“Martyr or no martyr, I knaw a silly auld woman, an’ I ban’t proud of ’e

at all, nor of myself neither. Anything in reason I’d do for you, an’

have done ever since I took you; but being put to work in cold blood

under Smallridge is more’n I will do for you or for all the Plymouth

Brothers that ever bleated hell-fire to a decent man. I won’t go under

Smallridge. He’d make me sweat enough to float a ship; an’ at my time of

life ’twould shorten my days.”

“The Lord’ll help ’e, Joseph.”

“Lord helps those who help theerselves.”

“You’m gwaine to the Hall, however, for I’ve said it.”

“Not me—never.”

“You be, Joseph Hannaford, as I’m a living woman.”

“No. Not for nobody, Jane! I’ve never crossed you in my life; I’ve

knuckled under like a worm for forty-three year, an’ shall henceforward

just the same; but wheer Smallridge be in question I’m iron. I go to

church next Sunday.”

“You never shall!”

“I always shall—an’ glad to get back. ’Twas a very silly thing to leave

it.”

Mrs. Hannaford put her fowl-like nose within two inches of her husband’s.

“I dare you to do it.”

“Ban’t no use flustering yourself, my old dear. Every human man’s got

one kick in him. An’ kick I’m gwaine to this instant moment.”

He turned and left her with great agility, while she—the foundations of

her married life suddenly shaken by this earthquake—stood and stared and

gasped up at heaven.

Joseph quickly vanished into the dusk, and soon stood once more before

the new vicar. Mr. Budd thereupon raised his eyes from his desk and

asked a question without words.

“Well, your honour, ’tis like this here: I’ll go back to church again

very next Sunday as falls in.”

“Ah! But I thought that Joseph would be in bondage to no man?”

“Nor no woman neither,” said Mr. Hannaford.

A TRAVELLER’S TALE

“He’m a monkey that hath seen the world, no doubt,” said Merryweather

Chugg, the water-bailiff.

“Yes—an’ brought back some nuts wi’ gold kernels, by all accounts,”

answered Noah Sage; “though he ban’t going to crack none here, I reckon,

for the chap’s only come to have a look at the home of his youth; then

he’m off again to foreign parts.”

The two old men sat in the parlour of the “Bellaford” Inn at Postbridge,

and about them gathered other labouring folk. All were inhabitants of

the Dartmoor district, and most had been born and bred in the valley of

East Dart or upon adjacent farms. This village, of which the pride and

glory is an old bridge that spans the river, shall be found upon the

shaggy breast of the Moor, like an oasis in the desert; for here much

land has been snatched from the hungry heath, groves of beech and

sycamore lie in the bosom of these undulating wastes, and close at hand

are certain snug tenement farms whereon men have dwelt and wrestled with

the wild land from time immemorial.

To-day a native had returned to his home; and as a vacant room at the

“Bellaford” Inn well served his purpose, Mr. Robert Bates secured it for

a fortnight, that he might wander again about his boyhood’s haunts and

shine a little in the eyes of those who still remembered him. That night

he had promised to relate his experiences in the public bar; he had also

let it be known that upon this great occasion beer and spirits would flow

free of all cost for old friends and new.

“He’ll have to address a overflowed meeting, like a Member of

Parliament,” said Michael French, the Moor-man, “for be blessed if us can

all get in your bar, Mrs. Capern.”

“Lots of room yet,” she said, “if you’d only turn some of they boys

out-of-doors. They won’t drink nought, so I’d rather have their room

than their company.”

“I should think you was oncommon excited to see this chap, ban’t you?”

asked Noah Sage of a very ancient patriarch in the corner. “It was up to

Hartland Farm, when you was head man there, that Bob Bates comed as a

’pretence from Moreton Poorhouse, if I can remember.”

“Ess fay, ’tis so,” said the other. “You ax un if the thrashings I used

to give un every other day for wasting his time weern’t the makin’ of un;

an’ if he ban’t a liar, he’ll say ’twas so. If he owes thanks to any

man, ’tis to old Jacob Pearn—though I say it myself.”

“That’s the truth, an’ I’ll allow every word of it, Jacob; an’ I’m

terrible glad you ban’t dead, for you were the first I meant to see come

to-morrow.”

Mr. Bates himself spoke. He was a small, wiry man of fifty or

thereabout. His clothes were well cut, and he wore a gold watch-chain.

His face and hands were tanned a deep brown; his hair was grizzled, and

his beard was also growing grey at the sides. His eyes shone genially as

he grasped a dozen hands in turn, and in turn answered twice a dozen

salutations.

Robert Bates had run away from the heavy hand of Gaffer Pearn some five

and thirty years before the present time, and he looked round him now and

saw but one familiar face; for the old men had passed from their labours,

the middle-aged had taken their places, his former mates were growing

grey and he could not recognise them.

“I’ll tell you the whole tale if you’m minded,” he said. “’Tis thirty

years long, but give two minutes to each of they years an’ I’ll finish in

a hour. An’ meantime, Mrs. Capern—as was Nancy Bassett, an’ wouldn’t

walk out Sundays with me last time I seed ’e—be so good as to let every

gen’leman present have what he wants to drink, for I be going to leave

ten pounds in Postbridge, an’ I’d so soon you had it as anybody.”

Great applause greeted this liberal determination.

“You’m an open-handed chap, wherever you’ve comed from,” said

Merryweather Chugg, “an’ us all drinks long life an’ good health to you

an’ yours, if so be you’m a family man.”

“I’ll come to that,” answered Mr. Bates. “Let me sit by the fire, will

’e? I do love the smell of the peat, an’ where I come from, us don’t

trouble about fires, I assure ’e, for a body can catch heat from the sun

all the year round.”

“You was always finger-cold in winter,” said Mr. Pearn. “I mind as a boy

your colour never altered from blue in frosty weather, an’ you had a

chilblain wheresoever a chilblain could find room for itself.”

“’Tis so; an’ when I runned away to mend my fortune, ’twas the knowledge

that a certain ship were sailing down to the line into hot weather as

made me go for a sailor. To Plymouth docks I went when I ran off, an’

there met a man at the Barbican as axed me to come for cabin-boy; an’

when he said they was going where the cocoanuts comed from, I said I’d

go.”

“My dear life!” murmured Mrs. Capern,—“to think what little things do

make or mar a fortune!”

“’Tis so;—a drop of rum cold, mother, then I’ll start on my tale. An’ I

may as well say that every word be true, for Providence have so dealt by

me that to tell a falsehood is the last thing ever I would do.”

“Not but what you used to lie something terrible when you was young,

Bob,” said Mr. Pearn, from the corner.

“I know it, Jacob,” answered the traveller; “an’ hard though you hit, you

never hit hard enough to cure me of lying. ’Tis a damned vice, an’ I

never yet told a fib as paid for telling. But ’twasn’t you cured me;

’twas a man by the name of Mistley, the bo’sun of the ship I sailed in.

I told un a stramming gert lie, an’ he found it out, an’—well, if you

want to know what a proper dressing-down be, you ax a seafaring man to

lay it on. In them days they didn’t reckon they’d begun till they’d

drawed blood out of ’e; an’ so often as not they’d give ’e a bucket of

salt water down your back arter, just so as you shouldn’t forget where

they’d been busy. One such hiding I got from Mistley, an’ never wanted

another. I’d so soon have told that man a second lie as I’d told God one

to His shining face. An’ long after, to show I don’t bear no malice,

when I fell on my feet, I went down to the port when my old ship comed in

again two years later, an’ in my pocket was five golden pounds for

Mistley. Only he’d gone an’ died o’ yellow jack in the meantime down to

the Plate, so he never got it. An’ you boys there, remember what I say,

an’ never tell no lies if you want to get on an’ pocket good wages come

presently. ’Tis more than thirty years ago, an’ the man that did it

dust; yet I wriggles my shoulders an’ feels the flesh crawl on my spine

to this day when I thinks of it.

“But I’m gwaine too fast, for I haven’t sailed from Plymouth yet. Us

went off in due course, an’ I seed the wonders of the deep, an’ I can’t

say I took to ’em; but there—I’d gone for a sailor, an’ a sailor I

thought ’twould have to be. Us got to a place by name of Barbados in the

West Indies presently—Bim for short. A flat pancake of an island, with

not much to tell about ’cept that there’s only a bit of brown paper

between it an’ a billet I hope none of us won’t never go to. Hot as—as

need be, no doubt; but there was better to come, for presently we ups

anchor an’ away to St. Vincent—a place as might make you think heaven

couldn’t be better; an’ then down to Grenada, another island so lovely as

a fairy story; an’ then Trinidad—where the Angostura bitters comes from,

Mrs. Capern—an’ then a bit of a place by name of Tobago, as you could put

down on Dartymoor a’most an’ leave some to double up all round. Yet,

’pon that island, neighbours, I’ve lived my life, an’ done my duty, I

hope, an’ got well thought upon by black, white an’ brindled; for in them

islands I should tell you the people be most every shade you could name

but green. Butter-coloured, treacle-coloured, putty-coloured,

saffron-coloured, peat-coloured, an’ every colour; an’ sometimes, though

a chap may have the face of a nigger—lips an’ nose an’ wool an’ all—yet

he’ll be so white as a dog’s tooth; an’ you know there’s blood from

Europe hid in him somewheres. They’m a mongrel people; yet they’ve got

souls—just as much as they Irish-Americans; an’ God He knows if they’ve

got souls, there’s hope for everything—down to a scorpion. My own wife,

as I’ve left out in Tobago with my family—well, I wouldn’t go for to call

her black; an’ for that matter I knocked a white man off the wharf to

Scarborough in Tobago, who did say so; but you folks to home—I dare swear

you’d think her was a thought nigger-like, owing to a touch of the

tar-brush, as we call it, long ways back in her family history. But as

good a woman—wife an’ mother—as ever feared God an’ washed linen. A

laundress, neighbours—lower than me by her birth, so my master said; then

I laughed in his face, an’ told un I was a workhouse boy as couldn’t name

no father but God A’mighty. A nice little bungy, round-about woman, wi’

butivul black eyes, an’ so straight in her vartue as a princess. Never a

man had no better wife, an’ her’d have come to see old Dartymoor along

with me but for my family, as be large an’ all sizes.

“Well, to Tobago it was that, lending a hand to help lade a Royal Mail

Steam Packet as comed in—just to make a shilling or two while we was

idle, I got struck down. Loading wi’ cocoanuts an’ turtle her was; an’

’twould make you die o’ laughin’, souls, to have seen them reptiles

hoisted aboard by their flippers. No laughing matter for them though,

poor twoads, because, once they’m catched by moonlight ’pon the sandy

beaches there, ’tis a very poor come-along-of-it for ’em. Not a bit more

food do they have, but just be shipped off home in turtle-troughs an’

make the best weather they can. Us had a stormy journey back last

fortnight, an’ I knowed by the turtle-soup o’ nights that the creatures

were dying rapid an’ somebody had made a bad bargain. But if you gets

the varmints home alive, they be worth a Jew’s eye.

“Suddenly, helping in a shore barge, I went down as if somebody had

fetched me a clout ’pon top the head; an’, when I came to, there was

doctor from shore an’ the dowl to pay. ’Twas days afore I could get

about, an’ my ship couldn’t wait, an’ no work for me nowhere ’cept odd

jobs. Then they told me I was a D.B.S., which means a Distressed British

Seaman, an’ I found as I’d have to wait for next steamer that comed to

ship me off. But I weren’t very down-daunted ’bout it, for, since I’d

seen the size of the earth, I’d growed bigger in the mind a bit, an’ I

ate my food an’ smoked my pipe an’ thanked God that I was alive to try

again.

“Then, trapesing about one afternoon, footsore like and tired of trying

to get something to do on the sugar estates, I climbed over a wall into a

bit of shade, an’ sat me down under some cocoa trees to rest. I confess

I did get over a wall, which is a thing you can’t often do without making

trouble except on old Dartymoor. An’ there I was with the mountains

around—all covered to their topmost spurs wi’ wonnerful forest, and the

Caribbean Sea stretched blue as blue underneath. Such a jungle of trees

an’ palms laced together with flowering vines as you’ve never dreamed of.

Trumpet flowers, an’ fire-red flamboyants, an’ huge cactuses, an’ here

an’ there a lightning-blasted, gert tree towering stark white above all

the living green. An’ king-birds an’ humming-birds twinkling about in

the air like women’s rings an’ brooches, an’ lizards so big as squirrels

a-scampering upon the ground, an’ tree-frogs in the trees, an’ fireflies

spangling the velvet-black nights. An’ no dimpsy light, neither at dawn

nor even, for the moment sun be down ’tis night, an’ moment he be up

again ’tis morning. You can see un climb straight out o’ the sea as if

he was rolling up a ladder.

“I sat there in the shade, an’ at my very hand what should I find but a

ripe pomegranate? ’Tis a fruit as you folks haven’t met with outside the

Bible, I reckon, yet a real thing, an’ very nice to them as like it.

Packed tight wi’ seeds, the colour of the heather, wi’ a bitter-sweet

taste to it as be very refreshing to the throat. Such a fruit I picked

without ‘by your leave,’ an’ chewed at un, an’ looked at the butivul blue

sea down-under, an’ talked to myself out loud, as my manner always was.

“‘Well, Bob Bates,’ I sez, ‘you be most tired o’ caddling about doing

nought, ban’t you? Still, you’m a lucky chap, whether or no; for a live

D.B.S. be a sight better’n a dead cabin-boy. ’Twill larn ’e to treat the

sun less civil. Don’t do for to cap to him in these parts. But you keep

up your heart an’ trust in the Lord, as Mistley told ’e. He’ll look to

’e for sartain in His own time.’

“Then I heard a curious ristling alongside in the bush, an’ catched sight

of a pair o’ cat-like eyes on me. ’Course I knowed there wasn’t no

savage beasts there, but I didn’t know as there mightn’t be savage men,

an’ I was going to get back over thicky wall an’ run for it. But too

late. They was human eyes, wi’ a human nose atop an’ a human moustache

under, but a very comical fashion of face an’ a queerer than ever I’d

seen afore or have since.

“’Tis hard for me to call home exactly what Matthew Damian looked like

then, for ’tis above thirty year ago, an’ that man filled my eye every

day, winter an’ summer, for twenty years. Yet, though he looks different

now, with all I know behind my mind’s eye as I see him, then he ’peared

mighty strange, wild an’ shaggy. A face like a round shot he had, but a

terrible deep jaw under the ear. A little chin, round

eyes—grey-green—an’ ears standing sharp off a close-cropped head, wi’

hair pepper-an’-salt colour. A huge, tall man, an’ his beard was cut to

his chin, an’ his moustache stuck out like a bush five inches to port an’

starboard. Well, I was mortal feared, for I’d never seen nothing like un

outside a nightmare; yet his voice was so thin as a boy’s, an’ piped like

a reed in his thick throat. He had the nigger whine, too—as I dare say

you may mark on my tongue now, after my ears have soaked in it so long.

“He stared an’ I stared. Then he spoke. ‘You come along with me,’ he

said in a Frenchy sort of English.

“‘Why for?’ I said; then I thought I seed his eyes ’pon the pomegranate.

‘Very sorry, sir, if this here be yours,’ I said; ‘but I’m baggered if a

chap can tell what be wild an’ what ban’t on this here ridicklous island.

’Tis like a gentleman’s hothouse broke loose,’ I said to un.

“‘No matter about that,’ he said.

“‘I can give ’e my knife,’ I told un, ‘if you must have payment; but that

be all I’ve got in the world ’cept the things I stand up in, an’ I’d a

deal rather keep it.’

“‘I do not want your knife,’ he answers. ‘I want you.’

“‘Well, I’m going cheap, I do assure ’e,’ I said, thinking I’d try how a

light heart would serve me. But I weren’t comfortable by a long way,

’cause there’s a lot of madness in them islands, an’ I thought as this

chap might be three-halfpence short of a shilling, as we say. However,

he was too busy thinking to laugh at my poor fun, an’ for that matter, as

I found after, he never laughed easy,—nor talked easy for that matter.

Now he fell silent, an’ I walked by him. Then, after a stretch through a

reg’lar Garden of Eden, wi’out our first parents, us comed upon a lovely

house, whitewashed home to the roof—like snow in all that butivul green.

’Pon sight of it the man spoke again.

“‘I want you to talk to my mother,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’ll just talk

and talk in an easy way, as you was talking to yourself when I found

you.’

“‘I be only a sailor-man, wi’ nought to say to a lady,’ I told him.

“‘No matter for that,’ he said. ‘Just talk straight on. It do not

signify a bit what you say, so you speak natural. In fact, talk to my

mother as if madame was your own mother.’

“So then, of course, I reckoned the cat-faced chap was out of his mind—as

who wouldn’t have?

“To a great verandah we comed, all crawled over with the butivulest white

flowers the sun draws the scent from; an’ there, in a cane chair, sat an

ancient lady—lady, I say, though you might have reckoned she was an old

brown lizard by the look of her. Old ban’t the word for her. Time’s

self would have looked a boy alongside her, if the picture-books be true.

A great sunbonnet was over her head, an’ a frill under, an’ just a scanty

thread or two of white hair peeping from that. A face all deep lines

where the years had run over it; bright eyes peeping from behind great

gold spectacles, an’ hands—my word! like joints of an old apple tree.

Her was that homely too! A dandy-go-risset gown her wore, an’ a bit of

knitting was in her hands, an’ a good book, wi’ very large print, ’pon a

table beside her, an’ a li’l nigger gal waved a fan to keep the flies

away.

“I took my hat off an’ made a leg; then her son spoke: ‘Sit down there

beside her and talk loud, and pretend with yourself that Madame Damian is

your grandmother. Don’t try to use fine words; and remember this: if you

do rightly as I bid you, you shall never repent this day as long as you

live.’

“I was all in a maze, I do assure ’e; but I just reckoned obedience was

best, an’ went at her with one eye on my gentleman, for fear as he should

change his mind.

“‘Well, my old dear,’ I said, ‘I be very pleased to meet ’e, an’ I do

like to have a tell with ’e very much, if you’ll pardon a rough

sailor-man. An’ I hopes you’ll put in a word with this here big

gen’leman for me, ’cause I’ve eat one of his pomegranates

unbeknownst-like, though I’m shot if I’d have touched un come I’d known

’twasn’t wild. An’ to tell ’e gospel, I be in a jakes of a mess as

’tis—far from my home an’ not a friend in the world that I know of.’

“Dallybuttons! To see that ancient woman! When I beginned to talk, her

dropped her knitting, as if there was a spider in it, an’ sat up an’

stared out of her bead-black eyes. Though ’twas a fiery day, I went so

cold as a frog all down my spine to see her glaze so keen.

“‘Go on,’ she said in a funny old voice, ‘go on, young man, will ’e?

Tell about where you comed from, please.’

“There! it did sound mighty familiar to hear her, an’ no mistake!

“‘My heart! You’m West Country too!’ I cried out.

“Her nodded, but her couldn’t speak another word.

“‘Go on, go on talking to her,’ the man said.

“So I sailed on.

“‘You must know I runned off to sea, ma’am, from a farm down Dartymoor

way. ’Tis a terrible coorious sort of a place, an’ calls for hard work

if you wants to thrive there. Roots will do if you’m generous with

stable stuff an’ lime, but corn be cruel shy, except oats. I was a lazy

boy, I’m afraid, an’ got weary of being hit about like a foot-ball,

though I deserved it; an’ I thought to mend my life by running away. The

things I’ve seed! Lor’-amercy! ’tis a wonnerful world, sure enough,

ma’am.’

“‘So it be,’ she said, very soft, ‘an’ a wonnerful God made it, my dear.

Go on, go on about the Dartymoors, will ’e?’

“‘Well,’ I said, ‘’tis a gert, lonesome land, all broke up wi’ rocky

tors, as we call ’em, an’ clitters o’ granite where the foxes breed, an’

gashly bogs, in which you’m like to be stogged if you don’t know no

better. An’ the cots be scattered over the face of it, an’ the little

farms do lie here an’ there in the lew corners, wi’ their new-take fields

around about. There’s a smell o’ peat in the air most times, an’ it do

rise up very blue into the morning light. An’ the great marshes glimmer,

an’ the plovers call in spring; an’ the ponies, wi’ their little ragged

foals, go galloping unshod over the Moor. Then the rivers an’ rills

twinkle every way, like silver an’ gold threads stretching miles an’

miles; an’ come summer the heather blows an’ the great hills shine out

rosylike an’ butivul; an’—oh, my old dear—oh, ma’am—’ I says, breaking

off, ‘doan’t ’e—doan’t ’e sob so—doan’t ’e take on like that, for I

wouldn’t bring a wisht thought to ’e for money.’

“This I said ’cause the old ancient’s lips shook, an’ her bright eyes

fell a-blinking, an’ great tears rolled down. Then she put her hands

over her face an’ bowed over ’em.

“‘My God!’ said the chap, half to hisself, ‘this is the first time my

mother have wept to my sight; an’ I am sixty years old!’

“But of course a Devonshire woman wouldn’t cry afore a Frenchman, even if

he was her son.

“Come presently she cheered up. ‘Do ’e knaw a place by the name of

Postbridge, my boy?’ she says.

“‘I did ought to, ma’am,’ I sez; ‘’twas from Hartland Farm I runned.’

“She sighed a gert sigh. ‘Hartland!’ she says, as if the word was a

whole hymn tune to her.

“‘There’s a church, an’ a public, there now,’ I said.

“‘An’ the gert men of renown? Parson Mason, an’ Mr. Slack, an’ Judge

Buller, an’ Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt?’ she axed me.

“‘Never heard tell of none of them,’ I said.

“‘Course not,’ old lady answers. ‘Why—why, I forgot I be ninety-four.

They heroes was all dead afore your faither an’ mother were born.’

“‘As to them,’ I tells her—‘as to my faither an’ mother, ma’am, there’s a

manner of grave doubt, for I’m a workhouse boy, wi’out any havage that be

known.’

“But her had fallen to dreaming.

“‘Tell about the in-country,’ she said all of a sudden. ‘My mother comed

from down Totnes way.’

“So I tells about the South Hams, an’ the farms, an’ the butivul

apple-blooth, as creams out over the orchards in spring, an’ all the rest

of it.

“There, I talked myself dry an’ no mistake; an’ she nodded an’ nodded an’

laughed once; an’ it set her off coughing, an’ ’frighted her son

terrible.

“Then, after I’d been chittering for a month of Sundays, as it seemed to

me, the day ended and it comed on dark, an’ she got up to go.

“‘Keep un here,’ she says to the man. ‘For God’s love doan’t ’e let un

go. Pay un anything he axes for to stop.’

“She went off very slow, wi’ a nigger to support her at each elbow, an’ a

fine young brown woman to look after her. An’ I was took in the kitchen,

an’ had such a bellyful of meat an’ drink as minded me of Christmas up to

Hartland Farm in the old days.

“Then the chap—he lets me into the riddle of it all. You see his mother

was Farmer Blake’s darter—the first as ever saved land in these parts,

an’ rented from the Duchy more’n a hundred years agone now. An’ when

Princetown was made for a prison to hold the French us catched in the

wars, there comed a Monseer Damian among the prisoners. Him an’ many

other gents the authorities let out on parole, as they say; an’ he made

friends with Farmer Blake, an’ falled in love with Margery Blake. An’

when war was done, if he didn’t marry her all correct an’ snatch her away

to foreign parts! Martinique was left to the French, an’ he took her to

that island first, then to Trinidad, which be ours, then to Tobago, which

be also ours. There the man prospered, an’ growed sugar, an’ did very

flourishing, an’ comed to be first an’ richest party in the island. But

smallpox took him in middle life, an’ it took all his children but his

eldest son, Matthew Damian. He bided with his mother, an’ married a

French woman from Guadeloupe.

“An’ ’twas old lady’s hope an’ prayer for seventy year to hear good Devon

spoke again some day. Her only got to hunger terrible for the old

country when her childer an’ her husband died, by which time she was too

old to travel home again. An’ the Postbridge Blakes had all gone dead

ages afore; an’ in truth there couldn’t have been a soul on Dartymoor as

remembered her. Of course her son knowed the sound of the speech, from

hearing his mother, as never lost it; an’ when he catched me telling to

myself, his first thought was for her.

“’Twas meat an’ drink to her, sure enough; an’ meat an’ drink to me too,

for that matter, because I never left the Man-o’-War Bay Sugar Estate no

more. Very little work I done at first, for old Mrs. Damian would have

me keep on ’bout home every afternoon in the verandah; but six months

after I comed there she died, happy as a bird; an’ if I wasn’t down for

fifty pound in her will!

“Richest people in Tobago, they was; an’ then I settled to work for

Matthew Damian, an’ when he died, seventeen year after, the head man was

pensioned off, an’ I got the billet under Matthew Damian’s son, who be my

master now. An’ there I’ll work to the end, an’ my childern after me,

please the Lord.”

* * * * *

“’Tis a very fine tale, Mr. Bates, if I may speak for the company,” said

Merryweather Chugg; “an’ it do show what a blessing it be to come out of

Devonshire. If you’d been a foreigner, now, none of these good things

would have happened to ’e.”

“I mind my faither telling about Farmer Blake an’ how he helped to carry

his coffin to Widecombe soon after I was born,” said Gaffer Pearn.

“For my part,” declared the landlady, “my mind be all ’pon that poor old

blid, as went away from these parts in her maiden days. To think, after

seventy years of waiting, that she should hear a Devonshire tongue again!

I lay it helped her to pass in peace.”

“It did so,” declared the returned native. “She went out of life easy as

a babby; for her appeared to see all her own folks very clear just afore

she died, an’ she was steadfast sure as there’d be a West-Country welcome

waitin’ up-along. Fill your glasses, my dears; an’ give they boys some

ginger-beer, ma’am, will ’e?”

THE TWO WIDOWS

CHAPTER I

Upon the great main road that crosses Dartmoor from Moretonhampstead to

Plymouth, and distant but half a mile from the little hamlet of

Postbridge, near the eastern arm of Dart, there stand two cottages. Here

slopes the broad bosom of Merripit Hill upon the heart of the wilderness,

and the cots, that appear on each side of the way, are built exactly

alike—of yellow bricks and blue slates. They have doors of the same

green shade and window blinds of white chintz; their woodwork is painted

brown, and their chimney-pots are red. In every respect these

habitations seem outwardly identical, save that one faces north, while

the other, over against it, looks southerly. Their gardens are of equal

proportion, and contain the same class of cabbage, similar rows of tall

scarlet-runner beans sprout from each little plot in summer, and patches

of red lettuce, dusted over with soot to keep away the slugs, appear in

both during springtime. Once two men dwelt in these abodes, and they

were wiser than their wives and maintained an amiable acquaintance, but

avoided hot friendship.

When Abel Haycraft and his newly married mate arrived at the

northern-facing cottage, Henry Mogridge, the water-bailiff, who dwelt in

the cottage that looked south, paid him a visit and put the position

briefly and forcibly:—

“’Tis like this, Mr. Haycraft,” he said. “I be very glad to have you for

a neighbour, an’ I hope you’ll like Dartymoor, an’ prosper up here, an’

make good money at Vitifer Mine, where I’m told you be going to work; but

this I’ll say, don’t let’s be too friendly—nor our women-folk neither.

Out of friendship I say it.”

“What a word!” said Mr. Haycraft, who was only twenty-one and of a

sanguine nature, “Why, I wants to be friends with everybody, if so be as

they’ll let me. An’ my missis too.”

“That’s a very silly idea; but you’m young yet and will larn better come

by an’ by. I mean this: you an’ me live a gert deal too close together

to get too thick. We’m only human beings, an’ so sure as we get too

trustful an’ too fond of listening to each other’s business, so sure us

will end by having a mortal row. ’Tis a thing so common as berries in a

hedge. I ban’t saying a word against my old woman, mind you. She’s so

truthful as light, an’ a Christian to the marrow in her bones. Nor yet

be I hinting anything disrespectful of Mrs. Haycraft. Far from it. But

human creatures is mostly jerry-built in parts, an’ the best have their

weak spots. There’s nought more dangerous on earth than a gert

friendship struck up between folks who live close together ’pon opposite

sides of the road. I’ve seed the whole story more than once, an’ I know

what I say be true.”

Abel Haycraft considered this statement for a moment. Then he spoke:—

“I suppose you’m right. An’ if by bad chance they was to fall out—I mean

the women—us would have to take sides as a matter of duty. A

husband—well, there ’tis.”

“So us would; but God forbid as our wives should have any quarrel, or you

an’ me either; so we’ll just bide friendly with your leave; but not too

friendly.”

“’Tis a very good plan, I’m sure,” answered the younger; and that evening

he told his wife about it after they had gone to bed.

Mrs. Haycraft felt great interest and enlarged Abel’s vision.

“Do ’e know what that means? It means as his good lady can’t be trusted,

an’ the old man well knows it. I lay she’m the sort as makes mischief.

Well, don’t you fear. I’ll take care to keep her at arm’s length. I

wasn’t born yesterday.”

“She’m a kind enough creature so far, I’m sure,” answered Abel. “A

motherly fashion of woman, an’ not so old as her husband by twenty years,

I should judge.”

“’Twas his way of giving us a warning, nevertheless,” declared Honor

Haycraft. “Or,” she added, “seeing as I was a red-haired woman, and

thinking maybe that I had a short temper, she may have reckoned that—”

“Not at all, not at all,” interrupted the husband, hastily. “Do ’e think

I’d have stood any such idea? God’s my judge, I’d have hit the man in

the mouth if he’d said a word against you or your butivul colour.”

“If I thought she’d taken a dislike to me, because I was red, I’d never

look at the woman,” said Honor. “For that matter, I’m comelier far than

her, though I say so.”

“An’ comelier than any other woman at Postbridge, or on all Dartymoor

either,” declared Abel, devoutly.

“I’ll be civil to her, then, but no more. An’ I wish her hadn’t brought

over that gert dish of Irish stew the day us comed in an’ were sinking

for a morsel to eat; for us ate it, an’ licked the bones, an’ now she’ve

got a hold on us.”

“Not at all,” said the larger-minded man. “’Tis a poor spirit as can’t

stomach a kindness without worriting to pay it back. Us’ll have a chance

of doing her a good turn for sartain, living at her door same as we do.

Just let things go their own way, an’ they’ll go right. We’m all

Christian creatures, thank God, an’ there’s no reason because we live in

a outlandish sort of place like this here that we should forget it.”

“All the same,” declared his plump, red girl, pouting, “I could wish as

Mr. Mogridge hadn’t spoke them words. He’ve hurt my pride. I wasn’t

going to jump down their throats. I’m not that sort.”

“’Twas a bit chilly like, perhaps; but he’m older than us, an’ wiser, an’

he meant well.”

“He’m not wiser than you be, anyway. I believe, if us knowed, you’d find

you made better money than what he do.”

“Us’ll leave it at that, then; an’ now us’ll go to sleep, if you please.”

CHAPTER II

Within a month Honor Haycraft and Avisa Mogridge were the closest of

friends, for, despite the water-bailiff’s caution and the younger man’s

attempt to profit by it, their wives took the matter into their own

hands. Both husbands were away all day at work; their cottages stood

half a mile distant from any others, and the two lonely women soon struck

up a close and intimate relation. Mrs. Mogridge was honourable,

truthful, warm-hearted and affectionate; she had two young children, both

girls; she loved her elderly husband dearly; she knew the life-history of

every man and woman in Postbridge; and she related the affairs of the

village with full detail for the benefit of Honor, who was an Exeter

girl, and did not know the people of the Moor.

“I can talk straight to ’e,” said Mrs. Mogridge, “for you come without

one particle of feeling against anybody or for anybody. So I’ll tell you

what they all be like down-along, an’ who you can trust an’ who you can’t

trust, so far as I know ’em. You’ll go your own way, but ’tis never any

harm to hear another opinion.”

Thus Mrs. Haycraft, instead of forming independent conclusions from

experience, took her view of the new neighbours and environment from

another woman; and this was a happier circumstance than might be guessed,

because Avisa Mogridge possessed plenty of good sense and a kindly heart,

whereas, though the red girl’s heart was warm enough, her head was rather

weak, and of sense, or patience, or knowledge of human nature she had

none to name. She was a superstitious woman, full of old saws and

sayings. If she met a single magpie, she went in fear for a week. Her

husband tried to laugh her out of such folly, but he never succeeded.

And so the friendship ripened and the men looked on. In secret Henry

Mogridge prophesied a catastrophe, as sure as women were women all the

world over; while Abel Haycraft listened and nodded, but hoped the

water-bailiff might be mistaken.

Avisa and Honor worked side by side at the same wash-tub when their

husbands were away, compared notes, listened to each other’s wisdom and

opinions. Honor petted her friend’s little girls, and made sugar-plums

and cakes for them; Avisa took the deepest interest in Honor’s

approaching motherhood.

A boy was born to the young wife—a flaxen, Saxon atom, with a first crop

of hair the colour of straw, blue eyes, a flat nose like his father’s,

red cheeks, and very fat limbs.

Then came winter, and Henry Mogridge, catching a chill in the night

watches by the river, passed away, a victim to his duty beside Dart.

Honor comforted her friend as much as might be, and Postbridge showed

sympathy also, until it was announced that Mrs. Mogridge had been left

with £40 a year. Thereupon, feeling that commiseration would be wasted,

the village turned to more interesting matters.

Time sped, and when her child was a year old, Honor Haycraft followed

Avisa into the state of widowhood. An accident at Vitifer Mine ended the

burly Abel’s life; and with him there also perished another man and a

boy.

CHAPTER III

The two widows, united in tribulation, became greater friends than

before. Neither married again, and the one lived for her little maidens,

the other for her son. Such close amity proved a strain at times,

however, and as each knew all that there was to know about the other,

each, conscious of the other’s imperfections, secretly regretted them in

the friendliest spirit. Then came a little difference of opinion over

the children; and then, from a personal attitude of irritation not

divulged to anybody, Avisa, smarting somewhat at a pin-prick from Honor

Haycraft touching her eldest little girl, spoke in overt fashion to a

common friend at Postbridge.

“She’s a very good woman,” said Mrs. Mogridge, while she drank a dish of

tea with Mrs. Bloom. “A pattern wife her was, an’ steady as time since

her man was called, an’ a pattern mother, though her goose is a swan, as

one might expect, an’ she thinks her ugly, li’l fat boy is a cherub, poor

dear. Well, ’tis natural so to do. I wouldn’t blame her; we mothers be

all alike there. But I could wish she had more brains, an’ didn’t

believe such a lot of rummage an’ nonsense. To credit all that dead an’

gone stuff about pixies, an’ the heath-hounds, an’ the use of herbs

picked in moonlight, an’ the planting of seeds ’pon a Good Friday—why,

’tis onbecoming in a growed-up woman as went to Sunday-school; an’ I wish

she’d drop it.”

That was all that Avisa said to Mrs. Bloom, the washerwoman; but a

fortnight afterward it happened that by evil chance Mrs. Bloom fell out

bitterly with the water-bailiff’s widow, and told Mrs. Mogridge that she

was a cat, and that ’twas well known her husband never died of a chill at

all, but from his wife’s unkindness and cruelty. She said a great many

other things of a nature not necessary to set down; and, as a result,

Mrs. Mogridge felt it impossible longer to affect the society of Mrs.

Bloom.

Then did Mrs. Bloom ask Honor Haycraft to a cup of tea; and Honor,

smarting with indignation at the treatment her dearest friend had

received from the washerwoman’s venomous tongue, accepted the invitation.

Her purpose was loyal to the other widow. She intended to glean further

particulars concerning Mrs. Bloom’s abominable opinions and assertions

touching Avisa. Because a man in the village had told them that Mrs.

Bloom’s statements were in the nature of a libel, and might even put her

into prison.

Hoping to catch Mrs. Bloom in some outrageous utterance, and so assist

her friend to crush the washerwoman, Honor Haycraft appeared in a cottage

that always reeked of soap and steam.

Mrs. Bloom immediately came to personalities; and then Honor’s freckles

stood out brown upon her red skin; she grew hot from her heart outward;

the tea lost its savour, and the toast its charm.

“Sorry am I to quarrel with any living thing—man, woman or mouse—but one

has one’s pride,” said Mrs. Bloom. “Ess, one has one’s pride; an’ if

there’s a thing I do pride myself upon, after my gift of washing, ’tis my

gift of silence. It don’t come easy to any healthy-minded woman in a

village this size to keep her mouth shut; an’ I confess that it didn’t

come easy to me; but I larned how to do it, an’ I’ve been a faithful

friend to a gert many people, an’ never quarrelled with a living soul,

gentle or simple, till Avisa Mogridge broke with me.”

“She’s got a proper grudge against you,” said Honor, cautiously. “An’

I’m on her side, I warn you.”

“No doubt: you’ve heard her tale. I’m not going to say anything about it

to you, because you are her particular friend, an’ blessed are the

peacemakers. But this I’ll say, though far be it from me to set friends

against friends: I would advise you to take care. She’s a fire as a very

little spark will set on light,—a very critical woman,—always was so.

It’s a fault where there’s no judgement. Her can’t help it. Her

criticises other folks’ ways, an’ their habits, an’ their ideas, an’ even

their children. Now, if there is a dangerous trick on God’s earth, ’tis

to criticise other folks’ children.”

“She’s a right to her opinions, however.”

“Most surely she have; an’ she’ve a right to the air she breathes, an’

the water she drinks. She’ve a right to her ideas; but she’s no right to

utter ’em where they might do harm. You an’ me be the best friends

possible, thank God, an’ she’s no right to say an unkind word of you to

me, any more than I’d have a right to say an unkind word of her to you;

because you an’ she be the best friends possible likewise. An’ not a

word against her would ever pass my lips to you; because you’m a woman as

feels very deeply, an’ I should make mischief, which God forbid.”

“Her never said a word against me, that I’ll swear to,” said Honor,

hotly; “an’ if an angel from heaven told me her did, I wouldn’t believe

it.”

“An’ quite right you’d be,” said Mrs. Bloom. “You put it like a true

friend. True friendship be a-thought blind always; an’ ’tis well it is

so, for where there’s clear seeing between any two human beings, old or

young, man or woman, perfect friendship can’t be. That’s why I’ve always

kept my mouth shut so close all my life; and I ban’t going to begin to

open it now I’m turned forty-five—not even to you, my dear.”

“Not a word would I believe—not a syllable,” repeated Honor.

“An’ not a word would you hear from me—good or bad. What she said was

kindly meant—very kindly meant indeed. It only showed that no two humans

look at life from the same point of view. We knowed that afore. For my

own part I’ve always declared that ’twas weak of you to believe all they

stories of ghosts an’ goblins, an’ dancing stones an’ the like. As a

deep-thinking an’ true Christian I feel it. But the difference between

me an’ her is that I say it to your face; she blames you behind your

back.”

“Avisa Mogridge has laughed at me often enough about it. That’s

nothing,” said Honor. “I know ’tis nonsense really, but I can’t help

believing the things.”

“I’m very glad you’ve got the sense to see it so. ‘No,’ I said, ‘no,

Mrs. Mogridge, whatever Honor Haycraft may be, she’s not a fool. Her

father told her about these solemn things in her youth, an’ many an old

ancient man hereabouts do still believe in ’em, though of course the

Bible is short an’ sharp with witches an’ such like.’”

“She didn’t say I was a fool?”

“Well, since you ax me, I must be honest, for my own soul’s sake.

Trouble I won’t make, an’ you’m far too sensible to think of it again.

‘Fool’ was not the word she used, but she wished you had more brains.

That may be the same thing, or it may not. I up rather sharp an’ denied

you had any lack of intellects; but she said she was in the right.

‘Prove it,’ I said. ‘Prove it you can’t, Avisa Mogridge. She’m a

sensible, clever, good girl,’ I said, ‘an’ her head’s screwed on the

right way.’

“She bided silent a moment. Then she said, ‘Honor reckons her goose is a

swan, an’ thinks that her ugly, li’l fat boy is a cherub.’ I stared at

her till my eyes bulged out; I couldn’t believe my own ears. She meant

it, of course; but no call for you to grow so red, my dear, she didn’t

mean it a bit unkindly. ’Twas just her honest opinion that your little

angel be too fat an’ too ugly for anything. ‘If you think that,’ I

answered her, ‘you’d better not mention it.’”

“She said my li’l boy was ugly?”

“She thinks so. She’s positive of it. She’s a very honest woman, mind

you. With all her many faults, she’s honest. She wouldn’t have said it

if she hadn’t really believed it. She’m dead certain of it.”

“My Billy ugly! Did ’e ever set eyes on a finer babby, tell me that?”

“Me? I never seed such a purty child in all my life. He’m a like a li’l

blue-eyed Love off a valentine. But she—”

“A woman who could say my child was ugly could only say it for malice,”

declared the red-haired mother, with a rising breast.

“Don’t think that. Her own maidens be very homely, you see. ’Tis a

little natural jealousy, be-like.”

“’Tis a lie, Jane Bloom, an’ I’ll never believe she said it—never.”

“You’ll be sorry for that word, Honor Haycraft. Ax her, then. Ax her if

her didn’t tell me your little boy was fat an’ ugly. She’s never been

catched out in a lie yet, ’tis said. See what she’ll answer you. An’

when you’ve heard her speak, I shall expect you to say you’m sorry to me.

I never yet willingly uttered an unkind word against any living soul, an’

never will. If you want to live in a fool’s paradise, that’s your

lookout. But it shall never be said I didn’t do my duty to my neighbour

according to the Prayer Book ordinance.”

With this vague but masterly speech Mrs. Bloom rose from her tea and held

the cottage door open. Her guest took the hint, and in ten minutes was

at home again.

Then she crossed the road, and seeing Avisa Mogridge in her garden with

the little girls and the infant Billy, who had been left in trust with

her, Honor spoke:

“Just one word, an’ only one, afore I go down to the village an’ give

that old cat-a-mountain, Jane Bloom, the lie to her crooked face.”

“Ah! What have she said, then?” asked the other. Mrs. Mogridge rose

from pulling up weeds, and lifted her shoulders to ease her back.

“She’ve told me as you told her that my child was fat an’ ugly. I

answered in one word that she was a wicked liar. An’ she answered back

that I’d better ax you, for you’d never been known to tell a falsehood in

all your born days. Did you say it or didn’t you, Avisa? I only want

your word. Then I’ll go back-along and give her what for.”

Mrs. Mogridge paused with a bit of groundsel in her hand. The children

frolicked beside her, and she bade them be silent, sharply. Then she

dropped the groundsel and turned and spoke.

“I told you that you was wrong to go an’ speak to her. I warned you

against it. Now, I suppose, the fat’s in the fire. You’d made me cross

a fortnight agone, when you said that my Minnie’s second teeth would

never come right. An’ I got talking like a fool just afterward, an’ I

certainly said to Mrs. Bloom that your goose was a swan—same as it is

with all of us mothers—an’ I said that your little, dear boy was—was

ugly. ’Twasn’t a right or a kind thing to say, an’ I’m very—”

“You said it! An’ like enough you’ve said it a thousand times. You’m a

wicked traitor; an’ I’ll never speak to you again, so help me God; an’ if

your beastly childer cross my threshold any more, or so much as touch my

garden palings, I’ll throw boiling water over ’em, so now you know, you

evil-minded, jealous devil!”

Mrs. Haycraft spoke no more, and waited for no answer. She snatched up

her child, rushed into her own house, banged the door and was soon

sobbing over her fat-nosed Billy.

CHAPTER IV

When Jane Bloom’s husband took his lady out of Postbridge, so that she

might live down a connubial scandal and pursue her cleansing occupation

elsewhere, it was supposed that the deadly and famous quarrel between

Avisa and Honor would be healed. The gossips of Postbridge all

prophesied a speedy return to friendship between the two widows, and not

a few well-meaning women set to work to play peacemaker. But their

efforts met no response. Both Avisa and Honor made it clear that

arbitration must be in vain, since this tragic matter went deeper than

plummet of peacemaker could ever sound. Neither woman would make the

first move; but Mrs. Mogridge was prepared to welcome any overture from

the other. She accepted the inevitable with considerable philosophy;

rightly appreciated the significance of the position; perceived how the

idlest, least malignant word may sometimes fall like a scourge upon the

back of the careless speaker. She held herself punished, and quite

deservedly punished, for a very foolish error. She mourned the event,

and with secret tears recalled the wisdom of her dead partner. Mrs.

Haycraft, on the other hand, nursed her wrath and kept it warm. Her

little boy justified the bygone criticism, and he grew less and less

personable. But how could she know that? To her eyes he was beautiful

above the children of men. Daily he grew more like his father; daily his

little weak eyes reflected more of the blue of the sky.

Then he fell very sick and died.

A night of agony hid Honor, and in that darkness her tears descended like

winter rain. Hopeless, helpless, red-eyed, she sat by the small body;

and women came to comfort her, but she cursed both God and them, and bade

them depart and leave her alone with grief greater than daughter of man

had yet suffered.

The day before the funeral the mother took no food, and entered upon that

nervous, neurotic period common to the time. She never sat down. She

roamed for miles in the narrow space of the house and garden. She

arranged and rearranged the flowers on the coffin; she magnified small

griefs and temporary inconveniences. She quarrelled bitterly with the

undertaker that the lining of the little box was cheaper than she had

directed. She found a small flaw also upon the lid. This was concealed

with putty, and Honor called down the wrath of the Everlasting upon the

carpenter who had made it.

A master sorrow in the minor sort now fell upon her. There is a belief

on Dartmoor that if a little boy dies, he should be carried to his grave

by little girls, and when a small maid passes it is thought good if boys

are her bearers. Honor hugged this tradition as a precious and seemly

observance; but it chanced that of small girls in Postbridge there were

then but four, and the task she desired to set them would need six pairs

of hands. The misfortune swiftly mounted into a tragedy when viewed from

her distracted standpoint. Her unrestrained grief grew voluble; she

mourned her lot to any who would listen. From the first storm of weeping

and the first desire for peace and loneliness she became talkative, and,

in a condition of sustained incoherence, chattered, light-headed, from

morning until night. She was rude to the clergyman when he came to see

her. Her friends suggested that two more little girls should be obtained

from Princetown, or some neighbouring hamlet; but the poor soul explained

that this rite allowed of no such deviation. The children must be those

who had known her dead baby, and actually played with him. Others would

not answer the proper purpose.

Upon the night before the funeral the undertaker went home a shattered

man, for the matter of this tiny corpse had troubled him, and such

failure to satisfy the parent hurt his professional feelings.

“There wasn’t half the difficulties when us laid by His Honour, Lord

Champernowne, Peer of the Realm and J.P., an’ ten coaches, an’ a letter

of thanks after from the steward,” he grumbled to his wife. But she

comforted him.

“The woman’s stark, staring mad, my dear. Don’t think no more about her.

If you’d lined the casket with shining gold, her’d have grumbled because

there weren’t no diamonds in it. An’ all for two pound, ten. ’Twas like

your big heart to use elm, when any other man would have made deal do

very nice.”

Meantime, at the hour of gloaming, as Dartmoor vanished fold upon fold

into the purple of night, did Avisa Mogridge pluck heart, and cross the

high road, and enter her neighbour’s house. She did not knock, but

lifted the latch boldly, walked in and stood before Honor, where the

unhappy mother sat and worked upon a black bonnet by candle-light.

“You! You to come! You, as may be a witch an’ overlooked my li’l

darling, for all I know!” she cried, leaping to her feet.

“Yes, ’tis me, Mrs. Haycraft; but no witch. Only a woman as have seed

sorrow too—though no sorrow like your sorrow just now. I’ve come to tell

’e I love ’e still, an’ I can’t bide away from ’e no more, an’ I won’t.

You shan’t drive me off.”

Honor breathed hard.

“Everything do happen all to once,” she said.

“Maybe I didn’t ought to have intruded; but I’m older than you, an’ I

thought—”

“You be safe. I’m too weak to bear malice against you. My darling’s

screwed down now. If you’d seed him yesterday, you’d have called back

your wicked word, Avisa Mogridge. He weren’t ugly after he died—he—oh,

God, an’ not one sound of his little noise in the house. It’s killing

me.”

“To be frank with you, Honor, you must marry again. You’m only

twenty-three. Yes, I know you be. An’ ’twas my little girls put them

flowers ’pon your window-sill last June on your birthday morning. They

done it afore daybreak. An’—an’—oh, woman, I be broken-hearted for ’e;

God’s my judge if I ban’t.”

Mrs. Haycraft was rocking herself backward and forward, and crying.

Suddenly she rose up.

“Come an’ see the coffin,” she said. “Several of the gentry have sent

greenhouse flowers to me. There’s a butivul smell to ’em.”

“I will come; an’ I want to say this. My girls—do ’e let ’em help with

the thing you want. They’d make six with t’other children. Do ’e let

’em, Honor.”

“’Tis too late; they can’t get black now.”

“You forget my old mother died last Christmas.”

“Ah! so her did—that’s lucky,” said Mrs. Haycraft.

After the funeral the widows walked together. They left their friends at

Postbridge, then returned home side by side.

As they ascended the hill, with Avisa’s two little girls marching

together behind them, a robin suddenly sang out sharp and clear.

“Thank the Lord I’ve heard that,” said Honor, very earnestly, alluding to

an ancient fable.

Her reconciled friend nodded.

“I be very glad also,” she said. “To hear redbreast singing after a

child is buried do mean the little one’s safe in Heaven; though, all the

same, God only knows where the babbies should go to, if not to Him.”

WITH BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE

CHAPTER I

On a frosty night, when George III was King, certain men, for the most

part familiar customers, sat in the bar of the “Golden Anchor,” Daleham;

and amongst them appeared that welcome addition to the usual throng: a

stranger. For his benefit old tales were told anew and ancient memories

ransacked; because this West country fishing village enjoyed rich

encrustation of legend and romance, and boasted a roll call of great

names and great deeds. Here dwelt the spirits of bygone free-traders,

visible by night in the theatre of their lawless enterprises; and here

even more notable stories, touching more notable phantoms, might also be

gleaned from ancient intelligencers at the time of evening drinking.

The newcomer listened grimly to matters now much exercising Daleham. He

was a hard-faced man with a blue chin and black eyes, whose short,

double-breasted jacket, wide breeches, glazed hat and pigtail marked a

seafarer.

“As for ghostes,” he said, “can’t swear I’ve ever seed one, but no

sailor-man, as have witnessed the Lord’s wonders in the deep, would dare

to doubt ’em.”

“Just picture a whole throng, my dear!”

John Cramphorn spoke. He was an ancient fisher, and his face might have

stood for the Apostle Peter’s; but it quite gave the lie to his

character, for this venerable man was hand in glove with the smugglers,

had himself been a free-trader of renown, and now very gladly placed his

wit and experience at the command of the younger generation. No word was

ever whispered against him openly, and yet the rumour ran that Johnny had

his share of every cargo successfully run upon these coasts, and that he

was the guiding spirit ashore, while “Merry Jonathan,” or Jonathan

Godbeer of Daleham, captained on the water that obscure body known as the

Daleham free-traders.

With such a sailor as Jonathan afloat and such a wise-head as Mr.

Cramphorn at home, the local smugglers earned a measure of fame that

reached even to the Revenue. Indeed, at the moment of this story’s

opening, the little fishing village, with uneasy pride, was aware that a

Preventive Officer had been appointed for its especial chastisement and

control; but none feared the issue. Every woman and child at Daleham

knew that it would task men of uncommon metal with hard heads and thick

skulls to lay their local champions by the heels.

“Ess,” said the white-bearded Cramphorn, “ghostes of men an’ ghostes of

hosses tu. Ban’t many parishes as can shaw ’e such a brave turnout of

holy phantoms, I lay. You might have seed that ruin in the fir trees

’pon top of the cliff as you comed down the hill p’raps? Wheer the

fishermen’s gardens be. Well, ’twas a famous mansion in the old days,

though now sinked to a mere landmark for mackerel boats. But the

Stapledons lived theer in times agone, an’ lorded it awver all the land

so far as Dartymouth, ’tis thought. Of course they died like theer

neighbours, an’ many a brave funeral passed out-along wheer I grow my bit

of kale to-day. Yet no account taken till theer comed the terrible

business of Lady Emma Stapledon—poor soul. Her was ordered by her

cold-hearted faither to marry a Lunnon man for his money—a gay young

youth of gert renown, an’ as big a rip as ever you see, an’ a very evil

character, but thousands of pounds in the bank to soften people’s minds.

Her wouldn’t take him, however, an’ peaked an’ pined, till at last—two

nights afore the marriage-day—her went out alone along that dangerous

edge of cliff what be named the Devil’s Tight-rope. In charity us’ll say

the poor maiden’s foot slipped, though if it did, why for should her

funeral walk ever since when January comes round? Anyway it shows her

had Christian burial no doubt, an’ the funeral can be seen

evermore—hosses an’ men, hearse an’ coffin. Every moony night in January

it may be marked stealin’ like a fog awver the tilth by the old road from

the ruined gates; an’ to see it only axes a pinch of faith in the

beholder. I’ve watched it scores o’ dozens o’ times—all so black as sin

an’ silent as the grave. My sweat falled like rain fust time I seed it,

but I minded how the Lord looks arter His awn. Of course an honest,

church-going man’s out o’ the reach o’ ghostes.”

Mr. Cramphorn stopped and buried his beautiful Roman nose in some rum and

water. Then Mrs. Pearn, mistress of the “Golden Anchor,” mended the

fire, and a man, sitting in the ingle, asked a question.

“Where’s Jenifer to? ’Tis late for her to be out alone.”

The old woman answered:—

“Gone up the hill for green stuff. Her laughs at all you silly men. I

told her how ’twas the time for Lady Emma’s death-coach; but her said so

long as they didn’t want her to get in an’ sit along wi’ she, her’d not

mind no death-coaches, nor ghostes neither.”

“’Tis very unseemly for a maid to talk so,” declared the stranger,

gravely. “Them as flout spirits often have to pay an ugly reckoning.”

Others were also of this mind and Mr. Cramphorn gave instances.

“My stars! You’m makin’ me cream with fear, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Pearn,

after supping full on their horrid recollections; “best to go up the

hill, Jonathan Godbeer, an’ find the wench. ’Tis your work, seeing you’m

tokened to her.”

The stranger started and cast a sharp glance where sat the man addressed.

Merry Jonathan was a tall and square-built sailor with a curly head and

an eye that looked all people squarely in the face. A crisp beard served

to hide his true expression, and the cloak of a smile, usually to be

found upon his lips, concealed the tremendous determination of his

countenance. Indeed he habitually hid behind a mask of loud and somewhat

senseless laughter. But those who served him at his secret work and in

times of peril, knew a different Jonathan, not to be described as

“Merry.” Now the man rose and grinned at the stranger amiably until his

grey eyes were quite lost in rays of crinkled skin. He out-stared the

other seafarer, as he made it a rule to out-stare all men; then he

prepared to obey his future mother-in-law.

“Mustn’t let my sweetheart be drove daft by—” he began, when the inn door

opened and a girl, with her hair fallen down her back and a terrified

white face, appeared and almost dropped into Godbeer’s arms. “Gude

powers! What’s the matter, my dear maid?” he cried. “Who’ve hurt ’e?

Who’ve dared? Tell your Jonathan an’ he’ll smash the man like

eggshells—if ’tis a man.”

Jenifer clung to him hysterically and her teeth chattered. They took her

to the fire and her mother brought a tumbler of spirits and water at Mr.

Cramphorn’s direction.

“Oh my God, I knawed how ’twould be,” wailed the old woman. “Her’ve seed

what her didn’t ought, an’ now her’ll suffer for it!”

Jenifer was on her lover’s lap by the fire and tears at last came to her

eyes. Then she wept bitterly and found her tongue.

“Put your arm around me,” she said; “close—close—Jonathan. I’ve seed

it—Lady Emma’s death-coach—creeping awver the frozen ground up-along. It

passed wi’in ten yards of where I was cutting cabbages, an’ never such

cold I felt. It have got to my heart an’ I’ll die—I knaw it.”

“You might have been mistook, young woman,” said the blue-muzzled man,

civilly; but she shook her head.

“A gert hearse wi’ feathers an’ a tall man in front, an’ four hosses all

blacker’n the fir-wood they comed from. An’ the moonlight shone through

’em where they moved away to the churchyard; an’ I fainted, I reckon,

then come to an’ sped away afore they returned.”

“They’d have been there again in an hour or two,” declared old Cramphorn.

“That’s the way of it. Ten o’clock or so they sets out, an’ back they

come by midnight or thereabouts.”

Then the stranger rose to retire, but before doing so he declared his

identity.

“I may tell you, neighbours, that I be the Preventive Officer sent to

work along with the cutter from Dartmouth. My name be Robert Bluett, an’

I’m an old man-o’-war’s man an’ a West countryman likewise. An’ I look

to every honest chap amongst ’e to help me in the King’s name against

lawbreakers. So all’s said.”

A murmur ran through the company.

“Question is what be honest an’ what ban’t. Things ban’t dishonest

’cause Parliament says so,” growled a long-faced, sour man. “Free

tradin’s the right answer to wrongful laws, an’ ’tis for them up-along to

mend Justice, not rob us.”

Jonathan Godbeer, however, stoutly applauded Mr. Bluett.

“I be just a simple fisherman myself,” he said; “but what I can do

against they French rascals I will do. You may count upon me.”

Mr. Bluett regarded Johnny Cramphorn and saw that the patriarch’s eyes

were fixed on Godbeer and full of amazement.

“You to say that!” he murmured, “you—when us all knows—but ban’t no

business of mine, thank the Lord. At least you may count upon an old man

to stand by the King and his lawful laws, same as I always have and

always will so long as I be spared.”

Riotous laughter greeted these noble sentiments, and Bluett, vaguely

aware that the company laughed as much with the ancient as at him,

departed to bed. He was staying at the “Golden Anchor” until his

lodgment at Daleham should be ready for him.

CHAPTER II

Great confusion, shouting and swearing kept Robert Bluett wakeful for

some time, and next morning he learned the reason of it. As he walked

early upon the quay before breakfast, tried to master the intricate

coast-line at a glance and longed to be afloat that he might get a wider

and juster view of the red and honeycombed cliffs, a woebegone figure

approached him—a bent and hobbling creature that crawled on two sticks,

wore a three-cornered hat and had his right eye concealed by a big black

patch. Only the flowing beard of Johnny Cramphorn proclaimed him.

“God save you, Master Bluett, or I should say ‘Cap’n Bluett,’” he began.

“The very man I wanted for to see.”

“Who’s been clawing you?” asked the Excise Officer.

“Who but the Dowl’s own anointed? You heard the tantara in the tap-room?

Well, ’twas upon an aged piece like me they varmints falled like heathen

wolves. Look here!”

He lifted his patch and showed a pale blue eye set in a bruise as black

as ink. Thus seen it suggested a jackdaw’s.

“Jonathan Godbeer’s hand done that—the Lord judge un! Wi’ his bullock’s

fist he knocked me down, ’cause I withstood un to his face, like the

prophet withstood David.”

“Ban’t no quarrel of mine,” said Mr. Bluett, “though if all I hear be

true, me an’ Godbeer may fall out afore the world’s much older.”

“Ess—if you’m honest, you’ll fall out wi’ him. ’Twas honesty brought me

these cruel bruises. When you’d gone, I rose in my wrath an’ axed un how

he dared to lie to you so open; then he smote me.”

Mr. Bluett’s natural probity here led him into unwisdom.

“To be plain,” he said, “I haven’t heard no very good account of you

neither.”

“Ah, ’tis so hard to get away from one’s sins! I’ll be honest, Cap’n,

same as you be,” answered Mr. Cramphorn. “I doan’t deny but I’ve been a

free-trader in my time, though ’twas little enough ever I made by it but

a score on the wrong side of the Book o’ Life. But I’ve long been weary

of ill-doing and be set ’pon the right road this many years, as Parson

Yates will tell ’e. ’Twas for the cause of right I got these blows—same

as Paul his stripes—an’ though I’ve been that man’s friend in time past,

now I’m gwaine to take vengeance against un, an’ next time I hears tell

of his games, you’ll be the fust to know it.”

“That will suit me very well,” answered Bluett.

“An’ I ax you to back me up an’ protect me henceforth in the King’s

name,” continued Johnny. “To think of a man as would wallop an old blid

like me! No better’n a murderer—there he is now! Doan’t you go away

from me till he’ve passed us by.”

Jonathan Godbeer walked along the quay to the boats. He scowled at old

Cramphorn and touched his hat to the officer.

“Marnin’, sir! I see thicky old rat have got ’e by the ear. I thrashed

un last night, ancient though he be, for calling me a smuggler afore the

company; an’ I’ll thrash un every time he dares to do the like. Take

care how you put your trust in him, for the Faither of Lies be a fule to

that man. He never done nobody a gude turn in’s life; though he’ll get a

gude turn yet hisself when the cart goes from under him an’ leaves him

dancin’ ’pon a rope. I warn ’e against un for all his white beard!”

Jonathan grinned at his own prophecy and departed; Cramphorn shook his

fist and chattered curses; and Mr. Bluett went upon this way. He was

puzzled but not ill-pleased.

“When thieves fall out, honest men come by theer own,” he reflected, and

returned to breakfast.

* * * * *

Jenifer Pearn waited upon him at his meal and took occasion to give Mr.

Bluett yet another version of the brawl that had troubled his slumbers

over night; but as she loved Merry Jonathan, her story redounded little

to the smuggler’s discredit.

“They all want to be your friends,” she explained; “but, except my

Jonathan, theer ban’t a pin to choose among ’em. He’m honest as

daylight.”

Mr. Bluett thereupon changed the subject and trusted that Jenifer was

none the worse for her fright. The girl had a dark, keen face, was built

generously and evidently enjoyed unusual physical strength for a woman.

Yet the old sailor recollected that she had been no more than a pleasant

armful for her future husband.

“I be well again,” she said, “yet I wish I hadn’t seen no such dreadful

contrivance, I’m sure. ’Tis a very sad thing, an’ mother sez how Parson

Yates did ought to be axed to faace they phantoms in the name of the Lord

wi’ a bell, a book an’ a cannel, ’cordin’ to the right an’ holy way in

such matters. But Gran’faither Newte an’ Toby Pearn, my great-uncle, an’

a gude few other auld parties say that Lady Emma’s funeral be the

chiefest glory of Daleham an’ ’twould be a thousand pities to go an’ lay

it wi’ a bit of parson’s work.”

The officer was interested.

“For my part,” he said, “I think if the poor soul killed herself two

hundred years ago, ’tis time her was laid peaceful an’ reg’lar as by law

appointed. ’Tis all us can do for ghostes; to lay ’em; an’ even then it

axes a clergyman. An’ the holiest have got to mind theer _p_’s an’

_q_’s, for, make a mistake, an’ so like as not they’m tored to pieces for

their trouble.”

“I’d rather not hear tell no more about it,” answered Jenifer, shivering

and looking uneasily about her. “But this I knaw; Parson Yates ban’t the

man for the job—so meek as Moses he be, an’ would run from a goose, let

alone a ghostey.”

“If ’tis proved his duty, he’ve got to faace it, however,—same as all of

us has got to faace our duty,” declared Mr. Bluett.

CHAPTER III

A week elapsed and the tragic dispute between Merry Jonathan and his

ancient ally grew into a nine days’ wonder. That the new-come

representative of law was responsible for their quarrel none doubted, for

Mr. Bluett had arrived in an hour not auspicious from the smugglers’

standpoint. He was at Daleham a fortnight earlier than most people

expected him, and the presence of himself and his mates had threatened

directly to interfere with greater matters than he guessed. Yet the

secret of a cargo, its arrival nigh Daleham and the hour and place, now

came frankly into Robert Bluett’s keeping, since old Cramphorn—his

friendship turned to gall under Godbeer’s heavy hands—for once followed

the unfamiliar paths of rectitude. So, at least, he declared to the

Exciseman, though even Mr. Bluett, whose mind was cast in simple mould,

perceived that a private hatred and a private grudge were responsible for

the patriarch’s treachery, rather than any desire to do right. It was

mention of his former partner that always stung old Johnny into passion,

made his beard shake and his voice go shrill and cracked.

“A mighty haul of French fishes—brandy—baccy—lace an’ such like; an’ now

I’m a changed man an’ shall take no part,” he explained to his new

friend.

“Theer’s foreign fal-lals ’bout that young woman to the inn,” said Mr.

Bluett. “Stuff that never comed honest about her neck, I’ll swear.”

“His gift. They’m tokened, though God send you’ll lay un by the heels

an’ show her the mistake she’m makin’ in time. An’ now listen, for I

doan’t want to be seen with you in public no more. When I quarrelled

with the man,—Godbeer,—I knowed he’d change the appointed date; an’ sure

enough he did so. But theer’s wan hand of his crew—no call to name

names—who be on my side; an’ he’ve told me the real date. Which that is

Wednesday next, if this here northeast wind holds.”

“That’s the day I be taking my men to Dartmouth.”

“D’you think Merry Jonathan doan’t know that? He knows everything. He

knows I be talkin’ to ’e now; but he doan’t know what I’ve told ’e; and

he’d be ravin’ mad if he did.”

“Us mustn’t go to Dartmouth then.”

“No fay! But you must let him think you have. You must start by day an’

get back after dusk an’ lie by the cliff roads—some of your chaps by

each; for theer ban’t no other ways up. An’ the Dartymouth cutter must

slip out the moment after dimpsy light; an’ wi’ any luck you’ll take the

Frenchman tu. Of course Wednesday be the day Cap’n Wade always sails

west wi’ the cutter. He’m such a man of method that the smugglers know

to a mile wheer the fool be, so reg’lar as they know moon an’ tides.”

“I’ll change all that,” declared Bluett.

“An’ best begin Wednesday; an’ you must swear on your dying oath my name

doan’t come out. For Jonathan would swing for me, so cheerful as a flea,

if he heard I’d informed.”

The officer regarded Johnny with stern contempt.

“The dirty work of the world have got to be done; an’ your breed never

dies,” he said; “you’re not nice, but you’re needful—like vultures an’

jackals as I’ve seed around foreign ports. No, I’ll not name you.”

“As to reward? Theer’s my friend tu, as have told me the secret. ’Tis

right us should get our deserts for smashing that cowardly dog. An’ God,

He knows how poor I be. But theer’ll be a thousand golden guineas in it

for you, so like as not; an’ if you take the foreigner, her’ll be worth a

Jew’s-eye, for she’s a butivul thing by all accounts, though if the

cutter catches her ’twill be by stealth, not sailin’.”

“’Twould make a stir,” admitted the other, cautiously. Then a sudden

wave of suspicion crossed his mind.

“If you’re lying to me, you’ll repent it,” he said.

“Judge by what I lose,” retorted the old man, almost tearfully. “To put

this harvest into your hands is to rob my own pocket. Baccy an’ winter

drinkin’—I give up all for the hate I bear against that man. But take my

word or leave it.”

Old Cramphorn’s bitterness of expression and the lean fist raised and

shaken at Merry Jonathan’s empty boat hard by, went far to convince Mr.

Bluett. That day he hired a horse and rode over to Dartmouth and in the

evening met his secret accomplice again among the usual crowd at the bar

of the “Golden Anchor.” Jonathan Godbeer was not present, but the rest

of the company now knew the officer by name and treated him with outward

civility and respect.

The conversation ran on Lady Emma’s death-coach. Even Parson Yates had

been awakened from his abstracted existence by the reports of this

singular apparition, for many had seen it of late and not a few fearfully

approached their pastor upon the subject. That evening, indeed, the folk

awaited news of some definite decision from Daleham’s spiritual leader,

because, as Jenifer Pearn told the Exciseman, though certain ancient

celebrities had objected to interference with a vision so historical,

others held it a scandal that any patrician maiden’s spirit should thus

continue to revisit the scenes of her life and taking off. Greater

matters occupied Robert Bluett’s mind, but, sailor-like, he loved a

ghost, and his life had not changed the superstitious nature of him. He

listened with the rest, therefore, while Johnny related what had passed

between himself and the clergyman.

“’Twas hard to shake sense into the old gen’leman. He doan’t want to

believe it, though theer’s his open Bible staring him in the face every

day of his life. But a man’s reason be nought against the pull of

conscience; so he’m gwaine up-along to see for hisself. Then, if the

things do appear to his sight, he’ll go forth in the name of the Lord to

quench ’em.”

“He’ll never do it—such a timorous man as him,” said Mrs. Pearn; but

Cramphorn assured her that the deed was done.

“He’ve gone to-night. I started along with un. ‘Shall I come with ’e,

your reverence?’ I axed him. An’ he said ‘No,’ though he’d have liked to

say ‘Ess.’ ‘Who wants man’s aid if his hand be in his Master’s?’ he sez

to me. ‘Not your reverence, that’s sartain,’ I sez to him. Then he went

up-along and I comed in here.”

Conversation continued and then, some half an hour later, a little man in

clerical costume, with tiny legs that shook beneath him, suddenly entered

the inn. He was very pale and blinked at the blazing oil lamp above the

bar.

“’Tis his reverence’s self!” cried Mrs. Pearn.

“No less, my good woman, no less. A glass of your best brandy, please.

I—I—”

“You’m gallied—you’m likewise skeered. I see it in your worshipful

manner of shaking below the knee. I wish to God you had let me go along

with ’e. But, my stars! you must have comed down Red Hill properly

quick, if so be you went to the top of un.”

“I did descend quickly, John Cramphorn. I have no hesitation in

declaring that never have I come down that hill so fast before. The Lord

looked to it that I dashed not my foot against a stone. And,

furthermore, this apparition is no mere conceit of ignorance or bucolic

fancy; I myself, my friends, have seen it; and I heartily wish that I had

not done so.”

“Pass the glass to his reverence, Jenifer, will ’e; an’ get you out of

the armchair, Toby, an’ let minister come by the fire. I’ve put in hot

water an’ sugar an’ the brandy be—”

She stopped. All men knew the brandy of the “Golden Anchor,” but it was

not considered good manners to criticise it.

Mr. Yates drank, then colour returned to his little grey face and he

passed his glass for a second dose.

“I could discourse upon this theme at very considerable length,” he said;

“but the matter calls for deeds rather than words, or perhaps I should

say both.”

“No doubt, as a man of God, your duty do lie clear afore you, if I may

say so respectful,” ventured Robert Bluett; and the pastor admitted that

it was so.

“By the help of Heaven these unhappy beings, that here dwell midway

between earth and heaven, must be laid to rest,” he said. “Thaumaturgy,

or working of miracles, can only still subsist at the desire of Jehovah,

and if He wills that I liberate these funereal spirits to their rest, I

can do it, not otherwise.”

“I lay you’ll do it, such a holy man as you,” foretold Johnny Cramphorn,

genially.

“But, for God’s love, don’t mess it up,” added Mr. Bluett, “’cause if you

make any error, they’ll rend ’e to tatters.”

“If Heaven wills and my health permits, I go on Tuesday night in all the

dignity and power of my calling,” declared Parson Yates; “and now I will

thank you to see me home, such among you as journey on my way.”

A few men departed with their pastor; Cramphorn settled to his last pipe

and glass beside the fire; and Robert Bluett went upon his nocturnal

duties. For, since his arrival, things were mightily changed at Daleham;

keen eyes never closed on sea or land; most perfect cordons had been

established and a sure system extended far to east and west. It was

admitted that with such parole of cliffs and coombs, such searching

scrutiny by night and day of every dark lane, lonely road and

seaward-facing cavern, that not so much as a runlet of spirits could swim

unrecorded into Daleham or ride out of it.

How Merry Jonathan under these distracting circumstances could continue

to be merry, his friends and neighbours wondered. Indeed, twice within a

week he had brought back from the sea pollock and conger—his legitimate

objects of pursuit at this season. But that Jonathan Godbeer should sell

fish was a significant sign of the times, and already folks said that Mr.

Cramphorn was avenged.

CHAPTER IV

Gentle snow fell through a grey night as a party of men and women marched

up Red Hill upon the following Tuesday evening. An invisible moon made

all this clear. Parson Yates led the way with his cassock hitched out of

the snow and with a stout boy on either side of him. One lad bore a

candle, and the other, a little bell.

“Butivul night for a holy deed, I’m sure,” said Mr. Cramphorn. Mrs.

Pearn, Jenifer and Mr. Bluett walked beside him and a dozen villagers

accompanied them. The matter, however, at their pastor’s desire had been

kept as far as possible from the general ear.

“I hope as you’m lookin’ sharp to the roads an’ the quay an’ Smugglers’

Lane as usual,” whispered Johnny to Robert Bluett. “Some long tongue be

sure to blab this business; an’ if the Frenchman’s laying off, they might

signal her in to-night, ’stead of to-morrow.”

“Not so much as a sea-otter could go from sea to shore without one of my

men would know it,” answered the other.

“Then a great load be off my mind, I assure ’e.”

Red Hill above Daleham was a sandstone bluff that sprang up near three

hundred feet abruptly from the sea, and, save at low tides, deep water

always ran beneath. Upon its head a rough tonsure of wind-worn pine

trees circled the grey ruins of Stapledon manor-house, and inland

therefrom extended the fishermen’s gardens and stretched two roads. One

of these ways led to Daleham Church and the country; the other was that

up which Parson Yates and his company now climbed from the village.

“Here will we stand,” said the good man, “and should anything in the

nature of a superhuman visitation occur, you must light your candle,

Richard Trout, and you, Noah Collins, after I have lifted my voice the

first time, must strike upon the bell thrice—for each Person of the

Ever-blessed Trinity. And see no wax falls from the candle on to my

book, boy.”

They drew up outside the belt of fir and all endured half an hour of

misery, for the snow, though slight, persisted and the air and earth were

bitter cold. Presently, however, the snow thinned to scattered flakes,

then stopped; a star stole out and touched the white carpet with silver.

Then came the beat of the church clock telling ten, and, as if in answer,

a sigh ran through the woods, and gloomy figures moved beneath the trees.

Silent as a dream and darker than night itself against the snow, a black

pageant crept from the forest, and crossed the open land. One tall

figure, above man’s common stature, moved in front and, following him,

came horses that drew a plumed hearse, while certain footmen moved

orderly behind. Then did Dick Trout, with shaking blue fingers, strike

tinder and make a flame, and Noah Collins prepared to beat a triple

tattoo upon his bell. Only Mr. Yates himself unhappily failed at the

critical pinch.

“Give it ’em; give it to ’em, my dear soul, or they’ll be gone!” implored

Mr. Cramphorn in frantic accents. But the little man had dropped his

book from a numbed and shaking hand, and, by the time he had picked it up

again, the ghostly funeral was sweeping along the church road, already

half swallowed up by night.

“I lacked the power of speech,” stuttered Mr. Yates. “I cannot deny

it—the spirit of fear came upon me and I dropped my book.”

“Give ’em a broadside coming back, your reverence—if ’tis true as they do

come back,” suggested Bluett.

Twenty minutes later a man approached by the road from the church, and

Cramphorn eagerly enquired of him whether he had seen the funeral.

“Funeral? No, I seed no funeral,” answered the voice of Merry Jonathan.

“Be that Parson Yates huntin’ ghostes again?”

“We have come to liberate these unhappy phantoms and so far failed. They

passed before I summoned presence of mind to address them.”

“‘Passed?’ When? Why for didn’t I see ’em?”

“You!” snorted Johnny Cramphorn. “Who be the likes of you to see such

holy things?”

Jonathan growled and approached Jenifer and her mother.

“Best you women come home, else you’ll get your noses frozen off, an’ the

spirits won’t thaw ’em for ’e, ’cepting those at home.”

“Let us have no irreverence, Jonathan Godbeer,” said the clergyman. “You

will do better to add your prayers to ours, that my courage may be

sustained and my voice strengthened for the coming ordeal.”

The captain of the smugglers did not answer, but strode forth and walked

over white ground lately traversed by the procession of spirits.

“Doan’t ’e cross theer track, my dear man,” cried Mrs. Pearn; “else ten

to one they’ll blast ’e crooked for the rest of your days!”

But her caution came too late. Godbeer stood and gazed upon the snow

where the spectral hearse had passed. Then he lifted his voice and

shouted with all his might.

“Gauger Bluett! Gauger Bluett! This here be your job, not parson’s.

Quick, man, quick! Ghostes or no ghostes, the snow’s took their shoe

marks if I see right. Boots an’ hoofs an’ wheels—no bogies them. Ha-ha!

the spirits that passed along here was inside the hearse, not outside!”

The Exciseman and others rushed forward to find Merry Jonathan’s words

were true, for the new-fallen snow had been trampled with feet of men and

horses, and seamed with tracks of heavy wheels.

“Theer now! I’ve often thought they rascals might have ’e that way,

Cap’n,” said Godbeer, with deep concern. “To think of the wickedness o’

the world! Just come in the trees behind the ruin. ’Tweern’t my

business, of course, but more’n wance walkin’ ’pon the beach below,

takin’ the air at low tide, I’ve looked up at the face of the cliff by

night and fancied I seed ropes pulling things up the precipice. Then I

thought, ‘No—surely not. Can’t be no hookem-snivey doings under darkness

wi’ such a man as Cap’n Bluett amongst us.’”

Jonathan grinned and the moon came out and touched his white teeth.

Cramphorn held up a lantern, and Bluett himself uttered words not seemly

for the ear of Parson Yates.

Then he turned to follow the direction of the smugglers’ funeral.

“I bid every honest man come along with me in the King’s name,” he cried.

“Them as have done this deed shall smart for theer night’s work yet!”

“Us’ll all help ’e heart an’ soul, I’m sure,” declared Merry Jonathan.

“We’m a thought behind the rogues, I fear. But what’s that with right

’pon our side?”

They scrambled and hastened along the rutted snow, and Cramphorn and

Godbeer commented in cheerful chorus on the event as they trotted beside

the furious officer.

“What I’m fearin’ is that these scamps have been at theer games all the

week,” gasped the aged Johnny while he shuffled forward. “Theer’s a dark

plot against our good name, and while we’ve all been countin’ to rub it

in to-morrow night, they’ve run theer cargo and hid it in the ruin of the

Manor this longful time—pulled it up the cliff an’ been takin’ it away

reg’lar night after night, while honest men was on the watch—some place

else.”

“Makes me near burst wi’ rage,” said Jonathan, “an’ all them fine fellows

ready, an’ the cutter sailin’ about over the sea so butivul! An’ perhaps

the cargo was run that very night Cap’n Bluett comed amongst us at the

‘Golden Anchor,’ an’ told us what a great man he was. All play-actin’,

an’ even my own girl Jenifer to come home so frightened. To think a

man’s own girl would deceive him so wicked!”

“Wi’ Pastor Yates at his post tu, tryin’ so hard to larn us all better!”

panted Cramphorn.

Now ahead loomed a huge black object where crossways met at a lonely spot

nearly a mile inland. It was empty and proved to be the skeleton of a

farm waggon painted black, boarded up, and adorned with tufts of shavings

dipped in tar. The snow had been trampled for twenty yards round about

it and indications of other wheels diverged landward on three sides into

the night.

Cramphorn, Godbeer and Robert Bluett, now far ahead of their companions,

stood before this spectacle.

“They’ve done you, by G—!” gasped the old man. “An’ to think of all your

bold heroes with theer swords an’ cutlasses an’ pistols a-sitting

freezing in every lane and by every drain an’ rat-hole around the

village! ’Tis amazin’ such things be allowed to fall out.”

The officer did not answer. He had seen the ancient and Godbeer grin

amiably each upon the other, and now his thick skull appreciated the

truth and he turned to chew his gall alone.

Merry Jonathan shouted after him.

“Ten to one they’ll tell ’e that Maypole chap as walked in front of the

funeral was a man by the name of Godbeer. But don’t you b’lieve it,

Cap’n. You’ll never catch me an’ Master Cramphorn in no such job.”

“Though we’ve made up our difference, as becomes Christian men,” declared

Johnny.

Bluett turned and addressed them.

“They cry loudest who cry last,” he said. “The stones be piled as’ll

hold you tight yet, you bowldacious thieves; an’ the wood be seasoned as

you’ll swing from.”

Cramphorn wagged his beard.

“My stars! Hark to un! Theer’s a sour temper! Theer’s sorry thanks for

all we’ve done! ’Tis a very thankless generation for sartain. Gimme

your arm back-along, Merry. We’m most tu good to mix wi’ common men—you

an’ me—that’s the naked truth of it.”

NOTES.

{3} Copyright, 1900.

{10} _Rexens for cannel-making_. Rushes for candle-making.

{16} _Taffety_. Delicate, dainty.

{70} _Church-vamp_. Font.

{84} _Giglet-market_. A hiring fair for domestic servants, held in

times past at Okehampton and elsewhere in the West.

{100} _Mommet_. Scapegoat.

{119} _Awnself_. Selfish.

{167} Copyright by Paul R. Reynold.