about breaking the news to his wife, and then walked slowly down the quay.
The manner of his locomotion had wholly changed, and he moved like one
whose life was a failure.
Meantime Jago, full of the great discovery, hastened to the Pritchards and
other men who were now following Gray Michael at a distance. Them he told
that the fisherman had taken leave of his senses, that he had actually
called Billy himself one of God's chosen fools.
Several more boats had come in, and as it was certainly known that some had
taken refuge at Scilly, those vitally interested in the few remaining
vessels withdrew from the quay comforting each other and putting a hopeful
face on the position. Gray Michael followed his wife home. As yet she had
not learned of his state; but, although his conduct on returning was
somewhat singular, no word which fell now from him spoke clearly of a
disordered mind. He clamored first for food, and, while he ate, gave a
clear if callous account of his son's death and the lugger's danger. Having
eaten, he went to his bedroom, dragged off his boots, flung himself down
and was soon sleeping heavily; while Thomasin, marveling at his stolidity
and resenting it not a little, gave way to utter grief. During an interval
between storms of tears the woman put on a black gown, then went to her
work. The day had now advanced. On seeing her again downstairs, two or
three friends, including the Pritchards, entered the house and asked
anxiously after Michael, without, however, stating the nature of their
fears. She answered querulously that the man was asleep and showed no more
sorrow than a brute beast. She was very red-eyed and bedraggled. Every
utterance was an excuse for a fresh outburst of weeping, her breast heaved,
her hands moved spasmodically, her nerves were at extreme tension and she
could not stay long in one place. Seeing that she was nearly lightheaded
with much grief, and hoping that her husband's disorder would vanish after
his slumber was ended, her friends forbore to hint at what had happened to
him. They comforted her to the best of their power; then, knowing that long
hours of bitter sorrow must surely pass over the mother's head before such
grief could grow less, departed one by one, leaving her at last alone. She
moved restlessly about from room to room, carrying in one hand a photograph
of Tom, in the other a handkerchief. Now and then she sat down, looked at
the picture and wept anew. She tried to eat some supper presently but could
not. It is seldom a sudden loss strikes home so speedily as had her
tribulation sunk into Thomasin Tregenza's soul. She drank some brandy and
water which a friend had poured out for her and left standing on the
mantel--shelf. Then she went up to bed--a stricken ruin of the woman who
had risen from it in the morning. Her husband still slept, and Thomasin,
her grief being of a nature which required spectators for its fullest and
most soothing expression, felt irritated alike with him and with those
friends who had all departed, and, from the best motives, left her thus.
She flung herself into bed and anger obscured her misery--anger with her
husband. His heavy breathing worked her to a frenzy at last, and she sat
up, took him by the shoulder and tried to shake him.
"Wake up, for God's sake, an' speak to me, caan't 'e? You eat an' drink an'
sleep like a gert hog--you new--come from your awnly son's drownin'! Oh,
Christ, caan't 'e think o' me, as have lived a hunderd cruel years since
you went to sleep? Ain't you got a word for me? An' you, as had your sawl
centered 'pon en--how comes it you can--"
She stopped abruptly, for he lay motionless and made no sort of response to
her shrill complaining. She had yet to learn the cause; she had yet to know
that Michael had drifted beyond the reach of all further mental suffering
whatsoever. No religious anxieties, no mundane trials, none of the million
lesser carking troubles that fret the sane brain and stamp care on the face
of conscious intelligence would plague him more. Henceforth he was dead to
the changes and chances of human life.
At midnight there came the awful waking. Thomasin slept at last and
slumbered dream-tossed in a shadow-world of fantastic troubles. Then a
sound roused her--the sound of a voice speaking loudly, breaking off to
laugh, and speaking again. The voice she knew, but the laugh she had never
heard. She started up and listened. It was her husband who had wakened her.
"How do it go then? Lard! my memory be like a fishin' net, as holds the
gert things an' lets the little 'uns creep through. 'Twas a braave song as
faither singed, though maybe for God fearers it ban't a likely song."
Then the bed trembled and the man reared up violently and roared out an
order in such words as he had never used till then.
"Port! Port your God-damned helm if you don't want 'em to sink us."
Thomasin, of whose presence her husband appeared unconscious, crept
trembling from the bed. Then his voice changed and he whispered:
"Port, my son, 'cause of that 'pon the waters. Caan't 'e see--they bubbles
a glimmerin' on the foam? That's the last life of my lil Tom; an' the
foam-wreath's put theer by God's awn right hand. He'm saved, if 'twasn't
that down at the bottom o' the sea a man be twenty fathom nearer hell than
them as lies in graaves ashore. But let en wait for the last trump as'll
rip the deep oceans. An' the feesh--damn 'em--if I thot they'd nose Tom, by
God I'd catch every feesh as ever swum. But shall feesh be 'lowed to eat
what's had a everlasting sawl in it? God forbid. He'm theer, I doubt, wi'
seaweed round en an' sea-maids a cryin' awver his lil white faace an'
keepin' the crabs away. Hell take crabs--they'd a ate Christ 'isself if so
be He'd falled in the water. Pearls--pearls--pearls is on Tom, an' the sea
creatures gives what they can, 'cause they knaw as he'd a grawed to be a
man an' theer master. God bless 'em, they gives the best they can, 'cause
they knawed how us loved en. 'The awnly son o' his mother.' Well, well,
sleep's better'n medicine; but no sleepin' this weather if us wants to make
home again. Steady! 'Tis freshenin' fast!"
He was busy about some matter and she heard him breathing in the darkness
and stirring himself. Thomasin, her heart near standing still before this
awful discovery, hesitated between stopping and flying from the room before
he should discover her. But she felt no fear of the man himself, and
bracing her nerves, struck a light. It showed Gray Michael sitting up and
evidently under the impression he was at sea. He grasped the bed-head as a
tiller and peered anxiously ahead.
"Theer's light shawin' forrard!" he cried. Then he laughed, and Thomasin
saw his face was but the caricature of what it had been, with all the iron
lines blotted out and a strange, feeble expression about eyes and mouth. He
nodded his head, looked up at the ceiling from time to time, and presently
began to sing.
It was the old rhyme he had been trying to recollect, and it now came,
tossed uppermost in the mind-quake which had shattered his intellect,
buried matters of moment, and flung to the surface long hidden events and
words of his youth.
"'Bucca's a churnin' the waves of the sea,
Bucca's a darkenin' the sky wi' his frown,
His voice is the roll o' the thunder.
The lightnin' do shaw us the land on our lee,
An' do point to the plaace wheer our bodies shall drown
When the bwoat gaws down from under.'
"Ha, ha, ha, missis! So you'm aboard, eh? Well, 'tis a funny picksher you
makes, an' if tweern't murder an' hell-fire to do it, blamed if I wouldn't
thraw 'e out the ship. 'Thou mad'st him lower than the angels,' but not
much lower, I'm thinkin'. 'Tis all play an' no work wi' them. They ought to
take a back seat 'fore the likes o' us. They abbun no devil at theer tails
all times.
"'But I'll tame the wild devil afore very long.
If I caan't wi' my feests, I will wi' my tongue!'"
Thomasin Tregenza scuffled into her clothes while he babbled, and now,
bidding him sleep in a shaking voice, putting out the candle and taking the
matches with her, she fled into the night to rouse her neighbors and summon
a doctor. She forgot all her other troubles before this overwhelming
tragedy. And the man driveled on in the dark, concerning himself for the
most part with those interests which had occupied his life when he was a
boy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DESTINATION OF JOAN
Mary Chirgwin did not return to Newlyn after making inquiries at Penzance.
There indeed she learned one fact which might prove important, but the
possibilities to be read from it were various. Joan had been at the
Penzance railway station, and chance made Mary question the identical
porter who had studied the timetable for her cousin.
"She was anxious 'bout the Lunnon trains an' tawld me she was travelin' up
to town to-morrow," explained the man. "I weer 'pon the lookout this
marnin', but she dedn' come again."
"What time did you see her last night?"
"'Bout nine or earlier. I mind the time 'cause the storm burst not so very
long arter, an' I wondered if the gal had got to her home."
"No, she didn't. Might she have gone by any other train?"
"She might, but I'm everywheers, an' 'tedn' likely as I shouldn't have seed
her."
This much Mary heard, and then went home. Her news made Mr. Chirgwin very
anxious, for supposing that Joan had returned from Penzance on the previous
evening, or attempted to do so, it was probable that she had been in the
lowest part of the valley, at or near Buryas Bridge, about the time of the
flood. The waters still ran high, but Uncle Thomas sent out search parties
through the afternoon of that day, and himself plodded not a few miles in
the lower part of the coomb.
Meantime the truth must be stated. On the night of the storm Joan had gone
to Penzance, ascertained the first train which she could catch next day,
and then returned as quickly as she could toward Drift. But at Buryas
Bridge she remembered that her uncle was in the coomb with the farm hands,
and might be there all night. It was necessary that he should know her
intentions and direct her in several particulars. A farm vehicle must also
be ordered, for Joan would have to leave the farm at a very early hour.
Strung to a tension of nerves above all power of fatigue, in a whirl of
excitement and wholly heedless of the mysterious nocturnal conditions
around her, Joan determined to seek Uncle Thomas directly, and with that
intention, instead of climbing the hill to Drift and so placing herself in
a position of safety, passed the smithy and cots which lie by Buryas Bridge
and prepared to ascend the coomb in this fashion and so reach her friends
the quicker. She knew her road blindfold, but was quite ignorant of the
altered character of the stream. Joan had not, however, traveled above a
quarter of a mile through the orchard lands when she began to realize the
difficulties. Once well out of the orchards, she believed that the meadows
would offer an easier path, and thus, buried in her own thoughts, proceeded
with many stumblings and splashings over the wet grasses and earth, under a
darkness that made progress very slow despite her familiarity with the way.
Then it was that, deep hidden in the night and all alone, where the stream
ran into a pool above big bowlders which banked it--at the spot, indeed,
where she had reigned over the milky meadowsweets seated on a granite
throne--the vibrating thread of Joan Tregenza's little life was sharply
severed and she died with none to see or hear, in that tumult of rising
waters which splashed and gurgled and rose on the skirts of the coming
storm. A pathway ran here at the edge of the river, and the girl stepped
upon it to find the swollen current suddenly up to her knees. Bewildered
she turned, slipped, turned again, and then, under the impression that she
faced toward the meadow-bank, put up her hands to grapple safety, set her
foot forward and, in a moment, was drowning. Distant not half a mile,
laboring like giants to save a thing far less precious than this life,
toiled Uncle Thomas and his men. Had silence prevailed among them the
single cry which echoed up the valley might well have reached their ears;
but all were laboring amain, and Joan was at that moment the last thought
in the minds of any among them.
So she died; for the gathering waters soon beat out her life and silenced
her feeble struggle to save it. A short agony ended the nine months of
experience through which Joan's life has been followed; her fires were
quenched, and that most roughly; her fears, hopes, sorrows, joys were all
swept away; and Nature stood defeated by herself, to see a young life
strangled on the threshold of motherhood, and an infant being drowned so
near to birth that its small heart had already begun to beat.
Two men, tramping through the desolation of the ruined valley at Uncle
Chirgwin's command, discovered Joan's body. The elder was Amos Bartlett,
and he fell back a step at the spectacle with a sorrowful oath on his lip;
the younger searcher turned white and showed fear. The dead girl lay on her
back, so left by the water. Her dress had been caught between two great
bowlders near the pool of her drowning and the flood had thus caused her no
injury.
"God's goodness! how comed she here!" cried out Bartlett. "Oh, but this'll
be black news--black news; an' her brother drowned at sea likewise! Theer's
a hidden meanin' in it, I lay, if us awnly knawed." The lad who accompanied
Bartlett was shaking, and did not dare to look at the still figure which
lay so stiff and straight at their feet. Amos therefore bid him use his
legs, hasten to the farm, break the news, and dispatch a couple of men to
the coomb.
"I can pull up a hurdle an' wattle it with withys meantime," he said; "for
'tis allus well to have work for the hand in such a pass as this. Ban't no
good for me to sit an' look at her, poor fond wummon."
He busied himself with the hurdle accordingly, and when two of the hands
presently came down from Drift they found their burden ready for them.
The old, silent man called Gaffer Polglaze found sufficient excitement in
the tragedy to loosen a tongue which seldom wagged. He spat on his hands
and rubbed them together before seizing his end of the hurdle. Then he
spoke:
"My stars! to see maaster when he heard! He rolled all about as if he was
drunk. An' yet 'tis the bestest thing as could fall 'pon the gal. 'Er was
lookin' for the cheel in a month or so, they do say. Poor sawl--so cold as
a quilkin [Footnote: _Quilkin_--A frog.] now, and the unborn baaby
tu." Then Mr. Bartlett answered:
"The unhappy creature was fine an' emperent to me 'bout a matter o'
drownin' chets in the spring. Yet here she'm drowned herself sure 'nough.
Well, well, God's will be done."
"'Tis coorious, to be sure, how bazzomy [Footnote: _Bazzomy_--Blue or
livid.] a corpse do get 'bout the faace arter a water death," said the
first speaker, regarding the dead with frank interest.
"Her eyes do make me wimbly-wambly in the stomach," declared the second
laborer; "when you've done talkin', Gaffer Polglaze, us'll go up-long, an'
the sooner the better."
"Butivul eyes, tu, they was--wance. Sky-color an' no less. What I'm
wonderin' is as to however she comed here 'tall."
"Piskey-led, I'll warrant 'e," said the ancient.
"Nay, man-led, which is worse. You mind that printed envelope us found in
the kitchen. 'Twas some dark doin' of that anointed vellun as brot her in
trouble. Ay, an' if I could do en a graave hurt I would, Methodist or no
Methodist."
"He'm away," answered Bartlett. "'Tedn' no call for you nor yet me to
meddle wi' the devil's awn business. The man'll roast for't when his time
do come. You'd best to take your coats off an' cover this poor clay, lest
the wummen should catch a sight an' go soundin'."
They did as he bid them, and Mr. Bartlett laid his own coat upon the body
likewise. Then slowly up the hill they passed, and rested now and again
above the steep places.
"A wisht home-comin' as ever a body heard tell on," commented Gaffer
Polglaze; "an' yet the Lard's good pleasure's allus right if you lives long
enough to look back an' see how things was from His bird's-eye view of 'em.
A tidy skuat [Footnote: Windfall, legacy.] o' money tu they tells me. Who
Be gwaine to come by that?"
"Her give it under hand an' seal to her brother."
"Theer's another 'mazin' thing for 'e! Him drownded in salt an' her in
fraish! We lives in coorious times to be sure, an' theer's more in such
happenings than meets the eye."
"Bear yourself more sorrow-stricken, Gaffer. Us be in sight of the house."
Mary Chirgwin met the mournful train, directed them to bring the body of
Joan into the parlor where a place was prepared for it, and then turned to
Bartlett. She was trembling and very pale for one of her complexion, but
the woman's self-command had not left her.
"The auld man's like wan daft," she said hurriedly. "He must be doin', so
he rushed away to Newlyn to tell 'em theer. He ban't himself 'tall. You'd
best to go arter en now this minute. An' theer's things to be done in
Penzance--the doctor an' the crowner an'--an' the coffin-maker. Do what you
can to take trouble off the auld man."
"Get me my coat an' I'll go straight 'way. 'Tis thrawed awver the poor
faace of her."
Two minutes later Mr. Bartlett followed his master, but Uncle Chirgwin had
taken a considerable start of him. The old man was terribly shocked to hear
the news, for he had clung to a theory that Joan was long since in London.
Dread and fear came over him. The thought of facing this particular corpse
was more than he could contemplate with self-control. A great nervous
terror mingled with his grief. He wished to avoid the return from the
valley, and the first excuse for so doing which came to his mind he
hurriedly acted upon. He declared it essential that the Tregenzas should be
told instantly, and hastened away before Mary could argue with him. Only
that morning they had heard of Gray Michael's condition, but Uncle Chirgwin
forgot it when the blasting news of his niece's death fell upon him. He
hurried snuffling and weeping along as fast as his legs would bear him, and
not until he stood at their cottage door did he recollect the calamities
which had overtaken the fisherman and those of his household.
Uncle Chirgwin began to speak hastily the moment Mrs. Tregenza opened the
door. He choked and gurgled over his news.
"She'm dead--Joan. They've found her in the brook as the waters went down.
Drownded theer--the awnly sunshine as ever smiled at Drift. Oh, my good
God!--'tis a miz-maze to drive us all out of our senses. An' you,
mother--my dear, dear sawl, my heart bleeds for 'e."
"I caan't cry for her--my tears be dried at the roots o' my eyes. I be
down-danted to the edge o' my awn graave. If my man wasn't gone daft
hisself, I reckon I should a gone. Come in--come in. Joan an' Tom dead in a
night, an' the faither of 'em worse than dead. I shall knaw it is so
bimebye. 'Tis awnly vain words yet. Iss, you'd best to see en now you'm
here. He may knaw 'e or he may not. He sits craakin' beside the fire, full
o' wild, mad, awful words. Doctor sez theer ban't no bettering of it. But
he may live years an' years, though 'tedn' likely. Tell en as Joan's dead.
Theer edn' no call to be afeared. He's grawed quite calm--a poor droolin'
gaby."
Uncle Chirgwin approached Gray Michael and the fisherman held out his hand
and smiled.
"'Tis farmer Chirgwin, to be sure. An' how is it with 'e, uncle?"
"Bad, bad, Tregenza. Your lil darter, your Joan, be dead--drownded in the
flood, poor sweet lamb."
"You'm wrong, my son. Joan's bin dead these years 'pon years. She was
damned afore 'er mother conceived her. Hell-meat in the womb. But the 'Lard
is King,' you mind. Joan--iss fay, her mother was a Hittite--a lioness o'
the Hittites, an' the mother's sins be visited 'pon the childern, 'cordin'
to the dark ways o' the livin' God."
"Doan't 'e say it, Michael! She died lovin' Christ. Be sure o' that."
The other laughed loudly, and burst into mindless profanity and obscenity.
So the purest liver and most cleanly thinker has often cursed and uttered
horrible imprecations and profanations under the knife, being chloroformed
and unconscious the while. Uncle Chirgwin gazed and listened open mouthed.
This spectacle of a shattered intellect came upon him as an absolutely new
manifestation. Any novel experience is rare when a man has passed the age
of seventy, and the farmer was profoundly agitated. Then a solemn fit fell
upon Gray Michael, and as his visitor rose to depart he quoted from words
long familiar to the speaker--weird utterances, and doubly weird from a
madman's mouth in Uncle Chirgwin's opinion. Out of the wreck and ruin of
quite youthful memories, Michael's maimed mind had now passed to these
later, strenuous days of his early religious existence, when he fought for
his soul, and lived with the Bible in his hand.
"Hark to me, will 'e? Hark to the word o' God echoed by His worm. 'He that
heareth let en hear, an' he that forbeareth let en forbear, for they are a
rebellious house.' An' what shall us do then? Theer was a man as builded a
heydge around a guckoo, thinkin', poor fool, to catch the bird; but her
flew off. That edn' the Lard's way. 'Make a chain, for the land is full o'
bloody crimes an' the city is full o' violence!' 'An' all that handle the
oar, the mariners, an' all the pilots o' the sea, shall come down from
theer ships,' an' me amongst the rest. That's why I be here now, wi'
bitterness o' heart an' bitter wailin' for my dead bwoy. 'As for theer
rings, they was (were) so high that they was (were) dreadful; an' theer
rings were full of eyes round about.' Huntin' damned sawls, my son--a
braave sight for godly folks. That's why the rings of 'em be so full of
eyes! They need be. An' theer wings whistle like a hawk arter a pigeon.
'Because o' the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon
it.'"
He relapsed into absolute silence and sat with his eyes on the fire.
Sometimes he shook, sometimes he nodded his head; now he frowned, then
grinned vacuously at the current of his thoughts.
Mr. Chirgwin took his leave of Thomasin, prayed that she might be supported
in her tribulation, and so departing met Amos Bartlett who was standing
outside the cottage awaiting him. The man gave a forcible and blunt
description of his morning's work which brought many tears to Uncle
Chirgwin's eyes; then, together, they walked to Penzance, there to
chronicle the sudden death of Joan Tregenza and arrange for those necessary
formalities which must precede her burial.
The spectacle of Tregenza's insanity, which to an educated observer had
perhaps presented features of some scientific interest and appeared
grotesque rather than tremendous, fell upon the ignorant soul of Uncle
Chirgwin in a manner far different. The mystery of madness, the sublimity
and horror of it, rise only to tragic heights in the untutored minds of
such beholders as the farmer, for no mere scientific manifestation of
mental disease is presented to their intelligence. Instead they stand face
to face with the infinitely more terrific apparition of God speaking direct
through the mouth of one among His chosen insane. In their estimation a
madman's utterance is pregnant, oracular, a subject worthy of most grave
consideration and appraisement. And after Gray Michael's mental downfall
many humble folks, incited by the remarkable religious fame of his past
life, begged permission to approach within sound of his voice at those
moments when the desire for utterance was upon him. This, indeed, came to
be a privilege not a little sought after.
CHAPTER NINE
AT SANCREED