"THE SKEGS."
"Father, I'm going down to Minchkil Bay to look up some of your ancient
mariners."
"Are you, dear?" said the rector, glancing up with a pleased smile at
Olive, as she stood in his study door attired for walking, and making
the sweetest possible picture in contrast to the somewhat solemn and
ecclesiastical fittings of the old room. "And are you going alone?"
"Yes, I am. Margaret says she has more than she can do this afternoon,
and, besides, those dear old fishermen are my speciality, so I intend to
get the credit of keeping them in the way wherein they should go."
"Ha-ha! The English of which is, that that basket which I see is going
down there full of tobacco and snuff and tea, and coming back empty.
You know the way to their hearts, you little witch," laughed the rector,
in reality pleased that this volatile favourite child of his should of
her own accord undertake a work of benevolence--for anything in the
shape of visiting was not her forte. "But I predict that you'll get a
soaking before you're home again."
"Now be quiet, you dear old `croaker.' I shall get nothing of the kind,
for the afternoon is turning out quite fine," she answered, leaning over
him with her arm on his shoulder and looking down on his desk. "And now
I'll leave you to your sermon-brewing--but oh!--this'll never do. You
really mustn't write so badly, dad dear, or you'll stick hopelessly, as
you did last Advent--and everyone was making merry over the notion of
the preacher not being able to read his own notes."
"Out upon you for a profane person who dare to invade my _sanctum
sanctorum_," cried her father gleefully, as leaving a shower of kisses
upon his forehead the girl sped from the room.
Left to himself the rector unconsciously let fall his pen.
"God keep my darling--and grant her a happy future," were the words his
thoughts would have taken. But with him we have no concern at present,
so shall leave him to his meditations.
The little fishing colony in Minchkil Bay lay distant a mile and a half
from Wandsborough. Its main features were roughly built cottages,
sorrily kept potato plots, pigsties, and smells. The place seemed to
have been dropped in a little hollow at the mouth of an attempt at a
river, whose chronic state of "draininess," combined with a whiff of
fish in every stage of staleness, not to say putrefaction, engendered
the savoury atmosphere aforesaid. There was a good beach, of course,
with the regulation complement of weatherbeaten craft, when the latter
were not at sea, that is--eke the regulation nets, corks and other
fishing gear hanging about on poles. On one side, the high ground
beyond which lay the town of Wandsborough; on the other a bare, turfy
slope rose abruptly to the summit of Minchkil Beacon, nearly four
hundred feet in the air, and whose rugged face to seaward consisted of a
succession of almost perpendicular cliffs, broken by many a ledge, where
the gulls had everything their own way.
The task which Olive had set herself was anything but congenial.
However, she went through with it bravely, and for upwards of an hour
she steeled herself to endure the smokiness of the cabins and the
ancient and fish-like smells, the maunderings of the old crones and the
distracting yells of the babies, without flinching. She had a bright
smile and a cheerful word for all as they grumbled or whined--according
to temperament--that it was "mortal long since she'd bin near them," and
pretended to think it was not one word for herself and six for the
basket she carried, but the other way about. She endured all this right
manfully, and when it came to an end, with a sigh of relief, she tripped
lightly down the beach to revel in the fresh sea air and a sense of duty
done.
"Well met!"
She started at the voice--a genuine start. Truth to tell she coloured.
"This is a piece of luck," went on the speaker. He had been talking
with one of the men, and both being behind a large fishing boat, Olive
had not noticed them. "I had no idea any of your flock pastured here."
"Yes, they do. But it isn't often I do anything in the way of
shepherding them. That isn't in my line at all. In fact--I--I hate
it."
The candour of this avowal was delicious. They both burst out laughing.
"I can more than half believe that," he said. "But then why don't you
delegate the _role_ of Lord High Almoner to someone else? There's
Turner, for instance. It would be just in his line, I should think."
A queer look, a wicked look, came into the girl's face at the mention of
Turner.
"He wouldn't undertake it for me. He's angry with me. Mr Dorrien,
don't you hate clergymen?"
"Truth compels me to state that I'm not partial to them as a rule."
"Oh, indeed? And why don't you look shocked at my question and say,
`Er--not very flattering to your father, is it?' or something to that
effect? That's how you ought to retort, by every known rule," said
Olive, wickedly demure.
"And why don't you look shocked at my answer and say, `Er--kindly
remember that you are reflecting on my father'? That's how you ought to
retort, etc, etc."
"Because," answered Olive, when she had recovered from the laughter into
which his quizzical reply had launched her, "because I know you were
making an exception in his favour as well as you knew I was. So we are
agreed on that head."
"Quite so. There's nothing like a good understanding to begin with.
And now by way of trying whether it'll continue, let's see if you'll
fall in with my idea. We must go for a sail. How does that idea strike
you?"
"As perfection," she rejoined, looking up at him with a light laugh.
"Jem Pollock has the lightest boat here, but even that's a shocking
tub."
It was. By the time they had put a couple of hundred yards between
themselves and the beach Roland was fain to admit the justice of the
stigma.
"Where are we going to?" asked Olive, as he suddenly turned the boat's
head and coasted along the shore.
"The Skegs. I've set my heart on exploring that pinnacle of scare, and
was waiting until you could go with me. You were the first to unfold
its dread mysteries, and you shall be the first to aid me in braving
them."
"Oh! But--I'm just the very least little bit afraid."
"Naturally."
"It's fortunate--or unfortunate--you didn't say where you intended
going, or Jem Pollock wouldn't have let us have his boat for love or
money."
"He wouldn't?"
"Not he! They're all in mortal terror of the place. To land there
would bring them ill-luck for life. They even think they would hardly
leave the rock alive. A boy was killed there once trying to get at some
sea gulls' nests. They put it down to his temerity in landing there at
all."
"A set of oafs! Well, _we_ are going to land there--the tide is just
right for it--and I wager long odds we don't come to grief in any sort
of way. Village superstition will receive a salutary check--and I, even
I, shall place your father under a debt to me for my share in exploding
such a pagan relic. Look," he broke off, "there would be a good drop
for a runaway horse or anyone tired of life."
A bend in the coastline had shut out the fishing village behind them,
for they had come some distance along the shore. The face of the cliff
at this point rose sheer for a couple of hundred feet, where its surface
was broken by a narrow ledge like a mere goat-path. Above this it
slanted upwards to nearly twice that height.
"It would, indeed," assented Olive. "That rejoices in the name of
Hadden's Slide."
"Does it? And who was Hadden, and what the mischief possessed him to
try his hand at toboganning on such a spot?"
Olive laughed. "Nobody knows. It is an old landslip, and it is
supposed that a cottage belonging to one Hadden was carried away with
it. But that is very old tradition."
"A pity. I had quite thought another spectral wanderer had lighted on
the place for his posthumous disportings, like my ancestor yonder at The
Skegs."
"Well, he would have a better right, for that is your property."
"My property!"
"Yes. It is a part of Cranston," answered Olive, looking surprised.
"Oh--ah! I see. But you said _my_ property. Now Cranston is not _my_
property, and very likely never will be."
This remark was made with a purpose. How would that strike her? he
thought, and he watched her narrowly. But, however it happened to
strike her, she took care that he should be none the wiser.
"Why do you take me up so sharply?" she expostulated with pretty mock
petulance. "Really I shall become quite afraid of you if you are going
to be so precise. One can't always think for five minutes or so before
making every innocent little remark. Now can one?"
"Of course not. What's that extraordinary looking fissure there in
front? It seems as if a stroke of lightning had split the whole cliff
from brow to base."
"That is Smugglers' Ladder. It is well worth seeing. I've only been
there once. We must make up a picnic and go there some day. Are you
fond of picnics, Mr Dorrien?"
"Passionately--under some circumstances. But can't we get as far this
afternoon?"
Olive looked dubious.
"It's a long way. Further than it seems. And father was right. It's
coming on to rain."
"So it is. Here we are at our destination, though, and we can shelter
under the rock."
Great drops began to plash on the water, and the cliffs above looked dim
as through a mist. The tallest of The Skegs reared up its lofty turret
overhead, the sea washing over a narrow sloping ledge of rock at its
base with a hollow plash. This was the only landing place.
The landing was a good deal more difficult than it looked. There was
something of a current swirling round the rock, and the boat, as it got
within the recoil of the waves, danced about in lively fashion. Olive,
a little overawed at finding herself for the first time in this uncanny
place, looked about her in a half-scared, half-subdued manner, as if she
expected to behold the spectral hound start open-mouthed from the waves.
Then enjoyment of the adventure dispelled all other misgiving.
"Just in time," she remarked gaily, as, her companion having secured the
boat, they gained the desired shelter. A violent downpour followed,
beating down the sea like oil. Not a soul was in sight on the lonely
and desolate beach, and away on the horizon great cloud banks came
rolling. Our two wanderers--three rather, for Roy was not slow to
assert his claim--made the best they could of the limited shelter,
contemplating the rushing deluge a yard in front of them with the utmost
equanimity.
"May as well make ourselves snug while we can. I shall venture to
smoke."
"One of your many advantages over us poor women. Well, why do you look
so astonished? Isn't it?"
"Why do I look astonished?" echoed her companion lazily and between the
puffs as he lighted up. "Oh, only because one seems to have heard that
sentiment before."
"Well? And then?"
"And then? Oh--and then--I suppose it astonished me to hear a
threadbare sort of a commonplace proceed from you. That's all."
Olive tried to feel angry. She could not even look it, however. The
tell-tale laugh rose to her eyes, curved the witching little mouth--then
out it came.
"Do you know--you are very rude? At least I ought to tell you so--"
"Another commonplace."
"Why you deliberately snubbed me?" she went on, taking no notice of the
murmured interruption. "Snubbed me like a brother. Shut me up, in
fact."
"Cool hands, brothers--stick at nothing. Ought to know. One myself.
But, I say, wasn't it odd how we first ran against each other that
morning--you and I--when you were drawing?"
Now there was nothing in the foregoing conversation as set down on
cold-blooded and unfeeling paper which all the world and his wife might
not have heard. Nothing in the words, that is. But were that conjugal
impersonality within earshot of these two people coasting along a dismal
and desolate seashore at imminent peril of a wetting through, or
crouched under the rock to avoid it, much gossip might it have
chucklingly evolved, merely from the tone of their voices. For the said
tone had that subtle ring about it which meant that the owners of these
voices were fonder of each other's society than either would admit to
the other--or possibly to him or herself. And it happened that they had
enjoyed a good deal more of that society than was known to anyone
outside the mystic circle of three, that mystic three bound together in
a tacit bond of fellowship--the safer that the third factor in this
sodality was by nature denied the gift of human speech. The summer
weather was delightful. Meadow and down, country landscape and breezy
seashore, were open to all. A chance meeting, such as that of to-day,
developed into a ramble more or less protracted, in the most natural way
in the world. What more natural either, than that such chance should by
some occult and mysterious process have a way of multiplying itself
until matters should have reached such a point that the issue would be
momentous for weal or for woe to one or both of these two? And then to
think that all this should have dated from the too exuberant wag of a
dog's tail.
"And wasn't it a shame that you should have led me on to talk about your
people--and--and--`kept dark'--isn't that what you call it?"
"It was rather a sin," he answered languidly. "Good discipline, though.
Won't do the confidence trick again to divert the insinuating
stranger."
Olive made no reply. She was thinking what pickle she would get into if
her afternoon's pastime should transpire. But there was a strong spice
of the dare-devil in her composition, and life at Wandsborough was apt
to strike her as dull at times. And--
And what?
Never mind what--at present.
So they sat there and talked, heedless of time, and suddenly a gleam of
sunshine straggled through the curtain of cloud. The rain had ceased,
and behind them, to seaward, the squall, which had now passed, rolled
further and further away.
"Now I shall go and prospect for the relics of my ghostly ancestor,"
said Roland. "If you don't mind waiting, I'll be with you again in a
few minutes."
"Why? Where are you going?"
"To ascend this--er--Skeg."
"But I want to go too. You must not expect to keep all the honour and
glory of this hairbreadth adventure to yourself."
"You want to go, too! H'm! You'll slip or turn giddy. The way is
infamous."
Both stood gazing at the wretched slippery path that wound up and around
the great rock.
"Oh, don't be afraid," she said. "It isn't the first time. I crossed
Hadden's Slide once, and that's far worse than this."
"You, never having seen this, are of course an authority."
"Rude again," she laughed. "Now let me have my way."
Shaking his head dubiously, he allowed her that privilege. But more
than once as they came suddenly upon a great yawning rift where the path
had fallen away, revealing a perfect _abattis_ of jagged rocks beneath,
which, although at no great depth, were sufficiently far down to dash
either of them to pieces like an egg-shell, in the event of a slip, he
began to wish he had never allowed her to come. Olive, however, seemed
to revel in the danger. Her face was flushed with the glow and
excitement of the adventure, and her dark eyes shone and sparkled with
exhilaration.
They had attained a height of some fifty feet and were stopping to rest.
Roy had been left below, his master having entrusted him with something
to keep watch over. Two email craft were tacking to and fro on the
dull, leaden waters, at some distance off, and a grey-backed gull or two
floated stationary against the wind, which, increasing in threatening
puffs as they rounded a projecting angle of the rock, tended not to
render their perilous foothold any the more secure.
The sky was again growing overcast, and the melancholy and hollow
moaning of the waves beneath, swishing and swirling round many a
submerged reef, produced a most dismal and depressing effect. Olive,
with the dour legend running in her mind, now longed to get away from
the place. Her companion seemed in no such hurry.
"This is about as far as we shall manage to go," he remarked,
scrutinising the rock overhead. The ledge on which they stood was
barely a yard in width. Olive, peering over, noted that at that point
the drop was sheer, and looking down upon the pointed reefs with the
milky foam seething through and over them--shuddered.
"Take care!" he warned, holding her hand to steady her. "Better come
down now, before you begin to feel nervous." He had felt her hand
tremble.
"Perhaps we had. Hark! What is that?" she broke off in an awed
whisper.
Even her companion could hardly repress a start of astonishment.
Apparently from within the rock itself came the deep-mouthed voice of a
dog. Olive turned as white as a sheet. The terrible spectre of The
Skegs was her only thought.
To her surprise the other burst out laughing.
"Not the ancestor this time," he said. "It's only good old Roy. He's
getting tired of his own company down there, and is remonstrating.
Possibly, too, he has an eye on some stray crustacean which invites
assault, but that he will not desert his post."
Olive was immensely relieved. The colour came back into her pale cheeks
and she tried to laugh, succeeding a little hysterically, it must be
owned. She had been a good deal scared, and, all things considered,
there was some excuse for her. This lonely rock, banned by popular
superstition, was dread and forbidding enough in itself. Add to this
the gloomy sky and the moaning sea; the rather precarious descent yet
lying before them; and remember that the spectral hound wae believed in
as firmly among the seafaring population as the Deity Himself, and a
great deal more feared; that disaster, more or less grave--and
sometimes, according to that belief, fatal--had overtaken those upon
whose ears the spectral voice had fallen; and it follows that if the
girl was momentarily unnerved by a weird and mysterious howl, which,
owing to some acoustic peculiarity in its formation, seemed to come from
_within_ the haunted rock itself, there was every excuse for her.
"How ridiculous of me to forget all about Roy!" she said. "But anyhow,
let us go down now."
"We had better," assented he quietly. A very uncomfortable misgiving
had flashed across his mind. Far away over the sea a black curtain of
cloud was approaching rapidly, its advance marked by a line of troubled
water breaking into white foamy crests. He knew that a violent squall
would be upon them in a few minutes--and if it caught them on that
wretched ledge their position would be horribly dangerous.
"Let me get past you!" he said in an unconcerned voice.
"There; now if you should chance to slip I can easily catch you. We had
better get back to Minchkil rather soon, in case the wind rises."
"Oh dear, I forgot that. It looks dreadfully rough already. I feel
almost afraid to get into the boat again. Couldn't we wait until
Pollock comes to look for us? He is sure to do so when he finds we
don't come back."
"Not to be thought of. In half an hour the tide will be all over the
landing place. To use a succinct and expressive metaphor, it's a case
of `between the devil and the deep sea.' Careful here!" he enjoined
warningly, holding out his hand to help her over a place where the path
had fallen away, leaving an ugly and formidable gap, up which the waves
were now shooting in clouds of misty spray.
All would have gone well, but just at the moment of stepping across this
gap, a piercing, unearthly shriek rang out in their very ears, as
something cleft the air with a swirl and a rush almost between their
faces. Olive, already unnerved by her former alarm, uttered a quick
gasp, and an ashen pallor spread over her features. For a fraction of a
moment she stood tottering; then her eyes closed, she swayed heavily
and--a strong arm was flung round her and she was held firmly against
the cliff.
"Don't look down, Olive. You're quite safe now. Keep perfectly cool
and do exactly as I tell you."
The prompt, commanding tone was effectual. And even then, in the moment
of her peril, the girl realised that he had called her for the first
time by her Christian name. The convulsive shuddering left her frame,
which relaxed its terror-strained rigidity. Obeying his directions
implicitly, she kept with him step by step, supported by his ready arm,
till they reached the slab of flat rock on which they had landed.
Meanwhile two great gulls, the cause of what was within an inch of being
an awful catastrophe, circled around and around their disturbed eggs,
uttering their harsh and peevish shrieks. Roy, whom they found whining
uneasily, jumped up in delight. Once in the boat, however, he lay
perfectly still. He was not at his ease though, poor fellow, and began
to feel uncomfortable, like a Frenchman crossing the Channel.
"There, it's even as I told you," said Roland, as having with some
trouble effected a successful embarkation, he rested for a moment on his
oars. "The `landing stage' will be entirely covered in a few minutes.
We were scarcely half an hour on the island, and it was as long as we
could have stayed. It's an abominably dangerous place, all the same,
and I don't wonder the people funk it. The little `Skeg' isn't landable
on at all."
He had hoisted the sail and they were scudding rapidly before the wind.
Olive, looking back at the great rock towers, shuddered. The sea was
rising momentarily, and long hillocks of dull green water swept on--line
upon line--gathering into knife-like crests to roll and break into surge
upon yonder shore. From seaward came the moan of the rising gale, and
already the faces of the great cliffs were dim and misty. A dire and
blood-curdling suspicion was in her mind. What if it had been the
terrible spectre voice after all--and not poor Roy's honest bay? Her
own narrow escape, immediately afterwards, looked ominously significant.
She heartily wished they were safe home again.
Splash! Whish!
The boat careened over, dipping her gunwale. The squall was upon them.
Roland, with one anxious glance to windward, turned all his attention to
the little craft, controlling the tiller with a firm and judicious hand.
White crests leaped around them with an angry hiss, the stunning whirl
of the blast was in their ears, and overhead the mast danced madly
against the wrack-driven sky. Either the gear must carry away or they
must capsize. Great streamers of cloud, like horizontal waterspouts,
darted across the sky, and there was wild exhilaration in the breath of
the salt scud driven before the squall as they stormed along through the
white and seething crests. He had dreaded this squall. Now it was upon
them he enjoyed the fierce excitement of it. Suddenly the boat careened
again, shipping something of a sea. Olive uttered a cry of dismay.
"Don't be frightened, Olive," he said, throwing an arm round her in
support, for she nearly lost her balance in the furious rocking of the
boat. "Why, I could land you on shore at any point I chose, even if we
did capsize. I should rather enjoy the swim than otherwise, and I
believe you would, too."
A blush came into the girl's face. She had caught some of his
exhilaration, and gazed fearlessly at the tumbling seas. Her cheeks
were wet with the salt spray, and a soft, dark tress which had escaped
from its fastening kept blowing across her eyes. Very beautifully did
the excitement, dashed with a tinge of apprehension, become her.
"No--I am not afraid," she answered--"with you."
These two young people were getting on, you see.
A whirr overhead--a hurtling rush--and a wild hailstorm swept down upon
the sea, curbing its fury slightly, and rendering the inmates of the
boat very uncomfortable. Poor Roy, whom his master had disposed in such
place as to afford the best ballast, looked simply piteous. He
shivered, and in his wistful, patient eyes there was a mute appealing
look, which his master noticing, could not restrain a laugh at.
"Never mind, Roy, old chap. You'll be as right as nine-pence directly!
Now for it! Kill or cure!" he cried, bringing round the boat's head a
point and a half.
A confused whirl, an upheaval as if they had left the water altogether;
and--they were in the comparatively smooth water of Minchkil Bay, and
running comfortably for the little fishing village. A few moments later
and half a score of stalwart hands had hauled them up high and dry on
the beach.
"All's well that ends well!" cried Roland, helping his companion to
alight.
"You're in tremenjious luck, sir, that's all I've got to say about it!"
said the owner of the boat dryly. "Never thought you'd have got back
without a bath."
"Ha-ha! In luck are we, Jem Pollock? Glad to hear you say so, because
according to all the rules of that humbugging old superstition of yours
we ought to have come to mortal grief. We've been exploring The Skegs."
The man started, and queer looks were exchanged among the group.
"Did you land there, sir?" he asked uneasily.
"Land there? I should rather think we did. Climbed nearly to the top
of the rock--as far as we could get. Then ran home at a ripping pace in
a thundering squall and a good deal of a sea. So you see, Pollock, on
your own admission, the spectre of The Skegs is a fraud of the first
water. No ill luck has ensued to us from it--has it now?"
"I devoutly trust it never may, sir," answered the fisherman in a queer
tone.
"And by the way, Pollock, that's a first-rate little craft of yours.
She behaved grandly. You should have seen her run just before we
rounded the point yonder. Perhaps she was eager to get away from The
Skegs, ha-ha! Well, good-day, my men. Now drink my health, and
confusion to my ancestral ghost," and leaving a substantial largesse
with them, he turned and joined Olive.
Was there yet time before they reached home for some foretaste of that
ill luck predicted by the superstitious fishermen? Let us see. They
were in great spirits as they struck across the down, turning now and
again to look back at the storm-lashed sea, and mark how The Skegs were
now almost hidden in clouds of spray as the flying waves leaped high
against their slippery sides. At length, as they reached the last stile
a rumble of approaching wheels was audible on the high road. Now this
stile was in a shaky condition, consequently a piece of the woodwork
gave way as Olive was in the act of crossing. She must have had a nasty
fall, but for the two ready hands prompt to set her securely on her
feet. Just then an open carriage swept round the bend of the road from
the direction of Wandsborough. So rapidly did it whirl past that Roland
had not time to do more than recognise its occupants; yet in that brief
moment he took in everything--the pair of high-stepping bays, the silver
crest on the harness, even the identity of the men on the box. But what
he took in most surely of all was the expression of furious anger
through which his father had regarded him, and the no less hostile look
on the cold impassive face of his mother.