"Want lodgings, sir?" said Reuben Brime taking his short black pipe from
his lips, and gazing straight out to sea, as if he thought there was
plenty of room for a good long rest out there. Then straightening
himself from having a good, thoughtful lean on the cliff rail, where he
had been having his evening's idle after the day's work done, he turned,
and, looking thoughtfully at a youngish man in tweeds, as if he were a
plant not growing quite so satisfactorily as could be wished, he said
again, in a tone of mild inquiry,--"Lodgings?"
"Yes, lodgings," said the new-comer shortly.
"Well, I was trying to think of some, sir; and I could have told you of
the very thing if something as I had in hand had come up--I mean off."
"Indeed!"
"Yes, sir," said the gardener thoughtfully. "I don't mind who knows it.
I'd got as nice a little cottage in my eye as any man would wish to
have there, the money to buy all the furniture, as much more as was
wanted, theirs being very old; and I could have said to you, `There's a
bedroom and a setten'-room, and the best of attendance.'"
"But it is not in hand, eh?"
"In hand, sir? No, sir; nothing like in hand."
"How's that?"
"Ah, well, I don't care who knows it now, sir. Mebbe if she heard how
it's talked about, and the man's disappointment, she may get better, and
alter her mind."
"She? The lady?"
"Yes, sir; the lady, as I may say I'd engaged myself to; but she's took
bad and strange, and I suppose it's all off."
"Ah, well, I'm sorry to hear that," said the stranger, looking amused,
and as if he thought the man he addressed was a little wanting in
brains.
"Thank you, sir, kindly. Lodgings?--no. You see this isn't a seaside
place."
"Then what do you call it?" said the stranger.
"Call it, sir? Well, we calls it Danmouth, or, mostly, Dan'orth,
because you see it's shorter, and more like one word."
"Oh, yes, I know the name; but what do you call it if it isn't a seaside
place?"
"I calls it a port, sir, and as good a little port as there is anywheres
about this coast. Dinton and Bartoe and Minxton's seaside places, with
lots of visitors and bathing machines, and bands and Punch and Judies.
Lodgings, eh? Let me see. Lodgings for a gentleman? What do you say
to the Harbour Inn? They've got as good a drop of beer there as a man
could wish to drink."
"No, no, I don't want to be at a public house. I'm here for a
fortnight's fishing, and I want nice, comfortable apartments."
"And you want comfortable apartments?" said Brime respectfully, as he
rubbed his sunburned face with the stem of his pipe. "Fishing, eh? You
mean pottering about with a rod and line; not going with a boat and
nets?"
"Quite right."
"I've got it," said the gardener. "Mrs Sarson; she lets lodgings.
Stop a moment. I'll take you on to the museum."
"Museum! Hang it all, man, I'm not a specimen."
Brime laughed for the first time for a month.
"No, sir, you don't look as if you was stuffed. I was going to take you
to our barber's. He knows everything; and he'll tell us whether Mrs
Sarson can take you in."
"Is it far--the museum?"
"Only yonder. Just where you see that man looking out of the door."
"Ah, yes," said the stranger sharply. "Yours seems a busy place."
"Tidy, sir, tidy."
"Whose castle's that?"
"Mr Gartram's, sir. Leastwise it was. He's gone."
"Oh! Dead?"
"Yes, sir. The hardest and the best master as ever was. Some on us'll
miss him, I expect."
"Curious kind of master, my lad, and likely to be missed. Gartram? Oh,
yes, I know; the stone quarry man. Mr Trevithick, in our town, has to
do with his affairs."
"If you talked all night, sir, you couldn't say a truer word than that.
Mr Trevithick, sir, very big man, lawyer."
"Yes; they call him Jumbo our way."
Kck!
Brime burst out into a monosyllabic half laugh, and then stopped short
as Wimble was drawing back into his den to let them pass.
"Here, Mr Wimble, sir, this gent wants to ask something about Mrs
Sarson."
"Eh! Yes!" said the barber sharply; and the suspicious look which had
been gathering of late in his face grew more intense. "Step in, sir,
pray," he added eagerly.
"Oh, that's not worth while now," said the stranger, passing his hand
over his chin. "Give you a look in to-morrow. My friend here thought
you could tell me about Mrs Sarson's lodgings."
"Yes," said Brime; "and--of course, this gent wants to go fishing, and
Mr Lisle's always fishing."
"Mr Lisle?" said the stranger. "Christopher Lisle?"
"That's the man, sir," said the barber sharply. "You know anything
about him, sir?"
"Only that he has a good heavy account with our bank."
Wimble looked sharply at the stranger, with his head on one side, and
more than one eager question upon his lips. But the new-comer felt that
he had made a slip by talking too freely, and prevented him by asking a
question himself.
"Do you think Mrs Sarson could accommodate me?"
"No, sir," said Wimble, looking at him searchingly. "No: she has no
room, I am sure. Take the gentleman up to Mrs Lampton's at the top of
the cliff road. I daresay she could accommodate him."
"Why, of course," said Brime; "the very place. I never thought of
that."
"No, Mr Brime," said Wimble patronisingly, as he looked longingly at
the visitor with cross-examination in his breast. "Say I recommended
the gentleman."
"All right. Come along, sir, I'll show you; and if you want a few worms
for fishing, I'm your man."
"Worms?" said the visitor, laughing. "I always use flies."
"Most gents do, sir. Mr Chris Lisle does. But the way to get hold of
a good fish in a river is with a whacking great worm."
"Do you know Mr Lisle?"
"Know him? Poor young man, yes."
"Poor? I don't call a gentleman who lately came in for a big fortune
poor."
"Big fortune, sir? Mr Chris Lisle come in for a big fortune, sir?
Hurrah! Our young lady will be glad."
The visitor was ready to pull himself up again sharp, for this was
another mistake.
Brime stopped, smiling, at a pretty cottage, where fuchsias and
hydrangeas were blooming side by side with myrtles, and was going off,
when the visitor offered him a shilling for his trouble.
"Thankye, sir, and I hope you'll be comfortable," said the gardener,
descending the chief path.--"Well, I am glad. Come in for a large
fortune. Now, if I were him, I'd just send Mr Glyddyr to the right
about, and get the business settled as soon as it seemed decent after
master's death. He is a good sort, is Mr Lisle, and he's fond enough
of her. Why, they'll be married now, and keep up the old place just as
it is; and if I speak when we want more help, he isn't the gent to tell
a hard-working man to get up a bit earlier and work a bit later. Not
he. He made a friend of me when he gave me that half-sov'rin, and I
made a friend of him when I caught him. My, what a lark it was when I
dropped on to him, and he thought it was the governor! I know he did."
Reuben Brime smiled as he had not smiled for days, and a minute or two
later he grinned outright. From his point of vantage, high up the cliff
side, he could see to the mouth of the glen, and there, to his intense
delight, he could just make out two figures in deep mourning, one tall
and graceful, and the other short, and her head low down between her
shoulders, walking away from him in the distance, and, not far behind, a
sturdy-looking man in light brown tweeds, with a fishing creel slung at
his back, and a rod over his shoulder, trying hard to overtake the pair
in front.
"Wouldn't give much for Mr Glyddyr's chance," thought Brime, as he
watched the trio out of sight. "Been an awfully cloudy time, but the
sun's coming strong now, and things'll grow. What a fellow I am to give
up because she was a bit off. Friends with the new guv'nor means
friends with the new missus, and as Sarah about worships her, and'll do
what she tells her, why, it'll come right in the end."
He walked on, building castles as he went, and in the height of his
elation he said, half aloud--
"It's only six pounds a year, and I could let it till she said yes.
Hang me if I don't take the cottage after all."
"Well, Mr Brime," said a voice at his elbow, "did Mrs Lampton take the
gentleman in?"
"Eh? Oh, I don't know, as I didn't stop. But she'd be sure to."
"Oh, yes, it will be all right," said Wimble. "But you'll come in, Mr
Brime?"
"No. I think I'll get back now, and finish my pipe by the cliff."
"With a beard like that, sir? Better have it off."
"Eh? No, it isn't shaving day."
"Your beard grows wonderfully fast, Mr Brime, believe me, sir. I
wonder at a young man like you being so careless of his personal
appearance. You'll be wanting to marry some day, sir, and there's
nothing goes further with the ladies than seeing a man clean-shaved."
It was not quite a random shot, for Wimble had wheedled out a little
respecting the gardener's future, and he had only to draw back with a
smile for the man to follow him in, passing his hand thoughtfully over
his chin, wondering whether it had anything to do with the very severe
rebuff he had more than once received.
Once more in the chair, tied up in the cloth, and with his face
lathered, he was at Wimble's mercy; and as the razor played about his
nose and chin, giving a scrape here and a scrape there, the barber
cross-examined the gardener in a quiet, unconcerned way, that would have
been the envy of an Old Bailey counsel. In very few minutes he had
drawn out everything that the gardener had learned, and so insidiously
soft were the operator's words, that Brime found himself unconsciously
inventing and supplying particulars that the barber stowed up in his
brain cell, ready for future use.
"There, Mr Brime," he said, after delivering the final upper strokes
with a dexterity that was perfect, though thrilling, from the danger
they suggested, "I think you will say, sir, that a good shave is not
dear at the price."
These last words were accompanied by little dabs with a wet sponge, to
remove soapy patches among the thick whiskers, and then the towel was
handed, and the victim walked to the glass.
"Yes, it does make a difference in a man," he said, as he dabbed and
dried.
"Difference, sir? It's a duty to be clean-shaved. To a man, sir,
speaking from years of experience, a beard is hair, natural hair. To a
woman, sir, it is nothing of the kind. A woman cannot help it, sir; it
is born in her, but to her, sir, a beard is simply dirt."
"Hah!" ejaculated the gardener, and he thought deeply.
"Yes, sir; I've often heard them call it so. Even on the properest man,
it is, in their eyes--dirt."
Brime paid and took his departure, while Wimble plunged at once among
his own dark thoughts.
"That man is blind as a mole," he said, "and can see nothing which is
not just before his eyes. He can dig a garden, but he cannot dig down
into his own brain. How horrible! how strange! And how the slackest
deeds will come out in a way nobody who is guilty suspects. Yesterday,
quite a poor man--to-day, very rich--a heavy banking account--come in
for a fortune. Yes, it's all plain enough now. Now, ought I to do
anything--and if so, what?"
Volume Three, Chapter VI.