THE CAVE.
Some weeks slipped by without bringing to Judith any accession of
anxiety. She did not go again to Pentyre Glaze, but her aunt came once
or twice in the week to Polzeath to see her. Moreover, Miss Dionysia's
manner toward her was somewhat less contrary and vexatious, and she
seemed to put on a conciliatory manner, as far as was possible for one
so angular and crabbed. Gracious she could not be; nature had made it
as impossible for her to be gracious in manner as to be lovely in face
and graceful in movement.
Moreover, Judith observed that her aunt looked at her with an
expression of perplexity, as though seeking in her to find an answer
to a riddle that vexed her brain. And so it was. Aunt Dunes could not
understand the conduct of Coppinger toward Judith and her brother. Nor
could she understand how a child like her niece could have faced and
defied a man of whom she herself stood in abject fear. Judith had
behaved to the smuggler in a way that no man in the whole countryside
would have ventured to behave. She had thrown him at her feet, half
killed him, and yet Cruel Coppinger did not resent what had been done;
on the contrary, he went out of his way to interfere in the interest
of the orphans. He was not the man to concern himself in other
people's affairs; why should he take trouble on behalf of Judith and
her brother? That he did it out of consideration for herself, Miss
Trevisa had not the assurance to believe.
Aunt Dunes put a few searching questions to Judith, but drew from her
nothing that explained the mystery. The girl frankly told her of her
visit to the Glaze and interview with the crippled smuggler, of his
offer to her of some of his spoil, and of her refusal to receive a
present from him. Miss Trevisa approved of her niece's conduct in this
respect. It would not have befitted her to accept anything. Judith,
however, did not communicate to her aunt the closing scene in that
interview. She did not tell her that Coppinger had kissed her hand,
nor his excuse for having done so, that he was offering homage to a
queen.
For one thing, Judith did not attach any importance to this incident.
She had always heard that Coppinger was a wild and insolent man, wild
and insolent in his dealings with his fellow-men, therefore doubtless
still more so in his treatment of defenceless women. He had behaved to
her in the rude manner in which he would behave to any peasant girl or
sailor's daughter who caught his fancy, and she resented his act as an
indignity, and his excuse for it as a prevarication. And, precisely,
because he had offended her maidenly dignity, she blushed to mention
it, even to her aunt, resolving in her own mind not to subject herself
to the like again.
Miss Trevisa, on several occasions, invited Judith to come and see her
at Pentyre Glaze, but the girl always declined the invitation.
Judith's estimate of Cruel Coppinger was modified. He could not be the
utter reprobate she had always held him to be. She fully acknowledged
that there was an element of good in the man, otherwise he would not
have forgiven the injury done him, nor would he have interfered to
protect her and Jamie from the fraud and extortion of the
"dilapidators." She trusted that the stories she had heard of
Coppinger's wild and savage acts were false, or overcolored. Her dear
father had been misled by reports, as she had been, and it was
possible that Coppinger had not really been the impediment in her
father's way that the late rector had supposed.
Jamie was happy. He was even, in a fashion, making himself useful. He
helped Mr. Menaida in his bird-stuffing on rainy days; he did more, he
ran about the cliffs, learned the haunts of the wild-fowl, ascertained
where they nested, made friends with Preventive men, and some of those
fellows living on shore, without any very fixed business, who rambled
over the country with their guns, and from these he was able to obtain
birds that he believed Mr. Menaida wanted. Judith was glad that the
boy should be content, and enjoy the fresh air and some freedom. She
would have been less pleased had she seen the companions Jamie made.
But the men had rough good-humor, and were willing to oblige the
half-witted boy, and they encouraged him to go with them shooting, or
to sit with them in their huts.
Jamie manifested so strong a distaste for books, and lesson time being
one of resistance, pouting, tears, and failures, that Judith thought
it not amiss to put off the resumption of these irksome tasks for a
little while, and to let the boy have his run of holidays. She fancied
that the loss of his father and of his old home preyed on him more
than was actually the case; and believed that by giving him freedom
till the first pangs were over, he might not suffer in the way that
she had done.
For a fortnight or three weeks Judith's time had been so fully engaged
at the parsonage, that she could not have devoted much of it to Jamie,
even had she thought it desirable to keep him to his lessons; nor
could she be with him much. She did not press him to accompany her to
the rectory, there to spend the time that she was engaged sorting her
father's letters and memoranda, his account-books and collection of
extracts made from volumes he had borrowed, as not only would it be
tedious to him, but he would distract her mind. She must see that he
was amused, and must also provide that he was not at mischief. She did
take him with her on one or two occasions, and found that he had
occupied himself in disarranging much that she had put together for
the sale.
But she would not allow him wholly to get out of the way of looking to
her as his companion, and she abandoned an afternoon to him now and
then, as her work became less arduous, to walk with him on the cliffs
or in the lanes, to listen to his childish prattle, and throw herself
into his new pursuits. The link between them must not be allowed to
become relaxed, and, so far as in her lay, she did her utmost to
maintain it in its former security. But, with his father's death, and
his removal to Mr. Menaida's cottage, a new world had opened to Jamie;
he was brought into association with men and boys whom he had hardly
known by sight previously, and without any wish to disengage himself
from his sister's authority, he was led to look to others as comrades,
and to listen to and follow their promptings.
"Come, Jamie," said Judith, one day. "Now I really have some hours
free, and I will go a stroll with you on the downs."
The boy jumped with pleasure, and caught her hand.
"I may take Tib with me?"
"Oh yes, certainly, dear."
Tib was a puppy that had been given to Jamie by one of his new
acquaintances.
The day was fresh. Clouds driving before the wind, now obscuring the
sun and threatening rain, then clearing and allowing the sun to turn
the sea green and gild the land. Owing to the breeze the sea was
ruffled and strewn with breakers shaking their white foam.
"I am going to show you something I have found, Ju," said the boy.
"You will follow, will you not?"
"Lead the way. What is it?"
"Come and see. I found it by myself. I shan't tell any one but you."
He conducted his sister down the cliffs to the beach of a cove. Judith
halted a moment to look along the coast with its mighty, sombre
cliffs, and the sea glancing with sun or dulled by shadow to Tintagel
Head standing up at the extreme point to the northeast, with the white
surf lashing and heaving around it. Then she drew her skirts together,
and descended by the narrow path along which, with the lightness and
confidence of a kid, Jamie was skipping.
"Jamie!" she said. "Have you seen?--there is a ship standing in the
offing."
"Yes; she has been there all the morning."
Then she went further.
The cove was small, with precipitous cliffs rising from the sand to
the height of two to three hundred feet. The seagulls screamed and
flashed to and fro, and the waves foamed and threw up their waters
lashed into froth as white and light as the feathers on the gulls. In
the concave bay the roar of the plunging tide reverberated from every
side. Neither the voice of Jamie, when he shouted to his sister from
some feet below, nor the barking of his little dog that ran with him,
could be distinguished by her.
The descent was rapid and rugged, yet not so precipitous but that it
could be gone over by asses or mules. Evidence that these creatures
had passed that way remained in the impression of their hoofs in the
soil, wherever a soft stratum intervened between the harder shelves of
the rock, and had crumbled on the path into clay.
Judith observed that several paths--not all mule-paths--converged
lower down at intervals in the way by which she descended, so that it
would be possible, apparently, to reach the sand from various points
in the down, as well as by the main track by which she was stepping to
the beach.
"Jamie!" called Judith, as she stood on the last shoulder of rock
before reaching the beach over a wave-washed and smoothed surface.
"Jamie! I can see that same ship from here."
But her brother could not hear her. He was throwing stones for the dog
to run after, and meet a wave as it rushed in.
The tide was going out: it had marked its highest elevation by a bow
of foam and strips of dark seaweed and broken shells. Judith stepped
along this line, and picked out the largest ribbon of weed she could
find. She would hang it in her bedroom to tell her the weather. The
piece that had been wont to act as barometer was old, and, besides, it
had been lost in the recent shift and confusion.
Jamie came up to her.
"Now, Ju, mind and watch me, or you will lose me altogether."
Then he ran forward, with Tib dancing and yelping round him. Presently
he scrambled up a shelf of rock inclined from the sea, and up after
him, yelping, scrambled Tib. In a moment both disappeared over the
crest.
Judith went up to the ridge and called to her brother.
"I cannot climb this, Jamie."
But in another moment, a hundred yards to her right, round the
extremity of the reef, came Tib and his master, the boy dancing and
laughing, the dog ducking his head, shaking his ears, and, all but
laughing also, evidently enjoying the fun as much as Jamie.
"This way, Ju!" shouted the boy, and signed to his sister. She could
not hear his voice, but obeyed his gestures. The reef ran athwart the
top of the bay, like the dorsal, jagged ridge of a crocodile half
buried in the sand.
Judith drew her skirts higher and closer, as the sand was wet, and
there were pools by the rock. Then, holding her ribbon of seaweed by
the harsh, knotted root, torn up along with the leaf, and trailing it
behind her, she followed her brother, reached the end of the rock,
turned and went in the traces of Jamie and Tib in the sand parallel to
her former course.
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, on the right hand there opened
before her, in the face of the cliff, a cave, the entrance to which
was completely masked by the ridge she had turned. Into this cave went
Jamie with his dog.
"I am not obliged to follow you there!" protested Judith; but he made
such vehement signs to her to follow him that she good-humoredly
obeyed.
The cave ran in a long way, at first at no great incline, then it
became low overhead, and immediately after the floor inclined rapidly
upward, and the vault took a like direction. Moreover, light appeared
in front. Here, to Judith's surprise, she saw a large boat, painted
gray, furnished with oars and boat-hook. She was attached by a chain
to a staple in the rock. Judith examined her with a little uneasiness.
No name was on her.
The sides of the cave at this point formed shelves, not altogether
natural, and that these were made use of was evident, because on them
lay staves of broken casks, a four-flanged boat-anchor, and some oars.
Out of the main trunk cave branched another that was quite dark, and
smaller; in this, Judith, whose eyes were becoming accustomed to the
twilight, thought she saw the bows of a smaller boat, also painted
gray.
"Jamie!" said Judith, now in serious alarm; "we ought not to be here.
It is not safe. Do--do come away at once."
"Why, what is there to harm us?"
"My dear, do come away." She turned to retrace her steps, but Jamie
stopped her.
"Not that way, Ju! I have another by which to get out. Follow me
still."
He led the way up the steep rubble slope, and the light fell fuller
from above. The cave was one of those into which when the sea rolls
and chokes the entrance, the compressed air is driven out by a second
orifice.
They reached a sort of well or shaft, at the bottom of which they
stood, but it did not open vertically but bent over somewhat, so that
from below the sky could not be seen, though the light entered. A
narrow path was traced in the side, and up this Jamie and the dog
scrambled, followed by Judith, who was most anxious to escape from a
place which she had no doubt was one of the shelter caves of the
smugglers--perhaps of Cruel Coppinger, whose house was not a mile
distant.
The ascent was steep, the path slippery in places, and therefore
dangerous. Jamie made nothing of it, nor did the little dog, but
Judith picked her way with care; she had a good steady head, and did
not feel giddy, but she was not sure that her feet might not slide in
the clay where wet with water that dripped from the sides. As she
neared the entrance she saw that hartstongue and maidenhair fern had
rooted themselves in the sheltered nooks of this tunnel.
After a climb of a hundred feet she came out on a ledge in the face of
the cliff above the bay, to see, with a gasp of dismay, her brother in
the hand of Cruel Coppinger, the boy paralyzed with fear so that he
could neither stir nor cry out.
"What!" exclaimed the Captain, "you here?" as he saw Judith stand
before him.
The puppy was barking and snapping at his boots. Coppinger let go
Jamie, stooped and caught the dog by the neck. "Look at me," said the
smuggler sternly, addressing the frightened boy. Then he swung the dog
above his head and dashed it down the cliffs; it caught, then rolled,
and fell out of sight--certainly with the life beaten out of it.
"This will be done to you," said he; "I do not say that I would do it.
She"--he waved his hand toward Judith--"stands between us. But if any
of the fifteen to twenty men who know this place and come here should
chance to meet you as I have met you, he would treat you without
compunction as I have treated that dog. And if he were to catch you
below--you have heard of Wyvill, the Preventive man?--you would fare
as did he. Thank your sister that you are alive now. Go on--that
way--up the cliff." He pointed with a telescope he held.
Jamie fled up the steep path like the wind.
"Judith," said Coppinger, "will you stand surety that he does not tell
tales?"
"I do not believe he will say anything."
"I do not ask you to be silent. I know you will not speak. But if you
mistrust his power to hold his tongue, send him away--send him out of
the country--as you love him."
"He shall never come here again," said Judith, earnestly.
"That is well; he owes his life to you."
Judith noticed that Cruel Coppinger's left arm was no more in a sling,
nor in bands.
He saw that she observed this, and smiled grimly. "I have my freedom
with this arm once more--for the first time to-day."