THE LORD PROPRIETOR HEARS A SIREN SING
_Sir,--In answer to your letter of the 19th ultimo, I am
directed by the Secretary of State for War to say that a
Commission, the composition of which is not finally determined,
will shortly be visiting the Islands, with a view to reporting
on the adaptability of their existing military works for Coast
Defence. Notice of the probable date of this visit shall be sent
to you, and the Commissioners will doubtless be glad to avail
themselves of any information you may be good enough to put at
their disposal. At the same time, there will be given an
opportunity of inquiring into the allegations contained in your
letter. The Commission will be presided over by Maj.-General Sir
Ommaney Ward, K.C.B., R.E., H.M. Director of Fortifications.--I
am, sir,_
_Your obedient servant,_
J. FLEETWOOD CUNNINGHAM.
Thrice a week--on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays--the steamer
arrived at St. Lide's Quay, bringing the mainland mail, and the Lord
Proprietor's post-bag usually reached him soon after luncheon. It
carried, as a rule, a bulky correspondence, and since the steamer
weighed anchor early next morning, the Lord Proprietor set aside the
early part of these three afternoons to letter-writing.
The passage had been smooth to-day, and the bag had been delivered to
him and opened as he took his solitary meal. Also the mail for the
great house was a light one, and out of it the Lord Proprietor,
catching sight of the official stamp on the envelope, had at once
selected the letter quoted above. He perused it, and re-perused it, to
the neglect of the rest of his correspondence, tilting it against a
bowl of Michaelmas daisies in front of his plate.
It was satisfactory, he decided--that is to say, on the whole, and so
far as it went. He foresaw that short shrift would be given to those
idlers on Garrison Hill. On the other hand, he frowned at the
prospect--call it the chance, rather--of seeing that establishment
replaced by one more efficient. To be sure, if the necessities of Coast
Defence demanded it.... Still, for his part, he would have preferred to
be let alone. The Islands, with their many outlying reefs and poor
anchorage could never afford room to such battleships as were built in
these days; and to erect new fortifications to cover a roadstead that
would seldom if ever be used appeared the plainest waste of public
money.... He really thought that the War Office might have consulted
him before coolly proposing to plant a new garrison above St. Lide's.
He was not even sure they had a right, without his consent.... He would
confer with Mr. Pope on this point. At the very least, it would have
been courteous to start by asking his opinion; for, after all, he owned
the Islands. He was responsible, too, for the general good conduct of
the population; good conduct which the advent of a body of soldiery
would certainly affect--nay, might entirely upset.
Nevertheless, he reflected that--however the Commissioners might decide
(and he would take care to press his opinion energetically)--his letter
to the Secretary of State for War had at least done no harm. The
Commissioner's visit had obviously been projected before the receipt of
it, and at the worst it would enable him to call quits with Vigoureux.
He reflected further that these roving Commissions to report were often
no index of Government policy, but were simply appointed to shelve,
while professing to consider a question which the Government found
awkward.
So, luncheon over, he sat down and wrote a letter thanking the
Secretary for his communication, and very politely offering to do all
in his power to make the Commissioners' visit "to these
out-of-the-world Islands" a pleasant one.
Having copied the letter and read it over with no little approval, the
Lord Proprietor dealt briefly with the rest of his correspondence;
consulted his pocket-diary, looked at his watch, and, finding that he
had an hour to spare before granting an interview to Eli Tregarthen,
stepped out upon the terrace, where Abe Jenkins was cutting back the
geraniums that had well-nigh ceased to flower.
"But is it necessary?" asked the Lord Proprietor. "Here, in the very
mouth of the Gulf Stream ... and last winter we escaped with nothing
worse than two degrees of frost."
"Last winter and this winter be two different things, sir," protested
Abe, gently but firmly. "Last winter, sir--as you may have taken
notice--we had next to no berries 'pon the holly; and no seals, nor yet
no mermaids."
"Seals? Mermaids?" Sir Cæsar echoed.
"Which I've always heard it said, sir," Old Abe went on, with the air
of one carefully, even elaborately, deferring to superior ignorance,
"as how than seals you can have no surer sign of hard weather. Of
mermaids I says nothing, except that with such-like creatures about you
may count 'pon something out of the common."
"Since," said the Lord Proprietor, "there are no such things as
mermaids, we will confine ourselves to seals.... I had no idea that
seals--er--frequented our shores."
"No more they don't, unless summat extr'ord'ny has taken the weather.
But I've heard tell of a season when, for weeks together, you could
count up two or three score together baskin' on the beaches to the
north of the Island here. Sam Leggo can tell you all about it"--Abe
jerked a thumb in the direction of North Inniscaw Farm. "He and his
father used to hunt them, one time, along with Phil Cara of St. Hugh's.
You know where the old adit goes into the cliff under Carn Coppa? Well,
they tell me that if you follow the adit for fifty yards you come to a
kind of pit that breaks straight down and through the roof of a
cave--Ogo Vean, they call it--to the west of Piper's Hole, and this
cave fairly swarmed with seals. The three men would lower themselves by
rope-ladders--I reckon old Leggo had learnt the trick of it in by-gone
days when the Free-traders used the adit--and get down upon a strip of
firm shingle at the inner end of the cave; and there Sam Leggo would
hold the lantern while his father and Phil Cara blazed away. They never
shot more than a brace at a time, because of the difficulty of getting
the bodies up the ladder, for they had to be gone before high-water,
and likewise there was always a danger that the seals might charge 'em
in a herd, bein' angered by the loss of their mates. In this way they
pretty well cleared out the cave--all but one great beauty that old
Leggo had sworn to take alive. For, instead of bein' yellow or
motley-brown like the rest, this fellow was white as milk all over,
besides bein' powerful as any other two. He seemed to know from the
first that the three men didn't mean to shoot him. The lanterns and the
firing never hurried him a bit, and he never threw himself into a rage
over the loss of his relations. He just kept out of reach, looking like
as if he despised the whole business, and refused to quit. He was
cautious, too; wouldn't trust the cave in weather when a boat could
follow him and block up the entrance. On fine nights he had a favourite
rock just outside Ogo Vean--you can see it from the top of the
cliff--and there he'd lie asleep and dare 'em; out of reach, but plain
enough to see, even in the dark, because of his white skin.
"Now, as you may have taken notice, sir, the tide runs out dry to this
rock on the inshore side; but seaward it goes down, even at low
springs, into more'n three fathoms of water, and my gentleman always
took his forty winks on the seaward slope. Half-a-dozen times did Phil
Cara, thinkin' to catch him----"
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Sir Cæsar, "'Cara,' did you say?"
"Yes, sir; Philip Cara, father to Eli Tregarthen's wife over to Saaron;
and likewise, o' course, to Eli Tregarthen's wife's sister, that is
lodging at Saaron Farm, having come home from service a while back."
"Eh? From service?" the Lord Proprietor echoed, with quickened
interest. "What sort of service?"
"Why, as to that, sir, I can't say that I can tell you for certain; but
it's somewheres on the mainland, and the young woman seems a very
respectable young woman. But whether she means to bide wi' the family
or has come to lodge while lookin' out for another place, I can't
certainly say--the Tregarthens bein' a close-tongued lot, as you know."
"A lady's-maid?" hazarded the Lord Proprietor.
"May be. Well, as I was tellin' you, half-a-dozen times did Phil Cara,
bidin' his time till the tide was low and the sand hard----"
"But it's impossible," said the Lord Proprietor, pursuing his own train
of thought.
Abe regarded his master rather in sorrow than in anger. "To be sure,
sir," said he, in a tone of delicate rebuke, "if you don't want to hear
my story----"
"Eh? Yes, certainly, my wits were wool-gathering, Abe, and I beg your
pardon. Let me see.... You were saying that Cara used to wait till the
tide was low----"
"Yes, sir. He'd creep along the sand, he and the two Leggos, and th'
old seal would lie there sleepin', innocent as a child, and let them
come close under the rock, and even climb it. But soon as ever they
made a pounce--c'lk!--he rolled off the slope and into deep water.
Regular as clockwork it happened; quiet and easy as a door on a greased
hinge; and every time it made the three look foolisher and foolisher.
"After half-a-dozen tries, Cara allowed that he couldn' go on bein'
mocked by a dumb animal; so he set his brain to work, and thought out a
new plan. The two Leggos were to take a boat and drop down wi' the tide
close in the shadow of the rock 'pon the seaward side, while Cara
himself crept, as usual, hands-an'-knees, across the beach. So they
planned, an' so they did; and sure enough when Cara made a pounce for
the seal, my gentleman rolled down the ledge and slap into the boat!
'Now you've got 'en!' yells Cara. 'Darn it all!' yells back old Leggo
from the scuffle, 'Seems more like he's got WE!' For that seal, sir,
fought like ten tom-cats; and before the Leggos got in a lucky stroke
and knocked him silly with a stretcher he'd ripped one leg off th' old
man's trousers and bitten the heel clean off Sam's right boot. They
took him home and skinned him, and sold the skin that same year to a
Dutch skipper for thirty shillin'. But Sam has told me more than twice
that he don't mean to tempt Providence again by catchin' any more
seals."
The Lord Proprietor looked at his watch. "I must get Leggo to show me
that adit this very afternoon. I've an appointment at three-thirty to
meet him and Tregarthen at the farm."
"Indeed, sir? Then you've brought Eli Tregarthen to his senses?--if I
may make so bold."
The Lord Proprietor flushed, remembering that Abe had witnessed the
interview in the walled garden. "I fancy the man has begun to see the
red light," he answered, carelessly. "At any rate, he has consented to
meet me and take a look over North Inniscaw."
"Well," said Abe, "you'll find him a good farmer; none better."
"And he'll find me a landlord, willing to let bygones be bygones. By
the way," added Sir Cæsar, yet more carelessly, "I am curious to know
if I met that sister-in-law of his the other day?--a decidedly handsome
woman, and strikingly well dressed. In fact, I should say she bought
her clothes in Paris."
Abe stared, as though his master had suddenly taken leave of his
senses.
"I never been to Paris," he said, slowly. "When I seen her last she was
nettin' sand-eels, with her legs bare to the knee."
* * * * *
Sir Cæsar walked indoors to fetch his hat and his gun. Though he rarely
used it, he invariably carried a gun under his arm in his walks about
the Islands. It helped his sense of being monarch of all he surveyed.
That sense was strong in him as he took the path which led across the
middle of the Island to North Inniscaw Farm. St. Lide's lay directly
behind him, to the south, and thus no Garrison Hill obtruded upon his
view to remind him of annoyances. The sea shone, the air was pure, the
whole seascape flashed white upon blue--white gulls wheeling aloft,
white breasts of puffins congregated on the smaller islets, white caps
of tiny waves where the breeze met the tide-race, on North Island the
white shaft of a lighthouse fronting the almost level sun. With a touch
of imagination the scene had become a prospect of the Cyclades, the
lighthouse a column to Aphrodite or the twin brothers of Helen. But the
Lord Proprietor was a Briton. He halted on the hill-side to inhale the
vigorous breeze, and his heart rejoiced that all he saw belonged to
him.
The path descended a stony hillside, crossed a marshy green hollow, and
mounted a second stony hill. Over the summit of it the low roofs of a
line of farm-buildings hove into sight. This was North Inniscaw; and
the Lord Proprietor, arriving punctually at three-thirty, found Eli
Tregarthen at the gate in converse with Sam Leggo, the hind in
temporary charge of the farm.
If Eli had begun to see reason, his face held out no promise of it. It
was dark and gloomy; a trifle weary, too, as though he kept this
appointment rather through politeness than with any care for its
outcome. He saluted the Lord Proprietor respectfully, but at once bent
his eyes to the ground.
"Good afternoon! Good afternoon, Tregarthen!" Sir Cæsar began, in his
heartiest voice, to show that he bore no malice. "I like punctuality,
and those who practise it. Punctuality, if I may say so, is not a
wide-spread virtue in these Islands. Shall we go round and take stock?"
"If it will give you satisfaction, sir," assented Eli.
Sir Cæsar led the way, pausing at every gate to discuss the soil, the
crop, the present price of oats, barley, roots of beef and mutton;
drainage and top-dressing; aspect and shelter; a hundred odds and ends.
He talked uncommonly good sense, too, as Eli confessed to himself. The
Lord Proprietor had taken up with agriculture late in life, but he
brought to it a trained and thoroughly practical mind. Once or twice he
submitted a point to Sam Leggo, who had worked all his life on this
very farm, and Eli was forced to admire the pertinence of his questions
and cross-questions.
He talked with great good humour, too, although Eli gave it small
encouragement. The shadow of leaving Saaron had hung over Eli's mind
for more than two months; heavy, oppressive, but until this morning
intangible as a cloud. Vashti had remarked that the days deadened him
while they should have been nerving him to action; and Vashti, this
very morning, had forced his eyes open by asking, in a business-like
way, if he had ever thought of emigrating to the mainland. Were it not
wiser, since the wrench must come, to make it complete?--to go where
regret would not be kept aching by the daily sight of Saaron? The
children would find better schools on the mainland, and it was high
time to be thinking of Matthew Henry, who deserved a better education
than the Islands could afford.
In arguing thus, Vashti was not entirely serious. She knew that Eli
would never cut himself loose from the Islands; but she hoped, by
forcing him to face the alternative, to shake him out of his torpor. In
this she had partly succeeded. For the first time the man opened his
eyes and saw hard facts--facts that in a few weeks' time he must
grapple with, since neither grieving nor grumbling would remove them.
But for the moment the discovery, instead of nerving him, inflamed his
wrath.
A strong man, finding himself helpless, suffers horribly. Especially he
suffers when, with a dim sense that in the last resort all power
depends on strength, he finds himself tripped up and laid on his back
by a man physically his inferior. Had the Lord Proprietor inherited the
Islands from a line of ancestors--had his tyranny rested on any feudal
tradition--Eli was Briton enough to have acquiesced or submitted. But
this whipper-snapper had bought the Islands: money--dirty money
alone--gave him power over men who were Islanders by birth and by long
generations of breeding. While the Lord Proprietor talked, Eli felt an
impulse almost uncontrollable to lay hands on him and wring his neck.
The three men had reached Coppa Parc, an enclosure of twelve acres
bounded along the north by the cliffs' edge, and deriving its name from
a mass of granite rock--Carn Coppa--that, rising in ledges from near
the middle of the field, ran northward until it broke away
precipitously, overhanging the sea. The slopes around the base of the
Carn showed here and there an outcrop of granite, but with pockets of
deep soil in which (or so the Lord Proprietor maintained) barley could
be grown at a profit. He appealed to Eli.
"Come, what does Mr. Tregarthen say to it? A piece of ground like
this--hey?--oughtn't to beat a man that has grown barley on Saaron?"
He said it intending no offence, but in a bluff, hearty way, which he
meant to be genial. After a second or two, Eli not answering, he turned
and saw to his amazement that the man was trembling from head to foot
with wrath.
"What right have you? What right----" Eli stammered fiercely, and came
to a full stop, clenching his fists.
The Lord Proprietor stared at him. "My good fellow, I hadn't the
smallest wish to hurt your feelings. What ails you? An innocent remark,
surely!"
"What ails me?" echoed Eli, and stopped again, panting. "Man, have done
with this, and let me go--else I'll not promise to keep my hands off
you!"
For a moment he stood threatening, his eyes--like the eyes of a dumb
animal at bay--travelling from the Lord Proprietor to Sam Leggo. The
blood ebbed from his face, and left it unnaturally white. But of a
sudden he appeared to collect himself; thrust both hands in his
pockets, and, turning his back, walked away resolutely down the slope.
"Well!" said Sam Leggo, after a pause. "Well!"
"The man has never been thwarted before," said the Lord Proprietor, as
they gazed after him together. "That's what comes of living alone in a
place like Saaron; and I'll take care his children don't learn the same
folly. Feels the curb, as you might say. Have you ever seen a horse
broken late in life?"
"You take it very quiet, sir, I must say," protested Sam, admiringly.
"So disrespectful as he was, too--and to the likes of you! Well! I've
known Eli Tregarthen forty year, and if any man had come and told
me----"
"The worst is, we have wasted an afternoon," said Sir Cæsar, easily.
"But since we are here, with half-an-hour to spare before sunset, what
do you say to showing me the adit?"
"The adit, sir?"
"There's an old adit hereabouts--eh?--that leads down to a cave....
Come, come, my good man, you don't deceive me by putting on that stupid
face! We don't allow smuggling on the Islands in these days, and I like
to know the secrets of my own property. The cave is called Ogo Vean, or
something like it; and if I must explain more precisely, it is where
you and your father used to go hunting seals."
"Yes, yes, to be sure," Sam admitted; "an adit there is, or used to be.
But," he went on more cheerfully, "you'll find it nothing to look at. I
han't set foot inside it for years, and I doubt but the entrance is
choked."
"Take me to it," said Sir Cæsar.
Sam, without further remonstrance, led the way. They scrambled out to
the edge of the Carn, and there, where the last great boulder thrust
itself forward over the sea, Sam scrambled off to the left, and lowered
himself down upon a turfy ledge. Warning his master to leave his gun
behind and beware of the slippery grass, he sidled out alongside the
jutting slab, and suddenly ducked under it. The Lord Proprietor,
following, crawled under the stone, and found himself staring into the
mouth of the adit--a dark hole less than four feet in height, and
overgrown with ivy. Sam had spoken the truth. The passage,
whithersoever it led, had been disused for years.
"Cur'ous old place!" said Sam, reflectively, plucking at the ivy. "I've
a mind to try the inside of it again, one of these days."
"I've a mind to explore it now," said the Lord Proprietor.
Sam stared at him. "You couldn't, sir; not without a lantern. You'd be
breakin' your neck, to a certainty."
"Then fetch a lantern. Look sharp, man! Run back to the farm and fetch
a lantern. I'll wait for you--no, not here: a few minutes on this ledge
would turn my head giddy--but on the Carn above."
Without further words, he worked his body around carefully, and led the
way back to the summit.
"You'd best hurry," he advised Sam, who showed no eagerness for the
job. "In another twenty minutes the dusk will be closing down fast."
Sam slouched off at a fair pace across the field. Sir Cæsar watched his
retreating figure until it reached the gate, and then, picking up his
gun, disposed himself to wait.
Seals? They ought to give good sport--better sport, he should imagine,
than deerstalking. A pity, too, to let it die out ... if seals still
frequented the Islands.... He must consult Sam about it, and pick up a
few wrinkles. He peered over the edge of the Carn, scanning the water,
a hundred feet below him, for the rock which Abe had described. He
could see no such rock. Maybe, though, it would be covered by the tide,
now close upon high-water.
Then he bethought him that the rock must lie a little to the west,
towards Piper's Hole--that is to say, in the next small indentation of
the shore. He strolled in that direction, following the cliff's edge,
still with eyes upon the sea.
Of a sudden he stopped and straightened himself up with a gasp.
What sound was that?... Surely a voice--a woman's voice--singing up to
him from the depth!
Was he awake or dreaming?... Beyond all doubt someone was singing, down
there: a mournful, wordless song. He was no judge of music, but it
seemed to him that, let alone the mystery of the singer, he had never
heard a voice so wonderful. It rose and fell with the surge of the
tide.
The Lord Proprietor laid down his gun. He had come to a shelving slope
that descended like a funnel or the half of a broken crater, narrowing
to a dark pit, in which the sea heaved gently, but with a sound as of a
monster sobbing; but still above this sound rose the voice of the
singer.
He flung himself on the verge beside his gun and craned forward....
Yes, there was the rock; yes, and there on the rock sat a figure--a
woman--and combed her long hair while she sang.