"He was standing by the stone figures within the porch. . . . And

they crumbled--crumbled before my eyes in the awful heat. But he

stood scatheless. He was young and comely; the hair of his head was

not singed. He was as one of the three that walked in the midst of

Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. . . . When the stone slab was crumbled to a

handful of dust, he moved up the aisle and was gone. . . . That is

all: but, as you accept your friend for a truthful man, explain, O

sceptic!"

--And again there fell a silence in the garden.

FIAT JUSTITIA RUAT SOLUM.

In the days of my childhood, and up to the year 1886, the Justices of

the Peace for the Gantick Division of Hundred of Powder, in the

county of Cornwall, held their Petty Sessions at Scawns, a bleak,

foursquare building set on the knap of a windy hill, close beside the

high road that leads up from the sea to the market town of

Tregarrick. The house, when the county in Quarter Sessions purchased

it to convert it into a police station and petty sessional court, had

been derelict for twenty years--that is to say, ever since the winter

of 1827, when Squire Nicholas, the last owner to reside in it

(himself an ornament in his time of the Gantick Bench), broke his

neck in the hunting field. With his death, the property passed to

some distant cousin in the North, who seldom visited Cornwall.

This cousin leased the Scawns acres to a farmer alongside of whose

fields they marched, and the farmer, having no use for the mansion,

gladly sub-let it. The county authorities, having acquired the

lease, did indeed make certain structural adaptations, providing

tolerable quarters for the local constabulary, with a lockup in the

cellarage (which was commodious), but apart from this did little to

arrest the general decay of the building. In particular, the

disrepair of the old dining-room, where the magistrates now held

Session, had become a public scandal. The old wall-paper dropped in

tatters, the ceiling showed patches where the plaster had broken from

the battens, rats had eaten holes in the green baize table-cloth, and

the whole place smelt of dry-rot. From the wall behind the

magistrates' table, in the place where nations more superstitious

than ours suspend a crucifix, an atrocious portrait of the late

Squire Nicholas surveyed the desolated scene of his former carousals.

An inscription at the base of the frame commemorated him as one who

had consistently "Done Right to all manner of People after the Laws

and Usages of the Realm, without Fear or Favour, Affection or

Ill-will."

Beneath this portrait, on the second Wednesday in June, 1886, were

gathered no fewer than six Justices of the Peace, a number the more

astonishing because Petty Sessions chanced to clash with the annual

meeting of the Royal Cornwall Agricultural Society, held that year

at the neighbouring market town of Tregarrick. Now, the reason of

this full bench was at once simple and absurd, and had caused

merriment not unmixed with testiness in the magistrates' private

room. Each Justice, counting on his neighbour's delinquency, had

separately resolved to pay a sacrifice to public duty, and to drop in

to dispose of the business of Sessions before proceeding to the Show.

The charge-sheet, be it noted, was abnormally light: it comprised one

single indictment.

"Good Lord!" growled Admiral Trist, Chairman of the Bench, Master of

the famous Gantick Harriers. "Six of us to hear a case of sleeping

out!"

"Who's the defendant?" asked Sir Felix Felix-Williams. "'Thomas

Edwards'--Don't know the name in these parts."

"I doubt if he knows it himself, Sir Felix," answered Mr. Batty, the

Justices' Clerk. "The Inspector tells me it's a tramping fellow the

police picked up two nights ago. He has been in lock-up ever since."

"Then why the devil couldn't they have sent round and fished up one

of us--or a couple--to deal with the case out of hand?"

"Damned shame, the way the police nurse this business!" murmured Lord

Rattley, our somewhat disreputable local peer. "They're wanted at

Tregarrick to-day, and, what's more, they want the fun of the Show.

So they take excellent care to keep the charge-list light. But since

Petty Sessions must be held, whether or no, they pounce on some poor

devil of a tramp to put a face on the business."

"H'm, h'm." The Admiral, friend of law and order, dreaded Lord

Rattley's tongue, which was irresponsible and incisive. "Well, if

this is our only business, gentlemen--"

"There _is_ another case, sir," put in Mr. Batty. "Wife--Trudgian by

name--wants separation order. Application reached me too late to be

included in the list."

"Trudgian?" queried Parson Voisey. "Not Selina Magor, I hope, that

married young Trudgian a year or so back? Husband a clay-labourer,

living somewhere outside Tregarrick."

"That's the woman. Young married couple--first quarrel. The wife,

on her own admission, had used her tongue pretty sharply, and, I

don't doubt, drove the man off to the public-house, where he sat

until sulky-drunk. A talking-to by the Chairman, if I might

suggest--"

"Yes, yes," agreed Parson Voisey. "And I'll have a word with Selina

afterwards. She used to attend my Young Women's Class--one of my

most satisfactory girls."

"We'll see--we'll see," said the Admiral. "Are we ready, gentlemen?"

He led the way into Court, where all rose in sign of respect--Mr.

Batty's confidential clerk, the Inspector, a solitary constable, a

tattered old man in the constable's charge, and the two Trudgians.

These last occupied extreme ends of the same form; the husband

sullen, with set jaw and eyes obstinately fixed on his boots, the

young wife flushed of face and tearful, stealing from time to time a

defiant glance at her spouse.

In face of this scanty audience the six Justices solemnly took their

seats.

"Thomas Edwards!" called the Clerk.

The tattered old man cringed up to the table, with an embarrassed

smile, which yet had a touch of impudence about the corners of the

mouth.

"Thomas Edwards, you stand charged for that on a certain date, to

wit, June 6th, you, not having any visible means of subsistence, and

not giving a good account of yourself, were found lodging in a

certain outhouse known as Lobb's Barn, in the Parish of Gantick,

contrary, etc. Do you plead Guilty or Not Guilty?"

"Guilty, y'r Worships."

The constable, on a nod from the Inspector, cleared his throat, and

stated the charge: "On the 6th instant, y'r Worships, at 10.45 in the

evening, being on duty in the neighbourhood of Lobb's Barn," etc.

Defendant, on being arrested, had used the filthiest language, and

had for some time stoutly resisted being marched off to the lock-up.

"That will do," the Chairman interrupted. "You, Edwards--if that's

your real name--"

"It'll do for this job," put in the prisoner.

"Very well. Have you anything to say?"

The prisoner ran his eye along the array of Justices.

"Seems a lot o' dogs for one bone!"

The Admiral stiffened with wrath, and the crimson of his face

deepened as Lord Rattley threw himself back in his chair, laughing.

"Forty shillings, or a month!"

"Oh, come--I say!" Lord Rattley murmured.

The Admiral, glancing to right and left, saw, too, that three or four

of his colleagues were lifting their eyebrows in polite protest.

"I--I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for not consulting you! Correct

me, if you will. I would point out, however, that in addition to the

offence with which he is charged, this fellow was guilty of violent

and disgusting language, and, further, of resisting the police."

But his colleagues made no further protest, and Thomas Edwards,

having but two coppers to his name, was conducted below to the

cellarage, there to await transference to the County Jail.

"Selina Trudgian!"

The Admiral, viewing the young couple as they stood sheepishly before

him, commanded Selina to state her complaint as briefly as possible,

avoiding tears.

But this was beyond her.

"He came home drunk, your Worship," she sobbed, twisting her

handkerchief.

"I didn'," corrected her husband.

"He came home d-drunk, your Worship . . . he c-came home d-drunk--"

"Now hearken to me, you two!"

The Admiral, fixing a severe eye on them, started to read them a

lesson on married life, with its daily discipline, its constant

obligation of mutual forbearance. For a confirmed bachelor, he did

it remarkably well; but it must be recorded that this was not by any

means his first essay in lecturing discordant spouses from the Bench.

Lord Rattley, whose own matrimonial ventures had been (like Mr.

Weller's researches in London) extensive and peculiar, leaned back

and followed the discourse with appreciation, his elbows resting on

the arms of his chair, his finger-tips delicately pressed together,

his gaze pensively tracking the motions of a bumblebee that had

strayed in at an open window and was battering its head against the

dusty pane of a closed one.

Just then the Admiral, warming to his theme, pushed back his chair a

few inches. . . .

For some days previously a stream of traction-engines had passed

along the high road, dragging timber-wagons, tent-wagons, machinery,

exhibits of all kinds, towards the Tregarrick Show. This heavy

traffic (it was afterwards surmised) had helped what Wordsworth calls

"the unimaginable touch of Time," shaking the dry-rotted joists of

Scawns House, and preparing the catastrophe.

The Admiral was a heavy-weight. He rode, in those days, at close

upon seventeen stone. As he thrust back his chair, there came from

the floor beneath--from the wall immediately behind him--an ominous,

rending sound. The hind legs of his chair sank slowly, the seat of

justice tilted farther and farther; as he clutched wildly at the

table, the table began to slide upon him, and with an uproar of

cracking timber, table, chairs, magistrates, clerks, together, in one

burial blent, were shot downwards into the cellarage.

The Inspector--a tall man--staggering to his feet as the table slid

from him into the chasm, leapt and clutched a crazy chandelier that

depended above him. His weight tore it bodily from the ceiling, with

a torrential downrush of dust and plaster, sweeping him over the edge

of the gulf and overwhelming the Trudgians, husband and wife, on the

brink of it.

At this moment the constable, fresh from locking up Thomas Edwards

below, returned, put his head in at the door, gasped at sight of a

devastation which had swallowed up every human being, and with great

presence of mind, ran as hard as he could pelt for the hamlet of High

Lanes, half a mile away, to summon help.

Now the Inspector, as it happened, was unhurt. Picking himself up,

digging his heels into the moraine of plaster, and brushing the grit

from his eyes, he had the pleasure of recognising Lord Rattley, the

Parson, Mr. Humphry Felix-Williams (son of Sir Felix), and Mr. Batty,

as they scrambled forth successively, black with dust but unhurt,

save that the Parson had received a slight scalp-wound. Then Mr.

Humphry caught sight of a leg clothed in paternal shepherd's-plaid,

and tugged at it until Sir Felix was restored, choking, to the light

of day--or rather, to the Cimmerian gloom of the cellarage, in which

an unexpected figure now confronted them.

It was the prisoner, Thomas Edwards. A collapsing beam had torn away

some bricks from the wall of his cell, and he came wriggling through

the aperture, using the most dreadful oaths.

"Stir yourselves--Oh,--,--, stir yourselves! Standin' there like

a--lot of stuck pigs! Get out the Admiral! The Admiral, I tell you!

. . . . Hark to the poor old devil, damnin' away down ther, wi' two

hundredweight o' table pressin' against his belly!"

Mr. Edwards, in fact, used an even more vulgar word. But he was not

stopping to weigh words. Magistrates, Inspector, Clerk--he took

charge of them all on the spot--a master of men. The Admiral, in the

unfathomed dark of the cellar, was indeed uttering language to make

your hair creep.

"Oh, cuss away, y' old varmint!" sang down Mr. Edwards cheerfully.

"The louder you cuss, the better the hearin'; 'means ye have air to

breathe an' nothin' broke internal. . . . Eh? Oh, _I_ knows th' old

warrior! Opened a gate for en once when he was out hare-huntin', up

St. Germans way--I likes a bit o' sport, I do, when I happens on it.

Lord love ye, the way he damned my eyes for bein' slow about it!

. . . Aye, aye, Admiral! Cuss away, cuss away--proper quarter-deck

you're givin' us! But we're gettin' to you fast as we can. . . .

England can't spare the likes o' you--an' she won't, not if we can

help it!"

The man worked like a demon. What is more, he was making the others

work, flailing them all--peer and baronet and parson--with

slave-driver's oaths, while they tugged to loosen the timbers under

which the magistrates' table lay wedged.

"Lift, I tell ye! Lift! . . . What the--'s wrong with that end o'

the beam? Stuck, is it? Jammed? Jammed your grandmothers!

Nobbut a few pounds o' loose lime an' plaster beddin' it. Get down

on your knees an' clear it. . . . That's better! And now pull!

PULL, I say! Oh, not _that_ way, you rabbits!--here, let me show

you!"

By efforts Herculean, first digging the rubbish clear with clawed

hands, then straining and heaving till their loins had almost

cracked, they levered up the table at length, and released not only

the Admiral, but the two remaining magistrates, whom they found

pinned under its weight, one unharmed, but in a swoon, the other

moaning feebly with the pain of two broken ribs.

"Whew! What the devil of a smell of brandy!" observed Lord Rattley,

mopping his brow in the intervals of helping to hoist the rescued

ones up the moraine. At the top of it, the Inspector, lifting his

head above the broken flooring to shout for help, broke into furious

profanity; for there, in the empty court-room, stood young Trudgian

and his wife, covered, indeed, with white dust, but blissfully wrapt

in their own marvellous escape; and young Trudgian for the moment was

wholly preoccupied in probing with two fingers for a piece of plaster

which had somehow found its way down his Selina's back between the

nape of the neck and the bodice.

"Drop it, you fool, and lend a hand!" objurgated the Inspector;

whereupon Mrs. Trudgian turned about, bridling.

"You leave my Tom alone, please! A man's first call is on his wedded

wife, I reckon."

The rescued magistrates were lifted out, carried forth into fresh

air, and laid on the turf by the wayside to recover somewhat while

the rescuers again wiped perspiring brows.

"A thimbleful o' brandy might do the Admiral good," suggested the

prisoner.

"Brandy?" cried Lord Rattley. "The air reeks of brandy!

Where the--?"

"The basement's swimmin' with it, m' lord." The fellow touched his

hat. "Two casks stove by the edge o' the table. I felt around the

staves, an' counted six others, hale an' tight. Thinks I, 'tis what

their Worships will have been keepin' for private use, between

whiles. Or elst--"

"Or else?"

"Or else maybe we've tapped a private cellar."

Lord Rattley slapped his thigh.

"A _cache_, by Jove! Old Squire Nicholas--I remember, as a boy,

hearing it whispered he was hand-in-glove with the Free Trade."

The prisoner touched his hat humbly.

"This bein' a magistrates' matter, m' lord, an' me not wishin' to

interfere--"

"Quite so." Lord Rattley felt in his pockets. "You have done us a

considerable service, my man, and--er--that bein' so--"

"Forty shillin' it was. _He's_ cheap at it"--with a nod towards the

Admiral. "A real true-blue old English gentleman! You can always

tell by their conversations."

"The fine shall be paid."

"I counted six casks, m'lord, so well as I could by the feel--"

"Yes, yes! And here's a couple of sovereigns for yourself--all I

happen to have in my pocket--"

Lord Rattley bustled off to the house for brandy.

"England's old England, hows'ever you strike it!" chirruped the

prisoner gleefully, and touched his forehead again. "See you at the

Show, m' lord, maybe? 'Will drink your lordship's health there,

anyway."

He skipped away up the road towards Tregarrick. In the opposite

direction young Mr. and Mrs. Trudgian could be seen just passing out

of sight, he supporting her with his arm, pausing every now and then,

bending over her uxoriously.

THE HONOUR OF THE SHIP.

I.

"'Erbert 'Enery Bates!"

"Wot cheer!"

It was the morning of Speech-day on board the Industrial Training

Ship _Egeria_--July the 31st, to be precise. At 3 p.m. Sir Felix

Felix-Williams, Baronet, would arrive to distribute the prizes.

He would be attended by a crowd of ladies and gentlemen; and the

speeches, delivered beneath an awning on the upper deck, would be

fully reported next day in the local newspapers. The weather was

propitious.

Just now (11 a.m.) some half a dozen of the elder boys, attired in

dirty white dungaree and barefooted, were engaged in swabbing out

what, in her sea-going days, had been the _Egeria's_ ward-room,

making ready to set out tables for an afternoon tea to follow the

ceremony. They were nominally under supervision of the ship's

Schoolmaster, who, however, had gone off to unpack a hamper of

flowers--the gift of an enthusiastic subscriber.

"Step this way, 'Erbert 'Enery Bates."

"You go to hell, Link Andrew!" But the boy stopped his work and faced

about, nevertheless.

"See this flag?" Link Andrew dived his long arms into a pile of

bunting that lay ready for decorating the tea-room. "Wot is it?"

"Union Jack o' course, you silly rotter!"

"Oh, you good, good boy! . . . Yes, dear lads," went on Link Andrew,

in a mimicking voice, "it is indeed the meet-your-flag of our 'oly

Motherland, and 'Erbert 'Enery Bates, our Good Conduck Medallist,

will now oblige by going down on his knees and kissing it. Else I'll

put an eye on him!"

Master Bates--"Good Conduct Bates"--stepped forward, with his fists

up. He was something of a sneak and a sucker-up, yet by no means a

coward. He advanced bravely enough, although he knew that Link

Andrew--the best boxer in the ship--was provoking him of set purpose.

The rest of the boys liked Link and disliked Bates; yet their sense

of fair play told them that Link was putting himself in the wrong;

and yet again, despite their natural eagerness to see a fight, they

wanted to save Link from what could but end in folly. He was playing

for a fall.

"Here comes Schoolmaster!" shouted one, at a venture.

At that moment, indeed, the Schoolmaster appeared in the doorway.

"What's this noise about?" he demanded. "You, Link Andrew?

I thought your interest was to avoid trouble for twenty-four hours."

II.

By the Industrial Schools Act of 1866, 29 & 30 Vict. c. 118, it is

ordained that any youngster apparently under the age of fourteen

found begging, or wandering destitute, or consorting with thieves, or

obstinately playing truant from school, or guilty of being neglected

by his parents, or of defying his parents, or of having a parent who

has incurred a sentence of penal servitude--may by any two justices

be committed to a certified Industrial School, there to be detained

until he reaches the age of sixteen, or for a shorter term if the

Justices shall so direct. Such an Industrial School was the

ex-battleship _Egeria_.

She had carried seventy-four guns in her time; and though gunless now

and jury-masted, was redolent still of the Nelson period from her

white-and-gold figure-head to the beautiful stern galleries which

Commander Headworthy had adorned with window-boxes of Henry Jacoby

geraniums. The Committee in the first flush of funds had spared no

pains to reproduce the right atmosphere, and in that atmosphere

Commander Headworthy laudably endeavoured to train up his crew of

graceless urchins, and to pass them out at sixteen, preferably into

the Navy or the Merchant Service, but at any rate as decent members

of society. Nor were the boys' nautical experiences entirely

stationary, since a wealthy sympathiser (lately deceased) had

bequeathed his fine brigantine yacht to serve the ship as a tender

and take a few score of the elder or more privileged lads on an

annual summer cruise, that they might learn something of practical

seamanship.

The yacht--by name the _Swallow_--an old but shapely craft of some

two hundred tons, lay just now a short cable's length from the parent

ship, with sails bent and all ready for sea; for by custom the annual

cruise started on the day next after the prize-giving.

The question was: Would Link Andrew be allowed to go?

He would have sold his soul to go. He even meditated ways of

suicide if the Commander, for a punishment, should veto his going.

During the last three weeks he had run up an appalling tally of black

marks, and yet it was generally agreed that the Commander would

relent if Link would only keep his temper and behave with common

prudence for another twenty-four hours.

But this was just what Link seemed wholly unable to do. He hated the

ship, the officers, everything in life; and the hot July weather

worked upon this hatred until it became a possessing fury.

III.

At dinner-time he very nearly wrecked his chance for good and all.

Shortly before noon a diminutive, mild-looking gentleman, noticeable

for his childlike manner and a pair of large round spectacles, came

alongside the _Egeria_ in a shore-boat. It appeared that he bore a

visitor's ticket for the afternoon function and had arrived thus

early by invitation of one of the Committee to take a good look over

the ship before the proceedings began. Apparently, too, the

Committee-man had sent Commander Headworthy no warning--to judge from

that officer's wrathful face and the curt tone in which he invited

his visitor to luncheon.

The mild-looking gentleman--who gave his name as Harris--declined

courteously, averring that he had brought a sandwich with him.

The Commander thereupon turned him over to the Second Officer under

whose somewhat impatient escort Mr. Harris made a thorough tour of

the ship, peering into everything and asking a number of questions.

The boys--whom he amused by opening a large white umbrella,

green-lined, to shield him from the noonday sun on the upper deck--

promptly christened him "Moonface."

This Mr. Harris, still in charge of the Second Officer, happened

along the gun-deck as they finished singing "_Be present at our

table, Lord_," and were sitting down to dinner. From their places

they marched up one by one, each with his dinner-basin, to have it

filled at the head of the table.

"Hallo, you, Andrew!" called out the Second Officer. "Fetch that

basin along here. I want the gentleman to have a look at the ship's

food."

Link came forward, stretched out a long arm, and thrust the basin

under the visitor's nose.

"Perhaps," said he, "the toff would like a sniff at the same time?

There's Sweet Williams for a summer's day!"

"There, that'll do, Link! Go to your place, my lad, and don't be

insolent," said the Second Officer hastily, with a nervous glance at

Mr. Harris.

But Mr. Harris merely blinked behind his glasses.

"Yes, yes, to be sure," he agreed. "Pork _is_ tricky diet in such

weather as we're having!"

IV.

Half an hour later, having detached himself gently from his escort,

Mr. Harris wandered back to the upper deck. It appeared to be

deserted; and Mr. Harris, unfolding his umbrella against the sun's

rays, wandered at will.

In the waist of the vessel, on the port side, he came upon a dais and

a baize-covered table with an awning rigged over them; and upon the

ship's Schoolmaster, who was busily engaged in arranging the

prize-books.

"Good afternoon, sir!" The Schoolmaster, affecting to be busy and

polite at the same time, picked out a book and held it up to view.

"_Smiles on Self Help_," he announced.

"You don't say so!" answered Mr. Harris, halting. "But--I mean--they

can't very well, can they?"

"_Eric, or Little by Little_, by the late Archdeacon Farrar.

My choice, sir: some light, you see, and others solid, but all _pure_

literature. . . . They value it, too, in after life. Ah, sir,

they've a lot of good in 'em! There's many worse characters than my

boys walking the world."

Mild Mr. Harris removed his glasses. "Are you talking like that from

force of habit?" he asked. "If so, I shall not be so much annoyed."

The Schoolmaster was fairly taken aback. He stared for a moment and

shifted his helm, so to speak, with a grin of intelligence and a

short laugh.

"Not quite so bad as that, sir," he remonstrated. "It's--it's--well,

you may call it the _atmosphere_. On Speech-day the ship fairly

reeks of it."

"And, like the pork, eh! it's just a little bit 'off'?" suggested the

visitor, returning his smile. "By the way, I want to ask you a

question or two about a boy. His name is Link--Something-or-other."

"Link Andrew?" The Schoolmaster gave him a quick look. "You don't

tell me he's in trouble again? Not been annoying you, sir, I hope?"

"On the contrary, I've taken a fancy to the lad; and, by the way

again, Link can't be his real name?"

"Short for Abraham Lincoln, as baptised," explained the Schoolmaster.

"At least, that's one theory. According to another it's short for

'Missing Link.' Not that the boy's bad-looking; but did you happen

to notice the length of his arms--like a gorilla's?"

"I could not avoid doing so."

Mr. Harris related the incident.

"It was exceedingly kind of you, sir, to pass over his conduct so

lightly. The fact is, if Link Andrew had been reported again he'd

have lost his hammock in the yacht. We all want him to go; some to

get rid of him for a spell, and others because we can't help liking

the boy. He hates us back, you bet, and has hated us from the moment

he set foot on deck, five years ago . . . Whitechapel-reared, I

believe. . . . Yet fond of the sea in his way. Once shipped on the

yacht he'll behave like an angel. But here on board he's like a

young beast in a trap."

V.

Mr. Harris mooned away to the poop-deck, from the rail of which he

watched the guests arriving. As Sir Felix's gig was descried putting

off from the shore, the boys swarmed up the ratlines and out on the

yards, where they dressed ship very prettily. A brass band in the

waist hailed his approach with the strains of "Rule, Britannia!"

At the head of the accommodation-ladder a guard of honour welcomed

him with a hastily rehearsed "Present Arms!" and the boys aloft

accompanied it with three shrill British cheers. The dear old

gentleman gazed up and around him, and positively beamed.

By this time a crowd of boats had put off, and soon the guests came

pouring up the ladder in a steady stream. There were ladies in

picture hats. A reporter stood by the gangway taking notes of their

costumes. They fell to uttering the prettiest exclamations upon the

shipshapeness of everything on board. Mr. Harris saw the First

Officer inviting numbers of them to lean over the bulwarks and

observe a scar the old ship had received--or so he alleged--at

Trafalgar. "How interesting!" they cried.

Well, to be sure, it was interesting. Nelson himself--there was good

authority for this at any rate--had once stood on the _Egeria's_

poop; had leaned, perhaps, against the very rail on which Mr.

Harris's hand rested. . . . And the function went off very well.

The boys clambered down upon deck again, the band played--

"'Tis a Fine Old English Gentleman,"

And all gathered about the awning. Sir Felix, nobly expansive in a

buff waistcoat, cleared his throat and spoke of the Empire in a way

calculated to bring tears to the eyes. The prize-giving followed.

As it proceeded, Mr. Harris stole down the poop-ladder and edged his

way around the back of the crowd to the waist of the ship, where the

boys were drawn up with a few officers interspersed to keep

discipline. He arrived there just as Link Andrew returned from the

dais with two books--the boxing and gymnasium prizes. The boy was

foaming at the mouth.

"See, here--_Fights for the Flag!_ And, on top of it, _Deeds What

Won the Silly Empire!_ And the old blighter 'oped that I'd be a good

boy, and grow up, and win some more. For the likes of _him_, he

meant--Yuss, I _don't_ think! . . . Oh, hold my little hand and check

the tearful flow, for I'm to be a ship's boy at 'arf-a-crown a month,

and go Empire buildin'!"

"There!" said Mr. Harris, indicating a coil of rope. "Sit down and

have it out."

VI.

Some five or six years later, Mr. Harris--who resides in a small West

Country town, the name of which does not concern us--was seated in

his library reading, when his parlourmaid brought him a card--

"Mr. Wilkins, I.T.S. _Egeria_."

"I scarcely hoped that you would remember me, sir," began the

Schoolmaster, on being introduced. "But, happening to pass through--

on a holiday trip, a walking tour--I ventured to call and ask news of

Link Andrew. You may remember our having a conversation about him

once on board the _Egeria_?"

"I remember it perfectly," said Mr. Harris; "and you'll be glad to

hear that Andrew is doing remarkably well; is saving money, in fact,

and contemplates getting married."

"Indeed, sir, that is good hearing. I was afraid that he might have

left your employment."

"So, to be sure, he has; taking with him, moreover, an excellent

character. He is now a second gardener at a steady wage."

"You can't think, sir, how you relieve my mind. To tell the truth, I

met him, less than an hour ago; and by his manner . . . But I had

better tell you how it happened: I knew, of course, that you had

interested yourself in Link and found a job for him. But after he'd

left the ship he never let us hear word of his doings. . . . Well,

passing through your town just now, I ran up against him. He was

coming along the street, and I recognised him on the instant; but all

of a sudden he turned and began to stare in at a shop-window--an

ironmonger's--giving me his back. I made sure, of course, that he

hadn't spied me; so I stepped up and said I, 'Hallo, Link, my lad!'

clapping a hand on his shoulder. He turned about, treated me to a

long stare, and says he, 'Aren't you makin' some mistake, mister?'

'Why,' says I, 'surely I haven't changed so much as all that since

the days I taught you vulgar fractions on board the old _Egeria_?

I'm Mr. Wilkins,' says I. 'Oh, are you?' says he. 'Then,

Mr. Wilkins, you can go back to hell and take 'em my compliments

there.' That's all he said, and he walked away down the street."

"That's queer," said Mr. Harris, polishing his spectacles. "Yes, he

came to me as gardener's boy--I thought it would be a pleasant change

after the ship; and he served his apprenticeship well. I remember

that in answer to my application the Secretary wrote: 'Of course we

prefer to train our lads to the sea; but when one has no aptitude for

it--'"

Mr. Harris paused, for the Schoolmaster was smiling broadly.

"Good Lord, sir!--if you'll excuse me. Link Andrew no aptitude for

the sea! Why, that lad's seamanship saved my life once: and, what's

more, it saved the whole yacht's company! Hasn't he ever told you

about it?"

"Not a word. I think," said Mr. Harris, "our friend Link chooses to

keep his past in watertight compartments. Sit down and tell me about

it."

VII.

This was the Schoolmaster's story:

"It happened on that very cruise, sir. The _Swallow_ had been

knocking around at various West Country regattas--Weymouth, Torquay,

Dartmouth, finishing up with Plymouth. From Plymouth we were to sail

for home.

"We had dropped hook in the Merchant Shipping Anchorage, as they

call it; which is the eastern side of the Sound, by Jennycliff Bay.

That last day of the regattas--a Saturday--the wind had been almost

true north, and freshish, but nothing to mention: beautiful sailing

weather for the small boats. The big cracks had finished their

engagements and were making back for Southampton.

"Well, as I say, this north wind was a treat; especially coming, as

it did, after a week of light airs and calms that had spoilt most of

the yacht-racing. Some time in the afternoon I heard talk that our

skipper--well, I won't mention names--and, as it turned out in the

end, everyone was implicated. Anyhow, at six o'clock or thereabouts

the gig was ordered out, and every blessed officer on board went

ashore in her; which was clean contrary to regulations, of course,

but there happened to be a cinematograph show they all wanted to see

at the big music-hall--some prize-fight or other. I don't set much

store by prize-fights for my part, and living pictures give me the

headache: so, to salve everybody's conscience, I was left in sole

charge of the ship.

"Everything went smooth as a buttered cake until about nine o'clock,

when the wind, that had been dying down all the time, suddenly flew

west and began to gather strength hand over fist. . . . I never, not

being a seaman, could have believed--till I saw and felt it--the

change that came over Plymouth Sound in the space of one half-hour.

The gig had been ordered again for nine-thirty, to pull to the

Barbican Steps and be ready at ten to bring the officers on board.

But before nine-thirty I began to have my serious doubts about

sending her. It was just as well I had.

"For by nine-forty-five it was blowing a real gale, and by ten

o'clock something like a hurricane. Just then, to top my terror,

Master Link Andrew came aft to me--the wind seemed to blow him

along--and 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Wilkins,' said he, 'but in my

opinion she's dragging.'

"Just think of it, sir! There was I, in sole charge of a hundred boys

or so, and knowing no more what to do than the ship's cat. . . . She

_was_ dragging, too; sagging foot by foot in towards the dark of

Jennycliff Bay.

"'If you'll take a word from me, sir,' said Link, 'we'd best up sail

and get out of this.'

"'What about the other anchor?' I suggested.

"' Try it if you like,' said he. 'In my belief it won't hold any

more than a tin mustard-pot.'

"Nor did it, when we let go. He came back after a few minutes from

the darkness forward. 'No go,' said he. 'Nothing to do but slip and

clear.'

"There was no question, either, that he spoke sense. 'But where?' I

shouted at him. 'Drake's Island? . . . And who's to do it, even so?'

"'The anchorage is crowded under Drake's Island,' he shouted back.

'It's the devil-among-the-tailors we'd play there, if we ever

fetched. . . . Breakwater's no shelter either.'

"He seemed to whistle to himself for a moment; and the next I heard

him yell out sharply to the boys forward to tumble on the mainsail,

strip her covers off, double-reef and hoist her. He took command

from that moment. While a score of them flew to tackle this job, he

beat his way forward and called on another lot to get out the

staysail. Back he ran again, cursing and calling on all and sundry

to look smart. Next he was at my side ordering me to unlash the

wheel and stand by. 'It's touch-and-go, sir.'

"'Hadn't we better send up a flare?' I suggested feebly.

"'Flare your bloomin' grandmother!' From this moment I regret to say

that Link Andrew treated me with contempt. He next ordered a dozen

small boys aloft, to reef and set her upper square-sail. When I

urged that it was as good as asking them to commit suicide, he cursed

me openly. 'Drown the poor pups, will I? I thought--damn you all!--

you laid yourselves out to breed seamen! You _say_ you do, at

prize-givings!' He ran forward again to get the hawsers buoyed

before slipping them.

"I never remember a sound more sickening to the stomach than those

chains made as they ran out through the hawse-holes. The one mistake

Link committed was in ordering the upper square-sail to be reefed.

By the mercy of God not a child was blown off the yards in that

operation; yet it was no sooner concluded than, having by this time

found a megaphone, he shouted up to them to undo their work and shake

out the reef.

"'That's madness!' I yelled from the wheel, where I clung dripping,

blindly pressing down the spokes and easing them as he checked me.

'Look to leeward, you blighter!' he yelled back.

"The ship had payed off slowly, and while she gathered way, was

drifting straight down upon an Italian barque that two hours ago had

lain more than a cable's length from us. . . . I thought our lower

yard--we heeled so--would have smacked against her bowsprit-end; and

from the outcries on board the Italian I rather fancy her crew

expected it. But we shaved her by a yard or so, as Link pushed me

away from the wheel and took charge. A moment later she had dropped

behind us into the night, and we were surging in full-tilt for

Plymouth, heaving over at the Lord knows what angle.

"But we were off; we were clear; and, strange to say, the worst of it

was over. The wind was worsening, if anything, and we continued to

drive at a frightful angle. Now and again we slanted to a squall

that fairly dipped us till the sea poured half-way across her decks.

As I staggered forward--clutching at anything handy--to assure myself

that none of the boys had been flung off the fore-yard and overboard,

I heard a sea burst the starboard bulwarks, and in another moment,

while I yet wondered if the sound came from something parting aloft,

with a 'Wa-ay-oh!' Link had put over her helm, and the suddenly

altered slant flung me into the scuppers, where I dropped after

taking a knock against the standing rigging, the mark of which I

shall carry on my forehead till I die.

"By this time, sir, I was pretty well dazed. I forget if it was in a

couple of short tacks, or in three, that we fetched Picklecombe Point

on the western side. Then we put about on a long tack that carried

us well outside the breakwater and came in for Cawsand Bay and

safety. On this last fetch Link kicked me up and gave me the wheel

again, while he went forward to hunt up the spare anchor.

"We brought up, well in shelter, at something before two in the

morning, not a hand lost. Before anyone was allowed to turn in, Link

had every sail stowed and covered--'for the honour of the blasted

ship,' as he put it.

"The skipper and his precious lot came aboard next day not long

before noon, and after a wholesome scare. It seems they were late,

and all pretty so-so by the time they reached the Barbican Steps;

and, let be that there was no boat for them, the watermen one and all

declined to take them off in any such weather. Nothing for it but to

doss the night ashore, which they did. But I wouldn't give much for

their feelings next morning when they put off and, lo! there was no

_Swallow_ in the Merchant Shipping Anchorage. In Cawsand Bay, you

understand, we were well hidden by the land, and it cost them at

least a couple of hours to guess our whereabouts.

"Long as the time was, it wasn't enough to wear out the effects of

the--well, the Cinematograph. A yellower set, or a bluer in the

gills, you never set eyes on. They came aboard, and the skipper,

having made some inquiries of me, called up Link, cleared his throat

quite in the old approved style, and began to make a speech.

"Link cut it short.

"'All right, my precious swine! Now step below and wash off the

traces. If you behave pretty, maybe I'll not report you.'"

VIII.

"That finished the lot," wound up the Schoolmaster. "There _was_ no

answer to it, if you come to think."

"And Link never told?"

"Never a word, sir. Nor did I. But the story leaked out somehow,

and it gave the Commander the whip-hand of his Committee, to ship a

new set of officers. Ship and tender, sir, the _Egeria_ nowadays is

something to be proud of. But for my part I don't go on any more of

these summer cruises. The open sea never suited my stomach, and I

prefer a walk for my holiday."

LIEUTENANT LAPENOTIERE.

The night-porter at the Admiralty had been sleeping in his chair.

He was red-eyed and wore his livery coat buttoned at random.

He grumbled to himself as he opened the great door.

He carried a glass-screened candle, and held it somewhat above the

level of his forehead--which was protuberant and heavily pock-marked.

Under the light he peered out at the visitor, who stood tall and

stiff, with uniform overcoat buttoned to the chin, between the Ionic

pillars of the portico.

"Who's there?"

"Lieutenant Lapenotiere, of the _Pickle_ schooner--with dispatches."

"Dispatches?" echoed the night-porter. Out beyond the screen of

masonry that shut off the Board of Admiralty's forecourt from

Whitehall, one of the tired post-horses started blowing through its

nostrils on this foggy night.

"From Admiral Collingwood--Mediterranean Fleet off Cadiz--sixteen

days," answered the visitor curtly. "Is everyone abed?"

"Admiral Collingwood? Why Admiral Collingwood?" The night-porter

fell back a pace, opening the door a trifle wider. "Good God, sir!

You don't say as how--"

"You can fetch down a Secretary or someone, I hope?" said Lieutenant

Lapenotiere, quickly stepping past him into the long dim hall.

"My dispatches are of the first importance. I have posted up from

Falmouth without halt but for relays."

As the man closed the door, he heard his post-boy of the last relay

slap one of the horses encouragingly before heading home to stable.

The chaise wheels began to move on the cobbles.

"His Lordship himself will see you, sir. Of that I make no doubt,"

twittered the night-porter, fumbling with the bolt. "There was a

terrible disturbance, back in July, when Captain Bettesworth

arrived--not so late as this, to be sure, but towards midnight--and

they waited till morning, to carry up the dispatches with his

Lordship's chocolate. Thankful was I next day not to have been on

duty at the time. . . . If you will follow me, sir--"

Lieutenant Lapenotiere had turned instinctively towards a door on the

right. It admitted to the Waiting Room, and there were few officers

in the service who did not know--and only too well--that Chamber of

Hope Deferred.

"No, sir, . . . this way, if you please," the night-porter corrected

him, and opened a door on the left. "The Captains' Room," he

announced, passing in and steering for the chimney-shelf, on which

stood a pair of silver sconces each carrying three wax candles.

These he took down, lit and replaced. "Ah, sir! Many's the time

I've showed Lord Nelson himself into this room, in the days before

Sir Horatio, and even after. And you were sayin'--"

"I said nothing."

The man moved to the door; but halted there and came back, as though

in his own despite.

"I can't help it, sir. . . . Half a guinea he used to give me,

regular. But the last time--and hard to believe 'twas little more

than a month ago--he halts on his way out, and says he, searchin'

awkward-like in his breeches' pocket with his left hand, 'Ned,' says

he, 'my old friend'--aye, sir, his old friend he called me--'Ned,'

says he, pullin' out a fistful o' gold, 'my old friend,' says he,

'I'll compound with you for two guineas, this bein' the last time you

may hold the door open for me, in or out. But you must pick 'em

out,' says he, spreadin' his blessed fingers with the gold in 'em:

'for a man can't count money who's lost his right flapper.'

Those were his words, sir. 'Old friend,' he called me, in that way

of his."

Lieutenant Lapenotiere pointed to his left arm. Around the sleeve a

black scarf was knotted.

"_Dead_, sir," the night-porter hushed his voice.

"Dead," echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, staring at the Turkey carpet,

of which the six candles, gaining strength, barely illumined the

pattern. "Dead, at the top of victory; a great victory. Go: fetch

somebody down."

The night-porter shuffled off. Lieutenant Lapenotiere, erect and

sombre, cast a look around the apartment, into which he had never

before been admitted. The candles lit up a large painting--a queer

bird's-eye view of Venice. Other pictures, dark and bituminous,

decorated the panelled walls--portraits of dead admirals, a sea-piece

or two, some charts. . . . This was all he discerned out in the dim

light; and in fact he scanned the walls, the furniture of the room,

inattentively. His stomach was fasting, his head light with rapid

travel; above all, he had a sense of wonder that all this should be

happening to _him_. For, albeit a distinguished officer, he was a

modest man, and by habit considered himself of no great importance;

albeit a brave man, too, he shrank at the thought of the message he

carried--a message to explode and shake millions of men in a

confusion of wild joy or grief.

For about the tenth time in those sixteen days it seemed to burst and

escape in an actual detonation, splitting his head--there, as he

waited in the strange room where never a curtain stirred. . . .

It was a trick his brain played him, repeating, echoing the awful

explosion of the French seventy-four _Achille_, which had blown up

towards the close of the battle. When the ship was ablaze and

sinking, his own crew had put off in boats to rescue the Frenchmen,

at close risk of their own lives, for her loaded guns, as they grew

red-hot, went off at random among rescuers and rescued. . . .

As had happened before when he felt this queer shock, his mind

travelled back and he seemed to hear the series of discharges running

up at short intervals to the great catastrophe. . . . To divert his

thoughts, he turned to study the view of Venice above the

chimney-piece . . . and on a sudden faced about again.

He had a sensation that someone was in the room--someone standing

close behind him.

But no. . . . For the briefest instant his eyes rested on an

indistinct shadow--his own perhaps, cast by the candle-light?

Yet why should it lie lengthwise there, shaped like a coffin, on the

dark polished table that occupied the middle of the room?

The answer was that it did not. Before he could rub his eyes

it had gone. Moreover, he had turned to recognise a living

being . . . and no living person was in the room, unless by chance

(absurd supposition) one were hidden behind the dark red window

curtains.

"Recognise" may seem a strange word to use; but here had lain the

strangeness of the sensation--that the someone standing there was a

friend, waiting to be greeted. It was with eagerness and a curious

warmth of the heart that Lieutenant Lapenotiere had faced about--upon

nothing.

He continued to stare in a puzzled way at the window curtains, when a

voice by the door said:

"Good evening!--or perhaps, to be correct, good morning! You are Mr.--"

"Lapenotiere," answered the Lieutenant, who had turned sharply.

The voice--a gentleman's and pleasantly modulated--was not one he

knew; nor did he recognise the speaker--a youngish, shrewd-looking

man, dressed in civilian black, with knee-breeches. "Lapenotiere--of

the _Pickle_ schooner."

"Yes, yes--the porter bungled your name badly, but I guessed.

Lord Barham will see you personally. He is, in fact, dressing with

all haste at this moment. . . . I am his private secretary,"

explained the shrewd-looking gentleman in his quiet, business-like

voice. "Will you come with me upstairs?"

Lieutenant Lapenotiere followed him. At the foot of the great

staircase the Secretary turned.

"I may take it, sir, that we are not lightly disturbing his

Lordship--who is an old man."

"The news is of great moment, sir. Greater could scarcely be."

The Secretary bent his head. As they went up the staircase

Lieutenant Lapenotiere looked back and caught sight of the

night-porter in the middle of the hall, planted there and gazing up,

following their ascent.

On the first-floor landing they were met by a truly ridiculous

spectacle. There emerged from a doorway on the left of the wide

corridor an old gentleman clad in night-cap, night-shirt and bedroom

slippers, buttoning his breeches and cursing vigorously; while close

upon him followed a valet with dressing-gown on one arm, waistcoat

and wig on the other, vainly striving to keep pace with his master's

impatience.

"The braces, my lord--your Lordship has them forepart behind, if I

may suggest--"

"Damn the braces!" swore the old gentleman. "Where is he? Hi,

Tylney!" as he caught sight of the Secretary. "Where are we to go?

My room, I suppose?"

"The fire is out there, my lord. . . . 'Tis past three in the

morning. But after sending word to awake you, I hunted round and by

good luck found a plenty of promising embers in the Board Room grate.

On top of these I've piled what remained of my own fire, and Dobson

has set a lamp there--"

"You've been devilish quick, Tylney. Dressed like a buck you are,

too!"

"Your Lordship's wig," suggested the valet.

"Damn the wig!" Lord Barham snatched it and attempted to stick it on

top of his night-cap, damned the night-cap, and, plucking it off,

flung it to the man.

"I happened to be sitting up late, my lord, over the _Aeolus_

papers," said Mr. Secretary Tylney.

"Ha?" Then, to the valet, "The dressing-gown there! Don't fumble!

. . . So this is Captain--"

"Lieutenant, sir: Lapenotiere, commanding the _Pickle_ schooner."

The Lieutenant saluted.

"From the Fleet, my lord--off Cadiz; or rather, off Cape Trafalgaro."

He drew the sealed dispatch from an inner breast-pocket and handed it

to the First Lord.

"Here, step into the Board Room. . . . Where the devil are my

spectacles?" he demanded of the valet, who had sprung forward to hold

open the door.

Evidently the Board Room had been but a few hours ago the scene of a

large dinner-party. Glasses, dessert-plates, dishes of fruit,

decanters empty and half empty, cumbered the great mahogany table

as dead and wounded, guns and tumbrils, might a battlefield.

Chairs stood askew; crumpled napkins lay as they had been dropped or

tossed, some on the floor, others across the table between the

dishes.

"Looks cosy, eh?" commented the First Lord. "Maggs, set a screen

around the fire, and look about for a decanter and some clean

glasses."

He drew a chair close to the reviving fire, and glanced at the cover

of the dispatch before breaking its seal.

"Nelson's handwriting?" he asked. It was plain that his old eyes,

unaided by spectacles, saw the superscription only as a blur.

"No, my lord: Admiral Collingwood's," said Lieutenant Lapenotiere,

inclining his head.

Old Lord Barham looked up sharply. His wig set awry, he made a

ridiculous figure in his hastily donned garments. Yet he did not

lack dignity.

"Why Collingwood?" he asked, his fingers breaking the seal.

"God! you don't tell me--"

"Lord Nelson is dead, sir."

"Dead--dead? . . . Here, Tylney--you read what it says. Dead? . . .

No, damme, let the captain tell his tale. Briefly, sir."

"Briefly, sir--Lord Nelson had word of Admiral Villeneuve coming out

of the Straits, and engaged the combined fleets off Cape Trafalgaro.

They were in single line, roughly; and he bore down in two columns,

and cut off their van under Dumanoir. This was at dawn or

thereabouts, and by five o'clock the enemy was destroyed."

"How many prizes?"

"I cannot say precisely, my lord. The word went, when I was

signalled aboard the Vice-Admiral's flagship, that either fifteen or

sixteen had struck. My own men were engaged, at the time, in

rescuing the crew of a French seventy-four that had blown up; and I

was too busy to count, had counting been possible. One or two of my

officers maintain to me that our gains were higher. But the dispatch

will tell, doubtless."

"Aye, to be sure. . . . Read, Tylney. Don't sit there clearing your

throat, but read, man alive!" And yet it appeared that while the

Secretary was willing enough to read, the First Lord had no capacity,

as yet, to listen. Into the very first sentence he broke with--

"No, wait a minute. 'Dead,' d'ye say? . . . My God! . . .

Lieutenant, pour yourself a glass of wine and tell us first how it

happened."

Lieutenant Lapenotiere could not tell very clearly. He had twice

been summoned to board the _Royal Sovereign_--he first time to

receive the command to hold himself ready. It was then that, coming

alongside the great ship, he had read in all the officers' faces an

anxiety hard to reconcile with the evident tokens of victory around

them. At once it had occurred to him that the Admiral had fallen,

and he put the question to one of the lieutenants--to be told that

Lord Nelson had indeed been mortally wounded and could not live long;

but that he must be alive yet, and conscious, since the _Victory_ was

still signalling orders to the Fleet.

"I think, my lord," said he, "that Admiral Collingwood must have been

doubtful, just then, what responsibility had fallen upon him, or how

soon it might fall. He had sent for me to 'stand by' so to speak.

He was good enough to tell me the news as it had reached him--"

Here Lieutenant Lapenotiere, obeying the order to fill his glass, let

spill some of the wine on the table. The sight of the dark trickle

on the mahogany touched some nerve of the brain: he saw it widen into

a pool of blood, from which, as they picked up a shattered seaman and

bore him below, a lazy stream crept across the deck of the flag-ship

towards the scuppers. He moved his feet, as he had moved them then,

to be out of the way of it: but recovered himself in another moment

and went on--

"He told me, my lord, that the _Victory_ after passing under the

_Bucentaure's_ stern, and so raking her that she was put out of

action, or almost, fell alongside the _Redoutable_. There was a long

swell running, with next to no wind, and the two ships could hardly

have cleared had they tried. At any rate, they hooked, and it was

then a question which could hammer the harder. The Frenchman had

filled his tops with sharp-shooters, and from one of these--

the mizen-top, I believe--a musket-ball struck down the Admiral.

He was walking at the time to and fro on a sort of gangway he had

caused to be planked over his cabin sky-light, between the wheel and

the ladder-way. . . . Admiral Collingwood believed it had happened

about half-past one . . ."

"Sit down, man, and drink your wine," commanded the First Lord as the

dispatch-bearer swayed with a sudden faintness.

"It is nothing, my lord--"

But it must have been a real swoon, or something very like it: for he

recovered to find himself lying in an arm-chair. He heard the

Secretary's voice reading steadily on and on. . . . Also they must

have given him wine, for he awoke to feel the warmth of it in his

veins and coursing about his heart. But he was weak yet, and for the

moment well content to lie still and listen.

Resting there and listening, he was aware of two sensations that

alternated within him, chasing each other in and out of his

consciousness. He felt all the while that he, John Richards

Lapenotiere, a junior officer in His Majesty's service, was assisting

in one of the most momentous events in his country's history; and

alone in the room with these two men, he felt it as he had never

begun to feel it amid the smoke and roar of the actual battle.

He had seen the dead hero but half a dozen times in his life: he had

never been honoured by a word from him: but like every other naval

officer, he had come to look up to Nelson as to the splendid

particular star among commanders. _There_ was greatness: _there_ was

that which lifted men to such deeds as write man's name across the

firmament! And, strange to say, Lieutenant Lapenotiere recognised

something of it in this queer old man, in dressing-gown and

ill-fitting wig, who took snuff and interrupted now with a curse and

anon with a "bravo!" as the Secretary read. He was absurd: but he

was no common man, this Lord Barham. He had something of the

ineffable aura of greatness.

But in the Lieutenant's brain, across this serious, even awful sense

of the moment and of its meaning, there played a curious secondary

sense that the moment was not--that what was happening before his

eyes had either happened before or was happening in some vacuum in

which past, present, future and the ordinary divisions of time had

lost their bearings. The great twenty-four-hour clock at the end of

the Board Room, ticking on and on while the Secretary read, wore an

unfamiliar face. . . . Yes, time had gone wrong, somehow: and the

events of the passage home to Falmouth, of the journey up to the

doors of the Admiralty, though they ran on a chain, had no intervals

to be measured by a clock, but followed one another like pictures on

a wall. He saw the long, indigo-coloured swell thrusting the broken

ships shoreward. He felt the wind freshening as it southered and he

left the Fleet behind: he watched their many lanterns as they sank

out of sight, then the glow of flares by the light of which

dead-tired men were repairing damages, cutting away wreckage.

His ship was wallowing heavily now, with the gale after her,--and now

dawn was breaking clean and glorious on the swell off Lizard Point.

A Mount's Bay lugger had spied them, and lying in wait, had sheered

up close alongside, her crew bawling for news. He had not forbidden

his men to call it back, and he could see the fellows' faces now, as

it reached them from the speaking-trumpet: "Great victory--twenty

taken or sunk--Admiral Nelson killed!" They had guessed something,

noting the _Pickle's_ ensign at half-mast: yet as they took in the

purport of the last three words, these honest fishermen had turned

and stared at one another; and without one answering word, the lugger

had been headed straight back to the mainland.

So it had been at Falmouth. A ship entering port has a thousand eyes

upon her, and the _Pickle's_ errand could not be hidden. The news

seemed in some mysterious way to have spread even before he stepped

ashore there on the Market Strand. A small crowd had collected, and,

as he passed through it, many doffed their hats. There was no

cheering at all--no, not for this the most glorious victory of the

war--outshining even the Nile or Howe's First of June.

He had set his face as he walked to the inn. But the news had

flown before him, and fresh crowds gathered to watch him off.

The post-boys knew . . . and _they_ told the post-boys at the next

stage, and the next--Bodmin and Plymouth--not to mention the boatmen

at Torpoint Ferry. But the countryside did not know: nor the

labourers gathering in cider apples heaped under Devon apple-trees,

nor, next day, the sportsmen banging off guns at the partridges

around Salisbury. The slow, jolly life of England on either side of

the high road turned leisurely as a wagon-wheel on its axle, while

between hedgerows, past farm hamlets, church-towers and through the

cobbled streets of market towns, he had sped and rattled with

Collingwood's dispatch in his sealed case. The news had reached

London with him. His last post-boys had carried it to their stables,

and from stable to tavern. To-morrow--to-day, rather--in an hour or

two--all the bells of London would be ringing--or tolling! . . .

"He's as tired as a dog," said the voice of the Secretary.

"Seems almost a shame to waken him."

The Lieutenant opened his eyes and jumped to his feet with an

apology. Lord Barham had gone, and the Secretary hard by was

speaking to the night-porter, who bent over the fire, raking it with

a poker. The hands of the Queen Anne clock indicated a quarter to

six.

"The First Lord would like to talk with you . . . later in the day,"

said Mr. Tylney gravely, smiling a little these last words.

He himself was white and haggard. "He suggested the early afternoon,

say half-past two. That will give you time for a round sleep. . . .

You might leave me the name of your hotel, in case he should wish to

send for you before that hour."

"'The Swan with Two Necks,' Lad Lane, Cheapside," said Lieutenant

Lapenotiere.

He knew little of London, and gave the name of the hostelry at which,

many years ago, he had alighted from a West Country coach with his

box and midshipman's kit . . . . A moment later he found himself

wondering if it still existed as a house of entertainment. Well, he

must go and seek it.

The Secretary shook hands with him, smiling wanly.

"Few men, sir, have been privileged to carry such news as you have

brought us to-night."

"And I went to sleep after delivering it," said Lieutenant

Lapenotiere, smiling back.

The night-porter escorted him to the hall, and opened the great door

for him. In the portico he bade the honest man good night, and stood

for a moment, mapping out in his mind his way to "The Swan with Two

Necks." He shivered slightly, after his nap, in the chill of the

approaching dawn.

As the door closed behind him he was aware of a light shining, out

beyond the screen of the fore-court, and again a horse blew through

its nostrils on the raw air.

"Lord!" thought the Lieutenant. "That fool of a post-boy cannot have

mistaken me and waited all this time!"

He hurried out into Whitehall. Sure enough a chaise was drawn up

there, and a post-boy stood by the near lamp, conning a scrap of

paper by the light of it. No, it was a different chaise, and a

different post-boy. He wore the buff and black, whereas the other

had worn the blue and white. Yet he stepped forward confidently, and

with something of a smile.

"Lieutenant Lapenotiere?" he asked, reaching back and holding up his

paper to the lamp to make sure of the syllables.

"That is my name," said the amazed Lieutenant.

"I was ordered here--five-forty-five--to drive you down to Merton."

"To Merton?" echoed Lieutenant Lapenotiere, his hand going to his

pocket. The post-boy's smile, or so much as could be seen of it by

the edge of the lamp, grew more knowing.

"I ask no questions, sir."

"But--but who ordered you?"

The post-boy did not observe, or disregarded, his bewilderment.

"A Briton's a Briton, sir, I hope? I ask no questions, knowing my

place. . . . But if so be as you were to tell me there's been a great

victory--" He paused on this.

"Well, my man, you're right so far, and no harm in telling you."

"Aye," chirruped the post-boy. "When the maid called me up with the

order, and said as how _he_ and no other had called with it--"

"He?"

The fellow nodded.

"She knew him at once, from his portraits. Who wouldn't? With his

right sleeve pinned across so. . . . And, said I, 'Then there's been

a real victory. Never would you see him back, unless. And I was

right, sir!' he concluded triumphantly.

"Let me see that piece of paper."

"You'll let me have it back, sir?--for a memento," the post-boy

pleaded. Lieutenant Lapenotiere took it from him--a plain half-sheet

of note-paper roughly folded. On it was scribbled in pencil,

back-hand wise, "Lt. Lapenotiere. Admiralty, Whitehall. At 6.30

a.m., not later. For Merton, Surrey."

He folded the paper very slowly, and handed it back to the post-boy.

"Very well, then. For Merton."

The house lay but a very little distance beyond Wimbledon.

Its blinds were drawn as Lieutenant Lapenotiere alighted from the

chaise and went up to the modest porch.

His hand was on the bell-pull. But some pressure checked him as he

was on the point of ringing. He determined to wait for a while and

turned away towards the garden.

The dawn had just broken; two or three birds were singing. It did

not surprise--at any rate, it did not frighten--Lieutenant

Lapenotiere at all, when, turning into a short pleached alley, he

looked along it and saw _him_ advancing.

--Yes,_ him_, with the pinned sleeve, the noble, seamed, eager face.

They met as friends. . . . In later years the lieutenant could never

remember a word that passed, if any passed at all. He was inclined

to think that they met and walked together in complete silence, for

many minutes. Yet he ever maintained that they walked as two friends

whose thoughts hold converse without need of words. He was not

terrified at all. He ever insisted, on the contrary, that there, in

the cold of the breaking day, his heart was light and warm as though

flooded with first love--not troubled by it, as youth in first love

is wont to be--but bathed in it; he, the ardent young officer, bathed

in a glow of affection, ennobling, exalting him, making him free of a

brotherhood he had never guessed.

He used also, in telling the story, to scandalise the clergyman of

his parish by quoting the evangelists, and especially St. John's

narrative of Mary Magdalen at the sepulchre.

For the door of the house opened at length; and a beautiful woman,

scarred by knowledge of the world, came down the alley, slowly,

unaware of him. Then (said he), as she approached, his hand went up

to his pocket for the private letter he carried, and the shade at his

side left him to face her in the daylight.

THE CASK ASHORE.(1807).

I.

RUM FOR BOND.

At the head of a diminutive creek of the Tamar River, a little above

Saltash on the Cornish shore, stands the village of Botusfleming; and

in early summer, when its cherry-orchards come into bloom, you will

search far before finding a prettier.

The years have dealt gently with Botusfleming. As it is to-day, so--

or nearly so--it was on a certain sunny afternoon in the year 1807,

when the Reverend Edward Spettigew, Curate-in-Charge, sat in the

garden before his cottage and smoked his pipe while he meditated a

sermon. That is to say, he intended to meditate a sermon. But the

afternoon was warm: the bees hummed drowsily among the wallflowers

and tulips. From the bench his eyes followed the vale's descent

between overlapping billows of cherry blossom to a gap wherein shone

the silver Tamar--not, be it understood, the part called Hamoaze,

where lay the warships and the hulks containing the French prisoners,

but an upper reach seldom troubled by shipping.

Parson Spettigew laid the book face-downwards on his knee while his

lips murmured a part of the text he had chosen: "_A place of broad

rivers and streams . . . wherein shall go no galley with oars,

neither shall gallant ship pass thereby_. . . ." His pipe went out.

The book slipped from his knee to the ground. He slumbered.

The garden gate rattled, and he awoke with a start. In the pathway

below him stood a sailor; a middle-sized, middle-aged man, rigged out

in best shore-going clothes--shiny tarpaulin hat, blue coat and

waistcoat, shirt open at the throat, and white duck trousers with

broad-buckled waistbelt.

"Beggin' your Reverence's pardon," began the visitor, touching the

brim of his hat, and then upon second thoughts uncovering, "but my

name's Jope--Ben Jope."

"Eh? . . . What can I do for you?" asked Parson Spettigew, a trifle

flustered at being caught napping.

"--Of the _Vesoovius_ bomb, bo's'n," pursued Mr. Jope, with a smile

that disarmed annoyance, so ingenuous it was, so friendly, and withal

so respectful: "but paid off at eight this morning. Maybe your

Reverence can tell me whereabouts to find an embalmer in these

parts?"

"A--a _what?_"

"Embalmer." Mr. Jope chewed thoughtfully for a moment or two upon a

quid of tobacco. "Sort of party you'd go to supposin' as you had a

corpse by you and wanted to keep it for a permanency. You take a lot

of gums and spices, and first of all you lays out the deceased, and

next--"

"Yes, yes," the Parson interrupted hurriedly; "I know the process, of

course."

"What? to _practise_ it?" Hope illumined Mr. Jope's countenance.

"No, most certainly not. . . . But, my good man,--an embalmer! and at

Botusfleming, of all places!"

The sailor's face fell. He sighed patiently.

"That's what they said at Saltash, more or less. I got a sister

living there--Sarah Treleaven her name is--a widow-woman, and sells

fish. When I called on her this morning, 'Embalmer?' she said; 'Go

and embalm your grandmother!' Those were her words, and the rest of

Saltash wasn't scarcely more helpful. But, as luck would have it,

while I was searchin', Bill Adams went for a shave, and inside of the

barber's shop what should he see but a fair-sized otter in a glass

case? Bill began to admire it, and it turned out the barber had

stuffed the thing. Maybe your Reverence knows the man?--'A. Grigg

and Son,' he calls hisself."

"Grigg? Yes, to be sure: he stuffed a trout for me last summer."

"What weight, makin' so bold?"

"Seven pounds."

Mr. Jope's face fell again.

"Well-a-well! I dare say the size don't matter, once you've got the

knack. We've brought him along, anyway; and, what's more, we've made

him bring all his tools. By his talk, he reckons it to be a shavin'

job, and we agreed to wait before we undeceived him."

"But--you'll excuse me--I don't quite follow--"

Mr. Jope pressed a forefinger mysteriously to his lip, then jerked a

thumb in the direction of the river.

"If your Reverence wouldn' mind steppin' down to the creek with me?"

he suggested respectfully.

Parson Spettigew fetched his hat, and together the pair descended the

vale beneath the dropping petals of the cherry. At the foot of it

they came to a creek, which the tide at this hour had flooded and

almost overbrimmed. Hard by the water's edge, backed by tall elms,

stood a dilapidated fish-store, and below it lay a boat with nose

aground on a beach of flat stones. Two men were in the boat.

The barber--a slip of a fellow in rusty top-hat and suit of rusty

black--sat in the stern-sheets face to face with a large cask; a cask

so ample that, to find room for his knees, he was forced to crook

them at a high, uncomfortable angle. In the bows, boathook in hand,

stood a tall sailor, arrayed in shore-going clothes similar to Mr.

Jope's. His face was long, sallow, and expressive of taciturnity,

and he wore a beard--not, however, where beards are usually worn, but

as a fringe beneath his clean-shaven chin.

"Well, here we are!" announced Mr. Jope cheerfully. "Your Reverence

knows A. Grigg and Son, and the others you can trust in all weathers;

bein' William Adams, otherwise Bill, and Eli Tonkin--friends o' mine

an' shipmates both."

The tall seaman touched his hat by way of acknowledging the

introduction.

"But--but I only see _one!_" protested Parson Spettigew.

"This here's Bill Adams," said Mr. Jope, and again the tall seaman

touched his hat. "Is it Eli you're missin'? He's in the cask."

"Oh!"

"We'll hoick him up to the store, Bill, if you're ready? It looks a

nice cool place. And while you're prizin' him open, I'd best explain

to his Reverence and the barber. Here, unship the shore-plank; and

you, A. Grigg and Son, lend a hand to heave. . . . Aye, you're right:

it weighs more'n a trifle--bein' a quarter-puncheon, an' the best

proof-spirits. Tilt her _this_ way, . . . Ready? . . . then

w'y-ho! and away she goes!"

With a heave and a lurch that canted the boat until the water poured

over her gunwale, the huge tub was rolled overside into shallow

water. The recoil, as the boat righted herself, cast the small

barber off his balance, and he fell back over a thwart with heels in

air. But before he picked himself up, the two seamen, encouraging

one another with strange cries, had leapt out and were trundling the

cask up the beach, using the flats of their hands. With another

_w'y-ho!_ and a tremendous lift, they ran it up to the turfy plat,

whence Bill Adams steered it with ease through the ruinated doorway

of the store. Mr. Jope returned, smiling and mopping his brow.

"It's this-a-way," he said, addressing the Parson. "Eli Tonkin his

name is, or was; and, as he said, of this parish."

"Tonkin?" queried the Parson. "There are no Tonkins surviving in

Botusfleming parish. The last of them was a poor old widow I laid to

rest the week after Christmas."

"Belay there! . . . Dead, is she?" Mr. Jope's face exhibited the

liveliest disappointment. "And after the surprise we'd planned for

her!" he murmured ruefully. "Hi! Bill!" he called to his shipmate,

who having stored the cask, was returning to the boat.

"Wot is it?" asked Bill Adams inattentively. "Look here, where did

we stow the hammer an' chisel?"

"Take your head out o' the boat an' listen. The old woman's dead!"

The tall man absorbed the news slowly.

"That's a facer," he said at length. "But maybe we can fix _her_ up,

too? I'll stand my share."

"She was buried the week after Christmas."

"Oh?" Bill scratched his head. "Then we can't--not very well."

"Times an' again I've heard Eli talk of his poor old mother," said

Mr. Jope, turning to the Parson. "Which you'll hardly believe it,

but though I knowed him for a West Country man, 'twas not till the

last I larned what parish he hailed from. It happened very

curiously. Bill, rout up A. Grigg and Son, an' fetch him forra'd

here to listen. You'll find the tools underneath him in the

stern-sheets."

Bill obeyed, and possessing himself of hammer and chisel lounged off

to the shore. The little barber drew near, and stood at Mr. Jope's

elbow. His face wore an unhealthy pallor, and he smelt potently of

strong drink.

"Brandy it is," apologised Mr. Jope, observing a slight contraction

of the Parson's nostril. "I reckoned 'twould tauten him a bit for

what's ahead. . . . Well, as I was sayin', it happened very

curiously. This day fortnight we were beatin' up an' across the Bay

o' Biscay, after a four months' to-an'-fro game in front of Toolon

Harbour. Blowin' fresh it was, an' we makin' pretty poor weather of

it--the _Vesoovius_ bein' a powerful wet tub, an' a slug at the best

o' times. 'Tisn' her fault, you understand: aboard a bombship

everything's got to be heavy--timbers, scantling, everything about

her--to stand the concussion. What with this an' her mortars, she

sits pretty low; but to make up for it, what with all this dead

weight, and bein' short-sparred, she can carry all sail in a breeze

that would surprise you. Well, sir, for two days she'd been carryin'

canvas that fairly smothered us, an' Cap'n Crang not a man to care

how we fared forra'd, so long as the water didn' reach aft to his own

quarters. But at last the First Lootenant, Mr. Wapshott, took pity

on us, and--the Cap'n bein' below, takin' his nap after dinner--sends

the crew o' the maintop aloft to take a reef in the tops'le.

Poor Eli was one. Whereby the men had scarcely reached the top afore

Cap'n Crang comes up from his cabin an' along the deck, not troublin'

to cast an eye aloft. Whereby he missed what was happenin'.

Whereby he had just come abreast of the mainmast, when--sock at his

very feet--there drops a man. 'Twas Eli, that had missed his hold,

an' dropped somewhere on the back of his skull. 'Hallo!' says the

Cap'n, 'an' where the devil might _you_ come from?' Eli heard it,

poor fellow--an' says he, as I lifted him, 'If you please, sir, from

Botusfleming, three miles t'other side of Saltash.' 'Then you've had

a damn quick passage,' answers Cap'n Crang, an' turns on his heel.

"Well, sir, we all agreed the Cap'n might ha' showed more feelin',

specially as poor Eli'd broke the base of his skull, an' by eight

bells handed in the number of his mess. Five or six of us talked it

over, agreein' as how 'twas hardly human, an' Eli such a good fellow,

too, let alone bein' a decent seaman. Whereby the notion came to me

that, as he'd come from Botusfieming--those bein' his last words--

back to Botusfleming he should go, an' on that we cooked up a plan.

Bill Adams being on duty in the sick-bay, there wasn' no difficulty

in sewin' up a dummy in Eli's place; an' the dummy, sir, nex' day we

dooly committed to the deep, Cap'n Crang hisself readin' the service.

The real question was, what to do with Eli? Whereby, the purser and

me bein' friends, I goes to him an' says, 'Look here,' I says, 'we'll

be paid off in ten days or so, an' there's a trifle o' prize-money,

too. 'What price'll you sell us a cask o' the ship's rum--say a

quarter-puncheon for choice?' 'What for?' says he. 'For shore-going

purposes,' says I. 'Bill Adams an' me got a use for it.' 'Well,'

says the purser--a decent chap, an' by name Wilkins--'I'm an honest

man,' says he, 'an' to oblige a friend you shall have it at

store-valuation rate. An' what's more,' said he, 'I got the wind o'

your little game, an'll do what I can to help it along; for I al'ays

liked the deceased, an' in my opinion Captain Crang behaved most

unfeelin'. You tell Bill to bring the body to me, an' there'll be no

more trouble about it till I hand you over the cask at Plymouth.'

Well, sir, the man was as good as his word. We smuggled the cask

ashore last evenin', an' hid it in the woods this side o' Mount

Edgcumbe. This mornin' we re-shipped it as you see. First along we

intended no more than just to break the news to Eli's mother, an'

hand him over to her; but Bill reckoned that to hand him over, cask

an' all, would look careless; for (as he said) 'twasn' as if you

could _bury_ 'im in a cask. We allowed your Reverence would draw the

line at that, though we hadn' the pleasure o' knowin' you at the

time."

"Yes," agreed the Parson, as Mr. Jope paused, "I fear it could not be

done without scandal."

"That's just how Bill put it. 'Well then,' says I, thinkin' it over,

'why not do the handsome while we're about it? You an' me ain't the

sort of men,' I says, 'to spoil the ship for a ha'porth o' tar.'

'Certainly we ain't,' says Bill. 'An' we've done a lot for Eli,'

says I. 'We have,' says Bill. 'Well then,' says I, 'let's put a

coat o' paint on the whole business an' have him embalmed.' Bill was

enchanted."

"I--I beg your pardon," put in the barber, edging away a pace.

"Bill was enchanted. Hark to him in the store, there, knockin' away

at the chisel."

"But there's some misunderstanding," the little man protested

earnestly. "I understood it was to be a _shave_."

"You can shave him, too, if you like."

"If I th--thought you were s--serious--"

"Have some more brandy." Mr. Jope pulled out and proffered a flask.

"Only don't overdo it, or it'll make your hand shaky. . . . Serious?

You may lay to it that Bill's serious. He's that set on the idea, it

don't make no difference to him, as you may have noticed, Eli's

mother not bein' alive to take pleasure in it. Why, he wanted to

embalm _her_, too! He's doin' this now for his own gratification, is

Bill, an' you may take it from me when Bill sets his heart on a thing

he sees it through. Don't you cross him, that's my advice."

"But--but--"

"No, you don't." As the little man made a wild spring to flee up the

beach, Mr. Jope shot out a hand and gripped him by the coat collar.

"Now look here," he said very quietly, as the poor wretch would have

grovelled at the Parson's feet, "you was boastin' to Bill, not an

hour agone, as you could stuff _anything_."

"Don't hurt him," Parson Spettigew interposed, touching Mr. Jope's

arm.

"I'm not hurtin' him, your Reverence, only--Eh? What's that?"

All turned their faces towards the store.

"Your friend is calling to you," said the Parson.

"Bad language, too . . . that's not like Bill, as a rule.

Ahoy there, Bill!"

"Ahoy!" answered the voice of Mr. Adams.

"What's up?" Without waiting for an answer Mr. Jope ran the barber

before him up the beach to the doorway, the Parson following.

"What's up?" he demanded again, as he drew breath.

"Take an' see for yourself," answered Mr. Adams darkly, pointing with

his chisel.

A fine fragrance of rum permeated the store.

Mr. Jope advanced, and peered into the staved cask.

"Gone?" he exclaimed, and gazed around blankly.

Bill Adams nodded.

"But _where?_ . . . You don't say he's _dissolved?_"

"It ain't the usual way o' rum. An' it _is_ rum?"

Bill appealed to the Parson.

"By the smell, undoubtedly."

"I tell you what's happened. That fool of a Wilkins has made a

mistake in the cask. . . ."

"An' Eli?--oh, Lord!" gasped Mr. Jope.

"They'll have returned Eli to the Victuallin' Yard before this," said

Bill gloomily. "I overheard Wilkins sayin' as he was to pass over

all stores an' accounts at nine-thirty this mornin'."

"An', once there, who knows where he's got mixed? . . . He'll go the

round o' the Fleet, maybe. Oh, my word, an' the ship that broaches

him!"

Bill Adams opened and shut his mouth quickly, like a fish ashore.

"They'll reckon they've got a lucky-bag," he said weakly.

"An' Wilkins paid off with the rest, an' no address, even if he could

help--which I doubt."

"Eh? I got a note from Wilkins, as it happens." Bill Adams took off

his tarpaulin hat, and extracted a paper from the lining of the

crown. "He passed it down to me this mornin' as I pushed off from

the ship. Said I was to keep it, an' maybe I'd find it useful.

I wondered what he meant at the time, me takin' no particular truck

with pursers ashore. . . . It crossed my mind as I'd heard he meant

to get married, and maybe he wanted me to stand best man at the

weddin'. W'ich I didn' open the note at the time; not likin' to

refuse him, after he'd behaved so well to me."

"Pass it over," commanded Mr. Jope. He took the paper and unfolded

it, but either the light was dim within the store, or the handwriting

hard to decipher. "Would your Reverence read it out for us?"

Parson Spettigew carried the paper to the doorway. He read its

contents aloud, and slowly:

To Mr. Bill Adams,

Capt. of the Fore-top, H.M.S. _Vesuvius_.

Sir,--It was a dummy Capt. Crang buried. We cast the late E.

Tonkin overboard the second night in lat. 46/30, long. 7/15, or

thereabouts. By which time the feeling aboard had cooled down

and it seemed a waste of good spirit. The rum you paid for is

good rum. Hoping that you and Mr. Jope will find a use for it,

Your obedient servant,

S. Wilkins.

There was a long pause, through which Mr. Adams could be heard

breathing hard.

"But what are we to do with it?" asked Mr. Jope, scratching his head

in perplexity.

"Drink it. Wot else?"

"But where?"

"Oh," said Mr. Adams, "anywhere!"

"That's all very well," replied his friend. "You never had no

property, an' don't know its burdens. We'll have to hire a house for

this, an' live there till it's finished."

II.

THE MULTIPLYING CELLAR.

St. Dilp by Tamar has altered little in a hundred years. As it

stands to-day, embowered in cherry-trees, so (or nearly so) it stood

on that warm afternoon in the early summer of 1807, when two

weather-tanned seamen of His Majesty's Fleet came along its fore

street with a hand-barrow and a huge cask very cunningly lashed

thereto. On their way they eyed the cottages and gardens to right

and left with a lively curiosity; but "Lord, Bill," said the shorter

seaman, misquoting Wordsworth unawares, "the werry houses look

asleep!"

At the "Punch-Bowl" Inn, kept by J. Coyne, they halted by silent

consent. Mr. William Adams, who had been trundling the barrow, set

it down, and Mr. Benjamin Jope--whose good-natured face would have

recommended him anywhere--walked into the drinking-parlour and rapped

on the table. This brought to him the innkeeper's daughter, Miss

Elizabeth, twenty years old and comely. "What can I do for you,

sir?" she asked.

"Two pots o' beer, first-along," said Mr. Jope.

"Two?"

"I got a shipmate outside."

Miss Elizabeth fetched the two pots.

"Here, Bill!" he called, carrying one to the door. Returning, he

blew at the froth on his own pot meditatively. "And the next thing

is, I want a house."

"A house?"

"'Stonishing echo you keep here. . . . Yes, miss, a house. My name's

Jope--Ben Jope--o' the _Vesuvius_ bomb, bo's'un; but paid off at

eight this morning. My friend outside goes by the name of Bill

Adams; an' you'll find him livelier than he looks. Everyone does.

But I forgot; you ha'n't seen him yet, and he can't come in, havin'

to look after the cask."

"The ca--" Miss Elizabeth had almost repeated the word, but managed

to check herself.

"You ought to consult someone about it, at your age," said Mr. Jope

solicitously. "Yes, the cask. Rum it is, an' a quarter-puncheon.

Bill and me clubbed an' bought it off the purser las' night, the

chaplain havin' advised us not to waste good prize-money ashore but

invest it in something we really wanted. But I don't know if you've

ever noticed how often one thing leads to another. You can't go

drinkin' out a quarter-puncheon o' rum in the high road, not very

well. So the next thing is, we want a house."

"But," said the girl, "who ever heard of a house to let hereabouts!"

Mr. Jope's face fell.

"Ain't there none? An' it seemed so retired, too, an' handy near

Plymouth."

"There's not a house to let in St. Dilp parish, unless it be the

Rectory."

Mr. Jope's face brightened.

"Then we'll take the Rectory," he said. "Where is it?"

"Down by the river. . . . But 'tis nonsense you're tellin'.

The Rectory indeed! Why, it's a seat!"

Mr. Jope's face clouded.

"Oh," he said, "is that all?"

"It's a fine one, too."

"It'd have to be, to accomydate Bill an' me an' the cask. I wanted a

house, as I thought I told ye."

"Oh, but I meant a country-seat," explained Miss Elizabeth.

"The Rectory is a house."

Again Mr. Jope's face brightened.

"An' so big," she went on, "that the Rector can't afford to live in

it. That's why 'tis to let. The rent's forty pound."

"Can I see him?"

"No, you can't; for he lives up to Lunnon an' hires Parson Spettigew

of Botusfleming to do the work. But it's my father has the lettin'

o' the Rectory if a tenant comes along. He keeps the keys."

"Then I 'd like to talk with your father."

"No you wouldn't," said the girl frankly; "because he's asleep.

Father drinks a quart o' cider at three o'clock every day of his

life, an' no one don't dare disturb him before six."

"Well, I like reggilar habits," said Mr. Jope, diving a hand into his

breeches' pocket and drawing forth a fistful of golden guineas.

"But couldn't you risk it?"

Miss Elizabeth's eyes wavered.

"No, I couldn'," she sighed, shaking her head. "Father's very

violent in his temper. But I tell you what," she added: "I might

fetch the keys, and you might go an' see the place for yourself."

"Capital," said Mr. Jope. While she was fetching these he finished

his beer. Then, having insisted on paying down a guinea for

earnest-money, he took the keys and her directions for finding the

house. She repeated them in the porch for the benefit of the taller

seaman; who, as soon as she had concluded, gripped the handles of his

barrow afresh and set off without a word. She gazed after the pair

as they passed down the street.

At the foot of it a by-lane branched off towards the creek-side.

It led them past a churchyard and a tiny church almost smothered in

cherry-trees--for the churchyard was half an orchard: past a tumbling

stream, a mill and some wood-stacks; and so, still winding downwards,

brought them to a pair of iron gates, rusty and weather-greened.

The gates stood unlocked; and our two seamen found themselves next in

a carriage-drive along which it was plain no carriage had passed for

a very long while. It was overgrown with weeds, and straggling

laurels encroached upon it on either hand; and as it rounded one of

these laurels Mr. Jope caught his breath sharply.

"Lor' lumme!" he exclaimed. "It is a seat, as the gel said!"

Mr. Adams, following close with the wheelbarrow, set it down, stared,

and said:

"Then she's a liar. It's a house."

"It's twice the size of a three-decker, anyway," said his friend, and

together they stood and contemplated the building.

It was a handsome pile of old brickwork, set in a foundation of rock

almost overhanging the river--on which, however, it turned its back;

in design, an oblong of two storeys, with a square tower at each of

the four corners, and the towers connected by a parapet of freestone.

The windows along the front were regular, and those on the

ground-floor less handsome than those of the upper floor, where

(it appeared) were the staterooms. For--strangest feature of all--

the main entrance was in this upper storey, with a dozen broad steps

leading down to the unkempt carriage-way and a lawn, across which a

magnificent turkey oak threw dark masses of shadow.

But the house was a picture of decay. Unpainted shutters blocked the

windows; tall grasses sprouted in the crevices of the entrance steps

and parapet; dislodged slates littered the drive; smears of old rains

ran down the main roof and from a lantern of which the louvers were

all in ruin, some hanging by a nail, others blown on edge by

long-past gales. The very nails had rusted out of the walls, and the

creepers they should have supported hung down in ropy curtains.

Mr. Adams scratched his head.

"What I'd like to know," said he after a while, "is how to get the

cask up them steps."

"There'll be a cellar-door for sartin," Mr. Jope assured him

cheerfully. "You don't suppose the gentry takes their beer in at the

front, hey?"

"This," said Mr. Adams, "is rum; which is a totally different thing."

But he set down his barrow, albeit reluctantly, and followed his

shipmate up the entrance steps. The front door was massive, and

sheeted over with lead embossed in foliate and heraldic patterns.

Mr. Jope inserted the key, turned it with some difficulty, and pushed

the door wide. It opened immediately upon the great hall, and after

a glance within he removed his hat.

The hall, some fifty feet long, ran right across the waist of the

house, and was lit by tall windows at either end. Its floor was of

black and white marble in lozenge pattern. Three immense chandeliers

depended from its roof. Along each of the two unpierced walls,

against panels of peeling stucco, stood a line of statuary--heathen

goddesses, fauns, athletes and gladiators, with here and there a vase

or urn copied from the antique. The furniture consisted of half a

dozen chairs, a settee, and an octagon table, all carved out of wood

in pseudo-classical patterns, and painted with a grey wash to

resemble stone.

"It's a fine room," said Mr. Jope, walking up to a statue of Diana:

"but a man couldn' hardly invite a mixed company to dinner here."

"Symonds's f'r instance," suggested Mr. Adams. Symonds's being a

somewhat notorious boarding-house in a street of Plymouth which shall

be nameless.

"You ought to be ashamed o' yourself, Bill," said Mr. Jope sternly.

"They're anticks, that's what they are."

Mr. Adams drew a long breath.

"I shouldn' wonder," he said.

"Turnin' 'em wi' their faces to the wall 'd look too marked," mused

Mr. Jope. "But a few tex o' Scripture along the walls might ease

things down a bit."

"Wot about the hold?" Mr. Adams suggested.

"The cellar, you mean. Let's have a look."

They passed through the hall; thence down a stone stairway into an

ample vaulted kitchen, and thence along a slate-flagged corridor

flanked by sculleries, larders and other kitchen offices. The two

seamen searched the floors of all in hope of finding a cellar trap or

hatchway, and Mr. Adams was still searching when Mr. Jope called to

him from the end of the corridor:

"Here we are!"

He had found a flight of steps worthy of a cathedral crypt, leading

down to a stone archway. The archway was closed by an iron-studded

door.

"It's like goin' to church," commented Mr. Jope, bating his voice.

"Where's the candles, Bill?"

"In the barrer 'long wi' the bread an' bacon."

"Then step back and fetch 'em."

But from the foot of the stairs Mr. Jope presently called up that

this was unnecessary, for the door had opened to his hand--smoothly,

too, and without noise; but he failed to note this as strange, being

taken aback for the moment by a strong draught of air that met him,

blowing full in his face.

"There's daylight here, too, of a sort," he reported: and so there

was. It pierced the darkness in a long shaft, slanting across from a

doorway of which the upper panel stood open to the sky.

"Funny way o' leavin' a house," he muttered, as he stepped across the

bare cellar floor and peered forth. "Why, hallo, here's water!"

The cellar, in fact, stood close by the river's edge, with a broad

postern-sill actually overhanging the tide, and a flight of steps,

scarcely less broad, curving up and around the south-west angle of

the house.

While Mr. Jope studied these and the tranquil river flowing, all grey

and twilit, at his feet, Mr. Adams had joined him and had also taken

bearings.

"With a check-rope," said Mr. Adams, "--and I got one in the barrer--

we can lower it down here easy."

He pointed to the steps.

"Hey?" said Mr. Jope. "Yes, the cask--to be sure."

"Wot else?" said Mr. Adams. "An' I reckon we'd best get to work, if

we're to get it housed afore dark."

They did so: but by the time they had the cask bestowed and trigged

up, and had spiled it and inserted a tap, darkness had fallen.

If they wished to explore the house farther, it would be necessary to

carry candles; and somehow neither Mr. Jope nor Mr. Adams felt eager

for this adventure. They were hungry, moreover. So they decided to

make their way back to the great hall, and sup.

They supped by the light of a couple of candles. The repast

consisted of bread and cold bacon washed down by cold rum-and-water.

At Symonds's--they gave no utterance to this reflection, but each

knew it to be in the other's mind--at Symonds's just now there would

be a boiled leg of mutton with turnips, and the rum would be hot,

with a slice of lemon.

"We shall get accustomed," said Mr. Jope with a forced air of

cheerfulness.

Mr. Adams glanced over his shoulder at the statuary and answered

"yes" in a loud unfaltering voice. After a short silence he arose,

opened one of the windows, removed a quid from his cheek, laid it

carefully on the outer sill, closed the window, and resumed his seat.

Mr. Jope had pulled out a cake of tobacco, and was slicing it into

small pieces with his clasp-knife.

"Goin' to smoke?" asked Mr. Adams, with another glance at the Diana.

"It don't hurt this 'ere marble pavement--not like the other thing."

"No"--Mr. Adams contemplated the pavement while he, too, drew forth

and filled a pipe--"a man might play a game of checkers on it; that

is, o' course, when no one was lookin'."

"I been thinking," announced Mr. Jope, "over what his Reverence said

about bankin' our money."

"How much d'ye reckon we've got?"

"Between us? Hundred an' twelve pound, fourteen and six.

That's after paying for rum, barrer and oddments. We could live,"

said Mr. Jope, removing his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stem

at his friend in expository fashion--"we could live in this here

house for more'n three years."

"Oh!" said Mr. Adams, but without enthusiasm. "Could we now?"

"That is, if we left out the vittles."

"But we're not goin' to."

"O' course not. Vittles for two'll run away with a heap of it.

And then there'll be callers."

"Callers?" Mr. Adams's face brightened.

"Not the sort you mean. Country folk. It's the usual thing when

strangers come an' settle in a place o' this size. . . . But, all the

same, a hundred an' twelve pound, fourteen and six is a heap: an' as

I say, we got to think over bankin' it. A man feels solid settin'

here with money under his belt; an' yet between you an' me I wouldn't

mind if it was less so, in a manner o' speakin'."

"Me, either."

"I was wonderin' what it would feel like to wake in the night an'

tell yourself that someone was rollin' up money for you like a

snowball."

"There might be a certain amount of friskiness in that. But

contrariwise, if you waked an' told yourself the fella was runnin'

off with it, there wuldn'."

"Shore-living folks takes that risk an' grows accustomed to it.

W'y look at the fellow in charge o' this house."

"Where?" asked Mr. Adams nervously.

"The landlord-fellow, I mean, up in the village. His daughter said

he went to sleep every afternoon, an' wouldn' be waked. How could a

man afford to do that if his money wasn' rollin' up somewhere for

him? An' the place fairly lined with barrels o' good liquor."

"Mightn't liquor accumylate in the same way?" asked Mr. Adams, with

sudden and lively interest.

"No, you nincom'," began Mr. Jope--when a loud knocking on the outer

door interrupted him. "Hallo!" he sank his voice. "Callers

already!"

He went to the door, unlocked and opened it. A heavy-shouldered,

bull-necked man stood outside in the dusk.

"Good evenin'."

"Evenin'," said the stranger. "My name is Coyne an' you must get out

o' this."

"I don't see as it follows," answered Mr. Jope meditatively. "But

hadn't you better step inside?"

"I don't want to bandy words--" began the publican, entering as

though he shouldered his way.

"That's right! Bill, fetch an' fill a glass for the gentleman."

"No, thank you. . . . Well, since you have it handy. But look here:

I got nothin' particular to say against you two men, only you can't

stop here to-night. That's straight enough, I hope, and no bones

broken."

"Straight it is," Mr. Jope agreed: "and we'll talk o' the bones by

an' by. Wot name, sir?--makin' so bold."

"My name's Coyne."

"An' mine's Cash." Mr. Jope fumbled with the fastening of a pouch

underneath his broad waistbelt. "So we're well met. How much?"

"Eh?"

"How much? Accordin' to your darter 'twas forty pound a year, an'

money down: but whether monthly or quarterly she didn' say."

"It's no question of money. It's a question of you two clearin' out,

and at once. I'm breakin' what I have to say as gently as I can.

If you don't choose to understand plain language, I must go an' fetch

the constable."

"I seen him, up at the village this afternoon, an' you'd better not.

Bill, why can't ye fill the gentleman's glass?"

"Because the jug's empty," answered Mr. Adams.

"Then slip down to the cellar again."

"No!" Mr. Coyne almost screamed it, rising from his chair. Dropping

back weakly, he murmured, panting, "Not for me: not on any account!"

His face was pale, and for the moment all the aggressiveness had gone

out of him. He lifted a hand weakly to his heart.

"A sudden faintness," he groaned, closing his eyes. "If you two men

had any feelin's, you'd offer to see me home."

"The pair of us?" asked Mr. Jope suavely.

"I scale over seventeen stone," murmured Mr. Coyne, still with his

eyes closed; "an' a weight like that is no joke."

Mr. Jope nodded.

"You're right there; so you'd best give it over. Sorry to seem

heartless, sir, but 'tis for your good: an' to walk home in your

state would be a sin, when we can fix you up a bed in the house."

Mr. Coyne opened his eyes, and they were twinkling vindictively.

"Sleep in this house?" he exclaimed. "I wouldn't do it, not for a

thousand pound!"

"W'y not?"

"You'll find out 'why not,' safe enough, afore the mornin'!

Why 'twas in kindness--pure kindness--I asked the pair of ye to see

me home. I wouldn't be one to stay in this house alone arter

nightfall--no, or I wouldn't be one to leave a dog alone here, let be

a friend. My daughter didn't tell, I reckon, as this place was

ha'nted?"

"Ha'nted?"

"Aye. By females too."

"O--oh!" Mr. Adams, who had caught his breath, let it escape in a

long sigh of relief. "Like Symonds's," he murmured.

"Not a bit like Symonds's," his friend corrected snappishly.

"He's talkin' o' dead uns--ghosts--that is, if I take your meanin',

sir?"

Mr. Coyne nodded.

"That's it. Ghosts."

"Get out with you!" said Mr. Adams, incredulous.

"You must be a pair of very simple men," said landlord Coyne,

half-closing his eyes again, "if you reckoned that forty pound would

rent a place like this without some drawbacks. Well, the drawbacks

is ghosts. Four of 'em, and all females."

"Tell us about 'em, sir," requested Mr. Jope, dropping into his seat.

"An' if Bill don't care to listen, he can fill up his time by takin'

the jug an' steppin' down to the cellar."

"Damned if I do," said Mr. Adams, stealing a glance over his shoulder

at the statues.

"It's a distressin' story," began Mr. Coyne with a very slight

flutter of the eyelids. "Maybe my daughter told you--an' if she

didn't, you may have found out for yourselves--as how this here house

is properly speakin' four houses--nothing in common but the roof, an'

the cellar, an' this room we're sittin' in. . . . Well, then, back

along there lived an old Rector here, with a man-servant called

Oliver. One day he rode up to Exeter, spent a week there, an'

brought home a wife. Footman Oliver was ready at the door to receive

'em, an' the pair went upstairs to a fine set o' rooms he'd made

ready in the sou'-west tower, an' there for a whole month they lived

together, as you might say, in wedded happiness.

"At th' end o' the month th' old Rector discovered he had business

takin' him to Bristol. He said his farewells very lovin'ly, promised

to come back as soon as he could, but warned the poor lady against

setting foot outside the doors. The gardens an' fields (he said)

swarmed with field-mice, an' he knew she had a terror of mice of all

sorts. So off he rode, an' by an' by came back by night with a

second young lady: and Oliver showed 'em up to the nor'-east tower

for the honeymoon.

"A week later my gentleman had a call to post down to Penzance.

He warned his second wife that it was a terrible year for adders an'

the ground swarmin' with 'em, for he knew she had a horror o' snakes.

Inside of a fortnight he brought home a third--"

"Bill," said Mr. Jope, sitting up sharply, "what noise was that?"

"I didn't hear it," answered Mr. Adams, who was turning up his

trousers uneasily. "Adders, maybe."

"Seemed to me it sounded from somewheres in the cellar. Maybe you

wouldn't mind steppin' down, seein' as you don't take no interest in

what Mr. Coyne's tellin'."

"I'm beginning to."

"The cellar's the worst place of all," said Mr. Coyne, blinking.

"It's there that the bodies were found."

"Bodies?"

"Bodies. Four of 'em. I was goin' to tell you how he brought home

another, havin' kept the third poor lady to her rooms with some tale

about a mad dog starvin' to death in his shrubberies--he didn't know

where--"

"If you don't mind," Mr. Jope interposed, "I've a notion to hear the

rest o' the story some other evenin'. It's--it's agreeable enough to

bear spinnin' out, an' I understand you're a fixture in this

neighbourhood."

"Certainly," said Mr. Coyne, rising. "But wot about _you_?"

"I'll tell you to-morrow."

Mr. Jope gripped the arms of his chair, having uttered the bravest

speech of his life. He sat for a while, the sound of his own voice

echoing strangely in his ears, even when Mr. Coyne rose to take his

leave.

"Well, I can't help admirin' you," said Mr. Coyne handsomely.

"By the way the rent's by the quarter, an' in advance--fours into

forty is ten; I mention it as a matter of business, and in case we

don't meet again."

Mr. Jope counted out the money.

When Mr. Coyne had taken his departure the pair sat a long while in

silence, their solitary candle flickering an the table between them.

"You spoke out very bold," said Mr. Adams at length.

"Did I?" said Mr. Jope. "I didn't feel it."

"What cuts me to the quick is the thought o' them adders outside."

"Ye dolt! There ain't no real adders outside. They're what the chap

invented to frighten the women."

"Sure? Then," mused Mr. Adams, after a pause, "maybe there ain't no

real ghosts neither, but he invented the whole thing."

"Maybe. What d'ye say to steppin' down an' fetchin' up another

mugful o' liquor?"

"I say," answered Mr. Adams slowly, "as how I won't."

"Toss for it," suggested Mr. Jope. "You refuse? Very well, then, I

must go. Only I thought better of ye, Bill--I did indeed."

"I can't help what ye thought," Mr. Adams began sulkily; and then, as

his friend rose with the face of a man who goes to meet the worst, he

sprang up quaking. "Lord's sake, Ben Jope! You ain't a-goin' to take

the candle an' leave me!"

"Bill Adams," said Mr. Jope with fine solemnity, "if I was to put a

name on your besettin' sin, it would be cowardice--an' you can just

sit here in the dark an' think it over."

"When I was on the p'int of offering to go with ye!"

"Ho! Was you? Very well, then, I accept the offer, an' you can walk

first."

"But I don't see--"

"Another word," announced Mr. Jope firmly, "an' you won't! _For I'll

blow out the candle_."

Mr. Adams surrendered, and tottered to the door. They passed out,

and through the vaulted kitchen, and along the slate-flagged

corridor--very slowly here, for a draught fluttered the candle flame,

and Mr. Jope had to shield it with a shaking palm. Once with a

hoarse "What's that?" Mr. Adams halted and cast himself into a

posture of defence--against his own shadow, black and amorphous,

wavering on the wall.

They came to the iron-studded door.

"Open, you," commanded Mr. Jope under his breath. "And not too fast,

mind--there was a breeze o' wind blowin' this arternoon. Steady does

it--look out for the step, an' then straight forw--"

A howl drowned the last word, as Mr. Adams struck his shin against

some obstacle and pitched headlong into darkness--a howl of pain

blent with a dull jarring rumble. Silence followed, and out of the

silence broke a faint groan.

"Bill! Bill Adams! Oh, Bill, for the Lord's sake--!"

Still mechanically shielding his candle, Mr. Jope staggered back a

pace, and leaned against the stone door-jamb for support.

"Here!" sounded the voice of Bill, very faint in the darkness.

"Here! fetch along the light, quick!"

"Wot's it?"

"Casks."

"Casks?"

"Kegs, then. I ought to know," responded Bill plaintively, "seeing

as I pretty near broke my leg on one!"

Mr. Jope peered forward, holding the light high. In the middle of

the cellar stood the quarter-puncheon and around it a whole regiment

of small barrels. Half doubting his eyesight, he stooped to examine

them. Around each keg was bound a sling of rope.

"Rope?" muttered Mr. Jope, stooping. "Foreign rope--left-handed

rope--" And with that of a sudden he sat down on the nearest keg and

began to laugh. "The old varmint! the darned old sinful methodeerin'

varmint!"

"Oh, stow it, Ben! 'Tisn' manly." But still the unnatural laughter

continued. "What in thunder--"

Bill Adams came groping between the kegs.

"Step an' bar the outer door, ye nincom! _Can't you see?_ There's

been a run o' goods; an' while that Coyne sat stuffin' us up with his

ghosts, his boys were down below here loadin' us up with neat furrin

sperrits--_loadin' us up_, mark you. My blessed word, the fun we'll

have wi' that Coyne to-morrow!"

Mr. Adams in a mental fog groped his way to the door opening on the

river steps, bolted it, groped his way back and stood scratching his

head. A grin, grotesque in the wavering light, contorted the long

lower half of the face for a moment and was gone. He seldom smiled.

"On the whole," said Mr. Adams, indicating the kegs, "I fancy these

better'n the naked objects upstairs. Suppose we spend the rest o'

the night here? It's easier," he added, "than runnin' to and fro for

the drink. But what about liquor not accumylatin'?"