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