FACE TO FACE.
The first winter had interrupted all work upon the rock; but Taffy
and his men had used the calm days of the following spring and summer
to such purpose that before the end of July the foundations began to
show above high-water neaps, and in September he was able to report
that the building could be pushed forward in any ordinary weather.
The workmen were carried to and from the mainland by a wire hawser
and cradle, and the rising breastwork of masonry protected them from
the beat of the sea. Progress was slow, for each separate stone had
to be dovetailed above, below, and on all sides with the blocks
adjoining it, besides being cemented; and care to be taken that no
salt mingled with the fresh water, or found its way into the joints
of the building. Taffy studied the barometer hour by hour, and kept
a constant look-out to windward against sudden gales.
On November 16th the men had finished their dinner, and sat smoking
under the lee of the wall, when Taffy, with his pocket-aneroid in his
hand, gave the order to snug down and man the cradle for shore.
They stared. The morning had been a halcyon one; and the northerly
breeze, which had sprung up with the turn of the tide and was
freshening, carried no cloud across the sky. Two vessels,
a brigantine and a three-masted schooner, were merrily reaching
down-channel before it, the brigantine leading; at two miles’
distance they could see distinctly the white foam running from her
bluff bows, and her forward deck from bulwark to bulwark as she
heeled to it.
One or two grumbled. Half a day’s work meant half a day’s pay to
them. It was all very well for the Cap’n, who drew his by the week.
“Come, look alive!” Taffy called sharply. He pinned his faith to
the barometer, and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the
brigantine and saw that her crew were busy with the braces,
flattening the forward canvas. “See there, boys. There’ll be a gale
from the west’ard before night.”
For a minute the brigantine seemed to have run into a calm.
The schooner, half a mile behind her, came reaching along steadily.
“That there two-master’s got a fool for a skipper,” grumbled a voice.
But almost at the moment the wind took her right aback--or would have
done so had the crew not been preparing for it. Her stern swung
slowly around into view, and within two minutes she was fetching away
from them on the port tack, her sails hauled closer and closer as she
went. Already the schooner was preparing to follow suit.
“Snug down, boys! We must be out of this in half an hour.”
And sure enough, by the time Taffy gained the cliff by the old
light-house, the sky had darkened, and a stiff breeze from the
north-west, crossing the tide, was beginning to work up a nasty sea
around the rock and lop it from time to time over the masonry and the
platforms where half an hour before his men had been standing.
The two vessels had disappeared in the weather; and as Taffy stared
in their direction a spit of rain--the first--took him viciously in
the face.
He turned his back to it and hurried homeward. As he passed the
light-house door old Pezzack called out to him:
“Hi! wait a bit! Would ’ee mind seein’ Joey home? I dunno what his
mother sent him over here for, not I. He’ll get hisself leakin’.”
Joey came hobbling out, and put his right hand in Taffy’s with the
fist doubled.
“What’s that in your hand?”
Joey looked up shyly. “You won’t tell?”
“Not if it’s a secret.”
The child opened his palm and disclosed a bright half-crown piece.
“Where on earth did you get that?”
“The soldier gave it to me.”
“The soldier? nonsense! What tale are you making up?”
“Well, he had a red coat, so he _must_ be a soldier. He gave it to
me, and told me to be a good boy and run off and play.”
Taffy came to a halt. “Is he here--up at the cottages?”
“How funnily you say that! No, he’s just rode away. I watched him
from the light-house windows. He can’t be gone far yet.”
“Look here, Joey--can you run?”
“Yes, if you hold my hand; only you mustn’t go too fast. Oh, you’re
hurting!”
Taffy took the child in his arms, and with the wind at his back went
up the hill with long stride. “There he is!” cried Joey as they
gained the ridge; and he pointed; and Taffy, looking along the ridge,
saw a speck of scarlet moving against the lead-coloured moors--half a
mile away perhaps, or a little more. He sat the child down, for the
cottages were close by. “Run home, sonny. I’m going to have a look
at the soldier, too.”
The first bad squall broke on the headland just as Taffy started to
run. It was as if a bag of water had burst right overhead, and
within a quarter of a minute he was drenched to the skin.
So fiercely it went howling inland along the ridge that he half
expected to see the horse urged into a gallop before it. But the
rider, now standing high for a moment against the sky-line, went
plodding on. For a while horse and man disappeared over the rise;
but Taffy guessed that on hitting the cross-path beyond it they would
strike away to the left and descend toward Langona Creek; and he
began to slant his course to the left in anticipation. The tide, he
knew, would be running in strong; and with this wind behind it he
hoped--and caught himself praying--that it would be high enough to
cover the wooden foot-bridge and make the ford impassable; and if so,
the horseman would be delayed and forced to head back and fetch a
circuit farther up the valley.
By this time the squalls were coming fast on each other’s heels, and
the strength of them flung him forward at each stride. He had lost
his hat, and the rain poured down his back and squished in his boots.
But all he felt was the hate in his heart. It had gathered there
little by little for three years and a half, pent up, fed by his
silent thoughts as a reservoir by small mountain streams; and with so
tranquil a surface that at times--poor youth!--he had honestly
believed it reflected God’s calm, had been proud of his magnanimity,
and said “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass
against us.” Now as he ran he prayed to the same God to delay the
traitor at the ford.
Dusk was falling when George, yet unaware of pursuit, turned down the
sunken lane which ended beside the ford. And by the shore, when the
small waves lapped against his mare’s fore-feet, he heard Taffy’s
shout for the first time and turned in his saddle. Even so it was a
second or two before he recognised the figure which came plunging
down the low cliff on his left, avoiding a fall only by wild clutches
at the swaying elder boughs.
“Hello!” he shouted cheerfully. “Looks nasty, doesn’t it?”
Taffy came down the beach, near enough to see that the mare’s legs
were plastered with mud, and to look up into his enemy’s face.
“Get down,” he panted.
“Hey?”
“Get down, I tell you. Come off your horse and put up your fists!”
“What the devil is the matter? Hello!... Keep off, I tell you!
Are you mad?”
“Come off and fight.”
“By God, I’ll break your head in if you don’t let go.... You
idiot!”--as the mare plunged and tore the stirrup-leather from
Taffy’s grip--“She’ll brain you, if you fool round her heels like
that!”
“Come off, then.”
“Very well.” George backed a little, swung himself out of the saddle
and faced him on the beach. “Now perhaps you’ll explain.”
“You’ve come from the headland?”
“Well?”
“From Lizzie Pezzack’s.”
“Well, and what then?”
“Only this, that so sure as you’ve a wife at home, if you come to the
headland again I’ll kill you; and if you’re a man, you’ll put up your
fists now.”
“Oh, that’s it? May I ask what you have to do with my wife, or with
Lizzie Pezzack?”
“Whose child is Lizzie’s?”
“Not yours, is it?”
“You said so once; you told your wife so; liar that you were.”
“Very good, my gentleman. You shall have what you want. Woa, mare!”
He led her up the beach and sought for a branch to tie his reins to.
The mare hung back, terrified by the swishing of the whipped boughs
and the roar of the gale overhead: her hoofs, as George dragged her
forward, scuffled with the loose-lying stones on the beach. After a
minute he desisted and turned on Taffy again.
“Look here; before we have this out there’s one thing I’d like to
know. When you were at Oxford, was Honoria maintaining you there?”
“If you must know--yes.”
“And when--when this happened, she stopped the supplies?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I didn’t know it. She never told me.”
“She never told _me_.”
“You don’t say--”
“I do. I never knew it until too late.”
“Well, now, I’m going to fight you. I don’t swallow being called a
liar. But I tell you this first, that I’m damned sorry. I never
guessed that it injured your prospects.”
At another time, in another mood, Taffy might have remembered that
George was George, and heir to Sir Harry’s nature. As it was, the
apology threw oil on the flame.
“You cur! Do you think it was _that?_ And _you_ are Honoria’s
husband!” He advanced with an ugly laugh. “For the last time, put up
your fists.”
They had been standing within two yards of each other; and even so,
shouted at the pitch of their voices to make themselves heard above
the gale. As Taffy took a step forward George lifted his whip.
His left hand held the bridle on which the reluctant mare was
dragging, and the action was merely instinctive, to guard against
sudden attack.
But as he did so his face and uplifted arm were suddenly painted
clear against the darkness. The mare plunged more wildly than ever.
Taffy dropped his hands and swung round. Behind him, the black
contour of the hill, the whole sky welled up a pale blue light which
gathered brightness while he stared. The very stones on the beach at
his feet shone separate and distinct.
“What is it?” George gasped.
“A ship on the rocks! Quick, man! Will the mare reach to Innis?”
“She’ll have to.” George wheeled her round. She was fagged out with
two long gallops after hounds that day, but for the moment sheer
terror made her lively enough.
“Ride, then! Call up the coast-guard. By the flare she must be
somewhere off the creek here. Ride!”
A clatter of hoofs answered him as the mare pounded up the lane.