I on my part, having pulled off my bootsobediently, began to rouse the men nigh me with similar caution; so that presently we had the whole ring awake and staring, their eyes asking what we intended. "Heaven help me ifIknow!" I muttered to myself, but endeavoured to answer the looks bent upon me by looking extremely wise.
"Most ingenious!" said Carminowe aloud, who all this while had been working out my riddle, observant of none of these preparations. He turned to me. "May I ask, Sir——"
"Hist!" commanded Trecarrel, laying a hand on his arm and peering into the space of darkness between us and the chancel, where three stable-lanterns shone foggily—one tilted on the cushion of the pulpit-desk, the other two set side by side on the altar itself. In the choir-stalls and on the floor between (where the altar-step, with a coat laid upon it, served for their pillow) maybe a score of rebels lay snoring. These did not belong to our regular guard, and indeed by night I never discovered that we had a guard: but some four hundred soldiers bivouacked, as a rule, in the churchyard outside, with sentries posted; which from the first had been a dead-wall to all our projects of breaking prison.
After peering for half a minute or so, Trecarrel raised himself to a kind of crouching posture,Grylls, at the same time, imitating him. They beckoned to a couple of our troopers to follow them; and, backing out of the lantern's rays, in a trice all four made a sudden dart across for the shadow of the belfry arch.
Then in a trice I understood what was forward; and, pointing to Carminowe's feet, signalled to him to slip off his shoes. The tower of Lestithiel church rises to a spire, and its belfry chamber stood then on a raised floor, approached, not as in most belfries by a winding stair, but through a trapway by a ladder reaching up from the ground. During our captivity this ladder had been removed and perhaps cast down outside in the grass of the churchyard. But now I followed Trecarrel's guess that the same had been found and carelessly brought back for Carminowe's hanging on the morrow. I knelt and unlaced the old man's shoes. He suffered this, eying me as if to ask what it meant, but making no protest.
One by one our comrades slipped away into the shadow under the belfry. I heard the ladder raised softly and then a light scraping as its upper end touched the stonework aloft. It seemed to me, too, that I heard a footstep mounting the rungs; but of this I could not be sure. Our enemies in the chancel snored on.
Five minutes passed; again I heard a light footfall, and Trecarrel came stealing back to us.
"Blow out the light," he commanded—and, as he crouched to whisper this, I saw his face running bright with sweat. "And give me the candle—the bolt of the trap is stiff."
He took the candle from me, and after waiting a moment, to be sure that none of those in the chancel had taken alarm at this blowing out of the light, we stole across all three to the ladder's foot. Trecarrel mounted again. I heard him rub the tallow on the bolt—or seemed, at least, to hear it; and by-and-by the trap opened with a creak. Still the sleepers took no alarm.
I pushed Carminowe forward, and believe that he was among the first to mount. One by one the others followed, Grylls carrying with him the coil of rope. I, as senior in command, took last turn. This adventure was not mine, nor could I see the end of it; but I supposed that in the uncommon military operation of retreating up a steeple the commanding officer's place must be the extreme rear.
My foot was on the lowest rung when some fool above, who had taken the coil of rope off Grylls' shoulders, let it slip through the hatchway. It struck the ladder, and came glancingdown with a rush fit to wake the dead; and almost on the instant two or three of the men in the chancel had sprung to their feet and were snatching down the lanterns there. Now I had leapt aside nimbly—and luckily too, or the blow of it had either brained or, at the least, stunned me: and as it thudded on to the pavement I made a clutch at the rope and sprang for the ladder with a shout that woke the whole church and echoed back on me with a roar.
"Hoist!" I yelled, clambering as high as I might, and anchoring myself with an arm crookt through a rung.
"'Hoist' it is!" sung down Trecarrel's voice cheerfully. "Hold tight below—and you, lads, up with him! One, two, three—heave, my hearties!"
'Twas the only way: for already half a score of the rebel rogues were bearing down the nave towards me at a run. But, I thank Heaven, they had started in too great a hurry to remember their muskets. They reached the belfry arch to find the foot of my stairway lifted a good six feet above their heads. One or two leaped high and made a clutch for it, but missed; and as they fell back, staring and raising their lanterns, I was borne aloft and removed from them through the trapway like any stage god.
My comrades lifting me off the ladder, I found myself on a floor of stout oak, and in the midst of an octagonal chamber filled with a pale, foggy light—as I supposed, of the declining moon. Directly overhead, in a cavernous darkness, hung the great bells like monstrous black spiders, with their ropes like filaments let down and swaying: for a stiff and chilly breeze blew every way through the chamber, which had a high open window in each of its eight sides.
For these windows the most of us scrambled at once, foreseeing what must happen. Indeed, the baffled rogues below lost no time over their next move; but running for their muskets, began firing up at the hatch and at the floor under our feet—the boards of which, by the favour of Heaven, were of oak and marvellous solid; also the heavy beams took many of their shot; but none the less they made us skip.
This volley, fired suddenly within, at once, as you may guess, alarmed all the bivouacs in the churchyard. Crowds poured into the church, and word passing that all the eleven prisoners were escaped into the belfry under the spire, other crowds ran back into the street and began firing briskly at the windows. But this helped them nothing, the angle being too steep, and thebullets—or so many of them as found entrance—striking upwards over our heads. By-and-by a few cleverer marksmen climbed to the upper rooms of certain houses around the church, and thence peppered us hotly: yet with no more effect than the others, for by this time I had discovered, by sounding with my heel, where the stout beams ran beneath us. Slipping down from our window-sconces and choosing these beams to stand upon, we were entirely safe from the musketeers outside, and reasonably protected from those below.
"Now the one thing to pray for," whispered Trecarrel to me in a pause of the firing, "is that Lestithiel town contains no second ladder so tall as ours: and I believe it cannot."
"There is another thing to pray for," said I; "which is, that the dawn may come quickly."
He stared at me. "My good Sir, are you crazed?" he demanded. "Day has broke already! What light on earth do you suppose this to be all about us?"
"I took it for the moon," I confessed somewhat shamefacedly.
He burst into a laugh. "You and your friend then must have sped the time rarely with your Scropes and your Grosvenors, your fesses and bends, your counter-paleys and what-not. I cantell you the night dragged by tediously enough for me, that had to lie and listen to your discoursing!"
"But hullo!" said I; "they seem to have ceased firing below. And whose voice is that calling?"
'Twas the voice of the Provost-Marshal summoning us to parley. He had been roused up in haste, and by the tone of his voice was in a towering passion of temper.
"At your service, Sir!" I called out in answer, approaching the trap. "But if you want a parley it must be an honourable one, and no shooting up or catching me at disadvantage."
"My men will not fire again until I give the word."
"Very well, then: what do you require of us?"
"I require you to give up to me, and instantly, the prisoner whom we took last night. This done, I may consent to overlook your escapade."
"For what purpose do you want him?"
"That, Sir, is my affair, I should hope. 'Tis enough that I require his surrender."
"Indeed no, Sir: 'tis nothing like enough. The gentleman you speak of happens to be a friend of mine; and you have formed an opinion of him as incorrect as it is injurious. If I consent to release him to you it will only be on yourengaging yourself most solemnly to do him no harm."
'Tis wonderful what an advantage height gives a man in an argument. The Provost-Marshal, dancing with rage on the floor far below and cricking back his neck to get sight of me, cut one of the absurdest figures in the world.
"I'll hang you all!" he threatened, lifting and shaking his fist. "I'll hang every mother's son of you!"
But here I felt a hand laid on my shoulder, and looked up to see Trecarrel standing over me and smiling, and the belfry full of a sudden with rosy morning light.
"Wyvern," said he, "don't be keeping all the fun to yourself! Let me have a turn with the man, and go you to the window—the north-east window yonder, and tell me an I speak not the truth to him."
I gave over the parley to him and moved to the window, as he directed.
"'Tis too late, my master!" Trecarrel called cheerfully down the trap. "You have thirty minutes at the most to reduce us, and 'twill take you all that time to pack up and clear. Already a body of the King's foot are coming over the hill straight for the bridge, and your one ragged regiment there is making haste to quit. Do I not speak the truth, Captain Wyvern?" He flung this question to me over his shoulder.
trap
"'TIS TOO LATE, MY MASTER!" TRECARREL CALLED CHEERFULLY DOWN THE TRAP.
"The Lord be praised, you do!" I cried. "And see—another and stronger body making down to cross the ford to the southward!" By this time all the troopers around me were shouting and pointing and some of them capering for joy; and sure the morning sun has rarely looked on blesseder sight than these gallant troops made as they descended glittering to the river.
"Softly—softly!" Trecarrel rebuked us. "With so much noise I cannot hear what Master Provost-Marshal is threatening. Indeed, Sir," he called down, "your game is up. Go your ways now, and may they lead you to the proper end of all rebels!"
I did not hear the Provost-Marshal's answer: and for a minute or so—since the firing did not start afresh but all remained quiet—I supposed that he had taken our advice and given up the game. But turning for a look down into the church to assure myself, I saw Trecarrel rise to his feet with a face deadly white.
"The villains!" he gasped out, pointing to the hatchway. "They are bringing powder—there—right under us!"
And, while he pointed, the Provost-Marshal's voice came up to us, cold and sneering. "I'll give you this last chance, my gentlemen," he called. "Will you hand over my prisoner, or must I blow you all into air? You have half a minute to decide."
"Let us go down, gentlemen," said Carminowe, stepping forward. "I thank you sincerely: but in truth, as I have told you, I do not value life."
In an instant Trecarrel had recovered his composure. "With your leave, Captain," he said, addressing me, "'twas I that set this game going, and I for one am willing to play it out."
I glanced from him to Grylls, who stood against the wall with his arms folded. He wasted no words, but answered me with a gloomy nod. Now I turned to the troopers, from whom—as men of mean station—I confess that I looked for no such folly of magnanimity as to lay down their lives for an old man, who, besides, was begging us to yield him up. Judge my amazement then when a red-bearded fellow called Wilkes spoke up with a big oath, growling that "surrender" was no word for his stomach. "Suppose we belonged to your own troop, Captain—what would you look for us to answer?"
"In general," I told him, "I should look formy troop to follow where I dared to lead. But this is a different matter——"
A man by Wilkes' side cut me short. "Wounds alive, Sir! You don't command the only men in the army! Didn't his Majesty pick and choose us for special service? Very well, then; tell the old devil to fire and be damned to him!"
I ran my eyes over their faces. "I thank you all, friends," said I: "and because of your answer I, for one, shall die—if God wills it—in good hope for England."
"Time is up," the Provost-Marshal's voice announced from below. "Do you submit, Sir?"
"No!" I shouted, and all shouted together with me; nor did one or two forbear to add to their defiance words of the grossest insult.
I motioned to them to copy me and lay themselves down at full length above the strongest beams: and, so lying, I commended my soul to God. This waiting upon the slow-match was the worst of all. "Will it never come?" groaned one man, clenching his hands.
But it came at last, with a jarring lift of the earth and a great wind that took us—flat-laid as we were—and tossed us like straws in a heap against the wall. Then the foundations of the world opened with a roar, beating all sensationout of us—so that, had we died then, all taste of dying was gone from us. Answering the roar, as the walls rocked with it, the heavens seemed to split and open, letting through a downrush of slates and stones and mortar: and overhead a great bell clanged once. But in my memory the explosion and the answering downrush stand separated by a dark gulf, in which time was blotted out. I had covered my face with my cloak, and saw no flame at all. Yet when my eyes opened they rested first upon a great rent in the belfry flooring, through which one of the heavy beams, broken midway, thrust up two jagged ends. I saw this through a cloud of smoke, dust, and lime. Beside me my comrades lay under a thick coating of limewash and cobwebs. A couple of them had been flung across my legs, and one or two were groaning. On the far side of the chamber the man Wilkes had scrambled to his feet unhurt, and was leaning with his elbow against the wall. I found my voice, and, while the walls yet rocked, called to Grylls and Trecarrel. To my amazement their two voices answered me: and to my greater amazement one by one the heap of men disengaged themselves, and, shaking off the dust and lime from them, rose to their feet—the whole of them, save for a cut or two and afew bruises, unharmed. Old Carminowe, in particular, had not taken a scratch.
But while I stared at them, and while my shaken wits little by little took assurance that the tower stood yet and we were yet alive, in my ears rang the note of that bell which had sounded once overhead. I stared up with a new and horrible apprehension, mercifully till this moment delayed. I had not thought of the bells. The wind of the explosion had whirled two or three of their ropes aloft and flung them over the beams: but the concussion, which had shaken cartloads of cobwebs down upon us, had seemingly left the cage itself uninjured. My eyes sought to pierce the gloom up there in the bells' dark throats. It seemed to me that one of the clappers was swaying. I thought of all that mass of metal slipping, falling; and called on the men in a panic to fetch and lower the ladder.
Trecarrel or Grylls—I forgot which—besought me to delay: the enemy might yet be lying in wait for us outside the church. I, possessed with this new terror of the bells, scarcely heard them, and insisted upon lowering the ladder with all speed. It had fallen forward from the wall against which we had rested it, and now lay right across our heads. Fast as they could the menobeyed us, lowering it through the hatchway and thence guiding its descent by the rope knotted about an upper rung. As I had been last to mount, so I was first to slip down; as I reached the foot and steadied it for the others I heard Wilkes at the window overhead calling out that our troops had won the bridge.
And now comes in the strangest thing in all my story. We, that had lived in comradeship for three weeks, and had come through this extreme peril together, parted at the ladder's foot and ran our several ways without a word said! I took one glance around the church. A good third of the roof had been blown away and one of the tower-piers was evidently tottering. Two columns of the arcade along the south aisle lay prone. I need not say that scarce a pane remained in the windows: but I can remember marvelling that so much of the glass had fallen inwards and lay strewn over the whole flooring, even in the nave, and I remember it all the better through having to pick my way to the door with shoeless feet. In the porch I overtook and ran past old Carminowe. He did not halt to thank me, nor did I pause to receive his thanks.
Yet I saw him once again. From the church I ran to meet our troops, now re-forming at thebridge-end to clear the town. Half an hour later, as we drove the retreating rebels beyond the suburbs and out into the dusty lanes towards Fowey, almost by the last cottage we passed a corpse huddled under the hedgerow to the left of our march. It was the body of Carminowe, killed by a chance shot of the men from whom we had lately saved him. But with what purpose he had pursued them and invited it, I cannot tell.
FRENCHMAN'S CREEK
A REPORTED TALE
Frenchman's Creek runs up between overhanging woods from the southern shore of Helford River, which flows down through an earthly paradise and meets the sea midway between Falmouth and the dreadful Manacles—a river of gradual golden sunsets such as Wilson painted; broad-bosomed, holding here and there a village as in an arm maternally crook'd, but with a brooding face of solitude. Off the main flood lie creeks where the oaks dip their branches in the high tides, where the stars are glassed all night long without a ripple, and where you may spend whole days with no company but herons and sandpipers—
Helford River, Helford River,Blessèd may you be!We sailed up Helford RiverBy Durgan from the sea....
And about three-quarters of a mile above the ferry-crossing (where is the best anchorage) you will find the entrance of the creek they call Frenchman's, with a cob-built ruin beside it, and perhaps, if you come upon it in the morning sunlight, ten or a dozen herons aligned like statues on the dismantled walls.
Now, why they call it Frenchman's Creek no one is supposed to know, but this story will explain. And the story I heard on the spot from an old verderer, who had it from his grandfather, who bore no unimportant part in it—as will be seen. Maybe you will find it out of keeping with its scenery. In my own words you certainly would: and so I propose to relate it just as the verderer told it to me.
I
First of all you'll let me say that a bad temper is an affliction, whoever owns it, and shortening to life. I don't know what your opinion may be: but my grandfather was parish constable in these parts for forty-seven years, and you'll find it on his headstone in Manaccan churchyard that he never had a cross word for man, woman, or child. He took no credit for it: it ran in the family, and to this day we're all terribly mild to handle.
Well, if ever a man was born bad in his temper,'twas Captain Bligh, that came from St. Tudy parish, and got himself known to all the world over that dismal business aboard theBounty. Yes, Sir, that's the man—"Breadfruit Bligh," as they called him. They made an Admiral of him in the end, but they never cured his cussedness: and my grandfather, that followed his history (and good reason for why) from the day he first set foot in this parish, used to rub his hands over every fresh item of news. "Darn it!" he'd say, "here's that old Turk broke loose again. Lord, if he ain't a warrior!" Seemed as if he took a delight in the man, and kept a sort of tenderness for him till the day of his death.
Bless you, though folks have forgotten it, that little affair of theBountywas only the beginning of Bligh. He was a left'nant when it happened, and the King promoted him post-captain straight away. Later on, no doubt because of his experiences in mutinies, he was sent down to handle the big one at the Nore. "Now, then, you dogs!"—that's how he began with the men's delegates—"his Majesty will be graciously pleased to hear your grievances: and afterwards I'll be graciously pleased to hang the lot of you and rope-end every fifth man in the Fleet. That's plain sailing, I hope!" says he. The delegatesmade a rush at him, triced him up hand and foot, and in two two's would have heaved him to the fishes with an eighteen-pound shot for ballast if his boat's crew hadn't swarmed on board by the chains and carried him off. After this, he commanded a ship at Camperdown, and another at Copenhagen, and being a good fighter as well as a man of science, was chosen for Governor of New South Wales. He hadn't been forty-eight hours in the colony, I'm told, before the music began, and it ended with his being clapped into irons by the military and stuck in prison for two years to cool his heels. At last they took him out, put him on board a ship of war and played farewell to him on a brass band: and, by George, Sir, if he didn't fight with the captain of the ship all the way home, making claim that as senior in the service he ought to command her! By this time, as you may guess, there was nothing to be done with the fellow but make him an Admiral; and so they did, and as Admiral of the Blue he died in the year 'seventeen, only a couple of weeks ahead of my poor grandfather, that would have set it down to the finger of Providence if he'd only lived to hear the news.
Well, now, the time that Bligh came down to Helford was a few months before he sailed forAustralia, and that will be a hundred years ago next summer: and I guess the reason of his coming was that the folks at the Admiralty couldn't stand him in London, the weather just then being sultry. So they pulled out a map and said, "This Helford looks a nice cool far-away place; let the man go down and take soundings and chart the place"; for Bligh, you must know, had been a pupil of Captain Cook's, and at work of this kind there was no man cleverer in the Navy.
To do him justice, Bligh never complained of work. So off he packed and started from London by coach in the early days of June; and with him there travelled down a friend of his, a retired naval officer by the name of Sharl, that was bound for Falmouth to take passage in the Lisbon packet; but whether on business or a pleasure trip is more than I can tell you.
So far as I know, nothing went wrong with them until they came to Torpoint Ferry: and there, on the Cornish side of the water, stood the Highflyer coach, the inside of it crammed full of parcels belonging to our Vicar's wife, Mrs. Polwhele, that always visited Plymouth once a year for a week's shopping. Having all these parcels to bring home, Mrs. Polwhele had crossed over by a waterman's boat two hours before,packed the coach as full as it would hold, and stepped into the Ferry Inn for a dish of tea. "And glad I am to be across the river in good time," she told the landlady; "for by the look of the sky there's a thunderstorm coming."
Sure enough there was, and it broke over the Hamoaze with a bang just as Captain Bligh and his friend put across in the ferry-boat. The lightning whizzed and the rain came down like the floods of Deva, and in five minutes' time the streets and gutters of Torpoint were pouring on to the quay like so many shutes, and turning all the inshore water to the colour of pea-soup. Another twenty minutes and 'twas over; blue sky above and the birds singing, and the roof and trees all a-twinkle in the sun; and out steps Mrs. Polwhele very gingerly in the landlady's pattens, to find the Highflyer ready to start, the guard unlashing the tarpaulin that he'd drawn over the outside luggage, the horses steaming and anxious to be off, and on the box-seat a couple of gentlemen wet to the skin, and one of them looking as ugly as a chained dog in a street fight. This was Bligh, of course. His friend, Mr. Sharl, sat alongside, talking low and trying to coax him back to a good temper: but Mrs. Polwhele missed taking notice of this. She hadn't seen the gentlemenarrive, by reason that, being timid of thunder, at the very first peal she'd run upstair, and crawled under one of the bed-ties: and there she bided until the chambermaid brought word that the sky was clear and the coach waiting.
If ever you've had to do with timmersome folks I daresay you've noted how talkative they get as soon as danger's over. Mrs. Polwhele took a glance at the inside of the coach to make sure that her belongings were safe, and then, turning to the ladder that the Boots was holding for her to mount, up she trips to her outside place behind the box-seat, all in a fluff and commotion, and chattering so fast that the words hitched in each other like beer in a narrow-necked bottle.
"Give you good morning, gentlemen!" said Mrs. Polwhele, "and I do hope and trust I haven't kept you waiting; but thunder makes methatnervous! 'Twas always the same with me from a girl; and la! what a storm while it lasted! I declare the first drops looked to me a'most so big as crown-pieces. Most unfortunate it should come on when you were crossing—most unfortunate, I vow! There's nothing so unpleasant as sitting in damp clothes, especially if you're not accustomed to it. My husband, now—if he puts on a shirt that hasn't been double-aired Ialways know what's going to happen: it'll be lumbago next day to a certainty. But maybe, as travellers, you're not so susceptible. I find hotel-keepers so careless with their damp sheets! May I ask, gentlemen, if you've come from far? You'll be bound for Falmouth, as I guess: and so am I. You'll find much on the way to admire. But perhaps this is not your first visit to Cornwall?"
In this fashion she was rattling away, good soul—settling her wraps about her and scarcely drawing breath—when Bligh slewed himself around in his seat, and for answer treated her to a long stare.
Now, Bligh wasn't a beauty at the best of times, and he carried a scar on his cheek that didn't improve matters by turning white when his face was red, and red when his face was white. They say the King stepped up to him at Court once and asked him how he came by it and in what action. Bligh had to tell the truth—that he'd got it in the orchard at home: he and his father were trying to catch a horse there: the old man flung a hatchet to turn the horse and hit his boy in the face, marking him for life. Hastiness, you see, in the family.
Well, the sight of his face, glowering back on her over his shoulder, was enough to dry up thespeech in Mrs. Polwhele or any woman. But Bligh, it seems, couldn't be content with this. After withering the poor soul for ten seconds or so, he takes his eyes off her, turns to his friend again in a lazy, insolent way, and begins to talk loud to him in French.
'Twas a terrible unmannerly thing to do for a fellow supposed to be a gentleman. I've naught to say against modern languages: but when I see it on the newspaper nowadays that naval officers ought to give what's called "increased attention" to French and German, I hope that they'll use it better than Bligh, that's all! Why, Sir, my eldest daughter threw up a situation as parlourmaid in London because her master and mistress pitched to parleyvooing whenever they wanted to talk secrets at table. "If you please, Ma'am," she told the lady, "you're mistaking me for the governess, and I never could abide compliments." She gave a month's warning then and there, and I commend the girl's spirit.
But the awkward thing for Bligh, as it turned out, was that Mrs. Polwhele didn't understand his insolence. Being a woman that wouldn't hurt a fly if she could help it, and coming from a parish where every man, her husband included, took pleasure in treating her respectfully, shenever dreamed that an affront was meant. From the moment she heard Bligh's lingo, she firmly believed that here were two Frenchies on the coach; and first she went white to the lips and shivered all over, and then she caught at the seat to steady herself, and then she flung back a look at Jim the Guard, to make sure he had his blunderbuss handy. She couldn't speak to Sammy Hosking, the coachman, or touch him by the arm without reaching across Bligh: and by this time the horses were at the top of the hill and settling into a gallop. She thought of the many times she'd sat up in bed at home in a fright that the Frenchmen had landed and were marching up to burn Manaccan Vicarage: and how often she had warned her husband against abusing Boney from the pulpit—'twas dangerous, she always maintained, for a man living so nigh the seashore. The very shawl beside her was scarlet, same as the women-folk wore about the fields in those days in hopes that the invaders, if any came, would mistake them for red-coats. And here she was, perched up behind two of her country's enemies—one of them as ugly as Old Nick or Boney himself—and bowling down towards her peaceful home at anything from sixteen to eighteen miles an hour.
I daresay, too, the thunderstorm had given her nerves a shaking; at any rate, Jim the Guard came crawling over the coach-roof after a while, and, said he, "Why, Mrs. Polwhele, whatever is the matter? I han't heard you speak six words since we started."
And with that, just as he settled himself down for a comfortable chat with her, after his custom, the poor lady points to the two strangers, flings up both hands, and tumbles upon him in a fit of hysterics.
"Stop the hosses!" yells Jim; but already Sammy Hosking was pulling up for dear life at the sound of her screams.
"What in thunder's wrong with the female?" asks Bligh.
"Female yourself," answers up Sammy in a pretty passion. "Mrs. Polwhele's a lady, and I reckon your cussed rudeness upset her. I say nothing of your face, for that you can't help."
Bligh started up in a fury, but Mr. Sharl pulled him down on the seat, and then Jim the Guard took a turn.
"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" for this, you must know, was the reason of Bligh's sulkiness at starting. He had come up soaking from Torpoint Ferry, walked straight tothe coach, and pulled the door open to jump inside, when down on his head came rolling a couple of Dutch cheeses that Mrs. Polwhele had crammed on the top of her belongings. This raised his temper, and he began to drag parcel after parcel out and fling them in the mud, shouting that no passenger had a right to fill up the inside of a coach in that fashion. Thereupon Jim sent an ostler running to the landlady that owned the Highflyer, and she told Bligh that he hadn't booked his seat yet: that the inside was reserved for Mrs. Polwhele: and that he could either take an outside place and behave himself, or be left behind to learn manners. For a while he showed fight: but Mr. Sharl managed to talk sense into him, and the parcels were stowed again and the door shut but a minute before Mrs. Polwhele came downstairs and took her seat as innocent as a lamb.
"Pitch a lady's luggage into the road, would you?" struck in Jim the Guard, making himself heard above the pillaloo. "Carry on as if the coach belonged to ye, hey? Come down and take your coat off, like a man, and don't sit there making fool faces at me!"
"My friend is not making faces," began Mr. Sharl, very gentle-like, trying to keep the peace.
"Call yourself his friend!" Jim snapped him up. "Get off, the pair of you. Friend indeed! Go and buy him a veil."
But 'twas easily seen that Mrs. Polwhele couldn't be carried further. So Sammy Hosking pulled up at a farmhouse a mile beyond St. Germans: and there she was unloaded, with her traps, and put straight to bed: and a farm-boy sent back to Torpoint to fetch a chaise for her as soon as she recovered. And the Highflyer—that had been delayed three-quarters of an hour—rattled off at a gallop, with all on board in the worst of tempers.
When they reached Falmouth—which was not till after ten o'clock at night—and drew up at the Crown and Anchor, the first man to hail them was old Parson Polwhele, standing there under the lamp in the entry and taking snuff to keep himself awake.
"Well, my love," says he, stepping forward to help his wife down and give her a kiss. "And how have you enjoyed the journey?"
But instead of his wife 'twas a bull-necked-looking man that swung himself off the coach-roof, knocking the Parson aside, and bounced into the inn without so much as a "beg your pardon."
Parson Polwhele was taken aback for themoment by reason that he'd pretty nigh kissed the fellow by accident; and before he could recover, Jim the Guard leans out over the darkness, and, says he, speaking down: "Very sorry, Parson, but your missus was taken ill t'other side of St. Germans, and we've been forced to leave her 'pon the road."
Now, the Parson doted on his wife, as well he might. He was a very learned man, you must know, and wrote a thundering great history of Cornwall: but outside of book-learning his head rambled terribly, and Mrs. Polwhele managed him in all the little business of life. "'Tis like looking after a museum," she used to declare. "I don't understand the contents, I'm thankful to say; but, please God, I can keep 'em dusted." A better-suited couple you couldn't find, nor a more affectionate; and whenever Mrs. Polwhele tripped it to Plymouth, the Parson would be at Falmouth to welcome her back, and they'd sleep the night at the Crown and Anchor and drive home to Manaccan next morning.
"Taken ill?" cries the Parson. "Oh, my poor Mary—my poor, dear Mary!"
"'Tisn' so bad as all that," says Jim, as soothing as he could; but he thought it best to tell nothing about the rumpus.
"If 'tis on the wings of an eagle, I must fly to her!" cries the Parson, and he hurried indoors and called out for a chaise and pair.
He had some trouble in persuading a post-boy to turn out at such an hour, but before midnight the poor man was launched and rattling away eastward, chafing at the hills and singing out that he'd pay for speed, whatever it cost. And at Grampound in the grey of the morning he almost ran slap into a chaise and pair proceeding westward, and likewise as if its postilion wanted to break his neck.
Parson Polwhele stood up in his vehicle and looked out ahead. The two chaises had narrowly missed doubling each other into a cocked hat; in fact, the boys had pulled up within a dozen yards of smash, and there stood the horses face to face and steaming.
"Why, 'tis my Mary!" cries the Parson, and takes a leap out of the chaise.
"Oh, Richard! Richard!" sobs Mrs. Polwhele. "But you can't possibly come in here, my love," she went on, drying her eyes.
"Why not, my angel?"
"Because of the parcels, dearest. And Heaven only knows what's underneath me at this moment, but it feels like a flat-iron. Besides," says she,like the prudent woman she was, "we've paid for two chaises. But 'twas good of you to come in search of me, and I'll say what I've said a thousand times, that I've the best husband in the world."
The Parson grumbled a bit; but, indeed, the woman was piled about with packages up to the neck. So, very sad-like, he went back to his own chaise—that was now slewed about for Falmouth—and off the procession started at an easy trot, the good man bouncing up in his seat from time to time to blow back a kiss.
But after awhile he shouted to the post-boy to pull up again.
"What's the matter, love?" sings out Mrs. Polwhele, overtaking him and coming to a stand likewise.
"Why, it occurs to me, my angel, thatyoumight get intomychaise, if you're not too tightly wedged."
"There's no saying what will happen when I once begin to move," said Mrs. Polwhele: "but I'll risk it. For I don't mind telling you that one of my legs went to sleep somewhere near St. Austell, and 'tis dreadfully uncomfortable."
So out she was fetched and climbed in beside her husband.
"But what was it that upset you?" he asked, as they started again.
Mrs. Polwhele laid her cheek to his shoulder and sobbed aloud; and so by degrees let out her story.
"But, my love, the thing's impossible," cried Parson Polwhele. "There's no Frenchman in Cornwall at this moment, unless maybe 'tis the Guernsey merchant[3]or some poor wretch of a prisoner escaped from the hulks in the Hamoaze."
[3]Euphemistic for "smugglers' agent."
[3]Euphemistic for "smugglers' agent."
"Then, that's what these men were, you may be sure," said Mrs. Polwhele.
"Tut-tut-tut! You've just told me that they came across the ferry, like any ordinary passengers."
"Did I? Then I told more than I know; for I never saw them cross."
"A couple of escaped prisoners wouldn't travel by coach in broad daylight, and talk French in everyone's hearing."
"We live in the midst of mysteries," said Mrs. Polwhele. "There's my parcels, now—I packed 'em in the Highflyer most careful, and I'm sure Jim the Guard would be equally careful in handing them out—you know the sort of man he is: and yet I find a good dozen of them plastered inmud, and my new Moldavia cap, that I gave twenty-three shillings for only last Tuesday, pounded to a jelly, quite as if someone had flung it on the road and danced on it!"
The poor soul burst out into fresh tears, and there against her husband's shoulder cried herself fairly asleep, being tired out with travelling all night. By-and-by the Parson, that wanted a nap just as badly, dozed off beside her: and in this fashion they were brought back through Falmouth streets and into the yard of the Crown and Anchor, where Mrs. Polwhele woke up with a scream, crying out: "Prisoners or no prisoners, those men were up to no good: and I'll say it if I live to be a hundred!"
That same afternoon they transhipped the parcels into a cart, and drove ahead themselves in a light gig, and so came down, a little before sunset, to the Passage Inn yonder. There, of course, they had to unload again and wait for the ferry to bring them across to their own parish. It surprised the Parson a bit to find the ferry-boat lying ready by the shore and my grandfather standing there head to head with old Arch'laus Spry, that was constable of Mawnan parish.
"Hullo, Calvin!" the Parson sings out. "Thislooks bad—Mawnan and Manaccan putting their heads together. I hope there's nothing gone wrong since I've been away?"
"Aw, Parson dear," says my grandfather, "I'm glad you've come—yea, glad sure 'nuff. We've a-been enjoying a terrible time!"
"Then somethinghasgone wrong?" says the Parson.
"As for that," my grandfather answers, "I only wish I could say yes or no: for 'twould be a relief even to know the worst." He beckoned very mysterious-like and led the Parson a couple of hundred yards up the foreshore, with Arch'laus Spry following. And there they came to a halt, all three, before a rock that someone had been daubing with whitewash. On the top of the cliff, right above, was planted a stick with a little white flag.
"Now, Sir, as a Justice of the Peace, what d'ee think of it?"
Parson Polwhele stared from the rock to the stick and couldn't say. So he turns to Arch'laus Spry and asks: "Any person taken ill in your parish?"
"No, Sir."
"You're sure Billy Johns hasn't been drinking again?" Billy Johns was the landlord of thePassage Inn, a very ordinary man by rule, but given to breaking loose among his own liquors. "He seemed all right yesterday when I hired the trap off him; but he does the most unaccountable things when he's taken bad."
"He never did anything so far out of nature as this here; and I can mind him in six outbreaks," answered my grandfather. "Besides, 'tis not Billy Johns nor anyone like him."
"Then you know who did it?"
"I do and I don't, Sir. But take a look round, if you please."
The Parson looked up and down and across the river; and, sure enough, whichever way he turned, his eyes fell on splashes of whitewash and little flags fluttering. They seemed to stretch right away from Porthnavas down to the river's mouth; and though he couldn't see it from where he stood, even Mawnan church-tower had been given a lick of the brush.
"But," said the Parson, fairly puzzled, "all this can only have happened in broad daylight, and you must have caught the fellow at it, whoever he is."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I caught him," answered my grandfather, modest-like; "but I came upon him a little above Bosahan in the actof setting up one of his flags, and I asked him, in the King's name, what he meant by it."
"And what did he answer?"
My grandfather looked over his shoulder. "I couldn't, Sir, not for a pocketful of crowns, and your good lady, so to speak, within hearing."
"Nonsense, man! She's not within a hundred yards."
"Well, then, Sir, he up and hoped the devil would fly away with me, and from that he went on to say——" But here my grandfather came to a dead halt. "No, Sir, I can't; and as a minister of the Gospel, you'll never insist on it. He made such horrible statements that I had to go straight home and read over my old mother's marriage lines. It fairly dazed me to hear him talk so confident, and she in her grave, poor soul!"
"You ought to have demanded his name."
"I did, Sir; naturally I did. And he told me to go to the naughty place for it."
"Well, but what like is he?"
"Oh, as to that, Sir, a man of ordinary shape, like yourself, in a plain blue coat and a wig shorter than ordinary; nothing about him to prepare you for the language he lets fly."
"And," put in Arch'laus Spry, "he's taken lodgings down to Durgan with the Widow Polkinghorne, and eaten his dinner—a fowl and a jug of cider with it. After dinner he hired Robin's boat and went for a row. I thought it my duty, as he was pushing off, to sidle up in a friendly way. I said to him, 'The weather, Sir, looks nice and settled': that is what I said, neither more nor less, but using those very words. What d'ee think he answered? He said, 'That's capital, my man: now go along and annoy somebody else.' Wasn't that a disconnected way of talking? If you ask my opinion, putting two and two together, I say he's most likely some poor wandering loonatic."
The evening was dusking down by this time, and Parson Polwhele, though a good bit puzzled, called to mind that his wife would be getting anxious to cross the ferry and reach home before dark: so he determined that nothing could be done before morning, when he promised Arch'laus Spry to look into the matter. My grandfather he took across in the boat with him, to look after the parcels and help them up to the Vicarage: and on the way they talked about a grave that my grandfather had been digging—he being sexton and parish clerk, as well as constable and the Parson's right-hand man, as you might call it, in all public matters.
While they discoursed, Mrs. Polwhele was taking a look about her to make sure the country hadn't altered while she was away at Plymouth. And by-and-by she cries out—
"Why, my love, whatever are these dabs o' white stuck up and down the foreshore?"
The Parson takes a look at my grandfather before answering: "My angel, to tell you the truth, that's more than we know."
"Richard, you're concealing something from me," said Mrs. Polwhele. "If the French have landed and I'm going home to be burnt in my bed, it shall be with my eyes open."
"My dear Mary," the Parson argued, "you've a-got the French on your brain. If the French landed they wouldn't begin by sticking dabs of whitewash all over the parish; now, would they?"
"How in the world should I know what a lot of Papists would do or not do?" she answered. "'Tis no more foolish to my mind than eating frogs or kissing a man's toe."
Well, say what the Parson would, the notion had fixed itself in the poor lady's head. Three times that night she woke in the bed with her curl-papers crackling for very fright; and the fourth time 'twas at the sound of a real dido below stairs. Some person was down by the back-door knocking and rattling upon it with all his might.
The sun had been up for maybe an hour—the time of year, as I told you, being near about midsummer—and the Parson, that never wanted for pluck, jumped out and into his breeches in a twinkling, while his wife pulled the counterpane over her head. Down along the passage he skipped to a little window opening over the back porch.
"Who's there!" he called, and out from the porch stepped my grandfather, that had risen early and gone to the churchyard to finish digging the grave before breakfast. "Why, what on the earth is wrong with ye? I made sure the French had landed, at the least."
"Couldn't be much worse if they had," said my grandfather. "Some person've a-stole my shovel, pick, and biddicks."
"Nonsense!" said the Parson.
"The corpse won't find it nonsense, Sir, if I don't get 'em back in time. I left 'em lying, all three, at the bottom of the grave overnight."
"And now they're missing?"
"Not a trace of 'em to be seen."
"Someone has been playing you a practical joke, Calvin. Here, stop a moment——" TheParson ran back to his room, fetched a key, and flung it out into the yard. "That'll unlock the tool-shed in the garden. Get what you want, and we'll talk about the theft after breakfast. How soon will the grave be ready?"
"I can't say sooner than ten o'clock after what has happened."
"Say ten o'clock, then. This is Saturday, and I've my sermon to prepare after breakfast. At ten o'clock I'll join you in the churchyard."
II
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 atext 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, arusted 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 eyeever 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 thechurchyard 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 abovethe 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 wasthat," 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?"