THE OWL'S CRY
For the next month we passed all our afternoons with Marah. In the
mornings the Rector gave us our lessons at Strete; then we walked home
to dinner; then we played with our gun and cutter, or at the sailing
of our home-made boats, till about six, when we went home for
tea. After tea we prepared our lessons for the next day and went
upstairs to bed, where we talked of smugglers and pirates till we fell
asleep. Marah soon taught us how to sail the cutter; and, what was
more, he taught us how to rig her. For an hour of each fine afternoon
he would give us a lesson in the quarry office, showing us how to rig
model boats, which we made out of old boxes and packing-cases. In the
sunny evenings of April we used to sail our fleets, ship against ship,
upon the great freshwater lake into which the trout-brook passes on
its way to the sea. Sometimes we would have a fleet of ships of the
line anchored close to the shore, and then we would fire at them with
the gun and with one of Marah's pistols till we had shattered them to
bits and sunk them. Sometimes Marah would tell us tales of the
smugglers and pirates of long ago, especially about a pirate named Van
Horn, who was burned in his ship off Mugeres Island, near Campeachy,
more than a hundred years back.
"His ship was full of gold and silver," said Marah. "You can see her
at a very low tide even now. I've seen her myself. She is all burnt to
a black coal, a great Spanish galleon, with all her guns in her. I was
out fishing in the boat, and a mate said, 'Look there. There she is!'
and I saw her as plain as plain among all the weeds in the sea. The
water's very clear there, and there she was, with the fishes dubbing
their noses on her. And she's as full of gold as the Bank of
England. The seas'll have washed Van Horn's bones white, and the bones
of his crew too; eaten white by the fish and washed white, lying there
in all that gold under the sea, with the weeds growing over them. It
gives you a turn to think of it, don't it?"
"Why don't they send down divers to get the gold?" asked Hugh.
"Why!" said Marah. "There's many has tried after all that gold. But
some the shacks took and some the Spaniards took, and then there was
storms and fighting. None ever got a doubloon from her. But
somebody'll have a go for it again. I tried once, long ago. That was
an unlucky try, though. Many poor men died along of that one. They
died on the decks," he added. "It was like old Van Horn cursing
us. They died in my arms, some of 'em. Seven and twenty seamen, and
one of them was my mate, Charlie!"
I have wandered away from my story, I'm afraid, remembering these
scraps of the past; but it all comes back to me now, so clearly that
it seems to be happening again. There are Marah and Hugh, with the sun
going down behind the gorse-bank, across the Lea; and there are the
broken ships floating slowly past, with the perch rising at them; and
there is myself, a very young cub, ignorant of what was about to come
upon me. Perhaps, had I known what was to happen before the leaves of
that spring had fallen, I should have played less light-heartedly, and
given more heed to Mr Evans, the Rector.
Now, on one day in each week, generally on Thursdays, we had rather
longer school hours than on the other days. On these days of extra
work Hugh and I had dinner at the Rectory with Ned Evans, our
schoolmate. After dinner we three boys would wander off together,
generally down to Black Pool, where old Spanish coins (from some
forgotten wreck) were sometimes found in the sand after heavy weather
had altered the lie of the beach. We never found any Spanish coins,
but we always enjoyed our afternoons there. The brook which runs into
the sea there was very good for trout, in the way that Marah showed
us; but we never caught any, for all our pains. In the summer we meant
to bathe from the sands, and all through that beautiful spring we
talked of the dives we would take from the spring-board running out
into the sea. Then we would have great games of ducks and drakes, with
flat pebbles; or games of pebble-dropping, in which our aim was to
drop a stone so that it should make no splash as it entered the water.
But the best game of all was our game of cliff-exploring among the
cliffs on each side of the bay, and this same game gave me the
adventure of my life.
One lovely afternoon towards the end of the May of that year, when we
were grubbing among the cliff-gorse as usual, wondering how we could
get down the cliffs to rob the sea-birds' nests, we came to a bare
patch among the furze; and there lay a couple of coastguards, looking
intently at something a little further down the slope, and out of
sight, beyond the brow of the cliff. They had ropes with them, and a
few iron spikes, and one of them had his telescope on the grass beside
him. They looked up at us angrily when we broke through the thicket
upon them, and one of them hissed at us through his teeth: "Get out,
you boys. Quick. Cut!" and waved to us to get away, which we did, a
good deal puzzled and perhaps a little startled. We talked about it on
our way home. Ned Evans said that the men were setting rabbit snares,
and that he had seen the wires. Hugh thought that they might be after
sea-birds' eggs during their hours off duty. Both excuses seemed
plausible, but for my own part I thought something very different.
The men, I felt, were out on some special service, and on the brink of
some discovery. It seemed to me that when we broke in upon them they
were craning forward to the brow of the cliff, intently listening. I
even thought that from below the brow of the cliff, only a few feet
away, there had come a noise of people talking. I did not mention my
suspicions to Hugh and Ned, because I was not sure, and they both
seemed so sure; but all the way home I kept thinking that I was
right. It flashed on me that perhaps the night-riders had a cave below
the cliff-brow, and that the coast-guards had discovered the
secret. It was very wrong of me, but my only thought was: "Oh, will
they catch Marah? Will poor Marah be sent to prison?" and the fear
that our friend would be dragged off to gaol kept me silent as We
walked.
When we came to the gate which takes you by a short cut to the valley
and the shale quarry, I said that I would go home that way, while the
others went by the road, and that we would race each other, walking,
to see who got home first. They agreed to this, and set off together
at a great rate; but as soon as they were out of sight behind the
hedge I buckled my satchel to my shoulders and started running to warn
Marah. It was all downhill to the brook, and I knew that I should find
Marah there,--for he had said that he was coming earlier than usual
that afternoon to finish off a model boat which we were to sail after
tea. I ran as I had never run before--I thought my heart would thump
itself to pieces; but at last I got to the valley and saw Marah
crossing the brook by the causeway. I shouted to him then and he heard
me. I had not breath to call again, so I waved to him to come and then
collapsed, panting, for I had run a good mile across country. He
walked towards me slowly, almost carelessly; but I saw that he was
puzzled by my distress, and wondered what the matter was.
"What is it?" he asked. "What's the rally for?"
"Oh," I cried, "the coastguards--over at Black Pool."
"Yes," he said carelessly, "what about _them?_"
"They've discovered it," I cried. "The cave under the
cliff-top. They've discovered it."
His face did not change; he looked at me rather hard; and then asked
me, quite carelessly, what I had seen.
"Two coastguards," I answered. "Two coastguards. In the furze. They
were listening to people somewhere below them."
"Yes," he said, still carelessly, "over at Black Pool? I suppose they
recognized you?"
"Yes, they must have. We three are known all over the place. And I ran
to tell you."
"So I see," he said grimly. "You seem to have run like a
tea-ship. Well, you needn't have. There's no cave on this side
Salcombe, except the hole at Tor Cross. What made you run to tell
_me?_"
"Oh," I said, "you've been so kind--so kind, and--I don't know--I
thought they'd send you to prison."
"Did you?" he said gruffly. "Did you indeed? Well, they won't. There
was no call for you to fret your little self. Still, you've done it;
I'll remember that--I'll always remember that. Now you be off to your
tea, quick. Cut!"
When he gave an order it was always well for us to obey it at once; if
we did not he used to lose his temper. So when he told me to go I got
up and turned away, but slowly, for I was still out of breath. I
looked back before I passed behind the hedge which marks the beginning
of the combe, but Marah had disappeared--I could see no trace of
him. Then suddenly, from somewhere behind me, out of sight, an owl
called--and this in broad daylight. Three times the "Too-hoo, too-hoo"
rose in a long wail from the shrubs, and three times another owl
answered from up the combe, and from up the valley, too, till the
place seemed full of owls. "Too-hoo, too-hoo" came the cries, and very
faintly came answers--some of them in strange tones, as though the
criers asked for information. As they sounded, the first owl answered
in sharp, broken cries. But I had had enough. Breathless as I was, I
ran on up the valley to the house, only hoping that no owl would come
swooping down upon me. And this is what happened. Just as I reached
the gate which leads to the little bridge below the house I saw Joe
Barnicoat galloping towards me on an unsaddled horse of Farmer
Rowser's. He seemed shocked, or upset, at seeing me; but he kicked the
horse in the ribs and galloped on, crying out that he was having a
little ride. His little ride was taking him at a gallop to the owl,
and I was startled to find that quiet Joe, the mildest gardener in the
county, should be one of the uncanny crew whose signals still hooted
along the combes.
When I reached home the others jeered at me for a sluggard. They had
been at home for twenty minutes, and had begun tea. I let them talk as
they pleased, and then settled down to work; but all that night I
dreamed of great owls, riding in the dark with bee-skeps over them,
filling the combes with their hootings.