When Matt awoke the next morning, the first thing she did was to
look around for her Sunday clothes, which on retiring to rest she had
carefully placed beside her bed. They were gone, and in their place lay
the habiliments she was accustomed to wear on her erratic pilgrimages
every day.
Her face grew cloudy, she hunted all round the chamber, but finding
nothing that she sought she was compelled to array herself as she best
could.
“William Jones,” she said, when she sat with that worthy at a hermit’s
breakfast of dry bread and whey, “where’s my Sunday clothes?”
William Jones fidgeted a bit, then he said--
“They’re put where you won’t find ’em. Look ye now, Matt, you’d better
be doin’ summat more useful than runnin’ about after a painter chap. I
was down on the shore this morning, and I seen heaps o’ wood--you’d best
get some of it afore night!”
Matt gave a snort, but said nothing. A few minutes later her benign
protector left the cottage, and a little after he had disappeared Matt
issued forth; but instead of beating the shore for firewood, as she had
been told to do, she ran across the fields to the painter.
She found him already established at his work. The fact was he had
been for some time strolling about with his hands in his pockets, and
scanning the prospect on every side, for a sight of her. Having got
tired of this characteristic occupation, he at length sat down and began
to put a few touches to the portrait. Seeing that he was unconscious of
her approach, Matt crept up quietly behind him and took a peep at the
picture.
Her black eyes dilated with pleasure.
“Oh, ain’t it beautiful!” she exclaimed.
“So you have come at last,” said Brinkley quietly, going on with his
painting.
She made no movement and no further sound, so he continued--
“Perhaps now you _have_ come you’ll be good enough to step round that I
may continue my work. I am longing to refresh my memory with a sight of
your face, Matt!”
“Well, you can’t,” said Matt; “they’re locked up!”
“Eh! what’s locked up--my memory or your face?”
It was clear Matt could not appreciate banter. She saw him smile,
and guessed that he was laughing at her, and her face grew black and
mutinous. She would have slunk off, but his voice stopped her.
“Come here, Matt,” he said. “Don’t be silly, child; tell me what’s the
matter, and--why, what has become of your resplendent raiment--your
gorgeous Sunday clothes?”
“Didn’t I tell yer?--they’re locked up.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, William Jones done it ’cause _he_ told him. _He_ don’t want me
to come here and be took.”
“Oh! Tell you what it is, Matt, we will have our own way, in spite of
them. For the present this picture shall be put aside. If in a day or so
you can again don your Sunday raiment, and sit to me again in them--if
not, I dare say I shall be able to finish the dress from memory. That
portrait I shall give to you. In the mean time, as I want one for
myself, I will paint you as you are. Do you approve?”
Matt nodded her head vigorously.
“Very well,” said Brinkley. “Then we will get on.”
He removed from his easel and carefully covered the portrait upon which
he had been working. Then he put up a fresh cardboard and sat down,
inviting Matt to do the same.
With the disappearance of the Sunday clothes the girl’s stiffness seemed
to have disappeared also, and she became again a veritable child of
Nature. She looked like a shaggy young pony fresh from a race on the
mountain side as she threw herself on the ground in an attitude which
was all picturesqueness and beauty. Then with her plump sunburnt hand
she carelessly began to pull up the grass, while her black eyes searched
alternately the prospect and the painter’s face.
Presently she spoke.
“_He_ says you’re a pryin’ scoundrel,” she said.
Brinkley looked up and smiled.
“Who is _he_, Matt?”
“Mr. Monk,” she replied, and gave a jerk with her head in the direction
of Monkshurst.
“Oh, indeed,” said Brinkley. “It is my amiable equestrian friend, is it?
I’m sure I’m much obliged to him. And when, may I ask, did he bore you
with his opinion of me?”
“Last night, when he come to see William Jones. He said I wasn’t to be
took no more, ‘cause you was a scoundrel poking and prying.”
Brinkley began to whistle, and went on for a while vigorously touching
up his work. Then he looked up and regarded the girl curiously.
“Mr. Monk seems to be very much interested in _you_, Matt?”
The girl nodded her head vigorously; then remembering the odious caress
to which Mr. Monk had subjected her, she began to rub her cheek again
violently.
“Why is Mr. Monk so interested in you? Do you know?”
“P’raps it’s ’cause he found me when I come ashore?”
“Oh, _he_ found you, did he? Then why doesn’t he keep you?”
“He do, only I live along o’ William Jones.”
Again Brinkley began whistling lightly, and working away vigorously with
his brush. Presently the conversation began again.
“Matt, what things did you come ashore in?”
“I dunno!”
“You have never heard whether anything was found with you which might
lead to your finding your relations?”
“No, no more has William Jones. He says maybe they’ll find me some day
and reward him; but Mr. Monk says they were all drownded, and I ain’t
got no friends ’cept him and William Jones.”
“Well, since he found you, I suppose he ought to know; and since you
_have_ no relations, Matt, and no claim upon anybody in the world, it
was very kind of Mr. Monk to keep you, instead of sending you to the
workhouse as he might have done.”
On this point Matt seemed rather sceptical.
“Well,” continued Brinkley, as he went on lightly touching up his work,
“perhaps I have done my equestrian friend a wrong. Perhaps his unamiable
exterior belies his real nature; perhaps he is good and kind, generous
to the poor, willing to help the helpless--like you, for instance.”
“Is it him?” exclaimed Matt, “Monk of Monkshurst! Why, he don’t give
nothin’ to nobody. No fear.”
“And yet, according to your own showing, he has helped to support you
all these years--you, who have no claim whatever upon him.”
This was an enigma to which Matt had no solution. She said no more, but
Brinkley, while he continued his painting, silently ruminated thus:
“It strikes me this puzzle would be worth unravelling if I could only
find the key. Query, is the young person the key, if I but knew how to
use her? Perhaps, since the amiable Monk evidently dislikes my coming
into communication with her. But it would be useless to lay the case
before her, since, if she is the key, she is quite unconscious of it
herself.”
He threw down his brush, rose and stretched himself, and said--
“Look here, Matt, I’m tired of work. The sun shining on those sand-hills
and on the far-off sea is too tempting. I shall go for a walk, and you,
if you are in the mood, shall be my guide.”
She evidently was in the mood, for she was on her feet in an instant.
“All right, master,” she said, “I’ll go.”
“Very well.--Tim, bring forth some refreshment. We will refresh the
inner man and girl before we start.”
Tim disappeared into the caravan. Presently he re-appeared bearing a
small tray, on which was a small flask of brandy, a large jug of milk,
some biscuits, and a couple of glasses. This he placed on the camp
stool, which his master had just, vacated, and which, when not in use
as a seat, served as a table. Brinkley poured out two glasses of milk,
then, looking at Matt, he held the little flask on high.
“Brandy, Matt?”
She shook her head.
“Very well, child; I think you are wise. Here, take the milk and drink
confusion to your enemies!”
Matt took the glass of milk and drank it down, while Brinkley hastened
to dilute and dispose of the other. Then he gave some orders to Tim, and
they started off. As they had no particular object in view, they chose
the pleasantest route, and clearly the pleasantest lay across the
sand-hills. Not because the sand-hills were pleasant in themselves; they
were not, especially on a day when the sun was scorching the roads and
making the sea like a mill-pond; but because by crossing the sand-hills
one came on the other side upon a footpath which led, by various
windings, gradually to the top of breezy cliffs.
To the sand-hills, therefore, they wended their way. Having gained them
they followed a route which Matt knew full well, and which soon brought
them to the narrow footpath beyond. During the walk she was singularly
silent, and Brinkley seemed to be busily trying to work out some
abstruse problem which had taken possession of his brain.
When they had followed the footpath for some distance, and had gained
the greensward on the top of the cliffs, the young man threw himself
upon the grass, and invited Matt to do the same. It was very pleasant
there, soothing both to the eye and to the mind. The cliff was
covered--somewhat sparsely, it is true--with stunted grass, and just
below on their right lay the ocean, calm as any mill-pond, but sighing
softly as the water kissed the rocks and flowed back again with rhythmic
throbs. On their left lay the sand-hills, glittering like dusty gold in
the sun rays, while just before and below them was the village.
“Do you see that house standing all by itself, close to shore?” said
Matt, pointing to the cottage where she lived; “that belongs to William
Jones--and look ye now, there be William Jones on the rocks!”
Looking down, Brinkley beheld a figure moving along the rocks, just
where the water touched the edge.
“Very lazy of William Jones,” he said. “Why isn’t he at work?”
“At work?”
“Yes; tilling the fields or fishing. By the way, I forgot to ask you, is
he a fisherman?”
“No, he ain’t,” said Matt “He’s a wrecker, he is!”
“A what?” exclaimed Brinkley.
“A wrecker,” continued Matt, as if wrecking was the most natural
occupation in the world.
Brinkley looked, at her, imagining that she must be practising some wild
joke. He had certainly heard of wreckers, but he had always believed
that they were a species of humanity which had belonged to past
centuries, and were now as extinct as a mammoth. But the girl evidently
meant what she said, and thought there was nothing extraordinary in the
statement.
“That sea don’t look ugly, do it?” she continued, pointing at the ocean,
“but it is--there’s rocks out there where the ships split on, then they
go all to pieces, and the things come ashore.”
“And what becomes of all the things, Matt?”
“Some of ’em’s stole and some of ’em’s took by the coastguards. They
do say,” she added, mysteriously, “as there’s lots o’ things--gold and
silver--hid among them sand-hills. Before the coastguards come all the
folk was wreckers like William Jones, and they used to get what come
ashore, and they used to hide it in the sand-hills.”
“Indeed! Then if that is the case, why don’t they take the treasure up,
and turn it into money?”
“Why? ’Cause they can’t; them sandhills is allus changing and shifting
about, they are; though they know well enough the things is there,
there’s no findin’ of ’em!”
“I always thought William Jones was poor?”
“So he is, he says!” replied Matt, “’cause though he be allus
foraging, he don’t find much now on account o’ them coastguard chaps.”
After they had rested themselves, they went a little further up the
cliff, then they followed a narrow winding path, which brought them to
the shore below. Here Matt, who seemed to be pretty well grounded in the
history of the place, pointed him out the wonders of the coast.
She showed him the caves, which tradition said had been formerly used as
wreckers’ haunts and treasure stores, but which were now washed by the
sea, and covered with slimy weeds; then she brought him to a promontory
where they told her she herself had been found. This spot Brinkley
examined curiously, then he looked at the girl.
“I suppose you had clothes on when you came ashore, didn’t you, Matt?”
“Why, of course, I had. William Jones has got ’em!”
“Has he? Where?”
“In his cave, I expect.”
“His cave! Where is that?” asked Brinkley, becoming very much
interested.
“Dunno,” returned Matt; “perhaps it’s somewhere hereabout. I’ve seen
William Jones come about here, I have, but I never could track him!”
Matt’s information on the subject was so vague that it seemed useless
to institute a search; so, after a regretful look at the rocks, Brinkley
proposed that they should saunter back along the shore.
“By the way,” said he, “I want you to introduce me to William Jones.”
“To William Jones?”
“Yes. Strange as the fancy may seem to you, I should like for once in my
life to stand face to face with a real live wrecker.”
They made their way back along the coast, until they reached William
Jones’s cottage. Here they paused, principally for Brinkley to take a
glance at the quaint dwelling, then they crossed the threshold. What
sort of a place he had got into, it was utterly impossible for Brinkley
to tell; it was so dark, he could see nothing. Having crossed the
threshold, therefore, he paused; but Matt went fearlessly forward,
struck a light, and ignited the rushlight on the table.
“William Jones,” said she, “here be the painter!”
By the light of the flickering rushlight Brinkley now looked about him.
At a glance he noted some of the details of the queer little room,
then his eye fell upon the occupants, whom, from Matt’s description, he
recognized as William Jones and the grizzly author of his being.
The old man, who Brinkley perforce admitted certainly bore some
resemblance to the Rembrandtish head which Matt had recognized, sat
dozing fitfully by the hearth, while his son was busily employed in
mending an old lantern.
Upon the entrance of Brinkley, the lantern was quickly thrown aside,
and William Jones, assuming a most obsequious manner, hastened to give
a welcome to the stranger. Brinkley was amused. He accepted William
Jones’s offer of a seat, then he lit up his briar-root pipe, and while
smoking lazily, he put a few questions to his host. But if he expected
to gain information of any kind he was soon undeceived. William Jones
was no fool. Combined with excessive avarice, he possessed all the
cunning of the fox, and the moment he saw that the stranger was pumping
him, he was on his guard.
Presently, however, his curiosity gained the day. Categorically, in his
turn, he began to question Brinkley about his doings.
“I suppose now, master,” said he, “you travel about a deal i’ that cart
o’ your’n?”
Brinkley explained that the “cart” in question had been in his
possession only a few months.
“But I travelled a good deal before I got it,” he explained. “This time
last year I was in Ireland.”
“In Ireland, master?”
“Yes, on the west coast; do you know it?”
William Jones shook his head.
“There be plenty wreck there, ain’t there?” said he suddenly.
“Wreck?” repeated Brinkley.
“Yes, I’ve heard tell o’ wonderful storms and big ships breaking up.
Look ye, now, they do tell wonderful stories; and I wonder sometimes if
all they says be true.”
Brinkley looked at his host for a minute or so in silent wonder, for the
little man was transformed. Instead of gazing about him with the stupid
expression which up till now his face had worn, his face expressed all
the keenness of a foxhound well on the scent. There was also another
curious thing which the young man noticed, that the word “wreck” seemed
to act like magic on the other member of the Jones’ household. At the
first mention of it the old man started from his sleep; and he now sat
staring wildly before him, evidently imagining he was standing on a
headland, gazing out to sea.
“Wreck!” he murmured; “ay, there it be, driftin’ in wi’ the wind and the
tide, William; driftin’ in wi’ the tide.”
“Shut up, old man,” said William, giving his father a nudge; then
turning again to Brinkley, he said, “Be them tales true, master?”
“Eh?--Oh yes; perfectly true,” said Brinkley, being in a lively humour,
and determined to give his host a treat.
The expression in the eyes of William Jones became even more greedy.
“P’raps,” he said, “you’ve seen some of them wrecks.”
“Dear me, yes,” answered Brinkley, determined to give the reins to his
imagination. “I’ve seen any number of them. Huge ships broken up like
match-boxes, and every soul on board them drowned; then afterwards----”
“Ah yes, master,” said William Jones eagerly as the other paused;
“arter----”
“Well, afterwards, my friend, I’ve seen treasures come ashore that would
have made you and me, and a dozen others such, men for life.”
“Dear, dear! and what became of it, master--tell me that?”
“What became of it?” repeated Brinkley, whose imagination was beginning
to give way; “why, it was appropriated, of course, by the population.”
“And didn’t you take your share, master?”
“I?” repeated Brinkley, who was getting muddled; “well, firstly, because
I didn’t wish to--I have a superstitious horror of wearing dead men’s
things; and secondly, because I could not have done so had I wished. The
people are clannish; they wanted it all for themselves, and would have
killed any interfering stranger.”
“I suppose, master, there be no coastguard chaps _there?_” said William
Jones.
“Oh dear, no! No coastguards.”
“Ah!” sighed the old man, coming out of his trance. “It warn’t so long
ago when there warn’t no coastguard chaps _here_ neither. Then times was
better for honest men. On a dark night ’twas easy to put a light on
the headland, and sometimes we got a prize or two that way, didn’t we,
William dear; but now----”
“You shut up!” roared William, giving his parent a very forcible dig in
the ribs. “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, you don’t.--The old
’un is a bit queer in the head, master,” he explained; “and he’s allus
a dreamin’, he is. There ain’t no prizes here, the Lord knows; it’s
a’most as much as we can do to git a bit o’ bread. Matt knows that;
don’t ee’, Matt?”
But whatever Matt knew she evidently meant to keep to herself, for she
gave no reply. Presently, after a little more general conversation,
Brinkley rose to go. He offered a two-shilling piece to William Jones;
and somewhat to his amazement, that worthy accepted it gratefully.
“Good-bye, Matt,” said Brinkley. But in a trice Matt was beside him.
“I’m going to show you the way,” she explained as she went out with him
into the air.
“Whew!” said Brinkley when they were fairly clear of the cabin; “the
open air is better than that den; but then William Jones is very poor,
isn’t he, Matt?”
“He _says_ he is.”
“But don’t you believe it?”
“P’raps I do, and p’raps I don’t; it don’t matter to you, does it?”
“Not the least in the world.”
They went on for a while in silence; then Matt, who had been furtively
watching his face all the while, spoke again.
“You ain’t angry, are you, master?” she asked.
“I angry?--what for?”
“‘Cause I said that just now.”
“Dear me, no; whatever _you_ might say, Matt, wouldn’t offend me.”
If he expected to please her by this he was mistaken.
“That’s ’cause you don’t care. Well, I don’t care neither, if _you_
don’t.”
She ran a little ahead of him, and continued to precede him until she
gained the last sand-hill, and caught a glimpse of the caravan. Then she
paused.
“You don’t want me to go no further, do you?”
“No.”
“All right--good-bye.”
She gave a bound, like a young deer, and prepared to start for a swift
run back, but the young man called her.
“Matt, come here.”
She came up to him. He put his arm about her shoulders, bent over her
upturned face, and kissed her. In her impulsive way. Matt returned the
kiss ardently, then to his amazement, she gave one strange look into his
eyes--blushed violently, and hung her head.
“Come, give me another, Matt,” he said.
But Matt would not comply. With one jerk she freed herself from him;
then, swift as lightning, she ran back across the hills towards the sea.