Not until the afternoon had the storm moderated sufficiently to allow of Wesley and his companion returning to Porthawn. For a full hour after the fall of the rocking-stone they remained together in the shelter. They were both overcome by the horror of what they had witnessed. Happily the charred crown of branches which remained on the tree that had been struck down, after the rain had extinguished the blaze, was enough to hide the fallen stone, and that ghastly white thing that lay thrust out from beneath it like a splash of lichen frayed from the crag. But for another hour the tempest continued, only with brief intervals, when a dense and smoky greyness took the place of the blackness. It seemed as if the storm could not escape from the boundary of the natural amphitheatre in the centre of which was the mound which Wesley had used as his pulpit; and to that man whose imagination was never a moment inactive, the whole scene suggested a picture which he had once seen of the struggle of a thousand demons of the Pit, around a sanctified place, for the souls of those who were safe within the enclosure. There were the swirling black clouds every one of which let loose a fiery flying bolt, while the winds yelled horribly as any fiends that might be struggling with obscene tooth and claw, to crush the souls that were within the sacred circle. The picture had, he knew, been an allegory; he wondered if it were not possible that certain scenes in Nature might be equally allegorical. He hoped that he was not offending when he thought of this citadel of his faith—this pulpit from which he had first preached in Cornwall—being assailed by the emissaries of the Arch-enemy, and jet remaining unmoved as a tower built to withstand every assault of the foe.
The whole scene assumed in his imagination a series of fierce assaults, in all of which the enemy was worsted and sent flying over the plain; he could hear the shrieks of the disappointed fiends—the long wail of the wounded that followed every impulse; and then, after a brief interval, there came the renewed assault—the circling tumult seeking for a vulnerable point of entrance. But there it stood, that pulpit from whose height he had preached the Gospel to the thousands who had come to hear him, and had gone forth to join the forces that are evermore at conflict with the powers of evil in the world, There stood his pulpit unmoved in the midst of the tumult. He accepted the symbolism, and he was lifted up by the hope that his work sent forth from this place would live untouched by the many conflicts of time.
He was able to speak encouraging words to his companion every time the thunder passed away; and he was more than ever conscious of the happiness of having her near to him at this time. He knew that he had loved her truly; for his love had been true enough and strong enough to compel him to give her the advice that precluded his ever being able to tell her of his own feeling for her. The joy of her gracious companionship was not for him; but he would do all that in him lay to assure her happiness.
He knew that he was able to soothe her now that she had received a shock that would have been too much for most women. The horror of the mode of the man's death, quite apart from the terror of the tempest, was enough to prostrate any ordinary man or woman. It was very sweet to him to feel her cling to his arm when they crawled back to their shelter. He laid his hand tenderly upon the hand that clasped him, and he refrained from saying a word to her at that moment. When the storm had moderated in some measure he spoke to her; and he was too wise to make any attempt to turn her thoughts from the tragedy which, he knew, could not possibly fade from her mind even with the lapse of years.
“He predicted truly so far as he himself was concerned,” he said gravely. “The end came for him as he said. Poor wretch! He may have possessed all his life a curious sense beyond that allowed to others—an instinct—it may not have been finer than the instinct of a bird. I have read that one of the desert birds will fly an hundred miles to where a camel has fallen by the way. The camel itself has, we are told, an instinct that guides it to water. But I do not say that he was not an agent of evil. There is evidence to prove that sorcery can give the power to predict what seems to be the truth, but it is only a juggling of the actual truth. The manner of that poor wretch's death makes one feel suspicious. He predicted the end of the world; well, the world came to an end, so far as he was concerned. You perceive the jugglery? But his was a weak mind. He may have been lured on to his own destruction. However this may be, his end was a terrible one. I grieve that it was left for us to witness it.”
She shook her head.
“I shall never forget to-day,” she said. “I had a feeling more than once when the lightning was brighter than common, and the world seemed to shake under the rattle of the thunderclap, that the next moment would be the last.”
“There was no terror on your face—I saw it once under the fiercest flash,” said he.
“At first—ah, I scarce know how I felt,” said she. “But when I heard your words saying, 'Rock of Ages,' my fear seemed to vanish.”
“The lines ring with the true confidence that only the true Rock of Ages can inspire,” said he.
And thus he gradually led her thoughts away from the ghastly thing that she had seen, though he had begun talking to her about it. At this time the storm, which had been hurtling around the brim of the huge basin of the valley, had succeeded in its Titanic efforts to free itself from whatever influence it was held it fettered within the circle; and though the rain continued, there was only an occasional roll of thunder. The roar that now filled the valley was that of the sea. It came to them after the storm like the voice of an old friend shouting to them to be of good cheer.
And all that the preacher said to her was founded upon the text that the sea shouted for them to hear. For a time at least the horror that she had looked upon passed out of her mind; and when he pointed out to her that the rain had almost ceased, she suffered herself to be led away from their place of shelter by the further side of the central mound, without straining her eyes to see where the rocking-stone lay; she had not even a chance of noting the strangeness brought about by the disappearance of a landmark that she had seen since she was a child. But as they walked rapidly toward the little port, a cold fear took hold of her.
“Can a single cottage remain after such a storm—can anyone be left alive?” she cried, and he saw that the tears were on her face.
“Do not doubt it,” he said. “To doubt it were to doubt the goodness of God. Some men are coming toward us. I have faith that they bring us good news.”
Within a few minutes they saw that it was Mr. Hartwell and two of his men who had come in search of Wesley. Before they met, Nelly had asked how the port had fared—the boats, what of the boats?
“All's well,” was the response, and her hands clasped themselves in joy and gratitude.
Never had such a tempest been thrown on the coast, Hartwell said, but absolutely no damage had been done to building, boat, or human being. Some trees had been struck by the lighting in the outskirts of the park, and doubtless others had suffered further inland; but the fishing boats having had signs of the approach of the storm, had at once made for the shore, and happily were brought to the leeward of the little wharf before the first burst had come.
When he had told his tale he enquired if either of them had seen anything of Pritchard.
“He appeared suddenly where we saw him yesterday,” he continued, “and his cry was that we should join him in calling upon the rocks to fall on us. He would not be persuaded to take shelter, and he was seen to wander into what seemed to be the very heart of the storm.”
Wesley shook his head, and told his story.
The man whose prophecy of the end of the world had spread within certain limits a terror that was recalled by many firesides, and formed a landmark in the annals of two generations, was the only one who perished in the great thunderstorm, which undoubtedly took place within a day or two of the date assigned by him to see the destruction of the world.
John Wesley had no choice left him in the matter. His host insisted on his going into a bed that had been made as warm as his copper pan of charcoal could make it, after partaking of a spiced posset compounded in accordance with a recipe that was guaranteed to prevent the catching of a cold, no matter how definitely circumstances conspired in favour of a cold.
His garments had become sodden with rain from the waterspout at the outset of the storm, and he had been forced to sit for several hours in the same clothes. He could not hope to escape a cold unless by the help of this famous posset, the housekeeper affirmed; and she was amazed to find him absolutely docile in this matter. She had been voluble in her entreaties; but she came to the conclusion that she might have spared herself half her trouble; she had taken it for granted that she was talking to an ordinary man, who would scoff at the virtues of her posset, and then make all his friends miserable by his complaints when he awoke with a cold on him. Mr. Wesley was the only sensible man she had ever met, she declared to her master, with the sinister expression of a hope that his example of docility would not be neglected by others.
He went to bed, and after listening for some hours to the roaring of the sea, he fell asleep. The evening had scarcely come, but he had never felt wearier in all his life.
He slept for eight hours, and when he awoke he knew that he had done well to yield, without the need for persuasion, to the advice of the housekeeper. He felt refreshed in every way; and after lying awake for an hour, he arose, dressed himself, and left the house. This impulse to take a midnight walk was by no means unusual with him. He had frequently found himself the better for an hour or two spent in the darkness, especially beside the sea. Midnight was just past. If he were to remain in the air for some time, he might, he thought, be able to sleep until breakfast-time.
The night was cool, without being cold, and there was a sweet freshness in the air which had certainly been wanting when he had walked along the cliffs in the afternoon. The thunderstorm did not seem at that time to have cleared the atmosphere. He was rather surprised to find that there was such a high sea rolling at this time, and he came to the conclusion that there had been a gale while he was asleep. Clouds were still hiding the sky, but they held no rain.
He shunned the cliff track, going in the opposite direction, which led him past the village, and on to the steep sandy bay with its occasional little peninsulas of high rocks, the surfaces of which were not covered even by Spring tides. Very quiet the little port seemed at this hour. Not a light was in any window—not a sound came from any of the cottages. He stood for a long time on the little wharf looking at the silent row of cottages. That one which had the rose-bush trained over the porch was the home of the Polwheles, he knew, and he remained with his eyes fixed upon it. It seemed as if this had been the object of his walk—to stand thus in front of that house, as any youthful lover might stand beneath the lattice that he loved.
He had his thoughts to think, and he found that this was the time to think them. They were all about the girl who slept beyond that window. He wondered if he had ever loved her before this moment. If he had really loved her, how was it that he had never before been led to this place to watch the house where she lay asleep? Was it possible that he had fancied he knew her before he had passed those hours with her when the storm was raging around them? He felt that without this experience he could not possibly have known what manner of girl she was.
And now that he had come to know her the knowledge came to him with the thought that she was not for him.
He had set out in the morning feeling that perhaps he had been too hasty in coming to the conclusion that because, when far away from her he had been thinking a great deal of his own loneliness and the joy that her companionship would bring to him, he loved her. That was why he had wished to put himself to the test, and he had fancied that he was doing so when he had walked in the opposite direction to that in which the village lay so that he might avoid the chance of meeting her.
But in spite of his elaborate precautions—he actually thought that it had shown ingenuity on his part—he had met her, and he had learned without putting the question to her that she was not for him. He recalled what his feeling had been at that moment. He had fancied that he knew all that her words meant to him; but he had deceived himself; it was only now that he knew exactly the measure of what they meant to him. It seemed to him that he had known nothing of the girl before he had passed those dark hours by her side.
At that time it was as if all the world had been blotted out, only he and she being left alone.
This feeling he now knew was what was meant by loving—this feeling that there was nothing left in the world—that nothing mattered so long as he and she were together—that death itself would be welcome if only it did not sunder them.
And he had gained that knowledge only to know that they were to be sundered.
It was a bitter thought, and for a time, as he stood there with his eyes fixed upon the cottage, he felt as if so far as he was concerned the world had come to an end. The happiness which he had seen before him as plainly as if it had been a painted picture—a picture of the fireside in the home that he hoped for—had been blotted out from before his eyes, and in its stead there was a blank. It did not matter how that blank might be filled in, it would never contain the picture that had been torn away from before him when she had of her own free will told him the story of her love.
He felt the worst that any man can feel, for the worst comes only when a man cries out to himself:
“Too late—too late!”
He was tortured by that perpetual question of “Why? Why? Why?”
Why had he not come to Cornwall the previous year? Why had he not seen her before she had gone to Bristol and given her promise to the other man?
But this was only in the floodtide of his bitterness; after a space it subsided. More reasonable thoughts came to him. Who was he that he should rail against what had been ordered by that Heaven in whose ordering of things he had often expressed his perfect faith? What would he say of any man who should have such rebellious thoughts? Could this be the true love—this that made him rebel against the decree of an all-wise Providence? If it was true it would cause him to think not of his own happiness, but of hers.
Had he been thinking all the time of his own happiness? he asked himself. Had she been denied to him on this account? He feared that it was so. He recalled how he had been thinking of her, and he had many pangs of self-reproach when he remembered how in all the pictures of the future that his imagination had drawn he was the central figure. He felt that his aim had been an ignoble one. Selfishness had been the foundation of his love, and therefore he deserved the punishment that had fallen upon him.
'He continued his walk and went past the cottage on which his eyes had lingered. For a mile he strolled, lost in thought along the sandy bay, disturbing the sea birds that were wading about the shallow pools in search of shell fish. The tide was on the ebb and he walked down the little ridges of wet beach until he found himself at the edge of that broad grey sea that sent its whispering ripples to his feet. He had always liked to stand thus in winter as well as summer. Within an hour of dawn the sea seemed very patient. It was waiting for what was to come—for the uprising of the sun to turn its grey into gold.
He never failed to learn the lesson of the sea in all its moods; and now he felt strengthened by looking out to the eastern sky, though it was still devoid of light. He would have patience. He would wait and have faith. Light was coming to the world, and happy was the one to whom was given the mission of proclaiming that dawn—the coming of the Light of the World.
Even when he resumed his stroll after he had looked across the dun waters he became conscious of a change in the eastern sky. The clouds that still clung to that quarter were taking on to themselves the pallor of a pearl, and the sky edge of the sea was lined with the tender glaze that appears on the inner surface of a white shell, and its influence was felt upon the objects of the coast. The ridges of the peninsular rocks glimmered, and the outline of the whole coast became faintly seen. It was coming—the dawn for which the world was waiting was nigh. The doubts born of the night were ready to fly away as that great heron which rose in front of him fled with winnowing wings across the surface of the sea.
The first faint breath of the dawn—that sigh of light of which the air was scarcely conscious—made him aware as he walked along the sands of the fact that the beach was strewn with wreckage. He found himself examining a broken spar upon which he had struck his foot. Further on he stumbled over a hen-coop, and then again a fragment that looked like the cover of a hatchway.
He had heard nothing about a vessel's having come ashore during the tempest of the morning; but there was nothing remarkable in the sudden appearing of wreckage on this wild Cornish coast. Almost every tide washed up something that had once been part of a gallant ship. Wreckage came without anyone hearing of the wreck from which it had come. He examined the broken spar, and his fancy showed him the scene at the foundering of such a ship as theGloriana, whose carcase had been so marvellously uncovered on the Sunday evening. He had had enough experience of seafaring to be able to picture the details of the wreckage of such a ship.
He left the beach and went on to the ascent of the higher part of the shore, thinking that it might be that when the dawn strengthened it might reveal the shape of some craft that had run ashore on the outer reef at this dangerous part of the coast; and even before he reached the elevated ground the dawn light had spread its faint gauze over the sea, and the shapes of the rocks were plain. He looked out carefully, scanning the whole coast, but he failed to see any wreck between the horns of the bay.
But when he had continued his slow walk for a few hundred yards he fancied that he saw some objects that looked dark against the pale sands. At first he thought that he was looking at a rock that had some resemblance to the form of a man; but a movement of a portion of the object showed that it was indeed a man who was standing there.
Wesley had no mind for a companion on this stroll of his, so he went a short way inland in order to save himself from being seen, and he did not return to the sandy edge of the high ground until he judged that he had gone beyond the spot where he had seen the man. Turning about, he found that he had done what he intended: he saw the dark figure walking from where he had been, in the direction of the sea.
But by this time the light had so increased that he was able to see that the man was walking away from the body of another that was lying on the beach.
He had scarcely noticed this before the man stopped, looked back, and slowly returned to the body. But the moment he reached it Wesley was amazed to see him throw up his arms as if in surprise and then fling himself down on the body with his hands upon its throat.
Wesley knew nothing except that the man's attitude was that of one who was trying to strangle another. But this was surely enough. He shouted out and rushed toward the place with a menace.
The man was startled; his head went back with a jerk, but his hands did not leave the other's throat. Wesley had to drag him back by the collar, and even then he did not relax his hold until the body had been lifted up into a sitting position. The moment the man's fingers were loosed the head fell back upon the sand.
Wesley threw himself between the two, and the instant that he turned upon the assailant he recognised John Bennet.
“Wretch!” he cried, “what is it that you would do? What is it that you have done—murderer?”
Bennet stared at him as if stupefied. Then he burst into a laugh, but stopped himself suddenly.
“Mr. Wesley, is it?” he cried. “Oh, sir, is't you indeed that pulls my hands off his throat? There is something for the Devil to laugh at in that.”
“Man, if you be a man and not a fiend, would you strangle one whom the sea has already drowned?” cried Wesley.
“I have the right,” shouted Bennet, “for he would be dead by now if I had not succoured him.”
“If it be true that you saved him from an imminent death, at that time, wherefore should you strive to murder him now?” said Wesley.
“I did not see his face then—it was dark when I stumbled on him. Only when I turned about when the dawn broke I saw who he was. Go your ways, Mr. Wesley. The man is mine by every law of fair play. Stand not between us, sir, or you shall suffer for it.”
“Monster, think you that I shall obey you while a breath remains in my body? I shall withstand you to the death, John Bennet; you shall have two murders laid at your door instead of one.”
The man laughed as before. Then he said:
“That is the point where the devils begin to laugh—ho! ho! John Wesley!”
“I have heard one of them,” said Wesley.
“Oh, you fool, to stay my hand! Know you not that the man lying there is none other than he whom Nelly Polwhele has promised to marry?”
“And is not that a sufficient reason why you should do your best to save him—not take his life away?”
For more than a minute the man was too astonished to speak. At last he said:
“Is it that you are mad, John Wesley? Heard you not what I said?”
“Every word,” replied Wesley.
“You cannot have taken in my words,” the other whispered. “Think, sir, that is the foolish thing that stands between you and her—you love her—I have seen that.”
0293
“And I stand between you and him—that is enough for the present moment,” said Wesley quickly, facing the man, whom he noticed sidling round ready to leap upon the body lying on the beach.
Bennet saw that his cunning was overmatched. “Fool! I cry again,” he said in a low tone. “Would not I slay a score such as you and he for her sake? A man's soul can only be lost once, and I am ready to go to perdition for her—I have counted the cost. The best of the bargain is with me! Out of my way, sir—out of my way!”
He took a few steps back, preparing to rush at the other. Wesley kept his eyes upon him and stood with his feet firmly planted to stand against his violence. But before the man could make his rush there was sudden flash of light in his face, dazzling him and Wesley as well. The light shifted.
Wesley turned to see whence it came. There was the sound of a hard boot on the pebbles and a man's voice said:
“Avast there! Don't move a hand. I have a pistol covering ye, and a cutlash is in my belt.”
“You have come in good time, whoever you be,” said Wesley. “But you will have no need to use your weapons, sir.”
“Ay, ay, but if there's a move between ye, my gentlemen, I'll make spindrift o' your brains. Ye hear?” was the response.
The man, who had flashed his lantern upon them—the dawn was still very faint—came beside them and showed that he had not made an empty boast. Wesley perceived that he was one of the Preventive men, fully armed.
He kept the blaze of his lantern on Bennet's face and then turned it on Wesley, whom he appeared to recognise.
“In Heaven's name, sir, what's this?” he cried.
“Take no thought for us,” said Wesley. “Here lies a poor wretch washed ashore. Give me your help to bring back life to him. No moment must be lost—the loss of a minute may mean the loss of his life.”
He was already kneeling beside the prostrate figure. The Preventive man followed his example. They both exclaimed in one voice:
“He is alive!”
“God be thanked,” said Wesley solemnly. “I feared——”
“You have treated him with skill, sir,” said the man. “You did not give him a dram?”
“I have only been here a few minutes; the saving; of him from drowning is not due to me,” said Wesley.
The man had his ration of rum in his knapsack, and was administering it, Bennet standing by without a word.
“We must get help to carry him to the nearest house,” said the Preventive man.
“I shall hasten to the village,” said Wesley. But he suddenly checked himself. He knew that Ben-net's cunning would be equal to such a device as to get rid of the revenue officer for the few minutes necessary to crush the life out of the man on the sand. “No, on second thought yonder man—his name is Bennet—will do this duty. John Bennet, you will hasten to the nearest house—any house save Polwhele's—and return with at least two of the fishermen. They will come hither with two oars and a small sail—enough sailcloth to make into a hammock for the bearing of the man with ease. You will do my bidding.”
“I will do your bidding,” said Bennet after a pause, and forthwith he hurried away.
“What is all this, sir?” asked the man in a low tone when he had gone. “I heard your voice and his—he is half a madman—they had the sound of a quarrel.”
“You arrived in good time, friend,” said Wesley. “You say this man was treated with skill in his emergency; if so, it must be placed to the credit of John Bennet. I can say so much, but no more.”
“I'll ask no more from you, sir,” said the other, slowly and suspiciously. “But if I heard of Ben-net's murdering a man I would believe it sooner than any tale of his succouring one. He is a bit loose in the hatches, as the saying is; I doubt if he will bear your message, sir.”
“I shall make this sure by going myself,” said
Wesley. “I am of no help here; you have dealt with the half drowned before now.”
“A score of times—and another score to the back of the first,” said the man. “I tell you this one is well on the mend. But a warm blanket will be more to him than an anker of Jamaica rum. You do well to follow Bennet. Would the loan of a pistol be of any confidence to you in the job?”
“There will be no heed for such now, even if I knew how to use one,” said Wesley.
He perceived that the man had his suspicions. He hurried away when he had reached the track above the shingle.
It was quite light before he reached the nearest cottage, which stood about a hundred yards east of the Port Street, and belonged to a fisherman and boatwright named Garvice. The men and his sons had their tar-pot on the brazier and had already begun work on a dinghy which lay keel uppermost before them.
They looked with surprise at him when he asked if they had been long at work.
“On'y a matter o' quartern hour,” replied the old man.
“Then you must have seen John Bennet and got his message?” said Wesley.
“Seen John Bennet? Ay, ay—still mad. Message? No message i' the world. What message 'ud a hare-brainer like to 'un bear to folk wi' the five senses o' Golmighty complete?” the old man enquired.
“Do you tell me that Bennet said naught to you about a half-drowned man needing your help?” asked Wesley.
“No word. Even if so rigid a madman ha' carried that tale think ye we'd be here the now?”
“'Tis as well that I came, though I thought it cruel to distrust him,” said Wesley.
He then told the man what was needed, and before he had spoken a dozen words the old man had thrown down his tar-brush and was signalling his sons to run down one of the boats to the water.
“Paddle round in half the time takes t' walk,” he said. “No back breakin', no bone shakin 's my morter. Down she goes.”
Wesley was glad to accept a seat in the stern sheets of the small boat which was run down to the water, not twenty yards from the building shed; and when he returned with the three boatmen to that part of the coast from which he had walked, he found the man to whose aid he had come sitting up and able to say a word or two to the revenue man, who was kneeling beside him, having just taken his empty rum bottle from his mouth.
Old Garvice looked as if he felt that he had been brought from his work under false pretences. He plodded slowly across the intervening piece of beach a long way behind Mr. Wesley, and the Preventive man had reported the progress to recovery made by the other before the Garvice family had come up. The Garvices had had more than a nodding acquaintance with the revenue authorities before this morning.
“John Bennet is a bigger rascal than I thought, and that's going far,” said the Preventive man when Wesley told him that no message had been given at the Port. “If I come face to face with him, them that's nigh will see some blood-letting. Why, e'en Ned Garvice, that I've been trying to lay a trap for this twelve year, lets bygones be bygones when there's a foundered man to succour.”
“Where is 'un?” enquired the old man with pointed satire, looking round with a blank face.
The bedraggled man sitting on the beach was able to smile.
“Wish I'd had the head to bid you ask Neddy Garvice to carry hither a bottle of his French brandy—ay, the lot that you run ashore when the cutter fouled on the bank,” said the Preventive man.
“Oh, that lot? Had I got a billet from you, Freddy Wise, I'd ha' put a stoup from the kegs o' theGorgoninto my pocket,” said the old man wickedly. Mr. Wesley did not know that theGorgonwas a large ship that had come ashore the previous year, and had been stripped bare by the wreckers. “Oh, ay; theGorgonfor brandy and theBurglarmasterfor schnapps, says I, and I sticks to that object o' creed, Freddy, whatsoe'er you says.” TheBourghermeisterwas the name of another wreck whose stores the revenue men had been too slow to save some years before.
But while these pleasantries were being exchanged between the men Wesley was looking at the one in whose interests he was most concerned. He was lying with his head supported by a crag on which Fred Wise had spread his boat cloak. His face was frightfully pallid, and his forehead was like wax, only across his temple there was a long ugly gash, around which the blood had coagulated. His eyes were closed except at intervals when he started, and they opened suddenly and began to stare rather wildly. His arms hung down and his hands were lying limp on the beach palms up, suggesting the helplessness of a dead man. He was clearly a large and strongly built fellow, who could sail a ship and manage a crew, using his head as well as his hands.
The others were looking at him critically; he was so far recovered that they did not seem to think there was any imperative need for haste in the matter of carrying him to a bed; although they criticised him as if he were dead.
“Worser lads ha' gone down and heard of for nevermore,” said the old fisherman. “Did he know that Squire Trevelyan buries free of all duty all such as the sea washes up 'tween tides? That's the Vantage to be drowned on these shores; but the Squire keeps that knowledge like a solemn secret; fears there'd be a rush—they'd be jammin' one t'other amongst crags as for who'd come foremost to his own funeral.”
“Tis no secret o' gravity, Ned Garvice, that you give orders to your boys to carry you down in the cool o' the evening when you feel your hour's at hand, and lay ye out trim and tidy for the flood-tide, so that ye get a free funeral, and Parson Rodney's 'Earth t' earth' thrown into the bargain,” said Wise.
“I've learned my sons to honour their father, and it puts 'un back a long way in their 'struction to be face to face wi' 'un as has a hardened scoff for his grey hairs,” said the fisherman. “Go your ways, lads, and gather limpits so ye hear not evil words that shake your faith in your ancient father. But what I can't see is how he got them finger-marks on his neck.”
He pointed to the man on the beach.
“They ha' the aspect o' finger marks, now ha' they not, sir?” said Wise meaningly, turning to Wesley.
“My thought, friends, amounts to this: I have heard that in cases of rescue from drowning quickness is most needful for the complete restoration of the sufferer,” said Wesley. “Now, sirs, I ask you is this the moment for light gossip, when yonder poor fellow lies as if he had not an hour's life in his body?”
“There's summat i' that, too,” said old Garvice, as if a matter which he had been discussing had suddenly been presented to him in an entirely new light.
“Oh, sir,” said the Preventive man, “when a corpse has revived so far 'tis thought best that he should have a short rest; it kind o' way knits the body and soul together all the closer. The man is in no danger now, I firmly believe; but, as you say, there's no need for wasting any more time. Give us a heave under his other armpit, my lad. Heave handsomely; there's naught but a thin halfhour 'twixt him and eternity—mind that, and you won't jerk. Who's for his heels?”
The elder of Garvice's sons—a big lad of twenty—obeyed the instructions of the revenue man, and Wesley and the old fisherman went to the feet.
“'Vast hauling! Set me up on end,” said the man over whom they were bending. He spoke in a low voice and weak; he did not seem to have sufficient breath to make himself heard.
“Hear that?” said the fisherman with a sagacious wink. “There's the lightsome and blithe quarter-deck voice o' your master-mariner when warping into dock and his missus a-waitin' for 'un rosy as silk on the pier-head.'Tis then that if so be that a man's genteel, it will out.”
“'Vast jaw, my hearty!” murmured the man wearily.
“That's the tone that fills the air wi' th' smell o' salt beef for me whene'er I hears 'un—ay, sirs, salt beef more lifelike and lively than this high ship-master who I trow hath ofttimes watched a ration toddle round the cuddy table like to a guileless infant.”
“Heave all, with a will!” cried Wise, and the four men raised the other as tenderly as a bulk so considerable could be taken off the ground, and bore him with some staggering and heavy breathing, down to where the youngest of the Garvice family was keeping the dinghy afloat over the rapidly shallowing sand.
An hour later, when the day was still young, Wesley was kneeling by his bedside giving thanks to Heaven for having allowed him to participate in the privilege of saving a fellow-creature from death.
He slept for an hour or two, but awoke feeling strangely unrefreshed. But he joined Hartwell at breakfast and heard the news that the latter had acquired during his usual half-hour's stroll through the village.
After shaking his guest warmly by the hand, Hartwell cried:
“What, Mr. Wesley, was it that you did not believe you had adventure enough for one Summer's day, that you must needs fare forth in search of others before sunrise?”
Wesley laughed.
“I ventured nothing, my good friend,” he said. “I came upon the shipwrecked man by the blessing of God, in good time. I have been wondering since I rose if he had suffered shipwreck. Did you learn so much at the village—and pray hath he fully recovered himself?”
“I dare not say fully, but he has recovered himself enough to be able to tell his story,” replied Hartwell.
“And he was wrecked?”
“Only swamped at sea. He is a ship-master, Snowdon, by name, but 'twas not his own craft that went down, but only a miserable coasting ketch that ventured from Bristol port to Poole with a cargo of pottery—something eminently sinkable. Strange to say, Captain Snowdon set out from Bristol, wanting to go no further than our own port; for why? you ask. Why, sir, for a true lover's reason, which may be reckoned by some folk as no reason at all—namely a hope to get speedily by the side of his mistress, this lady being none other than our friend, the pretty and virtuous young woman known as Nelly Polwhele.”
“Ah! Nelly Polwhele?”
“None other, sir. It seems that Nelly met this good master-mariner a year ago at Bristol, and following the usage of all our swains, he falls in love with her. And she, contrary to her usage of the stay-at-home swains who piped to her, replies with love for love. But a long voyage loomed before him, so after getting her promise, he sails for the China Seas and the coast of the Great Mogul. Returning with a full heart and, I doubt not, a full pocket as well, he is too impatient to wait for the sailing of a middle-sized packet for Falmouth or Plymouth, he must needs take a passage in the first thing shaped like a boat that meant to come round the Lizard, and this was a ketch of some ten ton, that opened every seam before the seas that the hurricane of yesterday raised up in the Channel, and so got swamped when trying to run ashore on some soft ground. Nelly's shipmaster, Mr. Snowdon, must have been struggling in the water for something like four hours, and was washed up, well-nigh at the very door of the young woman's cottage, and so—well, you know more of the remainder of the story than doth any living man—not even excepting the Captain himself.”
“And the young woman—have you heard how she received her lover?” asked Wesley.
“Ah, that is the point at which Rumour becomes, for a marvel, discreetly silent,” replied Hartwell. “I suppose it is taken for granted that the theme has been dealt with too frequently by the poets to have need to be further illustrated by a fisherman's daughter. Take my word for it, sir, the young woman, despite her abundance of womanly traits, is a good and kind and true girl at heart. She hath not been spoiled by the education which she received as companion to the Squire's young ladies.”
“That was my judgment, too,” said Wesley. “I pray that the man will be a good husband to her. His worldly position as the master of an East Indiaman is an excellent one.”
“He will make her a very suitable husband,” said Hartwell. “I must confess that I have had my fears for her. She is possessed of such good looks—a dangerous possession for such a young woman, sir. These, coupled with her intimate association with the Squire's daughters, might have led her into danger. A less sensible girl would certainly be likely to set her cap at someone a good deal above her in station—a dangerous thing—very dangerous!”
“No doubt, sir. And now you are disposed to think that her happiness is, humanly speaking, assured?”
“I think that she is a very fortunate young woman, and that the man is even more fortunate still. Old Polwhele, in his whimsical way, however, protests that he wishes the man whose intent it is to rob him of his daughter, had got drowned. He grumbled about the part you played in the matter—he was very whimsical. 'What, sir,' he grumbled to me just now, 'is Mr. Wesley not content with looking after our souls—is he turning his attention to our bodies as well? Old Polwhele has a nimble wit.”
“It was not I, but John bennet, who was fortunate enough to restore the man: he treated him altogether skilfully, the revenue patrol-man told me.”
Hartwell threw up his hands in surprise. Then he frowned. He was plainly puzzled for some time. At last he said:
“Mr. Wesley, if Bennet saved that man's life he must have stumbled on him while it was yet dark—too dark to let him see the man's face.”
“But how should he know who the man was, even if he had seen his face?”
“He was acquainted with Mr. Snowdon at Bristol, and his grievance was that if Snowdon had not appeared, the girl would have accepted his own suit. Oh, yes; it must have been too dark for him to see the man's face, or it would have gone hardly with the poor fellow.”
There was a considerable pause before Wesley said:
“You are right, it was too dark to allow him to recognise the man's features. Has he been seen at the village during the morning?”
“If he has I heard nothing of it,” replied Hartwell, “it might be as well to say a word of warning to Mr. Snowdon respecting him; he is a madman, and dangerous. You do not forget the mad thing he said about you on Sunday, sir?”
“I have not forgotten it,” said Wesley in a low voice. “I have not forgotten it. I think that I shall set out upon my journey this afternoon.”
The pause that he made between his sentences was so slight as to suggest that they were actually connected—that there was some connection between the thing that Bennet had said and his own speedy departure.
His host, who was in good spirits after his walk in the early sunshine, gave a laugh and asked him in no spirit of gravity if he felt that it was necessary for him to fly lest Captain Snowdon should develop the same spirit of jealousy that had made Bennet fit for Bedlam.
Wesley shook his head and smiled.
“Need I ask your pardon for a pointless jest, sir?” cried Hartwell. “Nay, dear sir and brother, I hope you will find good reason for remaining with us for a few days still. You have had a trying time since you came, Mr. Wesley; and I do not think that you are fit to set out on so rude a journey.”
“I confess that I feel somewhat exhausted,” said Wesley, “but I have hope that an hour or two in the saddle will restore me.”
Hartwell did his best to persuade him to reconcile himself to the idea of staying in the neighbourhood for at least another day, but without success.
“I must go. I feel that I must go, grateful though I be to you for your offer of hospitality,” said Wesley.
“Then I will not say a further word. If it be a matter of feeling with you, I do not feel justified in asking you to change your intention,” said Hartwell. “I shall give orders as to your horse without delay.”
But the horse was not needed that day, nor was it likely to be needed for some time to come, for within the hour after breakfast Mr. Wesley was overcome by a shivering fit and compelled to take to his bed. It became plain that he had caught a chill—the wonder was that it had not manifested itself sooner, considering that he had sat for so long the day before in his saturated garments, and the very trying morning that he had had. Mr. Hartwell, who had some knowledge of medicine, and a considerable experience of the simpler maladies to which his miners were subject, found that he was more than a little feverish, and expressed the opinion that he would not be able to travel for a full week. Wesley, who, himself, knew enough about the treatment of disease to allow of his writing a book on the subject, agreed with him, that it was not necessary to send for a physician, who might possibly differ from both of them in his diagnosis.
For three days he remained in bed, and in spite of the fact that he would have nothing to say to the Peruvian bark which his host so strongly recommended, his feverish tendency gradually abated, and by careful nursing he was able to sit up in his room by the end of a week.
In the meantime he had many visitors, though he refrained from seeing any of them. His host told him that Miller Pendelley, Jake Pullsford, and Hal Holmes had driven more than once from Ruthallion when they heard of his illness; but of course the earliest and most constant of the enquirers after his health were Nelly Polwhele and her lover. Mr. Hartwell told him how greatly distressed they were, and perhaps it was natural, he added, that the girl should be the one who laid the greatest emphasis upon the fact that they were the cause of Mr. Wesley's suffering. She was undoubtedly a sweet and unselfish girl, Hartwell said; and he feared that Captain Snowdon thought that she was making too great a fuss in referring to the risks which he, Wesley, had run to bring her happiness. Snowdon, being a man, had not her imagination; and besides his life had been made up of running risks for the benefit of other people, and he was scarcely to be blamed if he took a less emotional view of, at least, the incident of Wesley's finding him exhausted on the shore in the early dawn.
“I spoke with him to-day,” said Hartwell when his guest was able to hear these things, “and while he certainly showed himself greatly concerned at your sickness, he grumbled, half humorously, when he touched upon the way he was being neglected by the young woman. 'I am being hardly treated, sir,' he said. 'What is a simple master-mariner at best alongsides a parson with a persuasive voice? But when the parson adds on to his other qualities the dash and derring-do of a hero it seems to me that a plain man had best get into his boat, if so be that he have one, and sail away—it boots not whither, so long as he goes. Oh, ay, sir, I allow that your Mr. Wesley hath made short work of me.' Those were his words; and though they were followed by an earnest enquiry after your health, I could see that he would as lief that he owed his life to a more ordinary man.”
“If I had not been overtaken by this sickness he would have had no cause for complaint,” said Wesley. After a pause he touched with caution upon a matter over which he had been thinking for some time.
“Mr. Snowdon heard nothing about a rival other than myself in the young woman's regard?” he said.
“Oh, not he,” replied Hartwell quickly. “Snowdon is not the fellow to listen to all that the gossips may say about Madam Nelly's liking for admiration—he knows well that so pretty a thing will be slandered, even when she shows herself to be wisely provident by seeking to have two strings to her bow. But, indeed, whatever her weakness may have been in the past, she hath been a changed girl since you first came hither. Captain Snowdon has no rival but yourself, sir, and I am certain that the honest fellow would not for the world that the young woman abated aught of her gratitude to you. He has too large a heart to harbour any thought so unworthy of a true man.”
“God forbid that anything should come between them and happiness,” said Wesley.
“'Tis all unlikely,” said his host. “He must see that her love for him must be in proportion to her gratitude to you for having done all that you have done for him. If she did not love him dearly she would have no need to be half so grateful to you.”
Wesley said nothing more on this point. He had not forgotten what Nelly had confided to him and the counsel which he had given her just before the hurricane had cut short their conversation on the cliffs. She had told him her story, confessing that the man to whom she had given her promise was less dear to her now that she was in daily expectation of meeting him after the lapse of a year than he had been when they had parted; and he had defined, in no doubtful language, the direction in which her duty lay.
For the rest of the time that they were together neither he nor she had made any reference to this matter; but he had not ceased to think upon it. After what Mr. Hartwell had said he felt reassured. He had brought himself to feel that he could only be happy if the girl's happiness were assured; and he believed that this could only be accomplished by her keeping the promise which she had given to a man who was worthy of her. However she might have fancied that her love had waned or turned in another direction during the year they had been parted, he was convinced that it would return, as true and as fresh as before, with the return of Captain Snowdon.
All that Hartwell had said bore him out in this view which he was disposed to take of the way of this maid with the man. Hartwell was a man of judgment and observation, and if there had been any division between the two people in whom they were interested, he would undoubtedly have noticed it. He had described the grievance of which Snowdon had complained in a humorous way; and Wesley knew that if the man felt that he had a grievance of the most grievous sort that can fall upon a man, he would not have referred to it in such a spirit.
And then the day came when Wesley was able to talk, without being hushed by his hospitable friend, of mounting his horse and resuming his-journey in the west. He had many engagements, and was getting daily more anxious to fulfil them before the summer should be over.
“If it rested with me, sir,” said Hartwell, “I would keep you here for another month and feel that I was the most favoured of men; but in this-matter I dare not be selfish. I know what, with God's blessing, you seek to accomplish, and I feel that to stay you from your journey would be an offence.”
“You have been more than good to me, my brother,” said Wesley. “And now in parting from, you, I do not feel as did the Apostle Paul when leaving those friends of his who sorrowed knowing that they should see his face no more. I know that your sorrow is sincere, because I know how sincere is my own, but if God is good to us we shall all meet again after a season.”
“That is what we look forward to; you have sown the good seed among us and you must return to see what your harvest will be,” said Hartwell.
They agreed that his horse was to be in readiness the next morning. This was at their noon dinner, and they had scarcely risen from the table when the maidservant entered with the enquiry if Mr. Wesley would allow Captain Snowdon to have a word with him in private.
“I was expecting this visitor,” said Hartwell. “It would be cruel for you to go away without receiving the man, albeit I think that you would rather not hear him at this time. Let me reassure you: he will not be extravagant in his acknowledgment of the debt which he owes to you; he is a sailor, and scant of speech.”
“Why should I not see him?” said Wesley. “I am not afraid to face him! even a demonstration of his gratitude. Pray let him be admitted.”
Very different indeed was the stalwart man who was shown into the room from the poor half-drowned wretch whom Wesley had helped to carry from the shore to the boat. Captain Snowdon stood over six feet—a light-haired, blue-eyed man who suggested a resuscitated Viking of the milder order, brown faced and with a certain indefinable expression of shrewd kindliness which might occasionally take the form of humour and make itself felt by a jovial slap on the back that would make most men stagger.
He was shy, and he had plainly been walking fast.
These were the two things that Wesley noticed when Hartwell was shaking hands with the man, and the latter had wiped his forehead with a handkerchief as splendid as the western cloud of a sunset in the Tropics—a handkerchief that seemed a floating section of the Empire of the Great Mogul—dazzling in red and yellow and green—a wonder of the silk loom.
“You and Mr. Wesley have already met, Mr. Snowdon,” said Hartwell with a smile, and forthwith quitted the room.
Captain Snowdon looked after him rather wistfully. He seemed to be under the impression that Mr. Hartwell had deserted him. Then he glanced with something of surprise in the direction of Wesley, and was apparently surprised to see his hand stretched out in greeting. He took the hand very gingerly and with nothing of a seaman's bluffness or vigour.
“Seeing you at this time, Captain Snowdon, makes me have a pretty conceit of myself,” said Wesley. “Yes, sir, I feel inclined to boast that I was one of the four who bore you from the high beach to the boat—I would boast of the fact only that I know I should never be believed. You do not seem to have suffered by your mishap.”
“Thank you, sir, I am a man that turns the corner very soon in matters of that sort, and then I race ahead,” replied the master-mariner.
“You have become accustomed to such accidents, sir,” said Wesley.
“Ay, sir, the salt sea and me have ever been friends, and more than once we have had a friendly tussle together, but we bear no malice therefor, neither of us—bless your heart, none whatever,” said Snowdon. “Why, the sea is my partner in trade—the sea and the wind, we work together, but you, Mr. Wesley, I grieve to see you thus, sir, knowing that 'twas on my account. What if you'd been finished off this time—wouldn't the blame fall on me? Shouldn't I be looked on as your murderer?”
“I cannot see on what principle you should, sir,” said Wesley. “In the first place the chill from which I have now, by the blessing of Heaven, fully recovered, was not due to my having been one of the four men who carried you down the beach, though I should have no trouble in getting anyone to believe that I suffered from exhaustion. No, Mr. Snowdon, I had contracted the complaint before I was fortunate enough to come upon you in my early morning's walk.”
“Anyway, sir, you earned my gratitude; though indeed, I feel as shy as a school miss to mention such a word in your presence. If I know aught of you, Mr. Wesley, and I think that I can take the measure of a man whether he be a man or a parson, if I know aught of you, sir, I repeat, you would be as uneasy to hear me talk of gratitude as I should be to make an offer to talk of the same.”
“You are right in that respect, Mr. Snowdon. Between us—men that understand each other—there need be no protestation of feeling.”
“Give me your hand, sir; you have just said what I should like to say. I feel that you know what I feel—you know that if there was any way for me to prove my gratitude——=”
“Ah, you have said the word again, and I understood that it was to be kept out of our conversation. But I am glad that you said so much, for it enables me to say that you have the means of showing your gratitude to Heaven for your preservation, and I know that you will not neglect such means. You will be a good husband to Nelly Polwhele—that is the way by which you will show how you appreciate the blessing of life!”
Captain Snowdon's face became serious—almost gloomy—as gloomy as the face of such a man can become. He made no reply for a few moments. He crossed the room and looked out of the window. Once more he pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow with that bit of the gorgeous. Orient.
Then he turned to Wesley, saying:
“Mr. Wesley, sir, I have come to you at this; time to talk about Nelly Polwhele, if I may make so bold.”
“I can hear a great deal said about Nelly Polwhele so long as it is all that is good,” said Wesley.
“I am not the man to say aught else,” said Snowdon. “Only—well, sir, the truth is I don't quite know what to make of Nelly.”
“Make her your happy wife, Captain Snowdon,” said Wesley.
“That's what I look forward to, sir; but she is not of the same way of thinking, worse luck!”
“You cannot mean that she—she—what, sir, did not she give you her promise a year ago?”
“That she did, sir; but that's a year ago. Oh, Mr. Wesley, I believe that all of her sex are more or less of a puzzle to a simple man, and in matters of love all men are more or less simple, but Nelly is more of a puzzle than them all put together.”
“How so? I have ever found her straightforward and natural—all that a young woman should be.”.
“Ay, sir; but you have not been in love with her.”
Wesley looked at him for a moment or two without a word. Then he said:
“Pray proceed, sir.”
“The truth is, Mr. Wesley, the girl no longer loves me as she did, and all this time my love for her has been growing,” said Snowdon. “Why, sir, she as good as confessed it to me no later than yesterday, when I taxed her with being changed. 'I must have another year,' she said. 'I cannot marry you now.'Twould be cruel to forsake my father and mother,' says she. 'You no longer love me, or you would not talk like that,' says I, and she hung her head. It was a clear minute before she said, 'That is not the truth, dear. How could I help loving you when I have given you my promise. All I ask is that you should not want me to marry you until I am sure of myself—another year,' says she. Now, Mr. Wesley, you are a parson, but you know enough of the affairs of mankind to know what all of this means—I know what it means, sir; it means that another man has come between us. You can easily understand, Mr. Wesley, that a well-favoured young woman, that has been educated above her station, should have her fancies, and maybe set her affections on someone that has spoken a word or two of flattery in her ear.”
“I can scarce believe that of her, Mr. Snowdon. But she was at the Bath a few months ago, and perhaps—Mr. Snowdon, do you think that any words of mine—any advice to her—would have effect?”
The sailor's eyes gleamed; he struck his left palm with his right fist.
“Why, sir, that's the very thing that I came hither to beg of you,” he cried. “I know in what esteem she holds you, Mr. Wesley; and I said to myself yesterday when I sat on the crags trying to worry out the day's work so that I might arrive at the true position of the craft that I'm a-trying to bring into haven—says I, ''Tis trying to caulk without oakum to hope to prevail against a young woman that has a fancy that she doesn't know her own mind. But in this case if there's anyone living that she will listen to 'tis Mr. Wesley.' Those was my words.”
“I cannot promise that I shall prevail with her; but I have confidence that she will at least hearken to me,” said Wesley.
“No fear about that, sir,” cried the other, almost joyfully. He took a step or two toward the door, having picked up his hat, which he stood twirling for a few moments. Then he slowly turned and faced Wesley once again.
“Mr. Wesley,” he said in a low voice. “Mind this, sir: I would not have you do anything in this matter unless you feel that 'twould be for the good of the girl. 'Tis of the girl we have to think in the first place—the girl and her happiness. We must keep that before us, mustn't we, sir? So I ask of you as a man of judgment and wisdom and piety to abstain from saying a word to her in my favour unless you are convinced that I am the man to make her happy. Look at me, sir. I tell you that I will not have the girl cajoled into marrying a man simply because she has given him her promise. What! should she have a life of wretchedness simply because a year ago she did not know her own mind?”
“Captain Snowdon, give me leave to tell you that you are a very noble fellow,” said Wesley. “The way you have acted makes me more certain than ever that Nelly Polwhele is the most fortunate young woman in Cornwall, no matter what she may think of the matter. Since I have heard you, sir, what before was a strong intention has become a duty. Hasten to Nelly and send her hither.”
The man went to the door quickly, but when there he hesitated.
“To be sure 'twould be better if you was to speak to her without her knowing that I had been with you; but we cannot help that; we are not trying to trick the girl into keeping her promise,” said he.
“The knowledge that you have been with me would make no difference to her,” said Wesley. “She knows that I would not advise her against my judgment, to please even the man who, I know, loves her truly as man could love woman.”
Captain Snowdon's broad back filled up the doorway in an instant.