As the days went on, Mrs. Martin found herself unable to cope with the double service that had been laid upon her. Moreover the approaching festivities planned in Marion's honour were casting shadows before.'I think Martin is taking leave of her senses,' grumbled Lady Fairfax one morning. 'She brought me my best sarcenet petticoat to wear while I showed Hopkins how to make a new sauce.''Likely enough she is overworked,' remarked Sir John.'It comes of allowing a servant to lead an idle life,' declared the lady. 'If she has two ribbons to tie instead of one, her face becomes that of a long stone image.''Her face generally resembles a good-tempered gargoyle,' smiled Marion.''Tis a pity for a good-tempered gargoyle to become a long stone image,' remarked Sir John. 'Cannot you get that little Simone to return to us? Apart from the question of Martin, if your fear comes true, and Her Majesty goes to the wells at Tunbridge, Simone would be useful in your absence.''Hush!' cried his wife. 'A mightily kind fate has decreed that Her Majesty should continue to improve.''A mightily kind fate of that order,' drily put in Sir John, 'doubtless has its lap full of those famous powders of the court physician. Don't count on the kindness being lasting.''I always disliked Job's friends,' remarked Lady Fairfax. 'Very well, we will try to get Simone back. That is, if our baby does not object.''I like Simone,' said Marion heartily. 'It will be pleasant for me.'The same day Lady Fairfax drove to the house of Madame Romaine, and not only silenced the Frenchwoman's protests with gold and fair words, but brought Simone back with her to Kensington. Simone did not attempt to hide the pleasure afforded her by the prospect of her new duties. A smile broke over her face when she was summoned to the visitor's presence, and learned her wishes. As Lady Fairfax noted the new expression of the grave features, and the light in the dark eyes, her firmly rooted belief that happiness is the greatest beautifier in the world threw out several new shoots. 'She shall go on being happy,' was her inward vow, 'Romaine or no Romaine.'The sempstress herself saw the look on the girl's face. 'Mademoiselle Marion is the only one of her patrons whom Simone has consented to like,' she remarked, when the girl had left the room to find the necessary objects for her journey. 'She spends most of her time in her so nice little grey shell, that small snail of mine.''Tell me again where you found her,' said Lady Fairfax. 'Sir John was asking the other day.'The two talked together till Simone reappeared with a modest parcel of her belongings.Simone was more delighted to return to Kensington and the society of Marion than either Lady Fairfax or her mistress guessed. Ever since the first day when she had arrived to stitch Mademoiselle's flounces, a pleasure in Marion's society had come on her as a surprise: a new sensation. Hitherto Simone had been an incurious, detached watcher of the friendships of others. Now she found herself suddenly flung on to the stage. It had been somewhat of an upheaval, this first attachment of hers.Marion had no idea of the depth of affection the quiet French girl felt for her. Simone's was a proud and reticent nature, and moreover she had early learned in the school of sorrow the secret of self-restraint. Marion wondered sometimes at the unusual warmth of the dark eyes that would meet her own, and she certainly felt for Simone an ever-growing regard; but a social barrier lay between the two, and Simone was not the one to overstep it.Meanwhile, as was only natural, the mental atmosphere of her new home was creating in Marion fresh impressions, altering her standards. Her thoughts began to fly out and abroad, instead of roosting peacefully at home. Both Colonel Sampson, who was a constant visitor at the house, and her uncle were studious, thoughtful men; her aunt was a very accomplished woman; and it was a severe check to whatever self-importance Marion had had as mistress of Garth to find that sometimes during the whole course of a meal no subject would be discussed on which she had any knowledge at all. And wherever she went in her aunt's company, new forces were at work.A week or two after her arrival in Kensington, she had her first glimpse of the city of London. Lady Fairfax wished to visit a tailor in Eastcheap concerning a new riding cloak for her charge. The coach was announced immediately after dinner, and aunt and niece set out for the drive across the fields, by way of Knightsbridge, to the village of Charing.Marion's delight was unbounded. She had already been taken to Westminster, standing mute at her first glimpse of the Abbey and Houses. Another day she and her aunt had visited Chelsey, and she had seen the river again with its strings of barges and wherries and passenger boats: more people on the waterway than trod the road. She had written a long letter to her father about it, saying that when he came to London the two could sail down the river, so that he might show her London Bridge, and find the shop whence her school books had come.The coach made its way up the Strand through the Temple Gate into the city. The crowds jostling each other and shouting; the officers of the Guards swaggering by, ready for a brawl if a man so much as jerked their elbows in passing; the flunkeys making way for their lord's coach; the chairmen reviling each other; the glimpses of men and women of the world of fashion in the narrow footway; all this was Romance incarnate to the simple country girl. Then when they reached Ludgate Hill, and the coach stopped for my lady to make a trifling purchase, Marion, alighting after her, stood stock still in amazement. Each shop had its own pictorial sign suspended by creaking chains over the doorway. By this device a populace for the most part incapable of reading was able to understand the nature of the trade pursued indoors. Marion, wishing to stand and read the riddle of these signs (of which the only remnant to this day exists in the barber's painted pole and the pawnbroker's three balls) was laughingly drawn onward by her aunt.'My dear,' she said, 'you will have all the apprentices of the city rushing out upon you if you behave in this way.'Indeed, the prentice boys, with their cry of 'What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack, Gentles? Buy, buy, buy!' were continually in and out of the doors of their shops, and one, spying from within Marion's face of wonderment, was only prevented from seizing an easy customer by the sight of Lady Fairfax's footman towering head and shoulders above the ladies.From the shops on Ludgate Hill Marion's eyes turned upwards to the climbing walls and scaffolding of the new St. Paul's rising on the ashes of the old. And the country girl, whose love for the fields and lanes of Cornwall, the salt of the sea, and the song of birds in the dawn was one of the strongest forces in her life, began to understand more of that other love—the love of the English for the grey stone buildings of London. She had heard of sailors who had been bred in the sound of Bow Bells meeting with streaming eyes the spires of the city rising above the water when they sailed back after an outlandish voyage and anchored in London Pool. Already she felt that if she visited London again after a long lapse, she would claim it as her own. It was more than a city; something mysterious and eternal. The Great Fire had eaten its way into the very heart of its foundations, and here was St. Paul's rising again on the monstrous scar left by the flames.In a dream she sat by her aunt's side, and rode down Eastcheap, past the little houses and shops, mostly standing gable-end on the street. It seemed quite fitting that the bells of Bow should be pealing then. In a dream she got out and stared at the new Royal Exchange, another great building fresh born of the Fire. She saw Sir Thomas Gresham's monument, and the huge grasshopper black with smoke which had come, a portent of the spirit of the founder of the Exchange, through all those days of devouring flames.Then the houses of Lombard Street caught her eye, where Italy had joined hands with England, bringing gold and jewels for barter from a land at the height of her wealth to the barbarian island set about with fog.Her aunt's voice sounded in her ear. 'This is the richest street in the land, Marion—all money lenders and goldsmiths and wealthy merchants.'Marion sighed. 'I think London is very wonderful, Aunt Constance. May we not go to the Tower now?''Another time, my child, another time.'As the days went by, several of these excursions took place, sometimes Colonel Sampson and sometimes Simone occupying the spare seat in the coach. Slowly Marion was drawn into the circle of her new life. She no longer felt, as in the first few days of her visit, that the present was a dream, a pageant passing her by; the present became very actively real, and her life on the Cornish hillside grew more and more remote.CHAPTER VIIIHAUNTED COVEFor three days a thick sea fog had overhung the coast, and the village and harbour of Garth had been swathed from all sight in its grey folds.It happened that on the afternoon of the third day Charity Borlase set out from her mother's cottage and made her way towards the harbour. Ever since her sweetheart Poole had been carried off to Bodmin gaol again, Charity had found her daily life very difficult to bear. There were plenty of other fisher lads minded to console her, their offers backed by her mother's patronage; but Charity was not a person who could easily change her affections. She kept as much as possible out of sight of the quay with its chaffing, gossiping groups. But there were times when indoor life seemed to be unbearable, and on those occasions she would take her restless unhappiness for company, and seeking the edge of the sea try to find the comfort there that was denied her in her home.Although the mist was thick, Charity was seaman enough to know that it would soon be lifting, and taking her cloak she went quietly down towards the village. Then, acting on an idle fancy, she turned to her brother's boat that was moored close to the cottage, and began to row herself across the water to Polrennan, the little group of cottages that faced the more important village of Garth.As she sculled the boat across, bearing upstream a little against the eddying tide, the fisher girl's eyes wandered up the estuary. In the mist she fancied she saw farther up the narrowing creek, on the Polrennanside, a slight figure wrapped in a hood and cloak, walking rapidly towards the river mouth. Standing in the stern, working her oar easily, Charity peered through the mist which was already rising and falling a little in the slight easterly breeze. Again came the glimpse of the shrouded figure, more easily seen this time, and the watcher nodded grimly as she recognised the trotting gait. She made a swift calculation; realised that if she drove her boat in straight to the shore she would run into the arms, so to speak, of the lonely walker. Charity quietly slipped down to the thwart, took a second oar, and noiselessly rowed upstream. She preferred to land higher up and be at liberty to watch unseen. That so far she herself was unseen she was fairly confident. Only some one as far-sighted as a sailor and, moreover, bred to the half-lights of the sea mists, could have descried her little boat from the farther bank.As Charity rowed on, her face wore a scornful expression that gave way to a firm intentness of purpose. Although more educated than many of her class, curiosity and superstition had a large place in her mind. But more than curiosity impelled Charity to the course she now took. No one could live in Garth and not know the stories that ran to and fro concerning 'Mademoiselle,' who was disliked partly for her nationality and partly for herself. Charity, loyal and devoted to the Admiral and to her beloved Mistress Marion, and a degree or two removed from her kind, was perhaps the only woman in the village who had refused to share the gossip of the quay. But since the hurried departure of Victoire, for whom the fisher girl had a kind of superstitious dislike, even Charity had thought a good deal of the inmates of the house over the brow of the hill.Victoire herself had told Mrs. Borlase, who was occasionally pressed into service in times of domestic stress at Garth House, that her old mother in Brittany had been suddenly found very ailing (all this with Victoire's handkerchief to her eyes); and Victoire, seized with contrition on realising that she had not seen her parent for ten years or so, had obtained permission from that kindest of all gentlemen, Monsieur the Admiral, to seek the couch of the sufferer and comfort her declining hours.'I should think,' said Charity, when her mother had told this sad story, ''tis more likely than not the old lady have some gold under her bed.''Shame, Charity!' cried her mother (she was eating a piece of pie fresh from Victoire's hands). 'Do 'ee go and pray for a kinder heart.''How's her going across?' asked Charity.'Why, there's her uncle yonder to Plymouth who sent her word, awaiting for un. A French sailor un be.''Queer they let un land,' mused Charity.'And how so shouldn't un? And bearing a letter for the Admiral himself? A black heart you'm getting, my maid, and a black life you'll have. A'd have more pride nor letting yonder wastrel down to Bodmin lie in my thoughts, and honest men like——''Now, Mother,' said Charity, her eyes blazing, 'will 'ee be quiet now, Mother? No word of that will I hear.'All this, and more, reverted to Charity's mind as she rowed up the stream, keeping her eye on the blurred figure every now and then revealed in the mist. At a little shingly beach she sprang ashore and moored her boat unseen.If there was anything in the tales of the valley, Mademoiselle Elise would bear over the shoulder of the hill at the river mouth, out of sight, as she evidently thought, among the bushes, and drop into a gully a couple of miles to the east.Just what she did in 'Haunted Cove' no one rightly knew, though folk failed not to hint. It was a foul spot, only fit for landing a boat in quiet weather. There were superstitious tales abroad concerning that creek, and although curious fishermen had watched a strange boat, in the fitful moonlight, make for the rocky mouth, and others had seen the French girl, or her woman, creep into the cove, nothing would tempt them into its wrack-strewn caverns. 'The devil had made his bed there,' they said, 'and 'twas best shunned.' As for Elise, only the love and duty they bore for the Admiral had kept them from denouncing her as a person not untouched by the dark powers. For those were days when anything the unlettered country folk failed to understand was put down to witchcraft or sorcery.Charity set herself another course than that taken by the French girl, a hard road, only possible for strong limbs and a stout heart. She knew that with good fortune she would arrive at a furze-grown bank hard over the creek before Elise could have reached it from her own side.Only when her journey was well afoot did Charity realise that she was acting against all the superstitions of Garth. But having set herself to it, she went on. Moreover, Charity could read and write; and it happened that her little Bible was in her pocket.'I bean't afeared,' she said stoutly to herself, fingering the holy book. 'Once and for all I'll be knowing. For Mistress Marion's sake 'tis only right some one should be sure.'Kind-hearted Jack had given her the little Bible, and talked of the day when they would stand together before the parson; and Charity, thus drawn to remembering happier days, became sorrowful again, and forgot for the moment the object of her walk.She climbed the hill, and crossing a little copse of gnarled oaks, made for a gap in the hedge that gave on to the main riding track leading from the heights beyond down to Polrennan beach. She was scarcely through the gap before she heard the 'tlot-tlot' of a horse. The rider seemed to be making inland, climbing the slope from the waterside. Fearful of she knew not what, Charity shrank back into the hedge and would have regained the shelter of the wood; but it was too late. Horse and rider loomed up in the mist and a ringing voice hailed her.'Charity! Is that you, Charity?''Why, Master Roger,' cried Charity, the colour flushing her face in the relief she felt. 'Good afternoon to you, sir.'Any one else would have replied, in the custom of the village folk: 'Where be gooin'?' And for a moment Charity's heart was in her mouth. Then she remembered that to ask such direct questions was not the way of the quality.''Tis rising, I think,' said Roger, idly noting the girl's confusion, and setting it down in his chivalrous way to maidenly shyness. 'And time, too, after three days.''Wind's to the east, sir,' replied the girl. 'I thought to-day her'd rise.'Having dealt with the weather, Roger turned to personal affairs. 'How are you getting on, Charity?' he asked kindly, keeping his horse at a walk.Not since Marion's departure had any sympathy been meted out to the forlorn girl, and tears rose to her eyes. 'Why, sir,' she stammered, 'so well as may be.'Noting her downcast look, Roger beat about in his mind for something to say. His dark eyes rested very gently on the bowed head, but no words came to his aid.'Well,' he said abruptly, gathering his reins,' I must be off. I'm going across to Farmer Penrose, who declares he has got some straying cattle of mine. Good day to you, Charity.'The girl dropped a curtsey in silence as the horse moved on. Then with a sudden movement Roger wheeled round.'Keep a cheerful heart, if you can,' he said abruptly. 'There's still a great hope that the lad will be freed. The Admiral is using all his influence with the Governor yonder.' And without waiting for a reply Roger turned and broke into a canter. 'Poor little maid!' he mused. ''Tis hard fortune for her.'He rode on, keeping to the track, and presently, as the way opened out on to the rough headland, he cast a longing eye towards the Channel. A golden light was breaking through the mist. Somewhere beyond that haze the afternoon was bright and sunny, the sea rocking the boats in her tranquil embrace. Roger never allowed a chance of riding by the sea to escape him; but after a minute's thought he decided to bear on in his present course and return by the edge of the cliffs when the mist would in all probability be cleared away. To ride round the head of 'Haunted Cove'—he smiled at the words—in a mist, was to endanger the safe-going of his horse and perhaps his own life. More than one rash horseman, riding by night close in over the cliffs, had fallen foul of the boulders and overgrown chasms of the gully mouth, and paid with his life the price of his folly.Meanwhile Charity kept on her way. Somewhere round the shoulder of the hill the French girl was bearing towards her mysterious journey's end. Charity set herself to the stiff climb with all good will, and succeeded in reaching the head of the creek, and completely hiding herself among the furze bushes that overgrew it, before the slight figure came round the corner of the headland.Wrapped in her cloak Charity lay motionless on her rough couch. The shrubs, dense with moisture, freely besprinkled her, but she paid no heed. Presently the French girl came in sight. Charity smiled at her gait, so unlike the swinging tread of the country-born. When the tired-looking walker was for a few minutes hidden from sight behind an outstanding group of rocks that barred her view, Charity took the occasion to bend well over the dangerous declivity and look searchingly into the creek below. What she saw made her hastily reconsider her position.She was too far away up there; she wanted to be able to hear as well as see, and, as she did not understand French, not until this moment had Charity thought hearing would have been of any avail. But that man sitting down there on a rock gazing out to sea was no Frenchman. Not a dozen miles away had he been born, and born with a crookedness of mind that had spoilt the lives of others as well as his own. He had betrayed his fellow smugglers to authority once too often, and been hounded from the parish, with a rope's end for a prize if ever he returned. Folk said he had gone to the Islands, and there continued his fast-and-loose game between the French and the English.For all her sense of horror at the idea of Admiral Penrock's ward having dealings with such a person, Charity could but pay the man a tribute for his courage in seeking the cove. Then, working out the price his bravery must mean to the young lady now coming to the creek, Charity frowned and shook her head again. Much, much gold must have been offered that renegade to enter the neighbourhood of Garth; and why?The man down there, watching alternately the headland path and the sea, now revealing shining lines in the mist, was unaware of the figure creeping from bush to bush down the cliff with the skill of one who had often had nothing but seagulls' eggs between herself and hunger. He rose as Elise stepped on to the shingly beach, and together the two passed to the mouth of the outer cavern. On a ledge just above that mouth crouched Charity Borlase. The sound of the voices rose clearly to her ears.An hour passed. Elise, her face wearing themigrainelook Marion would have understood, was pale and harassed as at last she rose and handed to the man a bag that jingled in his fingers. The last of their words as they stepped down to the beach just failed to reach the ears of Charity. She strained lower to catch the sound, and one branch of the bush she was holding snapped and fell.The speakers looked up in a startled way, and Charity, forgetting for the moment her screen of bushes, feared she was undone. Holding her breath, she watched the eyes searching the cliff. To her relief, they went beyond her perch and rested. The two down there stood rooted to the spot. Charity, in growing wonder, twisted herself noiselessly round and discovered, standing on the rocks at the top of the creek, riding-crop in hand, Roger Trevannion. Charity was as securely hidden from his sight as from that of the others. She waited in a frightened apprehension. But Roger said no word. With a grim sort of smile he lifted his hat to Mademoiselle Elise and strode away.Charity peered down again. The man was looking at his companion with a sullen, craven air, not without a gleam of malicious triumph; here was an added danger which meant more gold. But the look of fury and hatred on the girl's face made honest Charity's heart grow chill. She heard the words: 'He shall pay for this!' followed by others beyond her ken.Five minutes afterwards Elise turned homewards. Not until the sailor had launched his boat, and hugging the land closely, sailed out of sight, did Charity rise, stiff and cramped, and climb the headland again.That night she sat up long in her little attic room, and to the tune of the snores of her mother and brothers she wrote the longest letter it had ever fallen to her lot to indite. The task was a burden compared with which the climbing of the cliffs had been a baby's play. The dawn crept into her windows as she finished it, and not thinking it worth while then to sleep, she stole downstairs, kindled the fire, set the kettle on the crook and crept out of the cottage. She was going to test the loyalty of old Peter up at Garth House, to post her letter to Mistress Marion herself, and swear on her little Bible that he would say a word to none.CHAPTER IXA MORNING VISITPeter made the required vow, not dreaming how soon he would be tested. For just as he had made up his mind to create an occasion for going to Lostwithiel, and, acting on his credit as an old servant, to take the journey on his own responsibility, who should walk into the stable-yard but Admiral Penrock.'Was that little Charity I saw going down the lane. Peter?' inquired the master.'Like as not, sir.'The Admiral prodded the groom's shoulder with his staff.'Fie on thee, Peter! Are these tricks learned in London? Thinkst thou canst take Jack Poole's place?'This idea never having occurred to grey-haired Peter, he was some time in apprehending it; then, with a sheepish grin, he accepted the visit of the fisher girl in the light his master chose to cast upon it. And not knowing that the end of Charity's letter was sticking out of his pocket, the old groom allowed himself to be poked by the Admiral again, and questioned adroitly as to the habits of the young lady. Not a syllable would Peter utter to break his word to pretty Charity, and in the end he rode off to Lostwithiel to seek a fresh bottle of lotion for the horses.The Admiral stumped after him up the lane. He was intending to pay a morning visit to Roger Trevannion. The boundary wall between the two estates was crumbling in places, and the Admiral was minded to arrange with Roger to see to the matter on his behalf. The early sunlight lay slantingly across the tree-tops, and the old sailor, noting the freshness of the new green mantle that overspread the countryside, sighed to think that so fair a world could be so awry.Ever since the day, now over a month old, when he had bidden Marion good-bye and driven back to the west, he had felt an irksomeness in his duties that was new to him. Had his office remained simply that of magistrate in his own parts, he would not have felt the burden. But the Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys, in scouring the West Country, had learned that if there was one man in Cornwall whose loyalty to the Crown was to be relied upon, that man was Admiral Penrock of Garth. Consequently, when the spies of Jeffreys, still lurking in the county after their lord had returned to London, revealed one or two tracts in Cornwall which the hounds of the dreaded Judge had not thoroughly drawn, Jeffreys decided to make the Admiral master of that particular hunt. 'By fair means or foul,' ran his order, 'you will run the quarry to earth.' And the Admiral, who had a thorough dislike for meddling with affairs outside his own district, had been obliged to obey.In various Cornish towns—Bodmin, Truro, St. Austell, Penzance—a number of soldiers were kept in readiness for his orders. His new duties carried him far and near. People who had never heard of him began to have reason for remembering his beetling brows, his thundering tones. The Admiral was in a fair way to become a dreaded person. In a magistrate 'twas all very well. But the old sailor carried a warm heart under his garb of authority, and there were times when that warm heart was chilled at the thought of the pain he had brought into many people's lives since Jeffreys had chosen to lay his commands upon him.Another reason for disliking his new office had been the necessity for leaving Garth many days at a time without a master. He found himself in the position of a general who, while conducting wars abroad, neglects the enemy within his own frontiers.Two facts, however, brought comfort to the Admiral: the absence of Marion during this time, and the recent departure of Victoire for her Breton home. Elise herself had never merited the complete distrust that underlay the old sailor's thoughts of Victoire. Since Keziah's uncomfortable revelations he had thought hard and watched shrewdly—when he was at liberty to watch. Had he possessed in his service a man of education and trustworthiness, untinged by the prejudice that coloured the judgment of the country folk, Garth would not have been left thus at the mercy of fortune. But no such man, Roger Trevannion excepted, had been within hail, and it was impossible without arousing suspicion to bring Roger from his own lands to act as overseer of the Penrock demesne. Consequently the Admiral had granted Victoire permission to cross the Channel without much troubling himself as to any hidden reason for her departure.Victoire thus abroad, the old French attorney on his way to England, the Admiral experienced a sense of relief. He looked forward with the heartiest pleasure to the day when the attorney would arrive at Garth. Then he would consider his duty to his old friend accomplished. He had fathered Elise in her growing girlhood; she was now old enough to be given over to the care of her aunts. He had certainly done his utmost to train the girl to standards of thought which were native to the comrade of his fighting days. The fact that in some way Elise's nature had been warped to begin with, was beyond his control, and there he left the problem, vaguely attributing the crookedness to some strain on the mother's side. The Admiral had never seen Madame de Delauret. To contemplate the return of Marion, and the final departure of his ward and her maid from Garth, was to the Admiral something akin to watching in the darkness of the waning night for the daystar of the dawn. When he arrived at the Manor, Roger was in the farmyard at the back of the house, setting a dozen men to their day's work. He strode to meet his visitor with a look of pleased surprise.'This is an honour, sir,' he said heartily, the golden lights showing in his brown eyes, 'and all the more for being paid so early. Will you come indoors for a tankard of ale? My mother will be pleased to see you in the house.''Nay,' said the Admiral, nodding to the farm men who were pulling their forelocks and chanting 'Marnin', Admur'l!' 'I have but just breakfasted. Those are fine horses yonder, Roger. You keep them well.'The two moved out of earshot of the menservants.'I saw Peter in the lane just now, but he said not you were coming,' remarked Roger.The sailor's eyes twinkled. ''Tis a simple soul, that Peter. Did he say aught to you of a letter to my daughter, writ by Charity Borlase, that was in his pocket and had emptied all the bottles of lotion in the stables?'As he spoke, the Admiral was casting a critical eye over a young cart-horse, the latest addition to the Manor stables, and he was unaware of Roger's slight start.Roger had wondered more than once what could have been taking Charity up the hillside towards the headland that overlay Haunted Cove. In the revelation of the later afternoon he had remembered the chance encounter; Charity's embarrassment recurred to him.At the sight he had had of Elise in close converse with the old traitor of Garth, Roger had experienced a momentary but severe shock. The idle talk of the village which, he knew very well, was more than half due to a deep-rooted hatred for foreigners, he had honestly tried to discount, putting away the versions that had reached his ears as gossiping women's tales. But he was too young, too human, not to be affected in his judgment by his personal attitude to Victoire and her young mistress. The only being to whom he had ever mentioned the matter had been Dick Hooper, his boyhood's friend. Young Dick had shrugged his shoulders. 'Wait a bit. Ill weeds grow for cutting. The girl's crooked, but the woman's wicked.' And so the subject had been passed by.And now the distrust and dislike of close on ten years, and the memory of the persistent tales of the villagers, had suddenly made for Roger an inflammable track down which the spark of a strong suspicion raced. The burning revelation ran into words, right enough, clear as the flaming signs on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. 'Thou art tried in the balances and found wanting,' flickered the gleaming letters, as of old, and then died away. And Roger was left pondering as to the nature of the final word which must lie somewhere, at present unillumined. When and whence that final proof must appear, Roger could not guess; but he had read the riddle well enough to be profoundly uncomfortable as to its portent, and, more than all, as to its effects on the house of Garth.A fatherless son, heir to an estate the control of which called for judgment and action, Roger had learned the weight of responsibility when most youths of his age and class had been conning Greek and Latin texts. And now his first thought had been as to his own share in the matter. What was his duty towards the Admiral and Marion?Marion. His heart had stirred at the passing thought of Marion, of her sweet wholesomeness, her contempt for double dealing, her outspoken truth. To think of her just then was like looking from a dark, secretly stirred pool to an open, sunswept stream.What could have been Elise's business yonder? Could it be political? Something connected with denunciations of still hidden Monmouth men? Hardly so; rumours in the village had been years old before ever Monmouth landed at Lyme. And yet, these were days of distrust and treachery. Could some dark fate be hurling suspicion at the heads of the two people whom, next to his mother, he loved wholly?Roger had ridden home in the company of unhappy thoughts, slowly resolving that he must trace the trouble to its source, and begin with the Admiral himself.The chance mention of Charity, however, made Roger pause. Charity had been writing to Marion. Perhaps it would be well to see Charity first. His instinct was that whatever had been her business that afternoon, Charity was friend and not foe. On seeing the Admiral, his first thought had been to take advantage of his visit and unburden himself at once of the story. Now, in secret relief, he put the idea aside, determining first to learn what was Charity's part in the affair. So, while the Admiral was poking among his horses, Roger's thoughts ran; he turned gladly for the moment out of the shadow that had fallen across his path, not knowing that a small cloud, the size of a man's hand, lay on the far horizon.Talking of farming matters, the two started on a leisurely survey of the Manor close, and presently came on the beech-topped hedge that was the northern boundary of the Garth lands. Leaning on the gate set in the hedge, they lingered some time. The conversation had fallen on the near prospect of a letter from Marion, on her life in Kensington; on the French attorney's visit, the contemplation of which, though neither knew the other's thought, brought to each a sense of comfort.From the gate a little path ran down towards the house, making a diagonal course through the intervening pastures. The Admiral, about to light his second pipe, paused, tinder-box in hand, and stared across the fields. His face darkened.'If I mistake not, yonder is one of Jeffreys' couriers. What fresh business is toward now? Could it not have waited my return to the house?''I thought your work in that direction was finished, sir.''So did I. So did I. You see what a price one pays, my lad, for being an honest man. I declare, I thought when my lord's last letter came, that I would go to sea again, that I did, stump and all, so as to be free of this scurvy business.''The man will hear you, sir,' ventured Roger.'Let him! Let him! He's heartily welcome!' But none the less the old man struck his flint, and contented himself by roaring into the mouthpiece of his pipe.Roger's eyes twinkled. In just such a way had the motherless bull-calf he had fed that morning growled with his head in the bucket, his mouth full. Roger stored up the incident to take a place in the pantomime rehearsal of her father's stray doings and sayings which Marion would be sure to demand on her return. The gold lights danced afresh in Roger's eyes as his little playmate rose before his mental vision.The rider was now at speaking distance. He had the appearance of hard travelling, and as he came up, Roger's instant sympathy fell on the horse. When the messenger dismounted, saluted the Admiral, and proceeded to fumble for his letter, explaining that he had been sent on from the house, Roger stepped to the animal's side. 'Poor brute!' was his thought as he stroked the steaming flank, and cast a critical eye on the girth, having a mind to undo it for a time and make the man rest at the Manor.'You have ridden fast,' said the Admiral in surly tones. 'Why shorten the life of a good horse?''My lord's orders, sir,' said the man. 'He can never abide the idea of wasting an hour when there's work to be done.''Did your lord require an answer?''He did not, sir.''Will you not ride down to the house and rest yourself and your animal?''I thank you greatly, sir,' said the man, passing his hand across his face, seared with the sweat and dust of his journey, 'but I am to be in Taunton ere nightfall.''In Taunton, on this brute?' cried Roger.'I shall change horses at Bodmin,' said the messenger. As he spoke, he took the bridle. 'Can I cross the fields here to the Bodmin road?''I'll show you the way,' said Roger, and walking a few yards with the man, he pointed out, through a break in the inner hedge, the Bodmin road lying in the valley.'Does your master pay you?' asked Roger abruptly.'Aye, sir, well enough.'''Tis a pity he can't pay the horse. A finer grey I never saw. It grieves me to see a brute wasted so. Here's a shilling. Promise you will give him a fair bucket of oats—or, if he sweats more, a bran mash and a warm belly cloth.'The man's eyes softened. 'I promise. You're very good, sir.''Nay, nay. But it goes to my heart to see that horse wasted so. Good morning.'Roger strode back to the gate where the Admiral was still standing. From the letter in his hand dangled the strings and seals of the Lord Chancellor. Roger paused and hung back a trifle, wondering were it best to leave him. Whatever might be the new business to hand, he could see the Admiral's wrath was gathering. His face purpled, the eyes growing round as a parrot's. For a second he appeared to be on the point of choking. Suddenly he dashed the letter to the ground, and swung round on Roger. Digging his staff into the turf, he spluttered in incomprehensible rage.'I will not do it!' he roared. 'By the Lord Harry, I will not!'Suddenly his fury fell away. He seated himself in the hedge and passed a hand over his face. 'Dick!' he said hoarsely. 'Poor lad!'Roger stiffened. His eyebrows drew together, his mouth tightened. He stared down at the letter.'Dick? Did you say Dick?''Ay, Dick Hooper. 'Tis there. An order to arrange for the arrest of the person of Richard Merrion Hooper, in the Parish of St. Brennion.'Roger stared down at the written sheet, his face paling under the sunburn.'Impossible!' he jerked out. 'Dick's a loyalist like yourself.''Nothing is impossible in these days.''What has he done?''That I am not told. Mayhap he has looked in pity at the creaking bones of a wretch hanging at the cross roads for Monmouth's sake.'Roger turned, and leaning on the gate, buried his head on his arm. The tlot, tlot of a horse on the road below rose in the stillness of the morning. 'I could wish the brute had foundered and thrown his rider into the ditch—that highwaymen had seized him and his cursed letter,' ran the Admiral's thoughts, as, unconscious of his companion, he stared down the quiet slope. Far below showed the north front of Garth, the chimneys cutting the shining bar of the sea into irregular shapes. Only one window was visible through the trees of the garden—the window of the Admiral's study which, in an upper storey, ran the width of one wing, looking out on one hand on the Channel, and on the other to the rising land of the pastures. In the middle of the room stood the old sailor's beloved telescope, through which Roger had many times studied the rig of passing vessels. It happened that as the Admiral was staring out to sea, small thin fingers were swinging the telescope round to the north, and very soon the two men were plain to the eyes of Mademoiselle Elise, who was supposed by the housekeeper to be still in her bed.The Admiral turned and saw the black head bent over the gate. He sighed, and rising to his feet picked up the letter.Roger roused himself. His thoughts had been far away, scenes of his boyhood passing before his closed eyes: Dick's deep-notched oaken bench at Blundell's, which had been next his own; their twin escapades and truancies, punishments and advancements; the holidays Dick had spent at the Manor.'I thought Dick was at Oxford,' he stumbled at length. Then recollecting: 'Nay, he is reading with a tutor to enter Oriel at Michaelmas.''A thousand pities he had not gone.'Again fell the silence; then Roger's rather husky tones: 'Must you do this thing, sir?''I must.''And will you?'The old Salt Eagle looked sorrowfully into the brown eyes facing him. He made a step down the slope.'Would to God,' he blazed out suddenly, 'that Jeffreys had chosen another man!' Then, sobering: 'But I must. I cannot forget, after all, that my duty is not to serve Jeffreys, but Jeffreys' king. I shall drive out after dinner to Liskeard to see the officer there. But fear not, Roger, I shall do my utmost to get him freed.'Roger was silent. He knew too well how unavailing, in the main, were such efforts.'Is his father living?'Roger nodded.'And his mother? I forget.''She died while Dick was at Blundell's.''Thank God for that!' said the Admiral in low tones.'May you not just inquire into the matter and report?' came Roger's husky tones. 'I had rather any one had gone but Dick.''Jeffreys prefers to make his inquiries behind bolt and bar.''Look here, sir,' said Roger, his face as hard as his voice. 'I——' he stopped abruptly, then a minute later, with a brief 'Good morning,' he swung round, and before the Admiral could speak, was striding up the slope.The old seaman leaned heavily on his staff as he stumbled down the hillside, jerking his wooden leg over the uneven ground. 'I could pray for an ague to seize me,' ran his thoughts, 'an asp to sting me, a draught to sicken my stomach. Anything to keep me from this hateful task. Poor Dick! And poor Roger! 'Twas a hard blow.'Half way down the slope the Admiral stopped short, arrested by an uneasy thought. For the first time since Jeffreys had laid his commands upon him he had failed in his duty, betrayed his trust, spoken to another of business of sworn secrecy. Completely forgetful of his obligations, and overborne by the weight of personal association, he had talked like an idle woman.Hot on the heels of the first consideration ran a second. He had spoken freely of the arrest to the greatest friend of the condemned man. Could it be possible Roger would——? He had better walk back to the Manor, to make the boy promise secrecy. What would Roger do? A gleam ran across the old face. He turned and scanned the pastures. Roger was nowhere to be seen. A look of uncertainty was in the man's eyes as he stood, idly digging into a young gorse bush with his staff. His thoughts ranged themselves in two lines: dual personalities facing each other. On the one hand was the loyal seaman who would at any time have risked the gallows for a friend's sake; on the other the stern, justice-loving magistrate.'You don't know what he may do,' came the one voice, 'and any way, you'd do the same yourself.''Go up and order him in the King's name to keep the matter secret,' came the reply. 'You can trust his given word.''Leave him alone,' retorted the first. ''Tis not for you to dictate what a man may do for his friend.''Duty! Duty!' cried the other.'And Dick's an honest lad; you know he is guiltless. 'Tis but a foul whisper. He deserves a timely warning.''A magistrate has no ties. Duty! Duty!'And so the mimic battle raged behind the eagle brows. In the end, not without a smile of grim humour, the Admiral offered a truce. He would not interfere with Roger. In any case, the lad might never have considered taking any step, and time would be wasted on the errand. His magisterial self the old seaman soothed by a promise of utmost haste. Instead of ordering the coach for after dinner, he would drive out at once, and eat from a hamper on the carriage seat. Having thus silenced the mental combatants, the Admiral kept his bargain to the letter. In a few minutes he was back at the house, giving orders to a flurried housekeeper.Peter being absent on Charity's affairs, the Admiral was obliged to see to his change of garb himself. But here Elise proved herself uncommonly thoughtful. Hearing from Mrs. Curnow that the master was bound to Liskeard on urgent business, and would not be home till the morrow, and was in an uneasy temper because his man was out on an errand and he must fasten his own cloak and see to his pistols himself, Elise proceeded to the Admiral's room to offer such services as might be at her command. She found the door of the room ajar, and knew from neighbouring sounds that the Admiral was in the study. In his haste the sailor had thrown the fateful letter on the bed, with his work-a-day coat; the sharp eyes of Mademoiselle caught the red of the seals. A minute later she was out of the room again, her light step making no sound. When the Admiral was safely back in his bedchamber, she returned along the passage, her high heels clicking hard on the boards.'I wanted to help you, if I might, sir,' came her voice at the door, and pleased at such thoughtfulness, the Admiral bade her enter. By that time the letter was in his pocket again.As soon as the coach had left the courtyard, Elise stepped out, and crossing the pastures made her way towards the Manor Farm. A workman on the south fields was busy ditching, and from him, by dint of casual remarks, Elise learned that Master Roger had taken the fastest horse and ridden away some two hours ago.Elise waited to hear no more. There was a light of triumph in her eyes as she trotted back to Garth. Presently an under groom was ordered to saddle Molly. Mademoiselle was bored by the inaction of life so lonely at Garth, and she was wishful to ride out to Bodmin and make a trifling purchase. She did not deem it necessary to add that it was her intention, while her escort was supping at theKing's Head, to find means to send a few words to the Governor of Bodmin Gaol.
As the days went on, Mrs. Martin found herself unable to cope with the double service that had been laid upon her. Moreover the approaching festivities planned in Marion's honour were casting shadows before.
'I think Martin is taking leave of her senses,' grumbled Lady Fairfax one morning. 'She brought me my best sarcenet petticoat to wear while I showed Hopkins how to make a new sauce.'
'Likely enough she is overworked,' remarked Sir John.
'It comes of allowing a servant to lead an idle life,' declared the lady. 'If she has two ribbons to tie instead of one, her face becomes that of a long stone image.'
'Her face generally resembles a good-tempered gargoyle,' smiled Marion.
''Tis a pity for a good-tempered gargoyle to become a long stone image,' remarked Sir John. 'Cannot you get that little Simone to return to us? Apart from the question of Martin, if your fear comes true, and Her Majesty goes to the wells at Tunbridge, Simone would be useful in your absence.'
'Hush!' cried his wife. 'A mightily kind fate has decreed that Her Majesty should continue to improve.'
'A mightily kind fate of that order,' drily put in Sir John, 'doubtless has its lap full of those famous powders of the court physician. Don't count on the kindness being lasting.'
'I always disliked Job's friends,' remarked Lady Fairfax. 'Very well, we will try to get Simone back. That is, if our baby does not object.'
'I like Simone,' said Marion heartily. 'It will be pleasant for me.'
The same day Lady Fairfax drove to the house of Madame Romaine, and not only silenced the Frenchwoman's protests with gold and fair words, but brought Simone back with her to Kensington. Simone did not attempt to hide the pleasure afforded her by the prospect of her new duties. A smile broke over her face when she was summoned to the visitor's presence, and learned her wishes. As Lady Fairfax noted the new expression of the grave features, and the light in the dark eyes, her firmly rooted belief that happiness is the greatest beautifier in the world threw out several new shoots. 'She shall go on being happy,' was her inward vow, 'Romaine or no Romaine.'
The sempstress herself saw the look on the girl's face. 'Mademoiselle Marion is the only one of her patrons whom Simone has consented to like,' she remarked, when the girl had left the room to find the necessary objects for her journey. 'She spends most of her time in her so nice little grey shell, that small snail of mine.'
'Tell me again where you found her,' said Lady Fairfax. 'Sir John was asking the other day.'
The two talked together till Simone reappeared with a modest parcel of her belongings.
Simone was more delighted to return to Kensington and the society of Marion than either Lady Fairfax or her mistress guessed. Ever since the first day when she had arrived to stitch Mademoiselle's flounces, a pleasure in Marion's society had come on her as a surprise: a new sensation. Hitherto Simone had been an incurious, detached watcher of the friendships of others. Now she found herself suddenly flung on to the stage. It had been somewhat of an upheaval, this first attachment of hers.
Marion had no idea of the depth of affection the quiet French girl felt for her. Simone's was a proud and reticent nature, and moreover she had early learned in the school of sorrow the secret of self-restraint. Marion wondered sometimes at the unusual warmth of the dark eyes that would meet her own, and she certainly felt for Simone an ever-growing regard; but a social barrier lay between the two, and Simone was not the one to overstep it.
Meanwhile, as was only natural, the mental atmosphere of her new home was creating in Marion fresh impressions, altering her standards. Her thoughts began to fly out and abroad, instead of roosting peacefully at home. Both Colonel Sampson, who was a constant visitor at the house, and her uncle were studious, thoughtful men; her aunt was a very accomplished woman; and it was a severe check to whatever self-importance Marion had had as mistress of Garth to find that sometimes during the whole course of a meal no subject would be discussed on which she had any knowledge at all. And wherever she went in her aunt's company, new forces were at work.
A week or two after her arrival in Kensington, she had her first glimpse of the city of London. Lady Fairfax wished to visit a tailor in Eastcheap concerning a new riding cloak for her charge. The coach was announced immediately after dinner, and aunt and niece set out for the drive across the fields, by way of Knightsbridge, to the village of Charing.
Marion's delight was unbounded. She had already been taken to Westminster, standing mute at her first glimpse of the Abbey and Houses. Another day she and her aunt had visited Chelsey, and she had seen the river again with its strings of barges and wherries and passenger boats: more people on the waterway than trod the road. She had written a long letter to her father about it, saying that when he came to London the two could sail down the river, so that he might show her London Bridge, and find the shop whence her school books had come.
The coach made its way up the Strand through the Temple Gate into the city. The crowds jostling each other and shouting; the officers of the Guards swaggering by, ready for a brawl if a man so much as jerked their elbows in passing; the flunkeys making way for their lord's coach; the chairmen reviling each other; the glimpses of men and women of the world of fashion in the narrow footway; all this was Romance incarnate to the simple country girl. Then when they reached Ludgate Hill, and the coach stopped for my lady to make a trifling purchase, Marion, alighting after her, stood stock still in amazement. Each shop had its own pictorial sign suspended by creaking chains over the doorway. By this device a populace for the most part incapable of reading was able to understand the nature of the trade pursued indoors. Marion, wishing to stand and read the riddle of these signs (of which the only remnant to this day exists in the barber's painted pole and the pawnbroker's three balls) was laughingly drawn onward by her aunt.
'My dear,' she said, 'you will have all the apprentices of the city rushing out upon you if you behave in this way.'
Indeed, the prentice boys, with their cry of 'What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack, Gentles? Buy, buy, buy!' were continually in and out of the doors of their shops, and one, spying from within Marion's face of wonderment, was only prevented from seizing an easy customer by the sight of Lady Fairfax's footman towering head and shoulders above the ladies.
From the shops on Ludgate Hill Marion's eyes turned upwards to the climbing walls and scaffolding of the new St. Paul's rising on the ashes of the old. And the country girl, whose love for the fields and lanes of Cornwall, the salt of the sea, and the song of birds in the dawn was one of the strongest forces in her life, began to understand more of that other love—the love of the English for the grey stone buildings of London. She had heard of sailors who had been bred in the sound of Bow Bells meeting with streaming eyes the spires of the city rising above the water when they sailed back after an outlandish voyage and anchored in London Pool. Already she felt that if she visited London again after a long lapse, she would claim it as her own. It was more than a city; something mysterious and eternal. The Great Fire had eaten its way into the very heart of its foundations, and here was St. Paul's rising again on the monstrous scar left by the flames.
In a dream she sat by her aunt's side, and rode down Eastcheap, past the little houses and shops, mostly standing gable-end on the street. It seemed quite fitting that the bells of Bow should be pealing then. In a dream she got out and stared at the new Royal Exchange, another great building fresh born of the Fire. She saw Sir Thomas Gresham's monument, and the huge grasshopper black with smoke which had come, a portent of the spirit of the founder of the Exchange, through all those days of devouring flames.
Then the houses of Lombard Street caught her eye, where Italy had joined hands with England, bringing gold and jewels for barter from a land at the height of her wealth to the barbarian island set about with fog.
Her aunt's voice sounded in her ear. 'This is the richest street in the land, Marion—all money lenders and goldsmiths and wealthy merchants.'
Marion sighed. 'I think London is very wonderful, Aunt Constance. May we not go to the Tower now?'
'Another time, my child, another time.'
As the days went by, several of these excursions took place, sometimes Colonel Sampson and sometimes Simone occupying the spare seat in the coach. Slowly Marion was drawn into the circle of her new life. She no longer felt, as in the first few days of her visit, that the present was a dream, a pageant passing her by; the present became very actively real, and her life on the Cornish hillside grew more and more remote.
CHAPTER VIII
HAUNTED COVE
For three days a thick sea fog had overhung the coast, and the village and harbour of Garth had been swathed from all sight in its grey folds.
It happened that on the afternoon of the third day Charity Borlase set out from her mother's cottage and made her way towards the harbour. Ever since her sweetheart Poole had been carried off to Bodmin gaol again, Charity had found her daily life very difficult to bear. There were plenty of other fisher lads minded to console her, their offers backed by her mother's patronage; but Charity was not a person who could easily change her affections. She kept as much as possible out of sight of the quay with its chaffing, gossiping groups. But there were times when indoor life seemed to be unbearable, and on those occasions she would take her restless unhappiness for company, and seeking the edge of the sea try to find the comfort there that was denied her in her home.
Although the mist was thick, Charity was seaman enough to know that it would soon be lifting, and taking her cloak she went quietly down towards the village. Then, acting on an idle fancy, she turned to her brother's boat that was moored close to the cottage, and began to row herself across the water to Polrennan, the little group of cottages that faced the more important village of Garth.
As she sculled the boat across, bearing upstream a little against the eddying tide, the fisher girl's eyes wandered up the estuary. In the mist she fancied she saw farther up the narrowing creek, on the Polrennanside, a slight figure wrapped in a hood and cloak, walking rapidly towards the river mouth. Standing in the stern, working her oar easily, Charity peered through the mist which was already rising and falling a little in the slight easterly breeze. Again came the glimpse of the shrouded figure, more easily seen this time, and the watcher nodded grimly as she recognised the trotting gait. She made a swift calculation; realised that if she drove her boat in straight to the shore she would run into the arms, so to speak, of the lonely walker. Charity quietly slipped down to the thwart, took a second oar, and noiselessly rowed upstream. She preferred to land higher up and be at liberty to watch unseen. That so far she herself was unseen she was fairly confident. Only some one as far-sighted as a sailor and, moreover, bred to the half-lights of the sea mists, could have descried her little boat from the farther bank.
As Charity rowed on, her face wore a scornful expression that gave way to a firm intentness of purpose. Although more educated than many of her class, curiosity and superstition had a large place in her mind. But more than curiosity impelled Charity to the course she now took. No one could live in Garth and not know the stories that ran to and fro concerning 'Mademoiselle,' who was disliked partly for her nationality and partly for herself. Charity, loyal and devoted to the Admiral and to her beloved Mistress Marion, and a degree or two removed from her kind, was perhaps the only woman in the village who had refused to share the gossip of the quay. But since the hurried departure of Victoire, for whom the fisher girl had a kind of superstitious dislike, even Charity had thought a good deal of the inmates of the house over the brow of the hill.
Victoire herself had told Mrs. Borlase, who was occasionally pressed into service in times of domestic stress at Garth House, that her old mother in Brittany had been suddenly found very ailing (all this with Victoire's handkerchief to her eyes); and Victoire, seized with contrition on realising that she had not seen her parent for ten years or so, had obtained permission from that kindest of all gentlemen, Monsieur the Admiral, to seek the couch of the sufferer and comfort her declining hours.
'I should think,' said Charity, when her mother had told this sad story, ''tis more likely than not the old lady have some gold under her bed.'
'Shame, Charity!' cried her mother (she was eating a piece of pie fresh from Victoire's hands). 'Do 'ee go and pray for a kinder heart.'
'How's her going across?' asked Charity.
'Why, there's her uncle yonder to Plymouth who sent her word, awaiting for un. A French sailor un be.'
'Queer they let un land,' mused Charity.
'And how so shouldn't un? And bearing a letter for the Admiral himself? A black heart you'm getting, my maid, and a black life you'll have. A'd have more pride nor letting yonder wastrel down to Bodmin lie in my thoughts, and honest men like——'
'Now, Mother,' said Charity, her eyes blazing, 'will 'ee be quiet now, Mother? No word of that will I hear.'
All this, and more, reverted to Charity's mind as she rowed up the stream, keeping her eye on the blurred figure every now and then revealed in the mist. At a little shingly beach she sprang ashore and moored her boat unseen.
If there was anything in the tales of the valley, Mademoiselle Elise would bear over the shoulder of the hill at the river mouth, out of sight, as she evidently thought, among the bushes, and drop into a gully a couple of miles to the east.
Just what she did in 'Haunted Cove' no one rightly knew, though folk failed not to hint. It was a foul spot, only fit for landing a boat in quiet weather. There were superstitious tales abroad concerning that creek, and although curious fishermen had watched a strange boat, in the fitful moonlight, make for the rocky mouth, and others had seen the French girl, or her woman, creep into the cove, nothing would tempt them into its wrack-strewn caverns. 'The devil had made his bed there,' they said, 'and 'twas best shunned.' As for Elise, only the love and duty they bore for the Admiral had kept them from denouncing her as a person not untouched by the dark powers. For those were days when anything the unlettered country folk failed to understand was put down to witchcraft or sorcery.
Charity set herself another course than that taken by the French girl, a hard road, only possible for strong limbs and a stout heart. She knew that with good fortune she would arrive at a furze-grown bank hard over the creek before Elise could have reached it from her own side.
Only when her journey was well afoot did Charity realise that she was acting against all the superstitions of Garth. But having set herself to it, she went on. Moreover, Charity could read and write; and it happened that her little Bible was in her pocket.
'I bean't afeared,' she said stoutly to herself, fingering the holy book. 'Once and for all I'll be knowing. For Mistress Marion's sake 'tis only right some one should be sure.'
Kind-hearted Jack had given her the little Bible, and talked of the day when they would stand together before the parson; and Charity, thus drawn to remembering happier days, became sorrowful again, and forgot for the moment the object of her walk.
She climbed the hill, and crossing a little copse of gnarled oaks, made for a gap in the hedge that gave on to the main riding track leading from the heights beyond down to Polrennan beach. She was scarcely through the gap before she heard the 'tlot-tlot' of a horse. The rider seemed to be making inland, climbing the slope from the waterside. Fearful of she knew not what, Charity shrank back into the hedge and would have regained the shelter of the wood; but it was too late. Horse and rider loomed up in the mist and a ringing voice hailed her.
'Charity! Is that you, Charity?'
'Why, Master Roger,' cried Charity, the colour flushing her face in the relief she felt. 'Good afternoon to you, sir.'
Any one else would have replied, in the custom of the village folk: 'Where be gooin'?' And for a moment Charity's heart was in her mouth. Then she remembered that to ask such direct questions was not the way of the quality.
''Tis rising, I think,' said Roger, idly noting the girl's confusion, and setting it down in his chivalrous way to maidenly shyness. 'And time, too, after three days.'
'Wind's to the east, sir,' replied the girl. 'I thought to-day her'd rise.'
Having dealt with the weather, Roger turned to personal affairs. 'How are you getting on, Charity?' he asked kindly, keeping his horse at a walk.
Not since Marion's departure had any sympathy been meted out to the forlorn girl, and tears rose to her eyes. 'Why, sir,' she stammered, 'so well as may be.'
Noting her downcast look, Roger beat about in his mind for something to say. His dark eyes rested very gently on the bowed head, but no words came to his aid.
'Well,' he said abruptly, gathering his reins,' I must be off. I'm going across to Farmer Penrose, who declares he has got some straying cattle of mine. Good day to you, Charity.'
The girl dropped a curtsey in silence as the horse moved on. Then with a sudden movement Roger wheeled round.
'Keep a cheerful heart, if you can,' he said abruptly. 'There's still a great hope that the lad will be freed. The Admiral is using all his influence with the Governor yonder.' And without waiting for a reply Roger turned and broke into a canter. 'Poor little maid!' he mused. ''Tis hard fortune for her.'
He rode on, keeping to the track, and presently, as the way opened out on to the rough headland, he cast a longing eye towards the Channel. A golden light was breaking through the mist. Somewhere beyond that haze the afternoon was bright and sunny, the sea rocking the boats in her tranquil embrace. Roger never allowed a chance of riding by the sea to escape him; but after a minute's thought he decided to bear on in his present course and return by the edge of the cliffs when the mist would in all probability be cleared away. To ride round the head of 'Haunted Cove'—he smiled at the words—in a mist, was to endanger the safe-going of his horse and perhaps his own life. More than one rash horseman, riding by night close in over the cliffs, had fallen foul of the boulders and overgrown chasms of the gully mouth, and paid with his life the price of his folly.
Meanwhile Charity kept on her way. Somewhere round the shoulder of the hill the French girl was bearing towards her mysterious journey's end. Charity set herself to the stiff climb with all good will, and succeeded in reaching the head of the creek, and completely hiding herself among the furze bushes that overgrew it, before the slight figure came round the corner of the headland.
Wrapped in her cloak Charity lay motionless on her rough couch. The shrubs, dense with moisture, freely besprinkled her, but she paid no heed. Presently the French girl came in sight. Charity smiled at her gait, so unlike the swinging tread of the country-born. When the tired-looking walker was for a few minutes hidden from sight behind an outstanding group of rocks that barred her view, Charity took the occasion to bend well over the dangerous declivity and look searchingly into the creek below. What she saw made her hastily reconsider her position.
She was too far away up there; she wanted to be able to hear as well as see, and, as she did not understand French, not until this moment had Charity thought hearing would have been of any avail. But that man sitting down there on a rock gazing out to sea was no Frenchman. Not a dozen miles away had he been born, and born with a crookedness of mind that had spoilt the lives of others as well as his own. He had betrayed his fellow smugglers to authority once too often, and been hounded from the parish, with a rope's end for a prize if ever he returned. Folk said he had gone to the Islands, and there continued his fast-and-loose game between the French and the English.
For all her sense of horror at the idea of Admiral Penrock's ward having dealings with such a person, Charity could but pay the man a tribute for his courage in seeking the cove. Then, working out the price his bravery must mean to the young lady now coming to the creek, Charity frowned and shook her head again. Much, much gold must have been offered that renegade to enter the neighbourhood of Garth; and why?
The man down there, watching alternately the headland path and the sea, now revealing shining lines in the mist, was unaware of the figure creeping from bush to bush down the cliff with the skill of one who had often had nothing but seagulls' eggs between herself and hunger. He rose as Elise stepped on to the shingly beach, and together the two passed to the mouth of the outer cavern. On a ledge just above that mouth crouched Charity Borlase. The sound of the voices rose clearly to her ears.
An hour passed. Elise, her face wearing themigrainelook Marion would have understood, was pale and harassed as at last she rose and handed to the man a bag that jingled in his fingers. The last of their words as they stepped down to the beach just failed to reach the ears of Charity. She strained lower to catch the sound, and one branch of the bush she was holding snapped and fell.
The speakers looked up in a startled way, and Charity, forgetting for the moment her screen of bushes, feared she was undone. Holding her breath, she watched the eyes searching the cliff. To her relief, they went beyond her perch and rested. The two down there stood rooted to the spot. Charity, in growing wonder, twisted herself noiselessly round and discovered, standing on the rocks at the top of the creek, riding-crop in hand, Roger Trevannion. Charity was as securely hidden from his sight as from that of the others. She waited in a frightened apprehension. But Roger said no word. With a grim sort of smile he lifted his hat to Mademoiselle Elise and strode away.
Charity peered down again. The man was looking at his companion with a sullen, craven air, not without a gleam of malicious triumph; here was an added danger which meant more gold. But the look of fury and hatred on the girl's face made honest Charity's heart grow chill. She heard the words: 'He shall pay for this!' followed by others beyond her ken.
Five minutes afterwards Elise turned homewards. Not until the sailor had launched his boat, and hugging the land closely, sailed out of sight, did Charity rise, stiff and cramped, and climb the headland again.
That night she sat up long in her little attic room, and to the tune of the snores of her mother and brothers she wrote the longest letter it had ever fallen to her lot to indite. The task was a burden compared with which the climbing of the cliffs had been a baby's play. The dawn crept into her windows as she finished it, and not thinking it worth while then to sleep, she stole downstairs, kindled the fire, set the kettle on the crook and crept out of the cottage. She was going to test the loyalty of old Peter up at Garth House, to post her letter to Mistress Marion herself, and swear on her little Bible that he would say a word to none.
CHAPTER IX
A MORNING VISIT
Peter made the required vow, not dreaming how soon he would be tested. For just as he had made up his mind to create an occasion for going to Lostwithiel, and, acting on his credit as an old servant, to take the journey on his own responsibility, who should walk into the stable-yard but Admiral Penrock.
'Was that little Charity I saw going down the lane. Peter?' inquired the master.
'Like as not, sir.'
The Admiral prodded the groom's shoulder with his staff.
'Fie on thee, Peter! Are these tricks learned in London? Thinkst thou canst take Jack Poole's place?'
This idea never having occurred to grey-haired Peter, he was some time in apprehending it; then, with a sheepish grin, he accepted the visit of the fisher girl in the light his master chose to cast upon it. And not knowing that the end of Charity's letter was sticking out of his pocket, the old groom allowed himself to be poked by the Admiral again, and questioned adroitly as to the habits of the young lady. Not a syllable would Peter utter to break his word to pretty Charity, and in the end he rode off to Lostwithiel to seek a fresh bottle of lotion for the horses.
The Admiral stumped after him up the lane. He was intending to pay a morning visit to Roger Trevannion. The boundary wall between the two estates was crumbling in places, and the Admiral was minded to arrange with Roger to see to the matter on his behalf. The early sunlight lay slantingly across the tree-tops, and the old sailor, noting the freshness of the new green mantle that overspread the countryside, sighed to think that so fair a world could be so awry.
Ever since the day, now over a month old, when he had bidden Marion good-bye and driven back to the west, he had felt an irksomeness in his duties that was new to him. Had his office remained simply that of magistrate in his own parts, he would not have felt the burden. But the Lord Chief-Justice Jeffreys, in scouring the West Country, had learned that if there was one man in Cornwall whose loyalty to the Crown was to be relied upon, that man was Admiral Penrock of Garth. Consequently, when the spies of Jeffreys, still lurking in the county after their lord had returned to London, revealed one or two tracts in Cornwall which the hounds of the dreaded Judge had not thoroughly drawn, Jeffreys decided to make the Admiral master of that particular hunt. 'By fair means or foul,' ran his order, 'you will run the quarry to earth.' And the Admiral, who had a thorough dislike for meddling with affairs outside his own district, had been obliged to obey.
In various Cornish towns—Bodmin, Truro, St. Austell, Penzance—a number of soldiers were kept in readiness for his orders. His new duties carried him far and near. People who had never heard of him began to have reason for remembering his beetling brows, his thundering tones. The Admiral was in a fair way to become a dreaded person. In a magistrate 'twas all very well. But the old sailor carried a warm heart under his garb of authority, and there were times when that warm heart was chilled at the thought of the pain he had brought into many people's lives since Jeffreys had chosen to lay his commands upon him.
Another reason for disliking his new office had been the necessity for leaving Garth many days at a time without a master. He found himself in the position of a general who, while conducting wars abroad, neglects the enemy within his own frontiers.
Two facts, however, brought comfort to the Admiral: the absence of Marion during this time, and the recent departure of Victoire for her Breton home. Elise herself had never merited the complete distrust that underlay the old sailor's thoughts of Victoire. Since Keziah's uncomfortable revelations he had thought hard and watched shrewdly—when he was at liberty to watch. Had he possessed in his service a man of education and trustworthiness, untinged by the prejudice that coloured the judgment of the country folk, Garth would not have been left thus at the mercy of fortune. But no such man, Roger Trevannion excepted, had been within hail, and it was impossible without arousing suspicion to bring Roger from his own lands to act as overseer of the Penrock demesne. Consequently the Admiral had granted Victoire permission to cross the Channel without much troubling himself as to any hidden reason for her departure.
Victoire thus abroad, the old French attorney on his way to England, the Admiral experienced a sense of relief. He looked forward with the heartiest pleasure to the day when the attorney would arrive at Garth. Then he would consider his duty to his old friend accomplished. He had fathered Elise in her growing girlhood; she was now old enough to be given over to the care of her aunts. He had certainly done his utmost to train the girl to standards of thought which were native to the comrade of his fighting days. The fact that in some way Elise's nature had been warped to begin with, was beyond his control, and there he left the problem, vaguely attributing the crookedness to some strain on the mother's side. The Admiral had never seen Madame de Delauret. To contemplate the return of Marion, and the final departure of his ward and her maid from Garth, was to the Admiral something akin to watching in the darkness of the waning night for the daystar of the dawn. When he arrived at the Manor, Roger was in the farmyard at the back of the house, setting a dozen men to their day's work. He strode to meet his visitor with a look of pleased surprise.
'This is an honour, sir,' he said heartily, the golden lights showing in his brown eyes, 'and all the more for being paid so early. Will you come indoors for a tankard of ale? My mother will be pleased to see you in the house.'
'Nay,' said the Admiral, nodding to the farm men who were pulling their forelocks and chanting 'Marnin', Admur'l!' 'I have but just breakfasted. Those are fine horses yonder, Roger. You keep them well.'
The two moved out of earshot of the menservants.
'I saw Peter in the lane just now, but he said not you were coming,' remarked Roger.
The sailor's eyes twinkled. ''Tis a simple soul, that Peter. Did he say aught to you of a letter to my daughter, writ by Charity Borlase, that was in his pocket and had emptied all the bottles of lotion in the stables?'
As he spoke, the Admiral was casting a critical eye over a young cart-horse, the latest addition to the Manor stables, and he was unaware of Roger's slight start.
Roger had wondered more than once what could have been taking Charity up the hillside towards the headland that overlay Haunted Cove. In the revelation of the later afternoon he had remembered the chance encounter; Charity's embarrassment recurred to him.
At the sight he had had of Elise in close converse with the old traitor of Garth, Roger had experienced a momentary but severe shock. The idle talk of the village which, he knew very well, was more than half due to a deep-rooted hatred for foreigners, he had honestly tried to discount, putting away the versions that had reached his ears as gossiping women's tales. But he was too young, too human, not to be affected in his judgment by his personal attitude to Victoire and her young mistress. The only being to whom he had ever mentioned the matter had been Dick Hooper, his boyhood's friend. Young Dick had shrugged his shoulders. 'Wait a bit. Ill weeds grow for cutting. The girl's crooked, but the woman's wicked.' And so the subject had been passed by.
And now the distrust and dislike of close on ten years, and the memory of the persistent tales of the villagers, had suddenly made for Roger an inflammable track down which the spark of a strong suspicion raced. The burning revelation ran into words, right enough, clear as the flaming signs on the wall at Belshazzar's feast. 'Thou art tried in the balances and found wanting,' flickered the gleaming letters, as of old, and then died away. And Roger was left pondering as to the nature of the final word which must lie somewhere, at present unillumined. When and whence that final proof must appear, Roger could not guess; but he had read the riddle well enough to be profoundly uncomfortable as to its portent, and, more than all, as to its effects on the house of Garth.
A fatherless son, heir to an estate the control of which called for judgment and action, Roger had learned the weight of responsibility when most youths of his age and class had been conning Greek and Latin texts. And now his first thought had been as to his own share in the matter. What was his duty towards the Admiral and Marion?Marion. His heart had stirred at the passing thought of Marion, of her sweet wholesomeness, her contempt for double dealing, her outspoken truth. To think of her just then was like looking from a dark, secretly stirred pool to an open, sunswept stream.
What could have been Elise's business yonder? Could it be political? Something connected with denunciations of still hidden Monmouth men? Hardly so; rumours in the village had been years old before ever Monmouth landed at Lyme. And yet, these were days of distrust and treachery. Could some dark fate be hurling suspicion at the heads of the two people whom, next to his mother, he loved wholly?
Roger had ridden home in the company of unhappy thoughts, slowly resolving that he must trace the trouble to its source, and begin with the Admiral himself.
The chance mention of Charity, however, made Roger pause. Charity had been writing to Marion. Perhaps it would be well to see Charity first. His instinct was that whatever had been her business that afternoon, Charity was friend and not foe. On seeing the Admiral, his first thought had been to take advantage of his visit and unburden himself at once of the story. Now, in secret relief, he put the idea aside, determining first to learn what was Charity's part in the affair. So, while the Admiral was poking among his horses, Roger's thoughts ran; he turned gladly for the moment out of the shadow that had fallen across his path, not knowing that a small cloud, the size of a man's hand, lay on the far horizon.
Talking of farming matters, the two started on a leisurely survey of the Manor close, and presently came on the beech-topped hedge that was the northern boundary of the Garth lands. Leaning on the gate set in the hedge, they lingered some time. The conversation had fallen on the near prospect of a letter from Marion, on her life in Kensington; on the French attorney's visit, the contemplation of which, though neither knew the other's thought, brought to each a sense of comfort.
From the gate a little path ran down towards the house, making a diagonal course through the intervening pastures. The Admiral, about to light his second pipe, paused, tinder-box in hand, and stared across the fields. His face darkened.
'If I mistake not, yonder is one of Jeffreys' couriers. What fresh business is toward now? Could it not have waited my return to the house?'
'I thought your work in that direction was finished, sir.'
'So did I. So did I. You see what a price one pays, my lad, for being an honest man. I declare, I thought when my lord's last letter came, that I would go to sea again, that I did, stump and all, so as to be free of this scurvy business.'
'The man will hear you, sir,' ventured Roger.
'Let him! Let him! He's heartily welcome!' But none the less the old man struck his flint, and contented himself by roaring into the mouthpiece of his pipe.
Roger's eyes twinkled. In just such a way had the motherless bull-calf he had fed that morning growled with his head in the bucket, his mouth full. Roger stored up the incident to take a place in the pantomime rehearsal of her father's stray doings and sayings which Marion would be sure to demand on her return. The gold lights danced afresh in Roger's eyes as his little playmate rose before his mental vision.
The rider was now at speaking distance. He had the appearance of hard travelling, and as he came up, Roger's instant sympathy fell on the horse. When the messenger dismounted, saluted the Admiral, and proceeded to fumble for his letter, explaining that he had been sent on from the house, Roger stepped to the animal's side. 'Poor brute!' was his thought as he stroked the steaming flank, and cast a critical eye on the girth, having a mind to undo it for a time and make the man rest at the Manor.
'You have ridden fast,' said the Admiral in surly tones. 'Why shorten the life of a good horse?'
'My lord's orders, sir,' said the man. 'He can never abide the idea of wasting an hour when there's work to be done.'
'Did your lord require an answer?'
'He did not, sir.'
'Will you not ride down to the house and rest yourself and your animal?'
'I thank you greatly, sir,' said the man, passing his hand across his face, seared with the sweat and dust of his journey, 'but I am to be in Taunton ere nightfall.'
'In Taunton, on this brute?' cried Roger.
'I shall change horses at Bodmin,' said the messenger. As he spoke, he took the bridle. 'Can I cross the fields here to the Bodmin road?'
'I'll show you the way,' said Roger, and walking a few yards with the man, he pointed out, through a break in the inner hedge, the Bodmin road lying in the valley.
'Does your master pay you?' asked Roger abruptly.
'Aye, sir, well enough.'
''Tis a pity he can't pay the horse. A finer grey I never saw. It grieves me to see a brute wasted so. Here's a shilling. Promise you will give him a fair bucket of oats—or, if he sweats more, a bran mash and a warm belly cloth.'
The man's eyes softened. 'I promise. You're very good, sir.'
'Nay, nay. But it goes to my heart to see that horse wasted so. Good morning.'
Roger strode back to the gate where the Admiral was still standing. From the letter in his hand dangled the strings and seals of the Lord Chancellor. Roger paused and hung back a trifle, wondering were it best to leave him. Whatever might be the new business to hand, he could see the Admiral's wrath was gathering. His face purpled, the eyes growing round as a parrot's. For a second he appeared to be on the point of choking. Suddenly he dashed the letter to the ground, and swung round on Roger. Digging his staff into the turf, he spluttered in incomprehensible rage.
'I will not do it!' he roared. 'By the Lord Harry, I will not!'
Suddenly his fury fell away. He seated himself in the hedge and passed a hand over his face. 'Dick!' he said hoarsely. 'Poor lad!'
Roger stiffened. His eyebrows drew together, his mouth tightened. He stared down at the letter.
'Dick? Did you say Dick?'
'Ay, Dick Hooper. 'Tis there. An order to arrange for the arrest of the person of Richard Merrion Hooper, in the Parish of St. Brennion.'
Roger stared down at the written sheet, his face paling under the sunburn.
'Impossible!' he jerked out. 'Dick's a loyalist like yourself.'
'Nothing is impossible in these days.'
'What has he done?'
'That I am not told. Mayhap he has looked in pity at the creaking bones of a wretch hanging at the cross roads for Monmouth's sake.'
Roger turned, and leaning on the gate, buried his head on his arm. The tlot, tlot of a horse on the road below rose in the stillness of the morning. 'I could wish the brute had foundered and thrown his rider into the ditch—that highwaymen had seized him and his cursed letter,' ran the Admiral's thoughts, as, unconscious of his companion, he stared down the quiet slope. Far below showed the north front of Garth, the chimneys cutting the shining bar of the sea into irregular shapes. Only one window was visible through the trees of the garden—the window of the Admiral's study which, in an upper storey, ran the width of one wing, looking out on one hand on the Channel, and on the other to the rising land of the pastures. In the middle of the room stood the old sailor's beloved telescope, through which Roger had many times studied the rig of passing vessels. It happened that as the Admiral was staring out to sea, small thin fingers were swinging the telescope round to the north, and very soon the two men were plain to the eyes of Mademoiselle Elise, who was supposed by the housekeeper to be still in her bed.
The Admiral turned and saw the black head bent over the gate. He sighed, and rising to his feet picked up the letter.
Roger roused himself. His thoughts had been far away, scenes of his boyhood passing before his closed eyes: Dick's deep-notched oaken bench at Blundell's, which had been next his own; their twin escapades and truancies, punishments and advancements; the holidays Dick had spent at the Manor.
'I thought Dick was at Oxford,' he stumbled at length. Then recollecting: 'Nay, he is reading with a tutor to enter Oriel at Michaelmas.'
'A thousand pities he had not gone.'
Again fell the silence; then Roger's rather husky tones: 'Must you do this thing, sir?'
'I must.'
'And will you?'
The old Salt Eagle looked sorrowfully into the brown eyes facing him. He made a step down the slope.
'Would to God,' he blazed out suddenly, 'that Jeffreys had chosen another man!' Then, sobering: 'But I must. I cannot forget, after all, that my duty is not to serve Jeffreys, but Jeffreys' king. I shall drive out after dinner to Liskeard to see the officer there. But fear not, Roger, I shall do my utmost to get him freed.'
Roger was silent. He knew too well how unavailing, in the main, were such efforts.
'Is his father living?'
Roger nodded.
'And his mother? I forget.'
'She died while Dick was at Blundell's.'
'Thank God for that!' said the Admiral in low tones.
'May you not just inquire into the matter and report?' came Roger's husky tones. 'I had rather any one had gone but Dick.'
'Jeffreys prefers to make his inquiries behind bolt and bar.'
'Look here, sir,' said Roger, his face as hard as his voice. 'I——' he stopped abruptly, then a minute later, with a brief 'Good morning,' he swung round, and before the Admiral could speak, was striding up the slope.
The old seaman leaned heavily on his staff as he stumbled down the hillside, jerking his wooden leg over the uneven ground. 'I could pray for an ague to seize me,' ran his thoughts, 'an asp to sting me, a draught to sicken my stomach. Anything to keep me from this hateful task. Poor Dick! And poor Roger! 'Twas a hard blow.'
Half way down the slope the Admiral stopped short, arrested by an uneasy thought. For the first time since Jeffreys had laid his commands upon him he had failed in his duty, betrayed his trust, spoken to another of business of sworn secrecy. Completely forgetful of his obligations, and overborne by the weight of personal association, he had talked like an idle woman.
Hot on the heels of the first consideration ran a second. He had spoken freely of the arrest to the greatest friend of the condemned man. Could it be possible Roger would——? He had better walk back to the Manor, to make the boy promise secrecy. What would Roger do? A gleam ran across the old face. He turned and scanned the pastures. Roger was nowhere to be seen. A look of uncertainty was in the man's eyes as he stood, idly digging into a young gorse bush with his staff. His thoughts ranged themselves in two lines: dual personalities facing each other. On the one hand was the loyal seaman who would at any time have risked the gallows for a friend's sake; on the other the stern, justice-loving magistrate.
'You don't know what he may do,' came the one voice, 'and any way, you'd do the same yourself.'
'Go up and order him in the King's name to keep the matter secret,' came the reply. 'You can trust his given word.'
'Leave him alone,' retorted the first. ''Tis not for you to dictate what a man may do for his friend.'
'Duty! Duty!' cried the other.
'And Dick's an honest lad; you know he is guiltless. 'Tis but a foul whisper. He deserves a timely warning.'
'A magistrate has no ties. Duty! Duty!'
And so the mimic battle raged behind the eagle brows. In the end, not without a smile of grim humour, the Admiral offered a truce. He would not interfere with Roger. In any case, the lad might never have considered taking any step, and time would be wasted on the errand. His magisterial self the old seaman soothed by a promise of utmost haste. Instead of ordering the coach for after dinner, he would drive out at once, and eat from a hamper on the carriage seat. Having thus silenced the mental combatants, the Admiral kept his bargain to the letter. In a few minutes he was back at the house, giving orders to a flurried housekeeper.
Peter being absent on Charity's affairs, the Admiral was obliged to see to his change of garb himself. But here Elise proved herself uncommonly thoughtful. Hearing from Mrs. Curnow that the master was bound to Liskeard on urgent business, and would not be home till the morrow, and was in an uneasy temper because his man was out on an errand and he must fasten his own cloak and see to his pistols himself, Elise proceeded to the Admiral's room to offer such services as might be at her command. She found the door of the room ajar, and knew from neighbouring sounds that the Admiral was in the study. In his haste the sailor had thrown the fateful letter on the bed, with his work-a-day coat; the sharp eyes of Mademoiselle caught the red of the seals. A minute later she was out of the room again, her light step making no sound. When the Admiral was safely back in his bedchamber, she returned along the passage, her high heels clicking hard on the boards.
'I wanted to help you, if I might, sir,' came her voice at the door, and pleased at such thoughtfulness, the Admiral bade her enter. By that time the letter was in his pocket again.
As soon as the coach had left the courtyard, Elise stepped out, and crossing the pastures made her way towards the Manor Farm. A workman on the south fields was busy ditching, and from him, by dint of casual remarks, Elise learned that Master Roger had taken the fastest horse and ridden away some two hours ago.
Elise waited to hear no more. There was a light of triumph in her eyes as she trotted back to Garth. Presently an under groom was ordered to saddle Molly. Mademoiselle was bored by the inaction of life so lonely at Garth, and she was wishful to ride out to Bodmin and make a trifling purchase. She did not deem it necessary to add that it was her intention, while her escort was supping at theKing's Head, to find means to send a few words to the Governor of Bodmin Gaol.