CHAPTER XII
Christmas passed merrily at Bosula that year. Martha was an authority on “feasten” rites and delicacies, and Christmas was the culmination. Under her direction the brothers festooned the kitchen with ropes of holly and ivy, and hung the “kissing bush”—two barrel hoops swathed in evergreens—from the middle beam.
Supper was the principal event of the day, a prodigious spread; goose giblet pie, squab pie made of mutton, raisins and onions, and queer-shaped saffron cakes, the whole washed down with draughts of “eggy-hot,” an inspiring compound of eggs, hot beer, sugar and rum, poured from jug to jug till it frothed over.
The Bosula household sat down at one board and gorged themselves till they could barely breathe. Upon them in this state came the St. Gwithian choir, accompanied by the parish fiddler, “Jiggy” Dan, and a score or so of hangers on. They sang the sweet and simple old “curls” of the West Country, “I saw three ships come sailin’ in,” “Come and I will sing you,” “The first good joy that Mary had,” and
“Go the wayst out, Child Jesus,Go the wayst out to play;Down by God’s Holy WellI see three pretty childrenAs ever tongue can tell.”
“Go the wayst out, Child Jesus,Go the wayst out to play;Down by God’s Holy WellI see three pretty childrenAs ever tongue can tell.”
“Go the wayst out, Child Jesus,Go the wayst out to play;Down by God’s Holy WellI see three pretty childrenAs ever tongue can tell.”
“Go the wayst out, Child Jesus,
Go the wayst out to play;
Down by God’s Holy Well
I see three pretty children
As ever tongue can tell.”
Part singing is a natural art in Cornwall. The Gwithian choir sang well, reverently and without strain. Teresa, full-fed after long moderation, was in melting mood. The carols made her feel pleasantly tearful and religious. She had not been to church since the unfortunate affair with the curate, but determined she would go the very next Sunday and make a rule of it.
She gave the choir leader a silver crown and ordered eggy-hot to be served round. The choir’s eyes glistened. Eggy-hot seldom came their way; usually they had to be content with cider.
Martha rounded up the company. The apple trees must be honored or they would withhold their fruit in the coming year. Everybody adjourned to the orchard, Martha carrying a jug of cider, Bohenna armed with the flintlock, loaded nearly as full as himself. Wany alone was absent; she was slipping up the valley to the great barrow to hear the Spriggans, the gnome-miners, sing their sad carols as was the custom of a Christmas night.
The Bosula host grouped, lantern-lit, round the king tree of the orchard; Martha dashed the jug against the trunk and pronounced her incantation:
“Health to thee, good apple tree!Hatsful, packsful, great bushel-bags full!Hurrah and fire off the gun.”
“Health to thee, good apple tree!Hatsful, packsful, great bushel-bags full!Hurrah and fire off the gun.”
“Health to thee, good apple tree!Hatsful, packsful, great bushel-bags full!Hurrah and fire off the gun.”
“Health to thee, good apple tree!
Hatsful, packsful, great bushel-bags full!
Hurrah and fire off the gun.”
Everybody cheered. Bohenna steadied himself and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening roar, a yard-long tongue of flame spurted from the muzzle, Bohenna tumbled over backwards and Jiggy Dan, uttering an appalling shriek, fell on his face and lay still.
The scared spectators stooped over the fiddler.
“Dead is a?”
“Ess, dead sure ’nough—dead as last year, pore soul.”
Panegyrics on the deceased were delivered.
“A brilliant old drinker a was.”
“Ess, an’ a clean lively one to touch the strings.”
“Shan’t see his like no more.”
“His spotty sow coming to her time too—an’ a brearly loved roast sucking pig, the pretty old boy.”
Bohenna sat up in the grass and sniffed.
“There’s a brear strong smell o’ burning, seem me?”
The company turned on him reproachfully. “Thou’st shotten Jiggy Dan. Shot en dead an’ a-cold. Didst put slugs in gun by mistake, Ned?”
Bohenna scratched his head. “Couldn’t say rightly this time o’ night . . . maybe I did . . . but, look ’ee, there wasn’t no offense meant; ’twas done in good part, as you might say.” He sniffed again and stared at the corpse of his victim.
“Slugs or no seem me the poor angel’s more hot than cold. Lord love, he’s afire! . . . The wad’s catched in his coat!”
That such was the case became painfully apparent to the deceased at the same moment. He sprang to his feet and bounded round and round the group, uttering ghastly howls and belaboring himself behind in a fruitless endeavor to extinguish the smoldering cloth. The onlookers were helpless with laughter; they leaned against each other and sobbed. Teresa in particular shook so violently it hurt her.
Somebody suggested a bucket of water, between chokes, but nobody volunteered to fetch it; to do so would be to miss the fun.
“The stream,” hiccoughed Bohenna, holding his sides. “Sit ’ee down in stream, Dan, my old beauty, an’ quench thyself.”
A loud splash in the further darkness announced that the unhappy musician had taken his advice.
The apple trees fully secured for twelve months, the party returned to the kitchen, but the incident of Dan had dissipated the somewhat pious tone of the preceding events. Teresa, tears trickling down her cheeks, set going a fresh round of eggy-hot. Ortho pounced on Tamsin Eva, the prettiest girl in the room, carried her bodily under the kissing bush and saluted her again and again. Other men and boys followed suit. The girls fled round the kitchen in mock consternation, pursued by flushed swains, were captured and embraced, giggling and sighing. Jiggy Dan, sniffing hot liquor as a pointer sniffs game, limped, dripping, in from the stream, was given an old petticoat of Martha’s to cover his deficiencies, a pot of rum, propped up in a corner and told to fiddle for dear life. The men, headed by Ortho, cleared the kitchen of furniture, and then everybody danced old heel and toe country dances, skipped, bowed, sidled, passed up and down the middle and twirled around till the sweat shone like varnish on their scarlet faces.
The St. Gwithian choir flung themselves into it heart and soul. They were expected at Monks Cove to sing carols, were overdue by some hours, but they had forgotten all about that.
Teresa danced with the best, with grace and agility extraordinary in a woman of her bulk. She danced one partner off his feet and all but stunned another against the corner of the dresser, bringing most of the crockery crashing to earth. She then produced that relic of her vagabondage, the guitar, and joined forces with Jiggy Dan.
The fun became furious. The girls shook the tumbled hair from their eyes, laughed roguishly; the men whooped and thumped the floor with their heavy boots. Jiggy Dan, constantly primed with rum by the attentive Martha, scraped and sawed at his fiddle, beating time with his toe. Teresa plucked at the guitar till it droned and buzzed like a hive of melodious bees. Occasionally she sang ribald snatches. She was in high feather, the reaction from nine months’ abstinence. The kitchen, lit by a pile of dry furze blazing in the open hearth, grew hotter and hotter.
The dancers stepped and circled in a haze of dust, steaming like overdriven cattle. Eli alone was out of tune with his surroundings. The first effects of the drink had worn off, leaving him with a sour mouth and slightly dizzy. The warmer grew the others, the colder he became.
He scowled at the junketers from his priggish altitude and blundered bedward to find it already occupied by the St. Gwithian blacksmith, who, dark with the transferable stains of his toil, lay sprawled across it, boots where his head should have been. Eli rolled the unconscious artificer to the floor (an act which in no way disturbed that worthy’s slumbers) and turned in, sick and sulky.
With Ortho, on the other hand, things were never better. He had not drunk enough to cloud him and he was getting a lot of fun out of Tamsin Eva and her “shiner.” Tamsin, daughter of the parish clerk, was a bronze-haired, slender creature with a skin like cream and roses and a pretty, timid manner. Ortho, satiated with swarthy gypsy charmers, thought her lovely and insisted upon dancing with her for the evening. That her betrothed was present and violently jealous only added piquancy to the affair. The girl was not happy—Ortho frightened her—but she had not enough strength of mind to resist him. She shot appealing glances at her swain, but the boy was too slow in his movements and fuddled with unaccustomed rum. The sober and sprightly Ortho cut the girl out from under his nose time and time again. Teresa, extracting appalling discords from the guitar, noted this by-play with gratification; this tiger cub of hers promised good sport.
Towards one o’clock the supply of spirituous impulse having given out, the pace slackened down. Chastened husbands were led home by their wives. Single men tottered out of doors to get a breath of fresh air and did not return, were discovered at dawn peacefully slumbering under mangers, in hen roosts and out-of-the-way corners. Tamsin Eva’s betrothed was one of these. He was entering the house fired with the intention of wresting his lass from Ortho and taking her home when something hit him hard on the point of the jaw and all the lights went out. He woke up next morning far from clear as to whether he had blundered into the stone door post or somebody’s ready fist. At all events it was Ortho who took Tamsin home.
Teresa fell into a doze and had an uncomfortable dream. All the people she disliked came and made faces at her, people she had forgotten ages ago and who in all decency should have forgotten her. They flickered out of the mists, distorted but recognizable, clutched at her with hooked fingers, pressed closer and closer, leering malevolently. Teresa was dismayed. Not a friend anywhere! She lolled forward, moaning, “John! Oh, Jan!” Jiggy Dan’s elbow hit her cheek and she woke up to an otherwise empty kitchen filled with the reek of burnt pilchard oil, a dead hearth, and cold night air pouring in through the open door. She shuddered, rubbed her sleepy lids and staggered, yawning, to bed.
Jiggy Dan, propped up in the corner, fiddled on, eyes sealed, mind oblivious, arm sawing mechanically.
They found him in the morning on the yard muck heap, Martha’s petticoat over his head, fiddle clasped to his bosom, back to back with a snoring sow.
The Christmas festivities terminated on Twelfth Night with the visit of goose dancers from Monks Cove, the central figure of whom was a lad wearing the hide and horns of a bullock attended by other boys dressed in female attire. Horse-play and crude buffoonery was the feature rather than dancing, and Teresa got some more of her crockery smashed.
Next morning Eli went to Helston for his last term and Ortho took off his coat.
When Eli came home at midsummer he could hardly credit his eyes. Ortho had performed miracles. Very wisely he had not attempted to fight back the moor everywhere, but had concentrated, and the fields he had put in crop were done thoroughly, deep-plowed, well manured and evenly sown—Penaluna could not make a better show.
The brothers walked over the land on the evening of Eli’s return; everywhere the young crops stood up thick and healthy, pushing forwards to fruition. Ortho glowed with justifiable pride, talked farming eagerly. He and Ned had given the old place a hammering, he said. By the Holy they had! Mended the buildings, whitewashed the orchard trees, grubbed, plowed, packed ore-weed and sea-sand, harrowed and hoed from dawn-blink to star-wink, day in, day out—Sundays included. But they’d get it all back—oh, aye, and a hundredfold.
Eli had been in the right; agriculture was the thing—the good old soil! You put in a handful and picked up a bushel in a few months. Cattle—pah! One cow produced but one calf per annum and that was not marketable for three or four years. No—wheat, barley and oats forever!
Now Eli was home they could hold all they’d got and reclaim a field or so a year. In next to no time they’d have the whole place waving yellow from bound to bound. Ortho even had designs on the original moor, saw no reason why they should not do their own milling in time—they had ample water power. He glowed with enthusiasm. Eli’s cautious mind discounted much of these grandiose schemes, but his heart went out to Ortho; the mellowing fields before him had not been lightly won.
Ortho was as lean as a herring-bone, sweated down to bare muscle and sinew. His finger nails were broken off short, his hands scarred and calloused, his face was torn with brambles and leathern with exposure. He had fought a good fight and was burning for more. Oh, splendid brother!
Ned Bohenna was loud in Ortho’s praise. He was a marvel. He was quicker in the uptake than even John had been and no work was too hard for him. The old hind was most optimistic. They had seeded a fine area and crops were looking famous. Come three years at this pace the farm would be back where it was at John’s death, the pick of the parish.
For the rest, there was not much news. Martha had been having the cramps severely of late and Wany was getting whister than ever. Said she was betrothed to a Spriggan earl who lived in the big barrow. He had promised to marry her as soon as he could get his place enlarged—he, he!
There had been a sea battle fought with gaffs and oars off the Gazells between Jacky’s George and a couple of Porgwarra boats. Both sides accused each other of poaching lobster pots. Jacky’s George sank a Porgwarra boat by dropping a lump of ballast through her—and then rescued the crew. They had seen a lot of Pyramus Herne, altogether too much of Pyramus Herne. He had come down with a bigger mob of horses and donkeys than usual and grazed them all over the farm—after dark. Seeing the way he had befriended Ortho, they could not well say much to him, especially as they had grass to spare at present; but it could not go on like that.
Eli buckled to beside the others. They got the hay in, and, while waiting for the crops to ripen, pulled down a bank (throwing two small fields into one), rebuilt a couple more, cleaned out the orchard, hoed the potatoes and put a new roof on the stables. They were out of bed at five every morning and into it at eight of an evening, dead-beat, soiled with earth and sweat, stained with sun and wind. They worked like horses, ate like wolves and slept like sloths.
Ortho led everywhere. He was first afoot in the morning, last to bed at night. His quick mind discerned the easiest way through difficulties, but when hard labor was inevitable he sprang at it with a cheer. His voice rang like a bugle round Bosula, imperious yet merry. He was at once a captain and a comrade.
Under long days of sunshine and gentle drenches of rain the crops went on from strength to strength. It would be a bumper year.
Then came the deluge. Wany, her uncanny weather senses prickling, prophesied it two days in advance. Bohenna was uneasy, but Ortho, pointing to the serene sky, laughed at their fears. The next day the heat became oppressive, and he was not so sure. He woke at ten o’clock that night to a terrific clap of thunder, sat up in bed, and watched the little room flashing from black to white from the winks of lightning, his own shadow leaping gigantic across the illuminated wall; heard the rain come up the valley, roaring through the treetops like surf, break in a cataract over the Owls’ House and sweep on. “This’ll stamp us out . . . beat us flat,” he muttered, and lay wondering what he should do, if there was anything to do, and as he wondered merciful sleep came upon him, weary body dragging the spirit down with it into oblivion.
The rain continued with scarcely less violence for a week, held off for two days and came down again. August crept out blear-eyed and draggle-tailed.
The Penhales saved a few potatoes and about one-fifth of the cereals—not enough to provide them with daily bread; they would actually have to buy meal in the coming year. Bohenna, old child of the soil, took the calamity with utter calm; he was inured to these bitter caprices of Nature. Ortho shrugged his shoulders and laughed. It was nobody’s fault, he said; they had done all they could; Penaluna had fared no better. The only course was to whistle and go at it again; that sort of thing could hardly happen twice running. He whistled and went at it again, at once, breaking stone out of a field towards Polmenna, but Eli knew that for all his brave talk the heart was out of him. There was a lassitude in his movements; he was merely making a show of courage.
Gradually he slowed down. He began to visit the Kiddlywink of a night, and lay abed long after sunrise.
At the end of October a fresh bolt fell out of the blue. The Crowan tin works, in which the Penhale money was invested, suddenly closed down. It turned out that they had been running at a loss for the last eight months in the hope of striking a new lode, a debt of three hundred pounds had been incurred, the two other shareholders were without assets, so, under the old Cost Book system current in Cornish mining, Teresa was liable for the whole sum.
She was at first aghast, then furious; swore she’d have the law of the defaulters and hastened straightway into Penzance to set her lawyer at them. Fortunately her lawyer was honest; she had no case and he told her so. When she returned home she was confronted by her sons; they demanded to know how they stood. She turned sulky and refused details, but they managed to discover that there was not five pounds in the house, that there would be no more till the Tregors rent came in, and even then was pledged to money-lenders and shop-keepers—but as to the extent of her liabilities they could not find out. She damned them as a pair of ungrateful whelps and went to bed as black as thunder.
Ortho had a rough idea as to the houses Teresa patronized, so next day the brothers went to town, and after a door to door visitation discovered that she owed in the neighborhood of four hundred pounds! Four plus three made seven—seven hundred pounds! What was it to come from? The Penhales had no notion. By selling off all their stock they might possibly raise two hundred. Two hundred, what was that? A great deal less than half. Their mother would spend the rest of her life in a debtor’s prison! Oh, unutterable shame!
They doddered about Penzance, sunk in misery. Then it occurred to Ortho to consult the lawyer. These quill-driving devils were as cunning as dog foxes; what they couldn’t get round or over they’d wriggle through.
The lawyer put them at their ease at once. Mortgage Bosula or Tregors . . . nothing simpler. Both strong farms should produce the required sum—and more. He explained the system, joined his finger-tips and beamed at the pair over the top.
The brothers shifted on their chairs and pronounced for Tregors simultaneously. The lawyer nodded. Very well then. As soon as he got their mother’s sanction he would set to work. Ortho promised to settle his mother and the two left.
Ortho had no difficulty with Teresa. He successfully used the hollow threat of a debtor’s prison to her, for she had been in a lock-up several times during her roving youth and had no wish to return.
Besides she was sick of debt, of being pestered for money here, there and everywhere.
She gave her consent readily enough, and within a fortnight was called upon to sign.
Carveth Donnithorne, the ever-prospering ship chandler of Falmouth, was the mortgagee; nine hundred and fifty pounds was the sum he paid, and very good value it was.
Teresa settled the Crowan liabilities with the lawyer, and, parading round the town, squared all her other accounts in a single afternoon. She did it in style, swept into the premises of those who had pressed her, planked her money down, damned them for a pack of thieves and leeches, swore that was the end of her custom and stamped majestically out.
She finished up in a high state of elation. She had told a number of her enemies exactly what she thought of them, was free of debt and had a large sum of ready money in hand again—two hundred and fifty pounds in three canvas bags, the whole contained in a saddle wallet.
Opposite the market cross she met an old crony, a retired ship captain by the name of Jeremiah Gish, and told him in detail what she had said to the shop-keepers. The old gentleman listened with all his ears. He admired Teresa immensely. He admired her big buxom style, her strength, her fire, but most of all he revered her for her language. Never in forty years seafaring had he met with such a flow of vituperation as Teresa could loose when roused, such range, such spontaneity, such blistering invention. It drew him like music. He caught her affectionately by the arm, led her to a tavern, treated her to a pot of ale and begged her to repeat what she had said to the shop-keepers.
Teresa, nothing loth, obliged. The old tarpaulin listened rapt, nodded his bald head in approval, an expression on his face of one who hears the chiming of celestial spheres.
A brace of squires jingled in and hallooed to Teresa. Where had she been hiding all this time? The feasten sports had been nothing without her. She ought to have been at Ponsandane the week before. They had a black bull in a field tied to a ship’s anchor. The ring parted and the bull went loose in the crowd with two dogs hanging on him. Such a screeching and rushing you never did see! Old women running like two-year-olds and young women climbing like squirrels and showing leg. . . . Oh, mercy! The squire hid his face in his hands and gulped.
Teresa guffawed, took a pound out of one of the bags, strapped up the wallet again and sat on it. Then she called the pot boy and ordered a round of drinks. To blazes with economy for that one evening!
The company drank to her everlasting good health, to her matchless eyes and cherry lips. One squire kissed her; she boxed his ears—not too hard. He saluted the hand that smote him. His friend passed his arm round her waist—she let it linger.
Jerry Gish leaned forward and tapped her on the knee. “Tell ’em what you said to that draper, my blossom—ecod, yes, and to the Jew . . . tell ’em.”
Once more Teresa obliged. The company applauded. Very apt; that was the way to talk to the sniveling swine! But her throat must be dry as a brick. They banged their pots. “Hey, boy! Another round, damme!”
Other admirers drifted in and greeted Teresa with warmth. Where had she been all this time? They had missed her sorely. There was much rejoicing among the unjust over one sinner returned.
Teresa’s soul expanded as a sunflower to the sun. They were all old friends and she was glad to be with them again. Twice more for the benefit of newcomers did Captain Gish prevail on her to repeat what she had said to her creditors, and by general request she sang three songs. The pot boy ran his legs off that night.
Towards eleven p. m. she shook one snoring admirer from her shoulder, removed the hand of another from her lap, dropped an ironical curtsey to the prostrate gentlemen about her and, grasping the precious wallet, rocked unsteadily into the yard. She had to rouse an ostler to girth her horse up for her, and her first attempts at mounting met with disaster, but she got into the saddle at last, and once there nothing short of gunpowder could dislodge her. Her lids were like lead; drowsiness was crushing her. She kept more or less awake until Bucca’s Pass was behind, but after that she abandoned the struggle and sleep swallowed her whole.
She was aroused at Bosula gate by the barking of her own dogs, unstrapped the wallet, turned the roan into the stable as it stood, and staggered upstairs. Five minutes later she was shouting at the top of her lungs. She had been robbed; one of the hundred pound bags was missing!
The household ran to her call. When had she missed it? Who had she been with? Where had she dropped it? Teresa was not clear about anything. She might have dropped it anywhere between Penzance and home, or again she might have been robbed in the tavern or the streets. The point was that she had lost one hundred pounds and they had got to find it—now, at once! They were to take the road back, ransack the town, inform the magistrates. Out with them! Away!
Having delivered herself, she turned over and was immediately asleep.
Ortho went back to bed. He would go to Penzance if necessary, he said, but it was useless before dawn. Let the others look close at home first.
Wany and Martha took a lantern and prodded about in the yard, clucking like hens. Eli lit a second lantern and went to the stable. Perhaps his mother had dropped the bag dismounting. He found the roan horse standing in its stall, unsaddled it, felt in the remaining wallet, turned over the litter—nothing. As he came out he noticed that the second horse was soaking wet. Somebody had been riding hard, could only have just got in before Teresa. Ortho of course. He wondered what his brother was up to. After some girl probably . . . he had heard rumors.
Martha reported the yard bare, so he followed the hoof tracks up the lane some way—nothing.
Ortho was up at dawn, ready to go into town, but Teresa, whose recuperative powers were little short of marvelous, was up before him and went in herself. She found nothing on the road and got small consolation from the magistrates.
People who mixed their drinks and their company when in possession of large sums of ready money should not complain if they lost it. She ought to be thankful she had not been relieved of the lot. They would make inquiries, of course, but held out no hope. There was an officer with a string of recruits in town, an Irish privateer and two foreign ships in the port, to say nothing of the Guernsey smugglers—the place was seething with covetous and desperate characters. They wagged their wigs and doubted if she would ever see her money again.
She never did.
CHAPTER XIII
Some three weeks after Teresa’s loss Eli found his brother in the yard fitting a fork-head to a new haft.
“Saw William John Prowse up to Church-town,” said he. “He told me to tell you that you must take the two horses over to once because he’s got to go away.”
Ortho frowned. Under his breath he consigned William John Prowse to eternal discomfort. Then his face cleared.
“I’ve been buying a horse or two for Pyramus,” he remarked casually. “He’ll be down along next week.”
Eli gave him a curious glance. Ortho looked up and their eyes met.
“What’s the matter?”
“It was you stole that hundred pounds from mother, I suppose.”
Ortho started and then stared. “Me! My Lord, what next! Me steal that . . . well, I be damned! Think I’d turn toby and rob my own family, do you? Pick my right pocket to fill my left? God’s wrath, you’re a sweet brother!”
“I do think so, anyhow,” said Eli doggedly.
“How? Why?”
“ ’Cos King Herne can do his own buying and because on the night mother was robbed you were out.”
Ortho laughed again. “Smart as a gauger, aren’t you? Well, now I’ll tell you. William John let me have the horses on trust, and as for being out, I’m out most every night. I’d been to Churchtown. I’ve got a sweetheart there, if you must know. So now, young clever!”
Eli shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
“Don’t you believe me?” Ortho called.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cos ’tis well known William John Prowse wouldn’t trust his father with a turnip, and that Polly mare hadn’t brought you two miles from Gwithian. She’d come three times that distance and hard. She was as wet as an eel; I felt her.”
Ortho bit his lip. “So ho, steady!” he called softly. “Come round here a minute.”
He led the way round the corner of the barn and Eli followed. Ortho leaned against the wall, all smiles again.
“See here, old son,” said he in a whisper, “you’re right. I did it. But I did it for you, for your sake, mind that.”
“Me!”
Ortho nodded. “Surely. Look you, in less than two years Tregors and this here place fall to me, don’t they?”
“Yes,” said Eli.
Ortho tapped him on the chest. “Well, the minute I get possession I’m going to give you Tregors, lock, stock and barrel. That’s the way father meant it, I take it—only he didn’t have time to put it in writing. But now Tregors is in the bag, and how are we going to get it out if mother will play chuck-guinea like she does?”
“So that’s why you stole the money?”
“That’s why—and, harkee, don’t shout ‘stole’ so loud. It ain’t stealing to take your own, is it?” Ortho whistled. “My Lord, I sweated, Eli! I thought some one would have it before I did. The whole of Penzance knew she’d been about town all day with a bag of money, squaring her debts and lashing it about. To finish up she was in a room at the ‘Star’ with a dozen of bucks, all of ’em three sheets in the wind and roaring. I seen them through a chink in the shutters and I tell you I sweated blood. But she’s cunning. When she sat down she sat on the wallet and stopped there. It would have taken a block and tackle to pull her off. I went into the ‘Star’ passage all muffled up about the face like as if I had jaw-ache. The pot boy came along with a round of drinks for the crowd inside. ‘Here, drop those a minute and fetch me a dash of brandy for God Almighty’s sake,’ says I, mumbling and talking like an up-countryman. ‘I’m torn to pieces with this tooth. Here’s a silver shilling and you can keep the change if you’re quick. Oh, whew! Ouch!’
“I tossed him the shilling—the last I’d got—and he dropped the pots there and then and dived after the brandy. I gave the pots a good dusting with a powder Pyramus uses on rogue horses to keep ’em quiet while he’s selling ’em. Then the boy came back. I drank the brandy and went outside again and kept watch through the shutters. It worked pretty quick; what with the mixed drinks they’d had and the powder, the whole crew was stretched snoring in a quarter hour. But not she. She’s as strong as a yoke of bulls. She yawned a bit, but when the others went down she got up and went after her horse, taking the wallet along. I watched her mount from behind the rain barrel in the yard and a pretty job she made of it. The ostler had to heave her up, and the first time she went clean over, up one side and down t’other. Second time she saved herself by clawing the ostler’s hair and near clawed his scalp off; he screeched like a slit pig.
“I watched that ostler as well, watched in case he might chance his fingers in the wallet, but he didn’t. She was still half awake and would have brained him if he’d tried it on. A couple of men—stranded seamen, I think—came out of an alley by the Abbey and dogged her as far as Lariggan, closing up all the time, but when they saw me behind they gave over and hid in under the river bank. She kept awake through Newlyn, nodding double. I knew she couldn’t last much longer—the wonder was she had lasted so long. On top of Paul Hill I closed up as near as I dared and then went round her, across country as hard as I could flog, by Chyoone and Rosvale.
“A dirty ride, boy; black as pitch and crossed with banks and soft bottoms. Polly fell down and threw me over her head twice . . . thought my neck was broke. We came out on the road again at Trevelloe. I tied Polly to a tree and walked back to meet ’em. They came along at a walk, the old horse bringing his cargo home like he’s done scores of times.
“I called his name softly and stepped out of the bushes. He stopped, quiet as a lamb. Mother never moved; she was dead gone, but glued to the saddle. She’s a wonder. I got the wallet open, put my hand in and had just grabbed hold of a bag when Prince whinnied; he’d winded his mate, Polly, down the road. You know how it is when a horse whinnies; he shakes all through. Hey, but it gave me a start! It was a still night and the old brute sounded like a squad of trumpets shouting ‘Ha!’ like they do in the Bible. ‘Ha, ha, ha, he, he, he!’
“I jumped back my own length and mother lolled over towards me and said soft-like, ‘Pass the can around.’ ”
“That’s part of a song she sings,” said Eli, “a drinking song.”
Ortho nodded. “I know, but it made me jump when she said it; she said it so soft-like. I thought the horse had shaken her awake, and I ran for dear life. Before I’d gone fifty yards I knew I was running for nothing, but I couldn’t go back. It was the first time I’d sto . . . I’d done anything like that and I was scared of Prince whinnying again. I ran down the road with the old horse coming along clop-clop behind me, jumped on Polly and galloped home without looking back. I wasn’t long in before her as it was.” He drew a deep breath. “But I kept the bag and I’ve got it buried where she won’t find it.” He smiled at his own cleverness.
“What are you going to do with the money?” Eli asked.
“Buy horses cheap and sell ’em dear. I learnt a trick or two when I was away with Pyramus and I’m going to use ’em. There’s nothing like it. I’ve seen him buy a nag for a pound and sell it for ten next week. I’m going to make Pyramus take my horses along with his. They’ll be bought as his, so that people won’t wonder where I got the money, and they’ll go up-country and be sold with his—see? I’ve got it all thought out.”
“But will Pyramus do it?”
Ortho clicked his even white teeth. “Aye, I reckon he will . . . if he wants to winter here again. How many two-pound horses can I buy for a hundred pounds?”
“Fifty.”
“And fifty sold at ten pounds each, how much is that?”
“Five hundred pounds.”
“How long will it take me to pay off the mortgage at that rate?”
“Two years . . . at that rate. But there’s the interest too, and . . .”
Ortho smote him on the back. “Oh, cheerily, old long-face, all’s well! The rent’ll pay the interest, as thou thyself sayest, and I’ll fetch in the money somehow. We’ll harvest a mighty crop next season and the horses’ll pay bags full. In two years’ time I’ll put my boot under that fat cheese-weevil Carveth and you shall ride into Tregors like a king. If only I could have got hold of that second hundred! You don’t know where mother hides her money, do you?”
“No.”
“No more do I . . . but I will. I’ll sit over her like a puss at a mouse hole. I’ll have some more of it yet.”
“Leave it alone,” said Eli; “she’s sure to find out and then there’ll be the devil to pay. Besides, whatever you say about it being our money it don’t seem right. Leave it be.”
Ortho threw an arm about his neck and laughed at him.
Pyramus Herne arrived on New Year’s Eve and was not best pleased when Ortho announced his project. He had no wish to be bothered with extra horses that brought no direct profit to himself, but he speedily recognized that he had a new host to deal with, that young Penhale had cut his wisdom teeth and that if he wanted the run of the Upper Keigwin Valley he’d have to pay for it. So he smiled his flashing smile and consented, on the understanding that he accepted no responsibility for any mishap and that Ortho found his own custom. The boy agreed to this and set about buying.
He picked up a horse here and there, but mainly he bought broken-down pack mules from the mines round St. Just. He bought wisely. His purchases were a ragged lot, yet never so ragged but that they could be patched up. When not out looking for mules he spent practically all his time in the gypsy camp, firing, blistering, trimming misshapen hoofs, shotting roarers, filing and bishoping teeth. The farm hardly saw him; Eli and Bohenna put the seed in.
Pyramus left with February, driving the biggest herd he had ever taken north. This, of course, included Ortho’s lot, but the boy had not got fifty beasts for his hundred pounds—he had got thirty-three only—but he was still certain of making his four hundred per cent, he told Eli; mules were in demand, being hardy, long-lived and frugal, and his string were in fine fettle. With a few finishing touches, their blemishes stained out, a touch of the clippers here and there, a pinch of ginger to give them life, some grooming and a sleek over with an oil rag, there would be no holding the public back from them. He would be home for harvest, his pockets dribbling gold.
He went one morning before dawn without telling Teresa he was going, jingled out of the yard, dressed in his best, astride one of Pyramus’ showiest colts. His tirade against gypsy life and his eulogy of the delights of home, delivered to Eli on his return from his first trip with Pyramus, had been perfectly honest. He had had a rough experience and was played out.
But he was tired no longer. He rode to join Pyramus, singing the Helston Flurry Song:
“Where are those Span-i-ardsThat made so brave a boast—O?They shall eat the gray goose featherAnd we will eat the roast—O.”
“Where are those Span-i-ardsThat made so brave a boast—O?They shall eat the gray goose featherAnd we will eat the roast—O.”
“Where are those Span-i-ardsThat made so brave a boast—O?They shall eat the gray goose featherAnd we will eat the roast—O.”
“Where are those Span-i-ards
That made so brave a boast—O?
They shall eat the gray goose feather
And we will eat the roast—O.”
Eli, leaning over the gate, listened to the gay voice dwindling away up the valley, and then turned with a sigh.
Dawn was breaking, the mists were rolling up, the hills loomed gigantic in the half-light, studded with granite escarpments, patchworked with clumps of gorse, thorn and bracken—his battlefield.
Ortho had gone again, gone singing to try his fortune in the great world among foreign multitudes. For him the dour grapple with the wilderness—and he was glad of it. He disliked foreigners, disliked taking chances. Here was something definite, something to lock his teeth in, something to be subdued by sheer dogged tenacity. He broke the news that Ortho had gone gypsying again that evening at supper.
Teresa exploded like a charge of gun-powder. She announced her intention of starting after her son at once, dragging him home and having Pyramus arrested for kidnapping. Then she ramped up and down the kitchen, cursing everybody present for not informing her of Ortho’s intentions. When they protested that they had been as ignorant as herself, she damned them for answering her back.
Eli, who came in for most of her abuse, slipped out and over the hill to Roswarva, had a long farming talk with Penaluna and borrowed a pamphlet on the prevention of wheat diseases.
The leggy girl Mary sat in a corner sewing by the light of a pilchard chill and saying never a word. Just before Eli left she brought him a mug of cider, but beyond drinking the stuff he hardly noticed the act and even forgot to thank her. He found Teresa sitting up for him. She had her notched sticks and the two remaining money bags on the table in front of her. She looked worried.
“Here,” she growled as her younger son entered. “Count this.” Eli counted. There was a round hundred pounds in the one bag and thirty-one pounds, ten shillings and fourpence in the other. He told her.
“There was fifty,” said she. “How much have I spent then?”
“Eighteen pounds, ten shillings and eightpence.” Eli made a demonstration on his fingers.
Teresa’s black eyebrows first rose and then crumpled together ominously.
“Eighteen!” she echoed, and began to tick off items on her own fingers, mumbling sotto voce. She paused at the ninth finger, racked her brains for forgotten expenditures and began the count over again.
Eli sat down before the hearth and pulled his boots off. He could feel his mother’s suspicious eyes on him. Twice she cleared her throat as if to speak, but thought better of it. He went to bed, leaving her still bent over the table twiddling her notched stick. Her eyes followed him up the stairs, perplexed, angry, with a hot gleam in them like a spark in coal.
So Ortho had found her hiding place after all and had robbed her so cleverly that she was not perfectly sure she had been robbed. Eli tumbled into bed wishing his brother were not quite so clever. He fell asleep and had a dream in which he saw Ortho hanging in chains which creaked as they swung in the night winds.
Scared by the loss of her money, Teresa had another attack of extravagant economy during which the Tregors lease fell in. She promptly put up the rent; the old tenant refused to carry on and a new one had to be found. An unknown hind from Budock Water, near Falmouth, accepted the terms.
Teresa congratulated herself on a bright stroke of business and all went on as before.
Eli and Bohenna worked out early and late; the weather could not have been bettered and the crops promised wonders. Eli, surveying the propitious fields, was relieved to think Ortho would be back for harvest, else he did not know how they would get it home.
No word had come from the wanderer. None was expected, but he was sure to be back for August; he had sworn to be. Ortho was back on the fourth of July.
Eli came in from work and, to his surprise, found him sitting in the kitchen relating the story of his adventures. He had a musical voice, a Gallic trick of gesticulation and no compunction whatever about laughing at his own jokes. His recital was most vivacious.
Even Teresa guffawed—in spite of herself. She had intended to haul Master Ortho over an exceedingly hot bed of coals when he returned, but for the moment she could not bring herself to it. He had started talking before she could, and his talk was extremely diverting; she did not want to interrupt it. Moreover, he looked handsomer than ever—tall, graceful, darkly sparkling. She was proud of him, her mother sense stirred. He was very like herself.
From hints dropped here and there she guessed he had met with not a few gallant episodes on his travels and determined to sit up after the others had gone to bed and get details out of him. They would make spicy hearing. Such a boy must be irresistible. The more women he had ruined the better she would be pleased, the greater the tribute to her offspring. She was a predatory animal herself and this was her own cub. As for the wigging, that could wait until they fell out about something else and she was worked up; fly at him in cold blood she could not, not for the moment.
Ortho jumped out of his chair when Eli entered and embraced him with great warmth, commented on his growth, thumped the boy’s deep chest, pinched his biceps and called to Bohenna to behold the coming champion.
“My Lord, but here’s a chicken that’ll claw the breast feathers out o’ thee before long, old fighting cock—thee or any other in Devon or Cornwall—eh, then?”
Bohenna grinned and wagged his grizzled poll.
“Stap me, little brother, I’d best keep a civil tongue before thee, seem me. Well, as I was saying—”
He sat down and continued his narrative.
Eli leaned against the settle, listening and looking at Ortho. He was evidently in the highest spirits, but he had not the appearance of a man with five hundred pounds in his possession. He wore the same suit of clothes in which he had departed and it was in an advanced state of dilapidation; the braid edging hung in strings, one elbow was barbarously patched with a square of sail-cloth and the other was out altogether. His high wool stockings were a mere network and his boots lamentable. However that was no criterion; gypsying was a rough life and it would be foolish to spoil good clothes on it. Ortho himself looked worn and thin; he had a nasty, livid cut running the length of his right cheek bone and the gesticulating palms were raw with open blisters, but his gay laugh rang through the kitchen, melodious, inspiring. He bore the air of success; all was well, doubtless.
Eli fell to making calculations. Ortho had five hundred pounds, Teresa still had a hundred; that made six. Ortho would require a hundred as capital for next year, and then, if he could repeat his success, they would be out of the trap. He felt a rush of affection for his brother, ragged and worn from his gallant battle with the world—and all for his sake. Tregors mattered comparatively little to Ortho, since he was giving it up and was fully provided for with Bosula. Ortho’s generosity overwhelmed him. There was nobody like Ortho.
The gentleman in question finished an anecdote with a clap of laughter, sprang to his feet, pinned his temporarily doting mother in her chair and kissed her, twitched Martha’s bonnet strings loose, punched Bohenna playfully in the chest, caught Eli by the arm and swung him into the yard.
“Come across to the stable, my old dear; I’ve got something to show you.”
“Horse?”
“Lord, no! I’ve got no horse. Walked from Padstow.”
“You!—walked!”
“Yes, heel and toe . . . two days. God, my feet are sore!”
“How did you come to get to Padstow?”
“Collier brig from Cardiff. Had to work my passage at that; my hands are like raw meat from hauling on those damned braces—look! Slept in a cow-shed at Illogan last night and milked the cows for breakfast. I’ll warrant the farmer wondered why they were dry this morning—ha, ha! Never mind, that’s all over. What do you think of this?”
He reached inside the stable door and brought out a new fowling piece.
“Bought this for you in Gloucester,” said he; “thought of you the minute I saw it. It’s pounds lighter than father’s old blunderbuss, and look here . . . this catch holds the priming and keeps it dry; pull the trigger, down comes the hammer, knocks the catch up and bang! See? Clever, ain’t it? Take hold.”
Eli took hold of the gun like a man in a dream. Beautiful weapon though it was, he did not even look at it.
“But why . . . why did you work your passage?” he asked.
“Because they wouldn’t carry me for nothing, wood-head.”
“Were you trying to save money?”
“Eh?—er—ye-es.”
“Have you done as well as you expected, Ortho?”
“N-o, not quite. I’ve had the most damnable luck, old boy.” He took Eli’s arm. “You never heard of such bad luck in your life—and none of it my fault. I sold a few mules at first at good prices, but the money went—a man must eat as he goes, you know—and then there was that gun; it cost a pretty penny. Then trouble began. I lost three beasts at Tewkesbury. They got scared in the night. One broke a shoulder and two went over a quarry. But at Hereford . . . Oh, my God!”
“What happened?”
“Glanders. They went like flies. Pyramus saw what it was right off, and we ran for it, south, selling horses to the first bid; that is, we tried to, but they were too sick and word went faster than we. The crowd got ugly, swore we’d infected the country and they’d hang us; they would have, too, if we’d waited. They very nearly had me, boy, very nearly.”
“Did they mark your face like that?”
“They did, with a lump of slate. And that isn’t all. I’ve got half a dozen more like it scattered about.” He laughed. “But no matter; they didn’t get me and I’m safe home again, thank God!”
“And the horses?”
“They killed every one of ’em to stop the infection.”
“Then you haven’t got any money?”
Ortho shook his head. “Not a penny.”