THE BAR PARLOR.
The bar parlor of the _Gethin Castle_ was a small snug apartment in the
rear of the house, and therefore exposed to the full fury of the
Atlantic winds, which were now roaring without, and enhanced, by their
idle menace, the comfort of its closely drawn red curtains, and its
ample fire, the gleam of which was cast back from a goodly array of
glasses and vessels of burnished pewter. Upon a well-polished oak
chest--the pride of the house, for oak was almost as rare at Gethin as
among the Esquimaux--stood a mighty punch-bowl; and on the mantel-piece
was a grotesque piece of earthen-ware, used for holding tobacco, about
which some long clay pipes and peacocks' feathers were artistically
arranged. A smell of nutmeg and lemons pervaded this apartment, and
pleasantly accorded with its almost tropical temperature; and the
contrast it altogether afforded to his own more stately but desolate
"private sitting-room," with its disused air and comfortless
surroundings, struck Richard very agreeably. On a chintz-covered sofa,
in the most retired corner of this parlor, sat Solomon Coe and Harry
Trevethick, and it was difficult to say in which of their countenances
the most astonishment appeared when the young painter presented himself
at the door. Harry's cheeks, which were not pale before, became crimson,
though she neither moved nor spoke. But Solomon rose, and, with a frown,
seemed to be asking of Trevethick the reason of this unexpected
intrusion.
"This is a friend of Mr. Whymper's," said the landlord, setting down the
sherry on the table; "and therefore, I am sure, the friend of all of us.
That's my daughter Harry, Sir; and that" (and here he grinned) "is
Solomon Coe, a very intimate friend of hers--as you may see. We are a
family party, in fact, or shall be some day; so, pray, make yourself at
home."
"I have seen Mr. Coe before," said Richard, frankly, and shaking that
gentleman's unwilling hand; "and, though he took me for a bagman, I bear
him no malice on that account."
"A bagman! Lor, Sol, what could you ha' been thinking about?" laughed
Trevethick, grimly. "Why, this here gentleman has been stopping at
Crompton with the Squire! But you mustn't mind Sol, Sir; his mind ain't
free just Well, Harry, lass, why don't you get up and shake hands with
the gentleman?"
"I have seen this young lady before, also," explained Richard. "It was
she who was good enough to get me the key of the castle, which I have
just returned, by-the-by, to your father," he added.
Harry gave him a look which showed him that his second pilgrimage up the
rock was not unappreciated.
"Did you see the chapel, Sir, and the tombs?" inquired she.
"I hardly know, indeed," said Richard. "It was the climb itself that I
enjoyed the most, and shall never forget as long as I live."
"Oh, but you must go properly over our ruins, young gentleman," said
Trevethick, with the air of a proprietor. "My girl here, or Solomon,
must show you them to-morrow, for they need a bit of explanation. Sol
knows all about them. Don't you, Sol?"
"Oh yes; _I_ know," answered Solomon, doggedly; "but nobody won't go up
to the castle to-morrow, I reckon, with this sou'wester a-blowing."
"It is a wild night, indeed," said Richard, putting aside the curtain,
and looking out through the shutterless window. "The clouds are driving
by at a frightful speed."
"Ay, and it ain't only the clouds," said Trevethick, filling his pipe,
and speaking with great gravity; "the Flying Dutchman was seen off the
point not two hours ago."
"By old Madge, I suppose?" observed Solomon, derisively.
"Yes, by old Madge," retorted the landlord, sturdily. "She as knew our
life-boat was lost last year with all hands long before she drove into
Turlock Bay, bottom upward."
"But how was that?" inquired Richard, with interest.
"Well, Sir, it was this way," said Trevethick. "It was a stormy night,
though not so bad a one as this is like to be, and the life-boat had
gone out to a disabled Indiaman. She had been away three hours or more,
when, as I was sitting in this very parlor, in came Madge, looking
scared enough. She had been to Turlock on an errand for me. So, 'Sit
down,' says I, 'and take a glass, for you look as though the wind had
blown your wits away, old woman.' 'Tain't that, John Trevethick,' says
she; 'but I'm near frightened to death. I've seen a sight as I shall
never forget to my dying day. I have just seen our life-boat men--all
nine of 'em. The Lord have mercy on their souls!' 'Well, why not?' says
I. 'Why shouldn't you ha' seen 'em? They've got back sooner than we
hoped for--that's all.' 'Nay,' said she; 'but I met 'em coming out of
Gethin--away from home--the home they will never see again--all wet and
white like corpses. They're drowned men, as sure as you stand there,
John Trevethick.' And so it turned out, poor fellows!"
"And did you tell any body of this before you knew that they were
drowned?" inquired Richard.
"Ay, that's the point," muttered Solomon, approvingly.
"No," said Trevethick. "I didn't believe the old woman, and I thought
her story would be very ill taken; so I kept it to myself. But it turned
out true for all that; the thing happened just as I say. John Trevethick
ain't no liar."
"Of course you are stating what you believe to be the fact," said
Richard, in a conciliating tone; "I don't doubt that."
"Just so; he's told it so often that he really does behave it," said
Solomon, laughing. "But what seems curious is, that it is always
Madge--purblind old woman, as wants to be thought a witch--as sees these
things--drowned sailors, and Flying Dutchmen, and so forth. I should
like to know who else has ever had the chance?"
"Lots of folks," said the landlord, doggedly.
"Well, _you_ been here these forty years," said Solomon, "have _you_
seen 'em? And Harry here has been at Gethin all her life, has _she_ seen
'em?"
There was an awkward silence. Harry had turned very pale--in terror, as
Richard thought, of the dispute between her father and Solomon becoming
serious.
"That's naught to do with it," said Trevethick, sharply. "You're no
Gethin man, Solomon, or you wouldn't talk so. Why, didn't Madge describe
the very ship as was lost off Castle Rock, the night before we ever set
eyes on her? and wasn't it printed in the paper?"
"In the next Saturday's paper: yes," replied Solomon, curtly.
"Nay, I heard the old woman with my own ears," said Harry, gravely.
"There had been no wreck when she told me she had seen the schooner.
'The _Firefly_,' said she, 'will never come nearer home than Gethin Bay:
you mark my words.' That was twelve hours, ay, and more, before she
struck."
"Forgive me for interrupting," said Richard; "but I don't understand
this matter. Is it supposed that a vessel announces her own destruction
beforehand?"
"Sometimes," said Trevethick, gravely. "A ship is as well known here--if
she belongs to this part of the coast--as a house is known in the
Midlands. Well, if she's doomed, Madge--and it ain't only Madge
neither--will see her days before she comes to her end. This _Firefly,_
for example, belonged to Polwheel, and had been away for weeks."
"But still she was expected home?" interrogated Richard.
"Ay, that's it," said Solomon, once more nodding approval. "The old
woman had that in her mind."
"Why so?" argued Trevethick. "What was the _Firefly_ to her that she
should think she saw her drive into the bay, and break to pieces against
the rock out yonder? And why should she tell her vision to Harry?"
"That certainly seems strange, indeed," said Richard, "as showing she
attached importance to the affair herself. It was a most curious
coincidence, to say the least of it. But what is this Flying Dutchman,
of which you also spoke? I did not know he ever came so far out of his
proper latitude as this."
"He's seen before great storms, however," said Trevethick; "you ask the
coast-guard men, and hear what _they_ say. There's many a craft has put
out to her from Gethin, and come quite close, so that a man might almost
reach her with a boat-hook, and then, all of a sudden, there is nothing
to be seen but the big waves."
John Trevethick had more to say to the same effect, to which Richard
listened with attentive courtesy; while at the same time he held to the
same skeptical view entertained by Solomon. Thus he won the good opinion
of both men; and of that of the girl he felt already assured. He
scarcely ever addressed himself to Harry, and as much as possible
avoided gazing at her. If the idea of his paying any serious attention
to her had ever been put into her father's mind, the intelligence that
he had been the friend and guest of Carew's had been probably sufficient
to dissipate it: the social position which that fact implied seemed to
make it out of the question that he should be Harry's suitor. It only
remained for him to disabuse Solomon of the same notion. This was at
first no easy task; but the stubbornness with which his rival resisted
his attempts at conciliation gave way by degrees, and at last vanished.
To have been able to make common cause with him upon this question of
local superstition was a great point gained. Solomon had a hard head,
and prided himself upon his freedom from such weaknesses; and he hailed
an ally in a battle-field on which he had contended at odds, five nights
out of every seven, for years. Harry, as we have seen, shared her
father's sentiments in the matter; and it was a great stroke of policy
in Richard to have espoused the other side. He would, of course, have
much preferred to agree with her--to have embraced any view which had
the attraction of her advocacy; but it now gave him genuine pleasure to
find his opposition exciting her to petulance. She was not petulant with
Solomon, but left her father to tilt with him after his own fashion.
From the superstitions of the coast they fought their way to those of
the mines. Old Trevethick believed in "Knockers" and "Buccas," spirits
who indicate the position of good lodes by blows with invisible picks;
and, as these had more immediate connection with his own affairs than
the nautical phenomena, he clung to his creed with even greater tenacity
than before. So fierce was their contention that it was with difficulty
that Richard could put in an inquiry as to whence these spirits came who
thus interested themselves in the success of human ventures.
"I know nothing of that," said Trevethick, frankly, "any more than I
know where that wind comes from that is shaking yonder pane; I only know
that it is there."
"Nay, father, but _I_ know," said Harry, with a little blush at her own
erudition: "the Buccas are the ghosts of the old Jews who crucified our
Lord, and were sent as slaves by the Roman emperor to work the Cornish
mines."
"Very like," said Trevethick, approvingly, although probably without any
clear conception of the historical picture thus presented to him. "It's
the least they could do in the spirit, after having done so much
mischief in the flesh."
The contradiction involved in this exemplary remark, combined with the
absurdity of repentance taking the form of interest in mining
speculations, was almost too much for Richard's sense of humor; but he
only nodded with gravity, as became a man who was imbibing information,
and inquired further, whether, in addition to these favorers of
industry, there were any spirits who worked ill to miners.
"Well, I can't say as there are," said the landlord, with the air of a
man who can afford to give a point in an argument; "but there's a many
things not of this world that happen underground, leastway in _our_
mines, for Sol there is from the north, and it mayn't be the same in
those parts."
"It certainly is not," interrupted Solomon, taking his pipe out of his
mouth to intensify the positiveness of his position.
"I say," continued Trevethick, reddening, "that down in Cornwall here
there is scarce a mine without its spirit o' some sort. At Wheal Vor,
for example, a man and his son were once blown to pieces while blasting;
and, nothing being left of them but fragments of flesh, the engine-man
put 'em into the furnace with his shovel; and now the pit is full of
little black dogs. I've seen one of 'em myself."
Solomon laughed aloud.
Richard was expecting an explosion of wrath. The old man turned toward
him quietly, and observed with tender gravity: "And in a certain mine,
which Sol and I are both acquainted with, a white rabbit always shows
itself before any accident which proves fatal to man. It was seen on the
day that Sol's father sacrificed his life for mine." Then he told the
story which Richard had already heard from Harry's lips, while Solomon
smoked in silence, and Harry looked hard at the fire, as though--as
Richard thought--to avoid meeting the glance of her father's hereditary
benefactor.
"You are right to remember such a noble deed as long as you live," said
Richard, when the old man had done. "My own life," added he, in a lower
tone, "was once preserved by one whom I shall love and honor as long as
I have breath."
He saw the color glow on the young girl's cheek, and the fire-light
shine with a new brilliance in her eyes. Neither Trevethick nor Solomon
had caught his observation; at the moment it was made the former was
stretching out his great hand to the latter, moved by that memory of
twenty years ago, and, perhaps, in token of forgiveness for his recent
skepticism.
"Then there's the Dead Hand at Wheal Danes, father," observed Harry, in
somewhat hasty resumption of the general subject. "That's as curious as
any, and more terrible."
"Wheal Danes!" said Solomon. "Why, how comes that about, when nobody can
never have been killed there? It's been disused ever since the Roman
time, I thought?"
"Yes, yes; so it has," answered Trevethick, impatiently.
"But I thought you told me about it yourself, father?" persisted Harry.
"How you saw the Thing, with a flame at the finger-tops, going up and
down where the ladders used to be, and heard voices calling from the
pit."
"Not I, wench--not I. That was only what was told me by other
folks.--Take another glass of your own sherry before supper, Sir; and
after that we will have a bowl of punch."
The hospitalities of Mr. Trevethick were, in fact, profuse, and his
manner toward Richard most conciliatory.
"We'll be glad to see you, Sol and I, in our little parlor, whenever you
feel in want of company," were his last words at parting for the night.
And, "Ay, ay, that's so," had been Solomon's indorsement.
Harry had said nothing; but the tender pressure of his hand, when he
wished her good-night, had not gone unreturned, and was an invitation
more welcome than words. The events of the day, the conversation of the
evening, had given him plenty of matter for reflection; but the touch of
those soft fingers was more potent, and the dreams evoked by it
swallowed up all soberer thoughts. He sat up for hours that night,
picturing to himself a future altogether new to his imagination; and
when he went to bed it was not to rest. His excited brain was fed with a
nightmare vision. He thought that he was once more with Harry on the
castled rock; his lips were pressed to hers; his arm was around her
waist, just as they had been; but, instead of his slipping alone over
the precipice, they fell together; and as they did so--not without a
wild delight mingling with his despair--she was suddenly plucked away
from him, and, as he sank headlong down, down, he saw that Solomon Coe
had caught her in his arms, and, with her father, was looking down upon
him with savage and relentless glee!