1
Ole Jarge put down the baler and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. A few fish scales transferred themselves from the back of
his oakum-coloured hand to his venerable brow.
"'Tain't no use," he murmured. "'Er's nigh twenty year' ole--come nex'
month. Tar ain't no use neither. 'Tis new strakes 'ers wantin'." He
thumbed the seams of the old boat that lay on the shingle, with the
outgoing tide still lapping round her stern. "An' new strakes do cost
tarrible lot." He sat puffing his clay pipe, and transferred his gaze
from the bottom of the boat to the whitewashed cottages huddled under
the lee of the cliffs. A tall figure was moving about the nets that
festooned the low wall in front of the cottages.
Ole Jarge removed his pipe from his mouth, substituted two fingers of
his right hand, and gave a long, shrill whistle. It was a
disconcerting performance. For one thing, you associated the trick
with irrepressible boyhood, and, for another, the old man squinted
slightly as he did it. As a matter of fact, he had learned it on the
Dogger Bank fifty years before; fog-bound in a dory, it was a useful
accomplishment.
Young Jarge straightened up, raised one hand in acknowledgment of the
summons, and came crunching slowly across the shingle towards the boat.
Ole Jarge sat smoking in philosophical silence till his son was beside
him. Then he removed his pipe and spat over the listed gunwale.
"'Er's daid," he observed laconically.
Young Jarge bent stiffly and tapped the seams, inside and out, much as
a veterinary surgeon runs his hand over a horse's legs.
"Ya-a-is," he confirmed, and sat down on the stem of the old boat.
"'Er's very nigh's ole 's what us be," he added, after a pause, and
began shredding some tobacco into the palm of his hand.
Ole Jarge nodded. Then he lifted his head quickly. "'Er's bound to
last 'nother year." For the first time there was concern in his voice.
Adversity does not grip the mind of the Cornish fisherfolk suddenly.
It filters slowly through the chinks of the armour God has given them.
Cornish men (and surely Cornish maids) were kind to the survivors of
the wrecked Armada. It may be that they, in their turn, bequeathed a
strain of Southern fatalism to many of their benefactors.
"'Er's bound to," repeated Ole Jarge. He got ponderously out of the
boat and removed a tattered sou'wester to scratch his head with his
thumbnail--another trick that had survived the adventurous days of the
Dogger Bank.
The unfamiliar note of anxiety in his father's voice stirred Young
Jarge. He rose to his feet with perplexity in his dark eyes,
mechanically pulling up the bleached leather thigh-boots he wore afloat
and ashore, "rainy-come-fine."
Inspiration had come, as it does to men of the West once the need is
realised to the full.
"Du 'ee mind that there li'l' ole copper boiler--what come out o'
granfer's house when 'er blawed down--back tu '98?" asked Young Jarge
slowly.
Ole Jarge nodded.
"S'pose us was to hammer 'n out flat like an' nail un down to bottom,
'long wi' oakum an' drop o' white lead--what du 'ee say?"
Ole Jarge silently measured the area of the sprunk strakes with the
stumpy thumb and little finger of an outstretched hand. Then he
puckered his forehead and stared out to sea, apparently making mental
calculations connected with the "li'l' ole copper boiler."
"Ya-a-ais." He replaced the piece of perished tarpaulin that had once
been a sou'-wester on his head, and set off slowly across the shingle
towards the village. Young Jarge followed, staring at his boots as he
walked.
"Us 'll hammer 'n out after tea," said Ole Jarge over his shoulder.
His great, great, very great grandfather would have said "_Mañana!_"
* * * * *
The setting sun had tipped the dancing wavelets with fire and was
glowing red in each pool left by the receding tide when Ole Jarge
emerged from his cottage door. In one hand he carried a hammer, and in
the other a tin of white lead. Young Jarge joined him with a small,
square copper boiler in his arms.
"Where'll us put un tu, feyther?"
Ole Jarge set off across the beach in the direction of the boat.
"Bring un along!" he commanded in a manner dimly suggestive of a lord
high executioner.
Young Jarge followed, and dumped his burden down alongside the boat.
"Now!" said Ole Jarge grimly. He spat on his hands and prepared to
enjoy himself. Bang! bang! bang-a-bang! bang! went the hammer. Young
Jarge sat down on the gunwale of the boat and contemplated his parent's
exertions.
"It du put Oi in mind of a drum," he said appreciatively.
2
"Now we can talk!" Margaret settled her back comfortably against a
ridge of turf and closed her eyes for a moment.
"Isn't it heavenly up here? The wind smells of seaweed, and there must
be some shrub or flower----" She opened her eyes and looked along the
cliffs, "There's something smelling divinely. Wild broom, is it?"
Her gaze travelled along the succession of ragged headlands and
crescents of sand formed by each little bay of the indented coast. The
coastguard track, a brown thread winding adventurously among the clumps
of gorse at the very edge of the cliffs, drew her eyes farther and
farther to the west. In the far distance the track dipped sharply over
a headland where the whitewashed coastguard station stood, and was lost
to view. She turned and smiled at her companion. "Now we can talk,"
she repeated.
Torps, sitting beside her, met her eyes with his grave, gentle smile.
"I'm so glad to see you again," he said, "that I can't think of
anything else to say. It was nice of you to write and tell me you were
here."
As if by common consent, they had discussed nothing but generalities
during the half-hour's walk that brought them to this sheltered hollow
in the cliffs. The woman was, of the two, the more reluctant to bridge
the years that lay between to-day and their last meeting. Yet,
womanlike, it was she that spoke first.
"I knew your ship was quite close. I wanted to see you again, Trevor,
after all these years. Tell me about yourself. Your letters--yes, I
know; but you never talked much about yourself in your letters."