please. It stands upon my father's words, and he always declared he
was ready to kiss the Book upon it before judge and jury. He said,
too, that he never had the wit to make up such a yarn; and he
defied any one to explain about the lock, in particular, by any
other tale. But you shall judge for yourself.
"My father said that about three o'clock in the morning, April
fourteenth of the year 'fourteen, he and William Tallifer were sitting
here, just as you and I, sir, are sitting now. My father had put on his
clothes a few minutes before, and was mending his spiller by the light
of the horn lantern, meaning to set off before daylight to haul the
trammel. The trumpeter hadn't been to bed at all. Toward the last he
mostly spent his nights (and his days, too) dozing in the elbow-chair
where you sit at this minute. He was dozing then (my father said), with
his chin dropped forward on his chest, when a knock sounded upon the
door, and the door opened, and in walked an upright young man in scarlet
regimentals.
"He had grown a brave bit, and his face was the color of wood-ashes; but
it was the drummer, John Christian. Only his uniform was different from
the one he used to wear, and the figures '38' shone in brass upon his
collar.
"The drummer walked past my father as if he never saw him, and stood by
the elbow-chair and said:
"'Trumpeter, trumpeter, are you one with me?'
"And the trumpeter just lifted the lids of his eyes, and answered, 'How
should I not be one with you, drummer Johnny--Johnny boy? The men are
patient. 'Til you come, I count; you march, I mark time until the
discharge comes.'
"'The discharge has come to-night,' said the drummer, 'and the word is
Corunna no longer;' and stepping to the chimney-place, he unhooked the
drum and trumpet, and began to twist the brass rings of the lock,
spelling the word aloud, so--C-O-R-U-N-A. When he had fixed the last
letter, the padlock opened in his hand.
"'Did you know, trumpeter, that when I came to Plymouth they put me into
a line regiment.'
"'The 38th is a good regiment,' answered the old Hussar, still in his
dull voice. 'I went back with them from Sahagun to Corunna. At Corunna
they stood in General Fraser's division, on the right. They behaved
well.'
"'But I'd fain see the Marines again,' says the drummer, handing him the
trumpet, 'and you--you shall call once more for the Queen's Own.
Matthew,' he says, suddenly, turning on my father--and when he turned,
my father saw for the first time that his scarlet jacket had a round
hole by the breast-bone, and that the blood was welling there--'Matthew,
we shall want your boat.'
"Then my father rose on his legs like a man in a dream, while they two
slung on, the one his drum, and t'other his trumpet. He took the
lantern, and went quaking before them down to the shore, and they
breathed heavily behind him; and they stepped into his boat, and my
father pushed off.
"'Row you first for Dolor Point,' says the drummer. So my father rowed
them out past the white houses of Coverack to Dolor Point, and there, at
a word, lay on his oars. And the trumpeter, William Tallifer, put his
trumpet to his mouth and sounded the _Revelly_. The music of it was like
rivers running.
"'They will follow,' said the drummer. 'Matthew, pull you now for the
Manacles.'
"So my father pulled for the Manacles, and came to an easy close outside
Carn du. And the drummer took his sticks and beat a tattoo, there by the
edge of the reef; and the music of it was like a rolling chariot.
"'That will do,' says he, breaking off; 'they will follow. Pull now for
the shore under Gunner's Meadow.'
"Then my father pulled for the shore, and ran his boat in under Gunner's
Meadow. And they stepped out, all three, and walked up to the meadow. By
the gate the drummer halted and began his tattoo again, looking out
toward the darkness over the sea.
"And while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came up
out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and foot, and
formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the graves and formed
up--drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale Hussars riding their
horses, all lean and shadowy. There was no clatter of hoofs or
accoutrements, my father said, but a soft sound all the while, like the
beating of a bird's wing and a black shadow lying like a pool about the
feet of all. The drummer stood upon a little knoll just inside the gate,
and beside him the tall trumpeter, with hand on hip, watching them
gather; and behind them both my father, clinging to the gate. When no
more came the drummer stopped playing, and said, 'Call the roll.'
"Then the trumpeter stepped toward the end man of the rank and called,
'Troop-Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons,' and the man in a thin voice
answered, 'Here!'
"'Troop-Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons, how is it with you?'
"The man answered, 'How should it be with me? When I was young, I
betrayed a girl; and when I was grown, I betrayed a friend, and for
these things I must pay. But I died as a man ought. God save the King!'
"The trumpeter called to the next man, 'Trooper Henry Buckingham', and
the next man answered, 'Here!'
"'Trooper Henry Buckingham, how is it with you?'
"'How should it be with me? I was a drunkard, and I stole, and in Lugo,
in a wine-shop, I knifed a man. But I died as a man should. God save the
King!'
"So the trumpeter went down the line; and when he had finished, the
drummer took it up, hailing the dead Marines in their order. Each man
answered to his name, and each man ended with 'God save the King!' When
all were hailed, the drummer stepped back to his mound, and called:
"'It is well. You are content, and we are content to join you. Wait yet
a little while.'
"With this he turned and ordered my father to pick up the lantern, and
lead the way back. As my father picked it up, he heard the ranks of
dead men cheer and call, 'God save the King!' all together, and saw them
waver and fade back into the dark, like a breath fading off a pane.
"But when they came back here to the kitchen, and my father set the
lantern down, it seemed they'd both forgot about him. For the drummer
turned in the lantern-light--and my father could see the blood still
welling out of the hole in his breast--and took the trumpet-sling from
around the other's neck, and locked drum and trumpet together again,
choosing the letters on the lock very carefully. While he did this he
said:
"'The word is no more Corunna, but Bayonne. As you left out an "n" in
Corunna, so must I leave out an "n" in Bayonne.' And before snapping the
padlock, he spelt out the word slowly--'B-A-Y-O-N-E.' After that, he
used no more speech; but turned and hung the two instruments back on the
hook; and then took the trumpeter by the arm; and the pair walked out
into the darkness, glancing neither to right nor left.
"My father was on the point of following, when he heard a sort of sigh
behind him; and there, sitting in the elbow-chair, was the very
trumpeter he had just seen walk out by the door! If my father's heart
jumped before, you may believe it jumped quicker now. But after a bit,
he went up to the man asleep in the chair, and put a hand upon him. It
was the trumpeter in flesh and blood that he touched; but though the
flesh was warm, the trumpeter was dead.
* * * * *
"Well, sir, they buried him three days after; and at first my father was
minded to say nothing about his dream (as he thought it). But the day
after the funeral, he met Parson Kendall coming from Helston market: and
the parson called out: 'Have 'ee heard the news the coach brought down
this mornin'?' 'What news?' says my father. 'Why, that peace is agreed
upon.' 'None too soon,' says my father. 'Not soon enough for our poor
lads at Bayonne,' the parson answered. 'Bayonne!' cries my father, with
a jump. 'Why, yes;' and the parson told him all about a great sally the
French had made on the night of April 13th. 'Do you happen to know if
the 38th Regiment was engaged?' my father asked. 'Come, now,' said
Parson Kendall, 'I didn't know you was so well up in the campaign. But,
as it happens, I _do_ know that the 38th was engaged, for 'twas they
that held a cottage and stopped the French advance.'
"Still my father held his tongue; and when, a week later, he walked into
Helston and bought a _Mercury_ off the Sherborne rider, and got the
landlord of the Angel to spell out the list of killed and wounded, sure
enough, there among the killed was Drummer John Christian, of the 38th
Foot.
"After this there was nothing for a religious man but to make a clean
breast. So my father went up to Parson Kendall and told the whole story.
The parson listened, and put a question or two, and then asked:
"'Have you tried to open the lock since that night?'
"'I han't dared to touch it,' says my father.
"'Then come along and try.' When the parson came to the cottage here, he
took the things off the hook and tried the lock. 'Did he say
_"Bayonne"?_ The word has seven letters.'
"'Not if you spell it with one "n" as _he_ did,' says my father.
"The parson spelt it out--B-A-Y-O-N-E. 'Whew!' says he, for the lock had
fallen open in his hand.
"He stood considering it a moment, and then he said, 'I tell you what. I
shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You won't get no
credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But
if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one
but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead nor alive,
shall frighten the secret out of me.'
"'I wish to gracious you would, parson,' said my father.
"The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock back
upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone
long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by
force, nobody will ever separate those twain."
[Illustration: HOW JAN BREWER WAS PISKEY-LADEN]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: From _The Wandering Heath,_ by Arthur Quiller-Couch.
Copyright, 1895, by Charles Scribner's Sons. By permission of the
publishers.]
HOW JAN BREWER WAS PISKEY-LADEN[20]
THE moon was near her setting as a tall, broad-shouldered man called
Jan Brewer was walking home to Constantine Bay to his cottage on the
edge of the cliff.
He was singing an old song to himself as he went along, and he sang till
he drew near the ruins of Constantine Church, standing on a sandy common
near the bay. As he drew near the remains of this ancient church, which
were clearly seen in the moonshine, he thought he heard some one
laughing, but he was not quite sure, for the sea was roaring on the
beach below the common, and the waves were making a loud noise as they
dashed up the great headland of Trevose.
"I was mistaken; 'twas nobody laughing," said Jan to himself, and he
walked on again, singing as before; and he sang till he came near a
gate, which opened into a field leading to his cottage, but when he got
there he could not see the gate or the gateway.
"I was so taken up with singing the old song, that I must have missed my
way," he said again to himself. "I'll go back to the head of the common
and start afresh," which he did; and when he got to the place where his
gate ought to have been, he could not find it to save his life.
"I must be clean _mazed_,"[21] he cried. "I have never got out of my
reckoning before, nor missed finding my way to our gate, even when the
night has been as dark as pitch. It isn't at all dark to-night; I can
see Trevose Head--and yet I can't see my own little gate! But I en't
a-going to be done; I'll go round and round this common till I _do_ find
my gate."
And round and round the common he went, but find his gate he could not.
Every time he passed the ruins of the church a laugh came up from the
pool below the ruins, and once he thought he saw a dancing light on the
edge of the pool, where a lot of reeds and rushes were growing.
"The Little Man in the Lantern is about to-night,"[22] he said to
himself, as he glanced at the pool. "But I never knew he was given to
laughing before."
Once more he went round the common, and when he had passed the ruins he
heard giggling and laughing, this time quite close to him; and looking
down on the grass, he saw to his astonishment hundreds of Little Men and
Little Women with tiny lights in their hands, which they were
_flinking_[23] about as they laughed and giggled.
The Little Men wore stocking-caps, the color of ripe briar berries, and
grass-green coats, and the Little Women had on old grandmother cloaks of
the same vivid hue as the Wee Men's coats, and they also wore little
scarlet hoods.
"I believe the great big chap sees us," said one of the Little Men,
catching sight of Jan's astonished face. "He must be Piskey-eyed, and we
did not know it."
"Is he really?" cried one of the _Dinky_[24] Women. "'Tis a pity, but
we'll have our game over him just the same."
"That we will," cried all the Little Men and Little Women in one voice;
and, forming a ring round the great tall fellow, they began to dance
round him, laughing, giggling and flashing up their lights as they
danced.
They went round him so fast that poor Jan was quite bewildered, and
whichever way he looked there were these Little Men and Little Women
giggling up into his bearded face. And when he tried to break through
their ring they went before him and behind him, making a game over him.
He was at their mercy and they knew it; and when they saw the great
fellow's misery, they only laughed and giggled the more.
"We've got him!" they cried to each other, and they said it with such
gusto and with such a comical expression on their tiny brown faces, that
Jan, bewildered as he was, and tired with going round the common so many
times, could not help laughing, they looked so very funny, particularly
when the Little Women winked up at him from under their little scarlet
hoods.
The Piskeys--for they were Piskeys[25]--hurried him down the common,
dancing round him all the time; and when he got there he felt so
mizzy-mazey with those tiny whirling figures going round and round him
like a whirligig, that he did not know whether he was standing on his
head or his heels. He was also in a bath of perspiration--"sweating
leaking," he said--and, putting his hand in his pocket to take out a
handkerchief to mop his face, he remembered having been told that, if
he ever got Piskey-laden, he must turn his coat pockets inside out,
then he would be free at once from his Piskey tormentors. And
in a minute or less his coat-pockets were hanging out, and all the
Little Men and the Little Women had vanished, and there, right in front
of him, he saw his own gate! He lost no time in opening it, and in a
very short time was in his thatched cottage on the cliff.
[Illustration: MY GRANDFATHER, HENDRY WATTY]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 20: From _Legends and Tales of North Cornwall_, by Enys
Tregarthen. Wells Gardner, Darton & Co.]
[Footnote 21: Mad.]
[Footnote 22: Jack-o'-Lantern. Will-o'-the-Wisp. The Piskey Puck. Some
say he walks about carrying a lantern, others, that he goes over the
moors _in_ his lantern.]
[Footnote 23: Waving.]
[Footnote 24: Little.]
[Footnote 25: In Cornwall, these "little Ancient People" are called
_Piskeys_. In England and Ireland, _Pixies_.]
MY GRANDFATHER, HENDRY WATTY[26]
A DROLL
'TIS the nicest miss in the world that I was born grandson of my own
father's father, and not of another man altogether.
Hendry Watty was the name of my grandfather that might have been; and he
always maintained that to all intents and purposes he _was_ my
grandfather, and made me call him so--'twas such a narrow shave. I don't
mind telling you about it. 'Tis a curious tale, too.
My grandfather, Hendry Watty, bet four gallons of eggy-hot that he would
row out to the Shivering Grounds, all in the dead waste of the night,
and haul a trammel there. To find the Shivering Grounds by night, you
get the Gull Rock in a line with Tregamenna and pull out till you open
the light on St. Anthony's Point; but everybody gives the place a wide
berth because Archelaus Rowett's lugger foundered there one time, with
six hands on board; and they say that at night you can hear the drowned
men hailing their names. But my grandfather was the boldest man in Port
Loe, and said he didn't care. So one Christmas Eve by daylight he and
his mates went out and tilled the trammel; and then they came back and
spent the forepart of the evening over the eggy-hot, down to Oliver's
tiddly-wink,[27] to keep my grandfather's spirits up and also to show
that the bet was made in earnest.
'Twas past eleven o'clock when they left Oliver's and walked down to the
cove to see my grandfather off. He has told me since that he didn't feel
afraid at all, but very friendly in mind, especially toward William John
Dunn, who was walking on his right hand. This puzzled him at the first,
for as a rule he didn't think much of William John Dunn. But now he
shook hands with him several times, and just as he was stepping into the
boat he says, "You'll take care of Mary Polly while I'm away." Mary
Polly Polsue was my grandfather's sweetheart at that time. But why my
grandfather should have spoken as if he was bound on a long voyage he
never could tell; he used to set it down to fate.
"I will," said William John Dunn; and then they gave a cheer and pushed
my grandfather off, and he lit his pipe and away he rowed all into the
dead waste of the night. He rowed and rowed, all in the dead waste the
night; and he got the Gull Rock in a line with Tregamenna windows; and
still he was rowing, when to his great surprise he heard a voice
calling:
_"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty!"_
I told you my grandfather was the boldest man in Port Loe. But he
dropped his two oars now, and made the five signs of Penitence. For who
could it be calling him out here in the dead waste and middle of the
night?
"HENDRY WATTY! HENDRY WATTY! _drop
me a line_."
My grandfather kept his fishing-lines in a little skivet under the
stern-sheets. But not a trace of bait had he on board. If he had, he was
too much a-tremble to bait a hook.
"HENDRY WATTY! HENDRY WATTY! _drop
me a line, or I'll know why_."
My poor grandfather had by this picked up his oars again, and was rowing
like mad to get quit of the neighborhood, when something or somebody
gave three knocks--_thump, thump, thump!_--on the bottom of the boat,
just as you would knock on a door.
The third thump fetched Hendry Watty upright on his legs. He had no
more heart for disobeying, but having bitten his pipe-stem in half by
this time--his teeth chattered so--he baited his hook with the broken
bit and flung it overboard, letting the line run out in the stern-notch.
Not half-way had it run before he felt a long pull on it, like the
sucking of a dog-fish.
_"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! pull me in."_
Hendry Watty pulled in hand over fist, and in came the lead sinker over
the notch, and still the line was heavy; he pulled and he pulled, and
next, all out of the dead waste of the night, came two white hands, like
a washerwoman's, and gripped hold of the stern-board; and on the left of
these two hands, was a silver ring, sunk very deep in the flesh. If this
was bad, worse was the face that followed--and if this was bad for
anybody, it was worse for my grandfather who had known Archelaus Rowett
before he was drowned out on the Shivering Grounds, six years before.
Archelaus Rowett climbed in over the stern, pulled the hook with the bit
of pipe-stem out of his cheek, sat down in the stern-sheets, shook a
small crayfish out of his whiskers, and said very coolly: "If you should
come across my wife--"
That was all that my grandfather stayed to hear. At the sound of
Archelaus's voice he fetched a yell, jumped clean over the side of the
boat and swam for dear life. He swam and swam, till by the bit of the
moon he saw the Gull Rock close ahead. There were lashin's of rats on
the Gull Rock, as he knew; but he was a good deal surprised at the way
they were behaving, for they sat in a row at the water's edge and
fished, with their tails let down into the sea for fishing-lines; and
their eyes were like garnets burning as they looked at my grandfather
over their shoulders.
"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! you can't land here--you're disturbing the
pollack."
"Bejimbers! I wouldn' do that for the world," says my grandfather; so
off he pushes and swims for the mainland. This was a long job, and it
was as much as he could do to reach Kibberick beach, where he fell on
his face and hands among the stones, and there lay, taking breath.
The breath was hardly back in his body before he heard footsteps, and
along the beach came a woman, and passed close by to him. He lay very
quiet, and as she came near he saw 'twas Sarah Rowett, that used to be
Archelaus's wife, but had married another man since. She was knitting as
she went by, and did not seem to notice my grandfather; but he heard her
say to herself, "The hour is come, and the man is come."
He had scarcely begun to wonder over this when he spied a ball of
worsted yarn beside him that Sarah had dropped. 'Twas the ball she was
knitting from, and a line of worsted stretched after her along the
beach. Hendry Watty picked up the ball and followed the thread on
tiptoe. In less than a minute he came near enough to watch what she was
doing; and what she did was worth watching. First she gathered wreckwood
and straw, and struck flint over touchwood and teened a fire. Then she
unraveled her knitting; twisted her end of the yarn between finger and
thumb--like a cobbler twisting a wax-end--and cast the end up towards
the sky. It made Hendry Watty stare when the thread, instead of falling
back to the ground, remained hanging, just as if 'twas fastened to
something up above; but it made him stare still more when Sarah Rowett
began to climb up it, and away up till nothing could be seen of her but
her ankles dangling out of the dead waste and middle of the night.
"HENDRY WATTY! HENDRY WATTY!"
It wasn't Sarah calling, but a voice far away out to sea.
"HENDRY WATTY! HENDRY WATTY! _send
me a line!"_
My grandfather was wondering what to do, when Sarah speaks down very
sharp to him, out of the dark:
"Hendry Watty! where's the rocket apparatus? Can't you hear the poor
fellow asking for a line?"
"I do," says my grandfather, who was beginning to lose his temper; "and
do you think, ma'am, that I carry a Boxer's rocket in my trousers
pocket?"
"I think you have a ball of worsted in your hand," says she. "Throw it
as far as you can."
So my grandfather threw the ball out into the dead waste and middle of
the night. He didn't see where it pitched, or how far it went.
"Right it is," says the woman aloft. "'Tis easy seen you're a hurler.
But what shall us do for a cradle?[28] Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty!"
"Ma'am to _you,"_ said my grandfather.
"If you have the common feelings of a gentleman, I'll ask you to turn
your back; I'm going to take off my stocking."
So my grandfather stared the other way very politely; and when he was
told he might look again, he saw she had tied the stocking to the line
and was running it out like a cradle into the dead waste of the night.
"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! look out below!"
Before he could answer, plump! a man's leg came tumbling past his ear
and scattered the ashes right and left.
"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! look out below!"
This time 'twas a great white arm and hand, with a silver ring sunk
tight in the flesh of the little finger.
"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! warm them limbs!"
My grandfather picked them up and was warming them before the fire, when
down came tumbling a great round head and bounced twice and lay in the
firelight, staring up at him. And whose head was it but Archelaus
Rowett's, that he'd run away from once already that night.
"Hendry Watty! Hendry Watty! look out below!"
This time 'twas another leg, and my grandfather was just about to lay
hands on it, when the woman called down:
"Hendry Watty! catch it quick! It's my own leg I've thrown down by
mistake."
The leg struck the ground and bounced high, and Hendry Watty made a leap
after it.
* * * * *
And I reckon it's asleep he must have been; for what he caught was not
Mrs. Rowett's leg, but the jib-boom of a deep-laden brigantine that was
running him down in the dark. And as he sprang for it, his boat was
crushed by the brigantine's fore-foot and went down under his very
boot-soles. At the same time he let out a yell, and two or three of the
crew ran forward and hoisted him up to the bowsprit and in on deck, safe
and sound.