted back his chair and crossed one leg over the
other as he looked complacently at Trenoweth,
with the smile growing in his eyes as he waited
for him to speak. He almost lost his balance,
and fell from his seat when, instead of the usual
commonplace query regarding heaven or hell,
Trenoweth asked him in a stolid slow way :
" Have 'ee ever had a wife, sir? "
What, in God's name, he said to himself, is
the blundering idiot driving at ? Is he mad or
bad or only curious ? His face paled, and a ner-
vous little laugh rippled away the merriment
from his eyes and mouth. What had the fellow
heard ? What could be his object in cornering
him suddenly in this way? He glanced quickly
at him, and then dropped his eyes.
" My good fellow, what do you mean ? " he
asked sharply and quickly.
"Have 'ee ever had a woman, sir?" repeated
Kit, stolidly.
Parson Trownson was puzzled. He objected to
telling lies except under very special conditions,
conditions which came rarely into his uneventful
life. He must either tell Trenoweth a lie or run
74 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
the risk of unearthing his past, from which he
had escaped when he came to this quiet fishing
village, for the ridicule or pity of these people,
whom he looked upon as mere children who
could not be trusted with the sorrows of the edu-
cated any more than boys or girls in an infant
school. His perplexity increased as Kit's eyes
travelled over his well-tailored person and finally
rested full on his face.
" I s'ud not ask 'ee, sir, for pastime or foolish-
ness, but if 'ee's had no dealin's wi' a woman 'ee
cain't help me nohow as I can see, for what I'm
botherin' over isn't put anywhere i' the Bible,
nor yet preached on i' the pulpits leastways not
i' my hearing of the Word. Fornication and
adultery" the vicar stared blankly at Trenow-
eth " and suchlike things is dealt wi' here and
there i' the Bible sure 'nough, but there's a
sight o' things, seems to me, beggin' o' your
pardin, o' course, sir," with an apologetic jerk
of his head towards Mr. Trownson, " that do
fairly maze we unlearned folkses that ain't dealt
wi' neither i' the Book or i' the churches or cha-
pels. It's a parcil o' trouble tryin' to ferret out
the Almighty's will i' some things when there's
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 75
no chart nor pilot to guide 'ee over a difficult
line. Don't 'ee think so, sir?"
Trenoweth's shrewd eyes sought Parson
Trownson's face as if he would read his answer
there. The parson coughed slightly and said :
" It is easy, my dear friend, to guide one's life
in the path of duty if we are determined not to
place our inclinations in the face of the will of
the Almighty."
" Yes, sir," answered Kit, slowly, and he put
his hands in his trousers' pockets and looked
down at his feet as they hung loosely above the
ground. " I do knaw that, sure 'nough, but
what I'm wantin' to find out is what is the will
o' the Almighty. Is it the will o' the Lord that
us should go right agin nature and throttle a
parcel o' longings that God hissel' or the devil
thrawed into we ? It's just that as I'm tryin' to
find out, whether some strifin's and pushin's in
we as sends us on whether we like it or no, comes
from on high or from down there, sir," pointing
with his finger to the kitchen floor.
In all Parson Trownson's experience he had
never before been confronted with so direct a
76 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
question. He was bewildered and could have
given a rapid assent to Trenoweth's next remark
which was also a question.
" Anyways it's a puzzle whichever way you
look at it, seems to me ? "
In order to gain time the clergyman deter-
mined to question Trenoweth further and see if
by any chance he could use stratagem in fighting
the Lord's battle.
" I don't quite understand you, my good fel-
low," he answered. " Just put your difficulties
before me quite frankly, and my advice is at
your service. You see," he added with a smile,
" there are many matters a little outside a clergy-
man's province, but, of course, I will do any-
thing I can to help you." He crossed one leg
over the other, nursed his right knee with both
hands clasped round it, showing, as he did so,
the large signet ring on the little finger of his
small right hand. Mechanically, Kit's eyes fell
on the glittering object and he said nervously.
" Well, sir ; look at my legs ! "
Trownson glanced quickly at the thin crippled
limbs of the man before him and said kindly and
simply :
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 77
" I'm so sorry, my poor fellow ; it must be a
terrible trial for you."
" It ain't that, sir ; it's this way," weut on Kit,
in a sharper voice, " I've a fine bouncin' woman
o' my own ; you do kiiaw she, I b'lieve ; how the
devil is the Lord's will fur she to be fitted in wi'
a maimed man as ain't no husband to she at all,
and " with a growl " never can be no more ? "
He hung his head, resenting in his heart that
something within him forced him to tell a stran-
ger his trouble.
Trownson at once became interested, and the
man in him, which was not by any means
drowned in the mere cleric, felt great sympathy
for Trenoweth. He began to understand his
drift, but all he said was :
" It's hard luck, Trenoweth."
"It's this way, sir," muttered Kit, sharply,
" her do belong to love me right 'nough, but her's
whishe cause her ain't got no chiel that's the
mischief wi' all women as is worth their salt, the
longing to breed, and its just rubbish to say as
it can be stopped 'cause my legs fails me ; it
cain't no more nor a half -moon can stop makin'
hersel' a full one when her time comes."
78 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
Trenowetli shuffled restlessly in his chair, and
tossed the hair back from his forehead as he went
on :
" You see, sir, I do knaw a thing or two 'bout
both bitches and women folkses ; they're unlike
and yet like i' some things, but my woman ain't
quite the general mak' o' maids ; hers a puzzler I
can tell 'ee and twixt me and you I b'lieve her's
a bit of a riddle to hersel'. I tell 'ee what," and
he lowered his voice, " I reckons that i' this
spring weather her do feel a want that's natural
and right; do 'ee mind my meanin', sir? and
I'm fair befoolt over it for in a manner of speak-
in' I'm no more use to she i' this job nor a eunuch
and that's plain speakin' ! "
He breathed heavily and the sweat stood on
his forehead.
" There's no speakin' of these things i' the
chapels, do 'ee understand, and it's they things
as I do want to hear on more nor 'bout heaven
just now."
He spat into the fire and cleared his throat.
" I do worship that woman o' mine, sir, sin or no
sin, there it be ! Yes, worship she, I tell 'ee. The
very sweat o' she be a lot sweeter to me than the
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 79
scent o' the sea or the first flowers o' the year,
sure 'nough ! I cain't help it no ways ! the very
touch of her flesh is a bit of heaven to me ; it's
true, sir, if I have to go to hell for the idolatry
as we're warned agin. I don't care a pinch
'bout what I've to lose over this breedin' job, but
I do care 'bout she and what her suffers. Her
ain't happy ; a natural fool can see that any day,
and what do 'ee think can be done fur to help
she, sir?"
"Absolutely nothing, my good man,
nothing," answered Parson Trownson, emphati-
cally. " To speak quite frankly between you and
me," and he glanced round the kitchen to as-
sure himself that they were alone, "I think
you've altogether exaggerated the situation."
He waved his hand in the air as one accustomed
to disperse doubts and lawlessness at a word. " It
is probably because you spend so much time
cooped up in the house." He drew his chair
closer to Kit and said emphatically in a lowered
voice :
" These matters are very delicate ; in fact they
scarcely bear talking over under any circum-
stance. In your case, my good friend," he
80 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
looked quickly at Trenoweth, " the matter is
exceptionally painful, but as a matter of fact
there is absolutely nothing to be done. I can,
however, console you thus far by assuring you
that women's natures are quite different from
ours ; indeed it is a kind of profanity to think
that could be otherwise. The chief object of
man's chivalrous care of women lies in the fact
that he feels this and in his guardianship of
her acknowledges her spiritual superiority to
himself. A woman craves to have a child ;
quite so, quite so," with a condescending wave
of the ringed hand, " it is a wonderful dispen-
sation of Providence that your wife, whom I
know to be an admirable woman, should have
this wish it is one of the most glorious designs
of God, the desire to suckle children, but"
he coughed once more and a slight smile made
his lips twitch " but, my good man, you don't
suppose for one moment that women have ani-
mal passions like ours, that they are radically
lawless and savage or even temperately animal,
as men are, do you?"
" Yes, by God ! " snorted Kit, triumphantly,
" when a woman's suckliu' a chiel at her breast
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll, 81
I b'lieve her do like the feelin' right 'nough,
sir. I've seen women fit to bite the baaby wi'
joy over that job, like maids bite their sweet-
hearts sometimes when they love 'em most." He
snorted and laughed fiercely. " I've never had
no dealin's wi' sprites nor yet wi' angels i' my
coortin' jobs, I can tell 'ee. There's summat
behind the beast i' a woman I reckon, as makes
she such a powerful riddle to we men folkses,
but if it's the beast as you're scornin' i' men
I'm thinkin' you'd have to use the same birch
to get that out o' the women folkses as well as
out o' we."
Trownson positively blushed, and thought to
himself that, after all, the common people were
moulded in totally different ways from the well-
born. He simply put down Kit's statement as
the summing up of a village rake, and the man
became lowered in his eyes.
" Has your wife ever expressed any ahem !
dissatisfaction with her present life?" he que-
ried with a touch of contempt in his well-bred
voice.
Kit laughed brutally.
" What do 'ee tak' me fur, sir ? Do 'ee think
82 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
as I sud be tellin' 'ee these fears o' mine if her
mouthed like a ninney to me ? No !
she beaii't no blabber, I can tell 'ee,
but I do see things ain't right, that's
all, and there's summat working i' me as
I'm not learned enough to understand nor yet
to deal wi' ; that's all, and that's why I've
coomed to you, 'cause they tell me that college
gents knaws a power o' things as we folkses as
works hard don't knaw nothin' about."
" This is scarcely a matter to do with colleges,
Mr. Trenoweth," the parson replied ; " it really
is a very simple affair if you will only look at
it in the right light."
He lifted his left hand and forced back the
thumb with the forefinger of his right, as if to
jot off conveniently the several methods by
which the world, the flesh, and the devil could
be brought into complete subjection. He
folded his arms together again after a moment's
reflection and slightly raised his shoulders as
he continued.
" You imagine your wife is restless, and your
mind is a little overstrained with your physical
trouble. Talk to her frankly ; that is, as frankly
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 83
as one can to a woman, and she will doubtless
soon prove to you that your fears are groundless.
A true woman finds her only happiness in her
husband's welfare, and Mrs. Trenowethis surely
an exemplary character in this respect."
"Tool don't understand, sir. I must be
forthright wi' 'ee, I can see. Janet, my woman,
be no giddy spark of a jade, nor yet a bluidless
fule, I can tell 'ee. Her seems to have taken
some o' the beastly lustful devil out o' me, and
put some of her own breed in; it's her nature
more nor my own as is workin' i' me now, I
reckon ; it's like yeast movin' in me, the wish
to see she well and happy again as her do belong
to be." He beat the sides of his chair with the
bowl of his pipe as if he were impatient. I'm
wonderin', sir, whether her oughtn't to have
another man, one as 'ud be a strong sweetheart
to she and not a putty man like I be. What
do 'ee think?"
Trownson became very grave, and his lower
lip hung loosely.
" Are you so unhappy as this, Trenoweth ? "
he said at last, changing his tone to one of almost
equality. " Is that your only remedy ? Do
84 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
you seriously meditate allowing your wife to
proceed to such lengths as that? No womanly
woman could do it no ! no ! no ! " with a shrill
tone in his voice and a glitter in his eyes ; "it
is only women who have forgotten God and duty
who do such things. I thought Mrs. Trenow-
eth understood the eternal sanctity of the mar-
riage bond better than that."
Trenoweth laughed.
"We ain't married, don't 'ee see, sir? Not
no more, in a manner of speaking, than if I was
a corpse."
" Ahem ! " coughed the bewildered parson
" don't you see, my good man, that marriage is
a divine ordinance? It is not a mere animal
relationship, a mere dog and bitch partnership."
He looked askance at Trenoweth, thinking his
analogy a little too strong for the occasion. " It is
a communion of souls, a twining together of sub-
tler needs than can be expressed ; a union not
only for time but for all eternity. To profane
this is to risk eternal punishment ; not, of course,
in the ordinary hell-fire sense," with a smile,
" but the punishment which comes to all those
who break great spiritual or moral laws. If
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 85
your wife violates your union for a mere physical
whim, she dishonours not only you, her husband,
but all womanhood, by the unchaste desires to
which she falls a prey."
Trenoweth had begun to smoke.
" Seems to me, sir, beggin' your pardin o'
course, as you think a damned lot o' the dog and
bitch part o' the business, a'ter all. If my wo-
man lived wi' another man as she could love i'
that way, and he her, there's no call as I can see
for she to hate me nor yet to thraw me on one
side like a worn out sack. Seems to me as if her
could do that her'd have got pretty well rid o'
all they grand spiritual feelin's as you seems to
set such store by. It all sounds so grand and
all that, the way as you puts it, sir, but I cain't
help readin' of it all backwards someway. I'll
gie 'ee the straight tip. I ain't no husband to
she ; that's sure ; the question I want fur you
to answer fur me is, am I to tie she fur the rest
of her natural life to my whishe legs same as
women folkses is said to tie chiels to their apron
strings? Now speak straight and fair, sir, as
man to man ; do 'ee think it's in the natural
way o' things that her'll go on lovin' me if I do ?
86 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll,
I think of it all till I'm scared lest her'll long for
heaven jist to get free a bit to pick up wi' a
different mak' o' chap, and then, what the devil
'ull be the good o' all this holdin' o' her in? "
He smoked fiercely, and sent grey rings chas-
ing one another into the ceiling. He watched
them for a moment and went on without taking
his eyes from his pipe.
" You may whistle to love, seems to me, and
hoot to she too, till you're black i' the face, and
done i' the lungs, but her's a wayward minx, her
be ; her'll come if her wants, and her'll go if her
wants, and neither passons nor yet lawyers, so
it seems to me, cain't put no salt on her tail, wi'
all their fine talk and braggin'. It's my opinion
as there's a lot o' trash talked over these things
by they folkses who'se never had their heart-
strings tugged."
Kit spat impatiently on the floor and sighed.
He went on slowly as no answer came from the
bewildered cleric.
" It's that sort o' lesson a feller learns when he
graws. to love a woman better nor hissel' and
I'm fast coniin' to think as books cain't tell 'ee
much about it. I've thought o'er a sight o'
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 87
tilings settin' here, sir," and he pointed to the
bench near him as he rested his elbow on the
arm of his chair. " There's somethin' i' my
woman's flesh as not only crazes the man i' me,
sir, but gies me a power o' new insight alto-
gether. The dog i' me, as you spoke on jist
now, 'ud kennel she for my own uses ; I often
feel as if I could snatch she and tear she i' bits,
in a manner o' speakiii', like a wolf rends a man,
but there's somethin' new got hold o' me lately ;
I guess it's the man and not the dog, sir, and
it's made me think o' things more."
He went on dreamily as if talking to himself.
" If her heart and body turns to another chap
let she go to en and have it fair and square
a'tween us, that's what I do say, but I'm be-
foolt o'er the job at times, and wonder if I mean
rightly what I do say, and if I s'ouldn't be the
fust to whistle she back."
" My good man," interrupted Trownson,
" you're talking simple balderdash, if you'll ex-
cuse my directness there is no law human or
divine which could countenance such an absurd
solution of your difficulty. It is highflown and
morbid to an almost insane degree. Do you
88 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
seriously mean to imply that you have some idea
of letting your wife ahem ! cohabit with
another man while keeping up a semblance of a
relationship with you ? "
He pushed the air vigorously with both hands
as if to turn back into the Inferno such mad,
bad ideas. He was interested in Trenoweth in
spite of his erratic and what he considered dan-
gerous views, but he was rapidly coming to the
conclusion that the man was nearing the verge
of insanity, and he made up his mind to give a
hint to some responsible person to note the case
for fear of evil consequences coming to the young
wife.
Trenoweth spoke with an effort.
" If you loved a woman, sir, loved she a good
length beyond your own soul, and then you lost
she, my meanin' is, lost she i' the way as she
couldn't be your wife, would it make you hate
she, sir?"
The parson merely coughed, and smiled
faintly. Trenoweth continued in a stolid way :
" If, I say, straight and square, mind you, to
my woman : Look you here, wench ! If you do
belong to care anyway for some chap and want
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 89
en, tak' en, but let's have it square and high
and dry above board and no shammin' is that
ridiculous? Well! that's but my meanin', sir.
If," he pointed a long thin finger at Trown-
son ; " mind you, I say, if my woman s'ud want
a husband as well as a mate like me, I don't
see, if 'ee looks at it fair and square, why the
devil her sudn't have en, and not only that, why
s'ud her be asked to leave me out 'cause of it?
Ain't no folkses chums at all when they cain't
do the honeymoon business any more? Ain't
none o' they big folkses as can go into court and
get unwed never friends no more ? "
" I should assuredly say not," sternly replied
Mr. Trownson.
" Then, sir, beggin' o' your pardin, there's
suinmat wrang i' the way the things is fixed up
i' the marriage laws down here, and I do fer-
vently trust that up-'long," pointing to the ceil-
ing, "there'll be a new line o' conduct over
sich things. Yer don't seem to see, sir, as Janet
'11 allus love me, and her could no more leave
me out i' the cold like a pauper wi'out love to
warm me than if I'd come right out o' her body."
" I suppose you understand that what you are
90 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
suggesting is an abomination, not only in the
eyes of God, but in the eyes of all good men ? "
" Abomination," stammered Trenoweth ; " to
love your woman better nor yoursel' do you
mean that?"
The parson waved his hand
" That is begging the question ; it is not lov-
ing a woman better than yourself, but simply
opening the door to lustful desires and weak
sentimentalities. If such preposterous actions
were countenanced by law, what on earth do you
think would become of the family the founda-
tion of our Nation's happiness and prosperity? "
" We ain't got no family, sir, that's the touchy
bit in it all, don't 'ee see ? "
" Yes, yes ! " testily answered the cleric, " but
laws are made for the many, and these courses
of conduct that you suggest will assuredly un-
dermine all family purity and domestic peace.
Indeed ! such ideas can only be the outcome of
evil thoughts and lascivious desires."
"Then, sir," answered Trenoweth sharply,
" all I can say is I'm danged if the wicked uns
ain't got a tip or two from up atop that the big
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 91
wigs kiiaws naught about. Do'ee mean to say
straight and fair to me, sir, that it's wrang to
love a woman so that you could hand her over
to a bit o' joy that you ain't in, in a way of
speakin', only lookin' over the hedge at the
pairin' you've set 'eesel' to see through? Do
'ee belong to tell me as it's sin in she to go to
a second man unless first of all she do hate the
first? That the only way for she to do over
this job is to lie inside and out, both to me and
to hersel', cause her cain't crush feelin's as the
Lordhissel' blesses, we're told, if only the passon,
beggin' your pardin again, bosses the show ? If
'ee can say as I'm wrong to feel like this o'er the
job well, I'm sorry I coomed to 'ee for help,
for, in a manner o' speakin', I feel now almost
as if love have teached me 'bout as much, and
likely more, nor the school and the Bible to-
gether seems to have teached you."
Trownson was about to answer Kit in an
authoritative manner, as he was nettled at the
change of tone in this miner. In the begin-
ning of the interview he had noticed the defer-
ential manner of Kit towards his superior, and
he resented as an insult the straight speaking
92 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
and calm smoking of this lover and husband
who dared to teach him as if he were a school-
boy. The argument would probably have ended
in a storm of abuse on Kit's side, and of sharp
satirical expostulations on Trownson's side, but
before the parson could open his mouth to de-
fend himself from Kit's last attack something
made both the men turn their heads sharply to-
wards the door. Janet had just lifted the latch
and she stood in the entrance a little bewildered
at seeing a visitor with her husband. She ad-
vanced towards Trownson, and half curtsied, a
habit caught in her childish days, when at vil-
lage treats and Sunday school excursions in the
]N T orth the little ones had stood in great awe of
the local clergyman. She greeted Trownson
simply and stood near her husband. The cleric
looked at her sharply, almost savagely, as he
would have looked at Eve after conversing with
poor Adam over the apple-stalk in his hand.
When Parson Trownson preached on Sundays
upon Womanhood, he felt himself kindled by a
divine fervour ; the vision which always came to
him was of the pure unsullied virgin, the mother
of little ones, the comforter and helpmate of
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 93
man, the refiner of the world, the silent spiritual
influence at work by the hearths of any nation
calling itself righteous, chastening by her mys-
tic power the baser and grosser side of humanity
and freeing it from its animal lusts and stupid
gluttonies. His ideal of Woman carried him
often beyond himself, and he rose on tip-toe per-
spiring with the effort of his own eloquence. But
this view of woman which Trenoweth had pre-
sented to him, a view sordid and gross, this gave
him a feeling of physical nausea as he looked
at Janet. Woman personified in this man's
wife, not only as a breeder, but as a conceiver,
not as one who submits meekly and of necessity
to the sacred work and pains of motherhood,
but as one who craves and demands the lawless
play of physical enjoyment ! Bah ! His spine
began to creep at the vulgarity of Trenoweth's
description and the rank materialism which his
words had implied. He turned curiously and
looked at Janet as she faced her husband to tell
him where she had been. He noted her length
of limb and her rounded bust, the swing of her
hips as she moved Trenoweth higher and put
his cushions closer to his back. He began to
94 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
think he was the victim of some horrible mag-
netic suggestion, for he felt a tingling sensation
creeping over him as he gazed at the woman
before him.
Janet turned quickly from her husband, and
her blue cotton skirt swung in a graceful curve,
exposing her well-shaped ankle and foot. The
vicar got up, looked hastily at his watch and
extended his hand to Trenoweth, saying in a
hurried voice :
" A little cooling draught at this time of the
year would be very useful to you, my good
fellow ; try it ; magnesia or
He stopped abruptly, smiled in a constrained
way as he turned to Janet:
"Good-bye, Mrs. Trenoweth. Ah! I leave
your husband in the best of hands ; he is fever-
ish feverish and over-excited, and you will
doubtless calm him " Janet raised her dark
eyes and looked at Trownson gravely.
" Thank you kindly, sir," she said simply, .and
held out her hand. The vicar clasped it, and
when he was in the street he mechanically put
the hand she had held inside his clerical vest,
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 95
then lie hastily withdrew it, looked at it in a
bewildered kind of way, and muttered :
" The deuce ! "
As he put his latchkey in the door of his house
he muttered stupidly :
" Got the text anyway next Sunday eh ?
yes of course lusts of the flesh."
CHAPTER VI.
IN a big hollow on Bos Kivven sandhills a man
lay dreaming ; the hot July sun streaming in
full noonday force had sent him to this retreat
among the miniature flowers and coarse grasses
which grew in the hollows made by the winter
gales. He had shaped the sand at his back into
an easy seat; his legs were raised and crossed,
one hand was thrown behind his head, and his
deep grey eyes were gazing vacantly but
restfully out to sea. He was puffing contentedly
from a briarwood pipe, and now and then he
looked at his watch, seated himself in an easier
position and half dozed as the sun here and
there caught him unawares in his shaded nook.
He was a ship's mate, " off deck " in more ways
than one, for he was lounging in a summer's
mood, and feeling in his soul at the moment that
to be pinned to a post was the one evil in the
( 96 )
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 97
world, to be free and at ease the supreme bless-
ing. Nancy Nanquitho was his nearest relation,
and he had several times almost mechanically
dropped down upon the bit of ground which held
his own blood. He rented a room in the village,
when he came at rare intervals, and as she asked
him no questions he rarely vouchsafed any in-
formation about his life. He came and went,
as his mood and circumstances allowed, and
Widow Nanquitho gave him on coming a wel-
come, and on going her blessing that was all.
To-day he had slowly sauntered towards the
sandhills after a dinner at the village inn, which
was calculated to make a man drowse, smoke,
and dream that all was surely well on land and
sea. His sun-burnt face was honest and virile ;
one forgot to ask if it were handsome ; its
strength and cheerfulness banished the query.
Sea-salt and tobacco brought an air of vigour
and repose at the same time to those who talked
to him. Just now his pipe drew well, he had had
his dinner, the sun shone, he could hear the sea
rippling in on the sands; wooingly and slowly,
as if it were too full of a noonday content to
hurry itself even to kiss the ground. He threw
98 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
open his coat and let the soft winds play upon
him, and he smiled happily for he was waiting,
without any feverish excitement apparently, for
a woman. He looked at his watch again. She
was late. He closed his eyes and languidly drew
at his pipe ; he knew she would come, and a
soft light spread over his face as he thought of
her. Women were all alike, he mused, all
clinging and faithful and sometimes bores with
it, too, or he pulled his moustache at one
corner with his under lip and bit it meditatively
shrewish hell cats who made a man's home
too hot for him to live in. Then he drowsily
pulled at his pipe and reviewed his experiences ;
he gave slight chuckles as he recalled one or two
of his youthful escapades. Women had ceased
to torment him for he had faced his own nature
and its needs several years ago, and also had
realised, so he imagined, the limitations of wo-
men. He had invariably found them easy to
capture ; he had, until now, felt little need for
a permanent relationship with any of them ;
that, he knew well enough, was a perilous ven-
ture which might turn a life keel upwards in no
time. He had thought at first that the woman
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 99
for whom lie was waiting would never belong
to him, but it had come, suddenly but surely ;
she was his at last and he lay back in the repose
of security and waited. He was in love, he said
to himself, more so he believed than ever before,
the sun shone and all was ready; what more
could mortal man desire to make him happy?
Love and the hot day were evidently too much
for him. At last he slept, the deep dreamless
sleep which comes in the open air when nothing
pinches or maims the brain and nerves. His
pipe went out and lay in his outstretched hand
which was being rapidly investigated by ants
and sand insects. His legs remained raised and
crossed and one hand lay idly behind his head.
The mouth, half open, revealed the strong white
teeth of a healthy man in his prime.
The woman for whom he waited stood by him
and watched him, watched him with con-
tracted mouth and heavy eyes. She had come
to the old haunt ; she was ten minutes late and
he was asleep. Her eyes wandered over his
body ; the big chest rose and fell with his deep,
regular breathing and her gaze fell on a thick
yellow silk handkerchief, evidently of foreign
100 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
make, which fastened the trousers round his
waist. It seemed to affect her curiously for the
large nostrils moved rapidly. His dark blue
shirt was open at the throat, and the thick hair
on his chest was moist with the summer's heat.
The woman stood quite still as she watched the
sleeper; he sighed once and moved round a
little, and the big flank swelled out the serge
trousers. She shuddered and her face paled a
little. She took off her large sun hat and threw
it on the ground ; he started and their eyes met.
"Janet!"
He sprang up, threw down his pipe and folded
his strong arms around her. She made no
movement and he drew her face up to his with a
quick jerk of his hand and kissed her passion-
ately on the eyes and mouth.
" There ! " he said and sighed happily ;
" there ! that's good ! so ! Now another, my
sweetheart ! " and his eyes shone with good-hu-
moured passion.
She put her ringed hand on his open breast
and pushed him back. He laughed and caught
her closer to him in his lover's mood, for he knew
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 101
that she was being coy with him as is the way
with women. He glanced at her face and whis-
pered :
" My own girl ! so you're here at last ! How
I've waited, you loiterer ! Come ! let's be happy
now ! "
" Dunnot ! " she said in a thick slow way, and
she pushed him back again. " Dunnot, I say ! "
Still believing that it was a mere woman's
trick to intensify his ardour he smiled.
" What's the row, Janet ? Has the new moon
turned you fickle ? " and he advanced towards
her again.
" Dunnot," repeated Janet. " I've done what
you said to me ; I've not told the mon ! "
He laughed.
" Of course not, my sweet ! it would be crazy !"
" I meant to," she went on, " when I went
whoam that neet, but he was strange and moi-
thered bein' by hisseP and I couldn't get it out."
Her hand was lowered and she added in her
deep sad voice :
" Somehow it all looked so different when I
got near him ; not " hesitating and looking
102 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
round at the sandhills and then out to sea "not
like here i' the sun, and I were shamed, too
shamed to think of it even."
He glanced at her quickly.
" What the devil do you mean, Janet," he
asked, testily.
"You know what happened," she said,
slowly, as if the words were dragged out of her,
" here, last week, you know what coomed to us.
I were mazed, I'm thinking, mazed wi' the sun
and and " she stammered " summat as I
can't make out now coomed over me. I'm
thinking," and she looked at him with glassy
eyes, "I'm thinking rnon, as I'm about hatin'
you and mysel' too to-day. What be I to do?
Eh? Tell me?"
The sentence ended in a sort of wail and she
raised her hand to her eyes as if to shut out the
sunlight.
Her lover began to think she was either ill
or serious. He drew her gently down on the
sand beside him and she sank into the place he
had made for her. He seized her hand and
pressed it between both of his her long strong
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 103
hand which was unlike that of any other woman
he had known.
" Janet ! " he said tenderly, " be reasonable,
dear! What's up? You're tired a bit, I see.
I know you said some nonsense last week about
telling your husband of our love affair but you
couldn't have been serious. I knew that right
enough, and made you promise not to tell him till
I saw you again, just to make your mind easy.
My sweet old darling ! it would be the maddest
thing going to do that ! " He whistled ! " By
heaven ! there'd be thunder then and no mistake.
He'll never be a pin the wiser and it's not as if
I really took you away from him, you know
and and it might be confoundedly bad for
him and upset him just now, don't you think?"
" It's the lies," she said simply.
"What lies?" he asked.
" Lies ! lies ! it's all lies," she went on, wearily,
" nothin' but lies ! "
" Nonsense, Janet," a little impatiently
" you're like all women, dear ; overstrung and all
that. You don't think men tell their wives their
little love affairs, do you ? " He laughed and half
closed his eyes ; " not they, indeed ! there'd be
104 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
awful ructions if they did, I can tell you. Then
why should you tell him. ? "
" I hate lies," said Janet.
He smiled.
" My dear ! it's too late now ; we may have
done wrong, probably have, we may have done
right don't believe we've quite done that but
anyway it's done, that's certain." He looked at
her meaningly " and the best thing now is for
us both to hold our tongues. You particularly
if you've any sense or nice feeling for that poor
devil of a husband of yours."
He picked a sand thistle and rubbed off with
his thick forefinger the grey and purple bloom
on its leaves, as delicate as the bloom on the
grape. It pricked him, and he flicked it with
finger and thumb over the ridge of sand at his
feet. She watched him wearily and he went
on:
" Your husband would simply raise the roof
off the house in a jealous man's tantrums, and
what good would that do any of us? You can't
help loving me," he smiled at her " I could
not for the life of me have helped loving you ;
here we were ; in fact, here we are, the thing's
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 105
in a nutshell and we've got to make the best of
it. Let's shut up this parson's drivel. Don't
spoil a lovely day with old woman's rot, for I've
just hungered to get you close and fast in my
arms again. Come ! "
The words startled her. She looked round in
terror, and her hands shook so much that she
clasped them tightly behind her back.
" No ! " she said huskily " never no more
never ! "
" Nonsense," he said, suddenly wakening to
the fact that he was losing her. " Don't you love
me, Janet?"
She turned her beautiful eyes full on him and
laughed in a stupid way.
" I dunnot know ; I've never axed myseP
that."
"What!" he retorted. "Is your body
nothing to you that you give it for play on
a summer's day?"
He spoke bitterly. She flinched visibly, and
he saw the anguish creeping all over her face,
and making it grey.
" I dunnot know."
" Whew ! " he whistled. " If I thought "
106 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
He stopped, for he had caught a strange ex-
pression in her face as she looked at him. He
put his hands in his pockets and looked on the
ground.
" You've duped me, Janet," he went on em-
phatically; "you've
She stopped him and said roughly :
" And what do you think I've done to you,
mon, then?"
He waived aside the question with a lover's
impatience.
"Do you hear, Janet? You're a flirt! that's
sure, if you mean what you said just now.
You've given yourself for an hour like a "
he hesitated as he saw her eyes glitter " well,
like other women do and then you leave me."
his voice broke " leave me without a decent
word to pull up a fellow's faith in women again."
He covered his face with his hands and the
veins had risen like cords in his thick neck,
and she pitied him.
"Forgive me," she said simply; "it's been
all wrong, and I'm the worst, as you say."
He sprang towards her and put his arm round
her as she lay in the sand ; he blinded her with
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 107
kisses. His breathing became quick and heavy
and he muttered between his teeth.
" Damn it all ! But you shan't go ! There !
Do you hear? You shan't go. I'll have you
yet if I kill him for it ; you shan't waste your
beauty on that cripple ; I'll strangle him first.
You belong to me, Janet yes, yes, now and for
always, my darling ! "
He had her fast and she felt that her power
over him was going ; the old delirious spell was
creeping over her ; his strength and manhood
were lulling her soul to sleep again and a
frenzy shook her whole body. He leaned over
her as if he would devour her ; his lips pressed
hers closely and feverishly, and she saw the ani-
mal rising in him beyond all control as their
eyes were rivetted together.
" Dunnot ! " she screamed.
But he burst out with an oath and swore he
would have her. Her lips tightened and with a
quick movement she freed her hands and with
all her strength she pushed him from her, as
she said in a voice which made his heart beat
madly:
" Stand up ! Thou't nobbut a coward." Then
108 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
slowly and with, set teeth the words came hissing
to him. " Listen ! I hate thee, I say hate
thee !"
He was sobered and stood up ashamed of
himself.
" Forgive me ! " he said ; " I was mad ; but it
was your face, Janet, and and your devilish,
coldness !"
" Is that how you do love me ? "
She sighed wearily.
"Is that how men folks love? That sort?
You'd kill him and hurt me and only fill your-
sel' a'ter all like a pig wi'out a ring through
its nose?"
"And what about you? Where's your
love that you told me of last week ? " he said
more gently. " You've maddened me, that's all,
and I'm a blundering idiot to frighten you. But
dearest, where' s your love I felt so sure of
before?"
She looked out towards the rippling waves as
they crept in on the big yellow sands, but she
said nothing, only sighed as she shrugged her
shoulders.
" Speak, Janet," he said quickly ; " out with
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 109
it. Did you lie last week or are you lying now ?
Speak, girl."
She looked at him in a stupid way as she
clasped the loose folds of her bodice with both
hands ; he noticed how her dress hung on her,
and how aged she had become.
" I'm shamed," she said. " It were all right
last week. What we did seemed no uglier to me
then than bathing in yon sea, but now," she
shuddered, " I feel a big stain on me as I cannot
flick off noways, and I'm fain to tell the only
one as 'ull likely forgive me."
The man was getting bored. Women, wo-
men, women, he thought, all the same the world
over ; ready enough to rake up hell fire, and
then fly screaming at the smoke and flame. He
had foolishly imagined that Janet had "grit"
enough in her to keep passion fresh and strong
and free from morbid regrets and useless
taunts. It was a great nuisance, for he really
cared for her, and now these tantalising wo-
men's fooleries were going to interrupt their
pleasure. He tried to pacify her.
"Look here, Janet, my girl! Just listen to
me for a minute. You're like all good women
110 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
bless you for it too nesh over these things. I
assure you, dear, we've done no real wrong ; it's
only your rotten straight-laced land-rules over
these things that's worrying you. It is, indeed.
Just look at the thing fairly for a second. Kit's
no more a husband to you than that log of
wood." He pointed to a piece of old mast, lying
on the beach, which had become partially buried
in the drifting sand. " He's done for, and
you know it. You surely don't want to spoil his
last years by telling him what's come between
us. Now, that's wrong, if you like, to try and
disturb a poor devil of a cripple who's lopped
oft' from women and life altogether before his
time."
" Dunnot ! " she said.
" The fact is, Janet, you know well enough
the thing is done and can't be mended now, do
what we will."
"It's all lies," she said.
" Nonsense ! to hold your tongue isn't lying ;
we've got to shut our mouths over this, and that's
all."
" You dunnot see," she said wearily. " With
your sort love means mostly that that " she
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. Ill
stammered " what you and me knows but
that ain't all to wenches, I'm thinking. Kit do
belong to me like as if I'd weaned him and it's
all lies I tell you," she ended abruptly.
He looked at her closely and bit his lip.
" What do you think will happen if you do
tell him, Janet?" he asked, with the faintest
trace of a sneer on his mouth.
" I dunnot know," she answered.
"Well, I'll tell you. If he has a bit of a
man left in him, he'll tip some thickset mate of
his to come and tan my skin for me ; if he's a
mawk, it'll kill him."
" Then why," she wailed, " why did us do it? "
He coughed and pointed to two flies crawling
on his hand, but she had not taken her eyes from
his face; "why did us do it?" she muttered.
The why was taken up by a big bee who
buzzed the question in his ears and flew off at
last with a whizzing sound of insect laughter.
" You don't love me, Janet," he said despond-
ingly as he looked into her sad eyes "not a
bit, dear ; I've been a stupid fool to believe what
you said."
She shivered.
112 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
"You came to me," lie went on gently, re-
solved to try a different plan, "rubbed off some
of my low ideas about love and now " he
eyed her keenly " you throw me off again to go
back to bought women."
She stared at him blankly.
" What ! " she said suddenly.
" You see," he continued, thinking he was in-
fluencing her, " men all take love or lust ; we're
made like that and it'll always be so whatever
the goody goody sort say." He laid his big
hairy hand across his open throat; "it's here,
there, everywhere, you know, all over a man and
will out if he has to go to hell for it."
"What will?" she asked.
He laughed.
" Why, it," he said " sex or what you like
to call it ; I don't know what women think about
it, but a man can't live unless he has women."
He slipped both thumbs in the thick yellow
folds of his belt and whistled. " Mind ! it's a
damned nuisance and often enough it's more fag
than anything else, but it's there, and you
women have the whole thing in your hands. You
pitch us into lust one day and then stand bolt
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 113
upright like saints the next and offer us milk
and water instead of the first red love wine."
She blushed why, she could not quite tell,
but her eyes fell and her hands shook a little.
" Yes," he said harshly ; " men all take it one
way or another; it can be bought like tobacco
or rum; that's one sort; the other sort, I'm
thinking, isn't much better, for I believe you
pure women play the same game with different
cards behind the screen."
" I dunnot know what you mean by that,"
said Janet, simply.
" Oh ! nothing ! only you good women are al-
ways so afraid and ticklish about little things.
You can never go the whole length of love ; you
offer us sugar-sticks, and when a man opens his
mouth to bite you scream and hide the thing
away for fear some other sinner should catch
you, then you see " he laughed again
" you've made a poor devil's mouth water, and
so he muet drink somehow, and then he damns
himself and some other woman in quick sticks."
She only dimly caught his meaning, but her
face grew whiter and the large rings under her
beautiful blue eyes darkened.
114 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" Then I've done hurt to both of you ! " she
said.
" Well that's about it," he answered, think-
ing her pity and remorse might make her yield
to him. I wonder if you really love either of
us?"
She sobbed. Great deep breaths shook her
whole body. It was not the wild hysterical
grief of an over-wrought and somewhat shallow
femininity, but the convulsive throes of a woman
in extremity. The man watched her and pitied
her. Poor souls, he muttered to himself; it
was always like this ! They irritate and attract
at the same time. So yielding and soft and
lovely in their utter abandonment to sentimen-
tality of passion, and then plunged into despair
or weakness when their own actions begin to
work out logically. He looked at her tenderly
from head to heel and noted her singular grace
and strength, and a curious feeling crept over
him, a feeling of longing to protect and to al-
ways live with this woman who had come so
suddenly into his life. He began to think that
perhaps there might be a new sort of happiness
in always being near a woman who puzzled and
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 115
charmed him with her fresh goodness which did
not smell of either parsons or books. He knelt
down on the sand near her and folded his arms
about her waist as she stood sobbing.
" Dunnot," she said gently as she bent and
unloosed his hands. He obeyed her at once
and she sat down near him. He began to feel
curiously afraid of her, and his voice sounded
thick and unnatural as he spoke to her.
" Janet, Janet, listen to me ! Come ! try and
cheer up a bit ! Let's drop this confounded sub-
ject, tell me, just once, that you care for me and
I'll be satisfied and wait for you yes, I will,
my dear ; " his face had grown paler. " I will,
indeed until you feel you can come. I will,
upon my soul, Janet, for I love you, as I have
never loved anyone before."
He spoke the truth and she believed him and
smiled through her tears.
" Thank you for that," she said.
His eyes were grave and tender as one of her
tears fell on his hand as he held both of hers,
and his thick under-lip quivered.
" Hush ! hush ! Janet : you frighten me. I
will not hurt you nor force you ! I will wait !
116 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
Wait for years ! but tell me, darling, just once
tell me you love me ? "
She stammered out between her sobs :
" I dunnot know ; I seem to know nought
now, nought but that I mun tell that mon ; the
thought o' that fairly eats into me the thought
that I've lied to him and him so straight and
fair and good to me."
She lay back in the sand and her sobs came at
longer intervals.
"You see," she said, "I knew nought about
tilings, seemly, till last week ; I've been a wife
all these years and yet " she stammered and
blushed hotly " it seems now as I do under-
stand more what God hissel' kens over women.
I can't put it i' straight words even to mysel',
though I've moithered my brains all night over
it."
The man watched her and longed to touch
her; a sweeping rush of desire to simply kiss
her hand took hold of him. For the moment
that was all he wanted just to take that long
firm hand and hold it between his in an ecstasy
of silence, but he never moved; something
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 117
held him back, and lie looked at her hot face
and burning eyes.
"What else?" he said stupidly.
" We've longings like you," she started and
then sat and faced him "yes, I'll say out for
once whafs crazing me we're not cold and
frightened like you do say ; we're just as fierce,
just as warm and " with a gasp " just as mad
over the flesh of what we do love as you, and
madder, too, for we can't rend ourselves from
what we've kissed noways no, not noways, and
you men folkses can."
" But you are going to leave me ? " he said,
meaningly, as he bent over her.
" I dunnot know," she said " I only know as
I can never leave him no, not for no one, and
not if God hissel' told me it were right and fit as
I should." She clasped her hands together and
gazed out to sea.
" We conies to love the men as we does for as
we grows to love the childer we has pains for.
When I'm mendiii' Kit's coat, and I comes on
a rubbed place like as seems to be a bit of hissel'
I feels summat come over me as I believe is the
113 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
same sort as men folkses feel when they've got
a wench all to theirsel's body and soul for
the first time. It's not fudge," she said, as she
saw a smile in his eyes " I know it isn't for I've
seen it i' other wenches when they're knittin'
or puttin' up their men's baggin' i' hayin' time.
Women live on bits o' things men needs hunks
of everything, but our bits taste as sweet to us
as your hunks to you."
He scarcely heard what she said ; he was try-
ing to understand what had come over him ; he
looked round on the miles of yellow sands and
then out to sea. Not a soul was near. He was
strong, she was only a woman they were alone
and she was absolutely in his power and yet
he was amazed at the strangeness of the situation
he had not even the courage to take her hand
and hold it for an instant close to his heart. He
gazed at her in a stupid way like a man in a
dream and asked:
"Did you speak, Janet?"
" I were only saying that when a woman has
done for a man, fettled his house for him and
tended him and got used to his voice and his
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 119
ways, it don't really matter if he gets crippled
like Kit ; lie's hers she can't get free of that,
and she can no more get loose from him than she
can from her own guts."
He gazed at her in bewilderment:
" But Janet," he hesitated and added ner-
vously; "if you really feel like that, how can
you ahem ! love two men ? "
She blushed and faced him and her deep voice
vibrated as she answered quickly :
" I've taken a whole week to puzzle that out,
and I'm no nearer seein' things. I reckon I'll
never find out why what were sweet and good to
me a week ago is foul and bad to me now. I know
nought, I tell thee nought but one thing, I
mun tell the mon, and this very neet."
"Then it's all up," he said stupidly ; " that's
checkmate right enough. I've lost you ! "
" I dunnot rightly know ; that's as you reckon
things. I can't abide lies, and it is lies for a
woman to cheat her mon. If I was a mon I
would stand any thin' but that that and wheed-
ling', which is summat like cheatin' and lyin'
in one."
120 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" Poor devil ! " he said, " it'll finish him."
" You dunnot know the likes o' Kit," she
answered sharply. " I'm shamed to go and tell
him shamed," and her face contracted, "but
it 'ud finish me if I went on actin' to him as
I'm doin' now. I must bide by his will and if
he shoves me out I canna help it, but I reckon
he'll perhaps sum up the thing straighter than
I can or you either."
"It'a a confounded business," he muttered.
" Nothin' matters like lies," she said.
" Not even love," he answered bitterly.
She stood up, and put her hand on his shoul-
der ; her tight grip sent his blood hotly through
his veins ; what would happen next ? He did
not care ; a thrill of joy went over him as she
touched him and he did not attempt to move.
" Listen ! " he heard her say. " I dunnot
know much about what goes on out yonder, in
the big cities where you say women sells their
bodies for nought but common brass, but I can
tell you, this : " her eyes sought his and then
suddenly dropped and her hand slipped from his
shoulder; "if I hadn't felt a feelin' to you as
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 121
seemed to come fresh and sweet from God hissel'
I couldn't have let you come nigh me no, nor
him neither" pointing inland. "I want you
to mind that for his sake ; it's his wife and not
his wanton as you've kissed. Mind that always
and someday " she laughed softly " I'd be rare
and glad to see you two grip each other's hands.
Yes; I dunnot see why not, for you meant no
wrong to me and he'll ken that fast enough, I'm
thinkinV'
The man looked at her and smiled.
"And what about you, Janet; what do you
think he'll say of that?"
She crimsoned painfully and her voice shook
as she answered him :
"I'll be fair and tell him every thin' how it
came like a great wind over me how I forgot
even him for it how how " she put out her
hands towards him " how somethin' carried me
away away somethin' as I've never even felt
for him somethin' as strong and awful as death
itself which cast me down and made me forget
the mon as I love best i' all the world. Do you
think he'll not believe me ? I reckon he'll per-
122 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
haps give me the only comfort I can get now,
for he do love me and and he'll believe in me
i' spite of everything."
" You're a hopeful woman, Janet, and I'm a
damned fool to have ever tempted you. No, I
shall never see Kit Trenoweth ; women don't
know men, my dear, when they can talk like
you. You'll learn a little more by and by.
Don't you see that if we met, if he didn't shie
the poker at me, I should have to " he stopped
abruptly as he saw he was paining her. " No,
no, Janet ; you can never understand ; men are
wolves when they really love a woman, and
wolves don't share their choicest morsels except
in fairy tales."
She turned to go and he made no attempt to
stop her. He had grown suddenly very tired ;
his limbs ached as if with fever, and noises came
in his ears and head. He tried to speak, but no
sound would come ; he willed himself to walk
towards Janet and take her in his arms, but he
felt the sensation of nightmare ; his legs refused
to move, and he saw as in a dream the face and
figure of the woman who was leaving him. She
touched his hands and he thought he heard
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 123
her say quite close to him in her Lancashire
brogue " Bless you," but he was not sure. He
was sure of nothing except that he must be
going mad, for the sea seemed to have suddenly
crept into the sky and he distinctly saw the
wavelets over his head and heard the dash of the
water above him. This could only be the be-
ginning of some horrible delusion, and he made
a tremendous effort to shake himself into his
usual self-possession. He moved at last and
leaned over the brink of the sandhill where they
had both lain. He shaded his face with his
hands and gazed across the yellow sands towards
the black rocks in the distance. A groan burst
from him as he sprang to his feet, for he had
traced her as she rounded the cliff. Only one
idea seemed to possess him as he looked at her
in the distance the longing that she would turn
and wave her hands to him to give him hope to
wait for her. She had turned towards him and
was looking upwards. The setting sun had
wrapped her in colour; he stretched out his
hands towards her and waited for a sign, but
she turned and went slowly behind the black
ledge of rocks. The man shivered as with cold
124 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
and cursed the fates, for lie suddenly realised
that she could not have seen him since a heavy,
dank Cornish mist had spread over the sandhills
and covered from the eyes of the woman who
stood in the glow of the sunset the figure of the
man who watched from the hills.
CHAPTER VII.
" DARN 'ee then ! " said Nan Curtis, as she
opened her door in answer to a loud peal at the
bell which made her jump quickly to her feet
and leave cleaning her slab. " Oh ! my dear !
be it you? Darn 'ee woman! do 'ee want to
scatter the house on my ears wi' breaking the
bell pull?"
She looked at Loveday and snorted, smiling
reproof and welcome at her. " Come in, do,"
she went on, " and sit 'ee down. Why ! you're
all o' a tremble, woman ! What be wrang ? "
Loveday' s fat face was bathed in perspiration,
and her eyes seemed rounder than ever. She
pulled Nan into the kitchen, and stood facing
her with arms akimbo and legs apart.
" Woman ! " she gasped. " I've tumbled on
the secret o' they weeds at last. Guess ? No !
'ee'll never reckon it up. Oh ! my blessed life !
( 125 )
126 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
it's worse nor awful the slyness o' the minx ! "
She stopped for breath, and Nan, who had
seated herself on the horsehair sofa opposite
Loveday, folded her arms and opened her mouth
wide, showing the yellow tusks which seemed
ready to devour gossip and scandal wholesale.
" "What the devil do 'ee mane, woman ? " she
snapped at last. " Don't stan' there gapin' at a
body but out wi' it. Is it somethin' gone wrang
wi' Clibby Kit's woman?"
Loveday smiled knowingly, and pursed up one
eye in a suggestive wink.
" Why ! the whole place 'ull knaw the truth
afore nightfall. Mincin' jade ! wi' her fine face
and up-long airs ; her's been seen over Boskivven
way wi' a chap as don't belong hereabouts at
all, and" with a gasp "they weeds is what
I've reckoned all along, nothin' but pap to stop
up Kit's mouth wi', and her's played the fool wi'
all o' we, sure 'nough ! "
She stopped a moment to pick her teeth with a
large brass pin she took from the bosom of her
dress, and then laughed loudly.
" Oh ! my Lord ! I'm as glad as if anybody 'ud
given me a mayin' to have found she out. Proud
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 127
upstairt! as allus seemed too good and fine to
'ave a man lay a finger on she ! "
She folded her arms and leaned heavily on
one leg as she continued.
" But mind you, mate," and she stared fixedly
at Nan, " I'm sorry for Kit, for it's a whishe
job for he, sure 'nough I "
" It's blasted lies, I'm thiiikin'," said Nan,
emphatically. " I don't belong to hearken nor
yet to credit all as I sees, much less hears ! Any-
ways, I'm noane goin' to b'lieve that o' Janet,
or I s'ud think as eyes was given to some
folkses for the very purpose o' takin' in their
own flesh and bluid. Janet be no strumpet,
I'll be bound, and if her's walked wi' a man
well lat me tell 'ee, Loveday, my dear, that
noane o' we can throw mud at she fur that, fur
I b'lieve, if my winders don't lie, as you've
walked wi' three chaps up-'long and down-'long
this very week."
" Walked ! " grunted Loveday, who was not
very pleased that her full-flavoured piece of
news should be disparaged in this way ; " as
likely as not I've walked wi' chaps, but noane
o' 'ee have seed me lyin' wi' a mon naw ! "
128 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
She delivered this speech with full force, and
waited triumphantly for the effect on Nan.
" Darn 'ee ! what be 'ee tryin' to do now, Love-
day. Flingin' a woman's name i' the mud 'cause
your own petticoats is noane so clean ! I'm
shamed fur 'ee. A bit o' dirty or measly talk
over neighbours is right 'nough ; it do mak'
the day go by a bit quicker and sends a body to
bed wi' a chuckle, and that often 'nough brings
'ee to sleep, if you be a bit waken, but there's a
broad difference, let me tell 'ee, a'tween a bit o'
pastime and a lump o' malice and envy. Iss !
I do mean what I say," as she saw Loveday drop
into a chair with her lower lip pouting
in anger. " Iss ! A lot o' talk o'er that woman
be nothin' i' the world but bloomin' spite. I
likes she fur hersel', fur there was no talk o'
looks when I were made, and I do belong to
seek beauty outside my own mirror. I'd b'lieve
flash things o' she but never what you do say
though you swore it on your family Bible."
" Humph ! " sneered Loveday, nettled by this
new attitude in her friend. "If you be fur
upholdin' they sort o' things it's git tin' time as
you and me s'ould be seein' less o' one another.
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 129
I allus was one as stood up fur a married woman
cleavin' to her man even if he's no thin' but a
bundle o' chaff, in a manner o' speakin', as Kit
be, and it do turn my liver and guts sour to
think o' that mincin' jade kissin' strange men
and meetin' of 'em agin and agin unbeknown to
honest folkses."
Nan was alarmed for she began to fear that
Loveday had some reason for her venom.
" Out wi' it, woman ! Who's seen what, and
which devil have been so close to thy earhole as
to fill it wi' this foul talk? "
Loveday grinned.
" Did 'ee see me wi' Snowball Jack up street
a while since?"
" No ! " snapped Nan ; " were 'ee walkin' wi'
a man then?"
Loveday laughed coarsely.
" Yes, woman, I were sure 'iiough, but I
weren't lyin' i' the sand wi' 'en and kissen' of
'en, and that's what Janet were seen doin' of
early this arternoon, and him as seen she said
as how he'd take his oath afore God and a whole
bench o' jurymen as it were noane other but
130 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
Janet hersel'. What do 'ee think o' she now
eh ? " with a triumphant smile.
Nan stood taut and square, and her short
skirts seemed to bristle out from her small stiff
body as if in protest against their owner being
snared by a trap of any kind. She cleared her
throat and spat in the ash pan and then dug
her knuckles in a friendly way into Loveday's
arm.
"I tell 'ee what I do think," she said, "I
think that Snowball Jack, if it's him as has
seed all this moonshine, must be a darned fule,
for when Janet do go up-long for they weeds,
her's well beyond the reach o' the eyeholes o'
men as bides along o' we."
Loveday smiled and blew her nose on the
corner of her dirty apron :
" No ; her's got wi'in hail for once't. Snow-
ball Jack were sent up-long last night to Bos-
kivven Cliff to watch fur the mackerel boats and
to help unload, for there's shoals o' fish looked
for thereabouts, and he were coastin' till three
o'clock and no boats had been sighted, so he
coomed home to once't and I jist met 'en wi' his
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 131
mouth hot to burstin' wi' what he'd spied up-
'long."
" He's mistook some coortin' pair fur she, I'll
be bound. Snowball Jack, seems to me, is the
onlikeliest man as s'ould spy o'er they things ;
he do knaw how to court sure enough wi'out
pryin' o'er cliffs to get new lights on that job."
Loveday laughed and smirked as she rolled the
corner of her apron between her fat fingers.
" What's done i' wedlock and what's done out,
seems to me is two different things. It cain't
be reckoned harm to kiss and cuddle beforehand
jist to get your hand in fur a long job by and
bye, but when you're fully wed, seems to me,
its worse nor devil's wark to chop and change
one man wi' 'nother."
" Darn 'ee, woman ! " snorted Nan, who was
now putting the finishing touches to her slab ;
" Go to thy home and do some chars and forget
the lies as thee's heard, for I'm certain sure
they're lies and that Kit's Janet 'ud do yet to
plead for both o' we over kissin' 'bouts even be-
fore the Throne at the Judgment time."
Loveday stared at Nan in a bewildered sort of
way and sighed.
132 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" Well ! it's the first time as a neighbour 'ave
told me to go out o' her house, and all 'cause o'
a woman as wern't never fitey and s'ould never
have come among we honest folkses at all. Iss !
I'll holler as loud as I've a mind to ; " as Nan
put her fingers in her ears to drown the angry
tones which Loveday' s high-pitched voice had
taken. " I were born hollerin' and when I do
want a mate to understand me I hollers louder
than be natural to me. I'm fair befoolt over
this job and I sudn't have thought as my own
companion, as I've knawed for years, 'ud tak'
sides wi' a loose female agin me."
She sniffled and applied the apron corner to
her eye. Nan rubbed away at her stove and
said nothing for some time ; then she suddenly
turned round, faced Loveday and yapped. Love-
day peeped from behind her apron and sniffled
louder than ever. Nan went to a cupboard near
the stove and brought out a ginger beer bottle
containing some colourless fluid. Loveday
sobbed piteously from behind the apron and Nan
yapped fiercely as she undid the cork.
" Here, woman ! I canna abide to see a
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 133
female weep ; it do allus gie me the crawls," and
she shivered as she spoke. " Dry thy eyes, mate,
and have a pennoth. I do keep it handy for bury-
in' s and sudden qualms. I didn't mean any hurt
to 'ee, my dear, not at all, sure 'nough, but I'm
thinkin' lately when I do sit here knittin' a bit
as its women theirsel's as strips women o' chances
every bit as close as men do belong to do. Some-
thin' as a artis' chap said to me back long have
made me hutch up closer to females than I belong
to do ; noane o' we be so mighty decent as we
need be flinging muck at other folk ! "
" Gosh ! " exclaimed Loveday. " Seems to
me 'ee must be gitten' not exactly, Wan, for
you've allus been one as 'ud uphold the tie
'tween husbands and wives, and it's not that
neither; its the bloomin' cheatin' of the jade
wi' her innocent rose pink face and her grainey
way as allus gies 'ee the notion as her be mixed
wi' different stuff to we." She spat on the
floor. " I do hate she ; her's never once't spoke a
seemly word to me sin' her coomed to the place,
and Clibby Kit's house ain't never been half the
house fur a gossip sin' he brought the maid
home. I can reckon the day when the old un
134 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
had it all her own way and then it were some-
thin' like."
Loveday's eyes were dry now, and she folded
her arms and put her head sentimentally on one
side. " Oh ! my blessed life ! what times they
was to be sure ! I've had many a tasty bit and
many a long mag wi' the old un afore Janet
corned and made all so different like."
" Drat 'ee ! " said Nan shortly, " drink this,
and don't be sparey wi' the bottle, woman ;
you're welcome, you do knaw, and it'll happen
mak' 'ee feel less whishe, I'm thinkin'."
Loveday's eyes gleamed, and she took the
bottle and poured out a small quantity of the
fluid without adding any water to it. She
smacked her lips and looked fondly at Nan.
" My handsome ! it's just splendid. I could
allus feel chirpy if I'd be sure o' gettin' a drop
o' that once't or twice i' the week. It sends your
blood dancin' and singin' someway and warms
the very cockles o' your 'eart. Just a leetle sup
more, my dear."
Nan poured out another generous, helping,
and then raised the bottle to the light, grunted
audibly and put it back in its place in the cup-
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 135
board. When she turned, Loveday had drunk
the second dose and was standing up ready to
g-
" Thank 'ee, my dear." Her fat hands were
spread over her "lower stomach," as she called
the most prominent part of her person. " It's a
Icvely feelin' I've got over me, like nothin' else
as I do knaw, except," with a grin, " bein' con-
varted. My gosh ! that is a lively thing any-
way. You do knaw I've gone through wid en
once't or twice, my dear, and it guv me a feelin'
jist like I have now, a sort o' soothin' restful
kind o' feelin' as took out all the snarls and
crusty thoughts as I had agin everybody. Have
'ee ever been convarted, mate ? "
Nan showed her large yellow tusks and
yapped.
" Yes woman, but it ended i' coortship sure
'nough, and afore the bloomin' feelin' had passed
off I were bein' captained upstairs and down till
I were crazy. I s'ud never 'ave been wedded,
I'm thinkin', if I'd never been convarted, and
I've fought shy o' the chapels sin', fur I paid fur
that bit o' holiday feelin' for six year, and I'm
136 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
noane goin' to put my head in the noose no
more."
"I commend 'ee," said Loveday, slowly, and
then looking at ISTan in a fixed way, she said
suddenly :
" Woman ! that stuff as you've guv me is doin'
me a power o' good. I've been nearly thrawin'
mesel' over the clift this last week or two. I'm
most mazed wi' thinkin' 'bout things, Nan." She
laughed stupidly and sidled up to her friend and
jerked her in the ribs. " I've been goin' a bit
too fur wi' Snowball Jack and and " she
laughed again ; " do 'ee reckon there's much
good i' takiii' green tea fur to git clear agin?
I've drunked pints o' it sin' last month when I
were sure."
Nan looked at her.
" Thee be a darned fool, woman ! "
Loveday smiled.
" Yes, I do knaw, but it can't be helped now ;
he guv me some stuff or 'nother to drink, my
dear, and it were a cold dampin' sort o' day, and
I took it to keep the creeps off of me, and "
she sniggered, " well woman, you do knaw, but
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 137
I'm fearin' its goin' to be a pest this time.
What s'alll do?"
" Do ! " snapped JSTan ; " go down on your
marrow bones and bide your time and don't 'ee
slime other women wi' foul names."
Loveday whimpered.
" 'Ee said jist now as how you reckoned wo-
men s'ould hold by women and so," with a hys-
terical sob, " and so I told 'ee and all 'ee can
do for me seemly is to preach at me and I'm that
that weary and down i' the mouth till"
Her sobs became louder ; " till I'm not sure what
I mayn't do yet ! "
Nan went to the cupboard once more and
sighed wearily as she again brought forward
the ginger beer bottle. She planted it on the
table near Loveday, and said sharply,
" Finish it, woman ! "
Loveday meekly obeyed, and wiped her heated
face with one corner of her apron and blew her
nose hastily with the other corner.
" You be the only friend as I 'ave, my dear,"
she sobbed, " and I don't knaw what 'ud become
o' me if you died or anythin' ; I don't indeed ! "
The gin was beginning to take effect. Her
138 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
head lolled on one side, she sank into a big
chair, rested her elbows on its arms and looked
stupidly at Nan who was now sitting taut and
grave, with her eyes fixed upon Loveday, while
her right hand clasped the empty bottle.
" Don't 'ee stare at me like that, woman,"
whimpered Loveday. " I'm no worse nor any
other up-'long or down-'long and neither him
nor me's been foolin' any other body ! " She
raised her head ; "I'd scorn to do what some do
belong to do, play games wi' married men."
"Darn 'ee ! husht!" interrupted Nan,
" there's little pickin' and choosin' i' these jobs.
It's like walnuts and red cabbage i' vinegar ;
they're a different sort afore they gets i' the
bottle, but when you comes to taste en arter-
wards they're much o' a muchness."
She folded her small thin hands together and
sighed. Then suddenly she sat down near Love-
day and smoothed out her gown carefully over
her knees.
" I've been thinkin' " she went on slowly, "sin
I've seen more o' folkses and things that it's
best to hold your jaw and watch a bit. No one,
seems to me, cain't rightly blame nor yet praise
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 139
'nother body, for it's more nor likely 'ee'll praise
the devil and smut the saint, for some of us 'ave
flea's eyes fur to ferret out the good and asses'
ears for harkin' to the bad. The ways o' men
and women is far 'nough beyond the ken o' com-
mon folkses and I sometimes reckon that love's
a frenzy as He as 'as made we hardly can count
upon at all at times and " she suddenly remem-
bered Loveday, for she had been talking to
herself, " and it be no manner o' use fur thee
to poison thy blood wi' green tea ; it's likely
the will o' God for 'ee to bear the fruits o'
thy pleasurin' and any way, even if it's only a
bit o' sport the devil be havin' wi' 'ee it will
happen teach thee not to grap the next bit o'
dirty pleasure as comes along to 'ee when thee
be too drunk to reckon wi' it."
But Loveday was fast asleep and her snoring
made Nan smile.
" It's a'most as loud as some folkses singin' "
she said, as she went over and looked earnestly
at her companion. She sighed, and opened
the door softly and went into the " best parlour "
to dust it. She rubbed the mahogany frame-
work of a high-backed chair with great vigour,
140 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
and then stopped a moment to take breath. Her
eyes lighted upon a portrait of a stern old man
which held the place of honour in the room. It
was her dead "captain," and she sighed once
more, and as she rubbed the twisted legs of the
chair on her bended knees she muttered beneath
her breath :
"Darn the blooniin' mag! it do graw like
ferns i' the lewth, and nobody, neither devil nor
angel, can stop en. It be like a gale o' wind ;
yer canna tell where it do rise fro' of a suddint
like, but it do drown a body wi'out showing o'
itsel' or tear up the houseplace like magic.
Ugh!"
She glanced out of her big windows towards
the shore. Regardless of seasons the sea on this
summer night was in one of its wildest moods.
Great white breakers dashed round the black
projecting rocks and the wind hissed and whis-
tled as if it were preparing itself for screaming
like a crazy woman. Twilight was rapidly deep-
ening into darkness. A draught which came from
the loosely fastened sash of the window made Nan
shudder ; it seemed to pierce through every nook
and crevice of the room, and intensified the roar
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 141
and scream of the north-east wind with its bass
and treble groans and yells as of sorrow and pain.
To Nan it brought strange memories. It was
on such a night as this that the mates had
brought in her " captain " drowned by the cold
and cruel sea and then she had realised how habit
and tending had bound him to her and she had
grieved for him and half forgotten his tyranny
and cruelty. A great gust swept round the
house and seemed to shake it, and Nan tried
to fasten the window more tightly. As she did
this she saw a figure being swept along round
the corner near her house. The woman's clothes
were driven like sails before her, and she could
hardly stand. Nan exclaimed as she watched
her frantic attempts to steady herself.
" Good Lord ! her'll be down ; 'tain't fit fur a
dog to be out."
She suddenly realised who the woman was,
and she opened the hall door quickly and peered
into the street.
" Come ! " she said sharply ; " come, Mrs. Tre-
noweth; "you'll be most killed wi' the wind,
woman ! Come in and I'll git 'ee a cup o' tea,
142 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
for I s'ould think this gale o' wind has 'bout
blowed the brains out of 'ee ! "
Janet laughed softly.
" I canna get my breath," she said. " I'm
done out, I fancy. Yes, thank you, Nan, I'll
rest a minute to get my wind a bit."
She followed Nan into the hall and leaned
against the door as it was closed behind her. The
elder woman turned and looked at her guest.
Janet's beautiful brown hair was rumpled and
tossed and her cheeks were red from the fight
with the wind ; her dark blue eyes which were
shaded by purple rings under them had a wistful
light which did not escape Nan's keen look of
enquiry. She was gazing into Janet's face to
find the trail of the fiend, for Loveday's story
had perplexed her because of its unlikelihood.
She stared at Janet and then yapped, very gen-
tly for her, for fear of wakening Loveday. Janet
laughed too.
" Oh ! " she said with a gasp ; " I've not come
here of my own will, Nan, I've been swept here.
I don't believe I could have stood on my feet a
minute longer."
" Have you walked far ? " asked Nan.
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 143
" Yes," answered Janet sharply, " I have a
good long way ! "
"Seaweed?" queried Nan.
" No." said Janet.
Nan smiled. Then she folded her hands to-
gether in front of her small waist, and said
suddenly and with a genial yap.
"Why the devil, woman, cain't I call 'ee
Janet?"
Janet laughed heartily.
" Why havn't you before, Nan ? I'd like it
from you and and from others too," she said
slowly.
" Darn 'ee, woman," said Nan, " I wonder I've
never thought on it afore, but its jist coomed i'
my head like a swear word," and she fumbled
in her gown for her handkerchief and blew her
nose loudly. Then she laughed again and said
suddenly and rather nervously.
" Janet ! I'd be very well pleased to have a
kiss of 'ee, my dear, if it do please 'ee " and the
yellow teeth snapped together as she looked
into Janet's face. "I fancy there be but few
females hereabouts with your forthrightness in
'em and I commend 'ee and like 'ee for it. Naw !"
144 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
standing taut before Janet and putting her
hand on her arm. " There now, I've said what
I've wanted to say to 'ee before to-day, but a
body do feel a bit soft like when they set to work
telling of a woman as they do set store by she."
She snorted and sidled up to Janet and gave
her a gentle poke in the ribs. The tears had
suddenly sprung into Janet's eyes; sympathy
just then seemed to crush her. With one of
those uncontrollable impulses which sweep over
women sometimes as intuitions or as madnesses
she fell on her knees at Nan's feet, clasped the
woman's gown with her two long hands and
bowed her head over them. Nan snorted like a
wild creature and said thickly :
" Lord a mercy, my dear ! git up to once't.
What ever be 'ee a kneelin' like that to an old
creature like me ? I'll stan' by 'ee, Janet. Iss !
I will. I'll keep to my word till I've passed,
naw ! "
The wind screamed and whistled round the
house until voices could scarcely be heard. As
it died away in a moan the temporary lull seemed
to rouse Janet. She rose, and Nan, on tip-toe,
reached to her new friend's face. She took it
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 145
between her hard thin little hands and dwelt for
a moment on its softness with the expression
one sees in a beautiful woman's face as she looks
in her mirror. Then she kissed the mouth again
and again with the sharp quick kiss of one un-
accustomed to tender love ways.
" There ! " she said " that's fur always, mind.
Folk may come and jaw but they won't draw
the guts o' me over anything that you may tell
me. I'll stan' square to 'ee whether I knaw or
don't knaw all about 'ee."
Janet smiled wearily, but she said slowly and
almost cheerfully:
" Thank you for that, Nan. It's a treat to
know you mean what you say. I'm I'm "
A sudden noise made the two women turn.
Loveday stood in the doorway of the kitchen.
Her right thumb was in her mouth and her face
was vacant with drunken wonder.
" My gosh ! " she muttered.
CHAPTER VIII.
OLD Mother Trenoweth was asleep. Finding
her son silent and inclined to doze she had
slipped from the kitchen into her little bedroom
and had lain down with a weary sigh. The
tempest without and her own desponding
thoughts about Janet and Kit had brought on
a mood which even the Big Book was powerless
to dispel. She closed her eyes and gradually
sank into unconsciousness. She awakened sud-
denly from a disturbing dream, in which she
saw Kit's legs being sawn off with a blunt file,
to find Loveday bending over her with her
finger on her lips.
" Husht ! " she said solemnly, as she shook
the old woman's arm. "I've crept in unbe-
knowns to Kit there," pointing to the inner
room, " he be fast asleep and looks as snug as a
duck." She laughed roughly. " Let 'en sleep.
( 140 )
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 147
poor fule ; it's the best thing as he can do, seems
to me."
She sat on a chair near the bed and leaned
over towards the old woman.
"Thy Kit 'ave got to knaw a thing or two
when he do waken, lat me tell 'ee. Seems to me
as his woman 'ud stank the life out o' he and
never shed a bloornin' tear over it."
Loveday scratched her head slowly and then
jerked out as she pointed to the kitchen.
" Her's been wi' a strange man fur hours to-
day, kissin' of en and cuddlin' of en and he
sleepin' in there like a lil baaby ; a innocent
forthright fool he be, who thinks no hurt o'
she and 'ud never believe the truth about she
if God Hissel' told en it."
The old woman sat up and twisted round to
face Loveday. Her old thin legs hung loosely
over the side of the bed and her two hands were
outstretched on either side of her as she leaned
forward and peered into the eyes of her neigh-
bour. She sat speechless with horror. For many
months she had tried to overtake Janet in some
fault ; had watched and waited in the hope that
her son's wife, through some frailty of nature or
148 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
want of purpose, would be found to be made of
as common clay as herself and her neighbours,
and perhaps what had chafed her more than
anything else was the fixed conviction in her
mind that her quest would be a useless one. ,
Her private conviction was the same her son
had expressed when he declared " there is no flaw
in she." The thought that perhaps Loveday's
words were true and there was not only flaw
but sin in this fair saint, whom her son wor-
shipped, almost paralysed her, and for his sake
she now took up the cudgels for Janet.
" Thee art drunk," she said stolidly to Love-
day, and her old hands tightened on the white
counterpane.
Loveday laughed.
" Iss, so I be, sure 'nough, but wi' different
stuff to a woman's face. I'm thinkin' as the
whole place hereabouts be goin' crazy over
Janet. Nan's brains, seems to me, 'ave got
soaked wi' she at last, and now you," pointing
with her fat finger at Mother Trenoweth, " why
you, as be her natural enemy, in a manner o'
speakin', be upholdin' of she. Why woman,
do'ee not recollect how 'ee 'ave set me on Janet's
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 149
tracks yoursel', amost against my own nature,
fur to find out measley things o' she ? Well !
I've found out enough 'bout she to earn a Queen's
pension, and you sit up like a image and make
ugly faces at me 'cause I've done the very thing
which you was longin' fur me to do. Tain't
neighbourly, to say nothin' else 'bout it."
She stooped and pulled up a loose stocking,
and tied it over her knee with a bit of flannel
edging which was frayed and black with age.
Her face was red from the exertion when she
again faced the old woman. Mrs. Trenoweth
still sat in the same posture except that one
wrinkled hand fumbled into her pocket for her
handkerchief. She carefully wiped the corners
of her mouth and again clasped the quilt with
the handkerchief still in her hand. Loveday
waited for her to speak, but her mouth was set
and she uttered no sound.
" Don't 'ee bear no grudge agin she now, Mrs.
Trenoweth ? " asked Loveday sharply.
" Iss, Iss ! sure 'nough," she muttered ;
" but my dear, if what 'ee do say be
true it 'ull 'bout kill Kit and and"
150 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
the old hands were now clasped together:
" Oh ! I'd sooner bear all the mincin' ways
of forty false females as was ever born
nor hurt he ! Oh ! Lordy ! Lordy ! it's a judg-
ment on we ! it's a judgment, sure 'nough. What
s'all us do? What s'all us do? "
She whimpered and buried her face in her
hands.
" Gosh ! " murmured Loveday ; " here's a job !
The muck's set rollin' now and the old un's
scared at the sight of it. Pity but what we'd
all of us held our jaws 'bout she. It do never
do to stir a dung pile if 'ee've got a tender nose
fur stinks. Better let it rot and pretend it ain't
about at all. But' this pile 'ave been stirred,
sure 'nough, and we've got to stomach it the
best way we can."
The old woman still whimpered and Loveday's
face grew graver and graver.
" I wish Nan was coomed," she said under her
breath, " for I'm noane fitey to stank down mis-
fortune. Look 'ere," she said suddenly, " I'll
shut up Snowball Jack's mug o'er this job to
once't ; naw ! though the news by now, I'm fear-
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 151
in', will be like the floods a bit sin' gone,
whether we will or no, right into everybody's
door. But cheer up ; I'll do my best fur you and
Kit, Mrs. Trenoweth, even if I 'ave to turn a
willin' Hard over it. A'ter all, I b'lieve it's a
good bit the itch i' me to be thought well o' as
'ave pushed me on over this job. I've a parcil of
proud longings in me, and I'm pretty sure as
they 'ave spurred me on to hate Kit's woman.
Her could 'ave given me a leg up if her'd 'ad a
mind to but her's allus treated me like dung,
and," with a vicious stamp, " I do hate she fur
it, fur if you prick her finger and mine, you'll
find the same bluid i' both o' we naw ! I've
allus understood as you was agin her yoursel',
too, Mrs. Trenoweth, fur many and many a time
you and me 'ave set one another on a heat o' hate
over she. There were a time when if her'd only
spoken fair to me likely as not I'd have gone as
crazed over she as Nan be now, and I coomed to
knaw that as I walked here, for I were struck by
Nan's way as I left. Her be like one under con-
viction 'bout that woman, and I seed a sight
afore I left her house as fairly catched my
breath ! "
152 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
The old woman stared appealingly at Love-
day and touched her gently on the arm.
" Loveday, my dear," looking shrinkingly
at the door, " tell me," in a whisper, " what have
J anet done ? "
" What we've all done once't or twice, I reck-
on," laughed Loveday, " kissed the wrang man."
" It's witchcraft, sure enough," sighed the old
woman.
"It's nature," snarled Loveday fiercely.
" Lordy ! Lordy ! " and big tears rolled down
the old woman's cheeks, " to think that I s'ould
'ave lived to see my handsome a cuckold ! "
" Why ! " interrupted Loveday, " 'ee never
thought, did 'ee, but what Ja.net were a flash
sort all 'long? Many and many's the time 'ee
have told me so and now, 'cause it's proved true,
'ee seem most heartbroken over it."
"What s'all us do? What s'all us do?"
whined the old woman. " Kit is bound to knaw
afore long and who'll tell en I wonder ? It 'ull kill
en, it will, sure 'nough, dirty lyin' jade her be,
and they 'as as spied on she be no better. I 'ope
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 153
the Lord 'nil punish she wi' many stripes and
wi' bitter pains."
Loveday's face had suddenly grown bright for
an idea had crept into her dull brain.
" Look you 'ere, Mrs. Trenoweth," she said.
" I'll git over this job fur 'ee. Iss, I will. I'll
tackle Janet my own sel'," with a laugh, "and
tell her straight and square what I do knaw.
It'll happen then be my turn to mince a bit, I'm
thinkin' " and her fat hands made a slender flail
of her apron with which she flicked her knees.
" I'll have a forthright talk wi' she this very
night," she added gaily, " if I can only happen
on she fur a while wi'out Clibby Kit being by,
and I'll mark her bearing o'er this job and
then act as it do seem best arterwards. I'm in
agreement wi' you, Mrs. Trenoweth, and I think
as Kit s'ould knaw 'bout this to once't, but if
her's very repentant," with a giggle, " we might
spare him most of it, don't 'ee see ? Howsome-
ever I'll face the hussey and see if her rose pink
face do flush at all eh?"
She poked the old woman on the knees with
her knuckles and coughed significantly.
154 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
" Lordy ! Lordy ! " whined the miserable old
mother as she slipped from the bed and stood
before Loveday; "are 'ee certain sure it be
true or is it all a tale made up by malice and
laziness ? "
" It be true 'nough," answered Loveday.
" Snowball Jack see'd it wi' his own eyes and
you'll likely enough have a brat to tend i* this
houseplace one day fur to witness to her virtue."
She laughed coarsely, and then said with a
sudden impulse.
" But I'm gittin' sharp i' the tongue agin
and arter all, her's no worse nor others here-
abouts ; all o' we ain't no great shakes, be us ? "
with a quick look at the old dame ; " but that's
the queer thing i' this job as her's no better
nor we," and a gentle smile crept over her face.
" I do feel more kindlier to she now someway
than I did afore and I reckon perhaps when I've
had a forthright mag wi' she I'll likely feel
more like Nan do feel towards she." Then with
bitterness as her face clouded again ; " No, I
shain't neither, for maids and wives s'ould have
different ways wi' 'en; I'm certain sure o' that
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 155
for what's nothin' but a bit of a prank wi' one
is the devil's own wark wi' the other."
A movement in the kitchen roused both the
women."
" Wait ! " said Loveday, " I'll go and move
Kit, for it's he as 'ave wakened, and is waiitin'
of 'ee. It won't do fur en to see 'ee wi' that
look on thy face ; it's enough to frighten the
craws much less a man like Kit as do belong to
read to once't in a body's eyes what's goin' on i'
their insides. I'll say 'ee be comin' by and
by, and do 'ee wash thy face and chirp up
woman. Leave it all to me and I'll do fur 'ee
as I would fur my own, naw ! "
She opened the door and went away and the
old woman fell on her knees by the bed and
shaking her head from side to side muttered :
" Blessed Lord and Saviour ! have pity on we !
Tak' this burden off o' we for it be noane o'
our seekin'. Have mercy Lord, on a mother's
broken heart oh ! be gracious "
She was rudely interrupted by Loveday, who
had come back and was shaking the old woman's
156 Seaweed : A Cornish Idyll.
arm fiercely as she knelt with her head bowed
over her hands.
"Mrs. Trenoweth! git up to once't; Janet's
come, and I'm too late to jaw she ; her's kneel-
in' like a innocent babe alongside Kit, and they
be starin' i' one 'nother's eyes like two fools jist
beginnin' coortship. My Lord ! that woman
beats a play actor for shammin' ! "
CHAPTER IX.
THE wind of the previous night, with its
ghoulish yells and mocking wails, had suddenly
stilled. Nature for a brief hour seemed poised
between smiles and tears, and then, as the dawn
slowly crept over the shadowy hills and the black
cliffs she decided for shine and shimmer, and
soon the little hamlet of Carnwyn was roused to
greet one of those luscious days when light and
colour transform everything. The sea was calm,
and the little skiffs moved on its blue surface as
if propelled by some mysterious sea elves whose
gliding motions under the water gave it the
saphire tinge by which mortals become soothed
as if by fairy liltings.
Janet watched the sunrise from their little
window. Her breast was bare and a stray brown
lock from her unbound hair had found its way
to this soft warm resting-place.
The man was asleep in the woman's arms, and a
( 157 )
158 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
smile played round his lips as lie dreamed. Janet
turned to look at him, and she smiled too as
she drew him closer to her. The movement
wakened him and their eyes met. She cradled
him in her arms and he hungrily kissed her
breast, as she folded him to her.
" Janet," he whispered softly.
"Well, mon," she answered.
He held her chin between his finger and thumb
and looked in her eyes ; then he spoke slowly.
" I pity they chaps as uses winglocks fur to
keep their wives fro' flyin' from 'em. This
night 'ave beat our marriage night to fits."
He gazed at her with passion in his eyes but
his mouth twitched with tenderness as he went
on :
" I do worship thee woman wi' all my soul
and all my body and and " taking her face
between his hands, "if thee would like that
chap fetched Yes ! " with emphasis " Yes, by
God ! he shall come and dwell wi' we, and I'll
throttle any bit o' jealous devil left in me right
away if it'll make thee happy again."
He cleared his throat and his cheat rose and
fell. With a sudden movement she turned and
Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll. 159
looked at him. Her face was bathed in light,
for the sun had now risen, and its slanting
beams made the dust specks in the room roll and
dance as if to keep time with the glad twitting
of the birds outside who were busy drilling
their youngsters for flight.
" Mon," she said slowly, and her face was
alight with wonderful rest and happiness ;
" Mon, thee thee and no other art all as I want
i' this world. Yes " as he shook his head;
"it's truth ! If for one mad hour I lusted for
that man as I've telled thee on, with that hour
it passed from me as if it had never been. He
told me hissel' as it were just that way as men
folkses feel like often 'bout women, women, too,
as they happen never clap eyes on again ; just
love spasms as come and go like those of the
beasts i' the field." She shook her head slowly
from side to side and took her husband's hand
in her large firm one and kissed it tenderly as
she hung over it. As she stroked it gently with
her other hand, she went on in a low happy
voice :
" Eh ! But lad ! if thy fingers were took like
thy legs and all thy body turned white like the
160 Seaweed: A Cornish Idyll.
lepers the Bible tells on, dost thee think now as
thou wouldn't be the sweetest and gradliest lad
to me i' all the world ? "
She fondled him and crooned over him, as she
continued :
<; Fur why ! 'Cause thee 've understood as no
one else could, as yon man never would i' all the
earth and as I can't even rightly mysel', how
it was as I were mazed wi' life and took the rope
length as you gave me.
She laughed softly and closed his haiiy hand
between her own two brown ones :
" You may let the rope go, mon ! Yes the
whole length of it, and perhaps 'cause you'll
never tighten it nor yet knot it, I've a mind to
stop. The queer part is I'm noane repentin' as
I ought to, for if I'd never gone from thee for
that day I should never i' all this world know
what I know for sure now : that that " she
hesitated a moment and then held him close to
her breast " that it is thee, and not him nor
yet no other, as I do love as a woman loves a
mon."
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