The house known as Vellan's Rents stands in the Chy-pons over the waterside, a stone's throw beyond the ferry and the archway where the toll-keeper used to live. You may know it by its exceeding dilapidation and by the clouds of steam that issue on the street from one of its windows. The sill of this window stands a bare foot above the causeway, and glancing down into the room as you pass, you will see the shoulders of a woman stooping over a wash-tub. When first I used to pass this window the woman was called Naomi Bricknell; later it was Sarah Ann Polgrain; and now it is (euphemistically) Pretty Alice. One goes and makes way for another, but the wash-tub is always there and the rheumatic fever; and while these remain they will never lack, as they have never lacked yet, for a woman to do battle for dear life between them.
But my story concerns the first of these only, Naomi Bricknell. She and her mother occupied two rooms in Vellan's Rents as far back as I can remember, and were twisted with the fever about once in every six months. For this they paid one shilling a week rent. If you lift the latch and push the front door open, you seem at first to be looking down a well; for a flight of thirty-two steps plunges straight from the threshold to the quay door and a square of green water there. And when the sun is on the water at the bottom of this funnel, the effect is pretty. But taking note of the cold wind that rushes up this stairway and into the steaming room where the wash-tub stands, you will understand how it comes that each new tenant takes over the rheumatic fever as one of the fixtures.
In a room to the right of the stairway, and facing Naomi's, lived a middle-aged man who was always known as Long Oliver. This man was a native of the port, and it was understood that he and Naomi had been well acquainted, years ago, before he started on his first voyage and some time before Naomi married. Tiring of the sea in time, he had found work on the jetties and rented this room for sixpence a week. In these days he and Naomi rarely spoke to each other beyond exchanging a "Good-morning" when they met on the stairway, nor did he show any friendliness beyond tapping at her mother's door and inquiring about her once a day whenever she happened to be down with the fever. I have made researches and find that the rest of the house was tenanted at that time by a working block-maker, with his wife and four children; a widow and her son just returned from sea with an injured spine; a young couple without children. But these do not come into the tale.
Now the history of Naomi was this. She was married at three-and-twenty to Abe Bricknell, a young sailor of the port, and as steady as a woman could wish. In the third year of their married life, and a week after obtaining his certificate, he sailed out of Troy as mate of a fruit-ship, a barque, that never came back, nor was sighted again after passing the Lizard lights.
Naomi—a tall up-standing woman with deep, gentle eyes, like a cow's, and a firm mouth that seldom spoke—took her affliction oddly. She neither wailed nor put on mourning. She looked upon it as a matter between herself and her Maker, and said:
"God has done this thing to me; therefore I have finished with Him. I am no man to go and revenge myself by breaking all the Commandments. But I am a woman and can suffer. Let Him do His worst: I defy Him."
So she never set foot inside church again, nor offered any worship. The week long she worked as a laundress, and sat through the Sundays with her arms folded, gloomily fighting her duel. When the fever wrenched her arms and lips as she stood by the wash-tub, she set her teeth and said, "I can stand it. I can match all this with contempt. He can kill, but that's not beating me."
Her mother, a large and pale-faced woman of sixty, with an apparently thoughtful contraction of the lips, in reality due to a habit of carrying pins in her mouth, watched Naomi anxiously during this period of her life. And Long Oliver watched her too, though secretly, with eyes screwed up after the fashion of men who have followed the sea.
One day he stopped her on the stairs and asked, abruptly:
"When be you thinkin' to marry again?"
"Never," she answered, straight and at once, halting with a hand on her hip and eyeing him.
"Dear me; but you will, I hope."
"Not to you, anyway."
"Laws me, no! I don't want 'ee; haven't wanted 'ee these ten years.But I'd a reason for askin'."
"Then I'm sure I don't know what it can be."
"True—true. Look'ee here, my dear; 'tis ordained for you to marry agen."
"Aw? Who by?"
"Providence."
Naomi had treated Long Oliver badly in days gone by, but could still talk to him with more freedom than to other men. Still standing with a hand on her hip, she let fall a horrible sentence about the Almighty—all the more horrible in that it came deliberately, without emphasis, and from quiet lips.
"Woman!" cried a voice above them.
They turned, looked up, and saw the bent figure of a man framed in the street doorway. This was William Geake, who walked in from Gantick every Saturday to collect the sixpences and shillings of Vellan's Rents for its landlord, a well-to-do wine and spirit merchant at Tregarrick. As a man of indisputable probity and an unwearying walker, Geake was entrusted with many odd jobs of this kind in the country round, filling in with them such idle corners as his trade of carpenter and undertaker to Gantick village might leave in the six working days. On Sundays he put on a long black coat, and became a Rounder, or Methodist local-preacher, walking sometimes twenty miles there and back to terrify the inhabitants of outlying hamlets about their future state.
"Woman!" cried William Geake, "Down 'pon your knees an' pray God the roof don't fall on 'ee for your vile words."
"I reckon," retorted Naomi quietly, with a glance up at the worm-riddled rafters, "you'd do more good by speakin' to the landlord."
William Geake had a high brow and bright, nervous eyes, betokening enthusiasm; but he had also a long and square jaw that meant stubbornness. This jaw now began to protrude and his lips to straighten.
"Down 'pon your knees!" he repeated.
Naomi turned her eyes from him to Long Oliver, who leant against the staircase wall with his arms crossed and a veiled amusement in his face. With a slightly heightened colour, but no flutter of the voice, she repeated her blasphemy; and then, pulling a shilling from her worn purse, tendered it to Geake. This, of course, meant "Mind your own business"; but he waved her hand aside.
"Down 'pon your knees, woman!" he shouted thunderously. Then, as she showed no disposition to obey, he added, grimly, "Eh? but somebody shall intercede for thee afore thou'rt a minute older."
And pulling off his hat there and then, he knelt down on the doorstep, with the soles of his hob-nailed boots showing to the street.
"Get up, an' don't make yoursel' a may-game," said Naomi hurriedly, as one or two children stopped their play, and drew around to stare.
"Father in heaven," began William Geake, in a voice that fetched the women-folk, all up and down the Chy-pons, to their doors, "Thou, whose property is ever to have mercy, forgive this blaspheming woman! Suffer one who is Thy servant, though a grievous sinner, to intercede for her afore she commits the sin that cannot be forgiven; to pluck her as a brand from the burning—"
By this, the women and a loafing man or two had clustered round, andColliver's coal-cart had rattled up and come to a standstill. TheChy-pons is the narrowest street in Troy, and Colliver's driver couldhardly pass now, except over William Geake's legs.
"Draw in your feet, brother Geake," he called out, "or else pray short."
One or two women giggled at this. But Geake did not seem to hear. For five good minutes he prayed vociferously, as was his custom in meeting-house; then rose, replaced his hat, dusted his knees, held out his hand for Naomi's shilling, and wrote her the customary voucher in his most business-like manner, and without another word. But there was a triumphant look in his eyes that dared Naomi to repeat her offence, and she very nearly wept as she felt that the words would not come. This and the shame of publicity drove her back into her room as Geake passed down the stairs to collect the other rents. A few women still hung about the doorway as he emerged, some twenty minutes later. But he marched down Chy-pons with head erect and eyes fixed straight ahead.
On the following Saturday, when Geake called, Naomi was standing at her wash-tub. She had seen him pass the window, and, hurriedly wiping her hands, and pulling out her shilling, placed it ostentatiously in the very centre of the deal table by the door; then had just time to plunge her hands in the soap-suds again before he knocked. Try as she would, she could not keep back a blush at the remembrance of last week's scene, and half looked for him to make some allusion to it.
His extremely business-like air reassured her. She nodded towards the shilling without removing her hands from the tub. He took it, including in a polite good-morning both Naomi and her mother, who was huddled in an arm-chair before the fire and recovering from an attack of the fever, wrote out his voucher solemnly, set it in the exact spot where the shilling had stood, took up his hat, hesitated for less than a second, replaced his hat on the table, and, pulling a chair towards him, dropped on his knees, and began to pray aloud.
The old woman by the fire slewed her head painfully round and stared at him, then at Naomi. But Naomi was standing with her back to them both, and her hands soaping the linen in the tub—gently, however, and without any splashing. She therefore let her head sink back on the cushion, and assumed that peculiarly dejected air, commonly reserved by her for the consolations of religion.
On this occasion William Geake prayed in a low and level tone, and very briefly. He made no allusion to last Saturday, but put up an earnest petition for blessings upon "our two sisters here," and that they might learn to accept their appointed portion with resignation, yea, even with a holy joy. At the end of two minutes he rose, and was about to dust his knees, after his usual custom, but, becoming suddenly aware of the difference in cleanliness between Naomi's lime-ash and the floors of the various meeting-houses of his acquaintance, refrained. This little piece of delicacy did not escape Naomi, though her shoulders were still bent over the tub, to all seeming as resolutely as ever.
"Well, I swow that was very friendly of Mister Geake!" the old woman ejaculated, as the door closed behind him. "'Tisn't everybody'd ha' thought what a comfort a little scrap o' religion can be to an old woman in my state."
"He took a great liberty," said Naomi snappishly.
"Well, he might ha' said as much as 'By your leave,' to be sure; an' now you say so, 'twas makin' a bit free to talk about our dependence—an' in my own kitchen too."
"He meant our dependence on th' Almighty," Naomi corrected, still more snappishly. "William Geake's an odd-fangled man, but you might give 'en credit for good-feelin'. An', what's more, though I don't hold wi' Christian talk, if a man have a got beliefs, I respect 'en for standin' to 'em without shame."
"But I thought, a moment ago—" her mother began, and then subsided.She was accustomed to small tangles in her own processes of thought,and quite incapable, after years of blind acceptance, of correctingNaomi's logic.
No more was said on the matter. The next Saturday, after receiving his shilling, Mr. Geake knelt down without any hesitation. It was clear he wished this prayer to be a weekly institution, and an institution it became.
The women never knelt. Naomi, indeed, had never sanctioned the innovation, unless by her silence, and her mother assisted only with a very lugubrious "Amen," being too weak to stir from her chair. As the months passed, it became evident to Geake that her strength would never come back. The fever had left her, apparently for good; but the rheumatism remained, and closed slowly upon the heart. The machine was worn out.
When the end came, Naomi had been doing the work single-handed for close upon twelve months. She could always get a plenty of work, and now took in a deal too much for her strength, to settle the doctor's and undertaker's bills, and buy herself a black gown, cape, and bonnet. The funeral, of course, took place on a Sunday. Geake, on the Saturday afternoon, knocked gently at Naomi's door. His single intent was to speak a word or two of sympathy, if she would listen. Remembering her constant attitude under the Divine scourge, he felt a trifle nervous.
But there lay the shilling in the centre of the table, and there stood Naomi in a cloud of steam, hard at work on an immoderate pile of washing—even a man's miscalculating eye could see that it was immoderate.
"I didn't call—" he began, with a glance towards the shilling.
"No; I know you didn't. But you may so well take it all the same."
Geake had rehearsed a small speech, but found himself making out and signing the voucher as usual; and, as usual, when it was signed, he drew over a chair, and dropped on his knees. In prayer-meeting he was a great hand at "improving" an occasion of bereavement; but here again his will to speak impressively suddenly failed him. His words were:
"Lord, there were two women grinding at a mill; the one was taken, and t'other left. She that you took, you've a-carr'd beyond our prayers; but O, be gentle, be gentle, to her that's left!"
He arose, and looked shyly, almost shamefacedly, at Naomi. She had not turned. But her head was bowed; and, drawing near, he saw that the scalding tears were falling fast into the wash-tub. She had not wept when her husband was lost, nor since.
"Go away!" she commanded, before he could speak, turning her shoulders resolutely towards him.
He took up his hat, and went out softly, closing the door softly behind him.
His eye, which was growing quick to read Naomi's face, saw at once, as he entered the room a week later, that she deprecated even the slightest reference to her weakness. It also told him—he had not guessed it before—that her emotional breakdown had probably more to do with physical exhaustion than with any eloquence of his. The pile of washing had grown, and the woman's face was grey with fatigue.
Geake, as he made out the voucher, cast about for a polite mode of hinting that this kind of thing must not go on. Nevertheless it was Naomi who began.
"Look here," she said, as he put down the voucher; "there ain't goin' to be no more prayin', eh?"
"Why, to be sure there is," he answered with a show of great cheerfulness; and reached for a chair.
"I'd liefer you didn't. I don't want it. I don't hold by any o't. You'm very kind," she went on, her voice trembling for an instant and then recovering its firmness, "and I reckon it soothed mother. But I reckon it don't soothe me. I reckon it rubs me the wrong way. There's times, when I hears a body prayin', that I wishes we was Papists again and worshipped images, that I might throw stones at 'em!"
She paused, looked up into Geake's devouring eyes, and added, with a poor attempt at a laugh:
"So you see, I'm wicked, an' don't want to be saved."
Then the man broke forth:
"Saved? No, I reckon you don't! Wicked? Iss, I reckon you be! But saved you shall be—ay, if you was twice so wicked. Who'll do it? I'll do it—I alone. I don't want your help. I want to do it in spite of 'ee: an' I'll lay that I do! Be your wickedness deep as hell, an' I'll reach down a hand to the roots and pluck it up: be your salvation stubborn as Death, I'll wrestle wi' the Lord for it. If I sell my own soul for't, yours shall be redeemed!"
He slammed down his fist on the rickety deal table, which promptly collapsed flat on the floor, with its four legs splayed under the circular cover.
"Bein' a carpenter—" Geake began to stammer apologetically, and in a totally different tone.
For a second—two seconds—the issue hung between tears and laughter.An hysterical merriment twinkled in Naomi's eyes.
But the strength of Geake's passion saved the situation. He stepped up to Naomi, laid a hand on each shoulder, and shook her gently to and fro.
"Listen to me! As I hold 'ee now, so I take your fate in my hands. Naomi Bricknell, you've got to be my wife, so make up your mind to that."
She cowered a little under his grasp; put out a hand to push him off; drew it back; and broke into helpless sobbing. But this time she did not command him to go away.
Fifteen minutes later William Geake left Vellan's Rents with joy on his face and a broken table under his arm.
And two days later Naomi's face wore a look of demure happiness whenLong Oliver stopped her on the staircase and asked,
"Is it true, what I hear?"
"It is true," she answered.
"An' when be the banns called?"
"There ain't goin' to be no banns."
"Hey?"
"There ain't goin' to be no banns; leastways, there ain't goin' to be none called. We'm goin' to the Registry Office. You look all struck of a heap. Was you hopin' to be best man?"
"Well, I reckoned I'd take a hand in the responses," he answered; and seemed about to say more, but turned on his heel and went back to his room, shutting the door behind him.
We pass to a Saturday morning, two years later, and to William Geake's cottage at the western end of Gantick village.
Naomi had plucked three fowls and trussed them, and wrapping each in a white napkin, had packed them in her basket with a dozen and a half of eggs, a few pats of butter, and a nosegay or two of garden-flowers—Sweet Williams, marigolds, and heart's-ease: for it was market-day at Tregarrick. Then she put on boots and shawl, tied her bonnet, and slung a second pair of boots across her arm: for the roads were heavy and she would leave the muddy pair with a friend who lived at the entrance of the town, not choosing to appear untidy as she walked up the Fore Street. These arrangements made, she went to seek her husband, who was busy planing a coffin-lid in the workshop behind the cottage, and ruminating upon to-morrow's sermon.
"You'll be about startin'," he said, lifting his head and pushing his spectacles up over his eye-brows.
Naomi set her basket down on his work-table, and drew her breath back between her teeth—which is the Cornish mode of saying "Yes." "I want you to make me a couple of skivers," she said. "Aun' Hambly sent over word she'd a brace o' chicken for me to sell, an' I was to call for 'em: an' I'd be ashamed to sell a fowl the way she skivers it."
William set down his plane, picked up an odd scrap of wood and cut out the skewers with his pocket-knife; while Naomi watched with a smile on her face. Whether or no William had recovered her soul, as he promised, she had certainly given her heart into his keeping. The love of such a widow, he found, is as the surrender of a maid, with wisdom added.
The skewers finished, he walked out through the house with her and down the garden-path, carrying the basket as far as the gate. The scent of pine-shavings came with him. Half-way down the path Naomi turned aside and picking a sprig of Boy's Love, held it up for him to smell. The action was trivial, but as he took the sprig they both laughed, looking in each other's eyes. Then they kissed; and the staid woman went her way down the road, while the staid man loitered for a moment by the gate and watched her as she went.
Now as he took his eyes away and glanced for an instant in the other direction, he was aware of a man who had just come round the angle of the garden hedge and, standing in the middle of the road, not a dozen yards off, was also staring after his wife.
This stranger was a broad-shouldered fellow in a suit of blue seaman's cloth, the trousers of which were tucked inside a pair of Wellington boots. His complexion was brown as a nut, and he wore rings in his ears: but the features were British enough. A perplexed, ingratiating and rather silly smile overspread them.
The two men regarded each other for a bit, and then the stranger drew nearer.
"I do believe that was Na'mi," he said, nodding his head after the woman's figure, that had not yet passed out of sight.
William Geake opened his eyes wide and answered curtly, "Yes: that's my wife—Naomi Geake. What then?"
The man scratched his head, contemplating William as he might some illegible sign-post set up at an unusually bothersome cross-road.
"She keeps very han'some, I will say." His smile grew still more ingratiating.
"Was you wishin' to speak wi' her?"
"Well, there! I was an' yet I wasn't. 'Tis terrible puzzlin'. You don't know me, I dessay."
"No, I don't."
"I be called Abe Bricknell—A-bra-ham Bricknell. I used to be Na'mi's husband, one time. There now"—with an accent of genuine contrition—"I felt sure 'twould put you out."
The tongue grew dry in William Geake's mouth, and the sunlight died off the road before him. He stared at a blister in the green paint of the garden-gate and began to peel it away slowly with his thumb-nail: then, pulling out his handkerchief, picked away at the paint that had lodged under the nail, very carefully, while he fought for speech.
"I be altered a brave bit," said Naomi's first husband, still with his silly smile.
"Come into th' house," William managed to say at last; and turning, led the way to the door. On his way he caught himself wondering why the hum of the bees had never sounded so loudly in the garden before: and this was all he could think about till he reached the doorstep. Then he turned.
"Th' Lord's ways be past findin' out," he said, passing a hand over his eyes.
"That's so: that's whatIsay mysel'," the other assented cheerfully, as if glad to find their wits jumping together.
"Man!" William rounded on him fiercely. "What's kept 'ee, all these years? Aw, man, man! do 'ee know what you've done?"
"I'd a sun-stroke," said the wanderer, tapping his head and still wearing his deprecatory smile; "a very bad sun-stroke. I sailed in theJohn S. Hancock. I dessay Na'mi told you about that, eh?"
"Get on wi' your tale."
"Pete Hancock was cap'n. The vessel was called after his uncle, you know, an' the Hancocks had a-bought up most o' the shares in her. That's how Pete came to be cap'n. We sailed on a Friday—unlucky, I've heard that is. But Pete said them that laid th' Atlantic cable had started that day an' broke the spell. Pete had a lot o' tales, but he made a poor cap'n; no head."
"Look here," put in "William with desperate calm," I don't want to know about Peter Hancock."
"There's not much to know if you did. He made a very poor cap'n, though it don't become one to say so, now he's gone. An affectionate man, though, for all his short-comin's. The last time he brought his vessel home from New Orleans he was in that pore to get back to his wife an' childer, he ripped along the Gulf Stream and pretty well ribbed the keelson out of her. Thought, I reckon, that since all the shareholders belonged to his family th' expense wouldn' be grudged. But I guess it made her tender. That's how she came to go down so suddent."
"She foundered?"
"I'm comin' to that. We'd just run our nose into the tropics an' was headin' down for Kingston Harbour—slippin' along at five knots easy an' steady, an' not a sign of trouble. The time, so far as I can tell, was somewhere near five bells in the middle watch. I'd turned in, leavin' Pete on deck, an' was fast asleep; when all of a suddent a great jolt sent me flyin' out o' the berth. As soon as I got my legs an' wits again I was up on deck, and already the barque was settlin' by the head like a burst crock. She'd crushed her breastbone in on a sunken tramp of a derelict—a dismasted water-logged lump, that maybe had been washin' about the Atlantic for twenty year' an' more before her app'inted time came to drift across our fair-way an' settle the hash o' theJohn S. Hancock. Sir, I reckon she went down inside o' five minutes. We'd but bare time to get out one boat and push clear o' the whirl of her. All hands jumped in; she was but a sixteen foot boat, an' we loaded her down to the gun'l a'most. There was a brave star-shine, but no moon. Cruel things happen 'pon the sea."
He passed a hand over his eyes, as if to brush off the film his sufferings had drawn across them. Then he pursued:
"Cruel things happen 'pon the sea. We'd no food nor drink but a tin o' preserved pears; Lord knows how that got there; but 'twas soon done. Pete had a small compass, a gimcrack affair hangin' to his watch-chain, an' we pulled by it west-sou'-west towards the nighest land, which we made out must be some one or another o' the Leeward Islands; but 'twas more to keep ourselves busy than for aught else: the boat was so low in the water that even with the Trade to help us, we made but a mile an hour, an' had to be balin' all day and all night. The third day, as the sun grew hot, two o' the men went mad. We had to pitch 'em overboard an' beat 'em off wi' the oars till they drowned: else they'd ha' sunk the boat. This seemed to hang on Pete's mind, in a way. All the next night he talked light-headed; said he could hear the dead men hailin' their names. About midnight he jumped after 'em—to fetch 'em, he said—an' was drowned. He took his compass with him, but that didn't make much odds. The boat was lighter now, an' we hadn' to bale. Pretty soon I got too weak to notice how the men went. I was lyin' wi' my head under the stern sheets an' only pulled mysel' up, now an' then, to peer out over the gun'l. I s'pose 'twas the splashes as the men went over that made me do this. I don't know for certain. There was sharks about: cruel things happen 'pon the sea. The boat was in a gashly cauch of blood too. One chap—Jeff Tresawna it was: his mother lived over to Looe—had tried to open a vein, to drink, an' had made a mess o't an' bled to death. Far as I know there was no fightin' to eat one another, same as one hears tell of now an' then. The men just went mad and jumped like sheep: 'twas a reg'lar disease. Two would go quick, one atop of t'other; an' then there'd be a long stillness, an' then a yellin' again an' two more splashes, maybe three. All through it I was dozin', off an' on; an' I reckon these things got mixed up an' repeated in my head: for our crew was only sixteen all told, an' it seemed to me I'd heard scores go over. Anyway I opened my eyes at last—night it was, an' all the stars blazin'—an' the boat was empty all except me an' Jeff Tresawna, him that had bled to death. He was lying up high in the bows, wi' his legs stretched Out towards me along the bottom-boards. There was a twinkle o' dew 'pon the thwarts an' gun'l, an' I managed to suck my shirt-sleeve, that was wringin' wet, an' dropped off dozin' again belike. The nex' thing I minded was a sort o' dream that I was home to Carne again, over Pendower beach—that's where my father an' mother lived. I heard the breakers quite plain. The sound of 'em woke me up. This was a little after daybreak. The sound kept on after I'd opened my eyes, though not so loud. I took another suck at my shirt-sleeve an' pulled myself up to my knees by the thwart an' looked over. 'Twas the sound o' broken water, sure enough, that I'd been hearing; an' 'twas breakin' round half a dozen small islands, to leeward, between me an' the horizon. I call 'em islands; but they was just rocks stickin' up from the sea, and birds on 'em in plenty; but otherwise, if you'll excuse the liberty, as bare as the top o' your head."
Geake nodded gravely, with set face.
"I've heard since," went on the seaman, "that these were bits, so to say, belongin' to the Leeward Islands, about eighty miles sou'west o' St. Kitt's. Our boat must ha' driven past St. Kitt's, but just out o' sight; or perhaps we'd passed a peep of it in the night-time. Well, as you'll be guessin' the boat was pretty nigh to one o' these islands, or I shouldn' ha' heard the wash. Half a mile off it was, I dessay, an' a pretty big wash. This was caused by the current, no doubt, for the wind was nex' to nothin', an' no swell around the boat. What's more, the current was takin' us, broadside on, pretty well straight for the rocks. There was no rudder an' only one oar left i' the boat; an' that was broke off short at the blade. But I managed to slip it over the starn an' made shift to keep her head straight. Her nose went bump on the shore, an' then she swung round an' went drivin' past: me not havin' strength left to put out a hand, much less to catch hold an' stop the way on us. We might ha' driven past an' off to sea again, if it hadn' been for a spit o' rock that reached out ahead. This brought us up short, an' there we lay an' bump'd for a bit. I dessay it took me half an hour to get out over the side: an' all the time I kept hold o' the broken oar. I dunno why I did this: but it saved my life afterwards. Hav'ee got such a thing as a drop o' cider in the house?"
"We go upon temperance principles here," said Geake. He rose and brought a jug of water and a glass.
"That'll do," said the wanderer, and helped himself. "Na'mi used to take a glass o' beer wi' her meals, I remember. Well, as I was agoin' to tell you, havin' got out o' the boat, I'd just sense enough left to clamber up above high-water mark, an' there I sat starin' stupid-like an' wonderin' how I'd done it. Down below, the boat was heavin' i' the wash an' joltin' 'pon the rocks, an' I watched her—bump, bump, up an' down, up an' down—wi' Jeff jamm'd by the shoulders i' the bows, and glazin' up at me wi' a silly blank face, like as if he couldn' make it all out. As the tide rose him up nearer, I crawled away further up. Seemed to me he an' the boat was after me like a sick dream, an' I grinned every time the timbers gave an extry loud crack. At last her bottom was stove, an' she filled very quiet an' went down. The wind was fresher by this an' some heavy clouds comin' up. Then it rained. I don't rightly know if this was the same day or no: can't fit in the days an' nights. But it rained heavy. There was a quill-feather lyin' close by my hand—the rock was strewed wi' feathers an' the birds' droppin's—an' with it I tried to get at the rain-water that was caught in the crannies o' the rocks. While I was searchin' about I came across an egg. It was stinkin', but I ate it. After that, feelin' a bit stronger, I'd a mind to fix up the oar for a mark, in case any vessel passed near an' me asleep or too weak to make a signal. I found a handy chink i' the rock to plant it in, an' a rovin' pain I had in my stomach while I was fixin' it. That was the egg, I dessay. An' my head in a maze, too: but I'd sense enough to think now what a fool I was not to have took Jeff's shirt off'n, to serve me for a flag. Hows'ever, my own bein' wringin' wet, an' the sun pretty strong just then, I slipped it off an' hitched it atop o' the oar to dry an' be a flag at the same time, till I could rig up some kind o' streamer, out o' the seaweed. An' then I was forced to vomit. And that's about the last thing, Mister Geake, I can mind doin'. 'Tis all foolishness after that. They tell me that a 'Merican schooner, theShawanee, sighted my shirt flappin', an' sent a boat an' took me off an' landed me at New Orleens. My head was bad—oh, very bad—an' they put me in a 'sylum an' cured me. But they took eight year' over it, an' I doubt if 'tis much of a job after all. I wasn' bad all the time, I must tell you, sir; but 'tis only lately my mem'ry would work any further back 'n the wreck o' the barque. Everything seemed to begin an' end wi' that. 'Tis about a year back that some visitors came to the 'sylum. There was a lady in the party, an' something in her face, when she spoke to me, put me in mind o' Na'mi, an' I remembered I was a married man. Inside of a fortnight, part by thinkin'—'tis hard work still for me to think—part by dreamin', I'd a-worried it all out. I was betterin' fast by that. Soon as I was well enough to be discharged, I worked my passage home in a grain ship, theDruid, o' Liverpool. I was reckonin' all the way back that Na'mi'd be main glad to see me agen. But now I s'pose she won't."
"It'll come nigh to killin' her."
"I dessay, now, you two have got to be very fond? She used to be a partic'lar lovin' sort o' woman."
"I love her more 'n heaven!" William broke out; and then cowered as if he half expected to be struck with lightning for the words.
"I heard of her havin' married, down at the Fifteen Balls, at Troy. I dropped in there to pick up the news."
"What! You've been tellin' folks who you be!"
"Not a word. First of all I was minded to play off a little surprise 'pon old Toms, the landlord, who didn' know me from Adam. But hearin' this, just as I was a-leadin' up to my little joke, I thought maybe 'twould annoy Na'mi. She used to be very strict in some of her notions."
William Geake took two hasty turns up and down the little parlour. His Bible, in which before breakfast he had been searching for a text, lay open on the side table. Behind its place on the shelf was a small skivet he had let into the wall; and in that drawer was stored something over twenty-five pounds, the third of his savings. Geake kept a bank-account, and the balance lay at interest with Messrs. Climo and Hodges, of St. Austell. But he had the true countryman's aversion to putting all his eggs in one basket; and although Messrs. Climo and Hodges were safe as the Bank of England, preferred to keep this portion of his wealth in his own stocking. He closed the Bible hastily; rammed it back, upside down, in its place; then took it out again, and stood holding it in his two hands and trembling. He was living in sin: he was minded to sin yet deeper. And yet what had he done to deserve Naomi in comparison with the unspeakable tribulations this simple mariner had suffered? Sure, God must have preserved the fellow with especial care, and of wise purpose brought him through shipwreck, famine, and madness home to his lawful wife. The man had made Naomi a good husband. Had William Geake made her a better? (Husband?)—here he dropped the Bible down on the table again as if it burned his fingers. Whatever had to be done must be done quickly. Here was the innocent wrecker of so much happiness hanging on his lips for the next word, watching wistfully for his orders, like any spaniel dog. And Naomi would be back before nightfall. God was giving him no time: it was unfair to hustle a man in this way. In the whirl of his thoughts he seemed to hear Naomi's footfall drawing nearer and nearer home. He could almost upbraid the Almighty here for leaving him and Naomi childless. A child would have made the temptation irresistible.
"I wish a'most that I'd never called, if it puts you out so terrible," was the wanderer's plaintive remark after two minutes of silent waiting.
This sentence settled it. The temptationwasirresistible. Geake unlocked the skivet, plunged a hand in and banged down a fistful of notes on the table.
"Here," said he; "here's five-an'-twenty pound'. You shall have it all if you'll go straight out o' this door an' back to America."
Half-an-hour later, William Geake was standing by his garden-gate again. Every now and then he glanced down the road towards St. Austell, and after each glance resumed his nervous picking at the blister of green paint that had troubled him earlier in the day. He was face to face with a new and smaller, but sufficiently vexing, difficulty. Abe Bricknell had gone, taking with him the five five-pound notes. So far so good, and cheap at the price. But the skivet was empty: and the day was Saturday: and every Saturday evening, as regularly as he wound up the big eight-day clock in the kitchen, Naomi and he would sit down and count over the money. True he had only to go to St. Austell and Messrs. Climo and Hodges would let him draw five new notes. The numbers would be different, and Naomi (prudent woman) always took note of the numbers: but some explanation might be invented. The problem was: How to get to St. Austell and back before Naomi's return? The distance was too great to be walked in the time; and besides, the coffin must be ready by nightfall. He had promised it; he was known for a man of his word; and owing to the morning's interruption it would be a tough job to finish, at the best. There was no help for it; and—so easy is the descent of Avernus—Geake's unaccustomed wits were already wandering in a wilderness of improbable falsehoods, when he heard the sound of wheels up the road, and Long Oliver came along in Farmer Lear's red-wheeled trap and behind Farmer Lear's dun-coloured mare. As he drew near at a trot he eyed Geake curiously, and for a moment seemed inclined to pull up, but thought better of it, and was passing with no more than a nod of the head and "good-day."
It was unusual, though, to see Long Oliver driving a horse and trap; and Geake, moreover, had a sudden notion.
"Good-mornin'," he answered; "whither bound?"
"St. Austell. I've a bit of business to do, so I'm takin' a holiday; in style, as you see."
"I wonder now," Geake suggested, forgetting all about the coffin, "if you'd give me a lift. I was just thinkin' this moment that I'd a bit o' business there that had clean slipped my mind this week."
This was transparently false to any one acquainted with Geake's methodical habits. Long Oliver screwed up his eyes.
"Can't, I'm afraid. I'm engaged to take up old Missus Oke an' her niece at Tippet's corner; an' the niece's box. The gal's goin' in to St. Austell, into service. So there's no room. But if there's any little message I can take—"
"When'll you be back?"
"Somewhere's about five I'll be passin'."
"Would 'ee mind waitin' a moment? I've a cheque I want cashed at Climo and Hodges for a biggish sum: but you'm a man I can trust to bring back the money safe."
"Sutt'nly," said Long Oliver.
Geake went into the house and wrote a short letter to the bankers. He asked them to send back by messenger, and in return for cheque enclosed, the sum of twenty-five pounds, in five new five-pound notes. He was aware (he said) that the balance of his running account was but a pound or two: but as they held something over fifty pounds of his on deposit, he felt sure they would oblige him and enable him to meet a sudden call.
"Twenty-five pounds is the sum," he explained; "an' you must be sure to get it in five-pound notes—new five-pound notes. You'll not forget that?" He closed the envelope and handed it up to Long Oliver, who buttoned it in his breast-pocket.
"You shall have it, Mr. Geake, by five o'clock this evenin'," said he, giving the reins a shake on the mare's back; "so 'long!" and he rattled off.
A mile, and a trifle more, beyond Geake's cottage, he came in sight of a man clad in blue sailor's cloth, trudging briskly ahead. Long Oliver's lips shaped themselves as if to whistle; but he made no sound until he overtook the pedestrian, when he pulled up, looked round in the man's face, and said—
"Abe Bricknell!"
The sailor came to a sudden halt, and went very white in the face.
"How do you know my name?" he asked, uneasily.
"'Recognised 'ee back in Troy, an' borrowed this here trap to drive after 'ee. Get up alongside. I've summat to say to 'ee."
Bricknell climbed up without a word, and they drove along together.
"Where was you goin'?" Long Oliver asked, after a bit.
"To Charlestown."
"To look for a ship?"
"Yes."
"Goin' back to America?"
"Yes."
"You've been callin' on William Geake: an' you didn' find Naomi at home."
"Geake don't want it known."
"That's likely enough. You've got twenty-five pound' o' his in your pocket."
Abe Bricknell involuntarily put up a hand to his breast.
"Ay, it's there," said Long Oliver, nodding. "It's odd now, but I've got twenty-five pound in gold inmypocket; an' I want you to swop."
"I don't take ye, Mister—"
"Long Oliver, I'm called in common. Maybe you remembers me?"
"Why, to be sure! I thought I minded your face. But still I don't take your meanin' azactly."
"I didn' suppose you would. So I'm goin' to tell 'ee. Fourteen year' back I courted Naomi, an' she used me worse 'n a dog. Twelve year' back she married you. Nine year' back you went to sea in theJohn S. Hancock, an' was wrecked off the Leeward Isles an' cast up on a spit o' rock. I'd been hangin' about New Orleens, just then, at a loose end, an' bein' in want o' cash, took a scamper in theShawanee, a dirty tramp of a schooner knockin' in an' out and peddlin' notions among the West Indy Islanders. As you know we caught sight o' your signal an' took you off, an' you went to a mad-house. You was clean off your head an' didn' know me from Adam; an' I never let on that I knew you or the ship you'd sailed in. 'Seemed to me the hand o' God was in it, an' I saw my way to cry quits wi' Naomi."
"I don't see."
"I don't suppose you do. But 'twas this way:—Naomi (thinks I) 'll be givin' this man up afore long. She's a takeable woman, an' by-'n-bye, some new man'll set eyes on her. Then, thinks I, her banns'll be called in Church, an' I'll be there an' forbid 'em. Do 'ee see now?"
"That was very clever o' you," replied the simple seaman, and added with obvious sincerity, "I'm sure I should never ha' thought 'pon anything so clever as that. But why didn' you carry it out?"
"Because God Almighty was cleverer. Times an' times I'd pictured it up in my head how 'twould all work out; an' the parson in his surplice stuck all of a heap; an' the heads turnin' to look; an' the women faintin'. An' when the moment came for a man to claim her, what d'ye think she did? But there, a head like yours 'd never guess—why she went to a Registry Office, an' there weren't no banns at all. That overcame me. I seed the wisdom o' Providence from that hour. I be a converted man. An' I'm damned if I'll let you come along an' upset the apple-cart after all these years. Can 'ee write?"
"Tolerable, though I'm no hand at spellin'."
"Very well. We'll have a drink together at St. Austell, an' while we're there you shall do up Geake's notes in an envelope with a note sayin' your compliments, but on second thoughts you couldn't think o' takin' his money."
Bricknell's face fell somewhat.
"You gowk! You'll have twenty-five pound' o' mine in exchange: solid money, an' my own earnin's. I've more 'n that in my pocket here."
"But I don't see whyyoushould want to give me money."
"An' you'm too mad to see if I explained. 'Tis a matter o' conscience, an' you may take it at that. When the letter's wrote—best not sign it, by the way, for fear of accidents—you give it to me an' I'll see Geake gets it to-night. After that's written I'll pay your fare to Liverpool, an' then you'll get a vessel easy. Now I see your mouth openin' and makin' ready to argue—"
"I was goin' to say, Long Oliver, that you seem to be actin' very noble, now: but 'twas a bit hard onme, your holdin' your tongue as you did."
"So 'twas, so 'twas. I reckon some folks is by nature easy forgotten, an' you'm one. If that's your character, I hope to gracious you'm goin' to keep it up. An' twenty-five pound' is a heap o' money for such a man as you."
"It is," the wanderer asserted. "Ay, I feel that."
At twenty minutes to five that evening, Long Oliver pulled up again by the green garden-gate. William Geake from his workshop had caught the sound of the mare's hoofs three minutes before, and awaited him.
"One, two, three, four, five." The notes were counted out deliberately. Long Oliver, having been thanked, gathered up his reins and suddenly set them down again.
"Dear me," said he, "if I hadn' almost forgot! I've a letter for 'ee, too."
"Eh?"
"Iss. A kind of a sailor-like lookin' chap came up to me i' the Half Moon yard as I was a takin' out the mare. 'Do you come from Gantick?' says he, seein' no doubt Farmer Lear's name 'pon the cart. 'There or thereabouts,' says I. 'Know Mister W. Geake?' says he. 'Well,' says I. 'Then, if you're passin', I wish you'd give 'en this here letter,' says he, an' that's all 'e said."
"I wonder who 'twas," said Geake. But his face was white.
"Don't know 'en by sight. Said 'e was in a great hurry for to catch the up train. Which puts me i' mind I must be movin' on. Good-night t'ye, neighbour!"
As soon as he had turned the corner, Geake opened the letter.
* * * * *
When Naomi returned, half-an-hour later, she found him standing at the gate as if he had spent the day there: as, indeed, he might have, for all the work done to the coffin.
"I must bide up to-night an' finish that job," he said, when they were indoors and she began asking how in the world he had been spending his time. "I've been worryin' mysel' all day."
"It's those sermons agen," Naomi decided. "They do your head no good, an' I wish you'd give up preachin'."
"Now that's just what I'm goin' to do," he answered, pushing the Bible far into the shelf till its edges knocked on the wood of the skivet-drawer.
From Algernon Dexter, writer of Vers de Societe, London, to Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
My dear prince,—Our correspondence has dwindled of late. Indeed, I do not remember to have heard from you since I wrote to acknowledge your kindness in standing godfather to my boy Jack (now rising two), and the receipt of the beautiful scimitar which, as a christening present, accompanied your consent. Still I do not forget the promise you exacted from "Q." and myself after lunch at the Mitre, on the day when we took our bachelors' degrees together—that if in our paths through life we happened upon any circumstance that seemed to throw fresh light on the dark, complex workings of the human heart, or at least likely to prove of interest to a student of his fellow men, we would write it down and despatch it to you, under cover of The Negus. During the months of my engagement to Violet these communications of mine (you will allow) were frequent enough: since our marriage they have grown shamefully fewer. Possibly I lose alertness while I put on flesh: it is the natural hebetudus of happiness. "Q."—who is never seen now upon London stones—no doubt sends you a plenty of what passes for news in that parish which it is his humour to prefer to the Imperial City. But, believe me, the very finest romance is still to be had in London: and to prove this I am going to tell you a story that, upon my soul, Prince, will make you sit up.
Until last night the Seely-Hardwickes were a force in this capital. They were three,—Seely-Hardwicke himself, who owned a million or more, and to my knowledge drank Hollands and smoked threepenny Returns in his Louis Quinze library; Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke, as beautiful as the moon and clever to sinfulness; and Billy, their child, aged seven-and-a-half. To-day their whereabouts would be as difficult to find as that of the boy in Mrs. Hemans's ballad. You jump to the guess that they have lost their money. You are wrong.
It was amassed in the canned-fruit trade, which, I understand, does not fluctuate severely, though doubtless in the last instance dependent on the crops. Seely-Hardwicke and his wife were ready to lose any amount of it at cards, which accounts for a measure of their success. It had been found (with Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke) somewhere on the Pacific Slope, by a destitute Yorkshireman who had tired of driving rivets on the Clyde and betaken himself across the Atlantic, for a change, in front of a furnace some thirty-odd feet below decks. Of his adventures in the Great Republic nothing is known but this, that he drove into the silence of its central plain at the tail of a traction engine and emerged on its western shore, three years later, with a wife, a child and a growing pile. With this pile there grew a desire to spend it in his own country; and the family landed at Liverpool on Billy's sixth birthday. I think their double-barrelled name must have been invented by Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke on the voyage.
I first made Billy's acquaintance in the Row, where a capable groom was teaching him to ride a very small skewbald pony. This happened in the week after our Jack was born, when I was perforce companionless: but as soon as Violet could ride again, she too fell a victim to the red curls and seraphic face of this urchin. And so, when Billy's mother began, later in the season, to appear in the Row, Billy (now promoted to a larger pony) introduced us in his own fashion and we quickly made friends. By this time she had been "presented," and was fairly on her feet in London: and henceforward her career resembled not so much a conquest as the progress of a Roman Emperor. I am not referring to the vulgar achievements of mere wealth. Wherever these people went, to be sure, they left outposts—a Mediterranean villa, a deer forest behind the Grampians, small Saturday-to-Monday establishments beside the Thames and the North Sea, and furnished abodes on short leases near Newmarket and Ascot Heaths; not to mention nomadic trifles such as houseboats and yachts. Any one with money can purchase these, and any one having a cook can fill them with people of a sort. The quality of Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke's success was seen in this, that from the first she knew none but the right people: and though, as her circle widened, it included names of higher and yet higher lustre, yet (if I may press a somewhat confused metaphor) its rings were concentric and hardly distinct. She never, I believe, was forced to drop an old acquaintance because she had found a new one. The just estimate of our Western manners which you, my dear Prince, formed at Balliol, will enable you to grasp the singularity of such a triumph. Its rapidity, I must admit, perplexes me still. But in those old days we studied Arnold Toynbee overmuch and neglected the civilising influences of the card-table. By the time the Seely-Hardwickes took their house near Hyde Park Corner, philanthropy was beginning to stale and our leaders to perceive that the rejuvenation of society must be effected (if at all) not by bestowing money on the poor, but by losing it to the rich. Seely-Hardwicke himself was understood to spend most of his time in the City, looking after the interests of canned fruits and making small fortunes out of his redundant cash.
You will readily understand that we soon came to see little of our new acquaintances. A small private income and the trivial wage commanded by society verses in this country (so different in many respects from Abyssinia) confined us to a much narrower orbit. But we were invited pretty often to their dinners, and the notes I have given you were taken on these occasions. Last night there were potentates at Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke's—several imported, and one of British growth. To-day—but you shall hear it in the fewest words.
Three days back, Billy failed to turn up in the Row. We met his mother riding alone and asked the reason. She told us the child had a cough and something of a sore throat and she thought it wiser to keep him at home.
On the next day, and yesterday, he was still absent. In the evening we went to the Seely-Hardwicke's dance. The thing was wonderfully done. An exuberant vegetation that suggested a virgin forest was qualified by the presence of several hundred people. It was impossible to dance or to feel lonely; and our hostess looked radiant as the moon in the reflected rays of her success. We shook hands with her and were swallowed in the crowd.
About half-an-hour later, as I watched the crush from a recess beside an open window and listened to the waltz that the band was playing, Seely-Hardwicke himself thrust his way towards me. He was crumpled and perspiring copiously: but the glory of it all sat on his blunt face yet more openly than on his wife's lovely features.
"I've not been here above ten minutes," he explained. "Had to run down to Liverpool suddenly last night, and only reached King's Cross something less 'n an hour back. Quick work."
"How's Billy?" I asked, after a few commonplace words.
"Off colour, still. I went up to see him, just now: but the nurse wouldn't let him be disturbed; said he was sleepin'. Best thing for him. You'll see him out, as lively as a lark, to-morrow."
"And getting stopped, as usual, by the police for expounding his idea of a canter in the Ladies' Mile."
He laughed. "Hey? I like that. I like spirit. He looks fragile—he's like his mother for that—but they're game every inch, the pair of 'em. You may think me silly, but I don't know that I can last out this without runnin' up to have a look at him. I haven't seen him for two days."
I believe he was on the point of launching out into any number of fatherly confidences. But at this point he was claimed by an acquaintance some ten paces off; and, plunging among his guests, was lost to me.
I cannot tell you, my dear Prince, how much time elapsed between this and the arrival of the home-grown Potentate—as you must allow me to call him until we meet and I can whisper his august name. But I know that shortly after his arrival, while I still loafed in my recess and hoped that Violet would soon drift in my direction and allow herself to be taken home, the throng around me began to thin in a most curious manner. How it happened—whence it started and how it spread—I cannot tell you. Only it seemed as if something began to be whispered, and the whisper melted the crowd like sugar. Almost before I grew aware of what was happening, I could see the far side of the room, and the Potentate there by Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke's side; and could mark their faces. His was cast in a polite, but slightly rigid smile. His eyes wandered. That supernumerary sense which all his family possesses had warned him that something was wrong. Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke's face was white as chalk, though her eyes returned his smile.
At this moment Violet came towards me.
"Take me home," she commanded, but under her breath. As she said it she shivered.
"What on earth is the matter?" I demanded.
She pulled me by the sleeve. I looked up and saw a white-haired man, of military carriage, walking towards His Royal Highness. He came to a halt, a pace off, and stood as if anxious to speak. I saw also that Mrs. Seely-Hardwicke would not allow him a chance, but talked desperately. I saw groups of people, up and down the room, regarding her even as we. And then the door was flung open.
Seely-Hardwicke came running in with Billy in his arms—or rather, with Billy's body. The child had died at four that afternoon, of diphtheria.
I got Violet out of the room as soon as I could. The man's language was frightful—filthy. And his wife straightened herself up and answered him back. It was a babel of obscene Frisco curses: but I remember one clear sentence of hers from the din—
"You—, you! And d'ye thinkmyheart won't go to pieces when my stays are cut?"
* * * * *
All the way home Violet kept sobbing and crying out that she was never driven so slowly. She was convinced that some harm had happened to her own Jack. She ran up to the night-nursery at once and woke your god-child out of a healthy sleep. And he arose in his full strength and yelled.
From "Q."
Troy Town.
New Year's Eve, 1892.
MY DEAR PRINCE,—The New Year is upon us, a season which the devoutBriton sets aside for taking stock of his short-comings. I know not ifPrester John introduced this custom among the Abyssinians: but we findit very convenient here.
In particular I have been vexing myself to-day over the gradual desuetude of our correspondence. Doubtless the fault is mine: and doubtless I compare very poorly with Dexter, whose letters are bound to be bright and frequent. But Dexter clings to London; and from London, as from your own Africa,semper aliquid novi. But of Troy during these twelve months there has been little or nothing to delate. The small port has been enjoying a period of quiet which even the General Election, last summer, did not seriously disturb. As you know, the election turned on the size of mesh proper to be used in the drift-net fishery. We wore favours of red, white and blue, symbolising our hatred of the mesh favoured by Mr. Gladstone; and carried our man. Had other constituencies as sternly declined to fritter away their voting strength upon side issues, Lord Salisbury would now be in power with a solid majority at his back.
My purpose, however, is not to talk of politics, but to give you a short description of an event which has greatly excited us, and redeemed from monotony (though at the eleventh hour) the year Eighteen ninety-two. I refer to the great fire on Freethy's Quay, where Mr. Wm. Freethy has of late been improving his timber-store with a number of the newest mechanical inventions; among others, with a steam engine which operates on a circular saw, and impels it to cut up oak poles (our winter fuel) with incredible rapidity. It was here that the outbreak occurred, on Christmas Eve—of all days in the year—between five and six o'clock in the afternoon.
But I should first tell you that our town has enjoyed a long immunity from fires; and although we possess a Volunteer Fire Brigade, at once efficient and obliging, and commanded by Mr. Patrick Sullivan (an Irishman), the men have had little or no opportunity of combating their sworn foe. The Brigade was founded in the early autumn of 1873, and presented by public subscription with a handsome manual engine and a wooden house to contain it. This house, painted a bright vermilion, is a conspicuous object at the top of the hill above the town, as you turn off towards the Rope-walk. The firemen, of course, wear an appropriate uniform, with brazen helmets and shoulder-straps and a neat axe apiece, suspended in a leathern case from the waistband. But the spirit of make-believe has of necessity animated all their public exercise, if I except the 13th of April, 1879, when a fire broke out in the back premises of Mr. Tippett, carpenter. His shop was (and is) situated in the middle of the town, and in those days a narrow gatehouse gave, or rather prevented, access to the town on either side. These houses stood, one at the extremity of North Street, beside the Ferry Slip, the other at the south end of the Fore Street, where it turns the corner by the Ship Inn and mounts Lostwithiel Hill. With their low-browed arches, each surmounted by a little chamber for the toll-keeper, they recalled in an interesting manner the days when local traffic was carried on solely by means of pack-horses; but by an unfortunate oversight their straitness had been left out of account by the donors of the fire-engine, which stuck firmly in the passage below Lostwithiel Hill and could be drawn neither forwards nor back, thus robbing the Brigade of the result of six years' practice. For the engine filled up so much of the thoroughfare that the men could neither climb over nor round it, but were forced to enter the town by a circuitous route and find, to their chagrin, Mr. Tippett's premises completely gutted. For three days all our traffic entered and left the town perforce by the north side; but two years after, on the completion of the railway line to Troy, these obstructive gatehouses were removed, to give passage to the new Omnibus.
Let me proceed to the story of our more recent alarm. At twenty minutes to five, precisely, on Christmas Eve, Mr. Wm. Freethy left his engine-room by the door which opens on the Quay; turned the key, which he immediately pocketed; and proceeded towards his mother's house, at the western end of the town, where he invariably takes tea. The wind was blowing strongly from the east, where it had been fixed for three days, and the thermometer stood at six degrees below freezing. Indeed, I had remarked, early in the morning, that an icicle of quite respectable length (for a small provincial town), depended from the public water-tap under the Methodist Chapel. About twenty minutes after Mr. Freethy's departure, some children, who were playing about the Quay, observed dense volumes of smoke (as they thought) issuing from under the engine-room door. They gave the alarm. I happened to be in the street at the time, purchasing muscatels for the Christmas snap-dragon, and, after rushing up to the Quay to satisfy myself, proceeded with all haste to Mr. Sullivan, Captain of the Brigade.
I found him at tea, but behaving in a somewhat extraordinary manner. It is well known that Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan suffer occasionally from domestic disagreement, due, in great measure, to the lady's temper. Mr. Sullivan was sitting at the table with a saucer inverted upon his head, a quantity of tea-leaves matted in his iron-grey hair, and their juice trickling down his face. On hearing my alarming intelligence, he said:
"I had meant to sit there for some time; indeed, until my little boy returns with the Vicar, whom I have sent for to witness the effects of my wife's temper. I was sitting down to tea when I heard a voice in the street calling 'Whiting!'—a fish of which I am extremely fond—and ran out to procure threepenny worth. On my return, my wife here—I suppose, because she objects to clean the fish—assaulted me in the manner you behold."
With praiseworthy public spirit, however, Mr. Sullivan forewent his revenge, and, having cleansed his hair, ran with all speed to get out the fire-engine.
Returning to the Quay, at about 5 p.m., I found a large crowd assembled before the engine-room door, from which the vapour was pouring in dense clouds. The Brigade came rattling up with their manual in less than ten minutes. As luck would have it, this was just the hour when the mummers, guise dancers and darkey-parties were dressing up for their Christmas rounds; and the appearance presented by the crowd in the deepening dusk would, in less serious circumstances, have been extremely diverting. Two of the firemen wore large moustaches of burnt cork beneath their helmets, and another (who was cast to play the Turkish Knight) had found no time to remove the bright blue dye he had been applying to his face. The pumpmaker had come as Father Christmas, and the blacksmith (who was forcing the door) looked oddly in an immense white hat, a flapping collar and a suit of pink chintz with white bone buttons. He had not accomplished his purpose when I heard a shout, and, looking up the street, saw Mr. Wm. Freethy approaching at a brisk run. He is forty-three years old, and his figure inclines to rotundity. The wind, still in the east, combined with the velocity of his approach to hold his coat-tails in a line steadily horizontal. In his right hand he carried a large slice of his mother's home-made bread, spread with yellow plum jam; a semicircular excision of the crumb made it plain that he had been disturbed in his first mouthful. The crowd parted and he advanced to the door; laid his slice of bread and jam upon the threshold; searched in his fob pocket for the key; produced it; turned it in the lock; picked up his bread and jam again; opened the door; took a bite; and plunged into the choking clouds that immediately enveloped his person.
While the concourse waited, in absolute silence, the atmosphere of the engine-house cleared as if by magic, and Mr. Wm. Freethy was visible again in the converging rays of six bull's-eye lanterns held forward by six members of the Fire Brigade. One hand still held the bread and jam; the other grasped a stop-cock which he had that instant turned, shutting off the outpour of steam we had taken for smoke. Some one tittered; but the general laugh was prevented by a resounding splash. The recoiling crowd had backed against the fire-engine outside, and inadvertently thrust it over the Quay's edge into two fathoms of water!
We left it there till the tide should turn, and forming into procession, marched back through the streets. I never witnessed greater enthusiasm. I do not believe Troy held a man, woman, or child that did not turn out of doors to cheer and laugh. Presently a verse sprang up:—
"The smoke came out at Freethy's door,An' down came Sullivan with his corps.'My dears,' says Freethy,' don't 'ee pour!For the smoke be steam an' nothin' more—But what hav' 'ee done wi' the En-gine?'"
And the firemen, by shouting it as heartily as the rest, robbed the epigram of all its sting.
But the best of it, my dear Prince, was still to come. For at half-past eight (that being the time of low water) a salvage corps assembled and managed to drag the engine ashore by means of stout tackle hitched round the granite pedestal that stands on Freethy's Quay to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who landed there on the 8th of September, 1846. The guise-dancers paraded it through the streets until midnight, when they gave it over to the carollers, who fed it with buckets; and as the poor machine was but little damaged, brisk jets of water were made to salute the citizens' windows simultaneously with the season's holy songs. I, who have a habit of sleeping with my window open, received an icy shower-bath with the opening verse of "Christians, awake! Salute the Happy Morn…."
On Saturday next the Brigade assembles for a Grand Salvage Banquet in the Town Hall. There will be speeches. Accept, my dear Prince, all possible good wishes for the New Year….