To see another eat when oneself is hungry, or sleep when oneself is
wakeful, is surely very trying to the temper, except to those
happily-constituted individuals who are incapable of envy. Dick
Trevanion was as generous-hearted a boy as you could wish; but as the
time went by, unmarked by anything but the slow rise of the boat and the
quick dwindling of the candle in the lantern, he looked at Sam's open
mouth with impatience, listened to his untuneful solo with dislike, and
felt a deplorable desire to kick him. He had no watch, and bethought
himself that it might be as well, when he got home, to test the duration
of a candle, so that if he were ever in such a predicament again he
might at least have a clock of King Alfred's sort. Every now and then
he snuffed the coarse wick, and when the tallow had sunk almost to the
socket, he substituted another candle-end that he happened to have in
his pocket. Beyond this he had nothing to employ him.
But by-and-by, as the roof of the vault came nearer to him with the
gradual lifting of the boat, an idea struck him. Why not use the boat
as a raised platform for the ladder, and so contrive to examine an
additional ten or twelve feet of the walls? The ladder!--it was
floating on the surface of the water, heaving simultaneously with the
boat as the tide gently rippled in.
"Wake up, Sam!" he called.
Sam snored on.
"Wake up!" cried Dick again, leaning over and pinching the sleeper's
nose.
Sam struck out with his fist, as any honest English boy would have done,
without opening his eyes. But at a third call he roused himself, sat up,
and rubbing those heavy organs vigorously, sighed like a furnace, and
then said sleepily:
"Why, where be I?"
"In dreamland, I should think," replied Dick, laughing. "Wake up! I
want you to hold the ladder against the wall while I climb again."
"In twelve feet o' water! Not me; I bean't growed enough for that.
'Tis work for a giant."
"Not on the ground, of course; in the boat, I mean."
Sam looked dubious.
"Won't it wamble? And if you tumble you'll sink us."
"Well, we can try. Take hold of the end of the ladder floating by you,
and I'll paddle close to the wall."
On lifting the ladder, they found that its top came within a few feet of
the roof. But when Dick began to climb, he descended in a hurry, for
the ladder being of necessity set up at an angle, every upward step
drove the boat from the wall towards the middle of the cave.
"Be-jowned if we can do it!" cried Sam. "That there openin' will be the
death o' me."
Dick was at a loss. There was no way of keeping the boat in a fixed
position. Even if he dropped the anchor and it held in the sandy
bottom, the boat would still have a range of movement that altogether
prohibited the success of his plan. He looked gloomily at Sam; it was
vexatious to be baulked when achievement was so near. Sam, with his
hands on the sides of the ladder, was gazing up its length, his eyes
gradually converging as they travelled higher, until they seemed almost
to be looking at each other. All at once they reverted to their natural
position, and he cried:
"I've got a noble thought, I do b'lieve."
"What's that?"
"Why, 'tis as easy as anything. See that place, Maister Dick, up aloft
there, where the wall goes in summat?"
"Well, what then?"
"I'll show 'ee. You'd never ha' thought of it, 'cos you was lookin'
down instead o' lookin' up."
He drew down the ladder until its whole length lay along one side of the
boat.
"Look 'ee here," he said. "We'll take the anchor, and fix it upright in
middle of the ladder, lash it to the top rung, do 'ee see?" He suited
the action to the word. "There! Now 'tis a hook, or a clutch, or
whatever name you like to gie un. We'll lift un again till it hooks on
that ledge; then it will hang free, and you can climb as easy as
climbing trees."
"A capital notion, Sam," cried Dick.
"I said it was, purticler for a poor mazy stunpoll of a feller like me."
"You're a genius if it works out. The thing is to try it."
Raising the ladder to its former position, they moved it along the face
of the wall until one fluke of the anchor held firmly to the ledge of
rock, as they proved by exerting a considerable downward strain.
"This is splendid," said Dick. "Now to go up."
"Ah, don't 'ee take the lantern with 'ee this time. I don't want no more
cracks on the nob, and if it fell again, 't 'ud get soused in the water,
and then we'd be in darkness."
"You're right. I'll take the candle out and stick it in my hat as the
miners do. I must have a light, of course."
"I reckon you must, if you be goin' to find that openin'," said Sam,
sceptical to the last.
Dick stuck the lighted candle into the band of his hat, stepped out of
the boat, and began to climb, Sam watching his progress and offering
bits of cautionary counsel. In a few seconds, when Dick's head
projected above the anchor, he saw that the ledge of rock, extending for
some distance on both sides, was the floor of a roughly rectangular
fissure, which penetrated the earth much as the tunnel below penetrated
the cliff. It ran upwards. The smoky light from the candle did not
reach far, but Dick, peering over the ledge, was unable to see any solid
background to the fissure.
"I've found the opening!" he said.
"What do 'ee say?" called Sam. "Yer voice sounds all a mumble and a
rumble."
Clinging firmly to the ledge with both hands, Dick lowered his head and
repeated the words.
"Now yer satisfied, then," said Sam. "Better come down afore the candle
goes out."
"No. I'm going on."
"But chok' it all, you won't leave me all alone! I'm not afeard, not I;
but if there be three or four seals a-comin' home by-and-by, I can't
fight 'em all."
"You must come up too when I've looked a little farther."
"But you can't climb on to the ledge without summat to hold to. Maister
Dick, think of yer feyther and mother, and what I'm to say if 'ee falls
and breaks yer neck, and I take 'ee home a gashly corp."
"Don't talk rubbish. I shan't fall if you don't worry me. I'm not
going to sit for hours longer in the boat till the tide goes down, so
hold your tongue till I am safe aloft."
Leaning well forward, he carefully lifted his foot to the next rung,
then to the next, watching the anchor to see that it was not displaced
by his movements. Then he got one knee on the rocky shelf, stretched
his arms in front of him, and with a sudden movement heaved his body on
to the ledge and fell flat, his feet projecting into space. He crawled
along on hands and knees until his boots disappeared from Sam's view,
and stood up within the dark entrance of the fissure.
"I'm up, Sam," he called, his voice reverberating hollowly in the vault.
"Then I be comin' too," cried the boy.
"Not yet. You must wait a little until I see where the opening leads
to. I'll come back for you presently."
He turned his face to the opening and went in. Dim as the light was, he
recognised almost at once that he was at the end of a mine adit. Within
a few paces the fissure narrowed to a dwarf tunnel, through which a tiny
stream trickled, disappearing, not over the ledge into the cave, but
into a fissure in the wall of rock. There was space for only two
persons to pass abreast, and as Dick proceeded, he had to bend his head
to avoid striking the roof. He was about to explore further, when he
remembered that the candle in his hat could not last more than a few
minutes, and to advance in the dark would be foolhardy. He had no more
candles, and supposed that Sam had none, so that it seemed as if he must
postpone further exploration. But returning to the ledge, he saw a
light in the cave.
"You've got some more candle-ends, then?" he cried.
"One, that I've just fished up out of my pocket along with a bit of
string, some bait, a bit o' pudden that I'd forgot--can't eat it now,
hungry as I be, 'cos 'tis all tallowed--and a green penny."
"I want the candle, Sam; mine's going out. Can you pitch it up?"
"I can, but it 'ud only fall back into the water and go to the bottom."
"Wait. I've a bit of string in my pocket. I'll let it down; tie the
candle on."
"I must do it, I suppose. Iss, you shall have it, and I'll be left in
the dark, but I'm not afeard--not very."
In a minute Dick had the fresh candle in his hat-band, and once more
entered the tunnel.
It was very damp, and Dick guessed from the trickling stream at his feet
that the adit had been designed, when the mine was in operation, to
drain the upper workings. How long ago this was he had no idea. It
must have been long before old Reuben's time, or the man would have had
more definite knowledge than he actually possessed, and the existence of
the opening would have been known as a fact instead of being a mere
fragment of village tradition.
Dick went on. In some parts the tunnel was almost impassable with earth
and rocks that had fallen in. Step as cautiously as he might, every now
and then the rattle of loose earth displaced by his movements caused a
cold shiver to run down his back. What if there should be a fall behind
him which would cut off his retreat to the cave? The tunnel ought to
lead to an opening to the air above, but the way might be blocked, and
the possibility of being entombed was daunting. But having come so far
Dick was unwilling to give in. The peril might be purely imaginary.
Plucking up his courage, he hastened his steps, and after a few minutes
came to an enlargement of the tunnel. To his left a second gallery ran
downward at a sharp angle with that in which he was; no doubt this also
led to some point of the shore. Still advancing, he saw, with some
surprise, that the passage was strutted in places, and much freer from
obstructions than the portion he had already traversed. About a hundred
yards beyond the transverse gallery, however, his progress was suddenly
checked: the whole width of the tunnel was filled with a mass of rocks,
stones, and loose earth. A few seconds' examination sufficed to show
the impossibility of proceeding farther in this direction; accordingly
he retraced his steps and, a few yards away, came to another passage, to
find, however, after twenty or thirty paces, that he was again brought
to a stop.
This time the obstruction was of a different nature. It was a rough door
made of stout wooden beams, closed with a heavy bar resting in sockets.
He lifted the bar and pulled the creaking door, which came towards him
for an inch or two, and then stuck. To open it fully he had to remove
from the floor a number of planks and beams, which appeared to be the
parts of a broken windlass. Having got the door open and passed
through, he found himself in a square chamber that smelt very damp and
close, though, on looking upwards, he could see no roof. He concluded
that he was at the bottom of a deep shaft. But it had not the look of a
mine shaft, which, so far as Dick's experience went, was always
timbered. The walls here were cased with stone, moss-grown and damp.
Near the doorway he caught sight of a staple of rusty iron let into the
wall; a little above this, a second of the same kind; and at the same
interval above the second, a third. Looking up the wall, he perceived
that similar staples projected from the stonework as far up as the
flickering light of his candle revealed. Their shape, and the intervals
between them, indicated that they were steps by which the wall could be
climbed. And then it flashed upon him suddenly that he was in an
ancient well, known as St. Cuby's Well, though who St. Cuby was nobody
knew except, perhaps, Mr. Carlyon, deeply learned in the antiquities of
his county. The upper end of the well-shaft opened on the cliff, about
a quarter-mile from the cottage of old Joe Penwarden, the exciseman. It
was covered by the ivy-grown ruins of a small oratory, whither in times
long past the faithful had come to have their children baptised in the
water of the holy well, to drink of it for the cure of their diseases,
and to offer up vows and repeat prayers before the sacred cross.
Strange as it may seem, Dick's first impulse, when the identity of his
whereabouts flashed upon him, was to dash through the doorway and
scamper with all imaginable speed back to the cave. He was not more
superstitious than other boys of his age; but in those days, before old
beliefs and fancies had undergone the cold douche of science, people
were credulous of omens and spells, blessings and curses, beneficent
influences and the evil eye. From St. Cuby's Well the aroma of sanctity
had long since departed; according to village tradition, a murder of
peculiar horror had once been committed there; and now it was shunned as
a plague spot. No pilgrims came to kneel beneath the sacred roof; no
children ever played hide and seek among its picturesque ruins;
everybody, from the Squire downwards, avoided it, and at night not a man
would have ventured within a hundred yards of its unhallowed precincts.
Stories were rife of apparitions seen there; it was these ghosts of
which Ike Pendry had spoken to John Trevanion on the night when he had
overtaken the trudging pedestrian on the high road.
Dick, of course, had no belief in ghosts, and regarded the stories with
as much intellectual contempt as his father gave to the witch's couplet.
But his imagination was subject to impressions which his reason scorned;
and in the gloom of the well-shaft, which the yellow rays of his candle
rendered more awful than complete darkness could have been, these vague
conceptions of murder, sacrilege, and midnight hauntings possessed his
mind so completely as at first to overwhelm his common-sense. But he
resolutely crushed down these figments of his imagination, told himself
that such evil traditions might probably be traced to no more real
origin than the failure of the spring of water, and decided to go back
for his companion and put an end to their captivity by climbing up the
iron steps to the surface of the cliff.
"Oh, I am glad to see 'ee," cried Sam, as his young master's head
appeared at the brink of the ledge. "I bean't afeard, not I, but 'twas
'nation dark, and I felt a queer wamblin' in the inside o' me, 'cos I'm
tarrible hungry, I reckon."
"Well, come along. I've found the way out. The opening leads to St.
Cuby's Well, and we can climb to the top in no time."
"St. Cuby's Well! Dash my bones if I go within a mile o't. Dead men's
bones, and sperits o' darkness--no, never will I do it."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried Dick, as stoutly as if he had never felt the
least tremor on his own account. "I've seen no bones, and the spirits
haven't laid a hand on me. Those silly tales only frighten children."
"And females. Ah, 'tis a pity the mistress won't let me take eggs and
things to the Dower House. What I could tell to that nice young female
wi' the hole in her rosy cheeks! How they'd go yaller and white when
she heerd my tale of blood, and ghosteses in night-gowns, and all the
other things o' darkness! Ah, 'twas to be, I s'pose: she'll hear it
from some one else, and I shan't get the credit of it."
"No; she'll hear that you were too much of a baby to face 'em, and
she'll despise you, instead of thinking well of you as she does now."
"Don't say it, Maister Dick," cried the boy. "Scrounch me if I lose my
fame in that miserable way. I'll come, if you'll stand by me, and hold
my hand if we hears a noise, and use your finest language to the sperits
if they meddle wi' us. I've heerd tell that the Lord's prayer said
back'ards will tarrify 'em out of their wits, but I reckon yer head's
full of ancient heathen words that go straightfor'ard, and won't put 'ee
to such a tarrible tax as turnin' religion topsy-turvy."
This was said as Sam climbed with deliberate care up the ladder. He
gained the ledge more easily than Dick had done, having the help of
Dick's hand.
"Can we get there afore candle's out?" he said anxiously, when they
stood side by side.
"If we make haste," replied Dick, taking off his hat and looking at the
inch-and-a-half of candle left, and the mass of tallow that lay on the
brim like a small lake of lava. "We can fetch the boat at low-tide
to-morrow."
They hurried on, and, Dick knowing the way, reached the shaft in much
quicker time than when he had come alone. Sam got behind him at the
doorway, peering under his armpits with wide eyes, and taking much
comfort when he saw nothing but mossy walls.
"I'm downright shamed o' folks that believe in such gammut," he said,
valiantly following Dick into the chamber.
"Well, now we'll climb up. It must be after sunset, or we should see a
glimmer of light at the top. I'll go first."
"No, I'd better go first," said Sam hastily, looking round with
something of his former air of timorous expectation. "You see, if you
go first, the brim of yer hat will shet out all the light, and I'll miss
my footing and be nawthin' but scattered members. But if I go first, do
'ee see, and you come close behind me--but not close enough to set my
stockings afire--the light will be ekal betwixt us two. Do 'ee see my
manin', Maister Dick?"
"Quite plain. I don't mind. We'll try one or two of the staples first,
to make sure they are firm in the stonework, and then you can mount, and
as your hind foot leaves one step, my fore hand will clutch it."
The staples stood the test of pulling, first by Dick, then by Sam, who
also tried them, on the plea that he had more muscle. Then Sam began to
climb, followed closely by Dick. After an ascent of perhaps a hundred
feet, the former declared that he felt a whiff of fresh air, and
immediately afterwards the candle flame was blown out. Looking up past
Sam's fore-shortened body, Dick saw one star in the clear dark vault of
the sky, and in a few seconds they were both standing on the ground
beside the well-head, cooled by the breeze that blew through the ruined
walls of the chapel from the sea. The roof had gone long ago; grass
grew on the floor, and ivy twined itself in and out of the mullioned
windows.
"There!" said Dick. "We are safe, you see. All that talk of ghosts is
pure balderdash."
The darkness and the weird associations of the spot combined to make him
set his tone of voice to a murmur. At that moment there fell upon the
ears of the boys, as they stood side by side to recover breath after
their climb, a low sound from somewhere beyond the walls, but not far
away. It was like that of a person speaking in hollow, mournful
accents. Sam caught Dick by the arm; Dick heard his teeth chatter.
"'Tis he!" whispered the trembling boy. "'Tis the ghost! Oh! let me
hide myself afore he see I."
Dick did not reply. He was, it must be confessed, sufficiently
startled. The sound ceased; but in a moment or two it recommenced, now
being somewhat louder. Dick was in two minds, now thinking that he
would run, now wondering whether he had not better stay. The slow
droning still approached, and at last he caught articulate words:
"A-deary me! A-deary me! The world's a-cold, a bitter place for----"
The next words were indistinguishable.
"Hark to him!" whispered Sam. "He be in mortal pain, and I do feel that
leery all down the small o' my back."
Dick sniffed, and sniffed again. Then he said:
"Ghosts don't smoke, Sam--at any rate, not tobacco. I'm going to see."
"How do 'ee know?" whispered Sam, still holding him by the arm. "I
won't be so much afeard of him if he do be smoking bacca, but it may be
summat else. It do smell rayther strong for a livin' man."
He followed Dick as he groped his way over fragments of masonry and
through close-woven masses of ivy and weeds, until they came into the
open. The night was very dark. The first thing they saw, at a distance
of about twelve yards, was a small red glow, which brightened and faded
at intervals. Drawing nearer to it cautiously, they perceived at the
moments of greatest brightness that it lit up for an instant a grizzled
chin, a sunken mouth, a quite ordinary nose, a ruddy face with a black
patch over one eye, and a black hat over all.
"'Tis old Joe Penwarden," said Dick, in a tone that expressed surprise,
relief, and a shame-faced consciousness.
"So 'tis, I do believe," cried Sam. "Be-jowned if 'a didn't ought to be
locked up for playing such gashly tricks on poor souls."
"Avast there! Stand, in the King's name!" cried the old man, hearing
their voices.
"So we will, so we will," said Sam. "Don't 'ee be afeard, maister; we
bean't ghosteses, but just common mortals like yerself."
"Oh! 'tis you, Maister Dick," said Penwarden, as the boys came up to
him. "'Pon my life, I was skeered for about a second and a half, never
expectin' to see mortal men in this old haunt. What be 'ee doin' at
this time o' night, in such a place, too?"
"What time is it, Joe?" asked Dick.
"Time all young things like lambs and birds and boys were abed and
asleep. 'Tis past ten."
"Lawk-a-massy, if I didn't think it by the terrible emptiness in my
inside," cried Sam, feelingly. "Come home-along, Maister Dick; I be
mortal afeard as Feyther will send me to bed wi'out any supper."
"Wait a bit," replied Dick. "Where do you think we've been, Joe?"
"Not night-fishing, for ye've got no tackle. Nor rabbitin', for ye've
got no snares. Ah, well! Ye med as well tell me first as last, for I
be no good at guessin'."
"We've come up St. Cuby's Well."
"Come up, you say; but you must go down afore ye come up. I wouldn't
like to say I don't believe 'ee."
"That would be very unfriendly. The truth is, Joe, we were down in the
cave and got shut in by the tide, and to pass the time away we climbed
up over a ledge and found ourselves in an old adit, and went along it
till we came to the well-shaft. There are iron steps in the wall, and
up we came."
"Well, if that bean't the queerest thing I've heerd for many a day. Who
would ever ha' thowt it!"
"Didn't you know there were steps down the well side?
"Never heerd tell o' sech a thing."
"But haven't you seen it for yourself? I was thinking that, perhaps,
you being here now, you knew all about it, and the idea did cross me
that you might be the ghost people talk about, though to be sure you
don't look like one."
"Bless 'ee, I've never set foot inside they walls. Sometimes of a night
I come ramblin' round to smoke a peaceful pipe and meditate on the days
o' my youth afore I turn in, but as for goin' inside--no, I've never
thowt o't."
"Was 'ee afeard you med see the ghost, maister?" asked Sam, rejoicing to
think that he had a fellow in timorousness.
"Well, no. A ghost is a sperit, they say, and I reckon I've got enough
muscle in my aged arm to fend off a thing as has got no body."
"Still, you was talkin' to yerself as if ye was in great pain and
sorrer. 'A-deary me,' 'ee said; I heard 'ee twice; and then 'the
world's a-cold,'--and I s'pose 'ee felt the need o' takin' a comfortin'
pull at yer pipe, for I heerd no more."
"It do show how young small chickerels like 'ee may be mistaken.
Whenever I talk like that I be feelin' warmish and contented; remember
that, young Sam, and don't traipse about spreadin' false reports about
me. Moreover, don't 'ee tell nothing of yer climbing up the well, for
'a don't want the village rampin' round, spoilin' my peacefulness. St.
Cuby's ghost hev his uses, and long may he walk."
"Very well, Joe," said Dick, "we'll say nothing about it. There have
been no runs yet, I suppose?"
"No; 'tis early days for that. 'Tis true as Mr. Mildmay was called off
Morvah way to-day. Maybe they'll try a run there to-night. But it won't
be long afore we have trouble here, I reckon, for the pilchurs are late
this year, and when they're late, smugglin' is early, 'cos the men get
tired o' doin' nothing."
"Well, we had better be going. I usually tell Mother when I expect to
be late, fishing or what not, and she'll wonder what has become of me.
Are you coming our way, Joe?"
"Not yet, sir. I've a bit more meditation to get through first."
"What do you meditate about?" asked Dick.
"About my days o' youth, when I was a nimble young feller and served the
King afloat. Ah! they were days, they were. Lord Admiral Nelson be a
fine little chap, but nothing to the admiral I served with."
"Who was that?"
"Lord Admiral Rodney. Never shall I forget the time he spoke to me:
yes, lord as he was, he did so. It do warm me of a cold night to think
of it. Not every simple mariner could say he'd been spoke to ashore by
sech a high person as a admiral."
"What did the lord high admiral say to 'ee?" asked Sam, much impressed.
"Well, 'twas on Plymouth Hoe, and the admiral was walking with two
handsome females, showing 'em Drake's Island; Drake was another mariner,
you must know, as lived about a thousand year ago, seemingly. Well, I
turned round to look at the great man, and that moment he changed his
course, put up his helm, ye may say, and ran across my bows. 'Get out o'
the way, you cross-eyed son of a sea-cook!' says he to me. Ah! never
shall I forget it, nor the tinkly laugh o' they fine females. 'Twas a
great honour to be spoke to special by Lord Admiral Rodney, a fine
feller of a man."
"I don't wonder it keeps you warm," said Dick, laughing. "Good-night,
Joe."
"Good-night to you, sir. And young Sam, mind 'ee o' what I said."
"Make yourself easy, maister," returned Sam. "Oh, dear, what a thing it
'ud be to tell the maidy at the Dower House if on'y Squire warn't so
cruel!"
"What are you mumblin' about?"
"Nawthin', Maister Penwarden. I were on'y thinkin' to myself what a lot
o' folk 'ud be mazed if they knowed what sorrerful things ye do say when
yer happy."