Next day everybody in Polkerran knew of Jake Tonkin's thrashing. It was
discussed by the men in tap-rooms, on the jetty, in barns and piggeries,
in mills and cobblers' work-rooms. Fishwives chattered about it on
their doorsteps and at their windows. Boys meeting their playmates asked
if they had heard that Jake Tonkin had been walloped by Squire, and
Jake, as the victim of two assaults of this nature in succession, was
looked upon as something of a hero. Public opinion was dead against the
Squire, and was perhaps only the stronger because it was in the wrong.
It was clear that John Trevanion intended to make himself as unpleasant
as possible to his relative. In the afternoon a number of men were seen
mounting the steep road from the village to the cliff, drawing trolleys
laden with short narrow planks of wood. On reaching the green level
they proceeded to erect fences on the ground that had formerly been the
Squire's, and was now John Trevanion's. By the end of the next day a
large portion of the land was enclosed, the effect of these operations
being that the inmates of the Towers were cramped in their movements out
of doors, being restricted to the high road and the various rights of
way, which even the landlord could not close against them.
Sam Pollex hoped that the Squire would retaliate. The Beal, from which
the huer was accustomed to show his signals to the pilchard fishers, was
still Mr. Trevanion's property, and he could, if he chose, fence it
round in the same way. But there was nothing petty in the Squire's
nature. He was not the man to take a mean revenge on his neighbours, so
that when a fisher reported one evening that he had seen sharks and
grampuses some distance out at sea, a sure sign that the pilchards were
coming, the villagers went to bed without any fear that access would be
forbidden to the usual haunt.
Just before dawn next morning, Nathan Pendry, father of John Trevanion's
portmanteau carrier, the most experienced fisher in the village, took
his stand at the extremity of the Beal, carrying his bush. Seaward, the
sky was gloomy; in the east a pale orange and pink glow on the horizon
announced the rising sun. The air was very still, only the slow ripples
washing the sand at the foot of the cliff breaking the silence. In the
fairway lay three boats, the largest of them a smack of eight tons
burden, manned by six oarsmen, together with Tonkin and a fisher nearly
as large as he. These men and the occupants of the other boats sat
without speaking, their eyes fixed on the huer above. He stood
motionless, gazing intently on the surface of the sea. Beyond the
promontory the village was as yet asleep; one man stood solitary at the
end of the jetty.
Suddenly the huer bent forward, in an attitude of intense expectancy. A
few minutes passed; then lifting himself he waved his bush aloft. His
experienced eyes had detected a shadow in the water, moving across the
bay in a direction parallel with the shore. Instantly the men in the
first boat fell to their oars, and Tonkin, standing up in the stern, and
making a trumpet of his hands, shouted, "Havar! havar!" towards the
single figure on the jetty. This man repeated the cry; it was taken up
in the village; and soon from every street and lane a crowd of men,
women, and children poured up towards the cliffs, dressing themselves as
they ran, and shouting, "Havar! havar! Yo-hoy, hoy, hoy!"
Meanwhile the rowers were tugging at their oars with all their might,
Ike Pendry, who was rowing bow, having his eyes fixed on his father, and
directing the steersman in accordance with the movements of the bush.
The ground behind the huer was now thronged with spectators, no longer
shouting, but watching Pendry and the boatmen in tense silence. All at
once the huer dropped his bush; the rowers shipped oars; and Tonkin and
his mate grasped a long net, which had lain folded ready to their hands,
and with a few deft movements shot it overboard.
"Yo-hoy, yo-hoy!" broke from every throat. Then the crowd relapsed into
silence, watching the further proceedings in the bay.
The "seine net," as it was called, was a quarter of a mile long and
sixteen fathoms broad at the middle. It was fastened on each side to two
stout double ropes, and at each corner to four strong warps about fifty
fathoms long. Corks were fixed to the upper edge, and leaden weights to
the lower. When it was "shot," the corks buoyed up one end to the
surface of the water, the leads sank the other perpendicularly to the
bottom. The boat meanwhile was rowed round the shoal, following the
directions of the huer, until, the two extremities being made fast, the
fish were imprisoned in an oblong barrier of network. As Tonkin
straightened his back after completing his part of the work, another
shout rent the air, and the huer, his task also accomplished, broke
through the dignified calm which had hitherto distinguished him, and
waved his cap triumphantly.
Now came the turn of the "tuck-boat," one of those that had remained as
yet in the fairway. It was rowed within the area enclosed by the seine,
and laid close to the seine-boat, to the bows of which one end of a
smaller net, called the "tuck," was fastened by a rope. The boat then
slowly made the inner circuit of the seine, the tuck being paid out and
deftly hooked at intervals to the larger net. Meanwhile the men in the
third boat beat the water with their oars, so as to scare the fish into
the middle of the enclosure.
Now came the most exciting moment of the day. The cliff-top all round
the bay was dark with spectators. Small boys, eager to get in front,
dodged and shoved among the legs and skirts of their elders. The
village blacksmith was there; cobblers with bent backs and leather
aprons; tinkers, tailors, wheelwrights, carpenters, ploughmen,
dairymaids, old men with sticks and crutches, old women who could
scarcely totter, mothers with babies in their arms: all were agog with
excitement to see the final act. Sam Pollex was there, and when he
caught sight of the parlourmaid of the Dower House he sidled up to her
elbow, listened with delight to her exclamations of "My gracious!" "Look
'ee see, now!" "Lawk-a-massy me!" and by-and-by ventured to instruct her
ignorance of the movements passing below.
With the shouts of the boys were now mingled the deeper tones of the
seiners as, ranged in a row in their boat, they began to haul on the
tuck, calling "Yo, heave ho!" in time with their rhythmic movements.
"Pull away, boys!" shouts the huer; "Yo-hoy!" scream the boys. "Up she
comes! Look at 'em! Look at 'em!" The water eddies like a mill-race;
in the midst is seen a heaving mass of gleaming scales; and from round
the point come boats of all sizes, which range themselves in a circle
about the shoal. Men lean over the sides, dip their baskets, lift them
full of shining fish, empty them into the boats, and dip them again for
more. Soon they stand ankle deep in pilchards, and when the boats sink
to the gunwales, they are rowed away to the jetty, where men are waiting
with shovels and barrows, ready to carry the fish to the salting-house.
Dick Trevanion was among the spectators. He never missed the first haul
of the season. But to-day he was acutely conscious of a change. Last
year the villagers had greeted him with smiles and cheery words; to-day
they lowered their eyes, passed him in silence, and edged away from him
as he moved from place to place. He could not but feel bitterly his
isolation. Why did they so misjudge him? He had not changed: he knew
well that, in any ordinary contest between the smugglers and the revenue
officers, his sympathy would have been with the former; friendly as he
was with Mr. Mildmay, he would enjoy nothing better than that
gentleman's discomfiture, if it were due to fair means and the
villagers' wits. Yet, because he had intervened to prevent harm to an
old man, he was now regarded by the villagers as their enemy, one who
would descend to play the mean part of spy and informer.
With gloomy face he turned away and walked back along the promontory.
At the end he met Mr. Carlyon, who had just ridden up on his cob. The
parson's ruddy face was suffused with cheerfulness; he knew by the
jubilant shouts of the crowd that the catch was a good one, and rejoiced
that his parishioners were winning from the deep their means of
subsistence for the winter. He marked Dick's clouded face, and,
guessing the occasion of it, he tried to cheer him.
"Come, Dick," he said genially, "cheer up, my lad; this haul will put
the folk in a good temper, and they will forget their grudge against
you."
"I hope they will, sir," replied Dick, "but there's one man who'll try
to keep them in mind of it."
"You mean your cousin?"
"Yes."
"But surely he'll not be such a cur. He's a scoundrel--there now, what
am I saying? I'll tackle him, my boy. Why, bless my soul, he was in
church on Sunday, and my text was 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'
I'll ride there now, and get him to give me some breakfast--though I
detest the fellow," he added in one of his unconscious asides.
"He is away from home, I believe," said Dick.
"Well, then, I'll put it off till another day, but tackle him I will.
I've a bit of news, Dick. The carrier brought me some books last night;
that's not the news, though. No. You have heard, maybe, of a Frenchman
named Delarousse?"
He looked slyly at Dick; everyone in Polkerran knew the name of the
Frenchman with whom the smugglers had such close dealings.
"As a natural enemy of our country I don't pity him," pursued the
parson, "but as a--h'm--an honest free-trader I own I feel for him. His
privateer was badly knocked about in the Channel by a revenue cruiser a
week or two ago, and while she was being repaired, it appears that he
tried to run a cargo at Polperro. As ill-luck would have it--dear me!
I wonder if I ought to have said that," he added under his breath--"he
ran into the arms of the revenue people; they seized his lugger and
carried him to Plymouth, where he'll cool his heels for a time until
they put him among the other French prisoners on Dartmoor."
"Do they know it in the village yet, sir?"
"Probably not; the carrier was going straight on to Newquay; he had
nothing for us except my books. But you may be sure the folk will soon
know all about it. The carrier had a glass of brandy with Petherick,
and Petherick, as you know, is the biggest gossip in the parish. His
brandy is better than mine, the dog! I must ask him where he gets it."
Dick could not help smiling at the parson's unconscious self-revelation.
"That's right; you're feeling better, I see," said Mr. Carlyon cheerily.
"Now I'll go on and bespeak my basket. Pilchards of the first catch are
the daintiest dish I know. 'Tis a holiday to-day, but I shall see you
to-morrow. Good-bye."
He rode on. Dick turned to watch him, and saw Sam Pollex walking beside
the maid-servant of the Dower House. When Sam observed his young master
he left the girl and came sheepishly towards him.
"I've been tellin' to she the hows and whys of it, Maister Dick," said
he.
"Indeed."
"Iss, I have. Bein' a furriner, she be 'mazin simple for such a
well-growed female. She axed me why I never brought no more eggs."
"And what did you say?"
"Well, not likin' to hurt her feelings, I telled her our hens be
uncommon idle lately, and she said she knows they do have fits that way
sometimes. Maister John's gone to Lunnon, to buy things for his mine."
"I wish he'd stay there."
"Her name be Susan."
"Quite a common name."
"She's as nice a female as ever I've seed."
The pilchard fishing was for several days so engrossing an occupation
that the villagers had no time for fostering their grievance against the
Towers. Dick and Sam, who had formerly been in the thick of it,
sometimes as spectators merely, occasionally as participators, kept
away, and spent the greater part of their time in fishing quietly some
few miles up the coast. One day Dick reverted to the project of hunting
seals, which he had temporarily abandoned, partly through the diversion
afforded by the discovery of the well, partly because he did not care to
kill the parent seals while their offspring were so young. Now, however,
the prospect of sport, and the practical wish to obtain a sealskin for
his mother, made him resolve to try his luck in the cave, and he laid
his plans in consultation with the ever-ready Sam.
He guessed that the seals left the cave at low tide to find food in the
deep, and returned when the sea flowed in. Since the cave was at such
times inaccessible from the sea, he decided that it must be approached
from the well, of which neither he nor Sam had now any remaining dread.
One evening they sallied towards it, carrying a well-made rope-ladder, a
musket apiece, a large hammer, and several torches, which would give
more light than the ancient candle-lantern they had formerly carried.
To one end of the rope-ladder they had attached a series of stout
meat-hooks borrowed from old Reuben: they could more confidently trust
their safety to a number of teeth gripping the rock than to the single
fluke of their small boat anchor. They had timed their start so that
they would reach the cave just as the tide turned.
It was a dull, murky evening, with a touch of autumn rawness in the air.
Twilight had not quite merged into darkness when they arrived at the
ruined chapel at the well-head. They looked warily around to make sure
that their presence was not observed, then prepared to descend.
"'Tis rayther fearsome," murmured Sam, as he looked into the black
shaft. Now that he was on the spot, the tradition of ghostliness in
which he had been brought up revived something of his former fears.
"Nonsense," said Dick, "we have laid the ghost for ever, Sam. I will go
down first. Don't follow until I come to the door. I will whistle for
you. When you hear me, fling down the ladder and the hammer. At a
second whistle, come yourself."
Sticking a lighted candle-end into his hatband, and slinging the musket
over his shoulder, he stepped backward into the well, and began the
descent. He found the successive staples entirely by the sense of
touch, the candle throwing a deep shadow below him. At first he felt a
little nervous, but gathered confidence after a few steps, and made the
latter part of the descent very quickly.
Sam, waiting above, heard a whistle, curiously prolonged by its
reverberations from the walls. He threw down the hammer, and gave an
involuntary start when he heard it thud upon the bottom. The ladder
followed, and the unkindled torches; then, without lighting a candle for
his own hat, he stepped over the brink, muttering to himself:
"S'pose I fall! But I won't. S'pose I do though. But Maister Dick
didn't. S'pose _I_ do. Well, if 'tis to be, 'tis, so I med as well go
cheerful."
In reality he descended more quickly than Dick had done. They gathered
up their burdens, and made their way by the light of Dick's candle along
the passage until they came to the ledge overlooking the cave.
Here they stopped and peered over. The tide was rather lower than they
had expected. Their eyes ranged the cave for a time without discovering
any sign of the seals. Then Dick lit a torch, and holding it over the
dark space beneath, he suddenly saw two orbs of light, like the eyes of
a monstrous cat, in a far corner to the right of him. Moving along the
ledge in that direction, he descried two seals, greyish in colour, and
much larger than he had supposed them to be, lying on a rock, with the
two young ones between them.
"We will only kill one, Sam," he whispered, "and I hope 'twill be the
father."
The seals were apparently fascinated by the glare of the torch, for they
made no movement, their eight eyes glowing like balls of fire. In order
to obtain more light upon his task, Dick kindled two more torches, and
stuck all three into crevices of rock in such a way that they
illuminated the whole corner of the cave where the seals lay. But now
the animals had caught sight of him, and as if instinctively realising
that the intruder was an enemy, they scrambled with clumsy movements off
the rocks into the water.
"They be goin' out to sea, scrounch 'em!" whispered Sam, whose attitude
to all prospective victims was an indignant surprise that they did not
wait meekly for their doom.
But the seals, after swimming a yard or two, took up their position
behind a larger boulder, above which the tops of their sleek, massive
heads could just be seen.
"We shall have to go down to them, Sam," said Dick.
"They be great big creatures," said Sam dubiously. "Wi' those terrible
big flappers they could smite us flat as flounders."
"You had better take the hammer in case I miss and they attack us. We
must at any rate prevent one of them from getting away."
They retreated to the further end of the ledge, to which the light of
their torches scarcely reached, and carefully hooked the ladder to the
jagged rock. Then in perfect silence they descended. The water only
came to their knees. Wading through it with scarcely more noise than an
otter might have made, they drew gradually nearer to the rock behind
which the seals had sheltered. Here they found themselves baulked. The
rock was close to the wall, and it was impossible to get a shot at the
animals without circumventing it, which appeared to Dick a dangerous
movement. The surprising quickness with which the seals had shuffled
off their former perch showed that, if a shot failed, they might fling
their heavy bodies upon the assailants before they could escape. He was
considering what to do, when a movement among the seals forced him to
act on the instant. The largest of the creatures heaved itself to the
top of the rock, and lay there as if on the watch for the enemy,
presenting the side of its head to Dick. He raised his musket, a
firelock of ancient type, and fired. The reverberations in the hollow
vault were broken in upon by a hoarse roar, and through the cloud of
smoke the seal slid over the rock into the water, and came swimming
towards the two boys. Dick seized Sam's musket, preparing to fire
again; his first shot had only enraged the animal. But before he could
raise the weapon, the seal threw itself out of the water, and he had
just time to spring aside and evade its onset. As it passed, its
flipper struck the musket from his grasp, and it fell with a splash into
the water.
Sam, for all his fear of ghosts, was brave enough before a real enemy.
He was standing a yard or two in Dick's rear. As the seal plunged
heavily into the sea, Sam brought the hammer down with all his force
upon the creature's head. There was one tremendous convulsion of the
water, then the seal's movements ceased and it sank to the bottom.
[Illustration: "AS THE SEAL PLUNGED INTO THE SEA, SAM BROUGHT HIS HAMMER
DOWN."]
Meanwhile, the other animals, scared by the noise, had flung themselves
into the water, and were swimming towards the mouth of the tunnel.
"Well done, young Sam!" said Dick. "You did that famously."
"So I did, to be sure," replied Sam, "but I couldn' help it. You shot
un, Maister Dick; see his blood."
There was a red tinge upon the water.
"How are we to get him up?" said Dick. "He's a monstrous big fellow."
"We'll wait till tide is down and skin him here. Be his body good to
eat?"
"That I don't know; we can try. But the skin is the valuable part of
him, and having that we may leave the rest."
In two hours the receding tide had left the dead seal on the sand. The
boys took out their knives, and, expert in such work, in another
half-hour had removed the skin. Their torches were by this time burning
low, so they clambered up to the ledge, and carried their implements and
booty as quickly as possible through the adit to the foot of the well,
and then up to the surface.
Vastly pleased with the success of their expedition they set off towards
home. The night was very dark, and a thin rain was falling, which
increased as they proceeded, until it became a steady downpour. They
were tired; their burdens, light enough when they started from home, now
seemed to be pounds heavier; the rain beat full in their faces, finding
out every crevice between their clothes and their skin; and the ground
was rough, covered here with tussocks of grass that squelched under
their tread, there with fragments of mining gear which threatened to
trip them up. They trudged on in silence, feeling the loneliness and
the inclemency of the weather the more keenly because it ensued upon the
high excitement of their adventure.
As they struck into the path leading by Penwarden's cottage, Sam
suddenly declared that he saw a flicker of light to their left, some
distance across the moor.
"I can't see it," said Dick, scarcely looking in the direction
indicated, "and it doesn't matter to us. I'm tired; this skin is heavy;
I want to get home."
"'Tis moving," said Sam a moment later. "Maybe 'tis Maister John comin'
back from Lunnon."
"He wouldn't come that way. I see it now; 'tis some belated traveller,
no doubt."
"But the light bean't on the road; 'tis too far away."
"Never mind about the light," Dick replied, testily. "Come along."
They soon came to one of John Trevanion's new fences, which compelled
them to leave the path and seek the high road. In his moody frame of
mind Dick resented this bitterly. They now perceived that the light,
spread starwise by the rain, was much nearer to them, and presently
heard the creaking of wheels and the dull thud of horses' hoofs on the
turf. A minute after they had struck the road a closed travelling
carriage, drawn by two horses, turned into it from a byway, scarcely
more than a bridle path. On the right of the driver there was a single
lamp. Catching sight of the two figures on the road, bending forward
under their loads, the driver hailed them and pulled up his horses
beside them.
"Hi! can 'ee tell me if this be the right road for Polkerran?" he asked.
"Iss, fay, right for'ard," answered Sam.
"And where be the Five Pilchards?"
"Down-along through village. Better mind the hill, if you be a
furriner, 'cos 'tis 'nation steep and twisty."
"So be they all, od rake it."
Here another voice interposed, and a head showed itself dimly at the
carriage window.
"Vill you--ah! how say it!--vill you embark on ze--ze coach, and, if you
please, show ze road?"
"Drat it all, why will 'ee talk?" cried the driver. "Put yer head
inside, for gospel sake. Come up beside me, friends, if you'll do a
kindness, and say the word when I do come to the hill. I don't want to
break hosses' knees nor my own neck."
The boys, glad enough to get a lift, mounted beside the driver, with a
tingling curiosity about the passenger inside who spoke in so strange an
accent. It was not far to the Towers, and when they came to it Dick
asked the driver to stop, and bade Sam get down and carry the sealskin
and his share of the other burdens to the house.
"You bean't a fisher?" said the driver to Dick as Sam was descending.
There was a note of anxiety in his voice.
"I fish, but I'm not what you would call a fisher."
"I knowed it by your speech. Well, then, I won't trouble 'ee, sir, this
mizzly night," said the man, with some eagerness.
"No trouble at all. 'Tis not very far."
"Well, 'twas to be," muttered the coachman. Dick thought it was an odd
thing to say. Still more surprised was he when the driver leant over
and extinguished the candle-flame with his fingers. "You see," he
explained, "the gentleman inside is terrible bad, met with an accident,
as 'a med say."
"Bring him to our house, then," said Dick instantly; "my mother will be
pleased to do something for him."
"Not for gold and di'monds," replied the man quickly. "No, we go to
Five Pilchards; 'tis a good enough inn, I've heerd tell."
Dick said no more. He wondered who the stranger was, and what brought
him to Polkerran, where visitors were rare. The carriage rumbled on
slowly; every now and then the driver made the horses walk, though the
road here was level. It seemed to Dick that his attitude and manner
were those of a man intently listening.
They came to the spot where a short drive led from the road to the Dower
House, which could just be discerned, a black mass in the rain. "That
villain has not returned, then," thought Dick, seeing no light in the
house.
At this moment there came upon their ears the clattering sound of
several horses from the foot of the hill which they had nearly reached.
The driver jerked his horses to a standstill, looked from side to side,
and seeing the carriage-drive, to which there was no gate, wheeled the
horses round and drove in, not on the hard road, but on the bordering
grass.
"This is a private road," said Dick, wondering.
"'Twas my thought. These be ticklish times for travellers, and 'tis
best not to meet strange riders in the dark. I'll bide till they be
past, and then go on again."
He drew up under the trees about forty yards along the drive, within a
few yards of the house. Dick heard him breathing heavily. The
clattering of hoofs drew nearer: the driver seemed to hold his breath;
then, when the horsemen had passed the end of the drive at a fast trot,
he heaved a sigh of relief. He waited until the sounds had died away in
the distance, and wheeled the horses round. There was not room on the
grass for the carriage to turn completely, and the wheels made a
crunching sound on the pebbly road. The side of the carriage was still
turned to the house when the door opened, and John Trevanion appeared on
the threshold, holding a candle above his head, and peering into the
dark.