YOUNG ZEB FETCHES A CHEST OF DRAWERS.
The parish of Ruan Lanihale is bounded on the west by Porthlooe, a
fishing town of fifteen hundred inhabitants or less, that blocks the
seaward exit of a narrow coombe. A little stream tumbles down this
coombe towards the "Hauen," divides the folk into parishioners of
Lanihale and Landaviddy, and receives impartially the fish offal of
both. There is a good deal of this offal, especially during pilchard
time, and the towns-folk live on their first storeys, using the lower
floors as fish cellars, or "pallaces." But even while the nose most
abhors, the eye is delighted by jumbled houses, crazy stairways leading
to green doors, a group of children dabbling in the mud at low tide, a
congregation of white gulls, a line of fishing boats below the quay
where the men lounge and whistle and the barked nets hang to dry, and,
beyond all, the shorn outline of two cliffs with a wedge of sea and sky
between.
Mr. Zebedee Minards the elder dwelt on the eastern or Lanihale side of
the stream, and a good way back from the Hauen, beside the road that
winds inland up the coombe. Twenty yards of garden divided his cottage
door from the road, and prevented the inmates from breaking their necks
as they stepped over its threshold. Even as it was, Old Zeb had
acquired a habit of singing out "Ware heads!" to the wayfarers whenever
he chanced to drop a rotund object on his estate; and if any small
article were missing indoors, would descend at once to the highway with
the cheerful assurance, based on repeated success, of finding it
somewhere below.
Over and above its recurrent crop of potatoes and flatpoll cabbages,
this precipitous garden depended for permanent interest on a collection
of marine curiosities, all eloquent of disaster to shipping. To begin
with, a colossal and highly varnished Cherokee, once the figure-head of
a West Indiaman, stood sentry by the gate and hung forward over the
road, to the discomfiture of unwarned and absent-minded bagmen. The
path to the door was guarded by a low fence of split-bamboo baskets that
had once contained sugar from Batavia; a coffee bag from the wreck of a
Dutch barque served for door-mat; a rum-cask with a history caught
rain-water from the eaves; and a lapdog's pagoda--a dainty affair,
striped in scarlet and yellow, the jetsom of some passenger ship--had
been deftly adapted by Old Zeb, and stood in line with three straw
bee-skips under the eastern wall.
The next day but one after Christmas dawned deliciously in Porthlooe,
bright with virginal sunshine, and made tender by the breath of the Gulf
Stream. Uncle Issy, passing up the road at nine o'clock, halted by the
Cherokee to pass a word with its proprietor, who presented the very
antipodes of a bird's-eye view, as he knocked about the crumbling clods
with his visgy at the top of the slope.
"Mornin', Old Zeb; how be 'ee, this dellicate day?"
"Brave, thankee, Uncle."
"An' how's Coden Rachel?"
"She's charmin', thankee."
"Comely weather, comely weather; the gulls be comin' back down the
coombe, I see."
"I be jealous about its lastin'; for 'tis over-rathe for the time o'
year. Terrible topsy-turvy the seasons begin to run, in my old age.
Here's May in Janewarry; an' 'gainst May, comes th' east wind breakin'
the ships o' Tarshish."
"Now, what an instructive chap you be to convarse with, I do declare!
Darned if I didn' stand here two minnits, gazin' up at the seat o' your
small-clothes, tryin' to think 'pon what I wanted to say; for I'd a
notion that I wanted to speak, cruel bad, but cudn' lay hand on't.
So at last I takes heart an' says 'Mornin', I says, beginnin' i' that
very common way an' hopin' 'twould come. An' round you whips wi'
'ships o' Tarshish' pon your tongue; an' henceforth 'tis all Q's an'
A's, like a cattykism."
"Well, now you say so, I _did_ notice, when I turned round, that you was
lookin' no better than a fool, so to speak. But what's the notion?"
"'Tis a question I've a-been daggin' to ax'ee ever since it woke me up
in the night to spekilate thereon. For I felt it very curious there
shud he three Zebedee Minardses i' this parish a-drawin' separate breath
at the same time."
"Iss, 'tis an out-o'-the-way fact."
"A stirrin' age, when such things befall! If you'd a-told me, a week
agone, that I should live to see the like, I'd ha' called 'ee a liar;
an' yet here I be a-talkin' away, an' there you be a-listening an' here
be the old world a-spinnin' us round as in bygone times--"
"Iss, iss--but what's the question?"
"--All the same when that furriner chap looks up in Tresidder's kitchen
an' says 'My name is Zebedee Minards,' you might ha' blown me down wi' a
puff; an' says I to mysel', wakin' up last night an' thinkin'--'I'll ax
a question of Old Zeb when I sees en, blest if I don't.'"
"Then why in thunder don't 'ee make haste an' do it?"
Uncle Issy, after revolving the question for another fifteen seconds,
produced it in this attractive form--
"Old Zeb, bein' called Zeb, why did 'ee call Young Zeb, Zeb?"
Old Zeb ceased to knock the clods about, descended the path, and leaning
on his visgy began to contemplate the opposite slope of the coombe, as
if the answer were written, in letters hard to decipher, along the
hill-side.
"Well, now," he began, after opening his mouth twice and shutting it
without sound, "folks may say what they like o' your wits, Uncle, an'
talk o' your looks bein' against 'ee, as they do; but you've a-put a
twister, this time, an' no mistake."
"I reckoned it a banger," said the old man, complacently.
"Iss. But I had my reasons all the same."
"To be sure you had. But rabbet me it I can guess what they were."
"I'll tell 'ee. You see when Zeb was born, an' the time runnin' on for
his christ'nin', Rachel an' me puzzled for days what to call en.
At last I said, 'Look 'ere, I tell 'ee what: you shut your eyes an' open
the Bible, anyhow, an' I'll shut mine an' take a dive wi' my finger, an'
we'll call en by the nearest name I hits on.' So we did. When we tuk
en to church, tho', there was a pretty shape. 'Name this cheeld,' says
Pa'son Babbage. 'Selah,' says I, that bein' the word we'd settled.
'Selah?' says he: 'pack o' stuff! that ain't no manner o' name. You
might so well call en Amen.' So bein' hurried in mind, what wi' the
cheeld kickin', an' the water tricklin' off the pa'son's forefinger, an'
the sacred natur' of the deed, I cudn' think 'pon no name but my own;
an' Zeb he was christened."
"Deary me," commented Uncle Issy, "that's a very life-like history.
The wonder is, the self-same fix don't happen at more christ'nin's, 'tis
so very life-like."
A silence followed, full of thought. It was cut short by the rattle of
wheels coming down the road, and Young Zeb's grey mare hove in sight,
with Young Zeb's green cart, and Young Zeb himself standing up in it,
wide-legged. He wore a colour as fresh as on Christmas morning, and
seemed none the worse for his adventure.
"Hello!" he called, pulling up the mare; "'mornin', Uncle Issy--
'mornin', father."
"Same to you, my son. Whither away?--as the man said once."
"Aye, whither away?" chimed Uncle Issy; "for the pilchards be all gone
up Channel these two months."
"To Liskeard, for a chest-o'-drawers." Young Zeb, to be ready for
married life, had taken a house for himself--a neat cottage with a yard
and stable, farther up the coombe. But stress of business had
interfered with the furnishing until quite lately.
"Rate meogginy, I suppose, as befits a proud tradesman."
"No: painted, but wi' the twiddles put in so artfully you'd think 'twas
rale. So, as 'tis a fine day, I'm drivin' in to Mister Pennyway's shop
o' purpose to fetch it afore it be snapped up, for 'tis a captivatin'
article. I'll be back by six, tho', i' time to get into my clothes an'
grease my hair for the courant, up to Sheba."
"Zeb," said his father, abruptly, "'tis a grand match you'm makin', an'
you may call me a nincom, but I wish ye wasn'."
"'Tis lookin' high," put in Uncle Issy.
"A cat may look at a king, if he's got his eyes about en," Old Zeb went
on, "let alone a legacy an' a green cart. 'Tain't that: 'tis the
maid."
"How's mother?" asked the young man, to shift the conversation.
"Hugly, my son. Hi! Rachel!" he shouted, turning his head towards the
cottage; and then went on, dropping his voice, "As between naybours,
I'm fain to say she don't shine this mornin'. Hi, mother! here's
Zebedee waitin' to pay his respects."
Mrs. Minards appeared on the cottage threshold, with a blue check duster
round her head--a tall, angular woman, of severe deportment.
Her husband's bulletin, it is fair to say, had reference rather to her
temper than to her personal attractions.
"Be the Frenchmen landed?" she inquired, sharply.
"Why, no; nor yet likely to."
"Then why be I called out i' the midst o' my clanin'? What came I out
for to see? Was it to pass the time o' day wi' an aged
shaken-by-the-wind kind o' loiterer they name Uncle Issy?"
Apparently it was not, for Uncle Issy by this time was twenty yards up
the road, and still fleeing, with his head bent and shoulders
extravagantly arched, as if under a smart shower.
"I thought I'd like to see you, mother," said Young Zeb.
"Well, now you've done it."
"Best be goin', I reckon, my son," whispered Old Zeb.
"I be much the same to look at," announced the voice above, "as afore
your legacy came. 'Tis only up to Sheba that faces ha' grown kindlier."
Young Zeb touched up his mare a trifle savagely.
"Well, so long, my son! See 'ee up to Sheba this evenin', if all's
well."
The old man turned back to his work, while Young Zeb rattled on in an
ill humour. He had the prettiest sweetheart and the richest in
Lanihale parish, and nobody said a good word for her. He tried to think
of her as a wronged angel, and grew angry with himself on finding the
effort hard to sustain. Moreover, he felt uneasy about the stranger.
Fate must be intending mischief, he fancied, when it led him to rescue a
man who so strangely happened to bear his own name. The fellow, too,
was still at Sheba, being nursed back to strength; and Zeb didn't like
it. In spite of the day, and the merry breath of it that blew from the
sea upon his right cheek, black care dogged him all the way up the long
hill that led out of Porthlooe, and clung to the tail-board of his green
cart as he jolted down again towards Ruan Cove.
After passing the Cove-head, Young Zeb pulled up the mare, and was taken
with a fit of thoughtfulness, glancing up towards Sheba farm, and then
along the high-road, as if uncertain. The mare settled the question
after a minute, by turning into the lane, and Zeb let her have her way.
"Where's Miss Ruby?" he asked, driving into the town-place, and coming
on Mary Jane, who was filling a pig's-bucket by the back door.
"Gone up to Pare Dew 'long wi' maister an' the very man I seed i' my
tay-cup, a week come Friday."
"H'm."
"Iss, fay; an' a great long-legged stranger he was. So I stuck en 'pon
my fist an' gave en a scat. 'To-day,' says I, but he didn' budge.
'To-morrow,' I says, an' gave en another; and then 'Nex' day;' and t'
third time he flew. 'Shall have a sweet'eart, Sunday, praise the Lord,'
thinks I; 'wonder who 'tis? Anyway, 'tis a comfort he'll be high 'pon
his pins, like Nanny Painter's hens, for mine be all the purgy-bustious
shape just now.' Well, Sunday night he came to Raney Rock, an' Monday
mornin' to Sheba farm; and no thanks to you that brought en, for not a
single dare-to-deny-me glance has he cast _this_ way."
"Which way, then?"
"'Can't stay to causey, Master Zeb, wi' all the best horn-handled knives
to be took out o' blue-butter 'gainst this evenin's courant. Besides,
you called me a liar last week."
"So you be. But I'll believe 'ee this time."
"Well, I'll tell 'ee this much--for you look a very handsome jowter i'
that new cart. If I were you, I'd be careful that gay furriner _didn
steal more'n my name_"
Meantime, a group of four was standing in the middle of Parc Dew, the
twenty-acred field behind the farmstead. The stranger, dressed in a
blue jersey and outfit of Farmer Tresidder's, that made up in boots for
its shortcomings elsewhere, was addressing the farmer, Ruby, and Jim
Lewarne, who heard him with lively attention. In his right hand he held
a walking-stick armed with a spud, for uprooting thistles; and in his
left a cake of dark soil, half stone, half mud. His manner was earnest.
". . . . I see," he was saying, "that I don't convince you; and it's
only for your own sakes I insist on convincing you. You'll grant me
that, I suppose. To-morrow, or the next day, I go; and the chances are
that we never meet again in this world. But 'twould be a pleasant
thought to carry off to the ends of the earth that you, my benefactors,
were living in wealth, enriched (if I may say it without presumption) by
a chance word of mine. I tell you I know something of these matters--"
"I thought you'd passed your days privateerin'," put in Jim Lewarne, who
was the only hostile listener, perhaps because he saw no chance of
sharing in the promised wealth.
"Jim, hold your tongue!" snapped Ruby.
"I ask you," went on the stranger, without deigning to answer, "I ask
you if it does not look like Providence? Here have you been for years,
dwelling amid wealth of which you never dreamed. A ship is wrecked
close to your doors, and of all her crew the one man saved is, perhaps,
the one man who could enlighten you. You feed him, clothe him, nurse
him. As soon as he can crawl about, he picks a walking-stick out of
half-a-dozen or more in the hall, and goes out with you to take a look
at the farm. On his way he notes many things. He sees (you'll excuse
me, Farmer, but I can't help it) that you're all behind the world, and
the land is yielding less than half of what it ought. Have you ever
seen a book by Lord Dundonald on the connection between Agriculture and
Chemistry? No? I thought not. Do you know of any manure better than
the ore-weed you gather down at the Cove? Or the plan of malting grain
to feed your cattle on through the winter? Or the respective merits of
oxen and horses as beasts of draught? But these matters, though the
life and soul of modern husbandry, are as nothing to this lump in my
hand. What do you call the field we're now standing in?"
"Parc Dew."
"Exactly--the 'black field,' or the 'field of black soil': the very name
should have told you. But you lay it down in grass, and but for the
chance of this spud and a lucky thistle, I might have walked over it a
score of times without guessing its secret. Man alive, it's red gold I
have here--red, wicked, damnable, delicious gold--the root of all evil
and of most joys."
"If you lie, you lie enticingly, young man."
"By gold, I mean stuff that shall make gold for you. There is ore here,
but what ore exactly I can't tell till I've streamed it: lead, I fancy,
with a trace of silver--wealth for you, certainly; and in what quantity
you shall find out--"
At this juncture a voice was heard calling over the hedge, at the bottom
of the field. It came from Young Zeb, the upper part of whose person,
as he stood up in his cart, was just visible between two tamarisk
bushes.
"Ru-b-y-y-y!"
"Drat the chap!" exclaimed Ruby's father, wheeling round sharply.
"What d'ye wa-a-a-nt?" he yelled back.
"Come to know 'bout that chest o' dra-w-w-ers!"
"Then come 'long round by th' ga-a-ate!"
"Can't sta-a-ay! Want to know, as I'm drivin' to Liskeard, if Ruby
thinks nine-an'-six too mu-u-ch, as the twiddles be so very cle-v-ver!"
"How ridiculous!" muttered the stranger, just loud enough for Ruby to
hear. "Who is this absurd person?"
Jim Lewarne answered--"A low-lived chap, mister, as saved your skin
awhile back."
"Dear, dear--how unpardonable of me! I hadn't, the least idea at this
distance. Excuse me, I must go and thank him at once."
He moved towards the hedge with a brisk step that seemed to cost him
some pain. The others followed, a pace or two behind.
"You'll not mind my interruptin', Farmer," continued Young Zeb,
"but 'tis time Ruby made her mind up, for Mister Pennyway won't take a
stiver less. 'Mornin', Ruby, my dear."
"And you'll forgive me if I also interrupt," put in the stranger, with
the pleasantest smile, "but it is time I thanked the friend who saved my
life on Monday morning. I would come round and shake hands if only I
could see the gate."
"Don't 'ee mention it," replied Zeb, blushing hotly. "I'm glad to mark
ye lookin' so brave a'ready. Well, what d'ye say, Ruby?"
"I say 'please yoursel'.'"
For of the two men standing before Ruby (she did not count her father
and Jim Lewarne), the stranger, with his bold features and easy
conciliating carriage, had the advantage. It is probable that he knew
it, and threw a touch of acting into his silence as Zeb cut him short.
"That's a fair speech," replied Zeb. "Iss, turn it how you will, the
words be winnin' enow. But be danged, my dear, if I wudn' as lief you
said, 'Go to blazes!'"
"Fact is, my son," said Farmer Tresidder, candidly, "you'm good but
untimely, like kissin' the wrong maid. This here surpassin' young
friend o' mine was speech-makin' after a pleasant fashion in our ears
when you began to bawl--"
"Then you don't want to hear about the chest o' drawers?" interrupted
Zeb in dudgeon, with a glance at Ruby, who pretended not to see it.
"Well, no. To tell 'ee the slap-bang truth, I don't care if I see no
trace of 'ee till the dancin' begins to commence to-night."
"Then good-day t' ye, friends," answered Young Zeb, and turned the mare.
"Cl'k, Jessamy!" He rattled away down the lane.
"What an admirable youth!" murmured the stranger, falling back a pace
and gazing after the back of Zeb's head as it passed down the line of
the hedge. "What a messenger! He seems eaten up with desire to get you
a chest of drawers that shall be wholly satisfying. But why do you
allow him to call you 'my dear'?"
"Because, I suppose, that's what I am," answered Ruby; "because I'm
goin' to marry him within the month."
"_Wh-e-e-w!_"
But, as a matter of fact, the stranger had known before asking.