YOUNG ZEB SELLS HIS SOUL.
These things were reported to Young Zeb as he sat in his cottage, up the
coombe, and nursed his pain. He was a simple youth, and took life in
earnest, being very slow to catch fire, but burning consumedly when once
ignited. Also he was sincere as the day, and had been treacherously
used. So he raged at heart, and (for pride made him shun the public
eye) he sat at home and raged--the worst possible cure for love, which
goes out only by open-air treatment. From time to time his father,
Uncle Issy, and Elias Sweetland sat around him and administered comfort
after the manner of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
"Your cheeks be pale, my son--lily-white, upon my soul. Rise, my son,
an' eat, as the wise king recommended, sayin', 'Stay me wi' flagons,
comfort me wi' yapples, for I be sick o' love.' A wise word that."
"Shall a man be poured out like water," inquired Uncle Issy, "an' turn
from his vittles, an' pass his prime i' blowin' his nose, an' all for a
woman?"
"I wasn' blowin' my nose," objected Zeb, shortly.
"Well, in black an' white you wasn', but ye gave me that idee."
Young Zeb stared out of the window. Far down the coombe a slice of blue
sea closed the prospect, and the tan sails of a small lugger were
visible there, rounding the point to the westward. He watched her
moodily until she passed out of sight, and turned to his father.
"To-morrow, did 'ee say?"
"Iss, to-morrow, at eleven i' the forenoon. Jim Lewarne brought me
word."
"Terrible times they be for Jim, I reckon," said Elias Sweetland.
"All yestiddy he was goin' back'ards an' forrards like a lost dog in a
fair, movin' his chattels. There's a hole in the roof of that new
cottage of his that a man may put his Sunday hat dro'; and as for his
old Woman, she'll do nought but sit 'pon the lime-ash floor wi' her
tout-serve over her head, an' call en ivery name but what he was
chris'ened."
"Nothin' but neck-an'-crop would do for Tresidder, I'm told," said Old
Zeb. "'I've a-sarved 'ee faithful,' said Jim, 'an' now you turns me out
wi' a week's warnin'.' 'You've a-crossed my will,' says Tresidder, 'an'
I've engaged a more pushin' hind in your place.' 'Tis a new fashion o'
speech wi' Tresidder nowadays."
"Ay, modern words be drivin' out the old forms. But 'twas only to get
Jim's cottage for that strong-will'd supplantin' furriner because Ruby
said 'twas low manners for bride an' groom to go to church from the same
house. So no sooner was the Lewarnes out than he was in, like shufflin'
cards, wi' his marriage garment an' his brush an' comb in a hand-bag.
Tresidder sent down a mattress for en, an' he slept there last night."
"Eh, but that's a trifle for a campaigner."
"Let this be a warnin' to 'ee, my son niver to save no more lives from
drownin'."
"I won't," promised Young Zeb.
"We've found 'ee a great missment," Elias observed to him, after a
pause. "The Psa'ms, these three Sundays, bain't what they was for lack
o' your enlivenin' flute--I can't say they be. An' to hear your very
own name called forth in the banns wi' Ruby's, an' you wi'out part nor
lot therein--"
"Elias, you mean it well, no doubt; but I'd take it kindly if you
sheered off."
"'Twas a wisht Psa'm, too," went on Elias, "las' Sunday mornin'; an' I
cudn' help my thoughts dwellin' 'pon the dismals as I blowed, nor
countin' how that by this time to-morrow--"
But Young Zeb had caught up his cap and rushed from the cottage.
He took, not the highway to Porthlooe, but a footpath that slanted up
the western slope of the coombe, over the brow of the hill, and led in
time to the coast and a broader path above the cliffs. The air was
warm, and he climbed in such hurry that the sweat soon began to drop
from his forehead. By the time he reached the cliffs he was forced to
pull a handkerchief out and mop himself; but without a pause, he took
the turning westward towards Troy harbour, and tramped along sturdily.
For his mind was made up.
Ship's-chandler Webber, of Troy, was fitting out a brand-new privateer,
he had heard, and she was to sail that very week. He would go and offer
himself as a seaman, and if Webber made any bones about it, he would
engage to put a part of his legacy into the adventure. In fact, he was
ready for anything that would take him out of Porthlooe. To live there
and run the risk of meeting Ruby on the other man's arm was more than
flesh and blood could stand. So he went along with his hands deep in
his pockets, his eyes fastened straight ahead, his heart smoking, and
the sweat stinging his eyelids. And as he went he cursed the day of his
birth.
From Porthlooe to Troy Ferry is a good six miles by the cliffs, and when
he had accomplished about half the distance, he was hailed by name.
Between the path at this point and the cliff's edge lay a small patch
cleared for potatoes, and here an oldish man was leaning on his shovel
and looking up at Zeb.
"Good-mornin', my son!"
"Mornin', hollibubber!"
The old man had once worked inland at St. Teath slate-quarries, and made
his living as a "hollibubber," or one who carts away the refuse slates.
On returning to his native parish he had brought back and retained the
name of his profession, the parish register alone preserving his true
name of Matthew Spry. He was a fervent Methodist--a local preacher, in
fact--and was held in some admiration by "the people" for his lustiness
in prayer-meeting. A certain intensity in his large grey eyes gave
character to a face that was otherwise quite insignificant. You could
see he was a good man.
"Did 'ee see that dainty frigate go cruisin' by, two hour agone?"
"No."
"Then ye missed a sweet pretty sight. Thirty guns, I do b'lieve, an'
all sail set. I cou'd a'most count her guns, she stood so close."
"Hey?"
"She tacked just here an' went round close under Bradden Point; so she's
for Troy, that's certain. Be you bound that way, too?"
"Iss, I'll see her, if she's there."
"Best not go too close, my son; for I know the looks o' those customers.
By all accounts you'm a man of too much substance to risk yourself near
a press-gang."
Young Zeb gazed over the old man's head at the horizon line, and
answered, as if reading the sentence there, "I might fare worse,
hollibubber."
The hollibubber seemed, for a second, about to speak; for, of course, he
knew Zeb's trouble. But after a while he took his shovel out of the
ground slowly.
"Ay, ye might," he said; "pray the Lord ye don't."
Zeb went on, faster than ever. He passed Bradden Point and Widdy Cove
at the rate of five miles an hour, or thereabouts, then he turned aside
over a stile and crossed a couple of meadows; and after these he was on
the high-road, on the very top of the hill overlooking Troy Harbour.
He gazed down. The frigate was there, as the hollibubber had guessed,
anchored at the harbour's mouth. Two men in a small boat were pulling
from her to the farther shore. A thin haze of blue smoke lay over the
town at his feet, and the noise of mallets in the ship-building yards
came across to him through the clear afternoon. Zeb hardly noticed all
this, for his mind was busy with a problem. He halted by a milestone on
the brow of the hill, to consider.
And then suddenly he sat down on the stone and shivered. The sweat was
still trickling down his face and down his back; but it had turned cold
as ice. A new idea had taken him, an idea of which at first he felt
fairly afraid. He passed a hand over his eyes and looked down again at
the frigate. But he stared at her stupidly, and his mind was busy with
another picture.
It occurred to him that he must go on if he meant to arrange with
Webber, that afternoon. So he got up from the stone and went down the
steep hill towards the ferry, stumbling over the rough stones in the
road and hardly looking at his steps, but moving now rapidly, now
slowly, like a drunken man.
The street that led down to the ferry dated back to an age before carts
had superseded pack-horses, and the makers had cut it in stairs and
paved it with cobbles. It plunged so steeply, and the houses on either
side wedged it in so tightly, that to look down from the top was like
peering into a well. A patch of blue water shone at the foot, framing a
small dark square--the signboard of the "Four Lords" Inn. Just now
there were two or three men gathered under the signboard.
As Young Zeb drew near he saw that they wore pig-tails and round shiny
hats: and, as he noticed this, his face, which had been pale for the
last five minutes, grew ashen-white. He halted for a moment, and then
went on again, meaning to pass the signboard and wait on the quay for
the ferry.
There were half a dozen sailors in front of the "Four Lords." Three sat
on a bench beside the door, and three more, with mugs of beer in their
hands, were skylarking in the middle of the roadway.
"Hi!" called out one of those on the bench, as Zeb passed. And Zeb
turned round and came to a halt again.
"What is it?"
"Where 're ye bound, mate?"
"For the ferry."
"Then stop an' drink, for the boat left two minutes since an' won't be
back for another twenty."
Zeb hung on his heel for a couple of seconds. The sailor held out his
mug with the friendliest air, his head thrown back and the left corner
of his mouth screwed up into a smile.
"Thank 'ee," said Zeb, "I will; an' may the Lord judge 'atween us."
"There's many a way o' takin' a drink," the sailor said, staring at him;
"but split me if yours ain't the rummiest _I_'ve run across."
"Oh, man, man," Zeb answered, "I wasn' thinkin' o' _you!_"
Back by the cliff's edge the hollibubber had finished his day's work and
was shouldering his shovel to start for home, when he spied a dark
figure coming eastwards along the track; and, putting up a hand to ward
off the level rays of the sun, saw that it was the young man who had
passed him at noonday. So he set down the shovel again, and waited.
Young Zeb came along with his head down. When he noticed the
hollibubber standing in the path he started like a man caught in a
theft.
"My son, ye 've come to lift a weight off my heart. God forgi'e me
that, i' my shyness, I let 'ee go by wi'out a word for your trouble."
"All the country seems to know my affairs," Zeb answered with a scowl.
The hollibubber's grey eyes rested on him tenderly. He was desperately
shy, as he had confessed: but compassion overcame his shyness.
"Surely," said he, "all we be children o' one Father: an' surely we may
know each other's burdens; else, not knowin', how shall we bear 'em?"
"You'm too late, hollibubber."
Zeb stood still, looking out over the purple sea. The old man touched
his arm gently.
"How so?"
"I've a-sold my soul to hell."
"I don't care. You'm alive an' standin' here, an' I can save 'ee."
"Can 'ee so?" Zeb asked ironically.
"Man, I feel sure o't." His ugly earnest face became almost grand in
the flame of the sunset. "Turn aside, here, an' kneel down; I will
wrestle wi' the Lord for thee till comfort comes, if it take the long
night."
"You'm a strange chap. Can such things happen i' these days?"
"Kneel and try."
"No, no, no," Zeb flung out his hands. "It's too late, I tell 'ee.
No man's words will I hear but the words of Lamech--'I ha' slain a man
to my wounding, an' a young man to my hurt.' Let me go--'tis too late.
Let me go, I say--"
As the hollibubber still clung to his arm, he gave a push and broke
loose. The old man tumbled beside the path with his head against the
potato fence. Zeb with a curse took to his heels and ran; nor for a
hundred yards did he glance behind.
When at last he flung a look over his shoulder, the hollibubber had
picked himself up and was kneeling in the pathway. His hands were
clasped and lifted.
"Too late!" shouted Zeb again, and dashed on without a second look.