"Troop-Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons!" and the man answered in a thin
voice, "Here!"
'"Troop-Sergeant-Major Thomas Irons, how is it with you?"
'The man answered, "How should it be with me? When I was young, I
betrayed a girl; and when I was grown, I betrayed a friend, and for
these things I must pay. But I died as a man ought. God save the King!"
'The trumpeter called to the next man, "Trooper Henry Buckingham!" and
the next man answered, "Here!"
'"Trooper Henry Buckingham, how is it with you?"
'"How should it be with me? I was a drunkard, and I stole, and in Lugo,
in a wine-shop, I killed a man. But I died as a man should. God save the
King!"
[Illustration: _'I killed a man.'_]
'So the trumpeter went down the line; and when he had finished, the
drummer took it up, hailing the dead Marines in their order. Each man
answered to his name, and each man ended with "God save the King!" When
all were hailed, the drummer stepped back to his mound, and called,--
'"It is well. You are content, and we are content to join you. Wait,
now, a little while."
'With this he turned and ordered my father to pick up the lantern, and
lead the way back. As my father picked it up, he heard the ranks of dead
men cheer and call, "God save the King!" all together, and saw them
waver and fade back into the dark, like a breath fading off a pane.
'But when they came back here to the kitchen, and my father set the
lantern down, it seemed they'd both forgot about him. For the drummer
turned in the lantern light--and my father could see the blood still
welling out of the hole in his breast--and took the trumpet-sling from
around the other's neck, and locked drum and trumpet together again,
choosing the letters on the lock very carefully. While he did this he
said:--
'"The word is no more Corunna, but Bayonne. As you left out an 'n' in
Corunna, so must I leave out an 'n' in Bayonne." And before snapping the
padlock, he spelt out the word slowly--"B-A-Y-O-N-E." After that, he
used no more speech, but turned and hung the two instruments back on the
hook; and then took the trumpeter by the arm; and the pair walked out
into the darkness, glancing neither to right nor left.
'My father was on the point of following, when he heard a sort of sigh
behind him; and there, sitting in the elbow-chair, was the very
trumpeter he had just seen walk out by the door! If my father's heart
jumped before, you may believe it jumped quicker now. But, after a bit,
he went up to the man asleep in the chair and put a hand upon him. It
was the trumpeter in flesh and blood that he touched; but though the
flesh was warm, the trumpeter was dead.
'Well, sir, they buried him three days after; and at first my father was
minded to say nothing about his dream (as he thought it). But the day
after the funeral, he met Parson Kendall coming from Helston market; and
the parson called out: "Have'ee heard the news the coach brought down
this mornin'?" "What news?" says my father. "Why, that peace is agreed
upon." "None too soon," says my father. "Not soon enough for our poor
lads at Bayonne," the parson answered. "Bayonne!" cries my father, with
a jump. "Why, yes;" and the parson told him all about a great sally the
French had made on the night of April 13th. "Do you happen to know if
the 38th Regiment was engaged?" my father asked. "Come, now," said
Parson Kendall, "I didn't know you was so well up in the campaign. But
as it happens, I _do_ know that the 38th was engaged, for 'twas they
that held a cottage and stopped the French advance."
'Still my father held his tongue; and when, a week later, he walked into
Helston and bought a "Mercury" off the Sherborne rider, and got the
landlord of the "Angel" to spell out the list of killed and wounded,
sure enough, there among the killed was Drummer John Christian, of the
38th Foot.
'After this, there was nothing for a religious man but to make a clean
breast. So my father went up to Parson Kendall, and told the whole
story. The parson listened, and put a question or two, and then asked,--
'"Have you tried to open the lock since that night?"
"I han't dared to touch it," says my father.
'"Then come along and try." When the parson came to the cottage here, he
took the things off the hook and tried the lock. "Did he say
'_Bayonne_'? The word has seven letters."
'"Not if you spell it with one 'n' as _he_ did," says my father.
'The parson spelt it out--B-A-Y-O-N-E. "Whew!" says he, for the lock had
fallen open in his hand.
'He stood considering it a moment, and then he says, "I tell you what. I
shouldn't blab this all round the parish, if I was you. You won't get no
credit for truth-telling, and a miracle's wasted on a set of fools. But
if you like, I'll shut down the lock again upon a holy word that no one
but me shall know, and neither drummer nor trumpeter, dead nor alive,
shall frighten the secret out of me."
'"I wish to gracious you would, parson," said my father.
'The parson chose the holy word there and then, and shut the lock back
upon it, and hung the drum and trumpet back in their place. He is gone
long since, taking the word with him. And till the lock is broken by
force, nobody will ever separate those twain.'
'THAT THERE MASON'
BY
W. CLARK RUSSELL
'THAT THERE MASON'
I was in Ramsgate, in the pier-yard, and noticed the figure of a boatman
leaning against the wall of a building used by the Trinity people. I
stepped close, and looked at him. He was a little man, curved; his hands
were buried to the knuckles' end in his breeches pockets; he wore a
yellow sou'wester, and under it was a sour, sneering, wicked face. His
eyes were damp and sunk, and seemed to discharge a thin liquor like pale
ale, and he would not pull out his hands to wipe them.
'What's your name?' said I.
He looked at me slowly, beginning at my waistcoat, and answered: 'What's
that got to do with you?'
'Do you want a job?'
'What sorter job?' he replied, continuing to lean against the wall,
without any motion of his body, merely looking at me.
'The job of answering a civil question with a civil answer,' said I.
He turned his head, and gazed at the sea without replying.
'What's that obelisk?' said I.
His head came back to its bearings, and he answered: 'What's what?'
'That thing in granite, yonder; that tall stone spike. What is it?'
'Can yer read?'
'Better than you, I expect,' I answered.
'Then why don't you go and find out for yourself?' said he, uttering a
small, hideous laugh.
'I rather fancy,' said I, 'that that spike was erected to commemorate
the landing of George IV. He was kind enough to condescend to land at
Ramsgate. Wasn't that good of him, Tommy? Blown here, maybe, vomiting,
to the pier-head, and rejoicing, under his waistcoats, to get ashore
anywhere and anyhow. And the snobs of Ramsgate go to the expense of
erecting that unwholesome and shocking memorial of so abject a trifle as
the landing of a fat immoral man at this port on his way to London. Why
don't you, and the like of you, level it,--knock the blamed thing into
blocks of stone, and build a house with them for a good man to live in?
His eyes had come to the surface; they were running harder than ever. He
was in a rage.
'Look here,' said he; 'I don't know who y'are, but don't yer like that
there pillar?'
'No,' I answered.
'Then why don't yer go home? There's nothen' to keep yer 'ere, I 'ope?
Plenty of trains to all parts, and I'll carry yer bag for nothen',
allowin' you've got one, only for the satisfaction of seein' the last of
yer.'
I told him I would remember that, and, bursting into uncontrollable
laughter at his peculiarly ugly, wicked face, I walked off, scarce
knowing but that I should feel the blow of ''arf a brick' in the back of
my head as I went.
I met a boatman with whom I had gone fishing on some occasions.
'Thomas,' said I, pointing to the leaning figure, 'who is that queer
little chap?'
'Jimmie Mason,' replied Thomas, with a half-glance at the wall-scab,
then turning his back upon it.
'Has he ever been hung?' said I.
'Don't think he could have been quite old enough for it,' he replied,
turning again to look at the little man. 'They cut a man down from the
gibbet on the sand hills yonder,' said he, pointing in the direction of
Deal, 'when my father was a boy, and he used to say that, when the man
got sprung, he'd relate, in beautiful language, how he felt when he was
turned off.'
'A dose of turning-off would do that gent in the sou'wester a great
deal of good,' said I. 'He's a sort of man, you know, to murder you when
you're out fishing with him. He's a sort of man to stab you in the back
with a great clasp knife, and drag your body into the empty house, which
never lets ever after.'
'Old Jim Mason's just the worst-tempered man on the coast. His heart was
turned black by a disappointment,' said Thomas.
[Illustration: _Old Jim Mason's the worst-tempered man on the coast._]
'Love?' said I.
'Why, not exactly love,' he replied; 'it was more in the hovelling
line.'
'Is it a good yarn?' I asked. 'If so, I'll stand two drinks; a pint for
you and a half-pint for me.'
'It might be worth recording,' said Thomas, taking the time occupied by
the harbour clock in striking: twelve to reflect. 'Anyways, pint or no
pint, here it is,' and, folding his arms, this intelligent longshoreman'
started thus:--
'Some years ago, a gemman and a lady went out for a sail, and, as is
not always customary in these 'ere parts,--though we've got some thick
heads among us, I can tell you,--they were capsized. The gemman was
drowned, the lady and the boatman saved, and the boat was picked up and
towed in,--there she lies, "The 'Arbour Bud."
'The widder, as was natural, was in dreadful grief; and, in a day or
two, police bills was pasted about the walls, offering a reward of 50l.
to any one who should recover the body. That there Mason, as you see
a-leaning agin that house, was just the party for a job of this sort. He
called 'em soft jobs. He was one of them men as would walk about the
rocks and sands arter a breeze of wind, hunting for whatever he might
find,--be it a corpse that had come ashore to keep him in good spirits,
or the 'arf of a shoe. Him and Sam Bowler was a-huntin' arter jewellery
down among the rocks one day, and that there Mason picked up a gold
ring. He offered it to Bowler, who gave him five shullens for it, and
that night, at the sign of the "Welcome 'Arp," that there Mason
swallowed some of his front teeth, and got both eyes plugged, for
Bowler, who weighs fourteen stun, had discovered that the ring was
brass.
'Well, that there Mason takes it into his head to go for a walk one day
arter the bills about the body had been pasted on the walls. He walked
in the direction of Broadstairs, and, comin' to the coastguard station,
he falls in with one of the men, a sort of relation of his. They got
yarning. The coastguard had a big telescope under his arm. That there
Mason asked leave to have a look, and he levels the glass and begins to
work about with it. The line of the Good'in Sands was as plain as the
nose on his face. It was low water, the whole stretch of the shoal was
visible, and it was a clear bright afternoon.
'"What's taken yer heye?" says the coastguard presently.
[Illustration: _'What's taken yer heye?'_]
'"Nothen, oh, nothen," answered that there Mason. "Sands show oncommon
plain to-day."
'He handed back the glass to the coastguard, and then, instead of
continuing his walk, he returned to this here yard, and got into his
boat and pulled away out of the harbour.
'Now what do yer think he had seen in that telescope? A dead man
stranded on the Good'in Sands. There could be no mistake. That there
Mason belonged to the cocksure lot; _he_ never made a blunder in all his
life. It mightn't be the body as was advertised for, but, if it was,
'twas a fifty-pound job; and that there Mason, without a word, pulled
out o' 'arbour feelin', I daresay, as if he'd got the gold in his
pocket, and the heavens was beginnin' to smile upon him.
''Tis a long pull to the Good'ins, tide or no tide. None took any notice
of his goin' out. There was some boats a-fishin' in Pegwell Bay, and if
any man looked at that there Mason a-rowing out to sea, he'd expect to
see him bring up and drop a line over the side. He rowed and rowed. The
body lay upon the edge of the Sand, a long distance away from the Gull
lightship. He rowed and rowed. By-and-bye, standin' up, he pulls out a
bit of a pocket glass, and then discovers that what he'd taken to be a
man's dead body was nothen but a small balk of timber, black with black
seaweed, stretched out on either side, so that at a distance it looked
exactly like a corpse on its back with its arms out.
'That there Mason might ha' burst himself with passion if he hadn't been
too dead beat with rowing. Even in them times he wasn't no chicken.
Well, thinks he to himself, since I've had all this here labour merely
to view a balk of timber, I may as well step ashore for a spell of rest,
and take a short cruise round, for who knows what I might find? So what
does the joker do but head his boat right in for the sand, and then he
jumps ashore. He made his boat fast to the balk of timber. It was arter
five, and the sun westerin' fast. He drives his 'ands deep into his
pockets, and slowly meanders, always a-looking. What was there to find?
_He_ couldn't tell. There was expectation, yer see, and that was a sort
of joy to the 'eart of that there Mason. Y'u'd hardly think it of a
boatman, but it's true: whilst that bally idiot was a-wandering about
them sands searching for whatever there might be, his boat, giving a tug
at her painter, frees the rope and drifts away on the tide, with that
there man as you are now a-looking at walking about the sands, his 'ands
buried deep and his eyes fixed, dreaming of lighting upon a sovereign or
a gold chain,--you can never tell what passes in such an 'ead. By'm-bye
he turns to look for his boat, and lo and be'old she's gone. There she
was half a mile off, quietly floating away to the norr'ard. The sun was
beginning to sink low; the night was coming along. The people aboard
the Gull lightship didn't see him or take any notice; what was that
there Mason going to do? There was no wreck to shelter him. It might be
that at Ramsgate they'd see a lonely man a-walking about, and send a
boat; but, as I've said, dusk was at 'and, and he knew bloomin' well
that if they didn't see him soon they'd never see him again.
'He'd taken notice afore the darkness had drawn down of a cutter bearing
about northeast. He watched her now whilst it was light, for it looked
to him as if she was making a straight course for the sands. It was
plain she wasn't under no government. The wind blew her along, and at
eight o'clock that evening, when the moon was rising and the tide making
fast all about the sands, I'm blest if that cutter didn't come quietly
ashore, and lie as sweetly still as if she was a young woman wore out
with walkin'.
'I allow that it didn't take that there Mason a lifetime to scramble
aboard of her. She was a fine boat, 'bout sixteen or eighteen ton, newly
sheathed, and her sails shone white and new in the moon. When he got
aboard he sung out, "Anybody here?" and he received no reply. There was
a bit of a forehatch; he put his 'ead into it and sung out, and several
times he sung out, and got no answer; he then walked aft. I must tell
you, it was a very quiet night, with a light breeze and plenty of stars,
and a growing moon. He looks through the bit of a skylight, and sees
nothen; puts his head in the companion-way and sings out as afore. An
abandoned wessel, he thinks to himself, and his 'eart, you may be sure,
turns to and rejoices.
'What should he do? Try to kedge her off himself? That was beyond him.
Send up a rocket, if he should find such a thing in the vessel? S'elp
me, he was that greedy he couldn't make up his mind to ask for 'elp. He
took a look round the sea and considered. There was some big lump of
shadow out behind the sands,--she looked like a French smack; his boat
was out of sight in the dark, but the cutter, he noticed, carried a
little jolly boat, amidships, right fair in the wake of the gangway,
easy to be launched, smack fashion, so that there Mason felt his life
was saved.
'He carried some lucifers in his pocket for lighting his pipe; he
stepped into the cabin, and struck a light. A lamp was hung up close
against his 'and; it was ready trimmed, and he set the wick afire, and
looked round. What did he see? As beautiful a little cabin as the
hinvention of man could figure. The sides of the wessel had been picked
out by artists, and that there Mason swears no man ever saw finer
pictures in his life,--ladies a-bathin', gentlemen chasin' with hounds,
a steamer going along; both sides had been picked out into pictures, and
that there Mason looked around him with his mouth opening and opening.
There was likewise lookin' glasses; a thick carpet; the lamps seemed to
be made of silver, and there was such a twinkling of silver all about,
what with the 'andles of doors and a lot of forks and spoons on the
table, that Mason's eyes began to dance in his evil old nut, and he
reckoned himself a made man for life. Look at him as he leans there.
'But what else did he see? The door of a cabin right aft stood open, and
half-way in and half-way out lay the body of a man; his throat was most
horribly cut; not by 's own 'and. No man could nearly cut his own 'ead
half off as that chap's was. He'd been murdered, and there was no man in
that beautiful little cutter saving that bleedin' corpse. It was a sight
to have thickened the wind-pipe of most men, and set them a-breathin'
hard and tight; but _he_ saw nothing but a man with his throat cut. He
took a look at him, and reckoned him to be a furriner, as, indeed, the
whole little ship seemed. It was a very quiet night, and he stood
looking at the dead body considering what he should do. If he brought
assistance from the shore, and the cutter was towed into port, his share
of the salvage money,--for the rewards are small in jobs of this sort
when the weather is fine and there is no risk of life,--his share, I
says, of the money would be scarcely worth talking about. Same time, if
he left the cutter to lie, and it came on to blow, she'd go to pieces
afore the morning. That wasn't his consarn, he thought; he had come to
the Good'ins on the look-out for a job, and had got one, and he made up
his mind to make the most of his chances.
'So the first thing that there Mason did was to stoop down and plunder
the body. Plenty was on it. I can see in fancy the looks of his face as
he 'elped himself; he found a beautiful gold watch and chain, a diamond
ring, and another ring, a lot of gold coins in French money in one
pocket, and French money in silver coin in another. He found a silver
toothpick, an eye-glass, and I can't tell you what besides. He was in
high feather, a very 'appy man; he fills his pockets with the forks and
spoons, supposing them silver, tho' they wasn't. He looked into the
cabin where the dead body lay, but found nothen but bed-clothes and male
wearin' apparel hangin' to the bulkhead. There was a chest of drawers
full of good linen shirts and vests and the like of that. But that there
Mason thought of Cocky Honour, the Customs man, and abandoned the idea
of makin' up them shirts into a parcel.
'It was his notion to get away in the cutter's jolly boat or dinghey,
and he stood looking about him to see if there was anything else he
could put in his pockets. All at once he heard a noise of men's voices
alongside, and, immediately arter, the 'eavy tread of fishermen's boots
over'ead. Afore he could get on deck, a big chap, with a red night-cap
on, came down the little companion-ladder, and instantly roars out
something in French. Down comes others,--three or four. 'Twas a minute
or two afore they took notice of the dead body, all along of starin'
round 'em, and at that there Mason, who stared back. They then set up a
howl, and fell a-brandishing their arms, as if they were gone stark mad.
'"You killee him!" roars one.
[Illustration: _'You killee him!' roars one._]
'"No, no," sings out Mason, "me no killee, me find him killee."
'"You killee him," roars the great man with the cap, lookin' most
ferocious, for that here Mason says his face was nearly all hair,
besides that he squinted most damnably, beggin' of your pardon. And then
he began to shout to the others, who shouted back at him, all talkin' at
the top of their voices, as is the custom in France when excited, and
all lookin' at that there Mason.
'Suddenly they all rushed at him, knocked him down, overhauled his
pockets, and brought out the spoons and forks and the dead gent's gold
watch and chain, and the rest of the plunder.
'"You killee", roared the big man in the cap, and layin' hold of him,
they ran him into the cabin where the corpse was, and locked him up with
the body, and presently that there Mason, who was next door to ravin'
mad, felt that they was warping the cutter off,--that, in short, she
_was_ off, and, by the noise of passin' waters, either sailing or in
tow.
'And now to end this, sir, what do you think happened to that there
Mason? She was a French smack that had sighted and boarded the cutter;
that was a Frenchman likewise, and they towed her straight to Boulogne,
at which place they arrived at about ten o'clock in the morning. Numbers
was on the pier to see the uncommon sight of a smack towing an abandoned
cutter. That there Mason was handed over to the authorities, charged
with murder and robbery. The British Consul took up the case. When the
facts were stated, and inquiries made, his innocence was established;
but not afore he'd lain three weeks in a beastly jail, fed on black
bread, and denied his pipe. I don't say he came home much changed; but I
allow the disappointment sunk as deep as his heart, and blacked it. And
to this hour he's not fit company for man nor beast. Look at him as he
leans!'
Laughing together, we strolled off for our drinks, and I saw Mason turn
his head to watch us as we walked.
THE END.