reason a boy can graw when he's made to sweat same as Tom be. An' short for
his age as 'tis. But butivul broad, an' 'mazin' strong, an' a fine sight to
see en ate his food. Then the Gosp'lers--well, they'm cold friends to the
young. A bwoy like him caan't feel religion in his blood same as grawed
folks."
"Small blame to en," said Joan promptly. "Let en go to church an' hear
proper holy ministers in black an' white gownds, an' proper words set down
in print, same as what I do now."
"I'd as soon not have my flaish creep down the spine 'pon Sundays as not,"
confessed Thomasin, "but Michael's Michael, an' so all's said."
Uncle Chirgwin went to smoke a pipe and water his horse at this juncture;
but he returned within less than ten minutes.
"It's blowin'," he said, "an' the fust skew o' gray rain's breakin' over
the sea. I knawed 'twas comin' by my corns. The bwoats is sailin' back
tu--a frothin' in proper ower the lumpy water."
"Then you'd best be movin'," said Mrs. Tregenza. "I judged bad-fashioned
weather was comin' tu when I touched the string o' seaweed as hangs by the
winder. 'Tis clammy to the hand. God save us!" she continued, turning from
the door, "theer's ourn at the moorin's! They've been driv' back 'fore us
counted 'pon seein' 'em by the promise of storm. Get you gone, for the love
o' the Lard; an' go Mouzle way, else you'll run on top o' Michael for
sure."
"Ban't no odds if us do. Joan had a mind to see en," answered the farmer;
but Joan spoke for herself. She explained that she now wished to depart
without seeing her father if possible.
It was, however, too late to escape the meeting. Even as the twain bade
Mrs. Tregenza a hasty farewell, heavy feet sounded on the cobbles at the
cottage door and a moment later Tregenza entered. His oilskins were wet and
shiny; half a dozen herrings, threaded through the gills on a string, hung
from his right hand.
CHAPTER THREE
"THE LORD IS KING"
Michael Tregenza instantly observed Joan where she sat by the window, and,
seeing her, stood still. The fish fell from his hand and dropped slithering
in a heap on the stone floor. There was a silence so great that all could
hear a patter of drops from the fisherman's oilskins as the water rolled to
the ground. At the same moment gusts of rising wind shook the casement and
bleared the glass in it with rain. Joan, as she rose and stood near Mr.
Chirgwin, heard her heart thump and felt the blood leap. Then she nerved
herself, came a little forward, and spoke before her father had time to do
so. He had now turned his gaze from her and was looking at the farmer.
"Faither," she said very gently, "faither dearie, forgive me. I begs it so
hard; 'tis the thing I wants most. I feared to see 'e, but you was sent off
the waters that I might. I comed in tremblin' an' sorrer to see wheer I've
lived most all my short days. I'm that differ'nt now to what I was. Uncle
Thomas'll tell 'e. I know I'm a sinful, wicked wummon, an' I'm heart-broke
day an' night for the shame I've brot 'pon my folks. I'll trouble 'e no
more if 'e will awnly say the word. Please, please, faither, forgive."
She stood without moving, as did he. Uncle Chirgwin watched silently. Mrs.
Tregenza made some stir at the fire to conceal her anxiety. No relenting
glimmer softened either the steel of Gray Michael's eyes or one line in his
great face. The furrows knotted between his eyebrows and at the corners of
his eyes. His sou'wester still covered his head. At his mouth was a
down-drawing, as of disgust before some offensive sight or smell, and the
hand which had held the fish was clinched. He swallowed and found speech
hard. Then Joan spoke again.
"Uncle's forgived me, an' Mary, an' Tom, an' mother here. Caan't 'e, caan't
'e, faither? My road's that hard."
Then he answered, his words bursting out of his lips sharply, painfully at
first, rolling as usual in his mighty chest voice afterward. The man
twisted Scripture to his narrow purposes according to Luke Gospel usage.
"'Forgive'? Who can forgive but the Lard, an' what is man that he should
forgive them as the A'mighty's damned? 'Tis the sinners' bleat an' whine
for forgiveness what's crackin' the ear o' God whensoever 'tis bent 'pon
airth. Ain't your religion taught you that--you, Thomas Chirgwin? If not,
'tis a brawken reed, man. Get you gone, you fagot, you an' this here
white-haired sawl, as is foolin' you an' holdin' converse wi' the outcast
o' heaven. I ban't no faither o' yourn, thank God, as shawed me I
weern't--never, never. Gaw! Gaw both of 'e. My God! the sight of 'e do
sicken me as I stand in the same air. You--an auld man--touchin' her an'
her devil-sent, filthy moneys. 'Twas a evil day, Thomas Chirgwin, when I
fust seed them o' your blood--an ill hour, an' you drives it red-hot into
my brain with your actions. Bad, bad you be--bad as that lyin', false, lost
sinner theer--a-draggin' out your cant o' forgiveness an' foolin' a damned
sawl wi' falsehoods. _You_ knaws wheer she'm gwaine; an' your
squeakin', time-servin' passon knaws; an' you both tells her differ'nt!"
"Out on 'e, you stone-hearted wretch o' a man!" began Uncle Chirgwin in a
small voice, shaking with anger; but the fisherman had not said his last
word, and roared the other down. Gray Michael's self-control was less than
usual; his face had grown very red and surcharged veins showed black on the
unwrinkled sides of his forehead.
"No more, not a word. Get you gone an' never agin set foot 'pon this here
draxel. [Footnote: _Draxel_--Threshold.] Never--never none o' Chirgwin
breed. Gaw! or auld as you be, I'll force 'e! God's on the side o' right!"
Hereupon Joan, not judging correctly of the black storm signs on her
father's face or the force of the voice, now grating into a shriek as
passion tumbled to flood, prayed yet again for that pardon which her parent
was powerless to grant. The boon denied grew precious in her eyes. She wept
and importuned, falling on her knees to him.
"God can do it, God can do it, faither. Please--please, for the sake o' the
God as leads you, forgive. Oh, God in heaven, make en forgive me--'tis all
I wants."
But a religious delirium gripped Tregenza and poisoned the blood in him.
His breast rose, his fists clinched, his mouth was dragged sidewise and his
underlip shook. A damned soul, looking up with wild eyes into his, was all
he saw--the very off scouring and filth of human nature--hell tinder, to
touch which in kindness was to risk his own salvation.
"Gaw, gaw! Else the Lard'll make me His weapon. He's whisperin'--He's
whisperin'!"
There was something horribly akin to genuine madness in the frenzy of this
utterance. Mrs. Tregenza screamed; Joan struggled to her feet in some
terror and her head swam. She turned to get her hat from the dresser-ledge,
and, as she did so, the little blue plate, tied up in paper beside it, fell
and broke, like the last link of a snapping chain. Gray Michael was making
a snorting in his nostrils and his head seemed to grow lower on his
shoulders. Then Mr. Chirgwin found his opportunity and spoke.
"I've heard you, an' it ban't human nachur to knuckle down dumb, so I be
gwaine to speak, an' you can mind or not as you please."
He flung his old hat upon the ground and walked without fear close beside
the fisherman who towered above him.
"God be with 'e, I sez, for you need En fine an' bad for sartain--worse'n
that poor 'mazed lamb shakin' theer. _You_ talk o' the ways o' God to
men an' knaw no more 'bout 'em than the feesh what you draw from the sea!
You'm choustin' yourself cruel wi' your self-righteousness--take it from
me. _You'm_ saved, be you? _You_ be gwaine to heaven, are 'e? Who
tawld 'e so, Michael Tregenza? Did God A'mighty send a flyin' angel to tell
'e a purpose? Look in your heart, man, an' see how much o' Christ be in it.
Christ, I tell 'e, Christ--Christ--Jesus Christ. It's _Him_ as'll
smuggle us all into heaven, not your psalm-smitin', knock-me-down,
ten-commandment, cussin' God. I'm grawin' very auld an' I knaw what I knaw.
Your God's a _devil_, fisherman--a graspin', cruel devil; an' them the
devil saves is damned. 'Tis Christ as you've turned your stiff back
'pon--Christ as'll let this poor lass into heaven afore ever you gets
theer! You ban't in sight o' the gates o' pearl, not you, for all your cold
prayers. You'm young in well-doin'; an' 'tis a 'ard road you'll fetch home
by, I'll swear; an' 'tis more'n granite the Lard'll use to make your heart
bleed. He'll break you, Tregenza--you, so bold, as looks dry-eyed 'pon the
sun an' reckons your throne'll wan day be as bright. He'll break you, an'
bring you to your knees, an' that 'fore your gray hairs be turned, as mine,
to white. Oh, Christ Jesus, look you at this blind sawl an' give en
somethin' better to lay hold 'pon than his poor bally-muck o' religion
what's nort but a gert livin' lie!"
Thomas Chirgwin seemed mightily transfigured as he spoke. The words came
without an effort, but he uttered them with pauses and in a loud voice not
lacking solemnity. His head shook, yet he stood firm and motionless upon
his feet; and he made his points with a gesture, often repeated, of his
open right hand.
As for Tregenza, the man listened through all, though he heard but little.
His head was full of blood; there was a weight on his tongue striking it
silent and forcing his mouth open at the same moment. The world looked red
as he saw it; his limbs were not bearing him stiffly. Thomasin had her eye
upon him, for she was quite prepared to throw over her previous statements
and support her husband against an attack so astounding and unexpected. And
the more so that he had not himself hurled an immediate and crushing
answer.
Meantime the old farmer's sudden fires died within him; he shrank to his
true self, and the voice in which he now spoke seemed that of another man.
"Give heed to what I've said to 'e, Michael, an' be humble afore the Lard
same as your darter be. Go in fear, as you be forever biddin' all flaish to
go. Never say no sawl's lost while you give all power to the Maker o'
sawls. Go in fear, I sez, else theer'll come a whirlwind o' God-sent sorrer
to strike wheer your heart's desire be rooted. 'Tis allus so--allus--"
Tom entered upon these words, and Uncle Chirgwin's eyes dropping upon him
as he spoke, his utterance sounded like a prophecy. So the boy's mother
read it, and with a half sob, half shriek, she turned in all the frenzy of
sudden maternal wrath. Her sharp tongue dropped mere vituperation, but did
so with boundless vigor, and the woman's torrent of unbridled curses and
threats swept that scene of storm to its close. Joan went first from the
door, while Mr. Chirgwin, picking up his hat and buttoning his coat,
retreated after her before the volume of Thomasin's virago attack. Tom
stood open-mouthed and silent, dumfounded at the tremendous spectacle of
his mother's rage and his father's stricken silence. Then, as Mrs. Tregenza
slammed the door and wept, her husband sunk slowly down with something
strangely like terror in his eyes. The man in truth had just passed through
a physical crisis of alarming nature. He sat in his easy-chair now, removed
his hat, and wiped the perspiration from his forehead with hands that
shook. It was not what he had heard or beheld that woke alarm in a spirit
which had never known it till then, but what he had felt: a horror which
crowded down upon every sense, gripped his volition with unseen hands,
blinded him, stopped his ears, held his limbs, stirred his brains into a
whirling waste. He knew now that in his moment of passion he had stood upon
the very brink of some terrific, shattering evil, possibly of death itself.
Body or brain or both had passed through a great, unknown danger; and now,
dazed and for the time much aged, he looked about him with slow
eyes--mastered the situation, and realized the incident was ended.
"The Lard--'the Lard is King,'" he said, and stopped a moment. Then he
slowly rose to his feet and with the old voice, though it shook and slurred
somewhat upon his tongue, spoke that text which served him in all occasions
of unusual stress and significance.
"'The Lard is King, be the people never so impatient; He sitteth between
the cherubims, be the airth never so unquiet'!"
Then he sat again and long remained motionless with his face buried in his
hands.
Meantime the old horse dragged Uncle Chirgwin and his niece away along the
level road to Mousehole. Joan was wrapped in a tarpaulin and they proceeded
silently a while under cold rains, which swept up from a leaden south over
the sea. The wind blew strong, tore green leaves from the hedges, and
chimed with the thoughts of the man and his niece.
"How did you come to speak so big an' braave, Uncle Thomas? I couldn' say
no more to en, for the lights rose up in my throat an' choked me; but you
swelled out somethin' grand to see, an' spawk as no man ever yet spawk to
faither afore."
"'Twas put in me to say; I doan't knaw how ever I done it, but my tongue
weern't my awn for the time. Pull that thing tighter about 'e. This rain
would go through a barn door."
At the steep hill rising from Mousehole to Paul, Uncle Chirgwin got out and
walked, while the horse, with his shoulders to the collar, plodded forward.
Then, down the road came the laboring man, Billy Jago, mentioned aforetime
as one who had worked for Mr. Chirgwin in the past. He touched his hat to
his old master and greeted him with respect and regard. For a moment the
farmer also stopped. No false sentiment tied Billy's tongue and he spoke of
matters personal to those before him, having first mournfully described his
own state of health.
"But theer, us gaws down to the tomb to make way for the new born. I do
say, an' swear tu, that the butivulest things in all wild nachur be a ship
in full sail an' a wummon in the fam'ly way. Ban't nothin' to beat 'em. An'
I'll say it here, 'pon this spot, though the rain's bitin' into my bones
like teeth. So long to 'e, maaster, an' good cheeldin' to 'e, miss!"
The man rolled with loutish gait down the hill; the darkness gathered; the
wind whistled through high hedges on the left; farmer Chirgwin made sounds
of encouragement to his horse, which moved onward; and Joan thought with
curious interest of those things that Billy Jago had said.
"'Tis straange us met that poor, croony antic at sich a moment," mused
Uncle Thomas; "the words of en jag sore 'pon a body's mind, comin' arter
what's in our thots like."
"Maybe 'tis paart o' the queerness o' things as us should fall 'pon en
now," answered Joan.
Then, through a stormy gloaming, they returned in sadness to the high lands
of Drift.
CHAPTER FOUR
A GLEN-ADER
"A new broom sweeps clean, but 'tis the auld wan as is good for corners,"
said Uncle Chirgwin, when with his nieces he sat beside the kitchen fire
that night and discussed the events of the day.
"By which I means," he added, "that these new-fangled ways of approaching
the A'mighty may go to branch and trunk an' make a clean sweep o' evil, but
they leaves the root o' pride stickin' in a man's sawl. 'Tis the auld broom
as Christ brought in the world as routs into the dark corners like nothin'
else."
"I be glad you spawk to en," said Mary. "Seed sawed do bring forth fruit in
a 'mazin'' way."
"I reckoned he'd a smote me, but he dedn'. He just turned rosy red an'
stood glazin' at me as if I was a ghost."
"I never see en look like that afore," declared Joan; "he 'peared to be
afeared. But the door's shut 'gainst me now. I caan't do no more'n I have
done. He'll never forgive."
"As to that, Joan, I won't say. You bide quiet till the seed sprouts. I lay
now as you'll hear tell about your faither an' maybe get a message from en
'fore the year's a month older."
With which hopeful prediction Uncle Chirgwin ended the discussion.
That night the circular storm, which had died away at dark, turned upon
itself and the wind moaned at window latches and down chimneys, prophesying
autumn. Dawn broke on a drenched, gray world, but the storm had clean
passed, and at noon the gray brightened to silver and burned to gold when
the sun came out. The wind wore to the west, and on to northwest; the
weather settled down and days of a rare late summer pursued their even way.
A fortnight passed, and the farmer's belief that Gray Michael would
communicate with his daughter began to waver.
"Pharaoh's a soft-'earted twoad to this wan," he declared gloomily. "It do
beat me to picksher sich a man. I've piped to en hot an' strong, as Joan
knaws, but he ban't gwaine to dance 'tall seemin'ly. Poor sawl! When the
hand o' the Lard do fall, God send 'twon't crush en all in all.
'Saved'--_him_--dear, dear!"
"The likes of Tregenza be saved 'pon St. Tibbs Eve, [Footnote: _St. Tibbs
Eve_--Equivalent to the "Greek Calends."] I reckon, an' no sooner,"
answered Mary scornfully. Then she modified her fiery statement according
to her custom, for the woman's zeal always had first call upon her tongue,
and her judgment usually took off the edge of every harsh statement
immediately upon its utterance.
"Leastways 'tis hard to see how sich bowldashious standin' up in the eye o'
God should prosper. But us can be saved even from our awnselves, I s'pose.
So Tregenza have got his chance along o' the best."
Joan never resented the outspoken criticisms on her parent. She listened,
but rarely joined the discussion. The whole matter speedily sank to a
position of insignificance. Her own mind was clear, and the deadlock only
cut off one more outer interest and reduced Life's existing influences to a
smaller field. She drew more and more into herself, slipped more and more
from out the routine life of Drift. She became self-centered, and when her
body was not absent, as happened upon most fine days, her mind abstracted
itself to extreme limits. She grew shy of fellow-creatures, found no day
happy of which a part had not been spent beside a cross, showed a gradual
indifference to the services of the church which not long since had
attracted her so strongly and braced the foundations of her soul. There
came at last a black Sunday when Joan refused to accompany Mary and the
farmer to morning worship at Sancreed. She made no excuse, but designed a
pilgrimage of more than usual length, and, having driven as far as the
church with her uncle and cousin, left them there and walked on her way.
Even the fascinations of a harvest festival failed to charm her; and the
spectacle of fat roots, mighty marrows, yellow corn and red apples on the
window-ledges, of grapes and tomatoes, flowers and loaves upon the altar,
pulpit and font, did not appeal overmuch to Joana--a fact perhaps
surprising.
With a plump pasty of meat and flour in her pocket and one of Uncle
Chirgwin's walking-sticks to help her footsteps, Joan went on her way,
passed the Wesleyan Chapel of Sancreed, and then maintained a reasonably
direct line to her destination by short cuts and field paths. She intended
to visit Mên Scryfa, that famous "long stone" which stands away in a moor
croft beyond Lanyon. She knew that it was no right cross, but she
remembered it well, having visited the monument frequently in the past. It
was holy with infinite age, and the writing upon it fascinated her as a
mystery fascinates most of us.
The words, "_Rialobrani Cunovali Fili_," which probably mark the fact
that Rialobran, son of Cunoval, some Brito-Celtic chieftain of eld, lies
buried not far distant, meant nothing to Joan, but the old gray-headed
stone, perhaps the loneliest in all Cornwall, was pleasant to her thoughts,
and she trudged forward gladly with her eyes open for all the beauties of
a smiling world.
Summer clouds, sunny-hearted and towering against the blue, dropped immense
shadows on the glimmering gold of much stubble and on the wastes of the
moor rising above them. In the cornfields, visible now that the crops were
cut and gathered into mows, stood little gray-green islands--a mark
distinctive of Cornish husbandry. Here grew cow-cabbages in rank
luxuriance, on mounds of manure which would be presently scattered over the
exhausted land. The little oases in the deserts of the fields were too
familiar to arrest Joan's eye. She merely glanced at the garnered wheat and
thought what a brief time the arrish geese, stuffing themselves in the
stubble, had yet to live. A solemn, splendid peace held the country-side,
and hardly a soul was abroad where the road led upward to wild moor and
waste. Sometimes a group of calves crowding under the shady side of hedges
regarded Joan with youthful interest; sometimes, in a distant coomb-bottom,
where blackberries grew, little sunbonnets bobbed above the fern and a
child's shrill voice came clear to her upon the wind. But the loneliness
grew, and, anon, turning from her way a while, the traveler sat on the gray
crown of Trengwainton Carn to rest and look at the wide world.
From the little tor, over undulations of broad light and blue shadow, Joan
could see afar to Buryan's lofty tower, to Paul above the sea, to
Sancreed's sycamores and to Drift beyond them. Wild sweeps of fell and
field faded on the sight to those dim and remote hues of distance only
visible upon days of exceeding aerial brilliancy. Immediately beneath the
eminence subtended ragged expanses of rainbow-colored heath and fern and
furze spotted with small fir trees which showed blue against the tones of
the moor. The heather's pink clearly contrasted with the paler shades of
the ling, and an additional silvery twinkle of light inhabited the latter
plant, its cause last year's dead white branches and twigs still scattered
through the living foliage and flower. Out of a myriad bells that wild
world spoke, and the murmur of the heath came as the murmur of a wise voice
to the ear on which it fell. There was a soul in the day; it lived, and
Joan looked into the eyes of a glorious, conscious entity, herself a little
part of the space-filling whole.
Presently, refreshed by brief rest, the pilgrim journeyed on over a road
which climbs the moor above deep fox-covers of rhododendron, already
mentioned as visible from Madron chapel. The way dipped presently, crossed
a rivulet and mounted again past the famous cromlech of Lanyon. But Joan
passed the quoit unheeding, and kept upon flint roads through Lanyon farm,
where its irregular buildings stretch across the hill-crest. She saw the
stacks roped strangely in nets with heavy stones to secure them against
winter gales; she observed the various familiar objects of Drift repeated
on a greater scale; then, going down hill yet again, Joan struck up the
course of another stream and passed steadily over broad, granite-dotted
tangles of whin, heather and rank grasses to her destination. Here the
heath was blasted and scarred with summer fires. Great patches of the waste
had been eaten naked by past flames, and Mên-an-tol--the
"crick-stone"--past which she progressed, stood with its lesser granite
pillars in a dark bed of scorched earth and blackened furze-stems stripped
bare by the fire. She stood in a wide, desolate cup of the Cornish moor. To
the south Ding-Dong Mine reared its shattered chimney-stack, toward the
northwest Carn Galvas--that rock-piled fastness of dead giants--reared a
gray head against the blue. A curlew piped; a lizard rustled into a tussock
of grass where pink bog-heather and seeding cotton grasses splashed the
sodden ground; a dragon-fly from the marsh stayed a moment upon Mên-an-tol,
and the jewel of his eyes was a little world holding all the colors of the
larger.