YE SEXES, GIVE EAR!
A STORY FROM A CHIMNEY-CORNER.
A good song, and thank' ee, Sir, for singing it! Time was, you'd
never miss hearing it in these parts, whether 'twas feast or
harvest-supper or Saturday night at the public. A virtuous good
song, too; and the merry fellow that made it won't need to cast about
and excuse himself when the graves open and he turns out with his
fiddle under his arm. My own mother taught it to me; the more by
token that she came from Saltash, and "Ye sexes, give ear" was a
terrible favourite with the Saltash females by reason of Sally
Hancock and her turn-to with the press-gang. Hey? You don't tell
me, after singing the song, that you never heard tell of Sally
Hancock? Well, if--! Here, take and fill my mug, somebody!
'Tis an instructive tale, too. . . . This Sally was a Saltash
fishwoman, and you must have heard of _them_, at all events.
There was Bess Rablin, too, and Mary Kitty Climo, and Thomasine
Oliver, and Long Eliza that married Treleaven the hoveller, and
Pengelly's wife Ann; these made up the crew Sally stroked in the
great race. And besides these there was Nan Scantlebury--she took
Bess Rablin's oar the second year, Bess being a bit too fond of
lifting her elbow, which affected her health--and Phemy Sullivan, an
Irishwoman, and Long Eliza's half-sister Charlotte Prowse, and
Rebecca Tucker, and Susan Trebilcock, that everybody called "Apern,"
and a dozen more maybe: powerful women every one, and proud of it.
The town called them Sally Hancock's Gang, she being their leader,
though they worked separate, shrimping, cockling, digging for lug and
long-lining, bawling fish through Plymouth streets, even a hovelling
job at times--nothing came amiss to them, and no weather. For a trip
to Plymouth they'd put on sea-boots belike, or grey stockings and
clogs: but at home they went bare-legged, and if they wore anything
'pon their heads 'twould be a handkerchief, red or yellow, with a
man's hat clapped a-top; coats too, and guernseys like men's, and
petticoats a short few inches longer; for I'm telling of that
back-along time when we fought Boney and while seafaring men still
wore petticoats--in these parts at any rate. Well, that's how Sally
and her mates looked on week-a-days, and that's how they behaved: but
you must understand that, though rough, they were respectable; the
most of them Wesleyan Methodists; and on Sundays they'd put on bonnet
and sit in chapel, and drink their tea afterwards and pick their
neighbours to pieces just like ordinary Christians. Sal herself was
a converted woman, and greatly exercised for years about her
husband's condition, that kept a tailor's shop halfway down Fore
Street and scoffed at the word of Grace; though he attended public
worship, partly to please his customers and partly because his wife
wouldn't let him off.
The way the fun started was this. In June month of the year 'five
(that's the date my mother always gave) the Wesleyans up at the
London Foundry sent a man down to preach a revival through Cornwall,
starting with Saltash. He had never crossed the Tamar before, but
had lived the most of his life near Wolverhampton--a bustious little
man, with a round belly and a bald head and high sense of his own
importance. He arrived on a Saturday night, and attended service
next morning, but not to take part in it: he "wished to look round,"
he said. So the morning was spent in impressing everyone with his
shiny black suit of West-of-England broadcloth and his beautiful
neckcloth and bunch of seals. But in the evening he climbed the
pulpit; and there Old Nick himself, that lies in wait for preachers,
must have tempted the poor fellow to preach on Womanly Perfection,
taking his text from St. Paul.
He talked a brave bit about subjection, and how a woman ought to
submit herself to her husband, and keep her head covered in places of
public worship. And from that he passed on to say that 'twas to this
beautiful submissiveness women owed their amazing power for good, and
he, for his part, was going through Cornwall to tackle the womenfolk
and teach 'em this beautiful lesson, and he'd warrant he'd leave the
whole county a sight nearer righteousness than he found it. With
that he broke out into extempory prayer for our dear sisters, as he
called them, dusted his knees, and gave out the hymn, all as pleased
as Punch.
Sal walked home from service alongside of her husband, very
thoughtful. Deep down in the bottom of his heart he was afraid of
her, and she knew it, though she made it a rule to treat him kindly.
But knowing him for a monkey-spirited little man, and spiteful as
well as funny, you could never be sure when he wouldn't break out.
To-night he no sooner gets inside his own door than says he with a
dry sort of a chuckle:
"Powerful fine sermon, this evenin'. A man like that makes you
_think_."
"Ch't!" says Sally, tossing her bonnet on to the easy chair and
groping about for the tinder-box.
"Sort of doctrine that's badly needed in Saltash," says he. "But I'd
ha' bet 'twould be wasted on you. Well, well, if you can't
understand logic, fit and fetch supper, that's a good soul!"
"Ch't!" said Sally again, paying no particular attention, but
wondering what the dickens had become of the tinder-box.
She couldn't find it on the chimney-piece, so went off to fetch the
kitchen one.
When she came back, there was my lord seated in the easy chair--that
was hers by custom--and puffing away at his pipe--a thing not allowed
until after supper. You see, he had collared the tinder-box when he
first came in, and had hidden it from her.
Sal lit the lamp, quiet-like. "I s'pose you know you're sittin' 'pon
my best bonnet?" said she.
This took him aback. He jumped up, found the bonnet underneath
him sure enough, and tossed it on to the table. "Gew-gaws!" said he,
settling himself again and puffing. "Gew-gaws and frippery!
That man'll do good in this country; he's badly wanted."
Sal patted the straw of her bonnet into something like shape and
smoothed out the ribbons. "If it'll make you feel like a
breadwinner," said she, "there's a loaf in the bread-pan. The cold
meat and pickles are under lock and key, and we'll talk o' them
later." She fitted the bonnet on and began to tie the strings.
"You don't tell me, Sarah, that you mean to go gadding out at this
time of the evening?" cries he, a bit chapfallen, for he knew she
carried the keys in an under-pocket beneath her skirt.
"And you don't suppose," answers she, "that I can spare the time to
watch you play-actin' in my best chair? No, no, my little man!
Sit there and amuse yourself: what _you_ do don't make a ha'porth of
odds. But there's others to be considered, and I'm going to put an
end to this nonsense afore it spreads."
The time of the year, as I've told you, was near about midsummer,
when a man can see to read print out-of-doors at nine o'clock.
Service over, the preacher had set out for a stroll across the
hayfields towards Trematon, to calm himself with a look at the
scenery and the war-ships in the Hamoaze and the line of prison-hulks
below, where in those days they kept the French prisoners. He was
strolling back, with his hands clasped behind him under his
coat-tails, when on the knap of the hill, between him and the town,
he caught sight of a bevy of women seated among the hay-pooks--staid
middle-aged women, all in dark shawls and bonnets, chattering there
in the dusk. As he came along they all rose up together and dropped
him a curtsy.
"Good evenin', preacher dear," says Sally, acting spokeswoman; "and a
very fine night for the time of year."
I reckon that for a moment the preacher took a scare. Monstrous fine
women they were to be sure, looming up over him in the dimmety light,
and two or three of them tall as Grenadiers. But hearing himself
forespoken so pleasantly, he came to a stand and peered at them
through his gold-rimmed glasses.
"Ah, good evening, ladies!" says he. "You are, I presoom, members
of the society that I've just had the privilege of addressin'?"
And thereupon they dropped him another curtsy all together.
"Like me, I dare say you find the scent of the new-mown hay
refreshingly grateful. And what a scene! What a beautiful porch, so
to speak, to the beauties of Cornwall!--beauties of which I have
often heard tell."
"Yes, Sir," answers Sal demurely. "Did you ever hear tell, too, why
Old Nick never came into Cornwall?"
"H'm--ha--some proverbial saying, no doubt? But--you will excuse
me--I think we should avoid speaking lightly of the great Enemy of
Mankind."
"He was afraid," pursued Sal, "of being put into a pie." She paused
at that, giving her words time to sink in. The preacher didn't
notice yet awhile that Long Eliza Treleaven and Thomasine Oliver had
crept round a bit and planted themselves in the footpath behind him.
After a bit Sal let herself go in a comfortable smile, and says she,
in a pretty, coaxing voice, "Sit yourself down, preacher, that's a
dear: sit yourself down, nice and close, and have a talk!"
The poor fellow fetched a start at this. He didn't know, of course,
that everyone's "my dear" in Cornwall, and I'm bound to say I've seen
foreigners taken aback by it--folks like commercial travellers, not
given to shyness as a rule.
"You'll excuse me, Madam."
"No, I won't: not if you don't come and sit down quiet. Bless the
man, I'm not going to eat 'ee--wouldn't harm a hair of your dear
little head, if you had any! What? You refuse?"
"How dare you, Madam!" The preacher drew himself up, mighty
dignified. "How dare you address me in this fashion!"
"I'm addressin' you for your good," answered Sally. "We've been
talkin' over your sermon, me and my friends here--all very
respectable women--and we've made up our minds that it won't do.
We can't have it 'pon our conscience to let a gentleman with your
views go kicking up Jack's delight through the West. We owe
something more to our sex. 'Wrestlin' with 'em--that was one of your
expressions--'wrestlin' with our dear Cornish sisters'!"
"In the spirit--a figure of speech," explained the poor man,
snappy-like.
Sal shook her head. "They know all about wrestlin' down yonder.
I tell you, 'twon't do. You're a well-meaning man, no doubt; but
you're terribly wrong on some points. You'd do an amazing amount of
mischief if we let you run loose. But we couldn't take no such
responsibility--indeed we couldn't: and the long and short of it is,
you've got to go."
She spoke these last words very firmly. The preacher flung a glance
round and saw he was in a trap.
"Such shameless behaviour--" he began.
"You've got to go back," repeated Sally, nodding her head at him.
"Take my advice and go quiet."
"I can only suppose you to be intoxicated," said he, and swung round
upon the path where Thomasine Oliver stood guard. "Allow me to pass,
Madam, if you please!"
But here the mischief put it into Long Eliza to give his hat a flip
by the brim. It dropped over his nose and rolled away in the grass.
"Oh, what a dear little bald head!" cried Long Eliza; "I declare I
must kiss it or die!" She caught up a handful of hay as he stooped,
and--well, well, Sir! Scandalous, as you say! Not a word beyond
this would any of them tell: but I do believe the whole gang rolled
the poor man in the hay and took a kiss off him--"making sweet hay,"
as 'tis called. 'Twas only known that he paid the bill for his
lodging a little after dawn next morning, took up his bag, and passed
down Fore Street towards the Quay. Maybe a boat was waiting for him
there: at all events, he was never seen again--not on this side of
Tamar.
Sal went back, composed as you please, and let herself in by the
front door. In the parlour she found her man still seated in the
easy chair and smoking, but sulky-like, and with most of his
monkey-temper leaked out of him.
"What have you been doin', pray?" asks he.
Sal looked at him with a twinkle. "Kissin'," says she, untying her
bonnet: and with that down she dropped on a chair and laughed till
her sides ached.
Her husband ate humble pie that night before ever he set fork in the
cold meat: and for some days after, though she kept a close eye on
him, he showed no further sign of wanting to be lord of creation.
"Nothing like promptness," thought Sally to herself. "If I hadn't
taken that nonsense in hand straight off, there's no telling where it
wouldn't have spread." By the end of the week following she had put
all uneasiness out of her mind.
Next Saturday--as her custom was on Saturdays--she traded in
Plymouth, and didn't reach home until an hour or more past nightfall,
having waited on the Barbican for the evening fish-auction, to see
how prices were ruling. 'Twas near upon ten o'clock before she'd
moored her boat, and as she went up the street past the "Fish and
Anchor" she heard something that fetched her to a standstill.
She stood for a minute, listening; then walked in without more ado,
set down her baskets in the passage, and pushed open the door of the
bar-room. There was a whole crowd of men gathered inside, and the
place thick with tobacco-smoke. And in the middle of this crew, with
his back to the door, sat her husband piping out a song:
Ye sexes, give ear to my fancy;
In the praise of good women I sing;
It is not of Doll, Kate, or Nancy,
The mate of a clown nor a King--
With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!
Old Adam, when he was creyated,
Was lord of the Universe round;
Yet his happiness was not complated
Until that a helpmate he'd found.
With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!
He had all things for food that was wanting,
Which give us content in this life;
He had horses and foxes for hunting,
Which many love more than a wife,--
He had sung so far and was waving his pipe-stem for the chorus when
the company looked up and saw Sal straddling in the doorway with her
fists on her hips. The sight daunted them for a moment: but she held
up a finger, signing them to keep the news to themselves, and leaned
her shoulder against the doorpost with her eyes steady on the back of
her husband's scrag neck. His fate was upon him, poor varmint, and
on he went, as gleeful as a bird in a bath:
He'd a garden so planted by natur'
As man can't produce in this life;
But yet the all-wise great Creaytor
Perceived that he wanted a wife.--
With his fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!
"You chaps might be a bit heartier with the chorus," he put in.
"A man would almost think you was afraid of your wives overhearin':"
Old Adam was laid in a slumber,
And there he lost part of his side;
And when he awoke in great wonder
He beyeld his beyeautiful bride.
_With_ my fol-de-rol, tooral--
"Why, whatever's wrong with 'ee all? You're as melancholy as a passel
of gib-cats." And with that he caught the eye of a man seated
opposite, and slewed slowly round to the door.
I tell you that even Sal was forced to smile, and the rest, as you
may suppose, rolled to and fro and laughed till they cried. But when
the landlord called for order and they hushed themselves to hear
more, the woman had put on a face that made her husband quake.
"Go ahead, Hancock!" cried one or two. "'With transport he gazed--'
Sing away, man:"
"I will not," said the tailor, very sulky. "This here's no fit place
for women: and a man has his feelin's. I'm astonished at you,
Sarah--I reely am. The wife of a respectable tradesman!" But he
couldn't look her straight in the face.
"Why, what's wrong with the company?" she asks, looking around.
"Old, young, and middle-aged, I seem to know them all for Saltash
men: faults, too, they have to my knowledge: but it passes me what I
need to be afeared of. And only a minute since you was singing that
your happiness wouldn't be completed until that a helpmate you'd
found. Well, you've found her: so sing ahead and be happy."
"I will not," says he, still stubborn.
"Oh, yes you will, my little man," says she in a queer voice, which
made him look up and sink his eyes again.
"Well," says he, making the best of it, "to please the missus,
naybours, we'll sing the whole randigal through. And after that,
Sarah"--here he pretended to look at her like one in command--
"you'll walk home with me straight."
"You may lay to that," Sal promised him: and so, but in no very firm
voice, he pitched to the song again:
With transport he gazed upon her,
His happiness then was complate;
And he blessed the celestial donor
That on him bestowed such a mate--
"I reckon, friends, we'll leave out the chorus!"
They wouldn't hear of this, but ri-tooralled away with a will, Sal
watching them the while from the doorway with her eyebrows drawn
down, like one lost in thought.
She was not took out of his head,
To reign or to triumph o'er man;
She was not took out of his feet,
By man to be tramped upon:
With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!
But she was took out of his side,
His equal and partner to be:
Though they be yunited in one,
Still the man is the top of the tree!
With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay!
"Well, and what's wrong wi' that?" Hancock wound up, feeling for his
courage again.
"Get along with 'ee, you ninth-part-of-a-man! _Me_ took out of
_your_ side!"
"Be that as it may, the 'Fish and Anchor' is no place for discussing
of it," the man answered, very dignified. "Enough said, my dear!
We'll be getting along home." He stood up and knocked the ashes out
of his pipe.
But Sally was not to be budged. "I knew how 'twould be," she spoke
up, facing the company. "I took that preacher-fellow 'pon the ground
hop, as I thought, and stopped his nonsense; but something whispered
to me that 'twas a false hope. Evil communications corrupt good
manners, and now the mischief's done. There's no peace for Saltash
till you men learn your place again, and I'm resolved to teach it to
'ee. You want to know how? Well, to start with, by means of a board
and a piece o' chalk, same as they teach at school nowadays."
She stepped a pace farther into the room, shut home the door behind
her, and cast her eye over the ale-scores on the back of it.
There were a dozen marks, maybe, set down against her own man's name;
but for the moment she offered no remark on this.
"Mr. Oke," says she, turning to the landlord, "I reckon you never go
without a piece o' chalk in your pocket. Step this way, if you
please, and draw a line for me round what these lords of creation owe
ye for drink. Thank'ee. And now be good enough to fetch a chair and
stand 'pon it; I want you to reach so high as you can--Ready?
Now take your chalk and write, beginning near the top o' the door:
'I, Sarah Hancock--'"
Landlord Oke gave a flourish with his chalk and wrote, Sally
dictating,--
"'I, Sarah Hancock--do hereby challenge all the men in Saltash
Borough--that me and five other females of the said Borough--will row
any six of them any distance from one to six statute miles--and will
beat their heads off--pulling either single oars or double paddles or
in ran-dam--the stakes to be six pound a side. And I do further
promise, if beaten, to discharge all scores below.'
"Now the date, please--and hand me the chalk."
She reached up and signed her name bold and free, being a fair
scholar. "And now, my little fellow," says she, turning to her
husband, "put down that pipe and come'st along home. The man's at
the top of the tree, is he? You'll wish you were, if I catch you at
any more tricks!"
Well, at first the mankind at the "Fish and Anchor" allowed that Sal
couldn't be in earnest; this challenge of hers was all braggadoshy;
and one or two went so far as to say 'twould serve her right if she
was taken at her word. In fact, no one treated it seriously until
four days later, at high-water, when the folks that happened to be
idling 'pon the Quay heard a splash off Runnell's boat-building yard,
and, behold! off Runnell's slip there floated a six-oared gig, bright
as a pin with fresh paint. 'Twas an old condemned gig, that had
lain in his shed ever since he bought it for a song off the
_Indefatigable_ man-o'-war, though now she looked almost too smart to
be the same boat. Sally had paid him to put in a couple of new
strakes and plane out a brand-new set of oars in place of the old
ashen ones, and had painted a new name beneath the old one on the
sternboard, so that now she was the _Indefatigable Woman_ for all the
world to see. And that very evening Sally and five of her mates
paddled her past the Quay on a trial spin, under the eyes of the
whole town.
There was a deal of laughing up at the "Fish and Anchor" that night,
the most of the customers still treating the affair as a joke.
But Landlord Oke took a more serious view.
"'Tis all very well for you fellows to grin," says he, "but I've been
trying to make up in my mind the crew that's going to beat these
females, and, by George! I don't find it so easy. There's the boat,
too."
"French-built, and leaks like a five-barred gate," said somebody.
"The Admiralty condemned her five year' ago."
"A leak can be patched, and the Admiralty's condemning goes for
nothing in a case like this. I tell you that boat has handsome
lines--handsome as you'd wish to see. You may lay to it that what
Sal Hancock doesn't know about a boat isn't worth knowing."
"All the same, I'll warrant she never means to row a race in that
condemned old tub. She've dragged it out just for practice, and
painted it up to make a show. When the time comes--if ever it do--
she'll fit and borrow a new boat off one of the war-ships. We can do
the same."
"Granted that you can, there's the question of the crew. Sal has her
thwarts manned--or womanned, as you choose to put it--and maybe a
dozen reserves to pick from in case of accident. She means business,
I tell you. There's Regatta not five weeks away, and pretty fools we
shall look if she sends round the crier on Regatta Day 'O-yessing' to
all the world that Saltash men can't raise a boat's crew to match a
passel of females, and two of 'em"--he meant Mary Kitty Climo and Ann
Pengelly--"mothers of long families."
They discussed it long and they discussed it close, and this way
and that way, until at last Landlord Oke had roughed-out a crew.
There was no trouble about a stroke. That thwart went _nem. con._
to a fellow called Seth Ede, that worked the ferry and had won prizes
in his day all up and down the coast: indeed, the very Plymouth men
had been afraid of him for two or three seasons before he gave up
racing, which was only four years ago. Some doubted that old Roper
Retallack, who farmed the ferry that year, would spare Seth on
Regatta Day: but Oke undertook to arrange this. Thwart No. 4 went
with no more dispute to a whackin' big waterman by the name of
Tremenjous Hosken, very useful for his weight, though a trifle thick
in the waist. As for strength, he could break a pint mug with one
hand, creaming it between his fingers. Then there was Jago the
Preventive man, light but wiry, and a very tricky wrestler: "a proper
angle-twitch of a man," said one of the company; "stank 'pon both
ends of 'en, and he'll rise up in the middle and laugh at 'ee."
So they picked Jago for boat-oar. For No. 5, after a little dispute,
they settled on Tippet Harry, a boat-builder working in Runnell's
yard, by reason that he'd often pulled behind Ede in the
double-sculling, and might be trusted to set good time to the
bow-side. Nos. 2 and 3 were not so easily settled, and they
discussed and put aside half a score before offering one of the
places to a long-legged youngster whose name I can't properly give
you: he was always called Freckly-Faced Joe, and worked as a
saddler's apprentice. In the end he rowed 2; but No. 3 they left
vacant for the time, while they looked around for likely candidates.
Landlord Oke made no mistake when he promised that Sally meant
business. Two days later she popped her head in at his bar-parlour--
'twas in the slack hours of the afternoon, and he happened to be
sitting there all by himself, tipping a sheaf of churchwarden clays
with sealing-wax--and says she:
"What's the matter with your menkind?"
"Restin'," says Oke with a grin. "I don't own 'em, missus; but, from
what I can hear, they're restin' and recoverin' their strength."
"I've brought you the stakes from our side," says Sally, and down she
slaps a five-pound note and a sovereign upon the table.
"Take 'em up, missus--take 'em up. I don't feel equal to the
responsibility. This here's a public challenge, hey?"
"The publicker the better."
"Then we'll go to the Mayor about it and ask his Worship to hold the
stakes." Oke was chuckling to himself all this while, the reason
being that he'd managed to bespeak the loan of a six-oared galley
belonging to the Water-Guard, and, boat for boat, he made no doubt
she could show her heels to the _Indefatigable Woman_. He unlocked
his strong-box, took out and pocketed a bag of money, and reached his
hat off its peg. "I suppose 'twouldn't do to offer you my arm?" says
he.
"Folks would talk, Mr. Oke--thanking you all the same."
So out they went, and down the street side by side, and knocked at
the Mayor's door. The Mayor was taking a nap in his back-parlour
with a handkerchief over his face. He had left business soon
after burying his wife, who had kept him hard at work at the
cheese-mongering, and now he could sleep when he chose. But he woke
up very politely to attend to his visitors' business.
"Yes, for sure, I'll hold the stakes," said he: "and I'll see it put
in big print on the Regatta-bill. It ought to attract a lot of
visitors. But lor' bless you, Mr. Oke!--if you win, it'll do _me_ no
good. She"--meaning his wife--"has gone to a land where I'll never
be able to crow over her."
"Your Worship makes sure, I see, that we women are going to be beat?"
put in Sal.
"Tut-tut!" says the Mayor. "They've booked Seth Ede for stroke."
And with that he goes very red in the gills and turns to Landlord
Oke. "But perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned that?" says he.
"Well," says Sal, "you've a-let the cat out of the bag, and I see
that all you men in the town are in league. But a challenge is a
challenge, and I mustn't go back on it." Indeed, in her secret heart
she was cheerful, knowing the worst, and considering it none so bad:
and after higgling a bit, just to deceive him, she took pretty well
all the conditions of the race as Oke laid 'em down. A tearing long
course it was to be, too, and pretty close on five miles: start from
near-abouts where the training-ship lays now, down to a mark-boat
somewheres off Torpoint, back, and finish off Saltash Quay.
"My dears," she said to her mates later on, "I don't mind telling you
I was all of a twitter, first-along, wondering what card that man Oke
was holding back--he looked so sly and so sure of hisself. But if
he've no better card to play than Seth Ede, we can sleep easy."
"Seth Ede's a powerful strong oar," Bess Rablin objected.
"_Was_, you mean. He've a-drunk too much beer these four years past
to last over a five-mile course; let be that never was his distance.
And here's another thing: they've picked Tremenjous Hosken for one
th'art."
"And he's as strong as a bullock."
"I dessay: but Seth Ede pulls thirty-eight or thirty-nine to the
minute all the time he's racing--never a stroke under. I've watched
him a score o' times. If you envy Hosken his inside after two miles
o' _that_, you must be like Pomery's pig--in love with pain.
They've hired or borrowed the Preventive boat, I'm told; and it's the
best they could do. She's new, and she looks pretty. She'll drag
aft if they put their light weights in the bows: still, she's a good
boat. I'm not afeared of her, though. From all I can hear, the
_Woman_ was known for speed in her time, all through the fleet.
You can _feel_ she's fast, and _see_ it, if you've half an eye: and
the way she travels between the strokes is a treat. The Mounseers
can build boats. But oh, my dears, you'll have to pull and stay the
course, or in Saltash the women take second place for ever!"
"Shan't be worse off than other women, even if that happens," said
Rebecca Tucker, that was but a year married and more than half in
love with her man. Sally had been in two minds about promoting
Rebecca to the bow-oar in place of Ann Pengelly, that had been
clipping the stroke short in practice: but after that speech she
never gave the woman another thought.
Next evening the men brought out their opposition boat--she was
called the _Nonpareil_--and tried a spin in her. They had found a
man for No. 3 oar--another of the Water-Guard, by name Mick Guppy and
by nation Irish, which Sal swore to be unfair. She didn't lodge any
complaint, however: and when her mates called out that 'twas taking a
mean advantage, all she'd say was: "Saltash is Saltash, my dears; and
I won't go to maintain that a Saltash crew is anyways improved by a
chap from Dundalk."
So no protest was entered. I needn't tell you that, by this time,
news of the great race had spread to Plymouth, and north away to
Callington and all the country round. Crowds came out every evening
to watch the two boats at their practising; and sometimes, as they
passed one another, Seth Ede, who had the reputation for a wag, would
call out to Sal and offer her the odds by way of chaff. Sal never
answered. The woman was in deadly earnest, and moreover, I dare say,
a bit timmersome, now that the whole Borough had its eyes on her, and
defeat meant disgrace.
She never showed a sign of any doubt, though; and when the great day
came, she surpassed herself by the way she dressed. I dare say
you've noticed that when women take up a man's job they're inclined
to overdo it; and when Sal came down that day with a round
tarpaulin-hat stuck on the back of her head, and her hair plaited in
a queue like a Jack Tar's, her spiteful little husband fairly danced.
"'Tis onwomanly," said he. "Go upstairs and take it off!"
"Ch't," said she, "if you're so much upset by a tarpaulin-hat, you've
had a narra escape; for 'tis nothing to the costume I'd a mind to
wear--and I'd a mind to make you measure the whole crew for it."
And as it was, I'm told, half the sightseers that poured into Saltash
that day in their hundreds couldn't tell the women's crew from the
men's by their looks or their dress. And these be the names and
weights, more or less:
The _Indefatigable Woman_: Bow, Ann Pengelly, something under eleven
stone; No. 2, Thomasine Oliver, ditto; No. 3, Mary Kitty Climo,
eleven and a half; No. 4, Long Eliza, thirteen and over, a woman very
heavy in the bone; No. 5, Bess Rablin, twelve stone, most of it in
the ribs and shoulders; Stroke, Sarah Hancock, twelve stone four;
Coxswain, Ann Pengelly's fourth daughter Wilhelmina, weight about six
stone. The _Indefatigable Woman_ carried a small distaff in the
bows, and her crew wore blue jerseys and yellow handkerchiefs.
The _Nonpareil_: Bow, T. Jago, ten stone and a little over; No. 2,
Freckly-Faced Joe, twelve stone; No. 3, M. Guppy, twelve stone and a
half; No. 4, Tremenjous Hosken, eighteen stone ten; No. 5, Tippet
Harry, twelve stone eight; Stroke, Seth Ede, eleven six. And I don't
know who the boy was that steered. The _Nonpareil_ carried a red,
white, and blue flag, and her crew wore striped jerseys, white and
blue.
They were started by pistol; and Seth Ede, jumping off with a stroke
of forty to the minute, went ahead at once. In less than twenty
strokes he was clear, the _Nonpareil_ lifting forward in great heaves
that made the spectators tell each other that though 'twas no race
they had seen something for their money. They didn't see how sweetly
the other boat held her way between the strokes, nor note that Sally
had started at a quiet thirty-four, the whole crew reaching well out
and keeping their blades covered to the finish--coming down to the
stroke steadily, too, though a stiffish breeze was with them as well
as the tide.
I suppose the longest lead held by the _Nonpareil_ during the race
was a good forty yards. She must have won this within four minutes
of starting, and for half a mile or so she kept it. Having so much
in hand, Ede slowed down--for flesh and blood couldn't keep up such a
rate of striking over the whole course--and at once he found out his
mistake. The big man Hosken, who had been pulling with his arms
only, and pulling like a giant, didn't understand swinging out; tried
it, and was late on stroke every time. This flurried Ede, who was
always inclined to hurry the pace, and he dropped slower yet--dropped
to thirty-five, maybe, a rate at which he did himself no justice,
bucketting forward fast, and waiting over the beginning till he'd
missed it. In discontent with himself he quickened again; but now
the oars behind him were like a peal of bells. By sheer strength
they forced the boat along somehow, and with the tide under her she
travelled. But the _Indefatigable Woman_ by this time was creeping
up.
They say that Sally rowed that race at thirty-four from the start to
within fifty yards of the finish; rowed it minute after minute
without once quickening or once dropping a stroke. Folks along shore
timed her with their watches. If that's the truth, 'twas a
marvellous feat, and the woman accounted for it afterwards by
declaring that all the way she scarcely thought for one second of the
other boat, but set her stroke to a kind of tune in her head, saying
the same verse over and over:
But she was took out of his side,
His equal and partner to be:
Though they be yunited in one,
Still the man is the top of the tree!
With my fol-de-rol, tooral-i-lay--We'll see about _that!_
The _Indefatigable Woman_ turned the mark not more than four lengths
astern. They had wind and tide against them now, and with her crew
swinging out slow and steady, pulling the stroke clean through with a
hard finish, she went up hand-over-fist. The blades of the
_Nonpareil_ were knocking up water like a moorhen. Tremenjous Hosken
had fallen to groaning between the strokes, and I believe that from
the mark-boat homeward he was no better than a passenger--an
eighteen-stone passenger, mind you. The only man to keep it lively
was little Jago at bow, and Seth Ede--to do him justice--pulled a
grand race for pluck. He might have spared himself, though.
Another hundred yards settled it: the _Indefatigable Woman_ made her
overlap and went by like a snake, and the Irishman pulled in his oar
and said:
"Well, Heaven bless the leddies, anyway!"
Seth Ede turned round and swore at him vicious-like, and he fell to
rowing again: but the whole thing had become a procession. "Eyes in
the boat!" commanded Sal, pulling her crew together as they caught
sight of their rivals for the first time and, for a stroke or two,
let the time get ragged. She couldn't help a lift in her voice,
though, any more than she could help winding up with a flourish as
they drew level with Saltash town, a good hundred yards ahead, and
heard the band playing and the voices cheering. "Look out for the
quicken!"--and up went a great roar as the women behind her picked
the quicken up and rattled past the Quay and the winning-gun at forty
to the minute!
They had just strength enough left to toss oars: and then they leaned
forward with their heads between their arms, panting and gasping out,
"Well rowed, Sal!" "Oh--oh--well rowed all!" and letting the delight
run out of them in little sobs of laughter. The crowd ashore, too,
was laughing and shouting itself hoarse. I'm sorry to say a few of
them jeered at the _Nonpareil_ as she crawled home: but, on the
whole, the men of Saltash took their beating handsome.
This don't include Sal's husband, though. Landlord Oke was one of
the first to shake her by the hand as she landed, and the Mayor
turned over the stakes to her there and then with a neat little
speech. But Tailor Hancock went back home with all kinds of ugliness
and uncharitableness working in his little heart. He cursed Regatta
Day for an interruption to trade, and Saltash for a town given up to
idleness and folly. A man's business in this world was to toil for
his living in the sweat of his brow; and so, half an hour later, he
told his wife.
The crowd had brought her along to her house door: and there she
left 'em with a word or two of thanks, and went in very quiet.
Her victory had uplifted her, of course; but she knew that her man
would be sore in his feelings, and she meant to let him down gently.
She'd have done it, too, if he'd met her in the ordinary way: but
when, after searching the house, she looked into the little back
workshop and spied him seated on the bench there, cross-legged and
solemn as an idol, stitching away at a waistcoat, she couldn't hold
back a grin.
"Why, whatever's the matter with you?" she asked.
"Work," says he, in a hollow voice. "Work is the matter. I can't
see a house--and one that used to be a happy home--go to rack and
ruin without some effort to prevent it."
"I wouldn't begin on Regatta Day, if I was you," says Sal cheerfully.
"Has old Smithers been inquiring again about that waistcoat?"
"He have not."
"Then he's a patient man: for to my knowledge this is the third week
you've been putting him off with excuses."
"I thank the Lord," says her husband piously, "that more work gets
put on me than I can keep pace with. And well it is, when a man's
wife takes to wagering and betting and pulling in low boat-races to
the disgrace of her sex. _Someone_ must keep the roof over our
heads: but the end may come sooner than you expect," says he, and
winds up with a tolerable imitation of a hacking cough.
"I took three pairs of soles and a brill in the trammel this very
morning; and if you've put a dozen stitches in that old waistcoat,
'tis as much as ever! I can see in your eye that you know all about
the race; and I can tell from the state of your back that you watched
it from the Quay, and turned into the 'Sailor's Return' for a drink.
Hockaday got taken in over that blue-wash for his walls: it comes off
as soon as you rub against it."
"I'll trouble you not to spy upon my actions, Madam," says he.
"Man alive, _I_ don't mind your taking a glass now and then in
reason--specially on Regatta Day! And as for the 'Sailor's Return,'
'tis a respectable house. I hope so, anyhow, for we've ordered
supper there to-night."
"Supper! You've ordered supper at the 'Sailor's Return'?"
Sal nodded. "Just to celebrate the occasion. We thought,
first-along, of the 'Green Dragon': but the 'Dragon's' too grand a
place for ease, and Bess allowed 'twould look like showing off.
She voted for cosiness: so the 'Sailor's Return' it is, with roast
ducks and a boiled leg of mutton and plain gin-and-water."
"Settin' yourselves up to be men, I s'pose?" he sneered.
"Not a bit of it," answered Sal. "There'll be no speeches."
She went off to the kitchen, put on the kettle, and made him a dish
of tea. In an ordinary way she'd have paid no heed to his tantrums:
but just now she felt very kindly disposed t'wards everybody, and
really wished to chat over the race with him--treating it as a joke
now that her credit was saved, and never offering to crow over him.
But the more she fenced about to be agreeable the more he stitched
and sulked.
"Well, I can't miss _all_ the fun," said she at last: and so, having
laid supper for him, and put the jug where he could find it and draw
his cider, she clapped on her hat and strolled out.
He heard her shut-to the front door, and still he went on stitching.
When the dusk began to fall he lit a candle, fetched himself a jugful
of cider, and went back to his work. For all the notice Sal was ever
likely to take of his perversity, he might just as well have stepped
out into the streets and enjoyed himself: but he was wrought up into
that mood in which a man will hurt himself for the sake of having a
grievance. All the while he stitched he kept thinking, "Look at me
here, galling my fingers to the bone, and that careless fly-by-night
wife o' mine carousin' and gallivantin' down at the 'Sailor's
Return'! Maybe she'll be sorry for it when I'm dead and gone; but at
present if there's an injured, misunderstood poor mortal in Saltash
Town, I'm that man." So he went on, until by and by, above the noise
of the drum and cymbals outside the penny theatre, and the
hurdy-gurdies, and the showmen bawling down by the waterside, he
heard voices yelling and a rush of folks running down the street past
his door. He knew they had been baiting a bull in a field at the
head of the town, and, the thought coming into his head that the
animal must have broken loose, he hopped off his bench, ran fore to
the front door, and peeked his head out cautious-like.
What does he see coming down the street in the dusk but half a dozen
sailor-men with an officer in charge! Of course he knew the meaning
of it at once. 'Twas a press-gang off one of the ships in Hamoaze or
the Sound, that was choosing Regatta Night to raid the streets and
had landed at the back of the town and climbed over the hill to take
the crowds by surprise. They'd made but a poor fist of this, by
reason of the officer letting his gang get out of hand at the start;
and by their gait 'twas pretty plain they had collared a plenty of
liquor up the street. But while Hancock peeped out, taking stock of
them, a nasty monkey-notion crept into his head, and took hold of all
his spiteful little nature; and says he, pushing the door a bit wider
as the small officer--he was little taller than a midshipman--came
swearing by:
"Beg your pardon, Sir!"
"You'd best take in your head and close the door upon it," snaps the
little officer. "These fools o' mine have got their shirts out, and
are liable to make mistakes to-night."
"What, _me?_--a poor tailor with a hackin' cough!" But to himself:
"So much the better," he says, and up he speaks again. "Beggin' your
pardon humbly, Commander; but I might put you in the way of the
prettiest haul. There's a gang of chaps enjoyin' theirselves down at
the 'Sailor's Return,' off the Quay, and not a 'protection' among
them. Fine lusty fellows, too! They might give your men a bit of
trouble to start with--"
"Why are you telling me this?" the officer interrupts,
suspicious-like.
"That's my affair," says Hancock boldly, seeing that he nibbled.
"Put it down to love o' my country, if you like; and take my advice
or leave it, just as you please. I'm not asking for money, so you
won't be any the poorer."
"Off the Quay, did you say? Has the house a Quay-door?"
"It has: but you needn't to trouble about that. They can't escape
that way, I promise you, having no boat alongside."
The little officer turned and whispered for a while with two of the
soberest of his gang: and presently these whispered to two more, and
the four of them marched away up the hill.
"'HANCOCK--TAILOR,'" reads out the officer aloud, stepping back into
the roadway and peering up at the shop-front. "Very well, my man,
you'll hear from us again--"
"I'm not askin' for any reward, Sir."
"So you've said: and I was about to say that, if this turns out to be
a trick, you'll hear from us again, and in a way you'll be sorry for.
And now, once more, take your ugly head inside. 'Tis my duty to act
on information, but I don't love informers."
For the moment the threat made the tailor uncomfortable: but he felt
pretty sure the sailors, when they discovered the trick, wouldn't be
able to do him much harm. The laugh of the whole town would be
against them: and on Regatta Night the press--unpopular enough at the
best of times--would gulp down the joke and make the best of it.
He went back to his bench; but on second thoughts not to his work.
'Twould be on the safe side, anyway, to be not at home for an hour or
two, in case the sailors came back to cry quits. Playing the lonely
martyr, too, wasn't much fun with this mischief working inside of him
and swelling his lungs like barm. He took a bite of bread and a sup
of cider, blew out the candle, let himself forth into the street
after a glance to make sure that all was clear, and headed for the
"Fish and Anchor."
He found the bar-room crowded, but not with the usual Regatta Night
throng of all-sorts. The drinkers assembled were either burgesses
like himself or waterside men with protection-papers in their
pockets: for news of the press-gang had run through the town like
wildfire, and the company had given over discussing the race of the
day and taken up with this new subject. Among the protected men his
eye lit on Treleaven the hoveller, husband to Long Eliza, and Caius
Pengelly, husband to Ann, that had pulled bow in the race. He winked
to them mighty cunning. The pair of 'em seemed dreadfully cast down,
and he knew a word to put them in heart again.
"Terrible blow for us, mates, this woman's mutiny!" says he, dropping
into a chair careless-like, pulling out a short pipe, and speaking
high to draw the company's attention.
"Oh, stow it!" says Caius Pengelly, very sour. "We'd found suthin'
else to talk about; and if the women have the laugh of us to-day,
who's responsible, after all? Why, you--_you_, with your darned
silly song about Adam and Eve! If you hadn't provoked your wife,
this here wouldn't ha' happened."
"Indeed?" says the monkey-fellow, crossing his legs and puffing.
"So you've found something better to talk about? What's that, I'd
like to know?"
"Why, there's a press-gang out," says Treleaven. "But there! a fellow
with your shaped legs don't take no interest in press-gangs, I
reckon."
"Ah, to be sure," says the little man--but he winced and uncrossed his
legs all the same, feeling sorry he'd made 'em so conspicuous--"ah,
to be sure, a press-gang! I met 'em; but, as it happens, that's no
change of subject."
"Us don't feel in no mood to stomach your fun to-night, Hancock; and
so I warn 'ee," put in Pengelly, who had been drinking more than
usual and spoke thick. "If you've a meaning up your sleeve, you'd
best shake it out."
Hancock chuckled. "You fellows have no invention," he said; "no
resource at all, as I may call it. You stake on this race, and, when
the women beat you, you lie down and squeal. Well, you may thank me
that I'm built different: I bide my time, but when the clock strikes
I strike with it. I never did approve of women dressing man-fashion:
but what's the use of making a row in the house? 'The time is bound
to come,' said I to myself; and come it has. If you want a good
story cut short, I met the press-gang just now and turned 'em on to
raid the 'Sailor's Return': and if by to-morrow the women down there
have any crow over us, then I'm a Dutchman, that's all!"
"Bejimbers, Hancock," says Treleaven, standing up and looking uneasy,
"you carry it far, I must say!"
"Far? A jolly good joke, _I_ should call it," answers Hancock,
making bold to cross his legs again.
And with that there comes a voice crying pillaloo in the passage
outside; and, without so much as a knock, a woman runs in with a face
like a sheet--Sam Hockaday's wife, from the "Sailor's Return."
"Oh, Mr. Oke--Mr. Oke, whatever is to be done! The press has
collared Sally Hancock and all her gang! Some they've kilt, and
wounded others, and all they've a-bound and carried off and shipped
at the Quay-door. Oh, Mr. Oke, our house is ruined for ever!"
The men gazed at her with their mouths open. Hancock found his legs
somehow; but they shook under him, and all of a sudden he felt
himself turning white and sick.
"You don't mean to tell me--" he began.
But Pengelly rounded on him and took him by the ear so that he
squeaked. "Where's my wife, you miserable joker, you?" demanded
Pengelly.
"They c-can't be in earnest!"
"You'll find that I am," said Pengelly, feeling in his
breeches-pocket, and drawing out a clasp-knife almost a foot long.
"What's the name of the ship?"
"I--I don't know! I never inquired! Oh, please let me go, Mr.
Pengelly! Han't I got my feelings, same as yourself?"
"There's a score of vessels atween this and Cawsand," put in
Treleaven, catching his breath like a man hit in the wind, "and half
a dozen of 'em ready to weigh anchor any moment. There's naught for
it but to take a boat and give chase."
Someone suggested that Sal's own boat, the _Indefatigable Woman_,
would be lying off Runnell's Yard; and down to the waterside they all
ran, Pengelly gripping the tailor by the arm. They found the gig
moored there on a frape, dragged her to shore, and tumbled in.
Half a dozen men seized and shipped the oars: the tailor pitched
forward and driven to take the bow oar. Voices from shore sang out
all manner of different advice: but twas clear that no one knew which
way the press-boat had taken, nor to what ship she belonged.
To Hancock 'twas all like a sick dream. He hated the water; he had
on his thinnest clothes; the night began to strike damp and chilly,
with a lop of tide running up from Hamoaze and the promise of worse
below. Pengelly, who had elected himself captain, swore to hail
every ship he came across: and he did--though from the first he met
with no encouragement. "Ship, ahoy!" he shouted, coming down with a
rush upon the stern-windows of the first and calling to all to hold
water. "Ahoy! Ship!"
A marine poked his head over the taffrail. "Ship it is," said he.
"And what may be the matter with you?"
"Be you the ship that has walked off with half a dozen women from
Saltash?"
The marine went straight off and called the officer of the watch,
"Boat-load of drunk chaps under our stern, Sir," says he, saluting.
"Want to know if we've carried off half a dozen women from Saltash."
"Empty a bucket of slops on 'em," said the officer of the watch, "and
tell 'em, with my compliments, that we haven't."
The marine saluted, hunted up a slop-bucket, and poured it over with
the message. "If you want to know more, try the guard-ship," said
he.
"That's all very well, but where in thunder _be_ the guard-ship?"
said poor Pengelly, scratching his head.
Everyone knew, but everyone differed by something between a quarter
and half a mile. They tried ship after ship, getting laughter from
some and abuse from others. And now, to make matters worse, the wind
chopped and blew up from the sou'-west, with a squall of rain and a
wobble of sea that tried Hancock's stomach sorely. At one time they
went so far astray in the dark as to hail one of the prison-hulks,
and only sheered off when the sentry challenged and brought his
musket down upon the bulwarks with a rattle. A little later, off
Torpoint, they fell in with the water-police, who took them for a
party rowing home to Plymouth from the Regatta, and threatened 'em
with the lock-up if they didn't proceed quiet. Next they fell foul
of the guard-ship, and their palaver fetched the Admiral himself out
upon the little balcony in his nightshirt. When he'd done talking
they were a hundred yards off, and glad of it.
Well, Sir, they tried ship after ship, the blessed night through,
till hope was nigh dead in them, and their bodies ached with
weariness and hunger. Long before they reached Devil's Point the
tumble had upset Hancock's stomach completely. He had lost his oar;
somehow it slipped off between the thole-pins, and in his weakness he
forgot to cry out that 'twas gone. It drifted away in the dark--the
night all round was black as your hat, the squalls hiding the stars--
and he dropped off his thwart upon the bottom-boards. "I'm a dying
man," he groaned, "and I don't care. I don't care how soon it comes!
'Tis all over with me, and I shall never see my dear Sally no more!"
So they tossed till day broke and showed Drake's Island ahead of
them, and the whole Sound running with a tidy send of sea from the
south'ard, grey and forlorn. Some were for turning back, but
Pengelly wouldn't hear of it. "We must make Cawsand Bay," says he,
"if it costs us our lives. Maybe we'll find half a dozen ships
anchored there and ready for sea."
So away for Cawsand they pulled, hour after hour, Hancock all the
while wanting to die, and wondering at the number of times an empty
man could answer up to the call of the sea.
The squalls had eased soon after daybreak, and the sky cleared and
let through the sunshine as they opened the bay and spied two
sloops-of-war and a frigate riding at anchor there. Pulling near
with the little strength left in them, they could see that the
frigate was weighing for sea. She had one anchor lifted and the
other chain shortened in: her top-sails and topgallant sails were
cast off, ready to cant her at the right moment for hauling in.
An officer stood ready by the crew manning the capstan, and right aft
two more officers were pacing back and forth with their hands clasped
under their coat-tails.
"Lord!" groaned Pengelly, "if my poor Ann's aboard of she, we'll
never catch her!" He sprang up in the stern sheets and hailed with
all his might.
Small enough chance had his voice of reaching her, the wind being
dead contrary: and yet for the moment it looked as if the two
officers aft had heard; for they both stepped to the ship's side, and
one put up a telescope and handed it to the other. And still the
crew of the gig, staring over their shoulders while they pulled
weakly, could see the men by the capstan standing motionless and
waiting for orders.
"Seems a'most as if they were expectin' somebody," says Pengelly with
a sudden hopefulness: and with that Treleaven, that was pulling
stroke, casts his eyes over his right shoulder and gives a gasp.
"Good Lord, look!" says he. "The tender!"
And sure enough, out of the thick weather rolling up away over
Bovisand they spied now a Service cutter bearing across close-hauled,
leaning under her big tops'l and knocking up the water like
ginger-beer with the stress of it. When first sighted she couldn't
have been much more than a mile distant, and, pull as they did with
the remains of their strength, she crossed their bows a good
half-mile ahead, taking in tops'l as she fetched near the frigate.
"Use your eyes--oh, use your eyes!" called out Pengelly: but no soul
could they see on her besides two or three of the crew forward and a
little officer standing aft beside the helmsman. Pengelly ran
forward, leaping the thwarts, and fetched the tailor a rousing kick.
"Sit up!" he ordered, "and tell us if that's the orficer you spoke to
last night!"
The poor creature hoisted himself upon his thwart, looking as yellow
as a bad egg. "I--I think that's the man," said he, straining his
eyes, and dropped his head overside.
"Pull for your lives, boys," shouted Pengelly. And they did pull, to
the last man. They pulled so that they reached the frigate just as
the tender, having run up in the wind and fallen alongside, began
uncovering hatches.
Two officers were leaning overside and watching--and a couple of the
tender's crew were reaching down their arms into the hold. They were
lifting somebody through the hatchway, and the body they lifted clung
for a moment to the hatchway coaming, to steady itself.
"Sally!" screamed a voice from the gig.
The little officer in the stern of the tender cast a glance back at
the sound and knew the tailor at once. He must have owned sharp
sight, that man.
"Oh, you've come for your money, have you?" says he. And, looking up
at the two officers overhead, he salutes, saying: "We've made a tidy
haul, Sir--thanks to that man."
"I don't want your money. I want my wife!" yelled Hancock.
"And I mine!" yelled Pengelly.
"And I mine!" yelled Treleaven.
By this time the gig had fallen alongside the tender, and the women
in the tender's hold were coming up to daylight, one by one.
Sal herself stood watching the jail-delivery; and first of all she
blinked a bit, after the darkness below, and next she let out a
laugh, and then she reached up a hand and began unplaiting her
pigtail.
"Be you the Captain of this here ship?" asks she, looking up and
addressing herself to one of the officers leaning overside.
"Yes, my man; this here's the _Ranger_ frigate, and I'm her Captain.
I'm sorry for you--it goes against my grain to impress men in this
fashion: but the law's the law, and we're ready for sea, and if
you've any complaints to make I hope you'll cut 'em short."
"I don't know," says Sal, "that I've any complaints to make, except
that I was born a woman. That I went on to marry that pea-green
tailor yonder is my own fault, and we'll say no more about it."
By this time all the women on the tender were following Sal's example
and unshredding their back-hair. By this time, too, every man aboard
the frigate was gathered at the bulwarks, looking down in wonderment.
There beneath 'em stood a joke too terrible to be grasped in one
moment.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Rogers," says the Captain in a voice cold as
a knife, "but you appear to have made a mistake."
The little officer had turned white as a sheet: but he managed to get
in his say before the great laugh came. "I have, Sir, to my sorrow,"
says he, turning viciously on Hancock; "a mistake to be cast up
against me through my career. But I reckon," he adds, "I leave the
punishment for it in good hands." He glanced at Sally.
"You may lay to that, young man!" says she heartily. "You may lay to
that every night when you says your prayers."
FRENCHMAN'S CREEK.
A REPORTED TALE.
Frenchman's Creek runs up between overhanging woods from the
western shore of Helford River, which flows down through an earthly
paradise and meets the sea midway between Falmouth and the dreadful
Manacles--a river of gradual golden sunsets such as Wilson painted;
broad-bosomed, holding here and there a village as in an arm
maternally crook'd, but with a brooding face of solitude. Off the
main flood lie creeks where the oaks dip their branches in the high
tides, where the stars are glassed all night long without a ripple,
and where you may spend whole days with no company but herons and
sandpipers:
Helford River, Helford River,
Blessed may you be!
We sailed up Helford River
By Durgan from the sea. . . .
And about three-quarters of a mile above the ferry-crossing (where is
the best anchorage) you will find the entrance of the creek they call
Frenchman's, with a cob-built ruin beside it, and perhaps, if you
come upon it in the morning sunlight, ten or a dozen herons aligned
like statues on the dismantled walls.
Now, why they call it Frenchman's Creek no one is supposed to know,
but this story will explain. And the story I heard on the spot from
an old verderer, who had it from his grandfather, who bore no
unimportant part in it--as will be seen. Maybe you will find it out
of keeping with its scenery. In my own words you certainly would:
and so I propose to relate it just as the verderer told it to me.
I.
First of all you'll let me say that a bad temper is an affliction,
whoever owns it, and shortening to life. I don't know what your
opinion may be: but my grandfather was parish constable in these
parts for forty-seven years, and you'll find it on his headstone in
Manaccan churchyard that he never had a cross word for man, woman, or
child. He took no credit for it: it ran in the family, and to this
day we're all terribly mild to handle.
Well, if ever a man was born bad in his temper, 'twas Captain Bligh,
that came from St. Tudy parish, and got himself known to all the
world over that dismal business aboard the _Bounty_. Yes, Sir,
that's the man--"Breadfruit Bligh," as they called him. They made an
Admiral of him in the end, but they never cured his cussedness: and
my grandfather, that followed his history (and good reason for why)
from the day he first set foot in this parish, used to rub his hands
over every fresh item of news. "Darn it!" he'd say, "here's that old
Turk broke loose again. Lord, if he ain't a warrior!" Seemed as if
he took a delight in the man, and kept a sort of tenderness for him
till the day of his death.
Bless you, though folks have forgotten it, that little affair of the
_Bounty_ was only the beginning of Bligh. He was a left'nant when it
happened, and the King promoted him post-captain straight away.
Later on, no doubt because of his experiences in mutinies, he was
sent down to handle the big one at the Nore. "Now, then, you
dogs!"--that's how he began with the men's delegates--"His Majesty
will be graciously pleased to hear your grievances: and afterwards
I'll be graciously pleased to hang the lot of you and rope-end every
fifth man in the Fleet. That's plain sailing, I hope!" says he.
The delegates made a rush at him, triced him up hand and foot, and in
two two's would have heaved him to the fishes with an eighteen-pound
shot for ballast if his boat's crew hadn't swarmed on by the chains
and carried him off. After this he commanded a ship at Camperdown,
and another at Copenhagen, and being a good fighter as well as a man
of science, was chosen for Governor of New South Wales. He hadn't
been forty-eight hours in the colony, I'm told, before the music
began, and it ended with his being clapped into irons by the military
and stuck in prison for two years to cool his heels. At last they
took him out, put him on board a ship of war and played farewell to
him on a brass band: and, by George, Sir, if he didn't fight with the
captain of the ship all the way home, making claim that as senior in
the service he ought to command her! By this time, as you may guess,
there was nothing to be done with the fellow but make him an Admiral;
and so they did; and as Admiral of the Blue he died in the year
'seventeen, only a couple of weeks ahead of my poor grandfather, that
would have set it down to the finger of Providence if he'd only lived
to hear the news.
Well, now, the time that Bligh came down to Helford was a few months
before he sailed for Australia, and that will be a hundred years ago
next summer: and I guess the reason of his coming was that the folks
at the Admiralty couldn't stand him in London, the weather just then
being sultry. So they pulled out a map and said, "This Helford looks
a nice cool far-away place; let the man go down and take soundings
and chart the place"; for Bligh, you must know, had been a pupil of
Captain Cook's, and at work of this kind there was no man cleverer in
the Navy.
To do him justice, Bligh never complained of work. So off he packed
and started from London by coach in the early days of June; and with
him there travelled down a friend of his, a retired naval officer by
the name of Sharl, that was bound for Falmouth to take passage in the
Lisbon packet; but whether on business or a pleasure trip is more
than I can tell you.
So far as I know, nothing went wrong with them until they came to
Torpoint Ferry: and there, on the Cornish side of the water, stood
the Highflyer coach, the inside of it crammed full of parcels
belonging to our Vicar's wife, Mrs. Polwhele, that always visited
Plymouth once a year for a week's shopping. Having all these parcels
to bring home, Mrs. Polwhele had crossed over by a waterman's boat
two hours before, packed the coach as full as it would hold, and
stepped into the Ferry Inn for a dish of tea. "And glad I am to be
across the river in good time," she told the landlady; "for by the
look of the sky there's a thunderstorm coming."
Sure enough there was, and it broke over the Hamoaze with a bang
just as Captain Bligh and his friend put across in the ferry-boat.
The lightning whizzed, and the rain came down like the floods of
Deva, and in five minutes' time the streets and gutters of Torpoint
were pouring on to the Quay like so many shutes, and turning all the
inshore water to the colour of pea-soup. Another twenty minutes and
'twas over; blue sky above and the birds singing, and the roof and
trees all a-twinkle in the sun; and out steps Mrs. Polwhele very
gingerly in the landlady's pattens, to find the Highflyer ready to
start, the guard unlashing the tarpaulin that he'd drawn over the
outside luggage, the horses steaming and anxious to be off, and on
the box-seat a couple of gentlemen wet to the skin, and one of them
looking as ugly as a chained dog in a street fight. This was Bligh,
of course. His friend, Mr. Sharl, sat alongside, talking low and
trying to coax him back to a good temper: but Mrs. Polwhele missed
taking notice of this. She hadn't seen the gentlemen arrive, by
reason that, being timid of thunder, at the very first peal she'd run
upstair, and crawled under one of the bed-ties: and there she bided
until the chambermaid brought word that the sky was clear and the
coach waiting.
If ever you've had to do with timmersome folks I dare say you've
noted how talkative they get as soon as danger's over. Mrs. Polwhele
took a glance at the inside of the coach to make sure that her
belongings were safe, and then, turning to the ladder that the Boots
was holding for her to mount, up she trips to her outside place
behind the box-seat, all in a fluff and commotion, and chattering
so fast that the words hitched in each other like beer in a
narrow-necked bottle.
"Give you good morning, gentlemen!" said Mrs. Polwhele, "and I do
hope and trust I haven't kept you waiting; but thunder makes me
_that_ nervous! 'Twas always the same with me from a girl; and la!
what a storm while it lasted! I declare the first drops looked to me
a'most so big as crown-pieces. Most unfortunate it should come on
when you were crossing--most unfortunate, I vow! There's nothing so
unpleasant as sitting in damp clothes, especially if you're not
accustomed to it. My husband, now--if he puts on a shirt that hasn't
been double-aired I always know what's going to happen: it'll be
lumbago next day to a certainty. But maybe, as travellers, you're
not so susceptible. I find hotel-keepers so careless with their damp
sheets! May I ask, gentlemen, if you've come from far? You'll be
bound for Falmouth, as I guess: and so am I. You'll find much on the
way to admire. But perhaps this is not your first visit to
Cornwall?"
In this fashion she was rattling away, good soul--settling her wraps
about her and scarcely drawing breath--when Bligh slewed himself
around in his seat, and for answer treated her to a long stare.
Now, Bligh wasn't a beauty at the best of times, and he carried a
scar on his cheek that didn't improve matters by turning white when
his face was red, and red when his face was white. They say the King
stepped up to him at Court once and asked him how he came by it and
in what action. Bligh had to tell the truth--that he'd got it in the
orchard at home: he and his father were trying to catch a horse
there: the old man flung a hatchet to turn the horse and hit his boy
in the face, marking him for life. Hastiness, you see, in the
family.
Well, the sight of his face, glowering back on her over his shoulder,
was enough to dry up the speech in Mrs. Polwhele or any woman.
But Bligh, it seems, couldn't be content with this. After withering
the poor soul for ten seconds or so, he takes his eyes off her, turns
to his friend again in a lazy, insolent way, and begins to talk loud
to him in French.
'Twas a terrible unmannerly thing to do for a fellow supposed to be a
gentleman. I've naught to say against modern languages: but when I
see it on the newspaper nowadays that naval officers ought to give
what's called "increased attention" to French and German, I hope that
they'll use it bettern than Bligh, that's all! Why, Sir, my eldest
daughter threw up a situation as parlour-maid in London because her
master and mistress pitched to parleyvooing whenever they wanted to
talk secrets at table. "If you please, Ma'am," she told the lady,
"you're mistaking me for the governess and I never could abide
compliments." She gave a month's warning then and there, and I
commend the girl's spirit.
But the awkward thing for Bligh, as it turned out, was that Mrs.
Polwhele didn't understand his insolence. Being a woman that
wouldn't hurt a fly if she could help it, and coming from a parish
where every man, her husband included, took pleasure in treating her
respectfully, she never dreamed that an affront was meant. From the
moment she heard Bligh's lingo, she firmly believed that here were
two Frenchies on the coach; and first she went white to the lips and
shivered all over, and then she caught at the seat to steady herself,
and then she flung back a look at Jim the Guard, to make sure he had
his blunderbuss handy. She couldn't speak to Sammy Hosking, the
coachman, or touch him by the arm without reaching across Bligh: and
by this time the horses were at the top of the hill and settling into
a gallop. She thought of the many times she'd sat up in bed at home
in a fright that the Frenchmen had landed and were marching up to
burn Manaccan Vicarage: and how often she had warned her husband
against abusing Boney from the pulpit--'twas dangerous, she always
maintained, for a man living so nigh the seashore. The very shawl
beside her was scarlet, same as the women-folk wore about the fields
in those days in hopes that the invaders, if any came, would mistake
them for red-coats. And here she was, perched up behind two of her
country's enemies--one of them as ugly as Old Nick or Boney himself--
and bowling down towards her peaceful home at anything from sixteen
to eighteen miles an hour.
I dare say, too, the thunderstorm had given her nerves a shaking; at
any rate, Jim the Guard came crawling over the coach-roof after a
while, and, said he, "Why, Mrs. Polwhele, whatever is the matter?
I han't heard you speak six words since we started."
And with that, just as he settled himself down for a comfortable chat
with her, after his custom, the poor lady points to the two
strangers, flings up both hands, and tumbles upon him in a fit of
hysterics.
"Stop the hosses!" yells Jim; but already Sammy Hosking was pulling
up for dear life at the sound of her screams.
"What in thunder's wrong with the female?" asks Bligh.
"Female yourself!" answers up Sammy in a pretty passion. "Mrs.
Polwhele's a lady, and I reckon your cussed rudeness upset her.
I say nothing of your face, for that you can't help."
Bligh started up in a fury, but Mr. Sharl pulled him down on the
seat, and then Jim the Guard took a turn.
"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" for this, you must
know, was the reason of Bligh's sulkiness at starting. He had come
up soaking from Torpoint Ferry, walked straight to the coach, and
pulled the door open to jump inside, when down on his head came
rolling a couple of Dutch cheeses that Mrs. Polwhele had crammed on
the top of her belongings. This raised his temper, and he began to
drag parcel after parcel out and fling them in the mud, shouting that
no passenger had a right to fill up the inside of a coach in that
fashion. Thereupon Jim sent an ostler running to the landlady that
owned the Highflyer, and she told Bligh that he hadn't booked his
seat yet: that the inside was reserved for Mrs. Polwhele: and that he
could either take an outside place and behave himself, or be left
behind to learn manners. For a while he showed fight: but Mr. Sharl
managed to talk sense into him, and the parcels were stowed again and
the door shut but a minute before Mrs. Polwhele came downstairs and
took her seat as innocent as a lamb.
"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" struck in Jim the
Guard, making himself heard above the pillaloo. "Carry on as if the
coach belonged to ye, hey? Come down and take your coat off, like a
man, and don't sit there making fool faces at me!"
"My friend is not making faces," began Mr. Sharl, very gentle-like,
trying to keep the peace.
"Call yourself his friend!" Jim snapped him up. "Get off, the pair
of you. Friend indeed! Go and buy him a veil."
But 'twas easily seen that Mrs. Polwhele couldn't be carried farther.
So Sammy Hosking pulled up at a farmhouse a mile beyond St. Germans:
and there she was unloaded, with her traps, and put straight to bed:
and a farm-boy sent back to Torpoint to fetch a chaise for her as
soon as she recovered. And the Highflyer--that had been delayed
three-quarters of an hour--rattled off at a gallop, with all on board
in the worst of tempers.
When they reached Falmouth--which was not till after ten o'clock at
night--and drew up at the "Crown and Anchor," the first man to hail
them was old Parson Polwhele, standing there under the lamp in the
entry and taking snuff to keep himself awake.
"Well, my love," says he, stepping forward to help his wife down and
give her a kiss. "And how have you enjoyed the journey?"
But instead of his wife 'twas a bull-necked-looking man that swung
himself off the coach-roof, knocking the Parson aside, and bounced
into the inn without so much as a "beg your pardon."
Parson Polwhele was taken aback for the moment by reason that he'd
pretty nigh kissed the fellow by accident; and before he could
recover, Jim the Guard leans out over the darkness, and, says he,
speaking down: "Very sorry, Parson, but your missus wasn't taken very
well t'other side of St. Germans, and we've been forced to leave her
'pon the road."
Now, the Parson doted on his wife, as well he might. He was a very
learned man, you must know, and wrote a thundering great history of
Cornwall: but outside of book-learning his head rambled terribly, and
Mrs. Polwhele managed him in all the little business of life.
"'Tis like looking after a museum," she used to declare. "I don't
understand the contents, I'm thankful to say; but, please God, I can
keep 'em dusted." A better-suited couple you couldn't find, nor a
more affectionate; and whenever Mrs. Polwhele tripped it to Plymouth,
the Parson would be at Falmouth to welcome her back, and they'd sleep
the night at the "Crown and Anchor" and drive home to Manaccan next
morning.
"Not taken well?" cried the Parson. "Oh, my poor Mary--my poor, dear
Mary!"
"'Tisn' so bad as all that," says Jim, as soothing as he could; but
he thought it best to tell nothing about the rumpus.
"If 'tis on the wings of an eagle, I must fly to her!" cries the
Parson, and he hurried indoors and called out for a chaise and pair.
He had some trouble in persuading a post-boy to turn out at such an
hour, but before midnight the poor man was launched and rattling away
eastward, chafing at the hills and singing out that he'd pay for
speed, whatever it cost. And at Grampound in the grey of the morning
he almost ran slap into a chaise and pair proceeding westward, and
likewise as if its postilion wanted to break his neck.
Parson Polwhele stood up in his vehicle and looked out ahead.
The two chaises had narrowly missed doubling each other into a cocked
hat; in fact, the boys had pulled up within a dozen yards of smash,
and there stood the horses face to face and steaming.
"Why, 'tis my Mary!" cries the Parson, and takes a leap out of the
chaise.
"Oh, Richard! Richard!" sobs Mrs. Polwhele. "But you can't possibly
come in here, my love," she went on, drying her eyes.
"Why not, my angel?"
"Because of the parcels, dearest. And Heaven only knows what's
underneath me at this moment, but it feels like a flat-iron.
Besides," says she, like the prudent woman she was, "we've paid for
two chaises. But 'twas good of you to come in search of me, and I'll
say what I've said a thousand times, that I've the best husband in
the world."
The Parson grumbled a bit; but, indeed, the woman was piled about
with packages up to the neck. So, very sad-like, he went back to his
own chaise--that was now slewed about for Falmouth--and off the
procession started at an easy trot, the good man bouncing up in his
seat from time to time to blow back a kiss.
But after awhile he shouted to the post-boy to pull up again.
"What's the matter, love?" sings out Mrs. Polwhele, overtaking him
and coming to a stand likewise.
"Why, it occurs to me, my angel, that _you_ might get into _my_
chaise, if you're not too tightly wedged."
"There's no saying what will happen when I once begin to move," said
Mrs. Polwhele: "but I'll risk it. For I don't mind telling you that
one of my legs went to sleep somewhere near St. Austell, and 'tis
dreadfully uncomfortable."
So out she was fetched and climbed in beside her husband.
"But what was it that upset you?" he asked, as they started again.
Mrs. Polwhele laid her cheek to his shoulder and sobbed aloud; and so
by degrees let out her story.
"But, my love, the thing's impossible!" cried Parson Polwhele.
"There's no Frenchman in Cornwall at this moment, unless maybe 'tis
the Guernsey merchant or some poor wretch of a prisoner escaped from
the hulks in the Hamoaze."
"Then, that's what these men were, you may be sure," said Mrs.
Polwhele.
"Tut-tut-tut! You've just told me that they came across the ferry,
like any ordinary passengers."
"Did I? Then I told more than I know; for I never saw them cross."
"A couple of escaped prisoners wouldn't travel by coach in broad
daylight, and talk French in everyone's hearing."
"We live in the midst of mysteries," said Mrs. Polwhele. "There's my
parcels, now--I packed 'em in the Highflyer most careful, and I'm
sure Jim the Guard would be equally careful in handing them out--you
know the sort of man he is: and yet I find a good dozen of them
plastered in mud, and my new Moldavia cap, that I gave twenty-three
shillings for only last Tuesday, pounded to a jelly, quite as if
someone had flung it on the road and danced on it!"
The poor soul burst out into fresh tears, and there against her
husband's shoulder cried herself fairly asleep, being tired out with
travelling all night. By and by the Parson, that wanted a nap just
as badly, dozed off beside her: and in this fashion they were brought
back through Falmouth streets and into the yard of the "Crown and
Anchor," where Mrs. Polwhele woke up with a scream, crying out:
"Prisoners or no prisoners, those men were up to no good: and I'll
say it if I live to be a hundred!"
That same afternoon they transhipped the parcels into a cart, and
drove ahead themselves in a light gig, and so came down, a little
before sunset, to the "Passage Inn" yonder. There, of course, they
had to unload again and wait for the ferry to bring them across to
their own parish. It surprised the Parson a bit to find the
ferry-boat lying ready by the shore and my grandfather standing there
head to head with old Arch'laus Spry, that was constable of Mawnan
parish.
"Hallo, Calvin!" the Parson sings out. "This looks bad--Mawnan and
Manaccan putting their heads together. I hope there's nothing gone
wrong since I've been away?"
"Aw, Parson dear," says my grandfather, "I'm glad you've come--yea,
glad sure 'nuff. We've a-been enjoying a terrible time!"
"Then something _has_ gone wrong?" says the Parson.
"As for that," my grandfather answers, "I only wish I could say yes
or no: for 'twould be a relief even to know the worst." He beckoned
very mysterious-like and led the Parson a couple of hundred yards up
the foreshore, with Arch'laus Spry following. And there they came to
a halt, all three, before a rock that someone had been daubing with
whitewash. On the top of the cliff, right above, was planted a stick
with a little white flag.
"Now, Sir, as a Justice of the Peace, what d'ee think of it?"
Parson Polwhele stared from the rock to the stick and couldn't say.
So he turns to Arch'laus Spry and asks: "Any person taken ill in your
parish?"
"No, Sir."
"You're sure Billy Johns hasn't been drinking again?" Billy Johns
was the landlord of the "Passage Inn," a very ordinary man by rule,
but given to breaking loose among his own liquors. "He seemed all
right yesterday when I hired the trap off him; but he does the most
unaccountable things when he's taken bad."
"He never did anything so far out of nature as this here; and I can
mind him in six outbreaks," answered my grandfather. "Besides, 'tis
not Billy Johns nor anyone like him."
"Then you know who did it?"
"I do and I don't, Sir. But take a look round, if you please."
The Parson looked up and down and across the river; and, sure,
enough, whichever way he turned, his eyes fell on splashes of
whitewash and little flags fluttering. They seemed to stretch right
away from Porthnavas down to the river's mouth; and though he
couldn't see it from where he stood, even Mawnan church-tower had
been given a lick of the brush.
"But," said the Parson, fairly puzzled, "all this can only have
happened in broad daylight, and you must have caught the fellow at
it, whoever he is."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I caught him," answered my
grandfather, modest-like; "but I came upon him a little above Bosahan
in the act of setting up one of his flags, and I asked him, in the
King's name, what he meant by it."
"And what did he answer?"
My grandfather looked over his shoulder. "I couldn't, Sir, not for a
pocketful of crowns, and your good lady, so to speak, within
hearing."
"Nonsense, man! She's not within a hundred yards."
"Well, then, Sir, he up and hoped the devil would fly away with me,
and from that he went on to say--" But here my grandfather came to a
dead halt. "No, Sir, I can't; and as a Minister of the Gospel,
you'll never insist on it. He made such horrible statements that I
had to go straight home and read over my old mother's marriage lines.
It fairly dazed me to hear him talk so confident, and she in her
grave, poor soul!"
"You ought to have demanded his name."
"I did, Sir; naturally I did. And he told me to go to the naughty
place for it."
"Well, but what like is he?"
"Oh, as to that, Sir, a man of ordinary shape, like yourself, in a
plain blue coat and a wig shorter than ordinary; nothing about him to
prepare you for the language he lets fly."
"And," put in Arch'laus Spry, "he's taken lodgings down to Durgan
with the Widow Polkinghorne, and eaten his dinner--a fowl and a jug
of cider with it. After dinner he hired Robin's boat and went for a
row. I thought it my duty, as he was pushing off, to sidle up in a
friendly way. I said to him, 'The weather, Sir, looks nice and
settled': that is what I said, neither more nor less, but using those
very words. What d'ee think he answered? He said, 'That's capital,
my man: now go along and annoy somebody else.' Wasn't that a
disconnected way of talking? If you ask my opinion, putting two and
two together, I say he's most likely some poor wandering loonatic."
The evening was dusking down by this time, and Parson Polwhele,
though a good bit puzzled, called to mind that his wife would be
getting anxious to cross the ferry and reach home before dark: so he
determined that nothing could be done before morning, when he
promised Arch'laus Spry to look into the matter. My grandfather he
took across in the boat with him, to look after the parcels and help
them up to the Vicarage: and on the way they talked about a grave
that my grandfather had been digging--he being sexton and parish
clerk, as well as constable and the Parson's right-hand man, as you
might call it, in all public matters.
While they discoursed, Mrs. Polwhele was taking a look about her to
make sure the country hadn't altered while she was away at Plymouth.
And by and by she cries out:
"Why, my love, whatever are these dabs o' white stuck up and down the
foreshore?"
The Parson takes a look at my grandfather before answering:
"My angel, to tell you the truth, that's more than we know."
"Richard, you're concealing something from me," said Mrs. Polwhele.
"If the French have landed and I'm going home to be burnt in my bed,
it shall be with my eyes open."
"My dear Mary," the Parson argued, "you've a-got the French on your
brain. If the French landed they wouldn't begin by sticking dabs of
whitewash all over the parish; now, would they?"
"How in the world should I know what a lot of Papists would do or not
do?" she answered. "'Tis no more foolish to my mind than eating
frogs or kissing a man's toe."
Well, say what the Parson would, the notion had fixed itself in the
poor lady's head. Three times that night she woke in the bed with
her curl-papers crackling for very fright; and the fourth time 'twas
at the sound of a real dido below stairs. Some person was down by
the back door knocking and rattling upon it with all his might.
The sun had been up for maybe an hour--the time of year, as I told
you, being near about mid-summer--and the Parson, that never wanted
for pluck, jumped out and into his breeches in a twinkling, while his
wife pulled the counterpane over her head. Down along the passage he
skipped to a little window opening over the back porch.
"Who's there!" he called, and out from the porch stepped my
grandfather, that had risen early and gone to the churchyard to
finish digging the grave before breakfast. "Why, what on the earth
is wrong with ye? I made sure the French had landed, at the least."
"Couldn't be much worse if they had," said my grandfather.
"Some person 've a-stole my shovel, pick, and biddicks."
"Nonsense!" said the Parson.
"The corpse won't find it nonsense, Sir, if I don't get 'em back in
time. I left 'em lying, all three, at the bottom of the grave
overnight."
"And now they're missing?"
"Not a trace of 'em to be seen."
"Someone has been playing you a practical joke, Calvin. Here, stop a
moment--" The Parson ran back to his room, fetched a key, and flung
it out into the yard. "That'll unlock the tool-shed in the garden.
Get what you want, and we'll talk about the theft after breakfast.
How soon will the grave be ready?"
"I can't say sooner than ten o'clock after what has happened."
"Say ten o'clock, then. This is Saturday, and I've my sermon to
prepare after breakfast. At ten o'clock I'll join you in the
churchyard."
II.
My grandfather went off to unlock the tool-shed, and the Parson back
to comfort Mrs. Polwhele--which was no easy matter. "There's
something wrong with the parish since I've been away, and that you
can't deny," she declared. "It don't feel like home any longer, and
my poor flesh is shivering like a jelly, and my hand almost too hot
to make the butter." She kept up this lidden all through breakfast,
and the meal was no sooner cleared away than she slipped on a shawl
and stepped across to the churchyard to discuss the robbery.
The Parson drew a chair to the window, lit his pipe, and pulled out
his pocket-Bible to choose a text for his next day's sermon. But he
couldn't fix his thoughts. Try how he would, they kept harking back
to his travels in the post-chaise, and his wife's story, and those
unaccountable flags and splashes of whitewash. His pipe went out,
and he was getting up to find a light for it, when just at that
moment the garden gate rattled, and, looking down the path towards
the sound, his eyes fell on a square-cut, fierce-looking man in blue,
standing there with a dirty bag in one hand and a sheaf of tools over
his right shoulder.
The man caught sight of the Parson at the window, and set down his
tools inside the gate--shovel and pick and biddicks.
"Good-mornin'! I may come inside, I suppose?" says he, in a gruff
tone of voice. He came up the path and the Parson unlatched the
window, which was one of the long sort reaching down to the ground.
"My name's Bligh," said the visitor, gruff as before. "You're the
Parson, eh? Bit of an antiquarian, I'm given to understand?
These things ought to be in your line, then, and I hope they are not
broken: I carried them as careful as I could." He opened the bag and
emptied it out upon the table--an old earthenware pot, a rusted iron
ring, four or five burnt bones, and a handful or so of ashes.
"Human, you see," said he, picking up one of the bones and holding it
under the Parson's nose. "One of your ancient Romans, no doubt."
"Ancient Romans? Ancient Romans?" stammered Parson Polwhele.
"Pray, Sir, where did you get these--these articles?"
"By digging for them, Sir; in a mound just outside that old Roman
camp of yours."
"Roman camp? There's no Roman camp within thirty miles of us as the
crow flies: and I doubt if there's one within fifty!"
"Shows how much you know about it. That's what I complain about in
you parsons: never glimpse a thing that's under your noses. Now, I
come along, making no pretence to be an antiquarian, and the first
thing I see out on your headland yonder, is a Roman camp, with a
great mound beside it--"
"No such thing, Sir!" the Parson couldn't help interrupting.
Bligh stared at him for a moment, like a man hurt in his feelings but
keeping hold on his Christian compassion. "Look here," he said; "you
mayn't know it, but I'm a bad man to contradict. This here Roman
camp, as I was sayin'--"
"If you mean Little Dinnis Camp, Sir, 'tis as round as my hat."
"Damme, if you interrupt again--"
"But I will. Here, in my own parlour, I tell you that Little Dinnis
is as round as my hat!"
"All right; don't lose your temper, shouting out what I never denied.
Round or square, it don't matter a ha'porth to me. This here round
Roman camp--"
"But I tell you, once more, there's no such thing!" cried the Parson,
stamping his foot. "The Romans never made a round camp in their
lives. Little Dinnis is British; the encampment's British; the
mound, as you call it, is a British barrow; and as for you--"
"As for me," thunders Bligh, "I'm British too, and don't you forget
it. Confound you, Sir! What the devil do I care for your
pettifogging bones? I'm a British sailor, Sir; I come to your
God-forsaken parish on a Government job, and I happen on a whole
shopful of ancient remains. In pure kindness--pure kindness, mark
you--I interrupt my work to dig 'em up; and this is all the thanks I
get!"
"Thanks!" fairly yelled the Parson. "You ought to be horsewhipped,
rather, for disturbing an ancient tomb that's been the apple of my
eye ever since I was inducted to this parish!" Then, as Bligh drew
back, staring: "My poor barrow!" he went on; "my poor, ransacked
barrow! But there may be something to save yet--" and he fairly ran
for the door, leaving Bligh at a standstill.
For awhile the man stood there like a fellow in a trance, opening and
shutting his mouth, with his eyes set on the doorway where the Parson
had disappeared. Then, his temper overmastering him, with a sweep of
his arm he sent the whole bag of tricks flying on to the floor,
kicked them to right and left through the garden, slammed the gate,
pitched across the road, and flung through the churchyard towards the
river like a whirlwind.
Now, while this was happening, Mrs. Polwhele had picked her way
across the churchyard, and after chatting a bit with my grandfather
over the theft of his tools, had stepped into the church to see that
the place, and especially the table and communion-rails and the
parsonage pew, was neat and dusted, this being her regular custom
after a trip to Plymouth. And no sooner was she within the porch
than who should come dandering along the road but Arch'laus Spry.
The road, as you know, goes downhill after passing the parsonage
gate, and holds on round the churchyard wall like a sunk way, the
soil inside being piled up to the wall's coping. But, my grandfather
being still behindhand with his job, his head and shoulders showed
over the grave's edge. So Arch'laus Spry caught sight of him.
"Why, you're the very man I was looking for," says Arch'laus,
stopping.
"Death halts for no man," answers my grandfather, shovelling away.
"That furrin' fellow is somewhere in this neighbourhood at this very
moment," says Arch'laus, wagging his head. "I saw his boat moored
down by the Passage as I landed. And I've a-got something to report.
He was up and off by three o'clock this morning, and knocked up the
Widow Polkinghorne, trying to borrow a pick and shovel."
"Pick and shovel!" My grandfather stopped working and slapped his
thigh. "Then he's the man that 've walked off with mine: and a
biddicks too."
"He said nothing of a biddicks, but he's quite capable of it."
"Surely in the midst of life we are in death," said my grandfather.
"I was al'ays inclined to believe that text, and now I'm sure of it.
Let's go and see the Parson."
He tossed his shovel on to the loose earth above the grave and was
just about to scramble out after it when the churchyard gate shook on
its hinges and across the path and by the church porch went Bligh, as
I've said, like a whirlwind. Arch'laus Spry, that had pulled his
chin up level with the coping, ducked at the sight of him, and even
my grandfather clucked down a little in the grave as he passed.
"The very man!" said Spry, under his breath.
"The wicked flee, whom no man pursueth," said my grandfather, looking
after the man; but Bligh turned his head neither to the right hand
nor to the left.
"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed a voice inside the church.
"Whatever was _that_," cries Arch'laus Spry, giving a jump. They
both stared at the porch.
"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed the voice again.
"It certainly comes from inside," said Arch'laus Spry.
"It's Mrs. Polwhele!" said my grandfather; "and by the noise of it
she's having hysterics."
And with that he scrambled up and ran; and Spry heaved himself over
the wall and followed. And there, in the south aisle, they found
Mrs. Polwhele lying back in a pew and kicking like a stallion in a
loose-box.
My grandfather took her by the shoulders, while Spry ran for the jug
of holy water that stood by the font. As it happened, 'twas empty:
but the sight of it fetched her to, and she raised herself up with a
shiver.
"The Frenchman!" she cries out, pointing. "The Frenchman--on the
coach! O Lord, deliver us!"
For a moment, as you'll guess, my grandfather was puzzled: but he
stared where the poor lady pointed, and after a bit he began to
understand. I dare say you've seen our church, Sir, and if so, you
must have taken note of a monstrous fine fig-tree growing out of the
south wall--"the marvel of Manaccan," we used to call it. When they
restored the church the other day nobody had the heart to destroy the
tree, for all the damage it did to the building--having come there
the Lord knows how, and grown there since the Lord knows when.
So they took and patched up the wall around it, and there it thrives.
But in the times I'm telling of, it had split the wall so that from
inside you could look straight through the crack into the churchyard;
and 'twas to this crack that Mrs. Polwhele's finger pointed.
"Eh?" said my grandfather. "The furriner that went by just now, was
it he that frightened ye, Ma'am?"
Mrs. Polwhele nodded.
"But what put it into your head that he's a Frenchman?"
"Because French is his language. With these very ears I heard him
talk it! He joined the coach at Torpoint, and when I spoke him fair
in honest English not a word could he answer me. Oh, Calvin, Calvin!
what have I done--a poor weak woman--to be mixed up in these plots
and invasions?"
But my grandfather couldn't stop to answer that question, for a
terrible light was breaking in upon him. "A Frenchman?" he called
out. "And for these twenty-four hours he's been marking out the
river and taking soundings!" He glared at Arch'laus Spry, and
Arch'laus dropped the brazen ewer upon the pavement and smote his
forehead. "The Devil," says he, "is among us, having great wrath!"
"And for aught we know," says my grandfather, speaking in a slow and
fearsome whisper, "the French ships may be hanging off the coast
while we'm talking here!"
"You don't mean to tell us," cried Mrs. Polwhele, sitting up stiff in
the pew, "that this man has been mapping out the river under your
very noses!"
"He has, Ma'am. Oh, I see it all! What likelier place could they
choose on the whole coast? And from here to Falmouth what is it but
a step?"
"Let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains," said Arch'laus
Spry solemn-like.
"And me just home from Plymouth with a fine new roasting-jack!"
chimed in Mrs. Polwhele. "As though the day of wrath weren't bad
enough without that waste o' money! Run, Calvin--run and tell the
Vicar this instant--no, no, don't leave me behind! Take me home,
that's a good man: else I shall faint at my own shadow!"
Well, they hurried off to the Vicarage: but, of course, there was no
Parson to be found, for by this time he was half-way towards Little
Dinnis, and running like a madman under the hot sun to see what
damage had befallen his dearly-loved camp. The servants hadn't seen
him leave the house; ne'er a word could they tell of him except that
Martha, the cook, when she cleared away the breakfast things, had
left him seated in his chair and smoking.
"But what's the meaning of this?" cried out Mrs. Polwhele, pointing
to the tablecloth that Bligh had pulled all awry in his temper.
"And the window open too!"
"And--hallo!" says my grandfather, staring across the patch of turf
outside. "Surely here's signs of a violent struggle. Human, by the
look of it," says he, picking up a thigh-bone and holding it out
towards Mrs. Polwhele.
She began to shake like a leaf. "Oh, Calvin!" she gasps out.
"Oh, Calvin, not in this short time--it couldn't be!"
"Charred, too," says my grandfather, inspecting it: and with that
they turned at a cry from Martha the cook, that was down on hands and
knees upon the carpet.
"Ashes! See here, mistress--ashes all over your best carpet!"
The two women stared at the fireplace: but, of course, that told them
nothing, being empty, as usual at the time of year, with only a few
shavings stuck about it by way of ornament. Martha, the first to
pick up her wits, dashed out into the front hall.
"Gone without his hat, too!" she fairly screamed, running her eye
along the row of pegs.
Mrs. Polwhele clasped her hands. "In the midst of life we are in
death," said Arch'laus Spry: "that's my opinion if you ask it."
"Gone! Gone without his hat, like the snuff of a candle!" Mrs.
Polwhele dropped into a chair and rocked herself and moaned.
My grandfather banged his fist on the table. He never could abide
the sight of a woman in trouble.
"Missus," says he, "if the Parson's anywhere alive, we'll find 'en:
and if that Frenchman be Old Nick himself, he shall rue the day he
ever set foot in Manaccan parish! Come'st along, Arch'laus--"
He took Spry by the arm and marched him out and down the garden path.
There, by the gate, what should his eyes light upon but his own
stolen tools! But by this time all power of astonishment was dried
up within him. He just raised his eyes aloft, as much as to say,
"Let the sky open and rain miracles!" and then and there he saw,
coming down the road, the funeral that both he and the Parson had
clean forgotten.
The corpse was an old man called 'Pollas Hockaday; and Sam Trewhella,
a fish-curer that had married Hockaday's eldest daughter, walked next
behind the coffin as chief mourner. My grandfather waited by the
gate for the procession to come by, and with that Trewhella caught
sight of him, and, says he, taking down the handkerchief from his
nose:
"Well, you're a pretty fellow, I must say! What in thunder d'ee mean
by not tolling the minute-bell?"
"Tak 'en back," answers my grandfather, pointing to the coffin.
"Take 'en back, 'co!"
"Eh?" says Trewhella. "Answer my question, I tell 'ee. You've hurt
my feelings and the feelings of everyone connected with the deceased:
and if this weren't not-azackly the place for it, I'd up and give you
a dashed good hiding," says he.
"Aw, take 'en back," my grandfather goes on. "Take 'en back, my
dears, and put 'en somewhere, cool and temporary! The grave's not
digged, and the Parson's kidnapped, and the French be upon us, and
down by the river ther's a furrin spy taking soundings at this
moment! In the name of King George," said he, remembering that he
was constable, "I command you all except the females to come along
and collar 'en!"
While this was going on, Sir, Bligh had found his boat--which he'd
left by the shore--and was pulling up the river to work off his rage.
Ne'er a thought had he, as he flounced through the churchyard, of the
train of powder he dribbled behind him: but all the way he blew off
steam, cursing Parson Polwhele and the whole cloth from Land's End to
Johnny Groats, and glowering at the very gates by the road as though
he wanted to kick 'em to relieve his feelings. But when he reached
his boat and began rowing, by little and little the exercise tamed
him. With his flags and whitewash he'd marked out most of the lines
he wanted for soundings: but there were two creeks he hadn't yet
found time to explore--Porthnavas, on the opposite side, and the very
creek by which we're sitting. So, as he came abreast of this one, he
determined to have a look at it; and after rowing a hundred yards or
so, lay on his oars, lit his pipe, and let his boat drift up with the
tide.
The creek was just the same lonesome place that it is to-day, the
only difference being that the pallace at the entrance had a roof on
it then, and was rented by Sam Trewhella--the same that followed old
Hockaday's coffin, as I've told you. But above the pallace the woods
grew close to the water's edge, and lined both shores with never a
clearing till you reached the end, where the cottage stands now and
the stream comes down beside it: in those days there wasn't any
cottage, only a piece of swampy ground. I don't know that Bligh saw
much in the scenery, but it may have helped to soothe his mind: for
by and by he settled himself on the bottom-boards, lit another pipe,
pulled his hat over his nose, and lay there blinking at the sky,
while the boat drifted up, hitching sometimes in a bough and
sometimes floating broadside-on to the current, until she reached
this bit of marsh and took the mud very gently.
After a while, finding she didn't move, Bligh lifted his head for a
look about him and found that he'd come to the end of the creek.
He put out a hand and felt the water, that was almost luke-warm with
running over the mud. The trees shut him in; not a living soul was
in sight; and by the quietness he might have been a hundred miles
from anywhere. So what does my gentleman do but strip himself for a
comfortable bathe.
He folded his clothes very neatly in the stern-sheets, waded out
across the shallows as naked as a babe, and took to the water with so
much delight that after a minute or so he must needs lie on his back
and kick. He splashed away, one leg after the other, with his face
turned towards the shore, and was just on the point of rolling over
for another swim, when, as he lifted a leg for one last kick, his
eyes fell on the boat. And there on the top of his clothes, in the
stern of her, sat my grandfather sucking a pipe.
Bligh let down his legs and stood up, touching bottom, but neck-deep
in water.
"Hi, you there!" he sings out.
"Wee, wee, parleyvou!" my grandfather answers, making use of pretty
well all the French he knew.
"Confound you, Sir, for an impident dirty dog! What in the name of
jiminy"--I can't give you, Sir, the exact words, for my grandfather
could never be got to repeat 'em--"What in the name of jiminy d'ee
mean by sitting on my clothes!"
"Wee, wee," my grandfather took him up, calm as you please.
"You shocked me dreadful yesterday with your blasphemious talk: but
now, seeing 'tis French, I don't mind so much. Take your time: but
when you come out you go to prison. Wee, wee--preeson," says my
grandfather.
"Are you drunk?" yells Bligh. "Get off my clothes this instant, you
hobnailed son of a something-or-other!" And he began striding for
shore.
"In the name of His Majesty King George the Third I charge you to
come along quiet," says my grandfather, picking up a stretcher.
Bligh, being naked and unarmed, casts a look round for some way to
help himself. He was a plucky fellow enough in a fight, as I've
said: but I leave you to guess what he felt like when to right and
left of him the bushes parted, and forth stepped half a dozen men in
black suits with black silk weepers a foot and a half wide tied in
great bunches round their hats. These were Sam Trewhella, of course,
and the rest of the funeral-party, that had left the coffin in a nice
shady spot inside the Vicarage garden gate, and come along to assist
the law. They had brought along pretty nearly all the menkind of the
parish beside: but these, being in their work-a-day clothes, didn't
appear, and for a reason you'll learn by and by. All that Bligh saw
was this dismal company of mourners backed by a rabble of
school-children, the little ones lining the shore and staring at him
fearsomely with their fingers in their mouths.
For the moment Bligh must have thought himself dreaming. But there
they stood, the men in black and the crowd of children, and my
grandfather with the stretcher ready, and the green woods so quiet
all round. And there he stood up to the ribs in water, and the tide
and his temper rising.
"Look here, you something-or-other yokels," he called out, "if this
is one of your village jokes, I promise you shall smart for it.
Leave the spot this moment, fetch that idiot out of the boat, and
take away the children. I want to dress, and it isn't decent!"
"Mounseer," answers my grandfather, "I dare say you've a-done it for
your country; but we've a-caught you, and now you must go to prison--
wee, wee, to preeson," he says, lisping it in a Frenchified way so as
to make himself understood.
Bligh began to foam. "The longer you keep up this farce, my fine
fellows, the worse you'll smart for it! There's a Magistrate in this
parish, as I happen to know."
"There _was_," said my grandfather; "but we've strong reasons to
believe he's been made away with."
"The only thing we could find of 'en," put in Arch'laus Spry, "was a
shin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticed
it, but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about the
premises; and I've always been remarkable for my sense of smell."
"You won't deny," my grandfather went on, "that you've been making a
map of this here river; for here it is in your tail-coat pocket."
"You insolent ruffian, put that down at once! I tell you that I'm a
British officer and a gentleman!"
"_And_ a Papist," went on my grandfather, holding up a ribbon with a
bullet threaded to it. ('Twas the bullet Bligh used to weigh out
allowances with on his voyage in the open boat after the mutineers
had turned him adrift from the _Bounty_, and he wore it ever after.)
"See here, friends: did you ever know an honest Protestant to wear
such a thing about him inside his clothes?"
"Whether you're a joker or a numskull is more than I can fathom,"
says Bligh; "but for the last time I warn you I'm a British officer,
and you'll go to jail for this as sure as eggs."
"The question is, Will you surrender and come along quiet?"
"No, I won't," says Bligh, sulky as a bear; "not if I stay here all
night!"
With that my grandfather gave a wink to Sam Trewhella, and Sam
Trewhella gave a whistle, and round the point came Trewhella's
sean-boat that the village lads had fetched out and launched from his
store at the mouth of the creek. Four men pulled her with all their
might; in the stern stood Trewhella's foreman, Jim Bunt, with his
two-hundred-fathom net: and along the shore came running the rest of
the lads to see the fun.
"Heva, heva!" yelled Sam Trewhella, waving his hat with the black
streamers.
The sean-boat swooped up to Bligh with a rush, and then, just as he
faced upon it with his fists up, to die fighting, it swerved off on a
curve round him, and Jim Bunt began shooting the sean hand over hand
like lightning. Then the poor man understood, and having no mind to
be rolled up and afterwards tucked in a sean-net, he let out an oath,
ducked his head, and broke for the shore like a bull. But 'twas no
manner of use. As soon as he touched land a dozen jumped for him and
pulled him down. They handled him as gentle as they could, for he
fought with fists, legs, and teeth, and his language was awful: but
my grandfather in his foresight had brought along a couple of
wainropes, and within ten minutes they had my gentleman trussed,
heaved him into the boat, covered him over, and were rowing him off
and down the creek to land him at Helford Quay.
By this 'twas past noon; and at one o'clock, or a little before,
Parson Polwhele come striding along home from Little Dinnis. He had
tied a handkerchief about his head to keep off the sun; his hands and
knees were coated with earth; and he sweated like a furze-bush in a
mist, for the footpath led through cornfields and the heat was
something terrible. Moreover, he had just called the funeral to
mind; and this and the damage he'd left at Little Dinnis fairly
hurried him into a fever.
But worse was in store. As he drew near the Parsonage, he spied a
man running towards him: and behind the man the most dreadful noises
were sounding from the house. The Parson came to a halt and swayed
where he stood.
"Oh, Calvin! Calvin!" he cried--for the man running was my
grandfather--"don't try to break it gently, but let me know the
worst!"
"Oh, blessed day! Oh, fearful and yet blessed day!" cries my
grandfather, almost catching him in both arms. "So you're not dead!
So you're not dead, the Lord be praised, but only hurt!"
"Hurt?" says the Parson. "Not a bit of it--or only in my feelings.
Oh, 'tis the handkerchief you're looking at? I put that up against
sunstroke. But whatever do these dreadful sounds mean? Tell me the
worst, Calvin, I implore you!"
"Oh, as for that," says my grandfather cheerfully, "the Frenchman's
the worst by a long way--not but what your good lady made noise
enough when she thought you'd been made away with: and afterwards,
when she went upstairs and, taking a glance out of window, spied a
long black coffin laid out under the lilac bushes, I'm told you could
hear her a mile away. But she've been weakening this half-hour: her
nature couldn't keep it up: whereas the longer we keep that
Frenchman, the louder he seems to bellow."
"Heaven defend us, Calvin!"--the Parson's eyes fairly rolled in his
head--"are you gone clean crazed? Frenchman! What Frenchman?"
"The same that frightened Mrs. Polwhele, Sir, upon the coach.
We caught him drawing maps of the river, and very nigh tucked him in
Sam Trewhella's sean: and now he's in your tool-shed right and tight,
and here's the key, Sir, making so bold, that you gave me this
morning. But I didn't like to take him into the house, with your
good lady tumbling out of one fit into another. Hark to 'en, now!
Would you ever believe one man could make such a noise?"
"Fits! My poor, dear, tender Mary having fits!" The Parson broke
away for the house and dashed upstairs three steps at a time: and
when she caught sight of him, Mrs. Polwhele let out a louder squeal
than ever. But the next moment she was hanging round his neck, and
laughing and sobbing by turns. And how long they'd have clung to one
another there's no knowing, if it hadn't been for the language
pouring from the tool-shed.
"My dear," said the Parson, holding himself up and listening.
"I don't think that can possibly be a Frenchman. He's too fluent."
Mrs. Polwhele listened too, but after a while she was forced to cover
her face with both hands. "Oh, Richard, I've often heard 'en
described as gay, but--but they can't surely be so gay as all that!"
The Parson eased her into an armchair and went downstairs to the
courtyard, and there, as you may suppose, he found the parish
gathered.
"Stand back all of you," he ordered. "I've a notion that some
mistake has been committed: but you had best hold yourselves ready in
case the prisoner tries to escape."
"But Parson dear, you're never going to unlock that door!" cried my
grandfather.
"If you'll stand by me, Calvin," says the Parson, plucky as ginger,
and up he steps to the very door, all the parish holding its breath.
He tapped once--no answer: twice--and no more answer than before.
There was a small trap open in the roof and through this the language
kept pouring with never a stop, only now and then a roar like a
bull's. But at the third knock it died down to a sort of rumbling,
and presently came a shout, "Who's there?"
"A clergyman and justice of the peace," answers the Parson.
"I'll have your skin for this!"
"But you'll excuse me--"
"I'll have your skin for this, and your blood in a bottle! I'm a
British officer and a gentleman, and I'll have you stuffed and put in
a glass case, as sure as my name's Bligh!"
"Bligh?" says the Parson, opening the door. "Any relation to the
Blighs of St. Tudy? Oh, no it can't be!" he stammered, taken all
aback to see the man stark naked on the threshold. "Why--why, you're
the gentleman that called this morning!" he went on, the light
breaking in upon him: "excuse me, I recognise you by--by the slight
scar on your face."
Well, Sir, there was nothing for Bligh to do--the whole parish
staring at him--but to slip back into the shed and put on the clothes
my grandfather handed in at the door: and while he was dressing the
whole truth came out. I won't say that he took the Parson's
explanations in a nice spirit: for he vowed to have the law on
everyone concerned. But that night he walked back to Falmouth and
took the London coach. As for Helford River, 'twasn't charted that
year nor for a score of years after. And now you know how this creek
came by its name; and I'll say again, as I began, that a bad temper
is an affliction, whoever owns it.