The Chief Engineer of the Trinity House was a man of few words. He
and Taffy had spent the afternoon clambering about the rocks below the
light-house, peering into its foundations. Here and there, where weed
coated the rocks and made foothold slippery, he took the hand which
Taffy held out. Now and then he paused for a pinch of snuff. The round
of inspection finished, he took an extraordinarily long pinch.
"What's _your_ opinion?" he asked, cocking his head on one side and
examining the young man much as he had examined the light-house. "You
have one, I suppose."
"Yes, sir; but of course it doesn't count for much."
"I asked for it."
"Well, then, I think, sir, we have wasted a year's work; and if we go
on tinkering, we shall waste more."
"Pull it down and rebuild, you say?"
"Yes, sir; but not on the same rock."
"Why?"
"This rock was ill-chosen. You see, sir, just here a ridge of elvan
crops up through the slate; the rock, out yonder, is good elvan,
and that is why the sea has made an island of it, wearing away the
softer stuff inshore. The mischief here lies in the rock, not in the
light-house."
"The sea has weakened our base?"
"Partly; but the light-house has done more. In a strong gale the
foundations begin to work, and in the chafing the bed of rock gets the
worst of it."
"What about concrete?"
"You might fill up the sockets with concrete; but I doubt, sir, if
the case would hold for any time. The rock is a mere shell in places,
especially on the northwestern side."
"H'm. You were at Oxford for a time, were you not?"
"Yes, sir," Taffy answered, wondering.
"I've heard about you. Where do you live?"
Taffy pointed to the last of a line of three whitewashed cottages behind
the light-house.
"Alone?"
"No, sir; with my mother and my grandmother. She is an invalid."
"I wonder if your mother would be kind enough to offer me a cup of tea?"
In the small kitchen, on the walls of which, and even on the dresser,
Taffy's books fought for room with Humility's plates and tin-ware,
the Chief Engineer proved to be a most courteous old gentleman. Toward
Humility he bore himself with an antique politeness which flattered her
considerably. And when he praised her tea, she almost forgave him for
his detestable habit of snuff-taking.
He had heard something (it appeared) from the President of Taffy's
college, and also from — (he named Taffy's old friend in the velvet
college-cap). In later days Taffy maintained not only that every man
must try to stand alone, but that he ought to try the harder because of
its impossibility; for in fact it was impossible to escape from men's
helpfulness. And though his work lay in lonely places where in the end
fame came out to seek him, he remained the same boy who, waking in the
dark, had heard the bugles speaking comfort.
As a matter of fact his college had generously offered him a chance,
which would have cost him nothing or next to nothing, of continuing to
read for his degree. But he had chosen his line, and against Humility's
entreaties he stuck to it. The Chief Engineer took a ceremonious
leave. He had to drive back to his hotel, and Taffy escorted him to his
carriage.
"I shall run over again to-morrow," he said at parting; "and we'll
have a look at that island rock." He was driven off, secretly a little
puzzled.
Well, it puzzled Taffy at times why he should be working here with
Mendarva's men for twenty shillings a week (it had been eighteen to
begin with) when he might be reading for his degree and a fellowship.
Yet in his heart he knew the reason. _That_ would be building, after
all, on the foundations which Honoria had laid.
Pride had helped chance to bring him here, to the very spot where
Lizzie Pezzack lived. He met her daily, and several times a day. She,
and his mother and grandmother, were all the womanfolk in the hamlet—if
three cottages deserve that name. In the first cottage Lizzie lived
with her father, who was chief lighthouse-man, and her crippled child;
two under-keepers, unmarried men, managed together in the second; and
this accident allowed Taffy to rent the third from the Brethren of
the Trinity House and live close to his daily work. Unless brought by
business, no one visited that windy peninsula; no one passed within
sight of it; no tree grew upon it or could be seen from it. At daybreak
Taffy's workmen came trudging along the track where the short turf and
gentians grew between the wheel-ruts; and in the evening went trudging
back, the level sun flashing on their empty dinner-cans. The eight souls
left behind had one common gospel—Cleanliness. Very little dust found
its way thither; but the salt, spray-laden air kept them constantly
polishing window-panes and brass-work. To wash, to scour, to polish,
grew into the one absorbing business of life. They had no gossip; even
in their own dwellings they spoke but little; their speech shrank and
dwindled away in the continuous roar of the sea. But from morning to
night, mechanically, they washed and scoured and polished. Paper was not
whiter than the deal table and dresser which Humility scrubbed daily
with soap and water, and once a week with lemon-juice as well. Never
was cleaner linen to sight and smell than that which she pegged out by
the furze-brake on the ridge. All the life of the small colony, though
lonely, grew wholesome as it was simple of purpose in cottages thus
sweetened and kept sweet by lime-wash and the salt wind.
And through it moved the forlorn figure of Lizzie Pezzack's child.
Somehow Lizzie had taught the boy to walk, with the help of a crutch,
as early as most children; but the wind made cruel sport with his first
efforts in the open, knocking the crutch from under him at every third
step, and laying him flat. The child had pluck, however, and when autumn
came round again, could face a fairly stiff breeze.
It was about this time that word came of the Trinity Board's intention
to replace the old light-house with one upon the outer rock. For the
Chief Engineer had visited it and decided that Taffy was right. To be
sure no mention was made of Taffy in his report; but the great man took
the first opportunity to offer him the post of foreman of the works,
so there was certainly nothing to be grumbled at. The work did not
actually start until the following spring; for the rock, to receive
the foundations, had to be bored some feet below high-water level, and
this could only be attempted on calm days or when a southerly wind blew
from the high land well over the workmen's heads, leaving the inshore
water smooth. On such days Taffy, looking up from his work, would catch
sight of a small figure on the cliff-top leaning aslant to the wind and
watching.
For the child was adventurous and took no account of his lameness.
Perhaps if he thought of it at all, having no chance to compare
himself with other children, he accepted his lameness as a condition of
childhood—something he would grow out of. His mother could not keep him
indoors; he fidgetted continually. But he would sit or stand quiet by
the hour on the cliff-top, watching the men as they drilled and fixed
the dynamite, and waiting for the bang of it. Best of all, however,
were the days when his grandfather allowed him inside the lighthouse,
to clamber about the staircase and ladders, to watch the oiling and
trimming of the great lantern and the ships moving slowly on the
horizon. He asked a thousand questions about them.
"I think," said he, one day before he was three years old, "that my
father is in one of those ships."
"Bless the child!" exclaimed old Pezzack. "Who says you have a father?"
"_Everybody_ has a father. Dicky Tregenza has one; they both work down
at the rock. I asked Dicky and he told me."
"Told 'ee what?"
"That everybody has a father. I asked him if mine was out in one of
those ships, and he said very likely. I asked mother, too, but she was
washing-up and wouldn't listen."
Old Pezzack regarded the child grimly. "'Twas to be, I s'pose," he
muttered.
Lizzie Pezzack had never set foot inside the Raymonds' cottage.
Humility, gentle soul as she was, could on some points be as unchristian
as other women. As time went on, it seemed that not a soul beside
herself and Taffy knew of Honoria's suspicion. She even doubted, and
Taffy doubted, too, if Lizzie herself knew such an accusation had
been made. Certainly never by word or look had Lizzie hinted at it.
Yet Humility could not find it in her heart to forgive her. "She may
be innocent," was the thought; "but through her came the injury to my
son." Taffy by this time had no doubt at all. It was George who poisoned
Honoria's ear; George's shame and Honoria's pride would explain why the
whisper had never gone further; and nothing else would explain.
Did his mother guess this? He believed so at times; but they never spoke
of it.
The lame child was often in the Raymonds' kitchen. Lizzie did not forbid
or resent this. And he liked Humility and would talk to her at length
while he nibbled one of her dripping-cakes. "People don't tell the
truth," he observed, sagely, on one of these occasions. (He pronounced
it "troof," by the way.) "_I_ know why we live here. It's because we're
near the sea. My father's on the sea somewhere, looking for us; and
grandfather lights the lamp every night to tell him where we are. One
night he'll see it and bring his ship in and take us all off together."
"Who told you all this?"
"Nobody. People won't tell me nothing (nofing). I has to make it out in
my head."
At times, when his small limbs grew weary (though he never acknowledged
this), he would stretch himself on the short turf of the headland and
lie staring up at the white gulls. No one ever came near enough to
surprise the look which then crept over the child's face. But Taffy,
passing him at a distance, remembered another small boy, and shivered
to remember and compare—
A boy's will is the wind's will
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.
—but how, when the boy is a cripple?
One afternoon he was stooping to inspect an obstinate piece of boring
when the man at his elbow said:
"Hullo! edn' that young Joey Pezzack in difficulties up there? Blest if
the cheeld won't break his neck wan of these days!"
Taffy caught up a coil of rope, sprang into a boat, and pushed across to
land. "Don't move!" he shouted. At the foot of the cliff he picked up
Joey's crutch, and ran at full speed up the path worn by the workmen.
This led him round to the verge, ten feet above the ledge where the
child clung white and silent. He looped the rope in a running noose and
lowered it.
"Slip this under your arms. Can you manage, or shall I come down? I'll
come if you're hurt."
"I've twisted my foot. It's all right, now you're come," said the little
man, bravely; and slid the rope round himself in the most businesslike
way.
"The grass was slipper—" he began, as soon as his feet touched firm
earth; and with that he broke down and fell to sobbing in Taffy's arms.
Taffy carried him—a featherweight—to the cottage where Lizzie stood by
her table washing up. She saw them at the gate and came running out.
"It's all right. He slipped—out on the cliff. Nothing more than a
scratch or two and perhaps a sprained ankle."
He watched while she set Joey in a chair and began to pull off his
stockings. He had never seen the child's foot naked. She turned
suddenly, caught him looking, and pulled the stocking back over the
deformity.
"Have you heard?" she asked.
"What?"
"_She_ has a boy! Ah!" she laughed, harshly, "I thought that would hurt
you. Well, you _have_ been a silly!"
"I don't think I understand."
"You don't think you understand!" she mimicked. "And you're not fond of
her, eh? Never were fond of her, eh? You silly—to let him take her, and
never tell!"
"Tell?"
She faced him, hardening her gaze. "Yes, tell—" She nodded slowly; while
Joey, unobserved by either, looked up with wide, round eyes.
"Men don't fight like that." The words were out before it struck him
that one man had, almost certainly, fought like that. Her face, however,
told him nothing. She could not know. "_You_ have never told," he added.
"Because—" she began, but could not tell him the whole truth. And yet
what she said was true. "Because you would not let me," she muttered.
"In the churchyard, you mean—on her wedding-day?"
"Before that."
"But before that I never guessed."
"All the same, I knew what you were. You wouldn't have let me. It came
to the same thing. And if I had told—Oh, you make it hard for me!" she
wailed.
He stared at her, understanding this only—that somehow he could control
her will.
"I will never let you tell," he said, gravely.
"I hate her!"
"You shall not tell."
"Listen"—she drew close and touched his arm. "He never cared for her;
it's not his way to care. She cares for him now, I dessay—not as she
might have cared for you—but she's his wife, and some women are like
that. There's her pride, anyway. Suppose—suppose he came back to me?"
"If I caught him—" Taffy began; but the poor child, who for two minutes
had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a wail:
"Oh, mother! my foot—it hurts so!"
(To be continued.)