the year and the different harvests from the sea which each brought with
it. Pollock, mackerel, pilchards, herrings--all had their appointed time,
and the years rolled on, marked by events connected with the secular
business of life on one hand and that greater matter of eternity upon the
other. Thus mighty catches of fish held the memory with mighty catches of
men. One year the take of mackerel had been beyond all previous
recollection; on another occasion three entire families had joined the Luke
Gospelers, and so promised to increase the scanty numbers of the chosen.
There were black memories, too, and black years, casting gloomy shadows.
Widows and orphans knew what it was to watch for brown sails that came into
the harbor's sheltering arms no more; and spiritual death had overtaken
more than one Luke Gospeler. Such turned their backs upon the light and
exchanged Truth for the benighted parody of religion displayed by Bible
Christians, by Plymouth Brethren or by the Church of England.
Six months before the day on which she saw his ship through Barron's
glasses, Joan had been formally affianced to Joe Noy, with her father's
permission and approval. The circumstances of the event demand a word, for
Joe had already been engaged once before: to Mary Chirgwin, a young woman
who was first cousin to Joan and a good deal older. She was an orphan and
dwelt at Drift with Thomas Chirgwin, her uncle. The sailor had thereby
brightened an unutterably lonely life and brought earthly joy to one who
had never known it. Then Gray Michael got hold of the lad, who was
naturally of a solid and religious temperament, and up to that time of the
order of the Rechabites. As a result, Joe Noy joined the Luke Gospelers and
called upon his sweetheart to do likewise. But she recollected her aunt,
Joan's mother, and being made of stern stuff, stuck to the Church of
England as she knew it, counting salvation a greater thing than even a home
of her own. The struggle was sharp between them; neither would give way;
their engagement was therefore broken, and the girl's solitary golden
glimpse of happiness in this world shattered. She found it hard to forgive
the Tregenzas, and when, six months afterward, the sleepy farm life at
Drift was startled by news of Joan's love affair, Mary, in the first flush
of her reawakened agony, spoke bitterly enough; and even that most
mild-mannered of men, her uncle, said that Michael Tregenza had done an
ugly act.
But the fisherman was at no time concerned with Mary or with Joan. The
opportunity to get a soul into the fold had offered and been accepted. Any
matter of earthly love-making counted little beside this. When Joe broke
with Mary, his mentor declared the action inevitable, as the girl would not
alter her opinions, and when, presently, young Noy fell in love with Joan,
her father saw no objection, for the sailor was honest, already a stanch
Luke Gospeler and a clean liver.
Perhaps at that moment there was hardly another eligible youth in Newlyn
from Tregenza's point of view. He held Joan a girl to be put under stern
marital rule as soon as possible, and Joe promised to make a godly husband
with a strong will, while his convictions and view of life were altogether
satisfactory, being modeled on Michael's own. The arrangement suited Joan.
She believed she loved Joe very dearly, and she looked forward with
satisfaction to marrying him in about a year's time, when he should have
won a ship-master's certificate. But she viewed his departure without
suffering and would not have willingly foregone her remaining year of
freedom. She respected Joe very much and knew he would make a good partner
and give her a position above the everyday wives of Newlyn; moreover, he
was a fine figure of a man. But he lacked mental breadth, and that fact
sometimes tickled her dormant sense of humor. He copied her father so
exactly, and she, who lived with the real thunder, never could show
sufficient gravity or conviction in the presence of the youthful and
narrow-minded Noy's second-hand echoes. Mary Chirgwin was naturally a
thousand times more religious-minded than Joan, and sometimes Joe wished
the sober mind of his first love could be transported to the beautiful body
of his second; but he kept this notion to himself, studied to please his
future father-in-law, which he succeeded in doing handsomely, and contented
himself, in so far as his lady was concerned, by reflecting that the
necessary control over her somewhat light mind would be his in due season.
To return from this tedious but necessary glimpse at the position and
belief of these people to Joan and the washing, it is to be noted that she
quickly made up for lost time, and, without further mentioning the
incidents of her morning's excursion, began to work. She pulled up her
sleeves, dragged her dress about her waist, then started to cleanse the
thick flannels her father wore at sea, his long-tailed shirts and woolen
stockings. The Tregenzas were well-to-do folk, and did not need to use the
open spaces of the village for drying of clothes. Joan presently set up a
line among the plum-trees, and dawdled over the hanging out of wet
garments, for it was now noon, sunny, mild, and fresh, with a cool salt
breeze off the sea. The winter repose of the bee-butts had been broken at
last, and the insects were busy with the plum-blossom and among the little
green flowerets on the gooseberry bushes. Beyond, sun-streaked and bright,
extended apple-trees with whitewashed stems and a twinkle of crimson on
their boughs, where buds grew ripe for the blowing.
Joan yawned and blinked up at the sun to see if it was dinner time. Then
she watched a kitten hunting the bees in the gooseberry bushes. Presently
the little creature knocked one to the ground and began to pat it and
pounce upon it. Then the bee, using Nature's weapon to preserve precious
life, stung the kitten; and the kitten hopped into the air much amazed. It
shook its paw, licked it, shook it again. Joan laughed, and two pigs at the
bottom of the garden heard her and grunted and squealed as they thrust
expectant noses through the palings of their sty. They connected the laugh
with their dinner, but Joan's thoughts were all upon her own.
A few minutes later Thomasin Tregenza called her, and, as they sat down,
Tom arrived from school. He was a brown-faced, dark-eyed, black-haired
youngster, good-looking enough, but not at that moment.
"Aw! Jimmery! fightin' agin," said his mother, viewing two swollen lips, a
bulged ear, and an eye half closed.
"I've downed Matthew Bent, Joan! Ten fair rounds, then he gived up."
"Fight, fight, fight--'tis all you think of," said his parent, while Joan
poured congratulations on the conqueror.
"'Tweer bound to come arter the football, when he played foul, an' I tawld
en so. Now, we'm friends."
"Be he bruised same as you?"
"A sight worse; he's a braave picksher, I tell 'e! I doubt he won't come to
schule this arternoon. That'll shaw. I be gwaine, if I got to crawl theer."
"An' him a year older than what you be!" said Joan.
"Iss, Mat's 'leben year old. I'll have some vinegar an' brown paper to this
here eye, mother."
"Ait your mayte, ait your mayte fust," she answered. "Plague 'pon your
fightin'!"
"But that Bent bwoy's bin at en for months; an' a year older too," said
Joan.
"Iss, the bwoy's got no more'n what 'e desarved. For that matter, they
Bents be all puffed up, though they'm so poor as rats, an' wi'out 'nough
religion to save the sawl of a new-born babe 'mongst the lot of 'em."
Tom, with his mouth full of fish and potato pie, told the story of his
victory, and the women made a big, hearty meal and listened.
"He cockled up to me, an' us beginned fightin' right away, an' in the third
round I scat en on the mouth an' knocked wan 'is teeth out. An' in the
fifth round he dropped me a whister-cuff 'pon the eye as made me blink
proper."
"Us doan't want to knaw no more 'bout it," declared his mother after dinner
was over. "You've laced en an' that's enough. You knaw what faither'll say.
You did ought to fight no battle but the Lard's. Now clap this here over
your eye for a bit, then be off with 'e."
Tom marched away to school earlier than usual that afternoon, while the
women went to the door and watched him trudge off, both mightily proud of
his performance and his battered brown face.
"He be a reg'lar lil apty-cock, [Footnote: _Apty-cock_--Brave, plucky
youngster.] sure 'nough!" said Joan.
Mrs. Tregenza answered with a nod and looked along the road after her son.
There was a softer expression in her eyes as she watched him. Besides, she
had eaten well and was comfortable. Now she picked her teeth with a pin,
and snuffed the sea air, and gave a passing neighbor "good-afternoon" with
greater warmth of manner than usual. Presently her mood changed; she
noisily rated herself and her stepdaughter for standing idling; then both
went back to their work.
CHAPTER FOUR
BARRON BEGINS TO LEARN THE GORSE
Between four and five o'clock in the morning of the following day the
master of the white cottage came home. His wife expected him and was
getting breakfast when Michael tramped in--a very tall, square-built man,
clad to the eye in tanned oilskin overalls, sou'wester, and jackboots. The
fisherman returned to his family in high good temper; for the sea had
yielded silvery thousands to his drift-nets, and the catch had already been
sold in the harbor for a handsome figure. The brown sails of Tregenza's
lugger flapped in the bay among a crowd of others, and every man was in a
hurry to be off again at the earliest opportunity. Already the first boats
home were putting to sea once more, making a wide tack across the mouth of
the bay until nearly abreast of St. Michael's Mount, then tearing away like
race horses with foam flying as they sailed before the eastern wind for the
Scilly Islands and the mackerel.
Michael kissed his wife and Joan also, as she came to the kitchen
sleepy-eyed in the soft light to welcome him. Then, while Mrs. Tregenza was
busied with breakfast and the girl cleaned some fish, he went to his own
small room off the kitchen and changed his clothes--all silvery,
scale-spotted and blood-smeared--for the clean garments which were spread
and waiting. First the man indulged in luxuries. He poured out a large tub
of fresh water and washed himself; he even cleaned his nails and
teeth--hyberbolic refinements that made the baser sort laugh at him behind
his back.
At the meal which followed his toilet Tregenza talked to his wife and
daughter upon various subjects. He spoke slowly and from the lungs with the
deep echoing voice of one used to vocal exercise in the open air.
"I seed the 'Anna' yesterday, Joan," he said, "a proud ship, full-rigged
wi' butivul lines. Her passed wi'in three mile of us or less off the
islands."
Joan did not hint at her visit to Gorse Point of the previous day, but her
stepmother mentioned it, and her father felt called upon to reprimand his
daughter, though not very seriously.
"'Twas a empty, vain thing to do," he said.
"I promised Joe, faither."
"Why, then you was right to go, though a fulish thing to promise en.
Wheer's Tom to?"
Tom came down a minute later. The swelling of his lips was lessened, but
his ear had not returned to a normal size and his eye was black.
"Fighting again?" Michael began, looking up from his saucer and fixing his
eyes on his son.
"Please, faither, I--"
"Doan't say naught. You'm so fond of it that I judges you'd best begin
fightin' the battle o' life right on end. 'Tain't no use keepin' you to
schule no more. 'Tis time you comed aboard."
Tom crowed with satisfaction, and Mrs. Tregenza sighed and stopped eating.
This event had been hanging over her head for many a long day now; but she
had put the thing away, and secretly hoped that after all Tregenza would
change his mind and apprentice the boy to a shore trade. However, Tom had
made his choice, and his father meant him to abide by it. No other life
appealed to the boy; heredity marked him for the sea, and he longed for the
hard business to begin.
"I'll larn you something besides fisticuffs, my beauty. 'Tis all
well-a-fine, this batterin' an' bruisin', but it awnly breeds the savage in
'e, same as raw meat do in a dog. No more fightin' 'cept wi' dirty weather
an' high seas an' contrary winds, an' the world, the flaish an' the devil.
I went to sea as a lugger-bwoy when I was eight year old, an' ain't bin off
the water more'n a month to wance ever since. This day two week you come
along wi' me. That'll give mother full time to see 'bout your kit."
Joan wept, Thomasin Tregenza whined, and Tom danced a break-down and rolled
away to see some fisher-boy friends in the harbor before school began. Then
Michael, calling his daughter to him, walked with her among his plum-trees,
talked of God with some quotations, and looked at his pigs. Presently he
busied himself and made ready for sea in a little outhouse where paint and
ship's chandlery were stored; and finally, the hour then being half past
seven, he returned to his labors. Joan walked with him to the harbor and
listened while he talked of the goodness of God to the Luke Gospelers at
sea; how the mackerel had been delivered to them in thousands, and how the
Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists had fared by no means so happily.
The tide was high, and Gray Michael's skiff waited for him at the pierhead
beside the lighthouse. He soon climbed down into it, and the little boat,
rowed by two strong pairs of hands, danced away to the fleet. Already the
luggers were stretching off in a long line across the bay; and among them
appeared a number of visitors: Lowestoft yawls come down to the West after
the early mackerel. They were big, stout vessels, and many had steam-power
aboard. Joan watched her father's lugger start and saw it overhaul not a
few smaller ships before she turned from the busy harbor homeward. That
morning she designed to work with a will, for the afternoon was to be spent
on Gorse Point if all went well, and she already looked forward somewhat
curiously to her next meeting with the singular man who had lent her his
field-glass.
Mrs. Tregenza was in sorry, snappy case all day. The blow had fallen, and
within a fort-night Tom would go to sea. This dismal fact depressed her not
a little, and she snuffled over her ironing, and her voice grated worse
than usual upon the ear.
"He's such a hot-headed twoad of a bwoy. I knaw he'll never get on 'pon the
water. I doubt us'll hear he's bin knocked overboard or some sich thing
some day; an' them two brothers, they Pritchards, as allus sails 'long wi'
Tregenza, they'm that comical-tempered every one knaws. Oh, my God, why
couldn' he let the bwoy larn a land trade--carpenterin' or sich like?"
"But, you see, faither's a rich man, an' some time Tom'll fill his shoes.
Faither do awn his bwoat an' the nets tu, which is more'n most Newlyn men
does."
"Iss, I should think 'twas," said Mrs. Tregenza, forgetting her present
sorrow in the memory of such splendid circumstances. "Theer ban't wan
feller as awns all like what faither do. The Lard helps His chosen, not but
what Tregenza allus helped hisself an' set the example to Newlyn from his
boyhood."
Mrs. Tregenza always licked her lips when she talked about money or
religion, and she did so now.
Among Cornish drifters Gray Michael's position was undoubtedly unique, for
under the rules of the Cornish fishery he enjoyed exceptional advantages
owing to his personal possession both of boat and nets. The owner of a
drift-boat takes one-eighth part of the gross proceeds of a catch, and the
remaining seven-eighths are divided into two equal parts of which one part
is subdivided among the crew of the boat, while the other goes to the owner
or owners of the nets used on board. The number of nets to a boat is about
fifty as a rule, and a man to possess his own boat and outfit must be
unusually well-to-do.
But it was partly for this reason that Mrs. Tregenza refused to be
comforted. She grudged every farthing spent on anything, and much disliked
the notion of tramping to Penzance to expend the greater part of a
five-pound note on Tom's sea outfit. In a better cause she would not have
thought it ill to expend money upon him. His position pointed to something
higher than a fisherman's life. He might have aspired to a shop in the
future together with a measure of worldly prosperity and importance not to
be expected for any mere seafarer. But Tom had settled the matter by
deciding for himself, and his father had approved the ambition, so there
the matter ended, save for grumbling and sighing. Joan, too, felt sore
enough at heart when she heard that the long-dreaded event lay but a
fortnight in the future. But she knew her father, and felt sure that the
certainty of Tom's going to sea at the appointed time would now only be
defeated by death or the Judgment Day. So she did not worry or fret.
Nothing served to soothe her stepmother, however, and the girl was glad to
slip off after dinner, leaving Thomasin with her troubles.
Joan made brisk way through Mousehole and in less than an hour stood out
among the furzes in the little lonely theater above the cliffs. For a
moment she saw nothing of John Barron, then she found him sitting on a
camp-stool before a light easel which looked all legs with a mere little
square patch of a picture perched upon them. Joan walked to within a few
yards of the artist and waited for him to speak. But eye, hand, brain were
all working together on the sketch before him, and if he saw the visitor at
all, which was doubtful, he took no notice of her. Joan came a little
closer, and still John Barron ignored her presence. Then she grew
uncomfortable, and, feeling she must break the silence, spoke.
"I be come, sir, 'cordin' to what you said."
He added a touch and looked up with no recognition in his eyes. His
forehead frowned with doubt apparently, then he seemed to remember. "Ah,
the young woman who told me about the luggers." Suddenly he smiled at her,
the first time she had seen him do so.
"You never mentioned your name, I think?"
"Joan Tregenza, sir."
"I promised you a little picture of that big ship, didn't I?"
"You was that kind, sir."
"Well, I haven't forgotten it. I finished the picture this morning and I
think you may like it, but I had to leave it until to-morrow, because the
paints take so long to dry."
"I'm sure I thank you kindly, sir."
"No need. To-morrow it will be quite ready for you, with a frame and all
complete. You see I've begun to try and paint the gorse." He invited her by
a gesture to view his work. She came closer, and as she bent he glanced up
at her with his face for a moment close to hers. Then she drew back
quickly, blushing.
"'Tis butivul--just like them fuzzes."
He had been working for two hours before she came, painting a small patch
of the gorse. Old gnarled stems wound upward crookedly, and beneath them
lay a dead carpet of gorse needles with a blade or two of grass shooting
through. From the roots and bases of the main stems sprouted many a shoot
of young gorse, their prickles tender as the claws of a new-born kitten,
their shape, color, and foliage of thorns quite different to the mature
plant above. There, in the main masses of the shrub, mossy brown buds in
clumps foretold future splendor. But already much gold had burst the sheath
and was ablaze, scenting the pure air, murmured over by many bees.
"You could a'most pick thicky theer flowers," declared Joan of the picture.
"Perhaps presently, when they are painted as I hope to paint them. This is
only a rough bit of work to occupy my hand and eye while I am learning the
gorse. Men who paint seriously have to learn trees and blossoms just as
they have to learn faces. And we are never satisfied. When I have painted
this gorse, with its thorns and buds, I shall sigh for more truth. I cannot
paint the soul of each little yellow flower that opens to the sun; I cannot
paint the sunny smell that is sweet in our nostrils now. God's gorse scents
the air; mine will only smell of fat oil. What shall I do?"
"I dunnaw."
"No more does anybody. It can't be helped. But I must try my best and make
it real--each spike, as I see it--the dead gray ones on the ground and the
live green ones on the tree, and the baby ones and the old gray-pointed
ones, which have seen their best days and will presently die and fall--I
must paint them all, Joan."
She laughed.
"Don't laugh," he said, very seriously. "Only an artist would laugh at me,
not you who love Nature. There lives a great painter, Joan, who paints
pictures that nobody else in the wide world can paint. He is growing old,
but he is not too old to take trouble still. Once, when he was a young man,
he drew a lemon-tree far away in Italy. It was only a little lemon-tree,
but the artist rose morning after morning and drew it leaf by leaf, twig by
twig, until every leaf and bud and lemon and bough had appeared. It was not
labored and false; it was grand because it was true: a joy forever; work
Old Masters had loved; full of distinction and power and patience almost
Oriental. A thing, Joan Tregenza, worth a wilderness of 'harmonies' and
'impressions,' 'nocturnes' and 'notes,' smudges and audacities. But I
suppose that is all gibberish to you?"
"Iss, so it be," she admitted.
"Learn to love everything that is beautiful, my good child. But I think you
do, unconsciously perhaps."
"I don't take much 'count of things."
"Yes, unconsciously. You have a cowslip there stuck in your frock, though
where you got it from I can't imagine. The flower is a month too early."
"Iss, 'tis, I found en in a lew, sunshiny plaace. Us have got a frame for
growin' things under glass, an' it had bin put down 'pon top this cowslip
an' drawed 'en up."
"Will you give it to me?"
She did so, and he smelled it.
"D'you know that the green of the cowslip is the most beautiful green in
all Nature, Joan? Here, I have a flower, too; we will exchange if you
like."
He took a scrap of blackthorn bloom from his coat and held it out to her,
but she shrank backward and he learned something.
"Please not that--truly 'tis the dreadfulest wicked flower. Doan't 'e arsk
I to take en."
"Unlucky?"
"Iss fay! Him or her as first brings blackthorn in the house dies afore it
blows again. Truth--solemn--us all knaws it down in these paarts. 'Tis a
bewitched thing--a wicked plant, an' you can see it grawin' all
humpetty-backed an' bent an' crooked. Wance, when a man killed hisself,
they did use to bury en wheer roads met an' put a blackthorn stake through
en; an' it all us grawed arter; an' that's the worstest sort o' all."
"Dear, dear, I'm glad you told me, Joan; I will not wear it, nor shall
you," he said, and flung it down and stamped on it very seriously.
The girl was gratified.
"I judge you'm a furriner, else you'd knawn 'bout the wickedness o'
blackthorn."
"I am. Thank you very much. But for you I should have gone home wearing it.
That puts me in your debt, Joan."
"'Tain't nothin', awnly there's a many coorious Carnish things like that.
An' coorious customs what some doan't hold with an' some does."
She sat down near the cliff edge with her back to him, and he smiled to
himself to find how quickly his mild manners and reserve had put the girl
at her ease. She looked perfect that afternoon and he yearned to begin
painting her; but his scheme of action demanded time for its perfect
fulfillment and ultimate success. He let the little timorous chatterbox
talk. Her voice was soft and musical as the cooing of a wood-dove, and the
sweet full notes chimed in striking contrast to her uncouth speech. But
Joan's diction gave pleasure to the listener. It had freedom and wildness,
and was almost wholly innocent of any petrifying educational influences.
Joan, for her part, felt at ease. The man was so polite and so humble. He
thanked her for her information so gratefully. Moreover, he evidently cared
so little about her or her looks. She felt perfectly safe, for it was easy
to see that he thought more of the gorse than anything.
"My faither's agin such things an' sayin's," she babbled on, "but I dunnaw.
They seems truth to me, an' to many as is wiser than what I be. My mother
b'lieved in 'em, an' Joe did, till faither turned en away from 'em. But
when us plighted troth, I made en jine hands wi' me under a livin' spring
o' water, though he said 'twas heathenish. Awnly, somehow, I knawed 'twas a
proper thing to do."