I
In the course of an eventful life John Penaluna did three very rash
things.
To begin with, at seventeen, he ran away to sea.
He had asked his father's permission. But for fifty years the small
estate had been going from bad to worse. John's grandfather in the
piping days of agriculture had drunk the profits and mortgaged
everything but the furniture. On his death, John's father (who had
enlisted in a line regiment) came home with a broken knee-pan and a
motherless boy, and turned market-gardener in a desperate attempt to
rally the family fortunes. With capital he might have succeeded. But
market-gardening required labour; and he could neither afford to hire
it nor to spare the services of a growing lad who cost nothing but his
keep. So John's request was not granted.
A week later, in the twilight of a May evening, John was digging
potatoes on the slope above the harbour, when he heard--away up the
first bend of the river--the crew of the _Hannah Hands_ brigantine
singing as they weighed anchor. He listened for a minute, stuck his
visgy into the soil slipped on his coat, and trudged down to the
ferry-slip.
Two years passed without word of him. Then on a blue and sunny day
in October he emerged out of Atlantic fogs upon the Market Strand at
Falmouth: a strapping fellow with a brown and somewhat heavy face,
silver rings in his ears, and a suit of good sea-cloth on his back. He
travelled by van to Truro, and thence by coach to St. Austell. It was
Friday--market day; and in the market he found his father standing
sentry, upright as his lame leg allowed, grasping a specimen
apple-tree in either hand. John stepped up to him, took one of the
apple-trees, and stood sentry beside him. Nothing was said--not a
word until John found himself in the ramshackle market-cart, jogging
homewards. His father held the reins.
"How's things at home?" John asked.
"Much as ever. Hester looks after me."
Hester was John's cousin, the only child of old Penaluna's only
sister, and lately an orphan. John had never seen her.
"If I was you," said he, "I'd have a try with borrowed capital. You
could raise a few hundreds easy. You'll never do anything as you'm
going."
"If I was you," answered his father, "I'd keep my opinions till they
was asked for."
And so John did, for three years; in the course of which it is to
be supposed he forgot them. When the old man died he inherited
everything; including the debts, of course. "He knows what I would
have him do by Hester," said the will. It went on: "Also I will not
be buried in consicrated ground, but at the foot of the dufflin
apple-tree in the waste piece under King's Walk, and the plainer the
better. In the swet of thy face shalt thou eat bread, amen. P.S.--John
knows the tree."
But since by an oversight the will was not read until after the
funeral, this wish could not be carried out. John resolved to attend
to the other all the more scrupulously; and went straight from the
lawyer to the kitchen, where Hester stood by the window scouring a
copper pan.
"Look here," he said, "the old man hasn' left you nothing."
"No?" said Hester. "Well, I didn't expect anything." And she went on
with her scouring.
"But he've a-left a pretty plain hint o' what he wants me to do."
He hesitated, searching the calm profile of her face. Hester's face
was always calm, but her eyes sometimes terrified him. Everyone
allowed she had wonderful eyes, though no two people agreed about
their colour. As a matter of fact their colour was that of the sea,
and varied with the sea. And all her life through they were searching,
unceasingly searching, for she knew not what--something she never had
found, never would find. At times, when talking with you, she would
break off as though words were of no use to her, and her eyes had to
seek your soul on their own account. And in those silences your soul
had to render up the truth to her, though it could never be the truth
she sought. When at length her gaze relaxed and she remembered and
begged pardon (perhaps with a deprecatory laugh), you sighed; but
whether on her account or yours it was impossible to say.
John looked at her awkwardly, and drummed with one foot on the limeash
floor.
"He wanted you to marry me," he blurted out. "I--I reckon I've wanted
that, too ... oh, yes, for a long time!"
She put both hands behind her--one of them still grasped the
polishing-cloth--came over, and gazed long into his face.
"You mean it," she said at length. "You are a good man. I like you. I
suppose I must."
She turned--still with her hands behind her--walked to the window, and
stood pondering the harbour and the vessels at anchor and the rooks
flying westward. John would have followed and kissed her, but divined
that she wished nothing so little. So he backed towards the door, and
said--
"There's nothing to wait for. 'Twouldn't do to be married from the
same house, I expect. I was thinking--any time that's agreeable--if
you was to lodge across the harbour for awhile, with the
Mayows--Cherry Mayow's a friend of yours--we could put up the banns
and all shipshape."
He found himself outside the door, mopping his forehead.
This was the second rash thing that John Penaluna did.