The Penhale brothers grew and grew, put off childish things and began to
seek the company of men worshipfully and with emulation, as puppies
imitate grown dogs. Ortho’s first hero was a fisherman whose real name
was George Baragwanath, but who was invariably referred to as “Jacky’s
George,” although his father, the possessive Jacky, was long dead and
forgotten and had been nothing worth mentioning when alive.
Jacky’s George was a remarkable man. At the age of seventeen, while
gathering driftwood below Pedn Boar, he had seen an intact ship’s
pinnace floating in. The weather was moderate, but there was sufficient
swell on to stave the boat did it strike the outer rocks—and it was a
good boat. The only way to save it was to swim off, but Jacky’s George,
like most fishermen, could not swim. He badly wanted that boat; it would
make him independent of Jacky, whose methods were too slow to catch a
cold, leave alone fish. Moreover, there was a girl involved. He stripped
off his clothes, gathered the bundle of driftwood in his arms, flopped
into the back wash of a roller and kicked out, frog-fashion, knowing
full well that his chances of reaching the boat were slight and that if
he did not reach it he would surely drown.
He reached the boat, however, scrambled up over the stern and found
three men asleep on the bottom. His heart fell like lead. He had risked
his life for nothing; he’d still have to go fishing with the timorous
Jacky and the girl must wait.
“Here,” said he wearily to the nearest sleeper. “Here, rouse up; you’m
close ashore . . . be scat in a minute.”
The sleeper did not stir. Jacky’s George kicked him none too gently.
Still the man did not move. He then saw that he was dead; they were all
dead. The boat was his after all! He got the oars out and brought the
boat safely into Monks Cove. Quite a sensation it made—Jacky’s George,
stark naked, pulling in out of the sea fog with a cargo of dead men. He
married that girl forthwith, was a father at eighteen, a grandfather at
thirty-five. In the interval he got nipped by the Press Gang in a
Falmouth grog shop and sent round the world with Anson in the
_Centurion_, rising to the rank of quarter-gunner. One of the two
hundred survivors of that lucrative voyage, he was paid off with a
goodly lump of prize money, and, returning to his native cove, opened an
inn with a florid, cock-hatted portrait of his old commander for sign.
Jacky’s George, however, was not inclined to a life of bibulous ease
ashore. He handed the inn over to his wife and went to sea again as
gunner in a small Falmouth privateer mounting sixteen pieces. Off Ushant
one February evening they were chased by a South Maloman of twice their
weight of metal, which was overhauling them hand over fist when her
foremast went by the board and up she went in the wind. Jacky’s George
was responsible for the shot that disabled the Breton, but her parting
broadside disabled Jacky’s George; he lost an arm.
He was reported to have called for rum, hot tar and an ax. These having
been brought, he gulped the rum, chopped off the wreckage of his
forearm, soused the spurting stump in tar and fainted. He recovered
rapidly, fitted a boat-hook head to the stump and was at work again in
no time, but the accident made a longshoreman of him; he went no more
a-roving in letters of marque, but fished offshore with his swarm of
sons, Ortho Penhale occasionally going with him.
Physically Jacky’s George was a sad disappointment. Of all the Covers he
was the least like what he ought to have been, the last man you would
have picked out as the desperado who had belted the globe, sacked towns
and treasure ships, been master gunner of a privateer and killed several
times his own weight in hand-to-hand combats. He was not above five feet
three inches in height, a chubby, chirpy, red-headed cock-robin of a man
who drank little, swore less, smiled perpetually and whistled wherever
he went—even, it was said, at the graveside of his own father, in a
moment of abstraction of course.
His wife, who ran the “Admiral Anson” (better known as the
“Kiddlywink”), was a heavy dark woman, twice his size and very downright
in her opinions. She would roar down a roomful of tipsy mariners with
ease and gusto, but the least word of her smiling little husband she
obeyed swiftly and in silence. It was the same with his children. There
were nine of them—two daughters and seven sons—all red-headed and
freckled like himself, a turbulent, independent tribe, paying no man
respect—but their father.
Ortho could not fathom the nature of the little man’s power over them;
he was so boyish himself, took such childish delight in their tales of
mischief, seemed in all that boatload of boys the youngest and most
carefree. Then one evening he had a glimpse of the cock-robin’s other
side. They were just in from sea, were lurching up from the slip when
they were greeted by ominous noises issuing from the Kiddlywink, the
crash of woodwork, hoarse oaths, a thump and then growlings as of a
giant dog worrying a bone. Jacky’s George broke into a run, and at the
same moment his wife, terrified, appeared at the door and cried out,
“Quick! Quick do ’ee! Murder!”
Jacky’s George dived past her into the house, Ortho, agog for any form
of excitement, close behind him.
The table was lying over on its side, one bench was broken and the other
tossed, end on, into a corner. On the wet floor, among chips of
shattered mugs, two men struggled, locked together, a big man on top, a
small man underneath. The former had the latter by the throat, rapidly
throttling him. The victim’s eyeballs seemed on the point of bursting,
his tongue was sticking out.
“Tinners!” wailed Mrs. Baragwanath. “Been drinkin’ all day—gert
stinkin’ toads!”
Jacky’s George did not waste time in wordy remonstrance; he got the
giant’s chin in the crook of his sound arm and tried to wrench it up.
Useless; the maddened brute was too strong and too heavy. The man
underneath gave a ghastly, clicking choke. In another second there would
have been murder done in the “Admiral Anson” and a blight would fall on
that prosperous establishment, killing trade. That would never do.
Without hesitation its landlord settled the matter, drove his stump-hook
into the giant’s face, gaffed him through the cheek as he would a fish.
“Come off!” said he.
The man came off.
“Come on!” He backed out, leading the man by the hook.
“Lift a hand or struggle and I’ll drag your face inside out,” said
Jacky’s George. “This way, if you please.”
The man followed, bent double, murder in his eyes, hands twitching but
at his sides.
At the end of the hamlet Jacky’s George halted. “You owe me your neck,
mate, but I don’t s’pose you’ll thank me, tedd’n in human nature, you
would,” said he, sadly, as though pained at the ingratitude of mortal
man. “Go on up that there road till you’m out of this place an’ don’t
you never come back.”
He freed the hook deftly and jumped clear. “Now crowd all canvas, do
’ee.”
The great tinner put a hand to his bleeding cheek, glared at the smiling
cock-robin, clenched his fists and teeth and took a step forward—one
only. A stone struck him in the chest, another missed his head by an
inch. He ducked to avoid a third and was hit in the back and thigh,
started to retreat at a walk, broke into a run and went cursing and
stumbling up the track, his arms above his head to protect it from the
rain of stones, Goliath pursued by seven red-headed little Davids, and
all the Cove women standing on their doorsteps jeering.
“Two mugs an’ a bench seat,” Jacky’s George commented as he watched his
sons speeding the parting guest. “Have to make t’other poor soul pay for
’em, I s’pose.” He turned back into the Kiddlywink whistling,
“Strawberry leaves make maidens fair.”
Ortho enjoyed going to sea with the Baragwanath family; they put such
zest into all they did, no slovenliness was permitted. Falls and cables
were neatly coiled or looped over pins, sail was stowed properly, oars
tossed man-o’-war fashion, everything went with a snap. Furthermore,
they took chances. For them no humdrum harbor hugging; they went far and
wide after the fish and sank their crab-pots under dangerous ledges no
other boat would tackle. In anything like reasonable weather they
dropped a tier or two seaward of the Twelve Apostles. Even on the
calmest of days there was a heavy swell on to the south of the reef,
especially with the tide making. It was shallow there and the Atlantic
flood came rolling over the shoal in great shining hills. At one moment
you were up in the air and could see the brown coast with its purple
indentations for miles, the patchwork fields, scattered gray farmhouses,
the smoke of furze fires and lazy clouds rolling along the high moors.
At the next moment you were in the lap of a turquoise valley, shut out
from everything by rushing cliffs of water. There were oars, sheets,
halliards, back-ropes and lines to be pulled on, fighting fish to be
hauled aboard, clubbed and gaffed. And always there was Jacky’s George
whistling like a canary, pointing out the various rigs of passing
vessels, spinning yarns of privateer days and of Anson’s wonderful
voyage, of the taking of Paita City and the great plate ship _Nuestra
Señora de Covadonga_. And there was the racing.
Very jealous of his craft’s reputation was Jacky’s George; a hint of
defiance from another boat and he was after the challenger instanter,
even though it took him out of his course. Many a good spin did Ortho
get coming in from the Carn Base Wolf and other outer fishing grounds,
backed against the weather-side with the Baragwanath boys, living
ballast, while the gig, trembling from end to end, went leaping and
swooping over the blue and white hillocks on the trail of an ambitious
Penberth or Porgwarra man. Sheets and weather stays humming in the
blast, taut and vibrant as guitar strings; sails rigid as though carved
from wood, lee gunnel all but dipping under; dollops of spray bursting
aboard over the weather bow—tense work, culminating in exultation as
they crept up on the chase, drew to her quarter, came broad abeam
and—with derisive cheers—passed her. Speed was a mania with the
cock-robin; he was in perpetual danger of sailing the _Game Cock_ under;
on one occasion he very nearly did.
They were tearing, close-hauled, through the Runnelstone Passage, after
an impudent Mouseholeman, when a cross sea suddenly rose out of nowhere
and popped aboard over the low lee gunnel. In a second the boat was full
of water; only her gunnels and thwarts were visible. It seemed to Ortho
that he was standing up to his knees in the sea.
“Luff!” shouted Jacky’s George.
His eldest son jammed the helm hard down, but the boat wouldn’t answer.
The way was off her; she lay as dead as a log.
“Leggo sheets!” shouted the father. “Aft all hands!”
Ortho tumbled aft with the Baragwanath boys and watched Jacky’s George
in a stupor of fright. The little man could not be said to move; he
flickered, grabbed up an oar, wrenched the boat’s head round, broke the
crest of an oncoming wave by launching the oar blade at it and took the
remainder in his back.
“Heave the ballast out an’ bale,” he yelled gleefully, sitting in the
bows, forming a living bulwark against the waves. “Bale till your backs
break, my jollies.”
They bailed like furies, baled with the first things to hand, line tubs,
caps, boots, anything, in the meanwhile drifting rapidly towards the
towering cliffs of Tol-pedn-Penwith. The crash of the breakers on the
ledges struck terror through Ortho. They sounded like a host of ravenous
great beasts roaring for their prey—him. If the boat did not settle
under them they would be dashed to pieces on those rocks; death was
inevitable one way or the other. He remembered the Portuguese seamen
washed in from the Twelve Apostles without heads. He would be like that
in a few minutes—no head—ugh!
Jacky’s George, jockeying the bows, improvising a weather cloth from a
spare jib, was singing, “Hey, boys, up we go!” This levity in the jaws
of destruction enraged Ortho. The prospect of imminent death might amuse
Jacky’s George, who had eaten a rich slice of life, but Ortho had not
and was terrified. He felt he was too young to die; it was unfair to
snatch a mere boy like himself. Moreover, it was far too sudden; no
warning at all. At one moment they were bowling along in the sunshine,
laughing and happy, and at the next up to their waists in water, to all
intents dead, cold, headless, eaten by crabs—ugh! He thought of Eli up
the valley, flintlock in hand, dry, happy, safe for years and years of
fun; thought of the Owls’ House bathed in the noon glow, the old dog
asleep in the sun, pigeons strutting on the thatch, copper pans shining
in the kitchen—thought of his home, symbol of all things comfortable
and secure, and promised God that if he got out of the mess he would
never set foot in a boat again.
The roar of the breakers grew louder and he felt cold and sick with
fear, but nevertheless baled with the best, baled for dear life,
realizing for the first time how inexpressibly precious life may be.
Jacky’s George whistled, cracked jokes and sang “The Bold British Tar.”
He made such a din as to drown the noise of the surf. The “British Tar”
had brave words and a good rousing chorus. The boys joined in as they
baled; presently Ortho found himself singing too.
Six lads toiling might and main can shift a quantity of water. The gig
began to brisk in her movements, to ride easier. Fifty yards off the
foam-draped Hella Rock Jacky’s George laid her to her course again—but
the Mouseholeman was out of sight.
No Dundee harpooner, home from a five years’ cruise, had a more moving
story of perils on the deep to tell than did Ortho that night. He
staggered about the kitchen, affecting a sea roll, spat over his
shoulder and told and retold the tale till his mother boxed his ears and
drove him up to bed. Even then he kept Eli awake for two hours, baling
that boat out over and over again; he had enjoyed every moment of it, he
said. Nevertheless he did not go fishing for a month, but the
Baragwanath family were dodging off St. Clements Isle before sun-up next
day, waiting for that Mousehole boat to come out of port. When she did
they led her down to the fishing grounds and then led her home again, a
tow-rope trailing derisively over the _Game Cock’s_ stern. They were an
indomitable breed.
Ortho recovered from his experience off Tol-Pedn and, despite his
promise to his Maker, went to sea occasionally, but that phase of his
education was nearing its close. Winter and its gales were approaching,
and even the fearless cock-robin seldom ventured out. When he did go he
took only his four eldest boys, departed without ostentation, was gone a
week or even two, and returned quietly in the dead of night.
“Scilly—to visit his sister,” was given by Mrs. Baragwanath as his
destination and object, but it was noted that these demonstrations of
brotherly affection invariably occurred when the “Admiral Anson’s” stock
of liquor was getting low. The wise drew their own conclusions. Ortho
pleaded to be taken on one of these mysterious trips, but Jacky’s George
was adamant, so he had perforce to stop at home and follow the _Game
Cock_ in imagination across the wintry Channel to Guernsey and back
again through the patrolling frigates, loaded to the bends with ankers
of gin and brandy.
Cut off from Jacky’s George, he looked about for a fresh hero to worship
and lit upon Pyramus Herne.