My grandfather went off to unlock the tool-shed, and the Parson back
to comfort Mrs. Polwhele--which was no easy matter. "There's something
wrong with the parish since I've been away, and that you can't deny,"
she declared. "It don't feel like home any longer, and my poor flesh is
shivering like a jelly, and my hand almost too hot to make the butter."
She kept up this lidden all through breakfast, and the meal was no
sooner cleared away than she slipped on a shawl and stepped across to
the churchyard to discuss the robbery.
The Parson drew a chair to the window, lit his pipe, and pulled out
his pocket-Bible to choose a text for his next day's sermon. But he
couldn't fix his thoughts. Try how he would, they kept harking back
to his travels in the post-chaise, and his wife's story, and those
unaccountable flags and splashes of whitewash. His pipe went out, and
he was getting up to find a light for it, when just at that moment the
garden-gate rattled, and, looking down the path towards the sound,
his eyes fell on a square-cut, fierce-looking man in blue, standing
there with a dirty bag in one hand and a sheaf of tools over his right
shoulder.
The man caught sight of the Parson at the window, and set down his
tools inside the gate--shovel and pick and biddicks.
"Good-mornin'! I may come inside, I suppose?" says he, in a gruff tone
of voice. He came up the path and the Parson unlatched the window,
which was one of the long sort reaching down to the ground.
"My name's Bligh," said the visitor, gruff as before. "You're the
Parson, eh? Bit of an antiquarian, I'm given to understand? These
things ought to be in your line, then, and I hope they are not broken:
I carried them as careful as I could." He opened the bag and emptied it
out upon the table--an old earthenware pot, a rusted iron ring, four
or five burnt bones, and a handful or so of ashes. "Human, you see,"
said he, picking up one of the bones and holding it under the Parson's
nose. "One of your ancient Romans, no doubt."
"Ancient Romans? Ancient Romans?" stammered Parson Polwhele. "Pray,
Sir, where did you get these--these articles?"
"By digging for them, Sir; in a mound just outside that old Roman camp
of yours."
"Roman camp? There's no Roman camp within thirty miles of us as the
crow flies: and I doubt if there's one within fifty!"
"Shows how much you know about it. That's what I complain about in you
parsons: never glimpse a thing that's under your noses. Now, I come
along, making no pretence to be an antiquarian, and the first thing I
see out on your headland yonder, is a Roman camp, with a great mound
beside it----"
"No such thing, Sir!" the Parson couldn't help interrupting.
Bligh stared at him for a moment, like a man hurt in his feelings but
keeping hold on his Christian compassion. "Look here," he said; "you
mayn't know it, but I'm a bad man to contradict. This here Roman camp,
as I was sayin'----"
"If you mean Little Dinnis Camp, Sir, 'tis as round as my hat."
"Damme, if you interrupt again----"
"But I will. Here, in my own parlour, I tell you that Little Dinnis is
as round as my hat!"
"All right; don't lose your temper, shouting out what I never denied.
Round or square, it don't matter a ha'porth to me. This here round
Roman camp----"
"But I tell you, once more, there's no such thing!" cried the Parson,
stamping his foot. "The Romans never made a round camp in their lives.
Little Dinnis is British; the encampment's British; the mound, as you
call it, is a British barrow; and as for you----"
"As for me," thunders Bligh, "I'm British too, and don't you forget
it. Confound you, Sir! What the devil do I care for your pettifogging
bones? I'm a British sailor, Sir; I come to your God-forsaken parish on
a Government job, and I happen on a whole shopful of ancient remains.
In pure kindness--pure kindness, mark you--I interrupt my work to dig
'em up; and this is all the thanks I get!"
"Thanks!" fairly yelled the Parson. "You ought to be horsewhipped,
rather, for disturbing an ancient tomb that's been the apple of my eye
ever since I was inducted to this parish!" Then, as Bligh drew back,
staring: "My poor barrow!" he went on; "my poor, ransacked barrow! But
there may be something to save yet----" and he fairly ran for the door,
leaving Bligh at a standstill.
For awhile the man stood there like a fellow in a trance, opening and
shutting his mouth, with his eyes set on the doorway where the Parson
had disappeared. Then, his temper overmastering him, with a sweep of
his arm he sent the whole bag of tricks flying on to the floor, kicked
them to right and left through the garden, slammed the gate, pitched
across the road, and flung through the churchyard towards the river
like a whirlwind.
Now, while this was happening, Mrs. Polwhele had picked her way across
the churchyard, and after chatting a bit with my grandfather over the
theft of his tools, had stepped into the church to see that the place,
and specially the table and communion-rails and the parsonage pew,
was neat and dusted, this being her regular custom after a trip to
Plymouth. And no sooner was she within the porch than who should come
dandering along the road but Arch'laus Spry. The road, as you know,
goes downhill after passing the parsonage gate, and holds on round the
churchyard wall like a sunk way, the soil inside being piled up to the
wall's coping. But, my grandfather being still behindhand with his job,
his head and shoulders showed over the grave's edge. So Arch'laus Spry
caught sight of him.
"Why, you're the very man I was looking for," says Arch'laus, stopping.
"Death halts for no man," answers my grandfather, shovelling away.
"That furrin' fellow is somewheres in this neighbourhood at this very
moment," says Arch'laus, wagging his head. "I saw his boat moored down
by the Passage as I landed. And I've a-got something to report. He was
up and off by three o 'clock this morning, and knocked up the Widow
Polkinghorne, trying to borrow a pick and shovel."
"Pick and shovel!" My grandfather stopped working and slapped his
thigh. "Then he's the man that've walked off with mine: and a biddicks
too."
"He said nothing of a biddicks, but he's quite capable of it."
"Surely in the midst of life we are in death," said my grandfather. "I
was al'ays inclined to believe that text, and now I'm sure of it. Let's
go and see the Parson."
He tossed his shovel on to the loose earth above the grave and was
just about to scramble out after it when the churchyard gate shook on
its hinges and across the path and by the church porch went Bligh,
as I've said, like a whirlwind. Arch'laus Spry, that had pulled his
chin up level with the coping, ducked at the sight of him, and even my
grandfather ducked down a little in the grave as he passed.
"The very man!" said Spry, under his breath.
"The wicked flee, whom no man pursueth," said my grandfather, looking
after the man; but Bligh turned his head neither to the right hand nor
to the left.
"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed a voice inside the church.
"Whatever was _that_," cries Arch'laus Spry, giving a jump. They both
stared at the porch.
"Oh--oh--oh!" squealed the voice again.
"It certainly comes from inside," said Arch'laus Spry.
"It's Mrs. Polwhele!" said my grandfather; "and by the noise of it
she's having hysterics."
And with that he scrambled up and ran; and Spry heaved himself over
the wall and followed. And there, in the south aisle, they found
Mrs. Polwhele lying back in a pew and kicking like a stallion in a
loose-box.
My grandfather took her by the shoulders, while Spry ran for the jug of
holy water that stood by the font. As it happened, 'twas empty: but the
sight of it fetched her to, and she raised herself up with a shiver.
"The Frenchman!" she cries out, pointing. "The Frenchman--on the coach!
O Lord, deliver us!"
For a moment, as you'll guess, my grandfather was puzzled: but he
stared where the poor lady pointed, and after a bit he began to
understand. I daresay you've seen our church, Sir, and if so, you must
have taken note of a monstrous fine fig-tree growing out of the south
wall--"the marvel of Manaccan," we used to call it. When they restored
the church the other day nobody had the heart to destroy the tree,
for all the damage it did to the building--having come there the Lord
knows how, and grown there since the Lord knows when. So they took and
patched up the wall around it, and there it thrives. But in the times
I'm telling of, it had split the wall so that from inside you could
look straight through the crack into the churchyard; and 'twas to this
crack that Mrs. Polwhele's finger pointed.
"Eh?" said my grandfather. "The furriner[4] that went by just now, was
it he that frightened ye, Ma'am?"
[Footnote 4: In Cornwall a "foreigner" is anyone from east of the
Tamar.]
Mrs. Polwhele nodded.
"But what put it into your head that he's a Frenchman?"
"Because French is his language. With these very ears I heard him
talk it! He joined the coach at Torpoint, and when I spoke him fair
in honest English not a word could he answer me. Oh, Calvin, Calvin!
what have I done--a poor weak woman--to be mixed up in these plots and
invasions?"
But my grandfather couldn't stop to answer that question, for a
terrible light was breaking in upon him. "A Frenchman?" he called out.
"And for these twenty-four hours he's been marking out the river and
taking soundings!" He glared at Arch'laus Spry, and Arch'laus dropped
the brazen ewer upon the pavement and smote his forehead. "The Devil,"
says he, "is among us, having great wrath!"
"And for aught we know," says my grandfather, speaking in a slow and
fearsome whisper, "the French ships may be hanging off the coast while
we'm talking here!"
"You don't mean to tell us," cried Mrs. Polwhele, sitting up stiff in
the pew, "that this man has been mapping out the river under your very
noses!"
"He has, Ma'am. Oh, I see it all! What likelier place could they choose
on the whole coast? And from here to Falmouth what is it but a step?"
"Let them that be in Judæa flee to the mountains," said Arch'laus Spry
solemn-like.
"And me just home from Plymouth with a fine new roasting-jack!" chimed
in Mrs. Polwhele. "As though the day of wrath weren't bad enough
without _that_ waste o' money! Run, Calvin--run and tell the Vicar this
instant--no, no, don't leave me behind! Take me home, that's a good
man: else I shall faint at my own shadow!"
Well, they hurried off to the Vicarage: but, of course, there was no
Parson to be found, for by this time he was half-way towards Little
Dinnis, and running like a madman under the hot sun to see what damage
had befallen his dearly-loved camp. The servants hadn't seen him leave
the house; ne'er a word could they tell of him except that Martha, the
cook, when she cleared away the breakfast things, had left him seated
in his chair and smoking.
"But what's the meaning of this?" cried out Mrs. Polwhele, pointing to
the tablecloth that Bligh had pulled all awry in his temper. "And the
window open too!"
"And--hulloa!" says my grandfather, staring across the patch of turf
outside. "Surely here's signs of a violent struggle. Human, by the look
of it," says he, picking up a thigh-bone and holding it out towards
Mrs. Polwhele.
She began to shake like a leaf. "Oh, Calvin!" she gasps out. "Oh,
Calvin, not in this short time--it couldn't be!"
"Charred, too," says my grandfather, inspecting it: and with that they
turned at a cry from Martha the cook, that was down on hands and knees
upon the carpet.
"Ashes! See here, mistress--ashes all over your best carpet!"
The two women stared at the fireplace: but, of course, that told them
nothing, being empty, as usual at the time of year, with only a few
shavings stuck about it by way of ornament. Martha, the first to pick
up her wits, dashed out into the front hall.
"Gone without his hat, too!" she fairly screamed, running her eye along
the row of pegs.
Mrs. Polwhele clasped her hands. "In the midst of life we are in
death," said Arch'laus Spry: "that's my opinion if you ask it."
"Gone! Gone without his hat, like the snuff of a candle!" Mrs. Polwhele
dropped into a chair and rocked herself and moaned.
My grandfather banged his fist on the table. He never could abide the
sight of a woman in trouble.
"Missus," says he, "if the Parson's anywhere alive, we'll find 'en: and
if that Frenchman be Old Nick himself, he shall rue the day he ever set
foot in Manaccan parish! Come'st along, Arch'laus----"
He took Spry by the arm and marched him out and down the garden path.
There, by the gate, what should his eyes light upon but his own stolen
tools! But by this time all power of astonishment was dried up within
him. He just raised his eyes aloft, as much as to say, "Let the sky
open and rain miracles!" and then and there he saw, coming down the
road, the funeral that both he and the Parson had clean forgotten.
The corpse was an old man called 'Pollas Hockaday; and Sam Trewhella,
a fish-curer that had married Hockaday's eldest daughter, walked next
behind the coffin as chief mourner. My grandfather waited by the gate
for the procession to come by, and with that Trewhella caught sight of
him, and, says he, taking down the handkerchief from his nose--
"Well, you're a pretty fellow, I must say! What in thunder d'ee mean by
not tolling the minute-bell?"
"Take 'en back," answers my grandfather, pointing to the coffin. "Take
'en back, 'co!"
"Eh?" says Trewhella. "Answer my question, I tell 'ee. You've hurt my
feelings and the feelings of everyone connected with the deceased: and
if this weren't not-azackly the place for it, I'd up and give you a
dashed good hiding," says he.
"Aw, take 'en back," my grandfather goes on. "Take 'en back, my dears,
and put 'en somewhere, cool and temporary! The grave's not digged, and
the Parson's kidnapped, and the French be upon us, and down by the
river ther's a furrin spy taking soundings at this moment! In the name
of King George," said he, remembering that he was constable, "I command
you all except the females to come along and collar 'en!"
* * * * *
While this was going on, Sir, Bligh had found his boat--which he'd left
by the shore--and was pulling up the river to work off his rage. Ne'er
a thought had he, as he flounced through the churchyard, of the train
of powder he dribbled behind him: but all the way he blew off steam,
cursing Parson Polwhele and the whole cloth from Land's End to Johnny
Groats, and glowering at the very gates by the road as though he wanted
to kick 'em to relieve his feelings. But when he reached his boat
and began rowing, by little and little the exercise tamed him. With
his flags and whitewash he'd marked out most of the lines he wanted
for soundings: but there were two creeks he hadn't yet found time to
explore--Porthnavas, on the opposite side, and the very creek by which
we're sitting. So, as he came abreast of this one, he determined to
have a look at it; and after rowing a hundred yards or so, lay on his
oars, lit his pipe, and let his boat drift up with the tide.
The creek was just the same lonesome place that it is to-day, the only
difference being that the pallace[5] at the entrance had a roof on
it then, and was rented by Sam Trewhella--the same that followed old
Hockaday's coffin, as I've told you. But above the pallace the woods
grew close to the water's edge, and lined both shores with never a
clearing till you reached the end, where the cottage stands now and the
stream comes down beside it: in those days there wasn't any cottage,
only a piece of swampy ground. I don't know that Bligh saw much in
the scenery, but it may have helped to soothe his mind: for by-and-by
he settled himself on the bottom-boards, lit another pipe, pulled
his hat over his nose, and lay there blinking at the sky, while the
boat drifted up, hitching sometimes in a bough and sometimes floating
broadside-on to the current, until she reached this bit of marsh and
took the mud very gently.
[Footnote 5: Fish-store.]
After a while, finding she didn't move, Bligh lifted his head for a
look about him and found that he'd come to the end of the creek. He put
out a hand and felt the water, that was almost luke-warm with running
over the mud. The trees shut him in; not a living soul was in sight;
and by the quietness he might have been a hundred miles from anywhere.
So what does my gentleman do but strip himself for a comfortable bathe.
He folded his clothes very neatly in the stern-sheets, waded out across
the shallows as naked as a babe, and took to the water with so much
delight that after a minute or so he must needs lie on his back and
kick. He splashed away, one leg after the other, with his face turned
towards the shore, and was just on the point of rolling over for
another swim, when, as he lifted a leg for one last kick, his eyes fell
on the boat. And there on the top of his clothes, in the stern of her,
sat my grandfather sucking a pipe.
Bligh let down his legs and stood up, touching bottom, but neck-deep in
water.
"Hi, you there!" he sings out.
"Wee, wee, parleyvou!" my grandfather answers, making use of pretty
well all the French he knew.
"Confound you, Sir, for an impident dirty dog! What in the name of
jiminy"--I can't give you, Sir, the exact words, for my grandfather
could never be got to repeat 'em--"What in the name of jiminy d'ee mean
by sitting on my clothes!"
"Wee, wee," my grandfather took him up, calm as you please. "You
shocked me dreadful yesterday with your blasphemious talk: but now,
seeing 'tis French, I don't mind so much. Take your time: but when you
come out you go to prison. Wee, wee--preeson," says my grandfather.
"Are you drunk?" yells Bligh. "Get off my clothes this instant, you
hobnailed son of a something-or-other!" And he began striding for shore.
"In the name of his Majesty King George the Third I charge you to come
along quiet," says my grandfather, picking up a stretcher.
[Illustration: "IN THE NAME OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE III. I CHARGE
YOU TO COME ALONG QUIET."]
Bligh, being naked and unarmed, casts a look round for some way to
help himself. He was a plucky fellow enough in a fight, as I've said:
but I leave you to guess what he felt like when to right and left of
him the bushes parted, and forth stepped half-a-dozen men in black
suits with black silk weepers a foot and a half wide tied in great
bunches round their hats. These were Sam Trewhella, of course, and the
rest of the funeral-party, that had left the coffin in a nice shady
spot inside the Vicarage garden-gate, and come along to assist the law.
They had brought along pretty nearly all the menkind of the parish
beside: but these, being in their work-a-day clothes, didn't appear,
and for a reason you'll learn by-and-by. All that Bligh saw was this
dismal company of mourners backed by a rabble of school-children, the
little ones lining the shore and staring at him fearsomely with their
fingers in their mouths.
For the moment Bligh must have thought himself dreaming. But there they
stood, the men in black and the crowd of children, and my grandfather
with the stretcher ready, and the green woods so quiet all round. And
there he stood up to the ribs in water, and the tide and his temper
rising.
"Look here, you something-or-other yokels," he called out, "if this is
one of your village jokes, I promise you shall smart for it. Leave the
spot this moment, fetch that idiot out of the boat, and take away the
children. I want to dress, and it isn't decent!"
"Mounseer," answers my grandfather, "I daresay you've a-done it
for your country; but we've a-caught you, and now you must go to
prison--wee, wee, to preeson," he says, lisping it in a Frenchified way
so as to make himself understood.
Bligh began to foam. "The longer you keep up this farce, my fine
fellows, the worse you'll smart for it! There's a magistrate in this
parish, as I happen to know."
"There _was_," said my grandfather; "but we've strong reasons to
believe he's been made away with."
"The only thing we could find of 'en," put in Arch'laus Spry, "was a
shin-bone and a pint of ashes. I don't know if the others noticed it,
but to my notion there was a sniff of brimstone about the premises; and
I've always been remarkable for my sense of smell."
"You won't deny," my grandfather went on, "that you've been making a
map of this here river; for here it is in your tail-coat pocket."
"You insolent ruffian, put that down at once! I tell you that I'm a
British officer and a gentleman!"
"_And_ a Papist," went on my grandfather, holding up a ribbon with
a bullet threaded to it. ('Twas the bullet Bligh used to weigh out
allowances with on his voyage in the open boat after the mutineers had
turned him adrift from the _Bounty_, and he wore it ever after.) "See
here, friends: did you ever know an honest Protestant to wear such a
thing about him inside his clothes?"
"Whether you're a joker or a numskull is more than I can fathom," says
Bligh; "but for the last time I warn you I'm a British officer, and
you'll go to jail for this as sure as eggs."
"The question is, Will you surrender and come along quiet?"
"No, I won't," says Bligh, sulky as a bear; "not if I stay here all
night!"
With that my grandfather gave a wink to Sam Trewhella, and Sam
Trewhella gave a whistle, and round the point came Trewhella's
sean-boat that the village lads had fetched out and launched from his
store at the mouth of the creek. Four men pulled her with all their
might; in the stern stood Trewhella's foreman, Jim Bunt, with his
two-hundred-fathom net: and along the shore came running the rest of
the lads to see the fun.
"Heva, heva!" yelled Sam Trewhella, waving his hat with the black
streamers.
The sean-boat swooped up to Bligh with a rush, and then, just as he
faced upon it with his fists up, to die fighting, it swerved off on a
curve round him, and Jim Bunt began shooting the sean hand over hand
like lightning. Then the poor man understood, and having no mind to
be rolled up and afterwards tucked in a sean-net, he let out an oath,
ducked his head, and broke for the shore like a bull. But 'twas no
manner of use. As soon as he touched land a dozen jumped for him and
pulled him down. They handled him as gentle as they could, for he
fought with fists, legs, and teeth, and his language was awful: but my
grandfather in his foresight had brought along a couple of wainropes,
and within ten minutes they had my gentleman trussed, heaved him into
the boat, covered him over, and were rowing him off and down the creek
to land him at Helford quay.
* * * * *
By this 'twas past noon; and at one o'clock, or a little before, Parson
Polwhele come striding along home from Little Dinnis. He had tied a
handkerchief about his head to keep off the sun; his hands and knees
were coated with earth; and he sweated like a furze-bush in a mist,
for the footpath led through cornfields and the heat was something
terrible. Moreover, he had just called the funeral to mind; and this
and the damage he'd left at Little Dinnis fairly hurried him into a
fever.
But worse was in store. As he drew near the Parsonage, he spied a man
running towards him: and behind the man the most dreadful noises were
sounding from the house. The Parson came to a halt and swayed where he
stood.
"Oh, Calvin! Calvin!" he cried--for the man running was my
grandfather--"don't try to break it gently, but let me know the worst!"
"Oh, blessed day! Oh, fearful and yet blessed day!" cries my
grandfather, almost catching him in both arms. "So you're not dead! So
you're not dead, the Lord be praised, but only hurt!"
"Hurt?" says the Parson. "Not a bit of it--or only in my feelings.
Oh, 'tis the handkerchief you're looking at? I put that up against
sunstroke. But whatever do these dreadful sounds mean? Tell me the
worst, Calvin, I implore you!"
"Oh, as for that," says my grandfather cheerfully, "the Frenchman's the
worst by a long way--not but what your good lady made noise enough when
she thought you'd been made away with: and afterwards, when she went
upstairs and, taking a glance out of window, spied a long black coffin
laid out under the lilac bushes, I'm told you could hear her a mile
away. But she've been weakening this half-hour: her nature couldn't
keep it up: whereas the longer we keep that Frenchman, the louder he
seems to bellow."
"Heaven defend us, Calvin!"--the Parson's eyes fairly rolled in his
head--"are you gone clean crazed? Frenchman! What Frenchman?"
"The same that frightened Mrs. Polwhele, Sir, upon the coach. We
caught him drawing maps of the river, and very nigh tucked him in Sam
Trewhella's sean: and now he's in your tool-shed right and tight, and
here's the key, Sir, making so bold, that you gave me this morning. But
I didn't like to take him into the house, with your good lady tumbling
out of one fit into another. Hark to 'en, now! Would you ever believe
one man could make such a noise."
"Fits! My poor, dear, tender Mary having fits!" The Parson broke away
for the house and dashed upstairs three steps at a time: and when she
caught sight of him, Mrs. Polwhele let out a louder squeal than ever.
But the next moment she was hanging round his neck, and laughing and
sobbing by turns. And how long they'd have clung to one another there's
no knowing, if it hadn't been for the language pouring from the
tool-shed.
"My dear," said the Parson, holding himself up and listening, "I don't
think that can possibly be a Frenchman. He's too fluent."
Mrs. Polwhele listened too, but after a while she was forced to cover
her face with both hands. "Oh, Richard, I've often heard 'em described
as gay, but--but they can't surely be so gay as all that!"
The Parson eased her into an armchair and went downstairs to the
courtyard, and there, as you may suppose, he found the parish gathered.
"Stand back all of you," he ordered. "I've a notion that some mistake
has been committed: but you had best hold yourselves ready in case the
prisoner tries to escape."
"But, Parson dear, you're never going to unlock that door!" cried my
grandfather.
"If you'll stand by me, Calvin," says the Parson, plucky as ginger, and
up he steps to the very door, all the parish holding its breath.
He tapped once--no answer: twice--and no more answer than before. There
was a small trap open in the roof and through this the language kept
pouring with never a stop, only now and then a roar like a bull's. But
at the third knock it died down to a sort of rumbling, and presently
came a shout, "Who's there?"
"A clergyman and justice of the peace," answers the Parson.
"I'll have your skin for this!"
"But you'll excuse me----"
"I'll have your skin for this, and your blood in a bottle! I'm a
British officer and a gentleman, and I'll have you stuffed and put in a
glass case, so sure as my name's Bligh!"
"Bligh?" says the Parson, opening the door.
"Any relation to the Blighs of St. Tudy? Oh, no--it can't be!" he
stammered, taken all aback to see the man stark naked on the threshold.
"Why--why, you're the gentleman that called this morning!" he went on,
the light breaking in upon him: "excuse me, I recognise you by--by the
slight scar on your face."
* * * * *
Well, Sir, there was nothing for Bligh to do--the whole parish staring
at him--but to slip back into the shed and put on the clothes my
grandfather handed in at the door: and while he was dressing the whole
truth came out. I won't say that he took the Parson's explanations in a
nice spirit: for he vowed to have the law on every one concerned. But
that night he walked back to Falmouth and took the London coach. As
for Helford River, 'twasn't charted that year nor for a score of years
after. And now you know how this creek came by its name; and I'll say
again, as I began, that a bad temper is an affliction, whoever owns
it.